The Dragon Prince Season One Review

The Dragon Prince review

The Dragon Prince is a Netflix original fantasy animated series from the head-writer and several other creatives behind Avatar: The Last Airbender. I discussed this series on my blog when it had a teaser out at San Diego Comic-Con. It released around September and I watched it then, I'm only writing my review so much later, because that's how I roll. The fantasy world is good, but isn't up to the standards of the likes of Tolkien, Narnia, or The Last Airbender. The series starts with a short summary on the background of the world which will help explain the series going into it, "Sun. Moon. Stars. Earth. Sky. Ocean. Long ago, the two nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the humans attacked. Only the Dragon Prince, raised by both Humans and Elves, could bring balance to the world." I think the show is strong in characters and narrative for the most part, but the fictional world is still an aspect that I question. For example, and forgive me if I may have just forgotten, but I believe the dragons and elves are different kingdoms, then why are the elves so very attached to the dragons and their eggs and why do they hold such animosity towards the humans over it? One very strong point in the series, I felt was the cool action and fight scenes and I think that the animation lends itself very nicely to those scenes. One of the best characters with fight scenes is an elf and former assassin Rayla, who was sent to kill two young human princes, Callum and Ezran over the dragon prince egg. After finding out that the egg is still in tact, she teams up with the princes to stop their kingdoms from war. Rayla had a magic unbreakable band put on her arm that would only fall off once she killed Ezran or waited long enough to lose her hand. I like that Rayla, once realizing that the humans really aren't all bad doesn't try to still kill the princes even though she is in pain and in danger of her hand falling off from her binding oath. That's pretty nice. One thing I don't like is that Rayla and several other characters have a heavy Scottish/Canadian accent that started wearing on me even by the beginning of the series. I would say that other than not having the strongest world and not being a perfect show, the worst thing about The Dragon Prince is that it can be sort-of childish at some points.

This series did spawn the mage meme and an amazing online community. Netflix is very involved with series like The Dragon Prince with it now being renewed for a season 2, Avatar: The Last Airbender being rebooted as a live-action television series and several other popular and upcoming fantastical movies and TV series. Netflix is doing well in this department of fantasy including The Dragon Prince.

I say for my overall recommendation that The Dragon Prince is a good but not great fantasy world that can be expanded upon and is a good starting point for a possibly great series. If you have Netflix I would recommend viewing The Dragon Prince.

Comics Review 2018!

Summer Comics Review 2018
I am well aware that it is no longer summer, but I still want to put up this blog to review the comics that I read earlier this year. I'm stepping it up from last year with several more categories and I'm including honorable mentions for some of them. All that, even though I read less volumes than last year at 47 compared to 2017's 55. Not all of this is new it's just what I've read, if you have any recommendations comment them down below. I'm doing the Oscars 2. Start.

Best Black Panther Book
Black Panther: The Complete Collection Vol. 1
By Christopher Priest
Black Panther existed before these comics, but not really in the way you would know him now. This brought in so many concepts and was revolutionary both for comics and diversity. On top of that this story is very funny and feels like it is a movie.
Honorable Mention: Black Panther/ Captain America

Best Batman Book
Batman: Year One
By Frank Miller
A very classic origin retelling of Batman, this brings in a version of the character that is somewhat freaky and scary and gives a lot of development to Gordon. Year One is better than The Dark Knight Returns and is a required reading for Batman.
Honorable Mention: Batman Beyond vol. 1

Best Avengers Book
New Avengers vol. 1
By Jonathan Hickman
This is legendary and I read it because of Infinity War and it brings up a major showing. The coolest part is when Captain America uses and breaks the Infinity Gauntlet. Just the lore and the saga of this makes a legendary epic.

Best X-Men Book
X-Men Grand Design
By Ed Piskor
Grand Design is a modern retelling of the X-Men, still with a very retro take. This was actually published in 2018 and was also the best comic published this year that I read. Piskor does the writing and art, he also recolored the actual original first issue of X-Men. And I really like how he incorporates all of the X-Men lore and characters.
Honorable Mention: Generation X Vols. 1&2

Best Spider-Man Book
Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage
By Tom Defalco
While this book is long and somewhat dated, Maximum Carnage is probably the best Carnage story in existence. It also gives good insight for Spider-Man and Venom, as well as featuring many other heroes and villains. Fan-favorite.
Honorable Mention: The Amazing Spider-Man Vols. 1&2

Best Independent Book
Maus II
By Art Spiegelman
Even though this book is about animals like mice, cats, and pigs, it is one of the most human comics on this list. Maus I and II are both about Art Spiegelman's father's experiences in the holocaust, with different ethnic groups represented by animals. And it is independently published, which is a plus for lots of people. This is the second volume, I'd recommend it as well as the first.
Honorable Mention- Optimus Prime vol. 1

Best Star Wars Book
Darth Vader vol. 1
By Charles Soule
This must be on here simply for a Force-dream sequence that Vader has of him meeting back with Obi-Wan. But other than that it is a great story, showing the immediate rise of Darth Vader right after Revenge of the Sith. This is a great story with great art and a Star Wars must-read.

Best Justice League Book
JLA: Tower of Babel
By Mark Waid
Batman has contingency plans against every member of the Justice League. What would happen if those plans were stolen and used against Batman and the JLA? This story goes very well into Batman's character and his relations with the rest of the league. Waid is a master writer in this and treads out the story of Batman and the every other character.




