Life is Viewtiful

Like many people may age Power Rangers was a big part of my childhood. I remember coming home and watching the show after school. I remember eating it up every time they would do cool poses and I cheered as the Megazord defeated that days bad guy. I was about 5 years old at the time, so I’m talking old school Mighty Morphing Power Rangers. As of last year, I’ve started looking up on videos of all the Power Ranger toys I’ve missed out on and I have plans to go see the power Rangers movie coming out this year (good or bad I still wanna see it).

©Capcom

I say all that to discuss why the video game Viewtiful Joe is one of my favorite video games of all time. The scrappy little beat-um-up is another part of my childhood, being one of the first and one of the hardest video games I have ever beaten. It is a truly overlooked game, created by the same people who made Okami   (from the now defunct Clover studios) and Bayonetta( from platinum studios). The game is based off the Power Rangers or to be more accurate its Japanese counterparts Super Sentai and Kamen Rider (think single Power Ranger with a focus more on vehicles rather than robots). It also takes a lot of visual cues from movies in general.

The story is pretty basic for video game standards.  You play as Joe a  surfer dude sounding mega fan of the old superhero captain blue, who has dragged his girlfriend Silvia to see a marathon of Captain Blue movies showing at his local movie theater. When a robot from the movie crashes into theater and Silvia gets kidnapped by the movie's villain, it’s up to Joe to enter the movie world to save the day. So yes, it’s a save the princess plot. That isn’t  where this game shines though there are plenty of plot twists to keep you interested in the story. Where it really shines is the gameplay.

The gameplay gives you a lot of powers to play with. Slow motion, which boosts Joe's power and allows him to dodge bullets and missiles. Fast forward, which Allows you to move at double speed and even catch enemies on fire. Close up, Which is used to deflect attacks and stunning enemies and allows Joe to punch and kick quickly. Needless to say, you need to master when and where to use these powers if you're going to get through the game.

The game was popular enough to get a few sequels and even it’s own show. Viewtiful Joe 2 letting you play as Silvia(with her power of record) and Viewtiful Joe: red hot rumble, a party game base on the show. The game also had a handheld game called Viewtiful Joe: double trouble for the original DS. The show (from what I’ve seen of it) is a slowed down version of the game's plot with extra characters. The character of Joe also shows up in the Marvel vs Capcom games as a fighter as well. It is definitely worth a play and is an overlooked gem of a series and I hope that one day it is popular enough to get a reboot or another sequel.

Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Max

I have bought I bunch of video games and movies I really need to get to at some point. In an effort to both cure my lack of not seeing a lot of movies(at the very least), I have been watching movies in my spare time. So, because of that, I have caught up with all of the Mad Max movies.  I had seen bits of some of them before, but never the whole thing. I also had heard some of the movies were bad.

I'll start with the first one, Mad Max. The only part of this movie that felt truly dated to me was the title font. It is a bit of a slow burn of a movie that is more about the atmosphere than story.The movie felt something like a day in the life of our hero Max, and it didn't feel apocalyptic as the other movies would become. It's the only movie where I actually feel like max is a crazy person pushed to the brink. You really feel the desperation of the characters, or at least I did.

Road Warrior is next( or mad max 2 if you're outside the US). This is where most people were introduced to the character and it shows. This is the movie where you have everyone wearing what looks like left-over clothes and sports equipment. I believe that this movie had the most memorable hero characters. The helicopter pilot was the most memorable and fun character to me. The leader of the "good guys" tribe was also done well along with the feral kid. The villains were a little flat and 1-deminsional to me, but the designs of the bad guys were fun and threatening. The story and ending were well written and the ending was great.

