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Post by Batflunkie on May 12, 2024 20:40:09 GMT -5
While I've always appreciated Ultraman, it always seemed to struggle finding it's own identity when compared to Sentai or Kamen Rider. My favorite iteration has always been Denkou Choujin Gridman/Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad (which recently got a second life as an anime series by Gainax). It's kind of a hodge-podge of Sentai mech combinations, 90's cyberpunk, and Ultraman thrown into a blender (the American adaptation even had Tim Curry voicing the bad guy)
When it comes to Toku, I generally tend to prefer the "off-the-beaten-path" stuff like Dennou Keisatsu Cybercop, Blue Swat, Tomica Hero Rescue Fire, or even Kodai Shōjo Doguchan. I just love the craftsmanship that goes into this type of stuff. While I flip-flop loving the newer Sentai and Kamen Rider shows (sometimes they can be so godawful, but then you have to remind yourself that they're intended for children), you really can't beat the classics.
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Post by Batflunkie on May 12, 2024 18:24:17 GMT -5
I’m not here to bash Dave Meltzer because his ratings are his opinion, and he has never forced anyone to believe the same as he does. It is bizarre that he’s broken the scale (will we see a 10-star match one day?), and it’s bizarre that WWE has had fewer 5-star matches in its entire existence than AEW has had in 4+ years, but I respect him having his own opinion. That said, I’d be interested in views on 2 questions. 1.) Dave gave Hogan vs. Rock at WM X-8 three stars. Do you believe it deserved at least 4 stars? 2.) Kurt Angle never had a 5-star match. Didn’t Angle vs. Undertaker at No Way Out 2006 deserve five stars? If I was using Dave’s scale (which I know didn’t originate with him), Hogan vs. Rock deserved at least 4 stars, Taker vs. Angle deserved 5 stars. Angle vs Benoit at Unforgiven 2002 was amazing any way you slice it and should have been a 5-Star match. Lest we forget Angle vs Shane at King Of The Ring 2001 was also an unforgettable match
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Post by Batflunkie on May 12, 2024 18:09:49 GMT -5
I read Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Collection vol. 2 reprinting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #8-11 and the Michaelangelo #1, Donatello #1, and Leonardo #1. I'm pretty sure I read Leonardo #1 and TMNT #10-11 years ago from a different TPB that one of my brothers owned. It has a range of story, from more down-to-earth brutal combat to some human (or turtle) interest to fantasy. The three micro-series (a much more fun name than one-shot) all feel very different. Michaelangelo adopts a stray cat he names Klunk in his micro-series. We get a guest appearance from Cerebus in #8 via a collaboration between Eastman & Laird and Sim & Gerhard. Donatello #1 is a tribute to Jack Kirby that has a few Kirby style flourishes. TMNT #9 is actually a flashback issue to an earlier stage in the lives of the Turtles. There are a couple indications here and there that it occurs in the past, but I'm not sure why that setting in time was chosen. It doesn't seem essential. Leonardo #1 and TMNT #10-11 are a three-parter that bring back the seemingly dead Shredder as well as the Foot Clan. It also sees the Turtles, Splinter, April O'Neill, and Casey Jones fleeing from NYC to Northampton, Massachusetts. TMNT #11, which is narrated by April and focuses and the Turtles regaining their bearings, is probably the highlight of the book. The formatting is very nice. It's over-sized, but it sounds like the original issues were as well. These issues also had very high page counts. At the end of each issue, there are short essays by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, as well as annotations by Eastman. There are insights on each issue, like how the Cerebus guest appearance came together and how they came to do a Kirby tribute. We get background on the Eastman and Laird collaboration, how Mirage Studios worked as a very small business, and about the creative relationship beginning to fray. I also learned that the flight of the Turtles to Northampton was motivated by Eastman and Laird deciding it would be cool to draw a setting they were actually more familiar with. I may continue with vol. 3, but I'm also thinking about other reprint formats. After this Eastman and Laird started alternating issues. It appears that they also had guest creators on a bunch of issues, and it appears the Ultimate Collection series skips over those issues. I'm trying to decide whether those are worth checking out. I feel like I should read (or at the very least try and read) more of the Mirage Turtles, but I always end up losing interest once the boys get warped to another galaxy after their encounter at TCRI with the Ultroms. IDK, the tonal shift is a little bit more jarring than it probably should be. Didn't have this issue with the IDW series and that one is more all over the place than the original
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Post by Batflunkie on May 11, 2024 19:53:56 GMT -5
Picked up two old school dvd sets the other day, Super Robot Red Baron and Iron King. It's always nice to see older Tokusatsu shows get love here in America since the fandom for this stuff has mostly been underground for years until Shout started releasing Sentai and Kamen Rider shows here in America about a decade ago
Both Red Baron and Iron King are made by the same production company who helped create the original Ultraman. Iron King is more of a blatant knock-off with a bit more camp going on (the story focuses on a wandering special agent who's investigating this ninja clan who wants to overtake Japan. Luckily the agent is aided by this giant named Iron King who's super reliant on water), while Red Baron feels more like a live-action version of say Mazinger Z or Getter Robo. (Evil scientist burgles a robot exhibit and uses them to take over the world but he didn't count on one of the robot builders having a brother who works for the science police who gets gifted the most powerful of all the robots regardless of the fact that Red Baron doesn't look particularly powerful at first glance)
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Post by Batflunkie on May 11, 2024 13:23:36 GMT -5
Hey Driver, as a British Wrestling fan, how do you feel about Big Daddy?
