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Wow, this book was a ton of fun. Probably the coolest original comic book I've read since Monstress. Maclean does an excellent job of mixing swords and sorcery, Conan the Barbarian type concepts with bright, poppy visuals, and it works stupendously. Cannot recommend this enough.

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Unpopular opinion time! This show kinda sucked. My biggest gripe probably being the pacing. The second half of the season was a chore to watch. The second biggest problem with the show was the plot. Very mediocre, in my opinion. Now, having said that, I really enjoyed the in your face black-ness. They pulled it off very well without having it feel corny. Mike Colter was excellently cast as Cage. If not for him, the thing probably would've been unwatchable for me. Fingers crowed for Iron Fist. He's one of my favorite characters, so I really hope they don't fuck it up.

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This current volume of Low finally sold me on the series. How dare I question Rick Remender? The modern master of slow burn story telling strikes again. The plot finally moves to the surface of the earth, and Remender's imagination never ceases to amaze me. It absolutely infuriates me that I'm going to have to wait months until I see how this story progresses. Living over an hour away from the closest comic shop is really aggravating at times. My only real criticism, at this point, is Greg Tocchini's art. It's messy, disjointed and somewhat hard to follow. It's almost like he tries to hard to be surreal, but he doesn't have the focus to accomplish it. Other than that minor quibble, I'm officially hooked on Low. Bring on the fourth volume.

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The season three premiere was fun, but the whole premise of this season seems pretty gimmicky. The "Rival" was pretty fucking corny as well. I really don't want to see him as a recurring villain.

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The second volume of Trees was completely infuriating. ANSWER MY QUESTIONS WARREN ELLIS. I am impatient.

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I've recently caught up with the main Marvel Star Wars series, as well as the Vader series. Both of the series lived up to the hype of the potential of the creative teams. I'm personally a huge Jason Aaron fan. However, I just don't see the point in the existence of these series. They're retreading a lot of space that's already been touched upon, and possibly done better. I'm curious to see where else they take the Star Wars brand of comics, but I haven't been very impressed so far.

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Finally got around to see this tonight, and it wasn't anywhere near as bad as the reviews make it out to be. Does that mean it was a good movie? Absolutely not. After the character introductions, which took up about the first 30 or so minutes, it devolved into generic action movie fare. Now, what did I think about Jared Leto as Joker? He did a serviceable job on the character, but he didn't break any new ground. I'd love to see him try and carry a whole movie in his own, as I do thing Leto is a credible actor. My overarching thought in the DCCU as a whole, is that they need to some focus. BVS, and now Suicide Squad, have both felt incredibly disjointed. There's obviously a lot of cuts and editing going on after the fact in these movies, and I'm sure that damages the overall artistic vision that was originally intended.

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My goodness, this is a boring game. I’m glad I trusted my gut and avoided it for four years.

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I’m not a Becky Cloonan fan. And that’s not to say that she’s a bad writer or artist, or that she doesn’t deserve the praise she gets - she just isn’t my style. I’ve been hearing the critics ran and rave about Southern Cross for a while now, and the first trade was only about $8 on Amazon, so I figured it wasn’t that big of a risk. What a pleasant surprise it turned out to be.

I had no idea of even the premise of this book previous to purchasing it, so I went in as blind as possible. The best way to describe Southern Cross is a sicfi space opera, with a Lovecraftian horror twist. And the twist is what really got me about the book, but we’ll come back to that later.

The basic premise of the book, is that a young woman named Alex Braith boards a ship (the Southern Cross) in order to journey to Saturn’s moon, Titan, with the intent of collecting her dead sister’s remains. But as soon as her trip begins, things take a turn for the weird.

Firstly, I wanna talk about the art. Andy Belanger does some stellar line work in this book. The panel layout and character layout are both superb. There is a lot of eerie, surreal imagery in the book that Belanger, along with colorist Lee Loughridge, make jump off the page at you. The absolutely own some twisted scenes that manage to get under your skin and make your stomach turn a bit. It’s to be appreciated even more so considering the unorthodox style the combination brings to the table. Really top notch work, and oddly appropriate for the subject matter.

The first trade collects issues one through six of the series, and it’s issue four when the plot really collects steam. Cloonan begins hitting you with one “what the fuck” moment after the other. The beginning issues do a decent job of world building, and putting all of the pieces of the plot in place, but the latter issues really get to the meat of the plot. The story really hits its stride once the mystery surrounding the Southern Cross begins to unravel.

