Clash of Fictional Champions

As my cheesy "talking about a video game and making it somewhat informative by adding real world information" posts continue, its time to hit a new low - substituting one fictional character for another.

My absolute favorite boxing movie is Diggstown.

Family Fairytale Foolishness

 

I had plans to delve into my Minecraft world creation as a short filler post. Looking over the years of obsessions with decorative tunnelling in both my creative and survival worlds, any hopes of "short" vanished immediately. 

Then I remembered my nephew's Minecraft story. When I went looking for it, I found his "fractured fairy tale" instead,  which is a much better representative of showing the family genes shining through.  It has Minecraft references too.

He wrote this in second grade.  N-joy!!!

Deep Space Bondlets- “Our Man Bashir”

1995

Christmas Village 2019

Now Shall You Deal with A Ruthless Terrorist Organization, and All the Powers of HELL!

Or

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes To Defend Human Freedom!

Welcome to the Twelfth excursion into this inanity!

In Brightest Day and Beyond

The Comic Book Resources website did another voting poll.  This one is for the most popular characters in DC and Marvel.  I recorded my votes this time to let me post about the differences between the companies’ characters (again!) and how any given day of the week could easily change the order, and content of my votes.

And I’ll probably write that post someday.

Increased Effort Imagining

I liked The Greatest Showman very much.

Y’know why? 

Because the music was awesome and it made me feel good. 
Sometimes, that’s all you need from entertainment.

Having a soft spot for the "No business like show business" circus attitude doesn't hurt either.

A Mix Up of My Fandoms I Never Imagined

Happy 50th Anniversary Star Trek!!!

Unfortunately, I got overexcited and watched them alone last year and wrote them all up instead of stretching them out...

And I started watching them again, with my family this time, but haven't gotten far enough through them to start posting my daughter's reactions.

So here's stuff about two other franchises:

Who? - Bond.

The folks over at the Doctor Who message board were talking about how to line up James Bond actor with actors who played the Doctor, and  it seemed like a fun idea.

Also, I spent so much time Revisiting the Doctors last week, I had no time for anything more coherent.

They are in Bond order, as there’s less of them.

I’m  not necessarily looking at chronology, but more at themes in common, which gives connections ranging from giant weird leaps of logic to the bleedin’ obvious:

Disney’s Star Wars!?

Look out Star Wars fans!

Now that Disney owns Lucasfilm there will be changes to the beloved franchise that will make Greedo Shooting First seem like the most brilliant and bold choice in cinematic history.

Behold the Top Ten unfortunate surprises coming from Disney’s Star Wars: Episode Seven through Nine

New Who Views: ReGENDERation

This simple question spins off the last New Who View about Regeneration and has a simple answer:

Question:         Could the Doctor regenerate into a woman?

Answer:           Yes.

Apologies to traditionalists who view this as an abomination, (Hi, Mom!) but in the revived show, it’s cannon.

The Doctor mentions the Corsair, a Time Lord that has had both male and female regenerations, in “The Doctor’s Wife” - “Oh, she was a bad girl!’

Also, The Eleventh Doctor’s FIRST reaction to having long hair was not:

“I need a trim,”

Or

“Hope the sonic screwdriver works as a comb.” 

It was:

“Blimey! I’m a girl!”

Once upon a time…In the Hall of Justice

The ability to create original superheroes was mine from childhood.

The ability to organically combine masses of existing superheroes took over twenty years of comic book collecting.

The ability to do this comes from being the father of a little girl…



As usual, click to enlarge and bask in the obsession.



From the Works of Edgar Allan Goose

As I sit here in my kitchen,

Noises set my old eye twitchen’.

Tiny sounds that I know I’ve heard before.

My husband out in fields a’ reaping,

Once again the vermin creeping

Slowly in the corner near the door.

An Infinite Gauntlet of Crises

"People are like Twinkies. They are filled with a creamy goodness that is creativity.

However, people are also under pressure, and if they do not have a healthy outlet for their creativity, it squirts out in strange directions"

- Brian Moriarity

 This was written back when I had just moved into our new home, and hadn’t sold the old one yet. 

 Moving can be stressful

Since there were nearly a hundred characters in the first one, this one was only supposed to have a dozen or so to avoid having them be too obscure.

Also, due to the kind of financial jiggery pokery that caused the market collapse at the time, we had four mortgages.

 Moving can be VERY stressful.

Hence, this is the larger than originally planned amalgaddendum.