That leads us into Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. This one I feel is still a good movie, but it is the one that I feel is the black sheep of the Mad Max movies. It's not as dark as the other Mad max movies were. The first two and the most recent one were not afraid to have nudity in their movies and show blood and disfigurement. This one is much more"family friendly"  in tone and at times feels a little preachy, and downright silly. I still enjoyed it, but it honestly would have worked better as it's own movie rather than using the Mad Max name. The ending of the villain's arc, while being more interesting characters than previous villains, was bad and confusing. The movie's ending felt like it went on for a little too long too, trying to recapture the feeling of the second movie without really understanding why it worked.

© Warner Bros. Pictures
Last we have the newest one Mad Max: Fury Road. The characters in this one fell a bit more like a mixing of what everyone liked from all the previous movies. The dark gritty realism of the first, the second movie's sense of style, and the third movie's silliness and world building. This movie is the most actiony action movie to ever have moments of action.It is smart, it is a thrill, and It's one of the best movies I've seen in a while.


I think that all the movies had a certain charm to them. None of them really dipped hard into horrible movie territory for me. Most of them are movie classics.They all deserve at least one watch. It's a car ride I wouldn't mind taking again.

Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.

Ugh, Streaming

I love supporting the things I love. That usually tends to be movies and tv shows, but it can also be things like youtube and its creators and even some online comics. I also don't make a whole lot of money. So at best the support can be superficial things like watching the ads in front of a show or video. That's where my big issue comes in.

I hate streaming as it exists now. It's mostly because things like Netflix and a Hulu are completely closed off to me. I tend to watch a lot of Youtube, because youtube is free and I can usually find free internet connections just about everywhere, all I need to do is a Youtube account and I'm set, it's not the same with Netflix and Hulu, that require you to pay to subscribe to their content. Now I'm not saying that I feel entitled to this content in some way. If it ever came down to eating and a watching something I would eat every time, but I do like to watch movies and TV shows, and listen to music and read things, just like everyone else.

I hate how many streaming services and channels require you to already have a cable subscription to do anything on the website. Many of my peers are abandoning the TV entirely because simply having the internet is much, much cheaper than owning a cable subscription on top of owning a Television. There are other things like Youtube red, where I can't talk myself into watching shows that I already can watch on the website proper or at least a version of it. Netflix and Hulu and Amazon prime all have their own programming and no free version. While I an easier time thinking of reasons to subscribe( like I really wanna watch Luke Cage, Iron fist, stranger things, and a series of unfortunate events), I simply don't have the extra money to spend on them. There is some hope though.

There are a few websites doing it the right way and it's not what you think. I have been watching  Agents of Sheild on NBC, but I have missed a couple of episodes. I went to their website to see if I could maybe watch the episodes and I fan that I can, and even better I can watch them for free, after a certain amount of time, I can even catch up on it. It is by far the best model I have seen because you can pay to see new episodes right away, but if you're poor like me you can just as easily watch the shows you want to watch. Yes, you have to watch commercials, but it is completely free. It doesn't apply to all their shows, but what it does is allow me to support my favorite show and watch it as well.

 Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.

Science is More Art Than Science

I love shows that subvert expectations. It's the reason that I watch a lot of Adult Swim shows, watch a lot of comedy shows, and watch many cartoons. These kinds of shows have a tendency to take what I expect and do the opposite. Rick and Morty is the pinnacle of this kind of subversion. It holds nothing as sacred and subverts everything.

I have mixed feelings about this show. It mixes many things I enjoyed from other shows. It takes the improv nature of Home Movies, mixes in the references and depressing Sci-fi comedy of the Venture Brothers, and the deep satire of something like Morel Orel. I feel like I should love this show and it is a good show because of these reasons because it juggles them all well.  I just have a few nitpicks about the show that bothers me.

© 2013 Cartoon Network
I am not a huge fan of how they do the improv in the show. Home Movies did a good job with its improv because I felt like the characters were talking and not the actors. I have a hard time doing the same kind of separation of actor and character with Rick and Morty(especially in the episodes where they watch inter-dimensional TV). I also don't find the characters as likable as I do in something like the Venture Brothers. Everyone seems to be an asshole and not in a lovable asshole fun way like Cartman (of south park) or Archer (of Archer).It's a lot more realistic in its portrayals. I think that the satire is its biggest strength, but it can be a little heavy handed with it, outright calling aspects or tropes of the genre stupid, while using those same aspects and tropes(like in the episode lawnmower dog).