Top 3.

3. Infinity Gauntlet
By Jim Starlin, George Perez, and Ron Lim
Summary: Follows Thanos on his mission to court death and destroy half of the universe using the powerful artifacts of the Infinity Gauntlet and Infinity Gems, while the "Avengers" are on a mission to stop him.

The is the primary basis for Infinity War, it is able to explore every character in depth in just 4 issues and really sheds more light on Thanos. Adds a very fun spin and feels like thanos is battling the heroes in a game of chess and it is nice to read.

2. Moon Knight Vol. 1-3
By Jeff Lemire and Greg Smallwood
Summary: Really unsummarizable, but if I had to, it's a split personality hero being manipulated by Egyptian gods and other characters in and out of outer space, other dimensions, and his own mind.

Moon Knight is very trippy and has spinning stellar art that carries well with the journey and story of this journey. Lemire and Smallwood are gods for this series and it is up there for my all-time favorites. I read the Legacy series to this also, which is a lot more linear and grounded than this but still continues on naturally and's pretty good.

1. Kingdom Come
By Mark Waid and Alex Ross
Summary: Kingdom Come has a human preacher character guided along a trip to watch a civil war between old and new dc heroes.

If you have not yet looked upon the paint art of Alex Ross, you are missing out. And this entire series is painted like that. And as I said before, Mark Waid is a G. So, the writing, story, and themes of this are right there and really put out the the theme of doubt in our heroes. Alex Ross also wrote a first draft of Kingdom Come, establishing one of the greatest DC comics series of all time.

Star Wars: Thrawn Alliances review

Thrawn: Alliances Review

Thrawn: Alliances by Timothy Zahn was released earlier this year and I read it then, I haven't reviewed it up to now, because I have been very busy. The book takes place in two time periods, that it bounces back and forth between, similar to the book, Last Shot. The earlier time period was an adventure with Thrawn, Anakin, and Padme during The Clone Wars on the planet of Batuu. And the second time period was an adventure with Thrawn and Vader in the Empire that involved them digging up their past on Batuu. The eras changing like this can sometimes be an annoyance, like when it gets very exciting in one and you have to switch. Overall these adventures are fun and have great writing. One interesting thing about them is that the planet, Batuu will be the setting for the upcoming Star Wars land at Disney, Galaxy's Edge. So you may see some tie-in to this book if you are to visit, once that opens.

Batuu

My favorite characters in this are obviously Thrawn and Vader/Anakin, there is so much insight into both characters in the book it is just so intriguing. I would also like to mention Rukh, Thrawn's Alien bodyguard, he goes aboard the  Star Destroyer and has very humorous quarrels with the imperials and later teams up with them for an epic fight against some adversaries. A character I wish had more presence in this book is Eli Vanto of the first Thrawn book and he is really not present or mentioned at that is much of a shame here. This book has great insight into the force and interactions with Thrawn and Vader, I would like for you to read this quote that shows much of that, and I think is one of the best spots in this book. Before you read it you should now that Anakin was the first Jedi that Thrawn ever met and Vader internally refers to Anakin as "The Jedi". Right here, Thrawn and Vader are aboard the Star Destroyer, Chimera and Vader is navigating the ship with The Force, when this happens:

"There was a flicker in Thrawn's sense. Vader looked up to see a small smile on his face. 'Do you find this amusing, Admiral?' he challenged. 'No, not at all, my lord,' Thrawn hastened to assure him. 'I was simply recalling a memory. I told you the Chiss call this talent Third Sight. What I hadn't yet spoken of is the title these navigators are given once they take their posts.' 'Which is?' 'The Cheunh word is Ozyly-esehembo,' Thrawn said. 'In Basic it translates to 'Skywalker.'' Another small smile. 'You can imagine my confusion when I first encountered Jedi General Anakin Skywalker.' Vader nodded. He'd forgotten that The Jedi, too, had wondered about Thrawn's reaction at that meeting. A small mystery, now put to rest. The recitation ended. 'Lord Vader, the Chimera awaits your guidance,' Thrawn said. That one, at least, was new. Stretching out to The Force, Vader keyed the Hyperdrive."

Thrawn trolls Vader several times in this book over Vader's identity and I think that is pretty cool and the fact that the name Skywalker might come from the Chiss also is. I feel like Space Navigation may also come into use when Thrawn and Ezra are in the middle of space in a Star Destroyer after Rebels, but that's just speculation.

 Yet another aspect from this book that could affect the future of Star Wars is the Grysks, they are a species from the unknown regions that is a big threat to the galaxy. That sounds very similar to the Yuhzon Vong from Legends, and that alien race would take over inhabited planets and posed a very large threat for the New Republic. But who knows what the future of Thrawn and Star Wars will hold?

Yuhzon Vong designs for cancelled Clone Wars appearance

Thrawn: Alliances was about 100 pages shorter than the first book and was probably more contained because of it, but also was free to tell its own story. Overall it felt like some of the best episodes of The Clone Wars, but just wasn't up to the grandeur of the first Thrawn book.

Thank you for reading, I hope to see you here later, and Stay Connected

Star Wars: The Mandalorian tv show revealed!

