Beyond My Geeky Life

I have never really been a big fan of DC Comics or their related properties. I generally am aware of them, but I don't go out of my way to watch their stuff for the most part and when I do, I normally find my views to be justified. I just do not enjoy most of what DC puts out there. In past posts I have talked about some of the DC-related elements that I do not like and why. Every so often something DC-related surprises me. I am a huge fan of Watchman and I understand why it is such a big deal. Neil Gaiman's Sandman is just so incredibly well done. I liked Batman Begins, the only good movie of that trilogy, as The Dark Knight is one of the most overrated films ever. And thanks to my son, I got into the new Flash TV show and Supergirl. While neither fully breaks away from the flaws of DC, they a least were different and had interesting characters and plots that I enjoyed. And while the Flash is insanely overpowered and they tried to pull Supergirl down power-wise, they soo...

When I first heard they were working on an animated Spider-Man movie I thought "Okay, might be fun," but really did not think of it as anything big. The trailers came out and I thought "Okay, this looks better than I was expecting," yet I was still not taking it too seriously. I had little faith they were going to do anything special with it. I figured it would be just another attempt at Sony Pictures getting their money's worth from having the rights to Spider-Man cinematic universe. They have been so hit or miss with what they have done with it so far, I was not seeing a full animated movie as being promising from them. So now on Rotten Tomatoes Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has 62 reviews and is at 100%. Now that is a truly rare event.  Normally by 62 reviews there are a few who didn't like a movie, no matter how good it is. Several reviews call it the best animated movie of the year, which is saying a lot. A Sony Pictures animated film is getting...

Stan Lee has died. It was not a surprise or shocking death, as he was 95 and had been having health issues. Yet his death does hit hard those of us who were fans. When a person who has inspired us, entertained us, created something that we hold important in our lives dies, it is going to leave us at a loss of words, even if it is expected. And while I am one of those who feels that Lee's contribution is too often over hyped, (Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby were just as important in creating what became the Marvel Universe, but are not as well known) he very much became a known inspiring personality.  Anyone who reads my blog knows how big a fan of Spider-Man I am, so having both creators die in less than half a year from each other (Steve Ditko passed in June) is somewhat surreal. You can look back to my posts about how Amazing Fantasy 15 changed the world of comic books and entertainment in general. With just that one creation the two of them created a legacy that is clearly going t...

The new season of Doctor Who has started. We have our first female Doctor, played by Jodi Whittaker. We have a new TARDIS.  We have a new show runner and I believe a full new creative staff putting it all together. So at four episodes in, what does this all mean? Our first episode, The Women Who Fell to Earth, did what it needed to do with the basic introduction of the new Doctor. The story was decent, nothing special. It let us see the new Doctor in action and gave us some feel for her three new companions. My main problem with this first episode was it felt rushed. There were jokes in there that seemed good, but had bad timing on them for a proper reaction. There was enough filler shots in there that they could have told us the same story at a better pace if they had tried. Next we have The Ghost Monument, which worked for me. Nothing special in it, but it felt like Doctor Who. It had some interesting concepts in it and flowed well enough. We get to see the new TARDIS. ...

In an interesting turn of events, San Diego Comic-Con won the law suit against Salt Lake City Comic Con over the use of ‘Comic Con’. This is a term most fans just assumed was going to be used as a generic term for the big conventions. Just about every major city now seemed to have a Comic Con and we more or less knew they were not all connected. Much of the law suit seemed somewhat petty to me. San Diego Comic-Con as the Comic-Con, with all the others just being a comic con. And since SDCC always sold out and was about as crowded as it gets, I really doubt they were losing any business to those other conventions. But the judgment has been made. Here in Colorado we have at least four conventions that were using ‘comic con’, with the Denver Comic Con being the biggest of them.  Well they have now changed their name to Denver Pop Culture Convention, DPCC now, although I saw two friends refer to it as D-Pop. Doing a quick check on-line, I get the impression Denver is ahead of ...

Stephan Colbert this last week had actor  Joe Manganiello on to talk about his upcoming projects. That never happened.  The two of them instead talked about Dungeons and Dragons for most of the interview. They covered the classic 'Red Box' edition of the game, the 'Satanic Panic' era as well as various changes made through the various editions, ending with Colbert pulling out a bag of dice and talking about rolling for attributes before Manganiello rolled a natural twenty to end the interview with. Colbert explained that he was not supposed to make the roll, as it was to see if they were going to end the interview or not. Colbert had to apologize because the interview had to end, despite what the die roll said. During the interview they showed pictures of Manganiello’s gaming dungeon, which was just awesome, as he talked about all the celebrities that hung out at his place to game. The two men then set up a date for Colbert to come by and do some D&D next time he w...

In general I am not one who is afraid to voice my opinion. I have done it on this blog many times, so I am starting this one off by saying the following is my opinion and everyone is free to agree or disagree. I know this opinion will most likely not be popular, but that has never been my concern. Feel free to disagree with me here, as I am willing to bet there are a lot who do. As many here know I am not a fan of Batman, a boring character to say the least. Some time ago I wrote about my issues with him.  At that time I mentioned just how bad a character The Joker is and that I would write a future post on that. Well here is that post. The Joker is about the most overrated character in comic books, ever. He is a poorly conceived one trick pony that grows old quickly. But of course you look at most of Batman’s enemies and you can see a pattern of them just not being interesting.  However The Joker is the one everyone seems to love and is too often at the forefront...