For the comic geeks in the crowd, I used more Marvel Knights than Defenders in for my JSA combinations this time around...for no reason other than I like them.  Also, I decided the MC2 universe of Spider-Girl is the true future of Marvel, because it’s happier.

As I said, I was stressed.

New Pictured Characters in CAPS

Characters from Amalgamations Accumulate in Italics
As always, please click on the pictures to bask in the obsession.

A CONTEST NO MORE

A Tale of Two Als

Based on the release of Alpocalypse at the start of the summer and Welcome 2 My Nightmare at the end of it, I have come to the realization that Weird Al and Alice Cooper are the only two musicians that make me run out to the store the day a new album is released.

There’s several more “onlys” that these two share.

Amalgamations Accumulate!!!

LEAGUE OF AVENGERS (JLA/AVENGERS)

(Please click on images to see full size and bask in the power of MSPaint.)
It had been years since the break up of the All Star Invaders after the end of World War II. Many new heroes began to appear, but there were very few instances of cooperation.  Then one fateful day, there was an invasion of evil alien sorcerers, the Appelokians.  They enraged the Hawlk sending him out of control as a diversion.  As the heroes were dispersed dealing with the invasion, the rampage was reported to all the sidekicks in the Fantastic Tower.  They contacted their mentors simultaneously.  The heroes broke control of the Hawlk, and he helped deal with the remainder of the invasion.  After combining their forces on this day unlike any other day, they vowed to defend justice against any evil that threatened it, and the LEAGUE OF AVENGERS was born.

Fairly Tolled

there was a young shepherd boy named Little Bo Blue Hood.   Like all children in these fables, Bo lived at the edge of a large forest. One day his mother told him to bring one of their lambs to grandma’s house on the other side of the woods.  Not wanting to delay the story line any further, Bo skipped merrily along his way.

One Cyber War Plot to Bind Them All

“There are no problems, only solutions” - Kevin Flynn

“There is no fate but what we make” – Sarah Conner

“There is no spoon” – Neo

After the Grid is restored, Kevin Flynn is able to become a more active leader now that he has reabsorbed CLU2.  He hadn’t realized the effect of using a part of himself in the creation of his digital duplicate until it was returned.   TRON broke free of being Rinzler in time to save his friends before vanishing into the sea of data. When he doesn’t resurface, Yori throws herself into her work, using her artistic digitizing skills to restore the beauty of the Grid.

In the real world, Kevin’s son, Sam and his until recently digital bride, Quorra, take the reins of ENCOM International, steering it toward more philanthropic and humanitarian efforts.  Sam connects the Grid to the World Wide Web, allowing communication with his father, expansion of the Grid, and the recreation of isomorphic algorithms.  The ISOs now dwell both in the Grid and on the web.

Enter another software engineer, not as bright, just as young, and much more devious.  After being let go by ENCOM, Edward Dillinger Jr. takes a position with a less good willed, less pacifistic, and less ethical company:  Cyberdyne Systems.

Dino Dan's Awakening

There’s a wide range of TV selections available to my daughter now.  Some are terrible remakes, and clunky attempts to copy a successful formula, but on the whole I’m kind of impressed.  I’ve seen quality comedy writing, excellent and varied music, fun use of guest stars, decent computer graphics, and superhero adventures that respect the source material.  Even the educational ones, for the most part, have valuable content and well thought out lessons. (I do miss the pacing of the New York based children’s programs from my youth, though.  In the time between Dora asking a question and answering it, you could fit three Electric Company sketches and still have time for Paula and Carole to race you down the mountain.)

Then there’s Dino Dan.  My daughter started watching this recently and it renewed her interest in dinosaurs (which is always good).  As a life long dinosaur geek, I was excited to see it. From the ads, I first thought that it was a live action series about a kid who liked dinosaurs, and had imagination sections using CGI to illustrate what the animals would look like in current surroundings, providing a useful size reference. 

When I watched the show, it wasn’t surprising to learn that it does suffer from a few common problems of current live action kid’s television.  The child performers all behave in that super emotional Grammar School play style, apparently taught at the Nickelodeon/Disney Channel School of Overemoting.  There’s also the often seen “Carnivore Discrimination”, where plant eaters are constantly rescued from the “big bad” meat eaters. (Every time Diego saves this week’s cute baby herbivore fuzzball or whatever from the predator, I say something like, “And then the poor hawk and his little babies died horribly from starvation.” This nets unhappy glares and thrown pillows from my wife and child.)   

Oh yeah…and the dinosaurs are real.