Star Wars: The Mandalorian live-action TV Show Revealed!
The Jon Favreau Star Wars series has officially been given a title, a synopsis, details on production, and the first official image. The title of the series is The Mandalorian and it will release on Disney's upcoming streaming service, Disney Plus sometime during 2019. Here is the official synopsis:

I like that it mentions both Boba and Jango Fett and while we won't see them, this Mandalorian could be a legacy character to them. Sadly, this may also be a confirmation that Boba Fett is indeed dead. Some other characters that are more likely to have involvement in the series are Sabine Wren and Bo-Katan Kryze from Star Wars: Rebels. The former is a mandalorian and we know she is on a quest with Ahsoka Tano to find Ezra around this time period. But the latter, Bo-Katan was leading the planet this show derives its name from, Mandalore, last we saw it. So I think both are possible, considering and will at least connect somehow. It is also worth noting that Jon Favreau voiced the characters of Pre Vizsla in The Clone Wars and Rio Durant in Solo, both won't appear though, because they're finna dead.
The time period for me, being the New Republic era, 7 years after Return of the Jedi is great and really heightens this for me because of stories happening in this in-between period like Shattered Empire, Bloodline, Resistance, and now The Mandalorian. Someone recently compared The New Republic period in Star Wars to a reconstruction, they have to rebuild everything after the empire, everything is almost more uncertain than during the empire, and that's where you can get into this fun underworld.

So the location (at least partially) in this show is almost 100% Tatooine. That is evident from the official picture, set photos, and comparisons. Especially next to a pic on Tatooine from the cancelled Visceral game, it's uncanny. This might be in Mos Eisley or Mos Espa, and if it is, I'd like to see some callbacks like the cantina, Watto, or a podrace. Going back to the cancelled game thing, this is taking inspiration from numerous projects (See Here) including games, 1313 and Visceral's Project Ragtag. But most of all the inspiration for this is presumably George Lucas' cancelled show, Star Wars Underworld that had over 50 written scripts, before it was scrapped because of budget issues.

The budget for a Star Wars TV series in the mid-2000's could never make a level-quality show. But it can now. This television series has the highest budget of any television series of all time, ever! Couple that with the fact that they are only spreading it out over 8 or 10 episodes and you have some quality! For other production, you have Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, and Kathleen Kennedy producing. Then Taika Waititi (Thor:Ragnarok), Bryce Dallas Howard (Jurassic World actress, daughter of the guy who just directed the most recent Star Wars movie, She probably also directed some stuff), Deborah Chow (Jessica Jones), and Rick Famuiya (Dope) are each directing episodes. Not to mention Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Rebels, and Resistance creator, Dave Filoni directing the first episode. You also might have Game of Thrones and Thor: The Dark World director, Alan Taylor and The Mandalorian's creator Jon Favreau direct episodes, though these two aren't confirmed.
Overall this show looks so awesome. I'm getting a western vibe, like Clint Eastwood-style and in Star Wars, most similar to Solo. I would expect a cast listing, several more images, and some sort of footage in the next few weeks or months. In the meantime, I will come back with that Thrawn: Alliances review and will be watching Star Wars: Resistance in the next few days. Very hyped for The Mandalorian, like hype in the bloodstream. Star Wars and stay connected.

Sources:
Read More: https://www.starwars.com/news/the-mandalorian-revealed
Leaks1: https://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2018/10/star-wars-new-rumors-production.html
Leaks2: https://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2018/09/star-wars-jon-favreau-set-photos.html
Star Wars Explained: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5vNA3I6uI8&feature=youtu.be
Hellogreedo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH1L3Q4vofk

Battlebots Season 3 (2018) tournament of 16 predictions

Battlebots Season 3 (2018) Tournament of 16 predictions

As I have wrote on this blog before, I am a big fan of Battlebots. And now, the third season is coming to a close with a tournament of 16 bots and I thought it would be fit to fill out a bracket and guess/ commentate on the tourney. You can watch the Battlebots on the Discovery or Science channels or app. These are just guesses and are probably wrong somewhere, but let's just have the fun.

Tombstone v Bombshell: Tombstone
This one's simple, Tombstone, the lord of the ring vs the bottom seed and a weak bot. W: Tombstone

Sow vs Lock-Jaw: Lock-Jaw
Sow is one of the worst bots and that whole family of bots is just manipulating the enterprise and most of them suck anyway. Not so for Donald Holland and the legend of Lockjaw. W: Lock-Jaw

Sawblaze vs Monsoon: Sawblaze
Sawblaze is a powerful new bot going against low-level Monsoon. Could be a massacre, could be close. But Sawblaze is strong. W: Sawblaze

Minotaur vs Witch Doctor: Minotaur
Witch Doctor is a bot that is being pushed very heavily by the Battlebots corporate, but they also love Minotaur because they are from Rio. Witch Doctor's weak. W: Minotaur

Bronco vs War Hawk: Bronco
War Hawk did destroy a bot well in one of the final fights, but still almost went down and surely will against top-level heavyweight Bronco. W: Bronco

Yeti vs Whiplash: Yeti
Neither is very strong, but Yeti is an experienced robot, with skill, Whiplash is going down. W: Yeti

