Happy 37th Birthday to myself!

This year's task, to see if I can conquer five pounds of bear-shaped pineapple gummi.
Ooof...

Too late update: Also, Hyla did up a whole thing for me, aww, shucks. :)

Read More......

Grand Unification Theory (Part 2.5)

Soo, yeah, like last time, another leftover piece....

From the "transporter/transwarp", post...

Of course..."how in the hell could something beam itself?", you may ask.

I mean, once it starts taking itself apart, then it no longer exists for it to put itself back together.
Hell, it would probably break, or blow up, half way through even completing the self disintegration.

Well...I actually came up with a techno-bullshit way, but that's for another entry.
Suffice it so say...it involves subspace. ;)

Okay, pretty easy actually.

First, mentally combine a transporter with a time-warp.

Imagine you're beamed externally from another source, then, you arrive at your destination, then, you send a beam back in time to your old coordinates to beam yourself, and that's how you got there.

You were the external someone beaming you.

Bam, there you go, no self-disassembling in midstream required.

You were solid, and able to perform the beaming.

Now, stack on extra dimensions, so the whole time-loop occurs at once within one beam.

And, the extra dimensions are available, transporters use subspace, and subspace has hyper-time properties.

Bada-bing, couldn't be simpler.

Or, an even easier way to visualize it, if a transporer beam is actually an unstable wormhole, then, imagine the emergency transporter is stable, and there's no disintegration/re-integration necessary.

It all just happens.

As for beaming with something as little as Data's emergency transporter, easy, compress the matter stream.

A star can become a blackhole, the universe used to be the size of a proton, gotta figure you can squeeze a person down to the size of an oyster cracker.

Should be a snap with Trek-tech.

And, once you've got the principle for self-beaming, that's the explanation for Q, and wizard-poofing, and Nightcrawler-bamfing, and every other thing.

Aaaand, that's that.

Now, to retro-link this to part 2.

Read More......

Superhero Flicks, Part 2.5: Batman (Update: DKR)

Updated from here.

Goddamn....8 months (from the last review) I've waited for this.

Worth it though, fucking WOW.

Hmm, can't really compare it to Avengers, they're apples and oranges.

They're both the best at what they do.
They cover different ends of the comic book movie spectrum.

Okay, as with Avengers, here's my non-spoiler observations.

• Great performances by everyone. Every minor little role had a great actor doing it. 
• Tom Hardy's Bane is fucking awesome, IMHO, right up there with the Heath Ledger Joker. Very menacing.
• In fact, I think Bane makes a better counterpart to Joker than Penguin. Screw Penguin.
• Anne Hathaway's Catwoman is great. Possibly the best cinematic one yet.
• As you've probably heard, lots of callbacks to the first two, and everything ties up in a nice little bow with the first one.
• A LOT of critics and bloggers are saying "not as good as DK". Ssss...I dunno, I think I might like it a teensy bit better... I think those reviewers just can't let go of Heath Ledger. 
• Yep, this is the end all right. 

The overall...

Magnificent.
This summer has been a gift, movies wise.

Now, everyone is interested to see where Batman goes from here.
A reboot, for sure...
But, will they establish a new Batman right away?
Go right to "World's Finest", and/or "Justice League"?
It's all up in the air.

Oh...crap, I guess I gotta address the elephant in the room that is/was the Colorado shooting.
Well...you've heard it all, and said it all amongst yourselves.

The theater I went to was pretty well packed, so...no one's backing down, and being all scared.
Good.
Makes me almost have faith in people.

Um...that's it, go see it.

Now, to retro-link this to the old Batman review.

Read More......

Grand Unification Theory (Part 1.5)

Okay, guess there's not much more left, but to go back, and get leftover pieces...

All right, so in the "subspace", entry, I said....

So "below space", would conceivably be minus some of those.
Let's call it "dimension zero".

What would that look like?

Well, taking away time gets a bit hinky, so, let's save it for later.

Well, later is now.
Thought it might emerge in other posts, and it didn't, so, here it is.

It's basically this...

Removing time ends up being the same as warp 10 anyway, since, if everything happens at once, part of that everywhen, is when someone somwhere hits warp 10, so, you're at warp 10, and, it's also during the big bang, when everywhere is in the same place, like warp 10 anyway.

And, in "regular", warp 10, you'd also be in everywhen, because part of everywhere, is all the timewarps everywhere, and one of those has to be a timeless void.

But, every timewarp together would add up to a timeless void anyway.

That's the sort of weirdness you get when you play with infinities.

So, warp 10 is also the ultimate timewarp, and subspace is timeless, and has hypertime properties.
Hence wormholes being able to cross into "mirror universes".


Aaaand, that's that, I guess, time to retro-link that back to part 1.

Read More......

First happy customer for Book 2!

Enjoy, little feller!


Read More......

Grand Unification Theory (Part 8)

Damn, two weeks I let these get away from me this time...

I gotta just hurry up, and get these the fuck over with...

So, last time, hammered out the overall outline of the timeline of fiction-land.

So, here's the general history of fiction-land...


Event one-

The birth of the universe spawns the life essences known as Primus, and Unicron.
The siblings immediately begin to spat.

Somehow, also, Galactus is there.


Kajillion BC-

Second generation stars, and planets begin to form, Primus and Unicron possess, and Genesis-wave, and become the planets Unicron, and Cybertron.

Cybertron/Primus spawns a form of cybernetic life that reproduces by budding, which would become known as The Swarm.
The Swarm vacates Cybertron, second pass at Cybertronian life gives rise to The Quintessons, who later create The Transformers.

Quintessons somehow are involved with enhancing Unicron, and leading to his wave of planetary destruction.
In later accounts, they will mistakenly remember creating him from scratch for some reason.

Primus's spark becomes The Allspark, also known as The Matrix, the wellspring of lifeforce for all Transformers.

It's not known how, or by whom, but an object is constructed as a conduit of Matrix/Allspark energies, and becomes variously known as The Matrix, The Matrix Of Leadership, and The Creation Matrix.
This becomes a weapon against Unicron.

This object would be passed from Autobot leader, to Autobot leader, and would retain their memories, and thus retain a historical archive of the history of the Transformers race.

