Future State: Aquaman #1 Review!

The Aquaman of Future State is here!  It features a new logo that is stylish and spiky.  It has the young Aquawoman, Andy Curry, surfing on a strrange sea creature with a smiling Aquman, Jackson Hyde befhind her.  This looks like the classic fun of the Aquaman from the 60’s.  Andy Curry was introduced in a vision with Generations Shattered #1 and Jackson Hyde is introduced as Aquaman here.  The character of Jackson Hyde first appeared in Brightest Day #4 (2010).  He was based on Kaldur’ahm, Aqualad, from the beginning of Young Justice in 2010.  “The Confluence Part One” is by Brandon Thomas with art by Daniel Sampere.  Thomas wrote Aquaman in the “Follow the Water” story in the 80 page giant one-shot, The Doomed and the Damned #1 (2020).  He also writes the Outsiders story in Future State: The Next Batman.  Sampere was one of the artists for several issues of the Injustice 2 comic series and also Justice League #39 (2020).  Confluence is the meeting of two waters into one.  The issue was released on January 26th.   

The opening is a splash page, no pun intended, with Aquaman also swimming out of the panel with his long dreadlocks.  Behind him are several shark-like creatures with strange horns around their jaws.  A technological underwater city is below them.  The panels note that this is Neptune and the escape of Jackson Hyde.  He is swimming toward the surface and fights off the horned sharks and their riders.  Jackson’s hand reaches out and then he sees something.  This makes him burst out laughing as he is pulled back down by guards.  We have Jackson in chains before the ruler of Neptune, an alien with black eyes, and he says that everything has changed.  He starts relating his story six years ago.  The panel explains that Black Manta has escaped.  This is the father of Jackson Hyde.  His mother is an Atlantean from Xebel.  There is an overturned boat with Jackson on the surface unconscious as young Andy Curry sinks downward.  She revives and we see Jackson with short, tightly woven dreadlocks.  

Andy is angry that he calls her Aqualass, she says she’s Aquawoman, and starts to use her power when he asserts his guardianship over her.  This horrifies Andy since she has forced sharks to approach in her anger.  Jackson goes to talk with her and they both realize that there is a change in the sea’s color!  They find that the sky is pink and there is unusual sea life underwater.  This opens up to a two page spread of The Conflluence, several multi-colored worlds connected in space.  Kudos to colorist Adriano Lucas for the ocean colors and alien worlds.  It reminds me a bit of the dolphin video game, Ecco: The Tides of Time (1994).  The alien ruler says that they found the “great ocean” that connects space and time.  Jackson and Andy travel the worlds of the Confluence, they are talking about the sixth world and also the talking snakes.  Next, they are swimming away from a large island mass.  This is actually a sea beast with muliptle eyes and tentacles around its mouth.  It seizes them with the tentacles and they find that they are getting weak from the tentacle’s poison.  

Jackson uses his electrokinesis to shock the tentacles and get free.  He falls and tells Andy to use her power to control the beast.  Jackson manages to hold onto one of Andy’s free leg.  She activates her power and Jackson starts to fall.  We see in a splash page Jackson’s hands and Andy caught in the tentacle, she used her power to sever her leg!  This is surprising since Aquawoman in Future State: Justice League doesn’t seem to be missing a leg.  Her leg is covered with her uniform.  It could be a replacement.  Aquaman had lost a hand, but replaced it with a harpoon, hard water, and eventually becomes resurrected in Blackest Night. The ruler says the loss of Andy is a trauma that they could have taken away.  It reminds me of the Captain Kirk line in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), “I don’t want my pain taken away.  I need my pain.”  Jackson says that the chains were made for when he was weaker, but his strength has returned.  He shatters the chains, which really looks Jason Mamoa Aquaman to me, and then uses the chains to destroy the guards.  This is all due to what Jackson saw at the surface, a message in bubbles, it has given him hope and also vengeance.  A final splash page has Jackson activating his Waterbearer blades against a legion of Neptune guards, call for back up!  Future State: Aquaman opens up the aquatic world of the superhero with the Confluence, gives him a flawed past, but forges him into a powerful hero!  

Five Waterbearers out of Five! 

#FutureState, #Aquaman, #BrandonThomas, #DanielSampere, #Confluence 

WandaVision, “We Interrupt This Program”, Review!

There were strange clues of color in the black and white sitcom world Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch) and Vision were trapped in.  Suddenly, Wanda was giving birth to twins, she had a twin brother with Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015).  Wanda sent out Geraldine from it after she said the name Ultron.  The sitcom bubble is Wanda’s power unleashed and creating a fantasy world of denial?  Victims of trauma sometimes retreat into reassuring memories and this may be fulfilled through Wanda’s hexes.  Some of the mysteries are revealed in this episode.  The show opens on the other side, the real MCU world, there are distorted voices as ashes re-assemble into the face of the person we knew as Geraldine.  This was the event called the Blip in Avengers: Endgame  (2019).  She revives in a hospital chair, she goes into the hall of the hospital, and it is a panic with people suddenly unsnapped.   