Icewave vs Rotator: Icewave
Are you kidding me? Icewave is becoming an absolute king, recently with great wins. On the other hand, Rotator is a device that is heavily handicapped. W: Icewave

Bite Force vs Huge: Bite Force
Ummm... Huge just got cut in half in less than a minute by Icewave, I'm pretty sure that former champion Bite Force can handle. W: Bite Force

Everyone of these fights is hypothetical & is subject to change or just won't happen:

Tombstone vs Lock-Jaw: Tombstone
Lock-Jaw is strong, but I haven't yet seen a player that Tombstone didn't have the capability to beat. W: Tombstone

Sawblaze vs Minotaur: Minotaur
Sawblaze most truly isn't a master, and Minotaur is better, I could see this becoming a close match, but Sawblaze can't beat the tournament. W: Minotaur

Bronco vs Yeti: Bronco
Yeti is good and all, with experience but it just isn't a beater of the master of flip, Bronco. W: Bronco

Icewave vs Bite Force: Bite Force
I really would want Icewave to win, but I just don't know if he's powerful enough to take down Bite Force. IceWave has lost to such bots as Nightmare and Bite Force is a champion, it could be close but W: Bite Force

Tombstone vs Minotaur: Tombstone
Tombstone Takedown! Minotaur may be powerful enough to win up here to this point, but no one can take down Tombstone, though he sure can take down others. W: Tombstone

Bronco vs Bite Force: Bronco
At the beginning of this season, there was a bet placed that by the end of the season, Bronco would flip a bot into the ceiling, if not that, another flip into the outside of the box. It would be close, but a Bronco win is possible. W: Bronco

Final: Tombstone vs Bronco
If this truly does turn into the finale, I think that Tombstone would tear Bronco apart, he is too fast and strong with the blade spinner. For Bronco to flip Tombstone and very much damage it, I just don't think is possible. W: Tombstone

These are just my predictions, feel free to leave yours and I will put a link to the Battlebots website were you can find a pdf bracket to fill out.
I do hope that Tombstone wins, along with Lock-Jaw, IceWave and HyperShock (who isn't in the tournament) they are my favorite bots.)

Link: https://battlebots.com/bracket/
Thank you for reading this blog and sorry for not uploading for a timely time, I've been dealing with school and lots of other stressors and losing some sleep. But, the blog will continue and I have some reviews coming soon. This will be yet another era for the blog and I will try to do more different types of content. I shall also update once the tournament ends. Thank you and stay connected.

Jurassic Park Trilogy Review

Jurassic Park Trilogy Review
The Jurassic Park trilogy, especially the first film have become classics among the genre and that is why I will do a quick review of them today. Be forewarned there will be spoilers for the entire franchise, including Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Jurassic Park III, Michael Crichton's novels, and minor spoilers for the Jurassic World movies.

Jurassic Park:
Jurassic Park 1 is directed by Steven Spielberg, as is The Lost World. One of my favorite aspects of the movie is the emphasis of nature and the environment and you get that through Richard Attenborough character John Hammond. Fitting, considering his brother, David Attenborough is naturalist. My favorite character in the whole franchise has to be Ian Malcolm, his scientific perspective through chaos theory on the dinosaurs is very intriguing. The music composed by John Williams is one of the best parts of the movie and of course is iconic. A part of the book that was really cool that wasn't adapted to the movie is Dr. Alan Grant killing each velociraptor, one by one, through injecting poison into dinosaur eggs and making them eat them. In the movie the raptors are killed by the T-Rex smashing into the building. While I would have liked to see this scene adapted, I think the movie's version is more cinematic, while possibly making it seem like the characters aren't smart enough to handle the problem themselves. The only real complaint I have is that there is not much of a resolution for the island as in the book, although we get part of that in The Lost World and fully in Jurassic World. In conclusion the first Jurassic Park is a wonderful film featuring ground-breaking effects and awesome cultural points. They really spared no expense.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park-
Although still directed by Steven, he has had some misses and The Lost World is on the lower end of his directed films. I will start with characters, Malcolm returns as the main character and Hammond returns briefly, which are both positives. Another good character is Sarah Harding, a paleontologist dating Ian Malcolm and is very invested in the nature and the dinosaurs. She is in The Lost World book, but in the movie takes several traits from the character Richard Levine, as a scientist and a conflicting voice to Malcolm, there's only so much that can fit in a movie, but I feel as if Levine was an unworthy disclusion. An unworthy inclusion, in my opinion is Malcolm's daughter Kelly, aka black gymnastics daughter, they even make jokes about their resemblance in the movie. But, she's just a version of a character named Kelly from the book, that's not Malcolm's daughter. This character also has no reason at all to sneak on the trailer to the island, but they are just trying to use the plot from the book, except that when you change or leave out details, big plot points can make no sense and that happens numerous times in this movie. I actually did like that some details from the book were adapted to the movie, especially seeing the compys. This movie is fun and I would definitely recommend it, although overall, The Lost World has a lot of problems and has some wacky pacing.

Jurassic Park III:
It is surely worth noting that three is the first Jurassic Park movie not to be based on a book, not to be directed by Spielberg, and to be made solely for the purpose of profit. While I'll say this is the shortest, worst, and least important Jurassic Park movie, it does have Alan Grant back and a large appearance of Pteradons, only seen prior at the end of The Lost World. For a large part of this movie, the character obsess over the raptor's vocal chords and a raptor says the word, "Alan" in a dream sequence. There's not much more to say, that statement really sums up the whole movie.

