Tag: comics

The manufacturing rights to the Batmobile go to Nissan??

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Apparently, it happened nearly a month ago, but because I live under a rock, I obviously missed out on it until it was spoon-fed to me from a targeted ad; but there was some car show out in Japan where all the manufacturers unveil new shit, and among all the general noise, emerged the fact that Nissan is basically making, the Batmobile.

They’re calling it the Nissan Hyper Force, which sounds more like it should be a Power Rangers Zord, but from the looks of the concept, come on, it’s the goddamn Batmobile.  The sharp lines, the design meant for optimal aerodynamics, that every flare and angle, basically looks like Lucius Fox himself designed it.

I don’t care enough to deep dive into reading everything about it, but this snippet I saw basically encapsulates the vehicle as a whole:

The Nissan Hyper Force is designed for racing enthusiasts and gamers who crave the adrenaline rush of the racetrack but are also eco-concious.

There are a lot of assumptions being made here, like assuming mutual exclusivity between being gamers and those who have the balls and means to get out onto the racetrack and I feel like such couldn’t be any more incorrect, but in the land of marketing, people will say whatever the fuck sounds like it can capture the imagination of some gullible saps into thinking that they can not only tackle Akina, but also do it green.

But not likely to be in the brochure are that drivers will feel compelled to tap into their inner vigilante and go out and fight crime.  Also, hack their car and find out ways to install sophisticated self-drive mechanisms to drive to you on command, as well as have hidden compartments for smoke bombs, gatling guns, and my favorite Batmobile gizmo, the grappling hook to make the smoothest 90 degree turn without having to slow down in history.

Either way, kudos to Nissan for being the car maker who decided to have the stones to take on the Batmobile, and all the tryhards in the future who will get one for absolutely no other reason than that it’s unofficially, the Batmobile.  I think if I don’t get another Tesla outright, I’m leaning towards something a little more conservative and subtle, like the re-release of the Honda Prelude, the updated Fairlady Z, and much to my own surprise, even the new Prius is looking pretty alright these days.

Happy Trails, Bob and Arleen

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Talk about an absolutely brutal week as far as fandoms, nostalgia and symbols of millennial childhood go.  Wrestling fans had to endure the passing of a legend, and a sudden departure of a star that wasn’t anywhere near the heights he was destined for, but then fans of the same television I grew up watching had to bear witness as a legend passed, and an icon that defined basically an entire television series.

I don’t particularly have a ton to say about Bob Barker or Arleen Sorkin, at least nothing new from one of the many countless tributes on the internet there are for either of them, but it hit me enough in the feels when both of them left us to where I still feel like at the very least, documenting it in my own brog to try and emphasize at the very least, my appreciation for them and what they did.

Obviously, at 99 years of age, it’s easy to say that Bob Barker did not leave us to soon, and he most definitely lived a full and successful life and career.  Cue the bittersweet jokes about how if anyone was going to ace the big wheel game of getting as close to 100 without going over, it’s Bob Barker.

But like many, the OG Price Is Right was the show that we all watched when we were home sick from school, or over summer vacations, because at least where I grew up, it was always on at 11 am, obviously not a time in which we could watch it at school.  But Bob Barker’s talent was so effortlessly immense that it didn’t matter if you were nine years old, 29 years old, 59 years old or 79 years old, his delivery, his smooth on-screen charisma and charm made him watchable, made him entertaining and made the show the legendary program it was, all because of him.

I always enjoyed watching the show, playing along with the showcase, screaming at the television when contestants didn’t ever seem to realize that the items on the show were always marked up 5000% and undershot their estimates, and of course loved Plinko.

Drew Carey’s variant of the show is garbage in comparison, and as far as I’m concerned, the show ended when Bob Barker retired.  There was once an incident where a contestant hit the nail on the head in the final showdown at the end of the show, and Drew Carey immediately deadpanned him and killed the episode, because he thought that the guy must have been cheating; most everyone was quick to point out that if that had happened under Bob Barker’s watch, he would have sold it like the greatest achievement of mankind, and made it into a memorable event. 