She looks around lost in the chaos and is met by Dr. Highland (Lana Young) who is stunned that Monica is there.  Monica thinks she fell asleep next to her mother in the hospital bed and Dr. Highland has to inform her that her mother died of cancer.  Monica is shocked that her mother, Maria Rambeau, is dead.  Maria was the good friend of Carol Danvers and played by Lashana Lynch in Captain Marvel (2019).  Dr. Highland explains that she died three years ago and Monica was snapped two years before that time.   This is a more realistic and impactful context to a galactic reappearance.  It firmly sets the series in the MCU.  Then, we get S.W.O.R.D. Headquarters.  It appears to me that this is the replacement for S.H.I.E.L.D., a secret government agency with vast resources.  The headquarters has a launch pad, a large hangar structure, and other buildings.  

It must be some time later, we have the S.H.I.E.L.D., I mean S.W.O.R.D. agents walking in the lobby while there are reports of the Blip.  Monica tries to use her i.d. badge, but it doesn’t read.  She meets with Director Tyler Heyward (Josh Stamberg).  He was Max Cadman in the dramatic series The Affair.  He takes her into the building and they passes a photo of Maria Rambeau.  Direcotr Heyward mentions the loss of astronauts.   They have shifted to “sentient weapons.” Monica and Director Heyward walk through a hangar and into a hallway.  Hayward says, “your mom built this place.”  He takes her into his office and mentions that the FBI is working on a missing person’s case in New Jersey.  Heyward reveals that Captain Rambeau is “grounded”, her mother’s policy if “vanished persons ever returned.”  Monica drives to New Jersey and takes the Westview off ramp.  She is met by FBI Agent, Jimmy Woo (Randall Park), we last saw him in Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018).  He had a witness who disappeared, Dennis the Mailman?  

Jimmy takes Monica over to talk to local police officers with their car parked in front of the Westview billboard.  When asked about Westview, they are told, “no such place exists”, a town blocked from the rest of the world.  Jimmy says he can’t enter the town because “it doesn’t want me to.”  Monica takes from her van trunk, a S.W.O.R.D. helicopter drone, but her control is disrupted and drone has disappeared.  Monica walks towards the town and sees the wall of television static.  Jimmy warns her, but Monica reaches out and then taken into the strange world.  Very Twilight Zone.  A day later and we get an armored truck, inside is Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) whom we last saw in Thor: The Dark World (2013). These are memorable supporting characters from the MCU played by two actors who have also worked in sitcoms.  Bringing supporting characters makes me think that the person who should be brought back is Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg).  He was connected to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. which was produced by Marvel Television, which caused a rift with Kevin Feige and Ike Perlmutter, but Coulson was our introduction into the MCU.  

Darcy asks the other members about their fields and notes she is a doctor in Astrophysics.  She enters the S.W.O.R.D. response base.  It is a bit like the government operation in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982).  Heyward takes Darcy into the base and doesn’t give her data on the drones disappearing into Westview.  She gets to work and detects Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, Heyward is a little slow to catch on, and finds something else.  Darcy looks at a Physio-Scope and then asks for an “old tv.”  Heyward sends in an agent in a chemical suit down to the sewers.  He goes to monitor the situation with Jimmy and sees a map in a hexagon shape.  Then, Heyward hears laughter and sees that Darcy is watching WandaVision.  Darcy starts searching facial recognition and finds that Mr. and Mrs. Hart are really Todd and Sharon Davis.  Agnes is the only one without a driver’s license, there seems to be a little more to her.  Darcy drops a Maruchan Cup of Noodles, brand name is almost commercial tv here, when she recognizes Monica on the show.  Darcy comes up with a way to tap into the radio so it is Jimmy’s voice we heard in the show.  We get up to speed with the last episode and it looks like Wanda has to confront the hard truths of her life.  It is only at the end of the show that we get our main characters which ends up as a mixed bag. 

Three Mind Stones out of Five! 

#WandaVision, #WeInterruptThis Program, #JoshStamberg, #RandallPark, #KatDennings

Happy Birthday Elijah Wood!

 Happy Birthday Elijah Wood!  He had a very early role playing a video gamer in Back to the Future Part II (1989).  Next, he was in Forever Young (1992) discovering Mel Gibson’s pilot who has been put in cryogenic freeze.  Wood took the lead role in The Adventures of Huck Finn (1993) directed by Stephen Sommers.  He was one of the students fighting the teachers possessed by parasites in The Faculty (1998) directed by Robert Rodriguez.  It was in 2001, Wood took a defining role as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.  He traveled to Mordor in The Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers (2002) and then fulfilled his task as Ringbearer in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). 