I would also like to comment that after Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, I noticed that every Jurassic Park movie has the big action ending scene at night and in the rain.

So, there we have it, my review of the first Jurassic Park trilogy. I might do another of these once the Jurassic World trilogy comes to a close. I would also like to note that even though I was kind of hard on some of these movies, I enjoy them all and Jurassic Park is one of my favorite film franchises and the first movie is one of my all-time favorite films. I would also recommend reading the books, as they are also amazing. The Lost World book is actually better than the movie and doesn't have most of the film's problems. ;)

That's it for my review. I'll be reviewing Thrawn Alliances soon-ish and I am also going to Unversal Studios soon, so I might write something about that. That's all folks. Stay Connected.

San Diego Comic Con 2018: Big & Noteable Events

San Diego Comic-Con 2018: Big and Notable events

So, San Diego Comic Con (sdcc) is an annual event which features numerous comic, movie, and tv franchises and usually brings a lot of news for them. 2018 was no different, except for less Star Wars and Marvel. That being with no marvel or star wars movie panels, but some news for both franchises did come out. That said, Star Wars non-movie material was one of the biggest winners of SDCC 2018, after Warner Bros. That is pretty much it, so now I will discuss all the big news and things I thought to be interesting from SDCC and I'll leave some links down below.

Thursday
Godzilla: King of Monsters teaser
The first little teaser for the sequel to the awesome Godzilla reboot, we would get a trailer later in comic-con.

#clonewarssaved:
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Clone Wars is back on the upcoming Disney Streaming Service! The upcoming season will be 12 episodes long and marks the return of the series for the first time in years. The plot will cover the awaited Siege of Mandalore arc and will deal with Maul and his criminal enterprise, which makes me wonder if we can get more connections to Solo or Rebels. Also returning are Obi-Wan and Anakin, looking much more similar to his Revenge of the Sith design, which could bring a connection and shows he is very close to becoming Darth Vader. Also connectable is the return of Anakin's former apprentice, Ashoka Tano.

Speaking of streaming services, DC Universe was unveiled from DC comics and will launch with Titans and Young Justice. They also announced a Stargirl series for the platform. I think that the DC Universe  doesn't look very worthwhile, considering the pricing is at 8 dollars a month and for just DC content, instead of a full Warner Brothers service, it shows me that WB doesn't have much faith in this either. In terms of originals, honestly nothing seems very original that they've shown, except for an announcement of a Swamp Thing series with the Aquaman director, which might be cool.

From Nickelodeon we got a trailer for the new animated series Rise of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and they've released the first couple of episodes online. I will watch this, but there might be some problems, overall good though.

In other news, Deadline was reporting that Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton, Moana) would have his feature film directorial debut with the musical, Tick, Tick...Boom! I think this is great, Lin is very talented and should do well directing.

Friday
Sadly, as one director gets hired, another gets fired, as James Gunn, director of the first two Guardians of the Galaxy films was fired from the third by Disney. This decision was made over crude old tweets that were made before either Guardians film was directed or written, Disney was aware of the tweets, James Gunn has apologized for them, would never act on them, and has done much better, helping abuse victims speak out. This firing was made possible by far right "media figure" trolls. Aside from that, I really don't know what will happen with gotg3, James Gunn had a script and was going to begin production when he was fired, some people suggested it might be cancelled, but disney wouldn't drop a huge franchise like they would a director. I honestly don't know who will direct, but I suspect if production doesn't begin this year or is rushed the film will be delayed.

A trailer for the upcoming tv movie, Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus was released and it shows animation, but no voice-work yet. There also isn't a release date slated, but it should come out soon-ish.

An entire panel for Star Wars books was done by Del Rey and Lucasfilm publishing. The only major novel announced was Master & Apprentice by Claudia Gray, starring Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon in the time before Phantom Menace, and will be released in 2019. I am very excited about this, because Claudia Gray is one of my favorite Star Wars authors and Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are two awesome characters that had a great dynamic only explored in one movie, so a novel will be awesome, there is also a ton of legends lore to mine on this and if even a tiny bit is kept, this will score. I also always enjoy pre-saga time-period content. I will definitely read and review Master & Apprentice.
They also announced Padmé Queen's Shadow by EK Johnston, this is a YA novel, I might read this because the book sounds interesting, but no offense to EK Johnston, I just wasn't a fan of her Ashoka book and since Claudia Gray was rumored to write this, the panel got me more excited for her book, than this one.
Some comics were also announced, Tales from Vader's Castle, a horror anthology centered around Vader's Castle and other familiar and non-familiar Star Wars characters. Published by IDW. This seems to be cool and I will read it.
From Marvel is their anthology series, republic, rebellion, resistance, which has 8 issues for each era and focuses on different aspects, stopping at The Last Jedi and Episode IX.

Revealed by Sony for their upcoming animated movie, Spider-Man: Enter the Spider-Verse was some character pictures and Spider-Ham, Peni Parker and Spider-Man Noir will be in the movie. Also Riot is the villain in Venom.

Saturday
Almost everything on Saturday was Warner Bros and DC, and they did dominate.

