Random Trains of Thought 7/29/2010

- Grant Morrisons "Batman Inc." was announced at SDCC this past weekend. I'm so friggin stoked you wouldn't even believe it. Man's a genius and screw anyone who says otherwise. The only problem is that he's talked about a two year plan and wrapping it up, which leaves me worried. I don't want his run to end.

I know, I know, the bullet's been dodged before - about three times, in fact, considering that's the number of times he was thinking of ending his run and got new ideas - and even if he did, he's already put out a definitive run that's likely to sit up there with O'Neil/Adams. But seriously, that's all the more reason I'm not ready to even consider the ride may end. There were great Batman stories before him and there will be after him, but part of me wants him to have a very long run before he moves on.

- So, yeah. Looks like FrankenCastle is ending at #21. Back to regular Punisher in the Marvel Universe!

I'm thoroughly disgusted. Comic fans really are narrow in their character views, aren't they? Thanks for browbeating Marvel on this concept until they threw it out as soon as possible, everyone. Now when I go to get the first FrankenCastle story in trade, I'll know I have two more to look forward to, tops.

Friggin ridiculous; especially considering there's a goddamn MAX book for regular Punisher, which meant fans of the regular one weren't left out in the cold.

- I must be the only one who thinks the "Two Batmen" concept the Dick Grayson fans are parading about is the most retarded thing I ever heard. This opinion dropped further when one of them talked about it "helping make Batman an Urban Legend again". I think I've made my thoughts on THAT ONE pretty clear.

Sigh. Hopefully if that's what is in mind, Grant fleshes it out and makes it work. He's the only guy I can think of who could, honestly.

- Oh my god Grant Morrison is writing an indy flick called Sintaro I AM SO IN. Seriously, this movie has cults, cowboys, armies of hobos, an amnesiac protagonist and the desert. How can that NOT sound cool? Unless, of course, your ability to detect awesome has been broken.

An army of hobo's; I'm hoping someone is gored by a broken beer bottle in the course of this movie and another is choked out with rags. Then the hobo's steal all the protagonists money to buy booze. Hell yeah!

All fanboying aside though, I'm really interested in this project for other reasons as well. Grant's known for experimenting and playing with how these things work. It's all over his comic work. Hollywood, on the other hand... doesn't do much of that these days. So from that perspective, it will be interesting to see what Grant can bring to a film. Plus I think this is the first time he's ever written a film script. Should be something to keep an eye on.

- Can we have a rule where any new Transformers media is barred from killing off Optimus Prime from here on in? Yes, I realize the '86 movie made a lot of kids cry and imprinted upon their memories. That does not mean it needs to happen almost every goddamn time there's something related to Transformers. He always comes back, as he should, so what's the point anymore? It feels like I've seen Optimus die eight times since. It was dumb the first time; same goes for what they did to Cobra Commander in the other Sunbow produced series. They had some real brain surgeons at Sunbow in the 80's. Though I suppose it wasn't entirely thierr fault; when your series is based off a toy line that constantly looks to add new figures for the kiddies to buy every series, stuff like that occasionally happens.

Anyways, I'm pretty sure the "dead Optimus" idea has been stripped of potential by now; I say this primarily because I'm half afraid the upcoming Transformers Prime series is going to pull it and I'd really prefer they didn't drag us down this particular road again.

- I notice I'm playing fewer games lately. Half the time a game I want to buy has DLC and I'm waiting for a compiled disc edition of the whole thing. Others just make me want to snore. Not good; hope some good stuff releases relatively soon, because I don't have much I'm itching to play whether I buy or rent. When I can't even get myself up to playing a game through a rental, somethings up.

- What the hell's with the trend of linearity in games lately? Or even less to do? Grand Theft Auto IV dropped too much from the previous games. Both Resident Evil 5 and Final Fantasy XIII are painfully linear. What's going on here? Are the dev teams tired of their franchises or something? All three have standards of excellence and none of them even came close to meeting them, much less surpassing.

- So it sounds like Jonah Hex was both bad and dead on arrival. This is very disappointing for me. I thought the trailer looked cool, so I was hoping it boded well for the rest of the film. Too much to hope for, I guess. But either way I knew it would bomb even if it was good. America and westerns just don't seem to mix anymore. Even the great remake of 3:10 to Yuma barely made a profit, and the friggin thing had Christian Bale and Russel Crowe.

- Sometimes I really think DC should put a moratorium on drawing from Alan Moore stories so the dude can straight shut the hell up.

- At SDCC, JMS said of Wonder Womans new costume: "When she's fighting somebody, when that jacket comes off, you know you're gonna get your ass whipped."

I immediately thought "holy crap he's shooting for Bruce Lee with breasts" for some reason. Not because of martial arts prowess or anything, because Wonder Womans got nothing on Lee. That's just how I've always described Bruce Lee. Fully clothed, he just looks like a somewhat normal asian guy, but when he takes the shirt off, your thought process comes down to "oh shit I'm gonna die".

Either way, it's kind of amusing to me that the Wonder Woman books new direction is the one that got all the negative press right off - not that Grounded didn't, but I'm talking volume of fanboy screeches - but it might end up being the one of his two ongoings (Superman and Wonder Woman) that genuinely works.

Go figure.

- I just realized I haven't watched wrestling in weeks. I haven't been good about remembering to tune into a TV show in years. I think the last time I was actually good about tuning into a show I liked was back when DBZ was still on every afternoon, for shits sake.

I guess it isn't much wonder why I buy season sets of my favorite shows nowadays; I can't remember to tune in to them on cable for the life of me. Can't really do that with wrestling though. You either watch it or you don't; if there's a highlight, that's the part of the show that will see repeat on DVD sets and whatnot.

- Man, Double Fine can't sell a game to save their life, can they? Even Brutal Legend didn't make it. Which is why a sequel's been scrapped. Times like this I hate my fellow gamers.

- Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who could give a shit about the Legend of Zelda. Back in the day that game series was revolutionary, but hell, Final Fantasy couldn't sell for shit back then either. Now it just always feels dated to me. Like the same RPG-lite the franchise has always been.

I've played most of them at least once and the only ones I've genuinely liked were Links Adventure and Twilight Princess. A Link to the Past is the only other one to hold my attention, but halfway through I lost interest. Once I got to the Dark Realm I just got bored and never went back.

- I'm a little tired of Mario too, for that matter. I still love the Mario games. But even a formula that classic is starting to feel a little stale. Part of me wishes Nintendo would put it away for a bit.

- It was announced at San Diego Comic Con that the three to four times a month "Brand New Day" direction of Spider-Man was ending. Why they referred to it as the "Brand New Day" direction, I haven't the foggiest. That title hasn't appeared on a Spider-Man issue since four months after the thrice monthly direction started. But I digress.

Twice a month by Dan Slott sounds good to me - especially considering One Moment in Time, which I will be skipping in trade, will put to rest all the questions raised since OMD leaving Slott to stop making those cutesy allusions to One More Day - so I'm all for it. Honestly, I don't know how in the hell Marvel managed it for the two and a half plus years they did it. It sounds like it was a herculean task.

Mostly, however, I'm happy it's going to a slower schedule primarily because I am just SO friggin' behind. Seriously, the trades have been coming out at such a quick clip, I can't really even pretend to keep up. When I buy trades, I often buy a varied mix of stuff I've wanted with the only guarantee being that there's probably going to be a Batman trade in there somewhere. So I don't often buy more than one Spidey trade at a time, if I even get one at a given order. You can see how I got to the point I am.

So, yeah, it would give me a little more rope to catch up, which would be nice.