A glitch in this record causes a different record of the origins of Cybertron.

Sometime in this vast ocean of history, The Old Ones evolve/are born.
They give rise to Deadites, Dream Demons, etc, etc.


Half-a-kajillion BC-

The race that would become known as The Engineers seeds planet Earth with life.

The race that would become known as The Preservers...also seeds Earth with life.

(From TNG's "the chase", and the implications of TOS's "the paradise syndrome")

(Since there was already grass and stuff on primeval Earth in "Prometheus", I'm going with that Preservers beat Engineers there, and probably even seeded the Engineer's planet)

The Vok, an evolutionary descendant of The Swarm, infused with Matrix energies, timewarped from the future, plays an unknown role in human evolution.

(The implication seems to me...if humans are Vok influenced, then, humans have sparks, sparks are souls, The Allspark is Heaven, Primus is God, Unicron is Satan, and Autobots and Decepticons are demons and angels)


3 million BC-

The Ark spacecraft crash lands on Earth. The Autobots and Decepticons on board go into an internally imposed stasis.

Maximals and Predacons timewarped from the future crash land on Earth, take on animal forms, discover Vok technology, The Ark, make it back to the future.


150,000 BC-

The Galactica survivors arrive on Earth, further influence human evolution.

(Due to Primus/Vok/Maximals, the cycle of robots, biology, robots, biology had already been running well ahead of the whole Galactica-verse dealie, and indeed, Galactica-verse could be an amnesiac sliver off of that)

(And, if this is so, then, Primus is the long sought after "God", of the Cylon religion)


27 BC- 

Romans.


35 AD-

Space-Jesus nailed to a stick, Engineers get pissed, get ready to genocide the human race.
Their plan fucks up a bit.


36 AD to the 1930's-

Ancient legends.

Classical literature. (see League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen)

The Golden age.


1940's-

More golden age, and WWII.


1950's to 1970-

The Silver Age.


1976-1982-

First superhero inter-company crossovers.

"The Evil Dead", occurs.

(Theoretically, given that ED2 immediately follows, and AOD is seemingly but a few days after Ash makes it back home, and to S-Mart, the whole trilogy happens here)

1984-

Volcano eruption revives The Autobots and Decepticons in The Ark, Transformers "Generation One", begins.

Spider-man meets The Transformers.

The events of "The Terminator", occur.

"A Nightmare On Elm Street", occurs.


1985-1999-

Predator films, T2 occur.

Various superhero crossovers with Terminator, Predator, and Aliens.

The rest of the "A Nightmare On Elm Street", series.

The accounts of "Evil Dead 2", and "Army Of Darkness", revealed.


2000's-

More superhero/monster crossovers.

The events of T3, opening scenes of T4.

"Sarah Conner Chronicles", creates an alternate timeline.

"Freddy vs. Jason", occurs.

AVP duology.

The events of "Transformers The Movie", occur, Unicron destroyed by The Matrix. (2005)

"Superman and Batman vs Aliens and Predator".

Events of "Sarah Conner Chronicles", occur.

"Freddy Vs. Jason vs. Ash".


2010's-

"Predators".

Due to the actions of Omni Consumer Products, Cyberdine Systems, and Weyland Utani, the human, robot, human cycle begins repeating again on Earth.
Cyborgs and androids proliferate.


2020's-2090's-

WWIII, rebuilding years, crypto-Terminators disappear among the human populace.

Warp/hyperdrive invented. ("ST: First Contact")

"Prometheus".


22nd century-

"Alien".

"Enterprise".

"Aliens", "Alien 3".

Alien vs Predator (comics)


23rd century-

"Star Trek" (TOS, TAS, movies 1-6, opening of "Generations")


24th century-

"Star Trek" (modern era, TNG, DS9, VOY, movies 7-10)

Human/robot cycle continues, Soong-type androids invented.
Soong-androids/sentient holograms gain human rights.


25th century-

Beast Wars (?)
Beast Machines (?)

Human/robot cycle continues in the form of Cybertronian reformat, rebirthing all Transformer sparks as organoids with Earth DNA as the template.


26th century-

"Alien Resurrection".

"Aliens vs. Predator vs. Terminator".


29th century-

VOY- "Relativity".

Temporal Cold War shenanigans.


100th century, and beyond-

Human/robot cycle culminates in The Butlerian Jihad.

"Dune" cycle, various Dr. Who episodes, heat death of the universe.

(In some timelines, a big-crunch, and rebirth. In one such universe, Galactus poops himself through the time-barrier).


Read More......

Harry volume 2 updates.

Added another sidebar graphic link for the new book, added link to Volume 2 and the Volume1 recap in the Harry Hembock section.

Read More......

The Continued Adventures Of Harry Hembock (Book 2!)

Well, that first one went pretty well, so....here's another one!

And, as mentioned previously, it's also the 1 month anniversary of the first release!

So, let's look back on that magical month again....

The Harry Hembock Volume 1 Saga Collection.

And now, let's get to Volume 2.

So, have a linky!

Order it!

Theeere, now it's officially released. :D

So, here's what you'll get this time.

• Sicker/weirder/funnier episodes.
• Cheaper price.
• 2 special episodes in color.
• The excitement of having in your possession, the first Harry Hembock sequel!

Enjoy!
:)

Read More......

Alas, and alack, WMTW: News 8 update.

Remember when they died?

Well, I guess they're back

And they brought Dr. Phil with them, of course.
*Grumble*

Wheell....there are supposed to be a bunch of Marvel superheroes shows coming out, and they're all on ABC because of Disney owning both things.

Man, they'd better not suck.
They'd better be the best things ever for me to have to put up with AB-fucking-C.


Read More......

Creepy cult propaganda for parents of children.

Yes, crush their dreams early on.....



Children, if your parents have, or are doing this to you, you're in a cult.

Run away from home.
Get the hell out of there.
You have Unca' Diacanu's permission.

You're better off being a hobo or a carnie than the grisly fate that awaits you.
That being, a clone of your creepy brainwashed parents.

Now, leave the room so I can do some grownup talk...

As for you, creepy brainwashing cult, fuck you, and the horse you rode in on.