WB trailers
Aquaman Trailer #1
Shazam teaser
Godzilla King of the Monsters
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindewald

My thoughts on the DC trailers is that they were pretty awesome and they show a very good outlook for the DCEU. Aquaman seems like it will be a very interesting origin story and Shazam looks funny, but also like it will tie in well with the universe. The full Godzilla 2 trailer also came out and it looks spectacular, it's promised that there will be much more Godzilla and many more epic monsters with great effects. Fantastic Beasts 2 also had a trailer and a panel where a lot more info came out about the movie, Grindewald, Dumbledoor, and Nicholas Flamel are the new characters here and all seem pretty good, making for a good film.
It wasn't released to the world, but from people at the panel, we know that there was footage from Wonder Woman 84, showing a fight scene, which's cool.

DC CW trailers
Several trailers for DC's shows on CW came out, while they didn't reveal very much information. I'm not up to date on most of these, but the goings on still look at least fun.

I don't watch the show Krypton on syfy, but I am interested that they are adding the character of Lobo to the series' second season.

Lobo

Lastly, Netflix revealed some trailers for some animated series, one is from The Simpson's Matt Groening, Disenchantment and one from writers of Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Dragon Prince. Both look neat, kind of Shrek and Avatar.

That is some of the biggest news out of comic-con. Obviously, much more than I could cover here. With how much was shown. I really think that the few days at sdcc has more news for media than several months. Links are below. Thank you for reading and stay connected.

Links:
Godzilla 1st teaser: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=emanE-Egu3A

Clone Wars trailer: https://youtu.be/RI7WyhWZkzk

DC Universe:
https://youtu.be/rSm8wq0YIuc

RTMNT Trailer:
https://youtu.be/asLU2NjEUZw

Lin-Manuel Miranda: https://deadline.com/2018/07/lin-manuel-miranda-directing-debut-tick-tick-boom-hamilton-jonathan-larson-steven-levenson-imagine-entertainment-musical-movie-1202429317/

James Gunn:
https://deadline.com/2018/07/james-gunn-fired-guardians-of-the-galaxy-disney-offensive-tweets-1202430392/

Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus- https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xwDN8pJvW2I

Star Wars Publishing Panel: https://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2018/07/sdcc-disney-lucasfilm-publishing-panel-new-claudia-gray-novel-about-qui-gon-and-obi-wan-announced-and-more.html

Spider-Man: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/new-sdcc-spider-man-into-the-spider-verse-footage-/1100-6460611/

Aquaman Trailer: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WDkg3h8PCVU

Shazam Teaser: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=go6GEIrcvFY

Godzilla 2 Trailer: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wVDtmouV9kM

Fantastic Beasts 2 Trailer: https://youtu.be/vvFybpmyB9E

DC CW trailers: https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2018/07/23/here-is-every-single-dc-arrowverse-trailer-out-of-comic-con/

Krypton Lobo: https://deadline.com/2018/07/krypton-introduce-lobo-season-2-comic-con-1202431055/

Netflix Animated: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/comic-con-2018-netflixs-the-dragon-prince-anime-ge/1100-6460631/

Spider-Man Homecoming: One Year Later

Spider-Man: Homecoming: One year later

With Marvel's Ant-man and the wasp in theaters as of a day ago and today being the 1st anniversary of Spider-Man Homecoming, it is a very good time for me to blog about this. I've wanted to write this review since the movie first came out, but I just had many other things that I was caught up with on this blog. I have done several other Spider-Man related posts, but never a full talk. I will say right away that Spider-Man is one of my favorite superheroes and Spider-Man Homecoming is one of my favorite, if not my #1 favorite of all the Spider-Man movies. The fact that it is in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, finally, probably has something to do with that, but it maybe wouldn't as much if it wasn't so well incorporated.

Recently, there has been some good news and bad news regarding Spider-Man. The bad news is that Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko has recently died. This is just really sad and it's making me realize even more, how many of my people are dying. The good news is that the sequel to Spider-Man Homecoming has had a title reveal and is Spider-Man: Far From Home and it's into production.

In 2016, Spider-Man was revealed for Captain America: Civil War. I will admit that I wasn't initially shocked by the reveal or his costume generally. I was somewhat expecting the iron spider suit, which came back as a variation later. But, Spider-Man was probably my favorite part of that movie. The fight scene with him is so epic and one of the best marvel fights because of that. He wasn't in the movie that much, but it really showed Peter Parker as a character in he is a kid and is also a rad new Spider-man, but he wasn't an avenger yet.

Homecoming thoughts
I just will go over a few of my favorite parts of the movie. I already expressed how much I love Spider-Man Homecoming. So here's it.
At the beginning of the movie is one of my favorite scenes, with Tony Stark and Peter Parker in Tony's car. Peter expects to be a full avenger and go on many more missions and Tony all out rejects him. Then you have a funny moment of what Peter perceives as a hug, but Tony is really getting the car door. It greatly sets up the plot for the movie an the relationship with Tony and Peter.
That brings me to the characters of the film. As I mentioned, Tony Stark, Iron Man is great and the titular character Spider-Man, also being Peter Parker, Tom Holland is great as both a feat that hasn't been fully achieved by another Spider-Man film. The villain of the movie, Vulture is in my opinion the best villain in the MCU movies since Loki up to this point last year and really paved the way for the likes of Kilmonger and Thanos. The acting from his character performed by Michael Keaton is great and really shows his arc as a villain and character for Adrian Tombs. Donald Glover as Aaron Davis, the future prowler character was great and he would be a great live-action villain for when Miles Morales comes to the universe. Of course that character was involved with the alien weapons that were illegal in Homecoming, buying from the Vulture's people. This leads me to a great message this movie has, that is about weapon trading and profiteering. It just shows what's up with the military and the complex.

