WRESTLEMANIA 29

The Rock vs. John Cena 2!!

Who cares?
Been there done that.

Is this match really worth the $50 plus to watch? Hell no!

The Rock will always be a big ticket seller and he is fun to watch before and during any match. John Cena on the other hand is stale and played out. Just like the Rock had his time as a "heel" so it is Cena's time to make the turn. It would have made this match much more interesting and believable. Nobody wants to see the Rock beat Cena again...too boring (and please don't make Cena champion, that would be worse).

PREDICTION #1: Cena wins the title. Rock goes back to doing movies.

PREDICTION #2: Brock Lesnar gets involved in some title match, somehow.

PREDICTION #3: Undertaker is 21-0.

BORING!

PREDICTABLE!

FACE OFF Finale

Congratulations to Anthony for winning 'Face Off'! (I called it by the way!)

Great show, you should all be watching.

Anthony with one of his finale creations.

Anthony "Chuck Norris" Kosar

One of these guys won the show, can you pick the right one?

Review! Guardians of the Galaxy #0.1 (MARVEL)

COVER: Steve McNiven. Nice cover.

STORY: Brian Michael Bendis. The origin of Star-Lord. Kind of tragic, kind of crazy, very cool. The
                new Guardians team is shown here together...including Tony Stark? WTF!?

ART: Steve McNiven. My teeth hurt. This guy's art is just so sweet!

FINAL FILE: BUY,READ,BAG IT!...McNiven's art will bring me to the book, I hope the story
                        can keep me in.

Nice

Its all about the cool gun.

The team!

Review! G.I.Joe #1 (IDW)

COVER: Steve Kurth. Not worthy of a G.I.Joe #1 issue.

STORY: Fred Van Lente. There is a significant amount of cheese in this book. With such a long history
                that G.I.Joe has you would expect a little more depth to the characters. This book is about as
                deep as a puddle. Most of the main team are cliches of cliches ( if that is even possible). You
                expect us to believe that an elite military unit is forced to carry a rookie journalist along with them
                on dangerous, secret missions? Really? And she is Tweeting to the world moment by moment?
                Like Cobra has no access to Twitter? Really? To sum it all up in one panel Duke (or I should
                say Van Lente) rips a line right out of 'Aliens'..."Will somebody wake up Quick Kick"...Really?
                "Somebody wake up Hicks" ring a bell?

ART: Steve Kurth. Not worthy of a G.I.Joe #1 issue....again. Who hires these guys? If he used any of this
          art in a portfolio to get work the editors would rip him apart. Computer screens out of thin air? Weird
          hands. Bad uniform design. Has this guy ever seen a human being? Roadblock has "Liefeld" scream
          syndrome. Why is Duke's shirt missing at the end? The W.O.R.M.S., the horrible,horrible
          W.O.R.M.S.! If its the inker's fault then get a better inker.

FINAL FILE: SKIP IT!...at all costs!...if you buy it you will be angry...if you are a fan you will cry.
                        * Senior Editor, John Barber, has the "huevos" to tell us the process of getting this
                           "all star" team together and how lucky they were. WHAT? Check out the 
                           Postmark at the end of the book.

Really?

Review! Luther Strode TPB (Image)

COVER: Tradd Moore. It works. Lots of red.

STORY: Justin Jordan. I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. The "nerd wants to be popular at
                school to get the girl" plot has been over done but this one has some original ideas. It is a mix of
                a John Hughes and Quentin Tarantino story. Fun read.

ART: Tradd Moore. This guy has a nice style. You can even see his development from the first issue to the
           last. Look forward to more stuff from Mr. Moore.
          * Great work by the colorist Felipe Sobreiro!

FINAL FILE: BUY,READ,SHELVE IT!...sweet trade...looking forward to the second series!

Nice!

Very bloody!

Review! Justice League of America #1 (DC)

COVER: David Finch.  Clever idea to have the individual states flags as variants. It must have been a
                organizational nightmare. Anyway, I got California, my home state.

STORY: Geoff Johns. Nice first issue. It gives us a clear idea of what Amanda Waller and Steve Trevor
                want from this new group and who and why they are choosing the "heroes". Lots of government
                creepy stuff that leaves you with a sense that things will go bad very,very soon (just look at Green
                Arrow).