And fuck your doornockers, and fuck your creepy newsletter where all the criminals and demon-possessed are black people.

*Grumble* I went to elementary school with a kid on my bus who's parents wouldn't let him have Transformers, or He-Man, or any of that.

Poor kid acted like live-action Butters.

The bus driver told me and my pals "his parents are religious", but wouldn't disclose the religion, like it was some fucking state secret.

Well, now I fucking know.
Hope that kid rebelled something fierce in his teens.

So, you "truth seekers", out there wanting to pick one of these nightmare cults for yourselves, leave out the Jehovah's Witnesses, cuz...they're totally anti-fun.

Shit, at least the startup-cults run by a guy out of the back of a windowless van allow indiscriminate premarital fucking.

Read More......

Damn, Marvel...

...you're hemorrhaging movies!!!

So, on top of Iron Man 3, Thor 2, and Cap 2,....they made official...

...and...

...and here's concept art for GOTG.

Yes, keeds, that's Rocket Raccoon in front of the green chick.

I mentioned him in the Vidya Games review as the possible inspiration for Bucky O'Hare, and Starfox.
Well, no longer is he going to be an obscure character in a back-issues box in a comic shop, he's gonna be up there on the big screen!

...where's my Ambush Bug movie, DC? B-(

Oh, and in Iron Man 3 news, Ben Kingsley is The Mandarin. :D

Read More......

In other Avengers news...

...here's the Iron Man 3 suit.

Okay, it looks pretty good when you're right up on it like this.....

...but backed away at all, the gold turns light brown, the red turns dark brown, and he looks like cockroach man.

Eh...gonna take some getting used to....

Read More......

More stuff to look forward to.

Way back in January, 2010, I was painfully anticipating all the future Avengers-verse flicks.

Was battling depression, and hopelessness, and thus doing that whole positive series to pick myself up.
This was one of the things I had to hold on to.

Whell....been 2 years, and they all came out, and were fucking great! (Here, and here)

So, the world is finally good again, and life finally means something.
And, even if it it wasn't, and didn't, there's a fresh batch coming up the pike to take another go-round.

Yep, the next trio of Avengers-flicks have set dates, and have titles, and logos.
Enjoy.

Read More......

The Harry Hembock Volume 1 Saga Collection.

Ahh, it's already one for the scrapbook all right....

• Harry Hembock hair on...dudes?? (a jokey hinting prelude)
• Harry Hembock Classics (The book!) (the release!)
• Another Harry milestone (sidebar link)
• My first satisfied customer!! (Hyla)
• A change a long time coming...(I'm an author!)
• My second customer! (Uncle Albert)
• Another happy customer! (Lanzman)
• Fiiiiinally! (my own copy)

Read More......

Fiiiiinally!

Read More......

Oh, and....

...a week from today, volume 2.

Stay tuned....


Read More......

Grand Unification Theory (Part 7)

Dammit, almost another week since the last one.

Eh, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I didn't wanna double-up on posts, but even with that excuse, I shoulda done it Thursday.

I had the list pounded out in under 20 minutes, but...I dunno, wanted to let it stew an extra day to make sure I didn't miss anything important.

Coulda done it though.
Just lazy.

So...right, weaving all these bits and bobs into a cohesive timeline....

Or...The History Of Fiction.

Well, let's start with....Alien franchise.

Prometheus,  starts in some whatever-kajillion-years-BC, jumps ahead to 2089, and then the main action happens in 2093.

Aliens, Ripley was in stasis for 50 years, and a personnel file from a deleted scene shows the date as 2179.

So, that puts the date of Alien as 2129, and puts a 36 year gap between Prometheus, and Alien.

A gap which will no doubt be tightened up a bit by the Prometheus sequel.

Alien 3...we never get much of a sense for how long Ripley was frozen the second time...but it couldn't have taken long for the egg to hatch, so, I'll put it within the same year.

Then, Alien Resurrection, we jump ahead 400 years.

So, 2579.
The described datings probably aren't exact anyway.
People aren't mathematically precise in everyday conversation, they always round off.

But, it's close enough for my purposes.

Alien vs Predator vs Terminator I'm preeetty sure is 3 years after Resurrection, so, 2582.

That gives a nice baseline skeleton for us to build off of.

Throw in the AVP films, they happen in "present day", of whenever they came out, so...AVP1 came out in 2004, buuut, AVP 2 picks up immediately after, even though it came out in '07, so...that's '04 too.

But, due to those, the Predators splice in, and they're likewise within the years they came out, so, 1987, 1990, and 2010, for those.

And...due to AVPVT, the Terminators splice in..and those get a bit trickier...

For sure, T1 is 1984.

T2 came out in '91....but Eddie Furlong looks 13, no way John Conner would be that old by '91, but no way '97 would look like '91, and '97 was supposed to be when Judgement Day happens, so...I split the difference, and have that despite his looks, Furlong was playing 10, and it was '94.

T3 happens in '03, and there's no problems there.

T4, the prelude starts in '03, then the main action happens in 2018.

And, the future seen in T1, T2, and T3 is 2029.
The producers wanna give themselves elbow room for sequels with Bale-Conner, I guess.

But, all of that becomes moot from our perspective, because "Sarah Conner Chronicles", created an altered timeline.

Which is handy, cuz there's no other fucking way the AVP films, and a bunch of other stuff could fit in.

Now, since we're into Terminator-ville, Robocop fought the Terminators, and...Robocop gets even trickier....

A future date was never nailed down for Robocop.
Just a generic "sometime in the future", type future.

We know it's far enough in the future, that advanced cybernetics become possible, but only just, cuz Robo is slow, and clunky, and...it's also not so far in the future that the 80's look hasn't gone away.

And, we know from witnessing the real future, that 80's stuff has cycled back a couple times, and is once again in full bloom.

I gotta go with an alternate 2010's.
90's would've been way too soon, as it came out in '87.
2000's, still too soon, 2010's, just about right.
2020's, then you get into flying cars, and Bladerunner shit.

So, let's put Robocop 1 at 2010.
Robocop 2...looks like some stuff has happened, probably a couple years later, 2012.
Heh, now.
Robocop 3, a couple more years for that situation to decay, 2014.
So...Robocop vs Terminator, follows characters and events from 3, also written by Frank Miller, but, the whole "rehab", officer situation has magically gone away, so, another couple years to 2016.