Despite these nitpicks I still enjoy the show overall. It is a whole lot of fun seeing the tropes I have come to know and love being made fun of. Rick and Morty can also have some truly thought provoking and sentimental moments, and any show that has those deserves at least a little bit of love from the viewing public. The show started as a simple parody of back to the future, but it really has turned into its own beast. I am ready to get shwifty and with the coming season three(which hopefully comes out this year).

Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.

SJWs More Like SJWhat?

    Prepare for me to be a little hyperbolic with this post because I don't think there is any other way around it when you are talking about generalities. Lately, in the world of Marvel's comic books, people have been in an uproar as the big name characters have been slowly getting replaced with new counterparts. People are in an uproar over this because they feel that these characters are simply there for the sake of diversity and to cater to those SJWs(social justice warriors or people they feel are trying to be too politically and accepting of everyone in an unrealistic and unrelatable way). They feel like they are losing their favorite characters and some long time fans are jumping the ship because of this. I can't really say that I agree.

I admit I don't really read a whole lot of comics, but I do love to watch and read about a lot of comic history. I really don't say that I agree with this because most comic book superheroes are power fantasies for people who don't really have a lot of power, to begin with. Superman is the immigrant who moves to the big cities and cleans up the town with his work.  Captain America can be seen as the ultimate expression of growing old and not understanding the world anymore.  Iron man can be seen as money not solving all our problems, as he as had problems with alcoholism. The hulk has dealt with abuse as a kid. Spiderman deals with a lot of the problems young adults face, like juggling a social life, getting money, drug abuse, and just dealing with the day to day problems.

They are social justice warriors and that what makes them relatable. The X-men are one of the biggest examples of this. Professor X and Magneto are based on  Martian Luther King and  Malcolm X respectively. The Xmen themselves are a stand in for any marginalized or a put-down group of people. They live in a world where people don't accept them and it is their literal mission to change that world-view.You can even see this in the movies as there are allusions to the struggles of both homosexual people and the struggles of civil rights groups in the 60s and 70s.

The only legitimate backlash I've actually seen is that their worries that if the sales tank when some of their old fans start to leave and then marvel will flip the other way and completely abandon many of the diverse characters, they are just negating interest in their books both because of this.While I could see that kind of thing happening, I don't think that is gonna be a big of an issue as people think. Comics do that all the time, comics continually add characters and then have massive events to kill off the characters they don't sell or aren't popular. I can only see that happening again. This also ignores the movies, that have versions of those original characters (at least for now) and where most of these companies are making their money at the moment.

I don't think people are fighting against social justice warriors, and I think that term is a little undescriptive of what people are actually having issues with. The aren't against social justice, they are against people they don't feel are genuine and are fake people who simply want to be on the moral or ethical high ground or in essence trying to decry privilege by giving themselves a different form of privilege. Now I think that is a bit of an overgeneralization because at the same time I don't feel like its coming from a place of hate or they are trying to put themselves above others, I think it's the opposite.  In this case, I feel that what it is is a massive understanding between the two groups of people. People who feel that everyone is equally oppressed and people who feel they aren't, but want to protect those who are.  I don't really feel that there is a clear-cut answer on how to deal with that, but what I would at lease like to see is more accurate descriptions of what people are actually having issues with.


Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.

Everybody Digs Giant Robots

   I am a big fan of giant robots. As such there are few shows I haven't at least watched that include a giant robot. Whether it be Evangelion, Gundam, Robotech, or Power Rangers/Super Sentai, I have seen them all and can tell you the difference between 'em. Pacific Rim is even one of my favorite movies of all time, and I had a smile on my face as through the whole movie, because it was exactly what I wanted, Fun characters and even more fun giant robot fights. I even collected transformers and power ranger toys growing up.

