FPcast for June 5 2017: Wonder Woman!

This week we review the much lauded Wonder Woman. And if that's not enough, we also dissect the news, including Top Gun 2's title and Griffin vs. Trump, plus we view some new trailers including Daisy Ridley in Murder on the Orient Express. Wonder no more!

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DC Comics New 52 - Stryder's Weekly Top 5...uh...2!!

Hey folks!  I have to be honest...I'm on vacation right now and wasn't going to post ANYTHING this week at all!  HOWEVER...2 of the best comics I've read in ages both came out last week and I can't just let them pass by without comment!  We'll get back to 5 whole comics NEXT week...for now, enjoy my Top 2 released October 9th, 2013:

Batman #24 - "This is madness--you know, Alfred.  The thing we're building down here."

Whoa!  In this Double-Sized "Zero Year" issue we are treated to the first appearance of BATMAN!  The Dark Knight rises to try and end the Red Hood Gang and their mysterious leader once and for all!  The Legend of the Bat truly begins this night, the evening before the anniversary of Bruce Wayne's parents death!  Amazing!

Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo have really outdone themselves to make this the best re-imagining of the Batman origin they possibly could, and they've succeeded far, far beyond my expectations!  This is easily my favourite issue of the New 52 Batman comic yet, and that's saying a lot, as there have been some really excellent issues!  Instant classic.  People will be reading this comic and all of "Zero Year" for years and years to come, for sure!  Really good work!

What other comic blew my socks off this week?  Here's a hint...it's a BRAND NEW TITLE!  Find out what after the JUMP!

Stryder's Favourite Comics - 4/17/2013

It's another week of fold-out covers and random SHOCKING developments in the DC Universe!  Shocking!  Let's take a look!

Justice League #19 - "You don't want to say that.  Super-Villains say that, Diana."

Lots going on this month in Justice League!  We open on Alfred and Red Hood in the Batcave, where their conversation is interrupted by a mysterious masked figure who manages to sneak up and render both men unconscious with absolutely ZERO difficulty.  This mysterious figure then heads right to a secret room in the Batcave...a room with heavy security protocols, which nevertheless lets him pass without question.  In this room he finds 6 briefcases, each with a League members' symbol engraved upon it!  The mysterious figure nabs the "Superman" briefcase and splits...

Meanwhile, Superman and Wonder Woman are in disguise in the war-torn nation of Hahndaq, where they are undoubtedly about to get involved in an international incident...Batman has to head all the way their to lecture them about getting involved in politics...

Oh, we also have the Atom and Firestorm left all alone in the Watchtower as they arrived for orientation but everyone seems to have forgotten about them...

Finally, we get a Shazam! back-up, wherein Billy Batson tries to get out of being a super-hero and Black Adam's origin is revealed!  Good stuff!

Join me for Nightwing, Wonder Woman and more after the JUMP!

Review: Injustice: Gods Among Us (PS3)!

Let’s face it, super heroes are jerks. They are musclebound oafs who can’t solve the simplest problem without punching somebody in the throat. Long gone is the mythical, heroic age, today’s modern heroes are all about inflicting injuries followed by sarcastic quips. And grimacing like they’re shitting. Cyborg appears to be the worst offender here, pumping his fist in the air and bellowing, “Booyah!” after hurting someone. After knocking the crap out of Catwoman he let’s us know that he’s, “Still turned on”. Welcome to the progressive world of Injustice: Misogyny Among Us? That’s probably overstating, but Injustice’s biggest crime is that it’s dumb and unsophisticated.

The comics fan is a curious beast. The media leads us to believe that these are the kids that were constantly tortured and humiliated in high school, usually by muscle bound jocks who would then scream, “Booyah!”. So why idolize these monsters in fiction? Do you often think about the snappy quips that you would come up with after punching somebody in the face? Sure, violence is par for the course in fantasy good versus evil adventures, but how about some humility? Honour? Heroism?

