The Book Nook: Star Wars: The Essential Chronology (2000)

 Hey everyone! Welcome to The Book Nook, the series where I talk about the books that I used to own in my collection. Today I'm going to be talking about Star Wars: The Essential Chronology, a Star Wars reference book that came out in 2000 as part of the first wave of the Essential Guides that Del Rey started publishing in 1995. So let's get into it.

Reference books like The Essential Chronology were part and parcel with franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars when I was a kid in the '90s to mid 2000s. They'd existed in the early days of each franchise in the '60s to '80s, but with the introduction of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the TNG movies, DS9, Voyager, the Star Wars special editions, the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and the Star Wars prequels these reference books became more prevalent in the '90s and early 2000s.

The Essential Chronology is a book that looks at the Star Wars Timeline through novels, comics, the West End Games sourcebooks, the movies, and TV shows/TV movies/TV specials. Because this book came out in April 2000, nothing after Episode I, which came out only 11 months earlier, and the first book in the The New Jedi Order series, Vector Prime, existed yet. Vector Prime isn't included in the book simply because this probably had to be submitted to Del Rey and Lucasfilm before Vector Prime had been released so that information wouldn't've been available to the authors for inclusion. Also anything from the prequel era that was published or released after Episode I also wasn't included either so there's a huge gap between The Phantom Menace and The Han Solo Trilogy since back in 2000 that whole prequel era was untapped for stories, besides the Tales of the Jedi comics from Dark Horse, The Han Solo Adventures by Brian Daley, The Adventures of Lando Calrissian by L. Neil Smith, and The Han Solo Trilogy by A.C. Crispin. 

Having said that though, one thing from The New Jedi Order that was included in the book was a slightly longer version of the galactic map that was created for Vector Prime. Which is cool since there wasn't an official galactic map for the Star Wars Universe at the time being that the comics weren't that detailed, neither were the novels or the movies. I also don't know if the old sourcebooks included maps or not since I've never seen them as I was never interested in Role Playing Games.

I think I got this book for my birthday from a family member in like 2002 or 2003, as it was way after the book had come out but before it's revised edition, Star Wars: The New Essential Chronology, was published in 2005. I remember asking for it because I had seen it in the Jawa Trader section of Star Wars Insider Magazine issue #49, the tribute issue to the 20th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back. I won't go into what Jawa Trader is here, but I'll do a post about Star Wars Insider and talk about it then.

That's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back next week with more posts. I've got some ideas floating around in my head. Including my review of Batman Returns (1992). So until then have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.  

The Comic Book Longbox: Star Trek: Debt of Honor (DC Comics, 1992)

 Hey everyone, welcome to The Comic Book Longbox, where I talk about the comic books of my past and present. Today, because I was completely unprepared for this post, I made the decision to write about a graphic novel that I don't own anymore. So let's get into it and talk about the 1992 DC Comics graphic novel, Star Trek: Debt of Honor, written by Chris Claremont with art by Adam Hughes and Karl Story.

I actually had two copies of this book. My dad bought one for me at the Hobby Centre after it had come out sometime in October, 1992, and then in late January, 1993 I received another copy from the cast and crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation when I went to visit the set on the Paramount Lot in Los Angeles. The one I got from the cast I kept sealed in it's polybag, and the copy my dad gave me is the one I kept for my reading copy.

The story of this graphic novel is that, following an encounter with a bug-like alien race that destroyed the U.S.S. Farragut, shortly after the ship encountered a dikronium cloud creature, which resulted in the death of Captain Garrovick, James T. Kirk spends the rest of his career encountering this bug-like species after major galactic events such as the encounter with the Planet Killer ("The Doomsday Machine"), V'GER (Star Trek: The Motion Picture), and the Whale Probe (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home). Finally, shortly after Kirk gained command of the Enterprise-A, he and his crew embark on yet another unsanctioned mission, to ally themselves with the Klingons, commanded by Commander Kor, and the Romulans, commanded by Kirk's old friend, Commander T'Cel, a half-Vulcan, half-Romulan, woman who he met during the Farragut incident. 

Obviously, I can't talk about the book much beyond that since I don't own it anymore. But, one thing I do remember from when I read it last was that Kor and his Klingon crew still looked like the original TOS Klingons despite the bulk of the book taking place between The Voyage Home and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. 

DC Comics didn't publish very many graphic novels and collected editions as this was published in 1992 and the collected edition wasn't as common as it is nowadays. And, of course, I only had this graphic novel and one Star Trek collected edition, which I'll be talking about another time. Honestly, I remember really liking this book. I remember reading it quite often when I was little. There's this gorgeous two page spread of the Enterprise-A sitting in spacedock, awaiting orders from Starfleet Command, and there's a decent wide shot of the Bridge, and that made this book closer to when The Final Frontier started rather than the ending of The Voyage Home. Which is weird because the ship was a complete mess at the beginning of The Final Frontier and it seemed like their shakedown cruise at the end of The Voyage Home was responsible since Starfleet hadn't had time to work out all of the kinks of the "new" ship. Trust me, when I get around to reviewing the Star Trek movies, I'm going to talk about the Enterprise-A in more detail.  