ART: David Finch. I have always liked David's art. He has a unique style that evolved from his days at
           Top Cow under Mark Silvestri. He has some obvious flaws but they lend to the entire book having
           a cohesive feel and uniform "reality" for his characters. Good stuff!

FINAL FILE: BUY IT, READ IT,BAG IT!...this one goes on my pull list...for now.

I think I like this cover better.

Nice way of showing you the new roster.

Review! The Fearless Defenders #1 ( Marvel )

COVER: Mark Brooks. Very nice cover...best part of the book.

STORY: Cullen Bunn.  A mix of 'Indiana Jones', 'James Bond', and hot chicks...you would think it was 

                fail safe...it is not. Throwing together a bunch of "C" list (at best) female characters doesn't make

                them a team or a good story. You get a "C" list team and a "C" list story. Not dying to pick up

                issue #2.

ART: Will Sliney. Competent. Did not blow my mind away.

FINAL FILE: SKIP IT!...there are better books out to spend your money on.

Girl on girl kissing scene!? Not enough to save this title.

Book Review! Promise of the Witch-King (R.A. Salvatore)

COVER: Todd Lockwood. I don't think that cover artists read the book they are doing the cover for. I 

                 don't really expect them to. But can they please ask if the cover even resembles what the story is 

                 about. For instance, this cover has a "king ghost" as an antagonist yet in the book it is a dragon

                 ghost (the prelude doesn't count). Also, the dwarf character, Athrogate, carries a weapon called

                 a morningstar. Well the morningstar described in the book is a spiked iron ball at the end of a

                 chain. The chain part is even clearly used to choke a character. The cover has Athrogate with 

                 a variant of the morningstar that uses no chain. Is it really that hard to verify your concept with

                 the story before you paint?

WRITER: R.A. Salvatore. This is not a Drizzt Do'Urden novel. It is part two of the 'Sellswords' trilogy

                   staring the assassin Artemis Entreri and the drow Jarlaxle. The pair make for very interesting

                   lead characters. Always walking a fine line between hero and villain (Entreri being more villain

                   than not) the pair travel looking for adventure with very personal motivations. A couple of old

                   dragons have "hired" the pair to retrieve a very powerful book of magic. On the way they join

                   a group of adventurers who seem to have the same objective. With the strong personalities that

                   Entreri and Jarlaxle  carry it is only a matter of time before things become complicated. I like

                   seeing these two together. It always feels as if they are going to fight each other yet they have 

                   not...yet. The book can get a bit slow at times and (like most of these Forgotten Realms books)

                   it gets cluttered with new characters and names to keep track of. 

FINAL FILE: Buy it, Read it, Shelve it!...cant live on comics alone kids.

Film Review! OZ the Great and Powerful

CAST: I have never been a big fan of James Franco, but I liked him. The character of Oz needed to have a
            sense of sly, cleverness that Franco played to a tee. He also had the biggest grin in the world that
            helped carry the rather funny personality. (SPOILER!) Mila Kunis has a flaw. She is too good
            looking to play a witch. This was very obvious by the way the special effects guys made her look like
            a pretty wicked witch. Rachel Weisz is just gorgeous. I'm not sure if Michelle Williams had just
            finished shooting her 'Marilyn Monroe' pic when she did this film, but her Glinda the witch had lots of
            the blonde bombshell coming out of her. Zach Braff was rather good as the monkey Finley. He can
            always do the self deprecating jokes perfectly. Joey King as the bi-polar China Girl was also a good
            surprise.

STORY:  Better than expected! Oz was a charming fellow who was thrust into a situation much bigger than
                 him. I love the fact that, unlike Dorothy who spent her entire film afraid, Oz just took on one
                 challenge after another with a happy grin. There were many parallels with the original 'Wizard of
                 Oz'. Oz set out on his journey to "kill" the witch and on his way (and on the yellow brick road) he
                 met the people that would help him, just like Dorothy. He also gave "special" gifts to his fellow
                 companions at the end in a prelude to his actions in'Wizard'. The film makers showed us some
                 origins of things found in 'Wizard' that kept the audience whispering to each other. Also keep a
                 look out for cameos by the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow. I did not see if the Tin-Man made
                 a cameo, maybe in the scene in the woods. I think they did make a huge mistake in not showing
                 us an origin for the ruby slippers, they had a perfect chance. This also confuses things between
                 the two 'OZ' films. In 'Wizard of Oz' Dorothy meets Oz before she goes into the tornado. So are
                 we to assume that Oz was able to go back and forth from our land to Oz? At the end of 'Wizard'
                 we are led to believe that it was all a dream but this film made no assumptions, it was played
                  as the real thing. Fun stuff!