Elijah Wood played the villainous serial killer, Kevin, in Sin City (2005) based on the Frank Miller graphic novels.  He was the voice of the lead penguin, Mumble, who has to dance in George Miller’s animated Happy Feet (2006) and the sequel Happy Feet Two (2011).  Wood had a brief cameo reprising Frodo in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012).  He provided the voice of the lead, Beck, a program joining Tron in the animated series Tron: Uprising (2012-2013).  Wood was on the other side of a invasion at a school as a teacher fighting kids infected by a strange virus in Cooties (2014).  In 2015, he fought alongside Vin Diesel as Dolan 37th, a priest tasked to fight witches in The Last Witch Hunter.  Wood played Todd Brotzman, a sidekick to the detective investigating the supernatural in the BBC series, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (2016-1017).  He recently voiced Jace Rucklin in Star Wars: Resistance.  Happy Birthday Elijah Wood!  

#ElijahWood, #TheAdvnturesofHuckFinn, #LordoftheRings, #StarWarsResistance 

The Film & TV Potential of Dungeons & Dragons!

Dungeons & Dragons is a long running fantasy game and could be a strong fantasy franchise.  It was announced recently, January 15th, by Slash film that there is a Dungeons & Dragons television series by Derek Kolstad.  He is the writer of the John Wick films including John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019). There is a film in development to be written and directed by the directing duo of Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, they directed Game Night (2018).  Chris Pine is attached to star in the picture.  The popularity of Dungeons & Dragons has really surged with Youtube video of game play with celebrities.  There was the PAX gaming convention with Acquisitions Inc. that included author Patrick Rothfuss. An Acquisitions Inc. D&D book came out in 2019.  

A game session had long time fan Vin Diesel.  Another series, Critical Role, launched the Legend of Vox Machina, which became a comic book and now animated series on Amazon Prime.  Actor, Joe Manganiello had his own Youtube campaigns.  So we’ve seen how popular fantasy can be with the Lord of the Rings films, Game of Thrones, and now an Amazon Prime series in development by J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay.  Hasbro has a little bump from Dungeons & Dragons association with Stranger Things, but it looks like the toy company wants to fully use its D&D property.  Wizards of the Coast which owns the Magic: The Gathering card game bought TSR in 1997.  Filmmakers might also look at MTG as a fantasy property.  Hasbro purchased Wizards of the Coast in 1999.  It has a successful franchise in the Transformers films.  Dungeons & Dragons could be the next franchise.     

Dungeons and Dragons was created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson from fantasy versions of miniature war games.  This was in 1974 which had three booklets in a box.  D&D set the standard for role-playing games; these are games that allow players to act as their characters through dice rolls, work with other players, and speak as their characters in the game.  The dice was polyhedral, not just cubes, but pyramids and gem shapes.  The first hardback for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was the Monster Manual published in 1977, a pivotal year for fantasy and sci fi.  This was followed by the Player’s Handbook and the Dungeon Master’s Guide.  These were mainly at hobby stores and there were adventures found in published booklets called modules.  

There was some controversy that eventually became the tv movie Mazes and Monsters (1982).  Tom Hanks starred as Robbie Wheeling, a college student obsessed with a role-playing game, but the real life account has been disproven.  Starting in 1983, D&D entered Saturday mornings with the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon.  There really wasn’t a tie-in to the game, in 2006, the DVD release Dungeons & Dragons - The Complete Animated Series had a booklet that gave information to bring the characters into the game.  In 1984, everything changed for Dungeons & Dragons with the release of the novel Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis.  Their campaign, Dragonlance, was the series that really launched D&D in the fantasy section of bookstores.  

There was a 2008 animated movie, Michael Rosenbaum played the leader Tanis Half-Elven, Kiefer Sutherland was the wizard Raistlin, and Lucy Lawless voiced the only cleric, Goldmoon.  The fantasy world dominated by dragons is an interesting twist with the loss of gods and the clever Kenders (read Hobbits).  Dragonlance has great potential for a diverse cast.  Joe Manganiello is a strong supporter of D&D, he could be the knight Sturm Brightblade or Caramon Majere, the twin brother to the wizard Raistlin.  Keep this casting going, we can have Felicia Day, another gamer and actress in The Guild, as Tika Waylan, former barmaid and aide to the Companions.  Casting fans as characters would be great for gamers.  The dragon effects may be expensive, I saw a great dragon in the low budget Dawn of the Dragon Slayer (2012), maybe a series would be best for Dragonlance.  