IDW reprinted this book back in 2020 so I think I'm going to see if I can get my hands on a copy so I can read it again. And if I do get it then I'll come back and do a full review on it. But right now I just wanted to talk about the original edition that I got when I was a kid. Especially because one of my copies was given to me by the cast and crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation. 

I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow for The Book Nook, my new series on the books in my collection. This week I'll be talking about Star Wars: The Essential Chronology, which I no longer have. Then join me back here next week for another Comic Book Longbox post where I'll be talking about Batman: Knightfall Part 1: Broken Bat, which I also no longer have. Don't worry I'll talk about a comic I do have in two weeks. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

The Home Video Corner: The Jungle Book (1991, Walt Disney Classics)

 Hey everyone, welcome to the Home Video Corner. No, I didn't change the name of the blog, and I didn't start a brand new one. I've decided to break the blog up into three segments that I will make blog posts for one day a week with this segment, The Home Video Corner, posting on Tuesdays. The other two segments, The Comic Book Longbox and The Book Nook, will be posted on Wednesdays and Thursdays respectively. The goal of this segment is to take a look at the movies and TV shows that I've owned on DVD, Blu-ray, and VHS over the course of my entire life. The only caveat is that they have to be tapes or discs that I've owned. It'll take me a bit longer to watch the TV season sets, so on the weeks where I'm watching one of those sets, I'll probably write about a tape I don't own anymore. Now without further ado, let's talk about the Walt Disney Classics VHS release of my favourite Disney movie of all time, The Jungle Book.

 This tape was one of the first movies I ever got when I was a kid. Prior to this I'd had TV show tapes and Disney releases such as the Disney Sing-Along Songs and the Winnie the Pooh shorts, but this was the first full length feature films I remember owning on VHS. I got rid of my original copy years ago, but back in January my friend, Katie, gave me her copy, along with the VHS releases of Lilo & Stitch and the 1996 live action version of 101 Dalmatians starring Glenn Close. I am not ashamed to admit that last night's viewing was the second viewing I had of the tape since January. 

The tape has a simple opening. There's the usual red warning cards (no FBI warning screen as this is the Canadian version), and then there's a full behind the scenes preview for Beauty and the Beast which was scheduled to be released in theatres later that same year, the home video preview for The Rescuers Down Under, and then the Walt Disney Classics logo pops up before the start of the movie. 

Watching this tape is like watching a time capsule because it shows how Disney went about promoting their movies and home video releases back in 1991. The theatrical release of Beauty and the Beast and the home video release of The Rescuers Down Under were only two things that Disney was putting out in 1991, yet they were the only things promoted on this tape. Oddly enough the promotions were more uniform on the Disney Sing-Along Songs and the other cartoon short and TV show tapes than they were on the movie tapes at this point in time. Which would start to change once the later releases in the Walt Disney Classics came out.

I love The Jungle Book. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, it's my favourite Disney movie of all time. Yes, there are movies such as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, and Atlantis: The Lost Empire that are more visually impressive and have more complex storylines, but the simplicity of this movie is why I like it so much. It feels very episodic to me.

Something that I've noticed watching this movie as an adult is that nobody asks Mowgli what he wants. There are even points in the movie where he tells Bagheera that he's not afraid of Shere Khan, but Bagheera completely ignores him. Everyone else in this movie is making the decision for Mowgli simply because they themselves are afraid of Shere Khan. Even during the Wolves's council at the beginning of the movie, the pack admits to being afraid of Shere Khan and that they as a pack don't have enough strength to defeat him should it come down to an all out fight. 

Also, I love how anytime one of the animals say Shere Khan, someone always includes "the Tiger" at the end of his name. 

Of course I sang along to the songs, particularly "The Bare Necessities" and "I Wanna Be like You". It's The Jungle Book, how could you not sing along when those songs are on? Not to mention it's the Sherman Brothers, with "The Bare Necessities" having been written by Terry Gilkyson, the only song of his that survived Walt tossing them due to them being too dark and not fitting for the tone he wanted the movie to have.

One thing that confuses me about this movie is it's timeline. It seems like everything happens in just a day or two. But to me it seems like they should've happened over the course of six or seven days given how far Bagheera and Mowgli travelled before meeting Kaa. You also have to take into account how far Mowgli must've travelled before meeting the Vultures. Speaking of the Vultures, they're pretty great.