Then, Robocop: Prime Directives, that's obviously sometime after 3, and press materials half-jokingly referenced RVT, so, another couple years, 2018.

This way, the first animated series, and the Marvel comics can cram in between 1-2, the live-action TV show can cram in between 2-3, and the (fairly recent) Frank Miller comics can cram in between 3 and RVT.

And, that fills out just right, and then the overall 8 years from R1 to RPD gives time for Murphy's son to grow up as seen in that story.

And, it butts right up against the T4 future.
Nice symmetry there.

Y'know...I actually think Robocop could be built now.
Just no one has the balls to try it.
We've got guys with artificial legs winning races, artificial hands are amazing now, and scientists have extracted the first images from the visual cortex with an MRI.
And we've already got RC drones fighting our shadow wars.
Just put the pieces together.

Anyway, T2 delayed Judgment Day from 1997 to 2003.
The Sarah Conner Chronicles (TSCC) delayed things to...we don't quite know when, but things were safe in their '07-08, and the AVP films were allowed to occur, ditto Predators, and the Robocops.

Robocop delayed the 2016 version of JD.

But...AVPVT says Judgement Day has to happen, because it's retconned into its past.

How about we split the difference at 2020, and the 2018 date on T4 is one of those time-corrected differences that doesn't matter so much?

Then, that has JD happening shortly after Weyland's TED talk, heheh.

Then, humanity rebuilds, the androids (formerly Terminators) erase the Skynet war from history, and then, the Aliens franchise plus AVPVT shakes out just right.

So, that's the AVPVTVR timeline as a baseline....

But, also remember, Superman and Batman fought the Aliens, Predators, and Terminators.

Well, those all plop into contemporaneous time easily enough....
*Thunk*

But also remember, Supes and Bats met Spidey and Hulk.

And Spidey met Transformers.

And Batman's trusty sidekick Robin, as the leader of the Titans, met the X-men, and X-Men met TOS, and TNG.

So, that splices in Transformers, and Trek.

Transformers The Movie happens in 2005.
Man, that seemed like a futuristic date back then, didn't it?
What actually happened in '05?
Revenge Of The Sith, and Batman Begins hit theaters, and I-Phones were 2 years away.
Nothing on the news about The Cybertronian Wars ending though.
Heh.

Beast Wars continues off that timeline, 400 years in the future, and 3 million years in the past.

And Trek...actually weaves in pretty well.

Cochrane's time of the 2060's fits into the rebuilding years after The Skynet War, and that can be the WWIII of Star Trek.

Then, the mess is cleaned up by the time of Prometheus, and their hyperdrive can be Cochrane drive.
Cuz, a wormhole is a wormhole.

Course...time displacement platforms are a form of warp/wormhole...so maybe Cochrane stole warp from Skynet...hmmm....there's a fanfic for someone to write...

Anyway, that fits in rather well, then Enterprise drops into the gap between Alien and Aliens.

Then, all of mainline Trek, from TOS to Voyager, goes from 2265, to 2390-something.
Which drops right in to the gap between Alien 3, and Resurrection.

Now, there may seem an inconsistency with Alien-verse and Starfleet ships, but, remember, Trek has come across sleeper ships, sleeper ships by their nature can be out of the loop, as the gap from Alien/Aliens shows, and Starfleet has occasionally employed stasis beds, and Starfleet isn't the only game in town in space travel.

So, that's my commentary/buildup, let's display the timeline that results from all this...

Beast Wars (past)- 3 million BC
Superman vs Spiderman- 1976
Superman and Spiderman- 1981
Batman vs Hulk- 1981
X-men Teen Titans 1982
Transformers- 1984
Spiderman meets Transformers- 1984
Terminator 1984
Predator- 1987
Predator 2- 1990
Batman vs Predator- 1991
T2- 1994
Batman vs Predator 2- 1995
Superman vs. Aliens 1995
Star Trek/x-men 1996
Judgement day (original, T2) 1997
Batman vs Predator 3- 1997
TNG Xmen- 1998
Batman vs Aliens- 1998
Superman vs. Terminator 1999
Superman vs Predator- 2000
Superman vs Aliens 2- 2002
Batman vs Aliens 2- 2003
T3- 2003
T4- 2003 (beginning)
AVP 2004
AVP: Requiem- 2004
Transformers the movie- 2005
Superman and Batman vs Aliens and Predator- 2007
Sarah Conner chronicles- altered 2008-09 from an altered 1994
Predators- 2010
Robocop 2010
Robocop 2 2012
Robocop 3 2014
Robocop vs Terminator 2016
Robocop Prime Directives 2018
Terminator: Salvation- 2018
Weyland TED talk (Prometheus)- 2020
T1, 2, 3, future 2029
Star Trek: First Contact (past) 2063
Prometheus- 2089-2093
Alien- 2129
Enterprise- 2151-2155
Aliens- 2179
Alien 3- 2179
Alien vs Predator(comics) -21??-22?? 
Star Trek 2265-239?
Beast Wars (future)- 24??
Beast Machines- 24??
Alien Resurrection- 2579 
Aliens vs Predator vs Terminator- 2582


Aaand, like I promised last time, that's got all the big chunks.

Even that's a skeleton.
IMHO, you can use that to drop in pretty much everything else in Crossover-land in the year it happened.

Going all the way back to...fuggin' cave paintings.

Up next, I'll weave all that into a general narrative.

Read More......

Friday The 13th 3-D!!!

No way!!
Three of em??

Yep, three.

The other two...

Part 1.
Part 2.


Read More......

Superhero Flicks, Part 3.9: DC Animated (Part 4)

Hokay, let's catch these up....

So, when we left off on December 5th, 2011, there were three new animateds in the pipeline.

The two I'm about to review, and "The Dark Knight Returns".


Justice League: Doom

The origin of The Legion Of Doom into the modern DC animated universe.

So, Vandal Savage brings together Bane, Metallo, Star Sapphire, Cheetah, and Mirror Master into the first lineup for the Legion Of Doom (Lex is absent for some unknown reason), and via hacking the Bat Computer, they learn everyone's secret identities and weaknesses.
Mayhem ensues.