In 2000, there was the release of the Dungeons & Dragons movie, it was clunky, the Hercules: The Legendary Journeys tv show version of the game.  The filmmakers may have been sincere, but creating an entirely new world loses the appeal of the game.  There was actually a sequel, Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God (2005) with new characters.  The filmmakers continued with another movie that is more adult oriented, Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness (2012).  If you would like a fantasy movie that is fun and set in a role-playing game-like world, I would recommend Mythica: A Quest for Heroes (2014).  The other game world that would be good for adaptation is Forgotten Realms.  It was a fan favorite game world that was created by Ed Greenwood in 1987.  There were a number of computer games starting with Pool of Radiance (1988).  The first Forgotten Realms novel was Darkwalker on Moonshae (1987) by Douglas Niles.  

R.A. Salvatore’s book The Crystal Shard (1988) introduced the fan favorite character, Drizzt Do’urden.  He is the Drow elf who has turned against his people who live underground.  Drizzt becomes a ranger like Aragorn in Lord of the Rings and in a reverse of the relationship with Eowyn, Drizzt falls for a human woman, Catti-brie.  He has a tiny statue that transforms into the panther Guenhwyvar!  Ken Jeong played a Drow in Community's "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" (2011) episode which is apparently controversial since he is in blackface, which is referred to in the episode, and actually it is accurate, Drow are elves with pale hair and dark complexions.  So it might be a problem unless handled with casting, Michael B. Jordan would be a great Drizzt!, or John Boyega, tall and thin is the only qualification.  I think in the same way that Alan Lee and John Howe, Tolkien illustrators, were brought in for the Lord of the Rings movies, I would really like Clyde Caldwell and Larry Elmore to work on Dungeons & Dragons media projects.  Dungeon & Dragons' potential as a franchise could hopefully bring in more gamers and bring excitement to the role-playing game! 

#DungeonsandDragons, #DerekKolstad, #JonathanGoldstein, #JohnFrancisDaley, #GaryGygax,  #DaveArneson, #TracyHickman, #MargaretWeis, #EdGreenwood, #RASalvatore, #ClydeCaldwell, #LarryElmore 

Re:tro Re:view - Son of Godzilla!

Son of Godzilla (1967) is a charming G film that of course has the lil’ guy, but also some fun sci fi!  It took place in middle of the Shōwa era (1954-1975) ending with Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975).  This time introduced some formidable opponents for Big G and also expanded his family with his son, Minilla, I like the translation Minya, Minilla sounds like an envelope.  Godzooky was the cartoony version of Godzilla's son in the 1978 Godzilla Power Hour animated show.  There was a Baby Godzilla introduced in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993) and he becomes Godzilla Junior in Godzilla vs. Destroyah (1995).  The son of Godzilla returned in Godzilla: Final Wars (2004).  The film is directed by Jun Fukuda who also directed two of the Musashi Miyamoto films before directing Rodan (1956) and later Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966).  It is written by Shinichi Sekizawa who also wrote Varan the Unbelievable (1958), King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), and also Ebirah.  

We get stormy seas, a plane’s crew suddenly loses radio contact, there is some kind of interference.  Out of the rain-splattered cockpit window, they see Godzilla emerge from the sea.  The Shōwa Godzilla has bulging eyes and a short snout, more Muppet than vicious dinosaur-like beast.  The pilot veers the plane away from Godzilla and the radio operator plots a course from the interference to Sollgell Island.  Looking out of the plane, the pilot notes that Godzilla is headed to Sollgell following some mysterious call.  Godzilla lets out a roar.  Then, we get some goofy music as we see Sollgell Island in the day.  There is some jungle scenes until we get two scientists in white.  They heading back to the tower, a large round tower with machinery around it.  A technician phones in his report.  A screech is heard and the other scientist takes out his rifle saying that the creature has returned.  At the base, Professor Kasumi (Tadao Takashima) is preparing the experiment with his assistants.  

There is a plane that flies over the island and drops off two parachutes.  The scientists race out and find that it is a man, Goro Maki (Akira Kubo), who says he is a freelance reporter.  He is likable, kinda clumsy, but persistent.  Kubo was Yoshiteru Miki in Throne of Blood (1957) and later Captain Katsuo Yamabe in Destroy All Monsters (1968).  Professor Kasumi tries to send him away, but Goro won’t leave until he has a story.  The professor’s assistant, Fujisaki (Akihiko Hirata), suggests to the professor that Goro could help out with the chores.  Professor Kasumi just walks away.  Then, we hear the screeching again, a large, insectoid form with lamp-like eye moves through the jungle.  Goro has his camera out and the scientist fires his rifle at the giant mantis called Kamacuras.  In the morning, Goro has a red Hawaiian shirt and white shorts, a wanna-be Elvis.  A hunting party returns without seeing the Kamacuras.  