Overall this is a great release of The Jungle Book. According to Wikipedia, it ended up being the third best selling home video release of 1991 with first and second place falling to Home Alone and Fantasia with Home Alone selling 11 million copies, Fantasia selling 9.25 million copies in 1991 alone, though by the mid '90s the release had sold 21.7 million copies worldwide, and The Jungle Book selling 7.4 million copies in 1991. So that's pretty cool. Obviously the only place you can get this tape is at thrift stores, flea markets or on eBay, but the tape's opening, complete with the Beauty and the Beast making of preview, can be found on YouTube. 

And that my friends is the end of this week's edition of The Home Video Corner. I will be back tomorrow for The Comic Book Longbox. I won't reveal what I'm going to be talking about on there. You'll have to read it to find out. Next week I'll be discussing a tape I don't have anymore because in two weeks I'll be talking about One Tree Hill: The Complete First Season and that tape will be Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode 1 & 2: Encounter at Farpoint. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Batman (1989) Movie Review

 Hey everyone! Happy Friday. I hope you all had a good week. I did. I finally got to watch and review Spider-Man: No Way Home, which was awesome. Today I’m here to talk about Batman (1989), starring Michael Keaton, Kim Basinger, and Jack Nicholson. So let’s get right into it.

I first saw Batman on VHS when I was a kid. I don’t remember the year, but it was probably sometime in 1994 or 1995 because Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad was on YTV and I watched it on the TV in the waiting area for a procedure in the Medical Day Unit at CHEO, though it wasn’t in the playroom. Anyway, I only saw up to the point where the Joker kills Carl Grissom because it was on after the procedure and I was able to go home at that point. It wasn’t until the early 2000s, after I’d gotten my TV/VCR combo set from my uncle for my 16^th birthday that I borrowed the VHS from my dad as he had both Batman and Batman Returns on VHS when I was a kid. I enjoyed it when I finally saw the whole movie. Of course, I didn’t know just how important this Batman movie was to not only comic book movies in general, but to the people who saw the movie in theatres back in 1989.

The movie rights to Batman were originally purchased by Michael Uslan and his partner, Benjamin Melniker in 1979, in the aftermath of the success of Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie (1978). Prior to the release of Superman: The Movie there hadn’t been a major superhero motion picture. Superman and the Mole Men had come out in 1951 and Batman: The Movie had come out in 1966 but they had been feature films tied into their respective TV shows, Adventures of Superman (1952-1958) and Batman (1966-1968) and both were fairly low budget, even for the standards of the 1950s and 1960s respectively. And of course comic book characters had appeared in the movie serials of the ‘40s and ‘50s.

By the time the initial script, written by Superman: The Movie creative consultant, Tom Mankiewicz, was finished in June of 1983, two more Superman movies had come out in the form of Richard Lester’s Superman II (1980) and Superman III (1983), preparations were being made to make Supergirl (1984), and Swamp Thing (1982) had come out. However, the way we know comic book movies wouldn’t happen until the success of X-Men in 2000.

On the comic book side of things, when the Mankiewicz script had been finished, DC Comics was preparing for Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s big reboot of the DC Universe, Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-1986), which had been pitched by Wolfman sometime between 1981 and 1982, and had been intended to be published in 1983 but had been held over until 1985. Wolfman and Perez were also working on the successful series, The New Teen Titans, which served as a revamp of the Teen Titans, a group of teenage sidekicks who had come together in the mid ‘60s.

Within the Batman sphere of the DC Universe the character’s flagship titles, Batman (1940-2011) and Detective Comics (1937-2011) were telling a serialized story that would leave off in a cliffhanger in one book and then pick up in the other title. DC had experimented with this idea in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s when Neal Adams and Dennis O’Neil revamped the character following the end of the ‘60s TV show and it’s influence on the comics, but they abandoned it by 1972 and wouldn’t return to it until the early ‘80s. This was also the period where Jason Todd had replaced Dick Grayson as Robin when Dick became Nightwing.

By the time the movie was released in 1989 things were vastly different. At least with the comics. On the movie side, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) and The Return of Swamp Thing (1989) came out for DC and for Marvel Howard the Duck (1986) and The Punisher (1989) were released or about to be released.

 On the comic book side, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986) by Frank Miller was hugely successful along with Batman: Year One, Watchmen, and Batman: The Killing Joke, with The Dark Knight Returns and The Killing Joke having a direct impact on Warner Bros’s desire to make a dark and gritty Batman movie rather than a campy version in the vein of the 1966 TV show and accompanying movie.

Batman was released on home video on November 15^th, 1989. This is unprecedented as up to this point it was normally a year or two after a movie had come out in theatres that it would be released on home video. This original edition is the one my dad had when I was a kid. Recently I bought Batman on VHS during an outing with Brad, but the edition I have is a later printing as it lacks the Coca-Cola commercial that was at the beginning of the original release of the tape.

 The movie also had a comic book adaptation as well as a novelization. I’ve never owned the novelization but I do own the comic book adaptation. It’s pretty good considering it strips out a number of scenes that were in the movie, reducing it to it’s bare minimum. Which is fine for a comic book adaptation.