One of the biggest merits of this Spider-Man movie was the great humor that honestly surpasses most other Spider-Man and Marvel movies in my opinion. Some other things that I really like are the music and soundtrack. As well as a neat factor, pointed out from a video by Nerdsync and Hass is that most movies would put a color filter of orange and blue over the movie to make the color look good, but throughout the film it can end up bland. And this is a factor in most movies, it's also present in Spider-Man Homecoming, but what they do is with the red suit and the green colors from vulture are also amped up so you get a contrast when they are on screen to make it pop out.

Since the previous five Spider-Man movies were almost entirely made by Sony. The homecoming to Marvel and the MCU was a big deal for Spider-Man, who is arguably the most iconic superhero. But to argue that would only to be arguing with the dollar signs. Sony for the most part didn't do a very good job with the Amazing Spider-Man movies after the conclusion of the Sam Raimi trilogy. Problems with the "tasm" movies were sinister six set-up, stupid romances, not representing Spider-Man well, and not representing Peter Parker well. One thing I will give those movies, is after reading the graphic novel, Marvels, which for a portion focuses on the deaths of Captain and Gwen Stacy is how reminiscent the films are of that story arc. That said it isn't executed well at all, because in the first movie Peter promises Gwen's dad not to be around her in his dying breath, seeming to want to stick to that and then he turns around and stalks her in the next movie which leads to her terribly dealt-with death.
Spider-Man homecoming, though totally turns those movies on their heads with aspects like the title Homecoming and the Spider-Man cartoon theme playing with the Marvel Studios opening credits, really show that Marvel is glad that Spider-Man is away from Sony, for him to be done right.

This year Spider-Man was in Avengers Infinity war and although we don't find out the aftermath of his identity being revealed to Aunt May, we find out a lot of info and have some major events occur. Of course he fully gets the Iron Spider suit that I mentioned earlier, also seen at the end of Homecoming. My favorite overall moment in Infinity War was when Tony Stark declares Spider-Man to be an Avenger and his reaction just because of how cool it was and the payoff from Spider-Man Homecoming, showing what you can get from developing Spider-Man in this world. I won't say much else, but Iron Man and his relationship evolves in a really nice way.

What do Thor and Spider-Man have in common?
They're both swingers, only one swings a hammer and one swings spider-webs.
Stay Connected.

Color filter video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MF-hhzm0Dvg

Star Wars Anthology Talk

Star Wars Anthology Talk
Recently, Collider has reported that the Star Wars stand-alone/ anthology/ A Star Wars Story movies were being put on hold by Lucasfilm.  This news story became widespread enough for ABC to write an article about it, getting a quote from Lucasfilm, saying that multiple Star Wars films are still in development. Although not specifying which films, the source is credible, because ABC and Lucasfilm are both owned by Disney. It is unknown if the films in development are the rumored Obi-Wan Kenobi or Boba Fett movies. But, we do know that a trilogy from Rian Johnson and a series of films from David Benioff and DB Weiss are still in development and have both been officially announced by Lucasfilm. As well as Star Wars Episode IX, being released on December 20th of next year.

I think this is all very interesting and it got me think if I want this. And I realized that I don't, because I have liked both of the stand-alones released so far. I would want a schedule of a movie from one of the series one year, then a standalone, and then the other series. An Obi-Wan movie is the stand-alone movie that I most want. Boba Fett on the other hand, while I don't really want a movie all about him, I would love a bounty hunter team-up. It could also continue part of the story set-up by Solo. For the Rian Johnson Trilogy and the Benioff and Weiss series of films (which is likely between 2 and 4) there has been speculation regarding what these movies will be about, the most prominent is that one of the series will be The Old Republic. If I had to guess, I would say that the Benioff and Weiss series is The Old Republic and Rian Johnson's trilogy is focused in wild space and the outer regions of the Star Wars galaxy. There is a problem with any of these movies coming out in 2020. That is because of conflicts in scheduling for Benioff and Weiss and Ewan McGregor for Obi-Wan and it doesn't seem that Rian Johnson's first movie will go into production fast enough. The only possibility for 2020 is Boba Fett, (at least from these options, it could be something completly different. There could also be no movie at all, considering that 2020 is the year after Episode IX and if they want to not have a movie in 2020, it would be the best time for a break. Although, Disney CEO Bob Iger did mention that they have a writer for a 2020 Star Wars movie. If it is something other than Kenobi or Boba Fett, I would want I Knights of Ren movie, because of the different time-era than the other anthologies. That is if they aren't brought back into Episode IX in a major way. JJ abrams was the person who invented them and was also the person who came up with the idea for a Knights of Ren movie, saying, “there’s a Knights of Ren story that I think would be pretty cool to tell.”