Editorialising aside, this is a fighting game, fuelled by bone-crunching punches and kicks, so we’re going to embrace them! The dialogue/personalities/values on display might be questionable, but Injustice is still pretty damn good at what it does. So before I suck all the fun out of the room, let’s get our super-powered fight on... after the jump!

New 52 Catch Up

I've been trying to put up reviews of some of the New 52 trades as I've read them, especially since so many of them are my first encounters with the characters or comics themselves. I've failed at that, but given that we're at the end of the first quarter of 2013, I figured I'd do a quick scattershot roundup of some of the ones I've read, liked, or didn't...

Stryder's Favourite Comics - 3/20/2013

Ah the first new comics of Spring!  Strangely, in this time of renewal, DC continues to say good-bye.  Both with more "Requiem" issues in the Bat-Family, and to the creative team of Grant Morrison and Rags Morales on Action Comics!

Action Comics #18 - "The sun burned red and the sky was black and the rain was blood where it fell."

The final battle between Superman and the "Little Man" Vyndktvx - the twisted and malicious Imp from Dimension 5 - finally arrives in this, the grand finale of Grant Morrison's amazing tale of the beginnings of the New 52 Man of Steel!  This is the ending that fans of this run have been hoping for...a crazy, psychedelic explosion of various elements throughout time, space and multiple dimensions!

It's impossible to really explain what's going on in this comic..the various elements of this battle have been building since the New 52 began!  I had to reread the entire run from Action Comics #1 on so that I would catch all the intricacies...and all ready I can't wait to read it again!  It's the sort of story that gets better each time you read it and will definitely make an excellent collection someday soon.  One of the best Superman stories EVER!

I also have to give mad props to the back-up feature, which referenced my favourite line from Superman The Movie - "You've got me!?  Who's got you?!?"  Oh Margot Kidder...it's all in the delivery!  Anyway, great work all-around!  A Stunning finale to an epic run! 

Of course if Superman isn't your cup of tea, there's Justice League, Nightwing and more after the JUMP!

Wonder Women: The Untold Story of American Superheroines

In 2012 I went to the Perth Revolution Film Festival and fell in love with a documentary. The documentary was called Wonder Women: The Untold Story of American Superheroines. It traces the influence that Wonder Woman and other female superheroines had on people around the world, and in America in particular, on the evolution of the female story and on the historical backdrop that influenced the female heroes that permeated our culture, even though they were somewhat limited in their reach.

I recently tried to get a copy of the DVD because I loved it so much, and discovered that they currently do not have a distributor for sale of a DVD for home use. This is coming though, and in the meantime there are distribution options for if you would like to pay more for the DVD and in return have the option to screen it at community events or use it as an education tool in schools. This makes me excited.

So let’s review this amazing documentary under the jump; but first, check out this trailer.

vimeo.com/36060144

Unfortunately blogger won't allow me to embedd vimeo links. Go figure.

Nerd History: The Trials and Tribulations of Wonder Woman

The New 52 Wonder Woman trade finally dropped last month - it was highly anticipated for me for a number of reasons, the chief one being that Wonder Woman is probably my favorite DC Comics superhero. That's admittedly strange, because, frankly, being a male fan of Wonder Woman in 2012 feels...dirty. I know a lot of that is simply perception of the comics industry (that has more than its share of questionable treatment of female characters and fans) and an ever-changing social atmosphere, especially on the internet. With that said, a friend insisted I jump in on Greg Rucka's run on Wonder Woman from a few years back, and I ultimately fell in love with the comic, flaws and all.

There's a lot of reasons to enjoy Wonder Woman. There are also a lot of reasons not to love her, and, even as a fan, her story arcs and her characterization in general create very polarizing feelings for me. It's ultimately a combination of history and the disparity between writers who do her justice and writers who don't really get it, and you end up going along for the ride. And there's a lot there to consider.