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Post by Batflunkie on May 11, 2024 12:35:04 GMT -5
I re-read the first Elfquest TPB this week, "Fire & Flight", which collects these five issues… I like Elfquest a whole lot, but I probably haven't read any of these comics for close to 10 years. This first volume introduces us to a tribe of elves called the Wolfriders and almost immediately we see them driven from their forest home by savage humans, betrayed by conniving trolls, and stranded in a parched desert. After many days arduous trek across the wasteland, the Wolfriders stumble upon a hitherto unknown second tribe of elves called the Sun Folk. The Wolfriders are welcomed into the Sun Folk's village and the two communities join together and adventures ensue. The characters here are all really strong and it's a mark of Wendy and Richard Pini's talents that the different Elves are all very easy to remember and differentiate from each other. The Wolfriders' chieftain Cutter is a good protagonist and his close friends Skywise, Strongbow, Redlance, Nightfall, and Treestump are also enjoyable characters, all with very distinct personalities. Cutter's love interest is a Sun Folk healer named Leetah, and she is also a very well-rounded and a fairly strong, independent female character. In the first issue (originally published in Fantasy Quarterly #1), Wendy Pini's artwork is decent, but it does look a little bit amateurish and marks this out as very much an indie comic. By the second instalment, which was originally published in Elfquest #2, there's already a marked improvement in how accomplished the art looks. Wendy's art continues to improve throughout the rest of this first collection. The series is a very easy read. It sucks you in and bowls along nicely in a "can't put this down" manner. It is sometimes a product of its time (the late '70s): Cutter's flared trousers are a dead giveaway, for example, and the female characters are not especially strong from a modern viewpoint. That said, Elfquest does feel like something of a feminist comic, just by dint of it being co-created and drawn by a woman, at a time when women in the comics industry were still a rarity. Plus, the female characters are, for their era, unusually independent—especially Leetah. With its elves, trolls, wolves and human characters, along with the medieval-like setting, you can totally see why this comic resonated with the late '70s fantasy paperback, Tolkien, and Dungeons & Dragons crowd. I really enjoyed re-visiting Elfquest and I can't wait to get stuck into the next volume. I think what's amazing about Elfquest is that it's pretty much Wendi and Richard's first true work (I know Wendi dabbled in some writing here and there when she was still actively cosplaying as Red Sonja) and it doesn't come off as such. The artwork is also fairly timeless looking
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Post by Batflunkie on May 10, 2024 11:36:48 GMT -5
Oni Press Free Comic Book Day "Sharknife/Hysteria" flip book (2005) So with last week being "Free Comic Book Day", I thought that while rather belated, it'd be fun to post a free book that I had the most fun with. I remember getting this at Ground Zero Comics (which was, allow me to stress this, out in the middle of absolute nowhere) and really being attracted to Corey Lewis' style. I also was (and for the most part still kind of am) rather big into Tokusatsu (Power Rangers, Ultraman, etc.). It's a fun, short read and unfortunately reading the actual series that the FCD book was supposed to promote, it didn't hold up as well I think
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Post by Batflunkie on May 10, 2024 11:05:10 GMT -5
This looked rather interesting
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Post by Batflunkie on May 10, 2024 10:22:00 GMT -5
Quick mucking around and just let Russell write a new Howard The Duck book!