    My favorite mecha( or giant robot) show is Megas XLR. It was a cartoon network show that acted as a love letter parody to the entire genre. It wasn't only aimed at mecha and mixed in comic and anime parodies based on marvel comic characters like Modok and a team based around sailor moon. The show only really lasted two seasons getting canceled as cartoon network's management changed and it was decided to write off the show as a failure for tax credit purposes. This means there can never be any more of the show, which honestly really depresses me as a fan of it.

    The story of Megas starts in the far future, the humans are nearly on the verge of being conquered by the Glorft. Our last hope is a human named Kiva and a robot she took from them, the Megas. When she attempts to travel back in time, she is separated from the robot, along with the Glorft commander that went back with her, and the Megas got sent to a different time. When it gets discovered by the mechanical genius(, but pretty dense in other areas) Coop, he decides to take the broken robot and rebuild it into one massive hot rod of a robot. It even has a car for a head.

                                                      © Cartoon Network.
   That's when this show really jumps into its strong suit, it's crazy over the top action. Coop throughs everything out to beat the bad guy lasers, guns, swords, other enemies. If you can think of a way to beat a bad guy with a giant robot, Coop has done it.  He has some great bad guys like the Glorft commander, a war-loving general with an honorable side, Magnanimous, a literal floating head, who owns an intergalactic wrestling federation, and even an alternate dimension version of Coop. You also had Jamie, Coop's money and girl loving sidekick, voiced by the ever interesting steven bloom.

The thing that saddens me the most about this show?  It's that I can't buy anything legally connected to the show. I can write to Cartoon Network and ask them for a new show like it, but other then something like a massive twitter campaign there is really no way to watch this show legally. I implore you to track down this show and watch it. It is one of the finest examples of the genre. Needless to say, I really dug this giant robot.

Stay nerdy my beautiful friends. 

Nearly 10 Years and I Still Enjoy World of Warcraft

I am a pretty big gamer and I tend to play a good number of RPGS(role playing games). As such I love to get at least ankle deep in a games story and get me some phat loots and collect a shiny new robe for my character.  I usually go for the magic user characters and from there I typically like to pick either non-human race or the "smart" race or both. So, when that came to pick a character in warcraft I picked a gnome mage. That was almost 10 years at this point and I haven't looked back.

         

Before I started, I had been hearing from friends and family how awesome the game was. For the longest time, I didn't have a computer good enough to run it, even on low settings.Eventually, I got a laptop for school and was able to officially start the game. The big nosed guy above in the weird hat is my main character.  He's the character I started out with back in the good old days of 2008. 

The game has significantly changed since those days it has lost and gained features, I have gained friends(and a girlfriend) and lost them(and her) over the game, and both good and bad expansions to the game have come and gone too. I started playing during the third expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, and the game is now on its sixth expansion, Legion, with no end in sight. Warcraft has a few spin-offs( World of Warcraft being a spin-off itself of the Warcraft RTS(real time strategy) series) Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is the first one and is an online collectible card game based on characters from the Warcraft universe and even some original ones made especially for the game. Heroes of the Storm is more of an indirect spin-off based around all of Blizzard's properties(the company who owns Warcraft). 

The game is a pretty big investment of both time and money. On top of the starter pack(wich includes all of the game minus the latest expansion, you need to buy the latest expansion, and pay for the 15 dollar subscription fee. If you can get to max level and can make enough in-game currency ou will be able to play the game for free, but that can mean a pretty big time investment. This shouldn't scare you, because the game rewards you for to bring friends into the game with free time and in games rewards like vehicles and pets. With the amount of time the game has been out you will not be in need of things to do in game, there are tons of things to collect, quest and story to experience, and mechanics to master so go save the world.... of warcraft.                

   Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.   

