The Toad's Burrow

      You know, the older I get the more I appreciate alternative art styles when it comes to comics. I don't think it's the deciding factor but it can really help. Which is funny because I basically said Asterios Polyp  was too weak outside of it's art style. Even still I must admit as a lifelong superhero's fan there's something about Avengers: Twilight  that just scratches that right itch. I mean it's not anything that's never been done before, but it does make you feel a little bit of something, and it maybe, just maybe wants me to believe in Chip Zdarksy a little bit. Does this mean I'll check out Avengers: Armageddon ? Eh probably not these events take like a year to finish so you always have to wait a while to fully read them all at once, but this comic was good at least. Let's talk about it.     When you first read this comic there are a couple comparisons that come to mind pretty immediately. The Dark Knight Returns  and Kingdom Come , bo...

          I'll be the first to admit, I came into this comic very skeptical of it all, and frankly I can't say it wasn't unearned. I mean I only read this comic because I saw some goofy panel of someone posting it, only to learn the premise of this book was basically a light-hearted Game of Thrones  style fantasy involving most of your favorite characters from the DC Universe. It's quite corny to be honest all things considered. Oddly enough, I think I enjoyed the spin-off companion comic books quite a bit more, whether it be the Aqua-man themed one or the Deathstroke-centric one. In fact, I might even say that Dark Knights of Steel: Allwinter is kind of easily the best comic here. Let's talk about it.     I'll focus on the original 12-issue run first, Dark Knights of Steel  by Tom Taylor and Yasmine Putri. I will say at the very least for the first comic you need to be able to not take these characters too seriously. I would consider th...

    I'm finally glad to have watched Supergirl , not in the sense that I was super excited to see this film, but I like most other people was inundated with so much discourse surrounded by this film while it was coming out, about how it's the worst film of all time, so many stupid, pointless culture war talking points and how it had one of the worst superhero needle drops of all time. And to that I say, some good points were made, but some of them were overblown, and while this is a very, very underwhelming film, I would say it's far from franchise-altering and I don't think the DCU needed Supergirl  to do super well, even if I wanted it to do that. Let's talk about it.     I never actually wrote about Woman of Tomorrow  though I was debating it so it'll be fun to talk about both that comic, how it compares to this film, and what I liked about each. I will say, for all the crap this film got about it's horrendous needle drop at the end, and I do mean horren...

     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 ...