The Toad's Burrow

     I'll be the first to admit I'm not the biggest Guardians of the Galaxy fan. When the first movie came out I didn't watch it, then when the second movie came out I started seeing all of this baby Groot merchandise and it ardently annoyed the moody teen inside me. But people just kept on talking about how great the movie was, so I watched it, and felt it was fine, but cringed pretty hard at Chris Pratt's Starlord doing a dance-off. Yet, I have been in a comic mood, and I'm much more accepting now as an adult I'd like to think. I'm trying to be more accepting of pieces of media that are just earnestly themselves, as cringe as they might be, because I'm pretty sick of self-referential media that just has characters self-deprecate for 80% of the dialogue. So let's talk about this game.     I will say this immediately off the bat, not in a bad way, but just so you understand what you're getting into. This is basically just an amped-up version of a...

    It has been five+ years since I've last watched this film. Admittedly, for a film with as much cultural impact as it had, I only found out about it/watched it because it was mentioned in a  MoistCr1TiKaL video (yes I am willing to admit that even I listened to Mr. Fencesitter when I was a teenager). It was during COVID though, and I remember being thoroughly confused about it. But now, with a repaired attention span, and just general knowledge of what was supposed to happen, I was hoping that my perspective on it would change significantly since it was showing in one of my local movie theaters. Let's talk about it.     Plot-wise, I will say Akira  is a little confusing. Like I really did not remember much from my first viewing, because watching it for a second time I can say I understood it a significant amount more. Whether it be all of the layers between the rebels or the strong political undertones. The sort of symbolism/relationships between all of ...

      I will preface this review by saying this is a very long run, so expect maybe a semi-long review? It has a bunch of little arcs and such, and I've read through it plenty of times. I also have to admit that reading this Green Lantern run was what originally started getting me into comics as a child. I vividly remember watching Comicstorian's (RIP) videos on this Geoff Johns run and being amazed at how cool all of it sounded, whether it was Brightest Day, Blackest Night, the Sinestro War all of it. I also distinctly remember my mom getting mad at one of the books I borrowed from the library from this run because the cover had different GL members hung up like they were being crucified. All of this to say, with Lanterns  going on as well, I had an itch, and so I returned to the run that really made me a big comics fan. Let's talk about it.     There are some genuine criticisms of the run so I'll get those out of the way at first. Yes, it does become a li...

      I'm officially done the collection of smaller, independent comics I've had saved on my phone. Though, I have to admit, I was surprisingly underwhelmed with this one. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's bad, but I was genuinely very surprised at how highly touted this graphic novel was. Ultimately, I just felt like it was fine (?) story-wise, and while it was visually very appealing, I can't help but feel as if I was just left wanting more from this comic. Let's talk about it.     Asterios Polyp follows a divorced man whose home burns down, and so decides to leave everything behind and move to a small town. It's really that simple, the premise isn't so much about following Polyp as it is about exploring who he is and how he got there. The issue? I just don't think it's that interesting of a story. His story is simple, this is a man who lived a bit of a tragic life, and became an architecture professor, except none of his designs ever ...

     I'm going to be honest, going into this, I didn't think Peacemaker needed a season two. It was a fun one-off, but we're making multiple seasons of this show? Honestly? I still kind of feel the same way about this season. Like it's very clearly just to let James Gunn start setting stuff up for the rest of the DCU, but there's still some interesting meat on the bone. Even still though, you can't help but feel that the titular character, Peacemaker  is the weakest part of the season anyways. Let's talk about it.     It's been ages since I last watched the first season of Peacmaker  so I was a little rusty on the details but this season just doesn't do enough if that makes any sense. This season, the premise is Chris accidentally finds a portal to an alternate dimension where everything in his life seems nicer but the Nazi's won and took over. The issue? Well first of all it really takes them two whole episodes to even get Chris into this altern...

      I was pleasantly surprised by this film? Honestly, I left it quite impressed with the film, while also recognizing that there's at least a little level of uneasiness that it gave me. Not in the sense that it was bad, but I knew quite well going in that this film was simply going to have almost all of the "rough" edges sanded off, and even calling what are quite serious allegations involving children rough does make me feel a little icky. Even still, this film was oddly entertaining, especially as someone who was only six when Jackson died, and so has very little recollection of who he was as a person, or any of these larger than life anecdotes that seemed too ridiculous to be true. Let's talk about it.     This may sound like sacrilege, this may sound like an insult, but this is kind of a great film to watch with your phone out. I don't mean in the sense that I'm not paying attention while watching the film, but more in the sense of those "Director ...

     I've been going down a real rabbit-hole of comic books as of late, so it was only a matter of time before I finally went through The Superior Spider-Man. I remember the beginning of this era of Spider-Man quite well actually, which is actually pretty funny since this lines up quite well with the comics 10thish anniversary which was this year. I suppose even to 13-year old me it felt like a new, fresh, novel idea that was definitely not going to stick around forever, but be a nice change of pace. A new black suit, a new cast of characters, and someone whose a little more loose around the morals. So let's talk about it.     The first thing I'll say about this little era of Spider-Man is that it lasts shockingly much longer than you'd think. I think the Omnibus I read totaled close to like 800 pages, and they cover practically about pretty much every single topic you could. I'm not saying they beat a dead horse or something, but I feel like if you tried a chan...

      The more I write these little reviews for comic arcs that absolutely do not deserve any sort of revisiting the more I think about putting in some sort of minimum when it comes to pages/issues. But at the same time I review plenty of independent or smaller comics that are much more contained and just as short, so I suppose I'll forgo any sort of length and just talk as long as I need to. Let's talk about this one.     It just sucks. At least Superior Spiderman , which may be my next read, had a significantly longer leash to do anything. I frankly don't remember much from this era of Marvel other than people doing that clickbait thing where they talk about "Iron Man gave Daredevil his sight back" and that's it. But that's pretty much the only memorable thing about this comic. It's like 8 issues, because it leads right into Secret Wars  anyways in which everything gets erased.     What you need to know about this era? It's an "evil" To...

      Boooooo, boooooo, booooo, booooo, boooooo. This comic is so bad man. The older I get the more I realize the original Civil War event with Marvel was basically just one large way for them to play with their toys. It just seems to age worse and worse the farther away we get from it. I never really cared for Bucky Barnes being Captain America, frankly the whole Captain America situation in the comics is too confusing for me to follow at this point. But that's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the Marvel Civil War event I got to live through, Civil War II . I will say I liked it better as a child, but in the sense that a part of me thought Iron Man should have won the first time around, so I was eager to see him get some sort of redemption. Let's talk about it.     The biggest issue with this? Captain Marvel is just hilariously wrong. There's no two ways to cut it. It's not even like the issue they're fighting on hasn't been litigated befo...