I really enjoy this movie. It’s not my favourite Batman movie ever, that honour goes to Batman: The Movie, but it’s still a really good movie. It’s also held up very well over the last 33 years. One of the things that I like about it is how simplistic it is in it’s storytelling. We don’t have to spend half the movie in a flashback to Bruce Wayne’s past and the origins of Batman. Instead we get a simple newspaper clipping telling us that Bruce’s parents were murdered and then a quick flashback to that night to explain why Bruce is so disturbed by Jack Napier/the Joker. That’s all we need to know.

The cast of this movie is phenomenal. Michael Keaton is a great Bruce Wayne/Batman. While I prefer Kevin Conroy’s portrayal in Batman: The Animated Series (1992-1995), Keaton is a great Bruce Wayne/Batman. Though I actually like him a little bit better in Batman Returns (1992), but we’ll get to that next time. I also love Jack Nicholson as Jack Napier/the Joker. Even though he’s a darker character than Caesar Romero’s version from the ‘60s TV show and movie, this version of the Joker is alot more fun than Heath Ledger’s in The Dark Knight (2008), Jared Leto’s in Suicide Squad (2016), and Joaquin Phoenix’s in Joker (2019). He steals the show for sure, but not in an intrusive way the way the villains of the other three movies in this series end up doing later on. This is still very much a Batman movie.

The characters I like the least in this movie are Vicky Vale and Alexander Knox. Both of them are pretty useless with Vale screaming way too much and Knox basically disappearing for a good chunk of the movie. Kim Basinger and Robert Wuhl are great in the roles, but I wish they had more to do here.

Alfred, played by Michael Gough is probably my favourite version of Alfred in any movie or TV show, though the version in Batman: The Animated Series is a close second. Yes, Michael Cain is great in the Dark Knight Trilogy, Jeremy Irons is great in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), and I love Alan Napier in the role in the ‘60s TV show, but Gough’s version is the most fatherly towards Bruce, giving him advice throughout this series. And being extremely sarcastic when necessary too.

I can’t say too much about Commissioner Gordon, played by Pat Hingle, in this movie simply because he doesn’t actually do anything. He just stands around Axis Chemicals looking stupid while his men are being shot at, and Batman takes care of all of the gangsters. Same goes for Harvey Dent, played by Billy Dee Williams. Grissom gets taken out so early in the movie that there really isn’t anything to say about him either.

One thing I’m a bit confused about is whether the Joker takes out the rest of the Gotham City Mob, or just Vinnie, the mob boss who looks like Marlon Brando in The Godfather (1972). It’s suggested that he takes out the rest of the Mob, but Vinnie is the only one we actually see him kill, aside from the guy he burned alive with the joke buzzer during the big Mob meeting. It’s also not actually mentioned in dialogue. I have to assume the gangs were taken care of since we don’t see them in the rest of the series. Maybe the Batman ’89 comic book series deals with that?

Overall this is a wonderful movie. Like I said, despite the things I mentioned, the movie does hold up pretty well for an early comic book movie. It’s extremely entertaining and I had no problems watching it two nights in a row, once on VHS and once on Blu-ray.

Alrighty, that’s going to be it for me for this week, but I will be back soon with my review of Batman Returns. So until then have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you later. Take care. 

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) Movie Review

 Hey everyone! How was your Easter weekend? Mine was pretty awesome. So yesterday I got a 3-Movie Collection Blu-ray set that includes Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). Because of the pandemic I was unable to see No Way Home in theatres as so many of you got to see it. Because of that I've been chomping at the bit to see it because the stuff I was spoiled on made me more and more excited to see it. I finally got to see it last night and I'm here to talk about it. The movie is out on home video now and there's gonna be spoilers in this review, so please be aware of that if you haven't seen the movie yet.

When the first Spider-Man movie directed by Sam Raimi came out back in 2002, I was in my first year of high school, grade 9, getting ready for final exams, and it came out only a few weeks before Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones came out. I remember seeing the TV spots for the movie during That '70s Show and Smallville and I remember thinking how cool it was that a live action Spider-Man movie was coming out. Unlike with the X-Men two years before, I had been familiar with Spider-Man as a character because I used to watch reruns of the original 1967 cartoon and I'd watched the 1994 animated series on YTV and Fox Kids earlier in the '90s. I also had three Spider-Man comics and had read a fourth in the waiting room of one of the hospital clinics I had appointments at. I loved the character and to this day Spider-Man is my favourite Marvel character.