There are just some things that can never be replaced, and Bob Barker is most definitely one of them.  The show is better off discontinuing, than to let Drew Carey sink the prestige and equity that Bob built with his legendary run.

Continue reading “Happy Trails, Bob and Arleen” →

CHIDI FOR KANG

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve finally gotten around to starting to catch up to the legion of Marvel films and shows after around the time of like, Ms. Marvel or She Hulk.  Over the last few days, I’ve managed to get through Thor: Love & Thunder, Black Panther 2, and one that I’d earmarked as a source for a future brog post, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. 

With Secret Invasion out, I didn’t want to fall further behind, to the point where I’d abandon ship and not watch any of these things for a few years, and then fall completely out of the loop for when some of the more interesting Marvel properties start releasing, and I’ll have missed out on some backstory from required prerequisite viewing.  Sometimes I hate the feeling of obligation to have to watch some things, but at the same time, I am a Marvel fan, and I often times take enjoyment out of watching all these shows and movies in spite of the general sense of superhero media fatigue the internet likes to claim there is.

But as I alluded to, Quantumania was one that I had specifically earmarked, because one, I like Paul Rudd, his portrayal of Ant-Man, and I thought the movie would be entertaining, regardless of how much the internet seemed to shit all over it not long after it had released.  I take internet reviews with not even the metaphorical grain of salt, and they simply hold zero weight at all when it comes to judging most things, and Ant-Man 3 would be no exception.

But two, also not long after the film had released, it was revealed that the guy playing Kang the Conqueror, Jonathan Majors, had some dirty laundry aired out, with the revelation that he was basically an abuser of women.  And in this day and age, as well as Marvel/Disney always trying to maintain their image, it’s safe to assume that we’ve probably seen the last of Jonathan Majors in the MCU.

The problem is, Majors’ role as Kang is quite large, as he’s basically the next Thanos when it comes to being the big bad that all of the current phase(s) of Marvel film and television are building up towards.  So despite it being the correct and appropriate call to 86 the guy for being an abusive asshole, it’s still egg on Marvel/Disney’s face that they have to figure out what to do to replace him in the future.

Really, it shouldn’t be that difficult, because in the era of the Multiverse where just about anything and everything can be retconned and reimagined at a moment’s notice, replacing a character probably isn’t the most difficult thing to accomplish, and I’m sure that by the time the Kang Dynasty storyline begins wrapping up, most people will have forgotten that Jonathan Majors was even the guy first introduced as the character.

However, and to the point of this whole post, I proposed a much more blunt and easier option: just fucking flat out recast the role.  Just like when Terrence Howard was replaced by Don Cheadle for the role of James Rhodes, nobody said shit, there were no sneaky clever jokes, Iron Man 2 just picked right up with Cheadle playing War Machine like he was there the entire time, and not a single soul sold it at all.  Do the same thing with Kang, and despite the fact that he’s already appeared in Loki, and his face was plastered all over Quantumania, just straight up replace the guy and don’t bother with any re-writes or try to reinvent the wheel at this point.

Continue reading “CHIDI FOR KANG” →

Dad Brog (#111): An offense so grand

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The nightly routine goes as follows: 6:30pm, it’s upstairs for bath time.  Then comes the night routine of lotions and pajamas, and then it’s story time and then bed time for both the girls.

Tonight however, things took a turn for the explosive worst, when the pajamas I selected for #1 were the Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings pajamas that mythical wife picked up on clearance because my kids are toddlers and girls have a way easier time getting away with wearing boys-designated clothing than the other way around.

When she saw the pajamas that I was about to put on her, I might as well have declared war on the Jews, bombed Pearl Harbor, and released the Bubonic plague all at the same time.  She went absolutely ballistic and outright refused to wear the pajamas.  I tried to coax them onto her, and was met with a fucking Liu Kang bicycle kick for my troubles. 

