The Dark Knight Returns

I wasn't a fan. I'm going to say that now. Was it a good movie? Yeah, it was good. Like pretty much every other movie that tries to go into gritty realism and deliver a story that's supposed to be deep and show a hidden side to humanity. The advantage of Nolan's previous movie was the fact that it was Batman, so the message was generally that people were good. And in Nolan's previous movie they did it so much better. Beyond that, the story was pretty predictable, with one exception that's more my fault than anything.

There be spoilers ahead.

Okay, the twist. Talia Al Ghul. Why? Why didn't they make her the main antagonist? It would have rounded off the series perfectly, Talia's a much more interesting character than Bane, we could have understood our main antagonist, and we wouldn't have spent the majority of the movie learning a backstory for a character only for "Surprise!" all of that story is actually this character's and Bane's really nothing more than a glorified henchman. Seriously, go back to what we learned about Bane. At the end of the day we learned that the League of Shadows broke him out of prison, something that a large portion of Gotham can say due to the first movie, and he was too brutal for them. Okay, that knocks the League of Shadows down a peg, what with them previously being an army of murderous ninjas that were only a finger point away from slitting the throats of an entire city. Lets not forget that that included civilians. Children. Jophrey Baratheon would have been the only acceptable loss there.

The entirety of Bane's backstory was given to Talia at the last second. Which, I got to be honest, I didn't see the twist coming because I started getting angry at Talia not being there. Wanna know why I thought Talia wouldn't be there? Because I didn't think anyone would be dumb enough to put their main villain front and center for the last ten minutes of the movie! Seriously, we spend the entirety of a movie learning the backstory of a character that we only knew for ten minutes, and amping up a character who, in the end, get's shuffled off the stage so offhandedly that you can really tell he was the henchman now.

Okay, the good parts. This movie was probably the best example of Bruce Wayne as a character and Batman as a character that I've seen in a Batman movie. That bar's pretty low, but we get to see Wayne reacting to his new place in life after retiring as the Bat, and I found the whole shut in thing a great way to show Wayne as just the alias of the Bat. The Bat was gone, the Alias was gone. And, naturally, the prison time was pretty great.

And Batman. The few times Batman showed up in the movie were kind of great. I'm going to say it right now, the scene in the sewers with Catwoman walking past the guards while Batman disappears them can sit beside some of the lesser fights in Avengers (Better than Hawkeye vs Widow, below Coulson vs Loki). Something the series has done really well is the whole symbolism of the Bat and the theatricality. I loved those scenes.

And Catwoman! I felt like she was the only person in the movie who had a personality. I mean, Batman's supposed to be the quiet shut in type, Alfred disappears, and Morgan Freeman was great when he was on the screen, but that was pretty rare. Bane had a cool thing he was doing with his hands on his vests like he was wearing a fancy coat at all times. But everyone but Catwoman was so very bland to me. Catwoman was fantastic. She added a liveliness to the movie that was very in with her character in the comics.

That's pretty much it, but I have to bring up on little thing. What's with the super heroes sending their billionaire genius's with all the cool toys off into the distance with the massive explosion that going to kill us all? Tony Stark and Batman both flew Nukes away and "Surprise!" walk it off, and even Spider-man had to defuse a gene bomb on a skyscraper. For that matter, why was Spider-man the only one to actually fix his problem as opposed to letting it blow up a little to the left? I think Tony Stark could defuse a nuclear device while moving at Mach 4, what with being able to make a never before thought of battle suit in a cave with pop cans and having made these bargain basement nukes for years, and Batman not only found out how to turn his weapon into a bomb the second he found out it was possible, he figured out how to defuse it the second after. There's got to be a better way than depending on your inherent immunity to nuclear explosions.

Spec Ops: The Line

Might as well, I guess. My opinions certain games. Probably wont stick to just games. I'll start with Spec Ops: The Line, since it's the most recent new title I've played.

So, let me say this before things get spoilery. Buy the game. It's a great example of storytelling through gameplay, especially since the story is reacting to what would happen if some jackass in real life started acting like a gamer does in a video game when handed a gun. There's a lot of furked up shit in this game, some great imagery, and some great characterization. The gameplay is pretty samey but I took that as being part of the story. You've all done this in a game before, this is what it would be like if you did it in reality. And, y'know, were capable of healing several bullet wounds. I think it's a great example of story through mechanics. If I had one complaint it would be that I seemed to never have ammo, but that can probably be said to be part of the story too.