The Greatest Show That NO One Talks About

I know you're all annoyed with me reviewing just adult swim shows at this point, but I got just one more to get out of my system. It is what I consider to be one of the best-written shows on tv, and that is The Venture Brothers. Ever since it's first airing I have been watching this show (yeah, yeah I know I sound like a hipster, but its true). I even own all the seasons on DVD and have started to watch the commentary (something that I rarely do for any kind of movie or show). I honestly believe it is the most under-rated show on Adult Swim.

    © 2002 Cartoon Network

A show ment as a satire of nerd culture wrapped in a family that is a mixture of Johnny Quest and the Hardy Boys, this show has everything you would want from a nerdy TV show.  It has a 60's retro-futuristic aesthetic with ton's of referential humor and just generally funny moments anyone could laugh at. It mixes action and comedy flawlessly and is still a very adult show without falling into the grimdark edge lord route where it feels like their trying to hard to be cool.

The show has been running for 6 seasons with a 7th coming down the line with specials airing in between the main seasons. The creators Jackson Publick (also known as Christopher McCulloch) and Doc Hammer are just as interesting to watch as the show. The show also recruits the talents of Ben Edlund as well( known for his work on Supernatural, Firefly, and every incarnation of The Tick on TV). Needless to say, if you like any of those shows, you should be watching this.

The story is a strong one with fun characters and interesting settings. Like Johnny Quest, the family sometimes travels all over the world getting into all sorts of misadventures. The characters have complex relationships and are written as if their real people, even though they have to deal with super spies, robots, and magic users. Like many Adult swim shows, the show takes a little while to get into ,but is worth it if you can get through the first season which can be a little slow in places. It does an excellent job of introducing the characters and setting up the later seasons, which are where the show get better. This show is like a wine it gets better with time.

Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.

Review Time: Moral Orel

I have a  love hate relationship with religion myself. I don't believe that there is a bad religion, just bad people. That it's not the fault of any religion, it's the fault of the people who use that religion to condone their own actions.  There aren't really many shows that understand that and really dive into why people turn to religion in the first place or why people use religion for their needs.  One of the only few shows that I have seen tackle this and do it in a good way is Adult swim's Morel Orel.

© 2005 Cartoon Network

I wIll give it to you straight, when I first saw this show I didn't like it. It was every joke from family guy and Southpark about why religion sucks. "It doesn't make sense" and " It contradicts itself" and  "only idiots believe in it" and every other argument people come up for why they have an issue with religion, but by the end of the show I had completely changed my mind about it. In fact it may be one of the best shows that has ever come out of the network. It all comes down to characterisation and writing.

Morel orel is about the Morel Paragon that is Orel Puppington. A good, but naive kid who just wants to do what is right and be a good christian. Unfortunately for Orel, there are almost no moral characters in his hometown of  Moralton, Statesilvanya. The show is a dark comedy for the first couple of seasons before turning into a unpleasant and harsh drama in the third. The first two seasons usually begin with Orel learning some lesson and then taking that lesson to some absurd degree like believing that his brother maybe the second coming of Jesus or that wasting his fluids will anger God and ending with him getting a spanking in his father's study learning an equally absurd wrong lesson. This all changes with the season two finale where Orel's world view comes crashing down around him after a bitter fight with his father.

The season two finale and the third seasons are what drew me into the show. The comedy is gone and all that is left is people of the town and their problems, Things like rape, abuse, racism, issues with sexuality, and loss of innocence are all explored in the show. I'm not sugar coating it when I say this show goes into some really dark and uncomfortable territory and gets a little too real. Needless to say I believe that the show is worth watching exactly for that reason, it challenges you as the audience.

It manages to give almost all of the characters in town backstory that makes sense and fits with their characterization. It takes very two dimensional characters and gives them  an extreme amount of depth in a short of amount of time. They become so much more human and  real (at least for me) by the end of the show. The first two season build these character up only to have them torn down in the third. Some of them have happy endings, some of them don't like in real life.