I did eventually get them onto her, hoping that she’d chill out and resign to the clothes that she would just be sleeping in, and changing out of in the morning, but no, it was screaming and snot and tears and waterworks, and I’m trying my hardest not to die laughing over the fact that it was just a pair of fucking Shang-Chi pajamas that was triggering this meltdown.

Eventually, it became apparent that she wasn’t going to lose this argument.  We went into her room for story time and lights out and the meltdown was still on.  And because my house is kept cold through the night, I didn’t want her to strip down as soon as I left the room, so I acquiesced and changed her pajamas to something that wasn’t as offensive as screaming the N-word at the top of my lungs in College Park.

Lesson learned today: #1 most definitely isn’t a fan of Shang-Chi.  Better avoid that one when eventually going through the Marvel movies timeline in the future.

I’ve never been more unafraid of an armed individual in my life

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the weekend, we sent the kids to grandma’s house so that we could get some major organization done at home.  Frankly even with the help of our au pair, there would’ve been a lot of going in and out of the girls’ rooms well into the evenings that made it optimal to just have them not be present in order to maximize productivity.  That being said, it also afforded all of us in the house, to be adults for two days, and on the second evening, we collectively decided to get out of the house.

At one point, we went into a 2nd and Charles to kill a little bit of time; at one point in my life, this place would’ve been my heaven, since I like comic books, video games, books and all sorts of the nerdy crap that they sell and buy there, but at this point in my life, I just want to look and don’t want to actually bring any more shit into my house that I feel is already full of a lot of unneeded crap.

While we were there though, I was looking through comic trade hardcovers, and not far to my left, I could hear some guy doing some serious mansplaining about the differences between the Infinity War in comics versus the MCU.  A smirk emerged on my face at hearing him blather on, because he was perpetuating all sorts of stereotypes of comic book geeks inside the bookstore.

As I passed by him, I couldn’t help but notice that beneath his vest that I have to imagine was put on completely non-ironically, was a holster equipped with what I’m pretty sure was a Glock of minimal size, I’m no expert on the granular details, especially when I could only see the handle.  The point is, the guy was carrying openly, which is completely legal in the state of Georgia.

But as the title of this post states, I don’t think I’ve ever been more unafraid of an armed individual in my life until I saw this guy.  Think about it, the guy is carrying a firearm, presumably loaded, completely in public, at a place of business that probably had upwards of 80-100 people inside of it at the time I saw him.  We live in the age where mass shootings happen at almost a weekly basis in similar conditions, and not only did I feel zero concern for my life, all I could feel were jokes formulating in my brain instead.

Like, this guy got dressed with the express intention of leaving the house, and going to 2nd and Charles of all the places in the Metro Atlanta area, and as he’s mentally inventorying all the things he needs prior to walking out the door, and oh yeah my gun is one of the things on his checklist.

“Honey, we have to get to 2nd and Charles before they close at 8, have you seen my gun?”
“Yeah baby, it’s right next to my Loungefly”

On action television and in film, there are occasionally montages of heroes getting ready to go into battle, and they’re equipping themselves with a gun before they go into the fights of their lives.  And then we have Firearm Fred over here consciously strapping on his holster to go into the nerd store, as if he might have to flex it on someone trying to get the last pack of Yu-Gi-Oh booster packs ahead of him.

Seriously, I was giggling to myself for the rest of the night at the thought of Sidepiece Samuel actually feeling like he had to be carrying a firearm inside of a fucking 2nd and Charles.  I’ve never felt so opposite of concerned or intimidated by another human being’s presence in my entire life.  I felt like even if he were a mass shooter ready to pounce, I could probably take him without there being any loss of life; I know it’s not really a laughing matter, but that’s how seriously felt looking at this guy.

Regardless, my au pair got a kick out of seeing such a sight with her own eyes.  And after we took her to a Hooters for dinner, I told her that she basically had the most American night of her life, having seen an armed individual out in public, followed by the aforementioned Hooters for dinner.  Welcome to America!