As Sony and Marvel announced what this movie was going to be, I was a little bit worried. I'd loved the previous two Spider-Man movies set in the MCU, but they were basically doing a live action version of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) as well as dealing with the cliffhanger ending of 2019's Far From Home, setting things up for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), and trying to wrap up the Tom Holland version of Spider-Man, since at the time this movie was being filmed, nobody knew if this was going to be the last MCU Spider-Man movie or if Sony would renew their deal with Marvel Studios despite them REALLY wanting to do Spider-Man on their own again in light of their plans for characters like Venom, Morbius, Black Cat, and Madam Web, among others. But despite everything they were saying, this movie came together wonderfully and wasn't actually as full as it sounded like it was going to be.

As I said, I saw Spider-Man (2002) and Spider-Man 2 (2004) when I was in high school. I didn't get to see either movie in theatres, but I saw the first movie for the first time on VHS with my friends for the birthday party I had for my 16th birthday at the end of 2002, and Spider-Man 2 was one of the first DVDs I ever got. I'd never heard of Sam Raimi before that as I'm not a fan of horror films, but I have a connection to all three of his Spider-Man movies, even though I've only seen Spider-Man 3 (2007) only once, right after I got it on DVD, and when elements from those three movies showed up in Spider-Man: No Way Home, I geeked out so much. Especially when Tobey Maguire showed up near the end of the movie, wearing his Spider-Man suit underneath his street clothes, as he always did in those movies.

I don't have as much attachment to The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) though The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) does hold a special place in my memory. I saw The Amazing Spider-Man in theatres with Brad the same day I saw The Avengers (2012) in theatres making it my first double feature movie going experience ever. I did see the second one with Brad, but we saw it on it's own and I only saw both movies the one time. So I didn't geek out as hard when elements of those movies appeared here. Though seeing Andrew Garfield back in the costume was pretty cool. I always felt that he got shafted in his own movies as Sony cared more about setting up a Spider-Man Universe of films rather than just trying to make good Spider-Man movies. 

One of the things that I've liked about Tom Holland's Peter Parker is that he portrays the Parker Guilt extremely well. Garfield and Maguire were fine with it, both felt a bit whiny with it. I mean there's that whole meme of Tobey Maguire ugly crying from the scene where he finds Uncle Ben in the first movie. I never got that sense from either the '90s cartoon or the Spider-Man comics that I've read over the years though. 

I've also always loved his friendship with Ned and his relationship with MJ, as short as it was. While the earlier Spider-Man movies did the classic relationships of Peter and Mary Jane, and Peter and Harry, Spider-Man 3 screwed up the Peter/Mary Jane relationship by making MJ needy and selfish. Which, aside from a few specific instances, mostly from before she knew Peter was Spider-Man, MJ was always supportive of Peter's life as Spider-Man. Which is what we've seen in the last two Spider-Man movies so I really like that.

It's still a bit weird seeing who Spider-Man has teamed up with in these movies. You had Iron Man in the first one and Nick Fury in the second one, and here you have Doctor Strange. I'm not a big fan of Doctor Strange and I didn't really care for the first movie he was in, but I find he's actually much better when he's interacting with other MCU characters, be it the Avengers or Spider-Man or whoever. I found that in Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019) as well as in this movie. I wasn't a fan of the insanity of the Mirror Dimension in this movie anymore than I was in Doctor Strange (2016), but unlike in that movie, it was a fairly short scene.

One of the things I didn't understand is why Aunt May had to die. Like, thematically, I get it, because it makes Peter want to fight Norman Osbourne, but as an audience member, I wasn't as invested in Aunt May as a character in this movie as I was in the Raimi movies. I think it's because Aunt May isn't in these three movies as much as Rosemary Harris's version was in the 2000s movies. So I felt her death felt like a replacement for Uncle Ben's death, since we didn't see that this time around. Though it did finally give us the line "with great power there must also come great responsibility", which is the proper version from the Spider-Man comics, while the earlier movies paraphrased it to "With great power comes great responsibility". So that was cool.

I've always found the character of Peter Parker to be relatable in so many ways. Unlike so many other superheroes, Peter finds it difficult to get through a regular 24 hour day which is something everyone can relate to. I've always said that DC characters are who we want to be and Marvel characters are who we are, and I think Spider-Man embodies that even more than Captain America or Iron Man do. Which is why I was able to get into the character when the Marvel Universe isn't something I was exposed to growing up outside of Spider-Man, and I haven't been able to be a fan of any of the other characters, though certain eras of the X-Men in the comics come close. 

I also found the ending to be confusing. Just because Happy still knew Aunt May even though the reason he knew her in the first place is because of Peter. Thanks to Doctor Strange's spell though, Happy doesn't know who Peter is, so how did he meet Aunt May? It's not made clear, without even a hint that the spell didn't have an effect on everyone who had known Peter. But it's messy multiverse/magic/time stuff that has no way around it being messy so I'm not overly concerned about it. Unless it's not explained in the next movie, whenever that ends up getting made.