Goro goes exploring the island and happens to see a beautiful woman (Beverly Maeda) swimming off the shore!  Maeda was in the horror movie, The Face of Another (1966).  She swims away when she hears Goro try to take a photo.  We later find her name is Saeko and she is a character right out of the lost worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs complete with being a scientist’s daughter!  I’m thinking Caroline Munro’s character, Dia, in At the Earth’s Core (1976).  One of my favorite genres!  Night, at the dinner table, Professor Kasumi says the conditions are right to conduct their experiment the next day.  Goro wants to know about the experiment and Professor Kasumi explains that the world will soon be overpopulated and need food, so basically it is a terraforming experiment through weather control!  He also explains that the experiment must be secret or it could be misused.  It is an interesting sci fi premise that almost sounds like we could use it now.  Morning, the scientists rush to man their stations.  They get ready to launch the experiment, but Goro goes running out to the cliff to warn the mysterious woman.  Security is a bit lax at the base.  

The scientists send out from one of the towers a cyro probe attached to a balloon.  Kasumi has the probe detonated at 800 meters and then activates the tower to release silver iodine.  Temperature starts to drop on the island and a “solar-heat absorbing radiation unit” is launched also with a balloon.  There is suddenly an interference from the center of the island shutting down all controls.  The island is struck with a storm and a narrator explains that there is sudden heat wave.  The narrator also notes that it is four days later, we don’t see how Goro survived the storm, still he is taking photos of the professor in the jungle.  They suddenly hear the Kamacuras and it is now kaiju size!  A Kaiju right out of the giant insect movies a la Them (1954)!  Praying mantis have long claws and this one flies!  The professor notes that it must have mutated from the experiment.  They have to flee to the tower to escape the Kamacuras.  The Kamacuras gather around a rocky mound and begin striking at it.  This reveals a giant egg!  

Night, some of the group now wants to end the experiment, but with the radio out, they have no hope of rescue.  Professor Kasumi confides that he sabotaged the radio.  The group find that the laundry is missing, the professor has a member point his flashlight to the trees, and there is the island girl so they shoot at her!  The first woman they see in months and they try to shoot her?, not a good move fellas.  Morning, the Kamacuras are striking the egg, it is starting to crack open.  Goro and elsewhere the girl are watching as the egg is opened to reveal a bleating, grey kaiju!  Goro says it’s a baby Godzilla and it is struck by the Kamacura claws!  The design of Minilla is perfect, grey, not yet green, with tiny bumps on its back, not spiky dorsal fins, and he’s chubby.  He is played by Masao Fukazawa, but he is known as Little Man Machan!  I like that from the moment he is born he is bullied, his father teaches him to use his radioactive breath to fight back!  The group has to fight against Kumonga, a giant spider of kaiju proportions, it appeared in Destroy All Monsters.  Son of Godzilla is in the tradition of kaiju movies like Son of Kong (1933).  It is said to kidify Godzilla, kinda, but there is serious story here about bullying, terraforming, a lost world of kaiju, and Baby Godzilla 52 years before Baby Yoda, this is the way to revitalize a franchise!   

Five Cyro Probes out of Five! 

#SonofGodzilla, #JunFukuda, #AkiraKubo, #BeverlyMaeda   

Future State: Immortal Wonder Woman #1 Review!

Future State continues with Immortal Wonder Woman #1!  The issue was released on January 19th.  It is written by Becky Cloonan.  She was the artist for Demo and the co-writer of Gotham Academy.  Jen Bartel is known for co-creating the Image comic Blackbird.  Bartel offers some beautiful art, almost watercolor in look.  The cover by Bartel has Wonder Woman with a lock of grey hair with a cosmic background.  It begins in “the distant future”, where Wonder Woman walks in a cave, and eventually we find out that it is the Batcave.  The last we saw Diana, in Dark Nights: Death Metal #7, she was ascending with the Golden Age Wonder Woman.  She goes to the case of Batman’s uniform, then the spirit(?) of Bruce Wayne (Batman) appears, a Force Ghost?  He was fighting against the Robin King in Dark Nights with the Black Lantern army.  Batman tells Wonder Woman that he believed in Gotham City and says that she is their heart.  Diana cries at his remark and takes up his utility belt, kinda cool.  

She flies away and then puts on the utility belt, this image is on the cover, she sees a star twinkle in the evening sky.  She flies away to “warn the others.”  Apokolips, Big Barda tries to tell Darkseid that New Genesis is gone, she mentions the “Undoing.”  Darkseid doesn’t care about it’s fate or the destruction of Apokolips.  Black, spectral shapes attack, this reminds me of the creatures in The Langoliers, the 1995 mini-series based on the Stephen King novella in Four Past Midnight (1990).  Big Barda flies to take on the creatures, but she and Orion are bound by black tentacles.  A splash page has Darkseid leaving the world consumed by the Undoing.  This seems like a dark reflection of what happened with Krypton.  The swarming of Apokolips also reminds me of the Shadow Demons in Crisis on Infinite Earths.  Wonder Woman has traveled to the empty Themysicra and tells Swamp Thing now a lone tree to hold on.  Darkseid is hurtling through space to head to Earth.  Wonder Woman is floating in the air addressing the Amazons who were in a Council of War.  I get the impression that the scarred blonde Amazon is Etta Candy?  Diana wants them to go to another world, but the Amazons want to fight.  