Congratulations Becky, you’ve hooked me. It sucks that it seems like there’s some sort of issue with delays when it comes to this book, but I will be patiently waiting for the next trade to come out. I’m sure the first volume will get passed around my group of friends for the foreseeable future. If you love weird ass space mysteries, you owe it to yourself to check this title out.

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Deus Ex: Human Revolution was one of my favorite games of the last console generation. It was unique, it offered a diverse game play experience and a riveting story. Herein lies the flaws of the sequel, Mankind Divided - it brings very little new to the table.

Mankind Divided feels like a DLC expansion of the original game. The story is very bland and uninspired, but the game play, sound design, graphics, etc. are all identical to the previous game. It’s not to say I didn’t enjoy my experience with MD, I was just expecting a little bit more.

In the five years between game releases, it just makes me wonder what Eidos Montreal were actually doing. Mankind Divided doesn’t even look like a current gen game. It does have some interesting rain effects, and things of that nature, but the overall same-y feel of the game is kind of off putting. The game play is identical. Animations are identical. Everything is exactly the same.

I guess, all I can really say about it is that it isn’t bad, necessarily. If you’ve never played Human Revolution, you might even have a blast playing Mankind Divided. However, it did not live up to my expectations whatsoever.

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Marvel Legends X-Men wave review

Very few times have I bought an entire build a figure wave of Marvel Legends, and the new X-Men wave is a perfect example of why I avoid this practice. The pros simply don’t outweigh the cons. Spending $150+ to acquire the build a figure, when every figure in the wave isn’t a must have for me is a hard thing for me to justify financially. However, being the obsessive X-Men fan that I am, there were only two figures I wouldn’t have purchased regardless (Cable and Ice Man), so I went ahead and took the plunge.

The build a figure itself, Juggernaut, being the highlight of the wave makes the mixed bag of figures a tiny bit easier to swallow. The figure is quite large, well sculpted and is an excellent representation of the character. The only thing I would’ve changed about the figure is the lack of hand articulation, but that is hardly a point of contempt.

When taking the whole wave of figures into consideration, you certainly have to commend Hasbro on the steps they’ve taken towards perfecting the way they sculpt the female body. However, that is conversely my number one complaint with the wave - none of the females can stand very well independently, if at all. I still haven’t been able to get Phoenix to stand on her own, to the point of frustration.

The males in the wave are mostly forgettable. Ice Man is frankly just ugly. I don’t recognize Cable’s uniform, which I find to be quite unusual. While it’s neat to see Havok’s modern look, the visual effects he comes packed with are mediocre. Having said all of that, this rendition of Wolverine may be my favorite sculpt of the character ever.

Overall, I simply could not recommend this wave of Marvel Legends to anyone but the most hardcore of collectors. I would love to see Hasbro start packing stands with their figures, even if it were a simple piece of clear plastic to help the figures stand. It would be a blessing to see them return to the Toy Biz model of packing each figure with a display base, but I know such a thing is far fetched in today’s market.

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I really just cannot wrap my head around the hatred and criticism this game has been receiving. Have we really become that jaded as a gaming community? Sure, it obviously isn’t a game for everyone, but what game is? There isn’t one. It doesn’t exist, and probably never will.

In my thirty plus hours in this game, I have had an absolute blast. The sense of wonder as you take off into space, or touch down on a bewilderingly beautiful alien landscape for the first time is absolutely breathtaking. No game that I have ever played has even come remotely close to capturing the sense of amazement that No Man’s Sky represents.

It isn’t without it’s flaws, but that goes without saying. I can already see the game play becoming boring and tedious. especially without any promise of an end game resolution of any sort. But that’s the glory of No Man’s Sky - it can be practically whatever you want it to be. I’m the type of player that gets off on linear, story driven experiences (think Uncharted), and this game still manages to wet my whistle.

The majority of the time, I have found myself resource mining so that I can better my equipment, but the game in no way pushes you towards this goal. The freedom No Man’s Sky gives you is absolutely refreshing. It never for a second holds your hand. Throughout the early, “tutorial” stages of the game, it doesn’t even tell you how to fire your gun, or access your inventory. The lack of hand holding really emphasizes the survival aspects of the game, which I really appreciated.

But, ultimately, if you don’t think the game looks appealing, there’s probably not a whole lot anyone could do to change your mind about it. However, as a gaming community, can we quit being a bunch of spoiled brats? No Man’s Sky may cost $60, but it is an indie game. It was created by about 20 people. That’s a huge technical achievement in itself. So just take it for what it is, and quit berating those of us that enjoy it.