Honestly it was nice to have a Spider-Man movie that was concentrating on being a Spider-Man movie rather than a bridge between other MCU films or setting up a Spider-Man Universe movie franchise. Yes, Doctor Strange is in the movie as a bit of a set up for his next film, but the only movie this one is piggybacking off of is it's predecessor Spider-Man movie. Unlike Homecoming, which came off of Spidey's appearance in Captain America: Civil War (2016) and was leading up to his appearance in Infinity War, and Far From Home, which was coming off of Endgame, No Way Home is simply being a Spider-Man movie and not worrying too much about the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe like the Disney+ Marvel shows have been doing. Which was nice for me, because I don't care about the larger MCU as much as I did pre-Infinity War. 

Alright guys I think that's going to be it for me for today. I loved Spider-Man: No Way Home and I had so much fun watching it last night, and reuniting with characters I went through high school watching, but haven't seen anything new from since 2007. If you're like me and weren't able to go see it in theatres, I highly recommend you buy it, or rent it, and watch it as soon as possible, it's really good. Until next time have a wonderful afternoon and I will see you all back here on Friday for my review of Batman (1989). Take care.

Batman: The Video Game (1989) Memories/Review/Overview/Retrospective

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Happy Easter Weekend! It's Good Friday and I decided to do a fun blog post today. I'm going to do something similar to how I started this version of the blog by talking about a video game that I used to play all the time. In this case I'll be talking about Batman: The Video Game for the Nintendo Entertainment System which came out in 1989 as a tie-in to Tim Burton's first movie. This is going to be a prelude to a four-part retrospective on Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology which includes Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992), Batman Forever (1995), and Batman & Robin (1997). These will be my own personal feelings on the film franchise, my personal history with it, as well as some history of where comic books, comic book movies, and comic book TV shows were during the time these movies were coming out. Which is something that I'm going to be doing for the MCU, the DCEU, the Arrowverse, the Dark Knight Trilogy, and other comic book movies, TV shows, and comics themselves. So, let's dive into Batman: The Video Game.

Batman: The Video Game was produced by Sunsoft for the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Nintendo Game Boy, and the Sega Genesis as a tie-in to the highly anticipated feature film, Batman, directed by Tim Burton and starring Michael Keaton as Batman/Bruce Wayne, Kim Bassinger as Vicky Vale, and Jack Nicholson as Jack Napier/the Joker. I don't remember exactly when we got this game, but I do remember my dad bringing it home, taking it out of the box and then keeping the box somewhere safe. I think our copy was second hand because I'm pretty sure we got it AFTER my mom had gotten the Super Nintendo for my dad. Anyways we still had the box in October of 1994 because my dad took the Darth Vader costume my parents had bought for me (it came with a domino mask), cut the Bat symbol out of the empty game box, and taped it onto the front of the Vader suit so I could be Batman for Halloween at school that year.

This was the first game I ever saw that had actual cut scenes between every level in it. Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World had cut scenes at the end of every boss level, but they were pretty static. This game had fully animated cut scenes. Well, as fully animated as an 8-bit game made in 1989 could have. I love that title card as well.

I remember playing this game the most in the mid to late '90s, circa 1996-1997, when we lived in one particular house. In this house my siblings and I had a large playroom in the basement that was divided into sections. We had a library corner, a wide open area for playing board games on the floor, as well as playing with action figures, a corner for listening to the Playskool Talk 'n Play, which I'll talk about more at another time, and then we had a corner where we could watch TV, watch movies on the VCR or play video games. This is where we'd play this game. 

There are a few things I associate this basement with the most. This game, my Teddy Ruxpin books, my Hardy Boys books, the VHS release of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, watching reruns of The Dukes of Hazzard on TNN, watching Power Rangers Zeo on Fox Kids, and watching reruns of Sailor Moon and The Woody Woodpecker Show on YTV. In fact, I associate playing Batman: The Video Game with watching Sailor Moon and Woody Woodpecker because basically every afternoon in the summertime my brother, sister, and I would sit in the basement and play Batman: The Video Game and then watch The Woody Woodpecker Show, with Sailor Moon airing after that. At that point Sailor Moon was on in reruns as well because the show had already been cancelled. I'll go into this a bit more when I get around to talking about Sailor Moon, but the show wasn't popular in it's initial 1995 airing and so only 65 episodes had been produced for the original English dub. It wouldn't be until 1997 that the second season of the dub would be complete and be aired for a total of 82 episodes. But, I digress.

 So, like I said, we'd sit in the basement in the afternoons in the summer and watch Sailor Moon and The Woody Woodpecker Show, and play Batman: The Video Game. Occasionally we'd get a bit further in the game, but usually we only got as far as Stage 2-2 (Stage 2, Level 2). I think we did get a little bit further than that once or twice, but that's usually as far as we could get. Don't forget this was in the mid '90s when we were playing this and we didn't have access to the internet at the time, YouTube didn't exist, and there was no strategy guide for this game. At least, not without tracking down an old issue of Nintendo Power that had been long out of print by that point. 

