Astonishing Tales

Link to Heroes Analysis Season One, Episode Five

Justice League 4 Cover

Captain Fish-Head is here! And he’s declared himself leader of the Justice League, based on the premise that he’s the rightful heir to the throne of Atlantis. Which convinces approximately 0.0% of the other members. Hell, GL is still of the belief that ‘Aquaman’ is just one of the sketches on Conan O’Brien, like the Masturbating Bear, or the Batman Lever. Captain Fish-Head responds by ordering a fleet of giant sharks to attack the parademons. GL is impressed by this, but Bats is less so. “Didn’t Letterman do that sketch back in the 90s?” he sneers.

Masturbating Captain Fish-Head spears a parademon through the head.

The Justice League fight on against the parademons, in their various manners. Supes, spoilt for choice as always, alternates between punching them, heat visioning them and telling them knock-knock jokes via his superventriloquism. Wonder Woman uses her bracelets to deflect bullets that the careless old army keeps firing at the Justice League. Flash runs around like an idiot. Bats lurks in the shadows being spooky. GL brushes up against Wonder Woman’s truth-enforcing magic lasso and admits to everybody that he’s only trying to save the day to impress the smokin’ hot chick with the large breasts. Captain Fish-Head, once away from the shark-infested waters, shrugs his shoulders a lot. Y’know, the usual stuff.

Of course, before any of this takes place, we’ve got whiny old Vic. No longer being burned to death, he’s now whining about the fact that, to stop the previously-mentioned flesh-roasting, his father had to turn him into a kickass superhero. “But I don’t waaa-aant to be a kickass superhero,” whines Vic. “I want to play football to perhaps a college level or, more likely, somewhere slightly below, before eventually succumbing to a career-ending knee injury and settling down to an unsatisfying life with some random chick I knocked up behind the 7-11.” He spends the rest of the issue moping about all this until the JLA suddenly fight their way over to him and slap some superheroic sense into him. Just in time for Darkseid to make a last page appearance.

MVP: Darkseid. If he’s in the comic, he’s always the MVP. Hell, halfe the time when he’s not in the comic, he’s still the MVP.

Next Issue: Geoff Johns and Jim Lee fail to meet a deadline and the book is a week late! Thrills!

Link to West Wing Season Two, Episode Thirteen

The most disappointing aspect ofRocky 3 remains the metaphorical nature of Rocky’s bid to regain the ‘eye of the tiger‘. Wrestling Hulk Hogan and boxing Mr T are one thing (technically ‘two’), but how much more would 1982 moviegoers have paid to see the Italian Stallion try to pluck the corneas out of one of the stripier denizens of the Big Cat section of the Philadelphia Zoo?

Answer: A lot. Particularly if he’d tried it with the boxing gloves still on.

Wake up, 80s Stallone, or this franchise is going nowhere.

Link to Fringe Season Four, Episode Nine

Link to Battlestar Galactica Season One, Episode Thirteen

Justice League 3 Cover

So far, the new Justice League has been naught but a sausagefest – Superman, Batman, Green Mantern, Flasher-Man (or whatever he’s called). But there’s really only so many homoerotic undertones comic fanboys will put up with before we hanker for some professionally sketched boobies in our comics. As such, this issue opens with Wonder Woman walking the streets of Washington D.C., all smokin’ hot and looking for some hellspawned monsters to slay. A passing ice cream vendor tells her she should try the Republican Debates. Bam! Political satire!

But before Diana can take up the pinko ice cream scooper’s suggestion, she’s attacked by parademons who have not yet made their political allegiance clear. The swinging parademons are everywhere, in Metropolis, attacking the previously-discussed Sausage Quartet. In Detroit, attacking the critically injured Vic Stone and his friends. And, uh, everywhere else, presumably. But we focus our attention on Vic for a few pages. Vic’s got his whine on again, moaning about how the massive burns covering the entirety of his body ‘hurts so bad’. ‘Dad, why didn’t you come watch me play football?’. ‘Dad, why don’t you respect my athletic prowess?’ ‘Dad, the surface of my body has been burnt raw by an exploding Mother Box’. Moan, moan, moan. To shut him up, Dr Stone injects Vic with nanites and a promethium skin graft. Vic continues to moan, but now in binary (whinary?), so it’s at least more tolerable to those of us who aren’t computers.

Debate moderation, Amazon-style!

By now, Wonder Woman has fought her way to Metropolis and joins in the battle with the boys. She and Supes flirt wildly. (Supes: “You’re strong.” WW: “I know.” Crackling!) Eventually the parademons start circling over the water as some kind of weird Apokoliptian shelter rises out of the ocean. That’s enough to get the attention of Captain Fish-Head, who shows up in the final panel and declares himself the leader of the Justice League. Everybody else explodes into giggle fits.

MVP: Jim Lee. Dude draws a more than passable Diana.

Next Issue: More Captain Fish-Head than you poke a flounder at.

Link to Heroes Season One, Episode Four

Probably the thing I like most about the movieSe7en is the way some wily marketers integrated the number ’7′ into the title like that. This saves precious seconds for viewers like me who can’t be bothered reading the entirety of words. Why, without that digit there, I probably would have got as far as ‘Se-’, grown bored and just guessed the rest of the title as, I dunno,Send Me Gwyneth Paltrow’s Head In A Box, Please, Mr Spacey!

Which, sure, is close enough for this film, but  led to some serious disappointment when I watchedSeabiscuit.

Link to Fringe Season Four, Episode Eight