I don't want to spoil the show for anyone who hasn't seen it ( at least not in a major way). I suggest watching this one from the beginning because everything the first two seasons sets up pays off (for the most part) in the last season. There are a few plot threads left unexplored, but the show doesn't lose anything because of that. Like many great shows it was canceled before its time, but it feels complete unlike firefly(for example). It is an uncomfortable ride from start to finish, but a good one that I would visit again and again.

Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.  

What Makes a Nerd

I think we have all asked ourselves that at on point or another. I would define it as someone who has a deep love of something from pop culture.  You like sports a lot? you are a sports nerd/jock. You like Star Trek a lot? You are a Trekkie/trekker( I don't know if that's the right spelling, also they may denote how much of a trek fan you are, but that just splitting hairs.)

It isn't new phenomena either. It's been around for as long as people have had culture. In the Roman empire you had riots that would break out if certain teams would lose at the coliseum. Fast forward a bit to the 1800s and you have Sherlock Holmes and his sherlockians. Moving forward a bit more you have the birth of the word "nerd" by Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo.

©Penguin Random House Company

Not the best representation ever, but this is about the time you get the stereotypical look people associate with the modern of a nerd. The white shirt, pocket protector kid with glasses and pants pulled up way to high. It's also around this time you see science fiction really explode with the twilight zone, moves based on the space race(like the original "The Day the Earth Stood Still"), and the UFO craze that went on about that time thanks to said space race and Roswell. The 60s see the explosions of modern comic books with heroes with modern problems. Then things start to pick up again in the 70s and 80s with many of the nostalgic nerdy properties you see people still into today (Blade Runner, Star Wars, Terminator, etc) and the Birth and fall of video games. The 90s saw the fall of comic books, the rebirth of the video game industry, and the explosion of anime in the west. Then the 2000s saw the explosions of video games, superhero movies, and all the media dedicated to what nerds knew all along.

 That the feeling of being nerdy over stuff is awesome! I  give that quick nerdy history lesson to say all that to say that being nerdy and geeking over things is normal and is nothing new. It's a way of showing you are passionate in anything that interests yourself. A way to escape your humdrum life for a bit and escape into a fantasy. It's never been an exclusive club, though most nerd I know that treat it as such are basically terrified of being made into a victim of bullying or being made a fool of.  I feel that an understandable, except if the try to lash out at someone who is on their side or trying to have a healthy discussion on the topic of within their interests.( that happens way too much). In the end though being nerdy is about coming together and sharing your passion and identifying yourself with that passion. So...

Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.

Why I Stopped Caring and Love Art In Cartoons

I am a huge fan of animation There are so many different styles of animation from all over the world and I don't just mean anime( you crazy straw man person!). So many, in fact, that it would be really hard to  really go into every style of animation out there(they're like endless!!), Needless to say, It really saddens me when I hear things like "this animation sucks" or "this animation is too simple." The cartoons I usually hear this with is cartoons like Adventure Time or China, IL. Both of these are cartoons with super simple animation styles associated with them.

Owned by Cartoon Network

Owned by Adult Swim

As you can see above both these shows have a really simple style to them. I believe that that is a deliberate choice by the creators of the show. Both of these shows have a very surreal nature to them. The simple art style lends itself to the sort of crazy... stuff the characters do or get into. like in adventure time where you have demons, giant robots, ancient twin headed war elephants and in China, IL where you have building sized babies that later grow into men, dinosaur steroids, sudden transformations into animals because a character gained tenure at the college they work at, my point is both shows lend themselves crazy surreal atmosphere the shows have created for themselves. The simpleness of the design allows them to go crazy with the amount content and action they have on screen.

It also allows us as the audience to more easily sympathize with the characters. To paraphrase Scott Mccloud in is book Understanding Comics artists can give more meaning to characters by stripping away their details. In other words, you as the audience project more of yourself more in that role than the characters on the page or in this case screen. I also see the simpleness of the designs as a way to make it easier for the creation of fan art for the characters. Given a certain amount of time I believe I could draw the characters you see above and I'm not that great of an artist. What that does though is to make it easier for fans to create their own creations and keep interest going in the show especially with lulls between seasons.