I love the music in this game. Of course I only remember the title music, the stage one theme, the stage two theme, and the game over theme, but those are the most iconic pieces of music in the game for me. Every time I hear one of those themes it brings me back into that basement, where we played this game the most.

Batman: The Video Game was also released on the Nintendo Game Boy. I've never owned this version so I don't know how well it plays in comparison to the NES version. I have seen screenshots of it on YouTube and elsewhere online, so I know it looks completely different than the NES version.

The game also came out on the Sega Genesis. Again, I didn't own this version of the game. I also didn't have any friends who had any Sega consoles. But, again, I've seen screenshots online and the gameplay looks like the 16-bit version of the game. Which it is. 

I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back soon with my Batman (1989) review, though I'm not sure when though because I'm planning on working on the review throughout the week. I'm going to watch the movie on VHS tonight, watch it on Blu-ray on Saturday night, watch it again on Blu-ray on Sunday night, with the commentary turned on, and then I'm going to watch the bonus features on the Blu-ray on Monday night, with the write-up being done throughout the rest of the week so the review should be up by Friday next week. I'll also be doing it that way with the other three movies in the franchise. So, until then have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (DC Comics) #1 - "Return to Raimon" (1989) Comic Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Friday. I'm back for a comic book review and this time I'll be talking about the first issue of DC Comics's monthly series for Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1989. I'm also going to be doing a segment where, I'll be looking at the major issues and graphic novels/collected editions coming out around the time the issue I'm reviewing came out. So let's dive into the first issue of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I think I've made my love for Star Trek very well known on my various blogs over the last seven years. And I think I've also made my nostalgia for both of the Star Trek comics published by DC Comics from 1989 until 1996 known as well. But, here's the thing, this is my first time owning the first issue of the Star Trek: The Next Generation ongoing monthly series, having started reading the book at issue #31 when I was a kid, and never finding this issue for an affordable price until a few weeks ago, when I finally found it at the Geeked Out Toy Sale that Brad and I went to. So I thought that was pretty cool.

Story and character wise, not a whole lot happens in this issue. On Stardate 42305.7 the Enterprise has been summoned to the planet, Raimon where Picard has been asked to attend the Primarch's death celebration. The Primarch is what the Raimonians call their leader. According to Picard's opening Captain's Log, Raimonians celebrate death by having a party for a person before they die, so they may attend the celebration. Which is...interesting to say the least. Anyway both Picard and Riker beam down to the planet, which is a GREAT idea when you're in Starfleet. Especially when you only have two security officers with you and neither of them are Worf. The reason Picard was asked to attend the Primarch's death celebration is because back when Picard was on the USS Stargazer, though before he was that ship's captain, he and the crew attended the previous Primarch's death celebration. So, now, some twenty years later though no timeline is established as to how long it had been since Picard was last on Raimon, Picard meets the Primarch's daughter, Lutina, who was only five years old when Picard had been on the planet previously, and Lord Tardol, a member of the Primarch's council who doesn't like offworlders such as Picard.

I won't spoil the ending but the issue ends on a cliffhanger as this story continues into the second issue, which I don't have. However, I will say that nothing interesting happens on the ship. There's a scene where Geordi and Worf are on the Holodeck with Worf fighting one of his calisthenics monsters, though one that was never on the show, and then there's a scene with Wesley, Doctor Pulaski, Geordi, and Chief O'Brien in Ten Forward talking about hearing Picard praising a five year old girl (the Primarch's daughter) despite his known discomfort around children. The only scene that we get on the Bridge is with Worf, Data, and Troi where Troi muses that she can normally sense the emotions of the person sitting in the captain's chair, i.e. Picard or Riker, but can't with Data due to him not having emotions since he's an Android. But that's pretty much it. The majority of the story takes place on Raimon with Picard and Riker.

The artwork is amazing as always. Unlike the six issue TNG mini-series that DC published in 1988, this series and it's artist, Pablo Marcos, had the benefit of having had the TV show be on for two seasons up to this point so set designs, and character models are more on point than in the mini-series. Though it still has that '80s Star Trek comic book thing where there's at least one character wearing a costume that was never seen on the show. In this instance it's Worf wearing some sort of exercise outfit that looks more like something William Ware Theiss would've designed for the Original Star Trek series in the '60s. Also Pulaski's hair is a bit more blond than it is on the TV show, or in later issues of the DC TNG series that she makes guest appearances in. It also has that thing where the locations on the ship are a bit off. In this issue, the entrance to Picard's ready room is beside the fish tank, where the replicator would normally be. They've never actually resolved that particular issue though as in issue #71 the entrance to the observation lounge (briefing room) that would lead out into the rampway up to the Bridge, leads directly onto the Bridge, and is located in the bulkhead where the models of the various starships named Enterprise hung should be. 