Darkseid sees flying towards him a white-haired and bearded Superman.  Wonder Woman sees a burning, cosmic form headed to Themysicra, she changes her stance, and calls for the Amazons to defend Swamp Thing and the Green against an “unknown enemy.”  Superman has fallen to Darkseid, but Wonder Woman is there with a Green Lantern ring as a necklace.  Darkseid strikes Diana back.  The Amazons attack, but Darkseid unleashes his Omega Beam and ends the threat!  Swamp Thing gives Wonder Woman a final gift and then is gone as Darkseid has Superman in a chokehold!  To be continued in the next issue.  This is an epic aftermath of Dark Nights: Death Metal.  It looks like Wonder Woman has to protect the legacy of Batman and Green Lantern to save Superman!  The next story is set at night in Atlanta at the Michael C. Carlos Museum.  This is a real museum at Emory University.  What may not be real is the villainess, Grail, she is the daughter of Darkseid, first appearing in Justice League #40 (2015).  Her mother, Myrina, was an Amazon assassin!  

She is about to bring down an axe on a security guard, but stopped by the Bracelets of Submission of Nubia!  The character first appeared in Wonder Woman #204 (1973) and was a clay twin sister to Diana and taken by Mars (Ares) to destroy the Amazons.  There is a graphic novel, Nubia: Real One., set for release on February 23rd.  The writer is L.L. McKinney, a young adult writer of A Black So Black (2018) and the Nubia: Real One graphic novel.  Alitha Martinez is the artist who also worked on Batgirl.  Nubia says she isn’t talking to Diana and the Amazons, takes out the Lasso of Truth, and says she is Wonder Woman!  There is the Yara Flor Wonder Woman and possibly the Diana Prince Wonder Woman, a trio!  We get a splash page of Wonder Woman with her Lasso of Truth!  They battle, but Grail is vicious.  There is a fallen piece of stone which Wonder Woman picks up releasing its power!  This gives her visions of the aftermath of a battle, robed figures, and Grail stands over Wonder Woman.  

The stone sends a blast at Grail and she picks it up to escape in a Boom Tube.  Later, Nubia heads over to the Ebony Web nightclub.  She sees the doorman, a transformed Minotaur, named Maurice.  Nubia heads into the club filled with mythological creatures and reaches the office of Aunt Nancy.   She brings Aunt Nancy up to date and says that she lost Kali’s Wrath to Grail.  She saw Aunt Nancy in the vision.  Aunt Nancy explains how she is connected if Nubia strikes a bargain to come when she is summoned by her.  She reveals the war between gods and that a Master Key can bring peace to the gods.  It sounds like the Anti-Life Equation connected to the New Gods.  The artifact can also open ways into other realms.  Aunt Nancy says there is only one left that is protected.  Then, a Boom Tube opens through Aunt Nancy’s defenses and pulls away Nubia!  This seems to set up Nubia’s story, we will have to see her back story to bring us up to date, and if Aunt Nancy trained her.  Some mystery, but both stories in Immortal Wonder Woman bring in some cosmic threats and also brings in Nubia!  

Five Lassos of Truth out of Five! 

#FutureState, #ImmortalWonderWoman, #BeckyCloonan, #JenBartel, #LLMcKinney, #AlithaMartinez, #Nubia 

  

Star Wars: High Republic #1 Review!

Star Wars: High Republic is here and it is a good introduction to the High Republic world and the Jedi protagonist. It is written by Cavan Scott, the author of Star Wars young readers novel, Adventures in Wild Space: The Escape (2016), and wrote Dooku: Jedi Lost (2019). He continued the story of the droid CR-8 from Adventures in Wild Space in the IDW comic, Star Wars Adventures in “Tales from Wild Space.” Scott was part of the brain trust that helped develop the High Republic project. 

The art is by Ario Anindito, a Marvel artist who worked on Atlantis Attacks #4 (2021), and the Star Wars annual #4 (2018).  His artwork has good character expressions and captures the fun of a slightly different Star Wars world.  Phil Noto provides the cover art for the regular issue of three Jedi above the space station.  Noto was the artist for the 2015 Star Wars: Chewbacca limited series.  The issue was released in January 6th, but was sold out for me, and took some time to finally arrive, so keep looking!  The next issue will arrive on February 3rd so don’t get left out!  