VISUALS  With a film that is 90% digital effects you know it is gonna be beautiful, and it was. Some of the
                   CG is still rough (STILL?). The China Girl interacting with Oz comes to mind. Non the less it is
                   a great looking film.

FINAL FILE: Jump on your tornado and get to the nearest Theater...don't wait for the DVD, this 
                        is a BIG SCREEN film!

King of the Nerds

Genevieve was robbed!

Celeste was cute. She had her "nerd" qualities. But I think her shyness just overwhelmed her "kingly"
aura. She was definitely not a dominant player.

Genevieve was the winner, in my eyes. She played every game well. She survived multiple "nerd offs".
She also has that special "something" that makes her a sexy leader. The final choice should have been some form of contest, an ultimate "nerd off" if you will, not the outed contestants choice. It became the old cliche of
"last nerd picked" so popularity once again beat Genevieve.

Then we have Danielle. The WORST LOSER EVER! Quit your crying big baby, your not THAT cute.

Felt bad for Ivan. You, my friend can cry a manly tear.

Yea, we are all surprised you won as well!

Robbed! ROBBED I tell you!

King of the Crybaby Bad Losers!

You fought well, hold your head up!

Genevieve would have looked better in that crown...but congratulations anyway Celeste.

Cant wait till next season.

Review! Batman #17 (DC)

COVER: Tony Daniel. (variant) Why is the Joker crouching on a stool? It would have been just fine to
                 have him standing.

STORY: Scott Snyder. SPOILER! Final chapter of 'Death of the Family'. There was such a huge buildup
                with this story, it was actually well written. Then comes this book. WTF? Nothing happens. The
                Joker only "pretends" to hurt all of Batman's sidekicks. Nothing happens to them. When Batman
                is about to tell the Joker what his real name is...nothing happens. When Batman and the Joker
                have their final (again) fight...nothing happens. Why is DC afraid to pull the trigger with any
                Joker story? He is the Joker, he lives on the other side, take us there.

ART: Greg Capullo. Greg is Greg. Solid and dependable. A bit too cartoony at times but that comes from
           copying Todd Mcfarlane all those years.

FINAL FILE: BUY (to complete the story), READ ( so you can agree with me), BAG IT ( it is
                         a Joker story after all) !

Is the Joker taking a poop?

SO MUCH BLOOD!!...whatever.

Welcome to cartoon land!

...and nothing happens.

Review! Red Team #1 (Dynamite)

COVER: Russ Braun. Nice cover. I should have known this would be a character driven book. I know
                 the blurry thing in the background is a police shield but it is hard to read, you can see the pixels.
                 Bad choice if it was intentional. Dumb mistake if it was by accident.

STORY: Garth Ennis. The main reason I gave this book a chance. 'Preacher' is my all time favorite series.
                Garth also knows how to write a great 'Punisher' so I figured he had to have something good here.
                 I was wrong. This reads like a slow, boring episode of  'CSI' or any of those cop dramas. It was
                 a bunch of guys talking...talking...and talking some more. Some of the dialogue was rather
                 confusing too. Garth tried to tell us a back story full of names and situations without showing it.
                 This is a comic book, a VISUAL art form...where is the visual part? If it was an experiment then
                 it failed badly. This was written to be in a novel, but not a graphic novel.

ART: Craig Cermak. The artwork is rather boring. It fits just right with this boring book.

FINAL FILE: SKIP IT!...when I pick up a new comic book I expect a certain level of 
                                           "suspension of reality". A comic that is "too real" can work if the 
                                           story has some element of "unreal" . If a story fits too well
                                            into reality I can just go read the newspaper.

Its almost like they know you wont like it.

Talking...

...and more talking...thats the whole book folks.