Spoilers from this point on. Seriously, do not read forward from this point. I will ruin the ending.

Well, holy shit. That ending. I loves me some psychopaths in fiction, and that may make me biased towards the Fight Club-esque ending, but here's a funny thing. At the end, as you all probably well know, I had grown decidedly hateful towards my character. The black guy (who's name escapes me, but so does the rest of the cast. Captain Walker is the protagonist?) was the only character I actually liked, and the way he went out, so hateful and suicidal... Well, that was the point when I started hating the enemy and my character equally. Your other squad mate, who I disliked, him dying made me have to restrain myself from killing the civilians who did it. Let that sink in, I actually restrained myself from murder in a video game.

But here's the point. At the end I hated my character, and when you learned what a crazy fuck he was and had the option to kill yourself... I didn't do it. I'd resolved to do it when whatshispersonalityface pointed the gun at me, but then came the countdown. I made it to 4, dammit! Then he had to ask "is this what you really want?" When he said that I pulled the trigger. Turns out, loathing and all, I'd managed to project a little onto the character. That hasn't really happened before. The final decision of the game, suicide by soldier after the credits, I decided to live. I wanted this psychopath to live, and hopefully get better.

This game strikes me as a great example of storytelling through gameplay, and the great part is that they didn't do anything new with the gameplay. The story was crafted for a video game, specifically this sort of shooter. We play tons of 'em, and in all of them we do horrible shit to people who don't deserve it without thinking. Killed a soldier? No worries, we've got millions. Hell, that character model will be back next level. Mow down a shitload of human beings? Eh, no worries, they're bad guys dumb enough to go up against the shredder of men.

You kill two types of people in this game. US soldiers, from your US, from your army. And civilians. As in these poor jackasses lost their homes and now you're taking their lives. I don't think you actually spend more than a mission or two with the same faction, you're just the lone gunman making sure to finish the job that mother nature in her sandy fury could not.

Early on it tries to make you seem more human, when you're running through and commenting on how this jackass, I think his name was Gould, was throwing civilians with weapons against trained soldiers. And then they ask you to save him or civilians! Naturally I saved the civilians, it was the slaughter of desperate homeless people that made the decision for me. And then you go on a mission with only half the plan, fished out of Gould's mouth, and wind up killing a shit-ton of civilians. I only learned later that they would have died one way or another, and all that really happened was that I saved the three civilians from the Gould choice (I think) when otherwise they would have died with Gould and the civilians in the fire. But at the time I got angry. The game had made me kill them. I knew they were there when I pulled the trigger, or at least I suspected, but the game had done it and your character reacts the same way. "They made me do it". Maybe that was the moment I felt a kinship with the protagonist, I honestly don't know. I didn't know about the kinship until I'd decided to let him live.

The game was great, plain and simple.

Contestant

Okay, so my lovely Gorgon is now up for voting in the T-shirt contest. Basically what you do is go here: http://browse.deviantart.com/designbattle/mythical/?qh=&section=&q=gorgon It's on the second to bottom row. Scroll over the icon, don't click it. An Icon saying "I want this" will come up. Click that.

Gorgon, Deviantart contest entry

http://cadhla182.deviantart.com/#/d582svv

The link above is where you can vote on a sexy sexy shirt. The image on the shirt, you ask? Why it's...

Why yes indeed, the lovely Medusa! Okay, I know she was supposed to be hideous. But I have two reasons for this. The first being sex sells. I'm not going to lie, that was a big reason for this image. Oh, here's the one I didn't have to cut down on the colours to finish:

Anyway, my justification. How different do you think one would have to be to be considered hideous in ancient Greece? The folk of yore have a tendency to be incredibly racist, I doubt the green skin and snakes on the head would have been considered beautiful in ancient days, and the turning people to stone when they look at you just adds to the myth. "How ugly could she be?" "Dude. Looking at her turns you to stone."

So vote above, please. Winning this would help considerably towards my producing Ragdoll Psychiatric, and I would be very appreciative. Also, it'll give you the opportunity to wear this beauty around all day.