Pretty good.
Sort of a long retroactive lost-episode of the Justice League show, really.
Enjoyable on a fan level, but nothing I'd pay a ticket price to go see.


Superman vs. The Elite

Based on "what's so funny about truth, justice, and the American way?".

An alleged response to the worldview presented in "The Authority", having not read those books, I can't tell if this is a straw-man, it feels like one in my gut, but, if the characters in that are really assholes like in this...then, yeah, fuck 'em.

Now...maybe I'm reading too much into it...but it seems like it's not just knocking "The Authority", but all the water that's gone under the bridge since the 90's, and a bit of the 80's.

Manchester Black feels like he's supposed to represent Alan Moore, which would make Hat Neil Gaiman, Menagerie..looks like Witchblade, so...Image period, probably Todd McFarlane, and Coldast would be...Frank Miller?
He's Marv, but black?
Eh, it kinda breaks down, but I think there might be something to it still...

Anyway, whatever industry politics are hiding there, it's a nice piece of entertainment.

And, getting back to the politics, IMHO, it's good for kids to see.
I'd personally rather they embraced Superman, than be made cynical and mean by the post-9/11 morals presented in shit like "24".

It makes its point, I'm just not sure whether it's a false-dichotomy against what "The Authority", is saying or not, because, again, haven't read it.

As a Superman story, it soars.
As a "movie",...eh, same deal with the JL one, feels like a big TV episode.

As industry comment, judgement reserved.
Probably a discussion better to have in the comments section.

So....those out of the way, we're finally down to Dark Knight.

Here, have a preview.
Watch it before the WB cops kill it.



Edit- It's here! See my review!

Okay, retro-linking this back to part 3 now....

Read More......

Alas, WMTW: News 8.

Hey, Maineuhs, y'know channel 8?

Yeah, it's gone.

Yep, Time Warner Cable doesn't wanna carry it anymore.
Apparently, they had a little spat.
Over what, I can only guess....
..so I will.

Time Warner probably came too fast, and Channel 8 was bitchy about having to finish itself off with the vibrator, and then, once in bitch mode, every other unresolved beef trickled in, from food, to bathroom habits, to bills, to in-laws, and Time Warner finally got sick of the shit, grabbed its wallet, and hat, walked out the door, and didn't look back.

So, what does this mean for us, the consumers?

Well, let's see....no more shitty sitcoms....no more shitty Barbara Walters....and...no more...*eyes bug in realization*....no more DR. PHIL!!!!!!

(Opera noises)
OOOHH-HOOOOO-OO-OOO-OO-OOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

*Starts flying like Peter Pan*

AAAUUUAAUAAUUAAAUUOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

*Swoosh!!*

OOOOAAOAOAOAOAOAOAOAAAAOOOOO!!!!!!!

*Swoosh!*

*Starts glowing orange, hugs self, spins around a couple times*

YYOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

*Points at the ceiling, and smashes through it like Superman*

Read More......

Happy (belated) 10th Anniversary Bubba Ho-Tep!

Crap, missed it by a month....

June 9th, 2002 is when it came out.
Just happened to be curious how old it was, looked it up, and there it was.

Anyway, review tucked away amongst the Evil Deads here.

Hmm, what was I doing on the 9th?
Oh, yeah, peeing on TV...
Well, it needed doing.
Can't do everything...

Speaking of TV.....



Enjoy. :)

Read More......

Grand Unification Theory (Part 6)

Damn, been exactly a week since I did the last one of these...

I dunno, between discovering the joys of the "make a book", function on Wikipedia, and the misery of the heat wave, and the joys of the Higgs discovery, just haven't felt like it.

But, back to the grind....

Where'd I leave off?

Ah, right, stitching all of this together....

So, the multiverse is the universe, and magic is tech, and with those, everything glues together pretty well.

So...like I said way back here 5 months ago, alterni-verses that connect to other alterni-verses merge into that pile of alterni-verses, and since the multiverse is the universe, by transitive property, they're part of that universe.

So...since Marvel and DC hook up to each other, then "Hypertime", "Infinite Earths", "Marvel Multiverse", "Elseworlds", and "What If?", are all the same thing.

And, since Trek splices in, they're all "quantum timelines", and since "the mirror universe", cancels out into a quantum timeline, then "quantum timelines", are all mirror universes.

BUT....the thing about the mirror universe, was how identical it was.
It was different, but, the same.
All the same people, a lot of the same events, it's how the two ships were there at the same time beaming their crews up at the same time for the swap to happen for the episode to happen.

So....that meant, events were happening virtually the same (minus the key differences) up to that point, at least.

So, that means, anything that happens in an alternate time, in whatever franchise (so long as it Bacons back to Trek),  (usually) has a parallel in the mainstream timeline.

For example, the JJ-Abrams-Trek is an alternate timeline created by Nero and Spock, so, even though it's not how Kirk and company "really", had their origin story in the "original", timeline...something LIKE it must have happened, so it's close enough.

So, any, say, Trek novel, with a continuity glitch in it, can be explained away as an alternate timeline, and, since in the "proper", timeline, something like it very probably happened, the differences don't really make too much of a difference.

Alternate time just becomes a correction mechanism.

Or, look at say, Tenchi Muyo, alternate timelines all over the place, and then, Washu has an alternate timeline generator machine, and...that story was a recycled plot of a radio drama set in the OVA universe.

So, you could say Tenchi In Tokyo, and the manga series, are alternate timelines branched off of that one episode of Tenchi Universe, but, that episode is an alternate timeline off of an OVA-verse story.

But....all of those particular events could have all just as easily happened to the OVA-verse characters, with differences that aren't worth mentioning.
Indeed, they could be distorted recollections from Mihoshi's bimbo-brain ala "The Mihoshi Special".

Now, look at the Trek/X-Men crossovers.

X-Men/TOS, they get there with some overcombombulated trans-reality vortex....

...but then, XMen/TNG, they meet via a plain old-fashioned time warp.

And, the X-Men remember meeting Kirk.
So...they were in the same universe anyway.

Or else, the version of X-Men/TOS we saw was in an alternate universe where they were in an alternate universe.