A Star Wars Timeline is on the first page just so everything is in place for the different properties.  There is a title crawl to bring us up to speed on the High Republic, there are Jedi, there is a station called the Starlight Beacon, I kinda like the name.  Plus, there is a “frightening new adversary” that may be a threat to the Force.  Then, we get the world of Shuraden on the Republic Frontier.  A new planet, it is not clear the placement in the galaxy, far from Coruscant?  Also, if the frontier is the same as the Outer Rim or closer.  On the surface is a Jedi Padawan with an inquisitive, flying alien called a Ximpi.  

Then, we see the Jedi, Keeve Trennis, introduced here. Keeve was mentioned in Cavan Scott’s novel Dooku: Jedi Lost (2019). She is a woman with a shaved right side and the rest of her hair flows to the side, her Padawan braid is on the right. Keeve wears a Jedi coat and trousers, a modification of Obi-Wan’s robes, and carries a long, gold and silver wand, a lightsaber. She sends away the alien native, Kanrii. We see the reptilian Trandoshan eyes, the Trandoshans are the species that we saw with bounty hunter, Bossk in Empire Strikes Back (1980). This is a Trandoshan Jedi that brings his blue lightsaber down on Keeve’s double bladed green lightsaber. He has a brown Jedi cloak, white, monk-like tunic, and armored shoulder and gauntlets. Also, he has only one arm. 

Kanrii shrieks that it is a monster, but Keeve is dueling with him, tested by him and admits he is her Jedi master. She uses a Force push to knock him down. This is Jedi Master Sskeer. He was introduced in the High Republic novel, Light of the Jedi. It appears that Sskeer is the first Trandoshan Jedi that we’ve seen.  Sskeer and Keeve have a difficult relationship. Then, we get the two page title, There is No Fear, Chapter One, “Trial By Ordeal.” Sskeer points out the Needles, a group of green crystalline points, and he has hung a Thythonian pendant on top of one.  Thython appeared in “Chapter 14: The Tragedy” of The Mandalorian. Keeve crawls up a Needle with Kanrii telling her he would be scared. The Needle breaks, but Keeve uses her lightsaber like a climbing piton to stop her fall. 

There is some fan reaction to the use of the lightsaber. My answer is lightsabers can do anything that they need to do. There is no handbook to lightsaber use. Then, there is the question of physics, um, does anyone know Star Wars is a space fantasy? You know that you don’t hear laser bolts and swooping spaceships in space which is a vaccum?  Scott admitted in a January 7 tweet, “Yeah, that one I’ll take on the chin. If I could go back and do that page again, I’d suggest she grabs the needle of rock once she’s used the saber to slow her.” It’s a minor point, if you have trouble with it, don’t read comic books. Keeve is hanging by her lightsaber and Kanrii points out his city. The Needles are suddenly broken by giant, red insectoid creatures! This shifts to Starlight Beacon, Jedi Master Avar Kriss is talking to Maru who is monitoring holographic displays. 

Avar, first appeared in Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren #3 (2020). She is interrupted by the arrival of Jedi Masters Veter, a horned Tarnab which was also seen in The Phantom Menace (1999), and a slighter younger Yoda. Jedi Master Veter tells Avar that she is appointed marshall of the Starlight Beacon. Keeve has managed to reach the ground, but finds the insectoids are headed to the Shuraden City! She leaves behind her Jedi Trial and Sskeer behind to board her starfighter, the Jedi Vector, it is a thin ship with cannons protruding from its v-shaped wings. She contacts Starlight Beacon and notes the invasion.  Maru identifies the creatures as Ridadi, but they avoid inhabited worlds.  He reminds me of the Green Lantern Salaak who also monitors power ring generated screens.  

In a splash page, Keeve accesses the Force, she sees a vision of the Ridadi traveling through space and drawn to the Starlight Beacon! Keeve works with Maru to realize that the Ridadi follow magnetic pulses from stars, the Starlight Beacon is interfering with it. She has the signal transmitted to her Jedi Vector to draw away the Ridadi. Maru changes the Starlight Beacon’s frequency. She sends off the ship with the Ridadi trailing behind it and leaps down. Keeve uses the Force to restore the damaged rocks of the Ximpi. Her actions will show her worth as a Jedi. I do have reservations against Keeve apologizing for her actions, Jedi need confidence even when they break their missions. I’m kinda interested in reading Scott’s High Republic novel, Star Wars: The Rising Storm. Star Wars: High Republic is an interesting look at the Jedi at this time with a good hero in Keeve Trennis!  

Four Lightsabers out of Five!   

#StarWarsHighRepublic, #CavanScott, #ArioAnindito, #PhilNoto, #KeeveTrennis, #JediMasterSkeer, #AvarKriss, #EstalaMaru, #Yoda 

WandaVision, “Now in Color”, Review!