Marvelous Characters

I have multiple issues when I read solicits, watch a commercial, listen to someone talk... Generally when someone would want to convince me of something. Which is whenever words are involved. All of the issues stem from terminology. In this case it's the "strong ____ character" line. It doesn't matter what the blank is --woman, black, gay -- that blank is a problem. Y'see, you're segregating the character, marketing it as the character as being a big deal because of blank. A lot of the time I expect it to be a moderate story trying to ride on the fact that their character is blank. The marketing scheme instantly turns me cynical.

Now, don't get me wrong. We need more strong ___ characters. The issue is making them strong blanks takes away from making them strong characters. A lot of the time I'll hear strong female character and I'll get a female character who's in charge and sassy while all the male characters are idiotic.

Why I bring this up today is Captain Marvel #1 came out today, by Kelly Sue DeConnick. I already love her work from Osborn: Evil Incarcerated, but Captain Marvel, a series that will hopefully be going on for quite some time, is a great book. The reason for this is Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers, is a strong character. I'm one of those people who can forgive a flaw or two in the story so long as the characters are consistent and entertaining. Interesting characters make me buy books, movies, etc. Carol is an interesting character. She's flawed, she has dreams, both possible and impossible, and she has a trait that I love in all characters. She's tough. There's a theory that everyone has a favourite ninja turtle, and it signifies one of four different mindsets. Mine's Raphael. Carol Danvers, as Kelly Sue DeConnick writes her, reminds of of Raphael. Of Toph.

What I'm saying is I may have my new favourite book, and a new third favourite super hero. (Hulk, my first favourite super hero. X-23, because she got me into comics and by extension pushed me down my path in life. Ms. Marvel, general badass and entertaining read.)

Oh, Right, That's What I Do

I should probably say that I'm working on an art piece. It should be done by the weeks end, assuming I don't get any more distractions.

This one's not fan art. Not in the traditional sense, though it is a fictional being...

Avenged, Going to Avenge Again Later

Comic con is done, and I've heard wonderful news about all sorts of projects in the works. Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy (Rocket Raccoon!), the Winter Soldier, and what I can only assume is Hel (Thor: The Dark World). And there's Iron Man 3.

Now, I read a description of what was shown, and everything sounds amazing. It seems they're not even trying to hide the extremis ties, and the Mandarin has been confirmed. I'm a big Tony fan, and both of his movies seems to have brought him to a low point before he saves the day. Can't wait to see this new one.

But there's one thing that was denied that makes me very sad. The Hulk's not going to be in Iron Man 3. They may be trying not to over saturate the market, learning their lesson from the horror zone that was Deadpool a few years back (It put Wolverine and Spider-man combined to shame), but the Hulk was the best part of the Avengers, and considering just how amazing every aspect that movie was that's truly saying something. Seriously, I've had a few conversations about the movie and I always come away realizing some new facet about it. It's great.

What I'm hoping is that they're going to throw the Hulk into another movie. Hulk and Thor is always fun. But it looks like I'm just going to have to rewatch the Avengers... Woe is me...

And a reminder. Rocket Raccoon. 2014. It's a thing.

Nightwing

So, in the New 52 they redesigned Dick Grayson, AKA Nightwing, so the blue bird shape on his chest was a red bird shape. I thought it pointless, being that the blue colour kind of fits better to the characters personality, more calm and collected as opposed to rage, and it fits better in a character who's essentially a ninja, it's not as attention grabbing.

But then I saw a picture.

I no longer like Nightwing's new look. Weird that they chose to take stylistic decisions from those films.

Practice

So, a few months ago I was watching a friends house for 'em. During that time I did various things on their fancy entertainment systems and wound up doing a LOT of drawing. Mostly rough stuff, practicing poses and hands and such. One practice, I think I was practicing with measurements, I drew a lovely Ms. Katherine "Kitty" Pryde, aka Shadowcat.

Here's her pencils.

 I honestly have no idea what I was practicing. Could have just been anatomy, could have just been that I've wanted to draw Pryde for a while and haven't found a reason.

Well, recently I got a new scanner that's capable of scanning at 300 DPI (recently being yesterday) because the day before I learned the relevance of being able to do that and just how old my other scanner was. So I threw it in and inked it in photoshop with my tablet. I'm not sure if 300 DPI made a difference on the inking process, but I found it much easier.

Here are the inks.

 And, from there, the natural move forward was to flat colours. There was really nothing special here, I just like flipping between flats and finished versions.