...which means...every alternate universe story that requires an alternate universe, has an alternate-alternate universe where an alternate universe is not required.

Like...Supes and Hulk being in the same universe, and then, needing to cross a vortex to meet again.

Which means...there's an alternate-alternate universe, where the Supes and Hulk from the first bout just plain met up again without all the cosmic mumbo-jumbo.

And the differences aren't worth fretting over.

So....alternate-reality, shamlternate-reality.

We can actually now get rid of some of these shitty redundant alternate timelines we've got laying around.

All we gotta do, is find connections to characters/universes that both require, and don't require, alternate universes, and the non-portal crossovers cancel the portal ones out.

Well, the classic Marvel/DC ones do that for Marvel/DC just fine.

Top Cow and Image always seemed to pull off their crossovers without portals....

Well, I think a good way to really chip away at it, would be to jump into a big character pileup that required a multiverse.

And, I can think of nothing better, than "War Of The Independents".

Any two of those characters meeting outside of that reality warp, without a reality warp, the reality warp breaks down, and they just hung out.

Well, Cassie Hack, and Bomb Queen, there's two.

Grendel and Shi are there, and Shi met Daredevil, and Daredevil met Batman, and Batman met Grendel.

So, transitive property, they're in the same universe.

And, Cassie Hack met Eva, who met Ash, who met Danger Girl, who met Batman, so, all four (Cassie, Bomb Queen, Shi, Grendel) are in the same universe.

Maxx is there, and he met Gen13, who met Superman.

So...that's enough for me for that one.

Let's try another one..."Darkwing Duck: Crisis On Infinite Duckwings".

Well, you've got Batman in the stew....and Iron Man...so there's Marvel/DC, and you've got Dr. Who, who's recently met up with Trek.

You got James Bond, who co-exists in Alan Moore's "League-verse".

Good enough.

And, you've got Ash meeting Freddy and Jason, and also meeting Danger Girl, who met Batman, who met the Aliens and Predators, so...essentially, the whole horror-verse is interconnected on one playing field.

Yeah, that's enough threads for me to pull on.
I'm satisfied that it unravels.

The multiverse is the universe, alright
Indeed, I think just a facet of the singular universe.

The bit that covers the bullshit that writers leave behind.

So, next up, I'll try to weave all these bits and bobs into a cohesive timeline.

Not an exhaustive one, as that'd fucking kill me, but, the big chunks, I'll try to get to hang together well enough.

Read More......

"When's Volume 2?"

Two more weeks, do ya think you can hold on, keeds? 

I'm gonna space them all a month apart like comic book issues, so, July 21st, a month from the release of volume 1.

Then, August 21, then, September 21.

Why that long when I could theoretically just pound 'em out?
Eh...to let everyone get theirs, read 'em, get all caught up. Y'know?

Anyway, I think it'll be worth the wait, #1 had to lay down the basic Harry Hembock legend, #2 is actually more twisted. B-)


Read More......

Another happy customer!

Lanzman has received his chunk of Hembokiness.

Enjoy, buddy. :D

Read More......

*Sigh*.......fucking coffee, mumble, grumble....

So, next Thursday, it will be a year that this bullshit has been going on....

Click link below for the backstory...

Elevatorgate.

So, I've given this shit...*check watch*...oh, right, a year....

I've held back as long as I could.

So, read that link, and the links in the links, and get all caught up.
Or, refresh your memory...

So, here's where this shit stands now.

The bad guys.

Andrea Dworkin.

For sharting out "radical feminist theory", onto the world in the first place, and doing her damnedest to destroy human happiness wherever she could get her bipolar mitts on it.

I haven't danced on many graves, but hers was one of them.
I remember the occasion quite clearly.
And fondly.

Her, and a couple middle eastern madmen, that's it.
I'm very picky and sparing with it.

Ah, but that was then, this is now.....


Rebecca Watson

A schmucky loser asking you out "for coffee", isn't sexual harassment.
Internet trolls are stupid assholes, but they aren't rapists.
Snap out of it, and get on with your life, you dorky goofball.

Of course, I begin to think "coffee man", never existed, and this whole deal has been a nasty political machination from day one.

Okay, I fib a little there.
I always thought it.

Frankly, and you may have picked up on this, I don't think too highly of most people.
I find them to be nasty, exploitative, opportunistic, grasping little primates, not much higher in the cultural scale than bonobos.
This shit's par for the course.

It just disappoints when it comes from "people who should know better", though.

Guess I got some more growing up to do.
I don't think I'm naive, by any means, but shit like this keeps biting me in the ass regardless.
Damnedest thing....


Ophelia Benson

I used to think a lot better of her, I really, really did.
She was on my Facebook feed and everything.

Then, she played her hand as yet another wolf-in-sheep's-clothing, pseudo-liberal.
Another of these Tipper Gore style Nazi book burners, right out of the Dworkin playbook.

And that's what this all is, it's chess moves of a branch of "liberalism", that doesn't believe in liberty, it never did, they think they can brainwash and ban their way to utopia, and I'm really fed up to nauseous with people like this.

Can't fucking take any fucking more.


PZ Myers

This one really rocked me to my core.
Pulled the rug out from under me.
He was up on my atheistic heroes list along with Richard Dawkins.
He stood up against the whole "Expelled", mess.
That was legendary.
Ah, what golden days those were....

Well, forget all that, because now, now, he's fucking banning people off of  a place called "Freethought Blogs".
Savor the irony.

Well, not even, he doesn't actually hold the ban button, he's a greasy little squealer.
Oh, wait, Thunderf00t didn't do anything actually wrong, so, he's a lying squealer.

I dunno, for awhile, I was holding on to "if PZ ever comes back to his old self, and realizes what he's done...geez, how can he live with himself? :(".

Fuck that naivete, I gave you a whole year, PZ, time's up, you're just a schmoe.
A schmoe, a schmuck, and a schmendrick.
You're done.

Off my blogroll and Facbook you go.
*Kerflushhhh*
Yeah, I'm sure you're heartbroken....


Ed Brayton

The goober who actually pushed the ban button.