WandaVision now has a new opening, bright, Brady Bunch-like title and groovy theme song again by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez.  It is typical days in suburbia for the superhero couple, they have ice cream, see neighbors, and we see prepare for their children.  Dr. Nielsen (Randy Oglesby) confirms after checking Wanda that she is pregnant.  Oglesby dealt with magic and mystery in the Strange Angel series.  Vision is confused that she is four months pregnant overnight.  He walks the doctor out and greets Herb trimming the bushes next door, then Herb starts cutting into the brick wall!  Vision points out Herb’s chainsaw action.  He is stunned that Wanda looks further along her pregnancy!  Later, Wanda hexes the baby’s room and then feels the baby kick.  She doesn’t use her powers, but the butterfly mobile transforms to real butterflies!  Vision consults his book and finds out the baby kick would occur at six months.  He estimates that the baby will be born in three days!  

In the kitchen, Vision uses super speed to put a diaper on a baby doll, then he has Wanda practice her breathing.  The painful contraction returns and the kitchen goes out of control with Wanda’s powers.   Her reaction to the stopping of the out-of-control magic is funny.  Dottie checks on her husband Phi when the lights go out.  Vision has found that it is the entire neighborhood.  He suspects that “something’s wrong”, then there is a flicker as the scene changes with Wanda on a couch.  Vision reassures her, then Wanda is about to have the baby, the panicked Vision starts to hover off the ground.  Wanda tries controlling her breathing which also settles down Vision.  Then, suddenly it starts raining from the ceiling, Wanda’s water just broke!  A clever, magical birth, we see that Wanda’s pregnancy is acclerated, but no sign of help from anyone else.  I was wondering if Agnes would be interested in Wanda’s pregnancy.  Another commercial has a mother with a crazy home going on vacation.  This is for Hydra Soak, luxury bath powder, another Hydra reference.  It’s possible that this is the work of Baron Zemo who was in Captain America: Civil War (2016) played by Daniel Bruhul, he survived that movie and ran Hydra in the comics. 

Vision and Wanda take shelter from the rain underneath a table.  Wanda summons up winds to clean house.  Vision uses super speed to see if he catch up to Dr. Nielsen.  Wanda hears something in the nursery, but then there’s a knock at the door so she hexes her coat.  It’s Geraldine who has come over for a bucket because of the water in her house.  Wanda goes to the kitchen, but her contractions transforms her coat.  Geraldine goes to find the bucket, then talks about her temp job.  Wanda sees behind her a stork!  She tries to hex it away, but the baby is going to arrive!  Wanda finally throws an orange at it from her fruit bowl.  She blames the noise on her new ice maker.  The stork isn’t gone and starts to pull at Geraldine’s pants while she is sitting on the couch.  Her excitement over her job story scares away the stork.  Geraldine goes into the nursery where the stork has shifted into a wall painting.  Wanda drops a vase and knows the baby is arriving!  Dr. Nielsen has found his car isn't working when Vision runs up and then takes Dr. Nielsen on his back!  Geraldine is trying to help Wanda, she lies on the floor as paintings spin, her hex powers are unleashed!  Geraldine helped deliver the baby when Vision runs up with Dr. Nielsen.  

Vision has his normal face and holds the baby, Vision calls him Tommy, when Wanda starts screaming again, another baby!  Dr. Nielsen says to Vision that small towns are hard to escape.  Agnes is talking with Herb.  Geraldine likes the new twins.  Wanda says she is a twin and notes Pietro.  She starts singing in a Sokovian lullaby.  Geraldine says Pietro was killed by Ultron!  Wanda is suspicious that she knows about Pietro and tells her to leave when she sees the S.W.O.R.D. necklace.  Both Agnes and Herb says there is a reason why Geraldine came to Westview.  Agnes and Herb leave.   In the night sky above Westview, there is a tv distortion and Geraldine is thrown to the ground!  The wind is knocked out of her and cars and a helicopter pull up to Geraldine as we hear the Monkee’s “Daydream Believer.”  It’s a S.W.O.R.D. facility?  More questions.  We have the birth of twins, this occured in Vision and Scarlet Witch #12 (1986), reality is strange in the comics, but Tommy and Billy eventually become superheroes in their young adult forms.  This was in Young Avengers #1 (2005), raised by different families, Billy Kaplan becomes Wiccan, who has magical powers, and Tommy Shepherd has superspeed and called Speed in Young Avengers #10 (2006).  Kate Bishop from the Hawkeye series was also on the team.  The group faced Kang the Conqueror who will be introduced in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantummania.  So this is a big step in setting up the next phase of the MCU.  WandaVision has mystery, moving from silly sitcom, to something sinister!  

Four Mind Stones out of Five! 

#WandaVision, #NowinColor, #BillyKaplan, #TommyShepherd