Whatever it is, I’m all in

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Source: Calvin & Hobbes creator, Bill Watterson, comes out of retirement to produce an illustrated book for grown-ups

Honestly, despite the accusations of the announcement lacking substance or any real hints at what the nature of this future work is going to be like, I don’t really need it.  Calvin & Hobbes has had such a profound influence on my life as a whole, you could tell me that Bill Watterson was coming out of retirement to produce a book on growing garlic, I’d still be interested, and anticipate there being some sage wisdom in it.

I don’t even care that Watterson isn’t even the artist in this book, I know he’s a legend already artistically, but he’s also a masterful storyteller.  Seriously, I believe it’s possible to remove all artwork and just leave the text throughout all of Calvin & Hobbes, and it would still be interesting.  I look forward to the return of Watterson in The Mysteries, and it’s definitely not something I would have ever imagined, being taken back to 1995, anticipating his next release, only to be devastated in knowing that it was going to be his last.

Either way, it’s something to genuinely look forward to this year, and much like I do with film and television I really look forward to, I’m going to do my best to avoid anything about it until it’s actually released.  It’s surreal to think that after finishing Calvin & Hobbes back in 1995, I’ll be reacquainted with his work again nearly 30 years later.

Marvel Comics imagined by someone who doesn’t know Marvel Comics

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The following is a painting by the world renown famous Thomas Kincade Studios®.  From what the product description states, this is supposed to represent the Battle of Wakanda, that I have no idea is actually sourced from, but my knee-jerk reaction was that this was just a hilariously bad imagining of the climactic fight from Avengers: Infinity War.

Because Thanos’ forces weren’t Skrulls, nor did they have the Hulk/Wolverine Hulkerine abomination in their ranks, and I didn’t know why one of the troglodytes had Loki horns and was carrying Stormbreaker.  Nor was Storm involved in the battle, much less any mutants at all because phase one of the MCU most definitely didn’t have any of the M-words anywhere, at least in name.

But in all fairness, the product description actually discloses that it’s some other battle of Wakanda, and discloses the Skrulls by name, so it really isn’t just a tragically terrible imagining of the Infinity War battle, as much as I would have loved for it to have been.

All the same, it’s still terrible in its own right, and there’s a legendary degree of shark-jumping and DJ Tanner wrestling in play here with Disney actually allowed for the vaunted Marvel comics to do a collaboration with Thomas Kinkade, which is best known for the overly fluffy artwork of horses, cottages and forest fantasy scenes on plates and forgettable artwork hanging at your white grandma’s house.

And all the same, it’s fairly clear that whomever did paint this horrendous piece probably doesn’t know Marvel comics at all.  I know there were other super Skrulls that emerged throughout the years, but most all comic followers usually are aware of the OG Super Skrull and that his additional powers were only that of the four members of the Fantastic Four.

I just love how there’s the primary focal point of the Skrull army being some nondescript super Skrull who is as big as the Hulk, has one flaming arm of Human Torch, and is sprouting Wolverine claws out of the other.  And then you have the other hulking Skrull in the background carrying two Asgardian weapons, leading one to believe that if these are the bad guys, how are they worthy to be holding two Asgardian weapons?

And then there’s the weird golem in the background that looks like a cross between Mach I Iron Man and Juggernaut, but for some reason he has Thing’s arm.  Furthermore, none of the Skrulls have the multiple cleft chins that they’re pretty known for physically.

But what I like about this piece is that due to the multiple points of focus, and the strange right-to-left directionality of the conflict, and to those who might actually not follow comics and were to look at this, it really is kind of ambiguous to whom the artist of this piece had envisioned the bad guys to be.  For all the casual viewers would know, the Skrulls are the ones defending their land and their futuristic looking city in the background from an army of invading black people, and not vice versa.

Considering the general demographic of Thomas Kinkade’s usual consumer base, this was either done intentionally, or completely unconsciously by the artist.  Neither of which is good, but at least it’s something for comic fans to all collectively point and laugh at.

Starting at $950, the fuck out of here