Yeah, this one stunned me too.
He kinda devotes himself to raging against oppression and intolerance when it comes from the right wing.
You'd...think he'd sniff out whats going on.

Had him on my blogroll and Facebook, no more *kerflushhh*.

Fuckin' depressing.
This whole fuckin' thing.


Greg Laden

...no idea who this fucking person is, actually.

His name keeps coming up, I haven't quite been able to sift his role in things out of the tornado yet.
Skimmed his blog, he vaguely seems like a twit, but...is he a capricious twit?
A wicked twit?
I don't know.

But, he's in the stew somehow....and he's not spoken of highly...

EDIT:
Ah, he throws violent threats around.
But, his, unlike Youtube yahoos, are a-okay.
Well, this becomes more charming and lovely by the moment...


The good guys

Hope they stay that way....


Thunderf00t

Banned.

Eh, his Youtube vids come come off a little shrill sometimes, but....his heart always seemed in the right place.
Never disagreed too much with what he said.

I don't see any actual wrongdoing on his part in this kerfuffle.

Maybe someone could illuminate me.
With what I know so far, this looks like a total railroading.


Miranda Celeste Hale

A "gender traitor", according to Ophelia Benson.

Yeah, you know when bullshit phrases like that get thrown around, you're dealing with zealots.
That simple.

If I could afford liposuction, a face transplant, a gym membership, and a chip in my head that makes me able to withstand gobs and gobs of poems, I'd ask her out for coffee.

I would.
No, really.

As it is, *peeks in wallet, moth flys out* I'm strapped.
So, I'll keep my evil entitled patriarchal harassment to myself like a good boy.
Probably should anyway.
Yes, it's good that I'm not happy.
It's utopia.
Thank you, liberals.
What bliss.
What a great world all this fear and sadness is making.
Good job, heroes.


Paula Kirby

Thrown under the bus.

This really chaps my ass.

It's...it's, I dunno, it's like the army gunning Mary Poppins out of the sky, you...just don't DO that!

What the fuck???

So, anyway, she wrote this, and has earned the ire and venom of the Dworkinites, and their zombie minions.
She's holding up rather well though.


Richard Dawkins

For (with the exception of one snarky comment) staying out of this fracas.

Man, the shit that comes at him, and he stays steady and sane no matter what.

I wish I could learn to be more like him.
Instead of this spastic nut who writes angry blogs.
Ah, well, coming up on 37, probably too late.


Christopher Hitchens

Okay, so, he's stayed out of it by being...well, dead.
But, if he were here, he probably would have compressed absolutely the right thing to say into one sentence, and blown up FTB with a puff of ciggy smoke, and this would be over months ago.
As it is...well...


Yeah, so, that's the whole stupid soap opera, really.
Sad that something so fucking dumb at its core threatens to ruin everything.

Really hoped this movement was gonna make a difference, and fix some things.

I mean, really?
Rad-fem bullshit brings it down?
Really???

Damn.
Well, let's see....60's counter-culture, the 70's sexual revolution, activist atheism, what else can it destroy?
Oh, yeah, it can't seem to bring down actual patriarchal psychopathy in barbarian shithole nightmare countries.
That, it doesn't even touch.
Fucking weird, that bit, huh?

Crazy world....

Read More......

Happy Higgs Day!! (and 4th of July)

Well there, that nerded up the holiday nicely. :D
Thanks for serving that up, scientists.

Now, instead of awkwardly hemming and hawing like last year, I can perpetually remember the time they found the Higgs.

To better living through proton smashing!

Heh, it even looks like a firework, how handy.


Read More......

Grand Unification Theory (Part 5)

Hokay, was supposed to hammer this out Thursday, but then, people unexpectedly started getting their books (here, & here), and that necessitated a little change, and then, all of that had to be funneled into The Big 4th Anniversary, then, that led to another little change, and...with all that flurry of excitement, I wasn't too inspired for anything else.

Well, we're back into the daily routine now, so, let's finish this sucker up.

Where were we?
Oh, yeah...

Gods, wizards, wands, spellbooks, and Lovecraft.

So, last time, I used "quantum time", or "hypertime", or, whatever you wanna call it, to break down...pretty much all of fiction as splinter timelines off of Trek.

And if they're part of Trek, Trek physics applies to them.

Which, all fits in fine.
The only seeming prickly exception, being magic.

But...that's pretty pretty easy to crack.

First, let's go all the way back to my Dicky-pedia definition of "supernatural".

To sum it up, nothing unreal exists, anything that can happen does, and science is the study of things that are real, so if magic presented itself, it would become part of science.
There can be no appeal to things that are "beyond science".
To do so, is a fundamental misunderstanding of language, and indeed, thought itself.
There can only be things that aren't yet scientifically understood.

And, when you think about that, a frigging cigar lighter, or a Kindle, would look magical to a caveman.

And...we still pretty much have people as ignorant as cavemen, go read some fucking Youtube comments sometime.

Minds like that probably think what David Copperfield does is fucking real.
Shit, we know people bought into Ms. Cleo.

So, an advanced extraterrestrial shows up with a replicator on a stick?
Forget about it, they'd be instantly worshiped, and have their own cable channel, and be leaching money from the credulous by the end of the week.

Shit, there's pretty much even a Trek episode like that.

And hell, they even did one where an actual replicator on a stick posed as a "wand".

So, there you go.

And that's even before you factor in extra-dimensional beings from funky-space, like Q, and Nagilum, and the Cytherians, and possibly Trelane, and his parents.
Beings who, by their very physical properties, would be able to perform feats seeming as magic to teeny little monkeys like us.

So....that can just as well apply to all the splinter fictions branching out of, and into Trek.
Aliens, hyper-beings, and the odd time-traveler, explain pretty much all of it.

Asgardians? Advanced aliens.
Indeed, Marvels' Kryptonians.

All the other bullshit Angels and Fairies?
Ditto.

Indeed, I said it in that post, and I quote..


All right, I gotta sit down, and resolve the theological B.S. right here....

These religions just can't co-exist with each other.
Literally, as in the actual respective Gods vying for status in a co-existing universe.
They just can't.

The God of Christianity/Catholicism, and some mutant spinoff of Roman stuff?
Nope.
Sorry.