Also, in this issue, in the wide shot of the Bridge at the beginning of the scene I mentioned earlier, Worf, Data, and Troi are the only ones on the Bridge, with nobody manning the forward Conn and Ops stations. This was actually a thing that the first few episodes of the TV show had, where the senior officers would be the only ones on the Bridge with tactical being unmanned or Ops being unmanned, for whatever reason. The show started hiring more extras after about the fourth or fifth episode though. So it's weird to see a lack of personnel on the Bridge of the Enterprise in a comic book.

Even though the story continues in the next issue and not a whole lot actually happens, this is still a pretty decent issue. The first issue of the second ongoing monthly Star Trek came out at around the exact same time as this issue did but the writers of the series had more leeway with the TOS series because they were coming off of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and at this point Star Trek VI was going to be a prequel so the comics could tell stories without running into the next movie. Which meant they could leap off story elements leftover from both The Voyage Home and The Final Frontier without running into problems. And they ended up crafting a storyline that continued for the first 24 issues of the series.

With the TNG series though, they only had two seasons to go on, and as the third season hadn't started yet, I don't think the people at DC knew whether Pulaski would be back for season 3 or if Doctor Crusher was returning or what. Neither did the audience when this issue came out in August as the season wouldn't start until September. Which is why the first four issues take place during season 2 rather than during season 3 as the issues were written and the artwork was done months before the issues were to be published. Which is why you had those weird inconsistencies in the six issue mini-series that preceded the ongoing series as all the writer and artist had to go on were still shots, promotional material and episode scripts as the show wouldn't air before production on the comics were finished. So, overall a very good first issue. Now, I'm going to be talking about the five major issues, graphic novels, and collected editions that came out around this time.

The first issue I'm going to be mentioning is Batman #440, which was part one of "A Lonely Place of Dying", the storyline that introduced Tim Drake. This landmark issue came out the same week as Star Trek: The Next Generation #1 hence why I'm talking about it here. Until I saw it on the DC Checklist of the Week in the inside front cover of the issue, I didn't realize that the two books came out the same week. So that's pretty cool. I have "A Lonely Place of Dying" in trade paperback form, so I'll be reviewing that at some point.

The first major single issue to be advertised in the book was The New Legion of Super-Heroes #1. I'm not all that familiar with the Legion of Super-Heroes as I've only read a few random issues that had been collected in the Best of DC digests that I had when I was a teenager, I missed them on both Smallville and Supergirl, and I tried watching the first few episodes of the animated series that ran from 2006 until 2008 on the Kids WB block on The CW when a buddy of mine lent it to me on DVD, but I couldn't get into it so I never finished the series. Anyway 1989 saw the relaunch of the comic book series and the issue was coming out the following month, so around the same time as Star Trek: The Next Generation #2.

The next major single issue to be advertised in the issue was Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #1, which was the first part of the five issue "Shaman" storyline that kicked the book off, which was the first new Batman title to be published since Batman and the Outsiders debuted in 1983, and is actually the first new Batman solo title to be published since Batman debuted in 1940 as the ones published prior to this one were either team-up books such as World's Finest, The Brave and the Bold, and Batman and the Outsiders, or were books that were focused on other characters such as Star-Spangled Comics which debuted Robin as a solo character, and Joker, which is self-explanatory, or the book was focused on the Bat Family such as Batman Family. Even on the collector's covers it says that it's the first new solo Batman book since 1940.

The final major single issue to be advertised in this issue of TNG was Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn #1 which was the revamp of Hal Jordan's origin as Green Lantern in the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Comics Universe. Which would eventually lead to him becoming Parallax in 1994. That's a story for another time though. 

The only graphic novel to be advertised in this issue is a pretty notorious one. That one is Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth by Grant Morrison. I've never read it as I'm not a big fan of Grant Morrison's work, though I do like his run on Batman from the mid to late 2000s. But this was still a popular book that was going to come out at the time, particularly for the Batman character. Which is why I'm including it here.

The last book I want to talk about is the only hardcover collected edition that DC was advertising in this issue. And that was The Superman Archives Volume 1, which I actually own a copy of in my collection. The DC Archive Editions line of hardcovers were a big deal in the late '80s and early '90s, because aside from the Greatest Stories Ever Told collected edition volumes for Superman, Batman, and the Joker, these books were the first time the older comics from the late '30s and the '40s had been republished since they'd originally been published. Collected editions were just starting to become a thing in 1989 when this issue was published. The major storylines from the era like Batman: Year One, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Superman: The Man of Steel, New Teen Titans: The Judas Contract, Batman: Year Two, and Watchmen had come out in both hardcover and trade paperback editions, but the regular ongoing titles weren't being collected in trade paperbacks or hardcover editions aside from a few storylines here and there, like the ones I mentioned.

I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back soon with either a movie review or a TV show pilot episode review. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.