 This is where things start getting interesting. You see, most of my work since I tried doing anything other than the basic shading below I haven't been too happy with. Below, where the lines are obvious and it looks very cartoony, I'm good with that. I like that. Cartoony fits with my style. I'm not a fan of artists who try so hard for realism in comics on a monthly basis simply because the closer you get to realism the more mistakes are noticeable. When it's cartoony you register with what looks human and put a personality behind it. It's basically half-assing your way to a good piece. Or, alternatively, it's not overreaching and getting the same, if not better, results.

So here's cartoony.

 That went one without a hitch. It's simple and easy. I knew it would be simple and easy, and I knew I'd like what I saw. There's just no tricks behind it. But I needed to test my colouring skills, like I've been doing for the past couple dozen pictures, so I did below. And, honestly, I think I'm getting good.

There's the finished Kitty Pryde. At the end of the day I learned me a few tricks I probably should have known before (being that I've used them before) and I got a glorious picture of the best damn teacher in the Marvel universe, along with finishing the most "practiced" picture I've ever done. Now I'm going to do one final practice, the actual printing one, and see how it comes out.

Kitty Pryde was the youngest X-man, forever and a day ago. She proved herself in the field and to Xavier (a story I've had the privilege of stumbling over recently), and over the years she's become one of the most dependable and entertaining X-man on the team. She's a hacker capable of hacking into Stark Enterprise, she was a protege under Wolverine becoming one of the most badass characters in the Marvel universe, she's been all over the worlds (plural) and learned more than I'm capable of by the time she was fifteen. Okay, thirteen, but that's more on me than anything.  Right now she's a teacher for the Jean Grey School of Higher Learning (The Xavier school got blown up enough times that they renamed it and Wolverine took over, which is also one of the most consistently entertaining books on sale), and I couldn't be happier that Jason Aaron is in control of her. I haven't read nearly enough of Kitty Pryde, early or current years, and I can't wait for more.

Amazing Incentive

Another reason to see the movie, which I forgot to mention previously, is for the sequel. The origin story is the only thing that weighs this movie down, and now it's out of the way. A sequel can go either way, but they've got a story lined up. I personally can't wait.

It's good to be a nerd these days.

Amazing!

I feel this needs to be said. I love the new Spider-man movie. I hear a lot of mixed reviews, one big complaint being that it doesn't really cover new ground, and I completely disagree. First off, if you were expecting a drastically new origin story, you're an idiot. Spider-Man becomes Spider-man pretty much the same way he always does. The thing this story does that's new is the characters involved, and it shines for it.

Gwen Stacy, Captain Stacy, and Peter's Parents. First off, Gwen is so much better the Mary-Jane. Gwen is intelligent. She can actually challenge Peter on an intellectual level. MJ is one of those characters that never made sense to me, not in a high school setting anyways. In the comics she's a very nurturing, loving, supermodel. She's also an adult. As a teenager, it wouldn't work out. There's too much of MJ that needs to develop. She needed to go into the real world and realize her looks wouldn't be as useful out there, to have that failure that she wouldn't have as a teenager. Gwen on the other hand is just as much of an awkward nerd as Peter in this one (Stupid awkward sexy teenagers...). In general, Gwen works better than MJ ever did, but especially as a teenager. And Captain Stacy is fun because we finally get to see Spider-man's relationship with the police.

Peter's parents. This is unexplored territory in the movies, and due to movie rights being all over the place it can't be exactly the same as the comics. Peter's parents promotes the major drive in the film, besides uncle Ben. The trailers played up their purpose in this more than it actually was, but it was still an interesting addition, finding out who they were, what they were doing, and how it affected Peter.

And the second reason I loved it is the same reason I had a problem with the older movies. Spider-man quips. In the comics, he talks. A lot. He's smart, he's mouthy. That's something the other movies didn't touch down on nearly as much, and this movie shines for it. The scene with the car thief from the trailers was amazing when done in full. It was hilarious.

And the Lizard! If you're familiar with the recent changes the Lizard has gone through, you'll be familiar with this Lizard. He does keep a lot more of Dr. Connors knowledge than the current Lizard, he's still a chemist when monstrous, but there are a lot of notes from the post Shed world that are in this monster. And dear god is he ever powerful. When he fights Spidey you can really tell that Spidey is horribly overpowered.

All in all, the movie wasn't a new Avengers. But it was better than the old movies, easily. If you don't mind the retread of old territory, and one scene near the end that's kinda overdone, this movie will make you happy. Also, Stan Lee has what is easily his best cameo in this movie.