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Post by Batflunkie on May 10, 2024 10:16:04 GMT -5
I read Flash (1987) #1-6 by Mike Baron, Jackson Guice, and Larry Mahlstedt (with guest inker Jack Torrance in one issue). This is a run that I remember as a kid. I think my older brother was usually the one who bought it, but I read his issues (except I don't think he had #2). There's an effort to place tangible efforts on Wally West's power rather than the near limitless quality of Barry Allen running at the speed of light. After some condition that had put limits on his speed, as the series starts he tops out around 710 MPH (a bit short of Mach 1). He also has to eat a lot and sleep a lot to fuel his bursts of speed. As a little kid reading these issues, I remember them being edgy, a bit scary, and almost verboten. Re-reading I can see where that comes from. Whether it's Vandal Savage (#1-2), Kilg%re (#3-4), or Speed Demon (#5-6), the villains all seem bizarre and genuinely dangerous. Vandal doesn't seem like he has limits and he does something particularly disturbing in removing a human body part. The Speed Demon (Jerry McGee) reminded me of my father who had anger issues (and really still does) in several ways. I think my brothers and I may have talked about how my dad resembled this character and he flipped out. Guice makes all the villains creepy. Also, Wally is not your standard straight-arrow hero. He asked for his expenses to be paid in exchange for his super-heroics in #1. He wins the lottery and becomes a profligate spender. He speeds (in actual car) at well over 100 MPH. Wally is still with his pre-Crisis girlfriend Francis Kane (or Francine depending on the panel, but never Frances). But after she dumps him, Wally meets nutritionist Dr. Tina McGee in #3. Wally very quickly shoots his shot even though Tina is a married woman. Tina is depicted as separated or not so separate depending on the issue, although that may have been Baron intentionally having Tina misrepresented whether she's actually separated. Jerry gets roided up and gains super-speed. He beats up Tina and it's real-life scary, creepy villainy. The violence throughout these issues feels visceral. I had forgotten how often the Titans show up in these issues, but I guess Wally was still a member at this point. We get appearances by Victor, Donna, and Gar. I really need to give that era a re-read. Everyone kind of uses Waid's tenure as the standard-bearer for the Flash, but 87 Flash is kind of refreshingly realistic
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Post by Batflunkie on May 6, 2024 15:04:51 GMT -5
This is absolutely ridiculous and I love it
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Post by Batflunkie on May 6, 2024 13:06:38 GMT -5
Let us know what you think! It’s one of my favourite WCW PPVs. I haven't watched much of pre-90's wrestling, so it should be entertaining at least
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Post by Batflunkie on May 6, 2024 12:47:49 GMT -5
Starrcade ‘89 is a good PPV for heel vs heel and face vs face bouts as it features round robin tournaments for the singles and tag divisions. So we saw heel vs heel matches such as Lex Luger vs. Great Muta, and Doom vs. The New Wild Samoans. A good number of the Starrcade 89 matches are on the "Starrcade: The Essentials Collection" that I picked up yesterday, namely Road Warriors vs the Steiner Brothers and Sting vs Flair and Muta. Plan on watching some of it tonight
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Post by Batflunkie on May 6, 2024 11:52:58 GMT -5
Indeed. He fell out with me years ago on Twitter when I offered a different opinion. I do not wish him (or anyone) ill, but I now understand how it is possible to detest someone you’ve never met. I try not to actively hate anybody. I'm fairly open to different viewpoints on the basis that we're all unique and have different experiences and learning from that benefits our own. Closing yourself off from that, regardless of not wanting to bait the internet trolls, just seems nonsensical IDK, Russo's just huffing his own fart fumes at this point. I've tried to be open to the idea that maybe he was just a needle in the haystack that caused the downfall of WCW (I remember hearing Bischoff saying that the board was just lumping the debt together of other Turner offices and made it seem more dire than it actually was), but the man is just as dumb as a sack of wet rocks and it's unbelievable how much credit he gets for things like the Attitude Era that he probably only had 15% influence on
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Post by Batflunkie on May 6, 2024 11:41:19 GMT -5
What a nasty, mean-spirited, negative idiot Russo is: The noteworthy thing about that post is that "only people who follow Russo or are mentioned by him can reply to that statement" So nice to live in a world were people are so thin skinned that they can't mentally handle a statement made that doesn't already validate or reinforce their own~ If Russo wants to live in an insular bubble boy suit of his own stupidity, let him!
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