This isn't to say the art can't get complicated because in both shows there are times when the show goes into a lot of detail with their detail. This can be to emphasize something is gross, evil, to create a sense of wonder or make something unsettling. Both shows have really fluid movement as well, and while it might not always be realistic movement it rarely ever comes off as unrealistic, weird, or just plain bad. Both these shows tend to focus on story and character dynamics as well. You are likely to see to see characters talk about how awesome the last movie they saw was or what's up with their friend who's acting weird. In both cases, it never seems out of place or out of character for the characters in the show.

My penultimate point of what I'm trying to say is that making a deliberate choice to make your simple animation style doesn't really make it bad or less of a show. It's just the surface level, the superficial level, that you are looking at if you think that is true. I personally believe that no bad art exists and at the end of the day it just comes down to taste. There are lazy animators out there, though.

Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.

The Problem With Batman versus Superman and the DCEU

Hello and welcome to my modest little blog where I will be discussing my what I love, what I hate, and the vast space between it, that fills my general opinion on things. Now I know by this point everyone and their grandma discussed Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. I can only add my opinion to the mix. I believe that the problem with BvS started with the Man of Steel movie. Which is an ok movie, but I feel that if you removed what superhero elements the movie has you wouldn't lose much in terms of story.  It would become the story of a semi-interesting immigrant or a slightly different version of the 1970's Hulk TV show where he doesn't turn into a green Lou Ferrigno.

The problem with Man of Seel is that it has story elements that don't make sense when you look at it from a story perspective. The father teaches him that he's special and will be important someday, but neglects to tell him when that someday might be. He goes into a tornado to save the family dog and then won't allow Clark to save him, why? Pets are great, but not worth being literally ripped apart over. I also have issues with Lois Lane finding Clark as fast as she does(especially for someone who is traveling all over the USA with fake names and working odd jobs). We even have issues with the villains. They have space travel, why terraform just earth. Why take all of your ships there(because there is no space faring ships in BvS)?It makes no sense for battle hardened soldiers. How do the bad guys have such an easy time acclimating to their new powers? My point is the story raises far too many questions and doesn't give you enough to latch onto to fill in those gaps.

I also feel that Zack Snyder was a poor choice of director to helm these films. He is great with visuals. 300, Watchmen, and Sucker Punch are great visual movies, but they have major issues linking scenes together. I'll admit I even believed the hype that Snyder was the greatest comic book director ever. 300 and Watchmen didn't have as many issues because the story was translated from an already existing work. He's better at translating someone else's story that coming up with his own.

The movie Man of Steel never really felt like a jumping off point the same way Iron Man did. Those movies were already somewhat planned out before Iron Man even came out. We don't even know if there are any other superheroes in the first one, Marvel at least established there was a bigger world outside the millionaire playboy philanthropist(and now PTSD sufferer divorcee). BvS then became the jumping off point and established its world through a poorly thought out video slide show shoe-horned into the middle of the movie. It literally magnifies all the problems of Man of Steel with inconsistent characters, weak villains, and even weaker story.

All those issues infected Suicide squad as Warner Brothers scrambled to make a movie that wasn't as dark as the critical failure that was BvS. It's almost ironic that the movie has a neon-lit-city-at-night gangster aesthetic because the movie tries to juggle a fun happy story with the same dark subject matter. It tries so hard to be DC's answer to Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. While I personally still enjoyed the film, and it does give me hope for Wonder Woman(because I am a sucker for superhero movies and have been wanting a Wonder woman movie since superhero movies became the obsession of Hollywood), It still is the weaker movie. It still has issues shoving its own universe into the Movie and it almost seems to be dragging it down instead of making it soar to greater heights like the avengers did.

Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.