Either you got one God with many masks, which makes him a capricious Mxyzptlk on steroids, and unworthy of anyone's worship, or, and this is the one I'm going with, none of the "Gods", are God, but advanced extraterrestrials playing at being Gods, like Thor.

That these characters can all be Baconed back to Thor, kinda puts these disparate theologies under those rules anyway.

That's how Marvel always handled it, and as a Marvel boy, that's how I'm going to.

So, any character, like Avengelyne, claiming to serve "the one true God", is a dupe, and their "God", a liar, or deceived their own selves.
Especially when confronted with a character empowered by another God, who can hold their own against them.

Sorry ladies, you should have served Crom. 
Crom literally doesn't give a shit. 
I can respect that in a God.

So, to steal a line from Douglas Adams, that about wraps it up for God(s).

As for your average "wizard", well, they seem to basically be a human being playing with "God", technology.
Yeah, you've got your odd immortal, like Gandalf....but imbuing a human with immortality seems fairly doable with God-tech.
Although, there are hints from his "rebirth", from Gandalf The Grey, to Gandalf The White, that he may in fact be an extraterrestrial, whole cloth.

Either way, those rules all seem to cover the Harry-Potterverse well enough.

Moreso!
Harry Potter magic isn't all vague hokum, and spookum, it has definite rules that have to be taught at a school.
It's got a physics, a chemistry, even a dimensional mechanics.
Indeed, Hogwart's is accessed through a kind of warp/wormhole.
And, that world's magical items seem like technologies we have now with a slight boost.
The animated newspapers, and photos, and maps, and the like, are much like the E-paper in a Kindle.
Just with smoother animation, sometimes color, an invisible battery and circuit panel, and (seemingly) unlimited battery life.

Whos' to say this isn't all just tech gotten from aliens, or time-travelers?
Indeed, a limited form of time travel is seen in the series.

Very much of the story plays out like a mix of Trek and Wars dressed up in the trappings of classic fantasy.
IMHO.

And, if Harry Potter and Gandalf can be broken down that way, then so too Merlin, and everything he spins off into.
Which, is quite a bit.

Hell, large chunks of "The Flight Of Dragons", are about the protagonist trying to scientifically understand magical beings.

So, if magic is just advanced tech, which I assert it is, then...appeals lately in fiction, particularly for some reason, video games, to "technology combined with magic", are pure nonsense.

You definitively get a dose of this in the crossover "epic", "Infestation".

The crossover of the 4 universes is accomplished by a sort of Stargate, but empowered with magic to boot.
Well, screw that empty verbal puffery, magic is tech, and a wormhole is a wormhole.

And, a wormhole is all ya fuckin' need.
Why gild the lily?

And then, in the sequel, you've got the crossover accomplished by the magical reach of Cthulhu's hyper-dimensional tentacles.

Well, there you go, he's hyper-dimensional.
He's a squiddy analog to Q, Nagilum, Trelane, etc, etc.

Or, if you like, an uglier squishier, Mxyzptlk.
It's all the same.

And, with Cthulhu, you can break down pretty much all the horror guys.

In "Army Of Darkness vs. Re-Animator", Ash learns (from the ghost of Lovecraft) that his Necronomicon is one of many copies of the original Lovecraftian Necronomicon, some of which, are scattered across hyperspace.

So, "Deadites", are in fact people/corpses possessed/animated by hyper-dimensional Cthulhu butt-babies.

And, Ash also learns in "Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash", that Freddy and Jason are Necronomicon-spawn.

So, that makes Jason a super-Deadite, and Freddy...well, he was revealed in "Freddy's Dead", to have been possessed/empowered at his moment of fiery death by "dream demons", which, since they're now ret-conned into Cthulhu butt-babies, and Freddy's original body got burned away....makes him a human neural pattern conveyed by extraterrestrial organisms existing in a layer of subspace that can make neural contact with human brains during REM sleep.

And, this mongrel of human neural energy, and subspace alien, can manifest in the flesh, as seen in Nightmares 1, 2, 6, 7, and 8.
....or is it all a dream?
Ehh??

But, the original recipe Deadites can also blur the lines of dream, and physical manifestation, as seen in "Evil Dead 2".

Also, Pinhead Bacons over, and "the Lament configuration", is obviously a hyper-dimensional technology,  and "Leviathan", a hyper-dimensional lifeform.

A Cthulhu butt-baby?
An alternate hyper-time Cthulhu manifestation?
Some other thing entirely?
Hard to say.

But, one thing's for sure, be it a puzzle box, a blue smoke tunnel summoned by a Necronomicon incantation, or the pseudo-Stargate from "Infestation", a wormhole, is a wormhole, and a timeline is a timeline.

So, that breaks down monsters, demons, and spooks.

What about zombies?

Physically impossible, unless a "Deadite", ingredient is added, or, if the mysterious "zombie virus", is actually practically on the order of nanites.

And a vampire?
A super-duper Deadite.
One with full tissue regeneration, and intellect/personality preservation.

Their origins depend on whatever timeline you happen to be in.
Anne Rice's vampires break down to being created by a super-Deadite-spook.

Others have it as a mutating virus that doesn't really kill the person, so the whole "undead", thing is mythological hogwash from start to finish.

And, an O'Bannon zombie is somewhere between a virus zombie, and a Vampire.

And, we see in "Superman & Batman vs Vampires & Werewolves", and "Batman vs The Undead", Lovecraftian "magic", being used to create Vampires, Werewolves, and Zombies.

And Bats & Supes Bacon back over to Ash, so, it's the same Cthulhu/Necronomicon generating this stuff.

Anyhoo, we've seen nanites, and subspace energies, and other Trek-no-babble revive carcasses in its native universe, so...it all holds up on that end.

Oh, sure, it all gets perilously pseudo-scientific as all get out, but "magic"?
My ass.

So....I think that covers all of it.
Apply that to everything from Highlander, to Mario, it holds up.

Magic is tech, wizards are super-geeks, monsters are mutants and hybrids, and Gods and spooks are aliens.

Or, boiled down more simply...
Super-scientists love to baffle the bumpkins with bullshit.

As seen most recently with Prometheus.

Next up, we really start to pull all of this shit together.

Read More......