Another rumor is that the Obi-Wan movie might be released directly to the upcoming Disney streaming service. And I absolutely despise this idea. For one thing, that would make it a direct-to-video movie, which brings a terrible connotation. It is also negative in that it would make it seem like Disney only cared about the Star Wars movies that were releasing directly in the theatre. So and the movies on the streaming service were of lower quality. I don't believe that if a movie was made for streaming that it would be the same quality or budget as if made for streaming. I want to experience live-action Star Wars movies on a big screen for the first time, not just some direct-to-video movie that you watch on the couch. Star Wars films should be an event. All of that said, I think a TV show could work for Obi-Wan. Considering that there is already a live-action Star Wars series in the works. There just isn't a point to making a movie instead of a series if it's direct-to-streaming. If they are making a movie, it should not be direct to series, but the TV shows can be. Because television series don't release in a movie theatre.

I hope you all enjoyed my second Star Wars news breakdown. I will likely do more of these in the future as we find out details on more in Star Wars and possibly other topics in the future. So, thank you and stay connected.

Read More: https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/multiple-films-star-wars-pipeline-sources/story?id=56057987

http://collider.com/star-wars-spinoffs-on-hold/#images

http://collider.com/star-wars-anthology-movie-knights-of-ren-jj-abrams/

History of Marvel Prose Novels

History of Marvel Prose Books

Recently, I have been very interested in reading prose books based on Marvel comics. Other than wikipedia's list, (which I'm not sure is accurate and doesn't give background on most of the novels) there isn't really a comprehensive list of the best books that there is from Marvel over all time. That said, I am starting in the 1980s, which had a tiny amount of books published (1 according to the wiki), so we can see the clean slate and what came from it.

Howard the Duck- 1986
By Ellis Weiner
One of the only Marvel novels published in the eighties also happens to be the only one starring Howard the Duck. It's a novelization of the movie, I haven't read it, but I've seen online that it is actually very self-aware and pretty good.

There weren't many Marvel novels in the 80's, according to wikipedia, Howard was the only one. But, whatever the case for the prior decade, the 1990's is a whole different story. Here is just a small taste of some of the best of what marvel published somewhat later into the decade. Keep in mind, they published many more books around this time and most were the type of book that would never be published in a hardback copy.

The Incredible Hulk: What Savage Beast- 1995
By Peter David
I haven't read this book yet, either but I've also seen on the net that this is one of the most popular and best of the 90's Marvel Prose. This was actually printed in hardcover. It's one of many Hulk books, but apparently it's quite good.

Daredevil: Predator's Smile- 1996
By Christopher Golden
From Chris Golden, still a popular author on the Marvel prose scene and not the last book of his on the list. Predator's Smile goes over Daredevil when an arsonist tries to commit crime on his turf and what goes down through that. The book looks really good and I want to read it.

Generation X- 1997
By Elliot S Maggin and Scott Lobdell
This story follows Emma Frost and the Generation X, team spin-off from the X-Men. And was co-written by former superman comics writer, Elliot S Maggin. Who also wrote the novelization of Kingdom Come for DC.

Incredible Hulk: Abominations- 1997
By Jason Henderson
This book is not directly a sequel to What Savage Beast, but is the other most popular Hulk book, despite the unoriginal title. I haven't read this but it is by one of the co-authors for the X-Men Time's Arrow series, so I'm interested.

X-Men/ Spider-Man: Time's Arrow series- 1998
By Tom Defalco and Multiple Authors
This trilogy was published all in 1998 in back to back months. And we finally get to something I have read, because I have read the first book in the series. And I really loved it. The novel was captivating, surprisingly scientific, and really showed the X-Men, including odd members like Cable, working together well. Spider-Man included.





2000's

Mary Jane series- 2003-4
By Judith O'Brien
This was a series of two books set in the ultimate comics universe following Mary Jane and how she views Spider-Man/ Peter Parker. They are quite popular books.

Fantastic Four series- 2006-?
By multiple authors
One of the most popular series, widely published in many books.

Ultimates series- 2007-?
By multiple authors
One of the most popular series, widely published in many books.
(Cop-out.)

After the 90's and 2000's, Marvel decided to make a large series of prose novels, novelizing some of their popular comic series, often when relevant to the MCU. Here is a short list of some of them:
Captain America: Dark Designs
Ant-Man: Natural Enemy
Thanos: Death Sentence
Doctor Strange: Fate of Dreams
Civil War
Death of Captain America
New Avengers: Breakout
Daredevil: Man Without Fear
Gotg: Rocket & Groot Steal the Galaxy
Avengers: Everybody Wants to Rule the World

During the series of comic-based novels, Marvel started aiming more of their prose books at middle grade and young adult audiences. With easier books and different superheroes. Marvel is still publishing these, here is just some.

YA Initiative

Rogue Touch- 2013
She-Hulk Diaries- 2013
Black Widow series- 2015-
By Margaret Stohl
This is a popular series of books about Black Widow. It's been nominated for some awards and I am pretty interested in reading these.
Rocket & Groot series- 2016-
By Tom Angelberger
I have actually read the first in this series of books and it is pretty good, while still short and for younger readers. I do want to read the next.

Iron Man: The Gauntlet
By Eoin Colfer
I have read this too, and it is a good book following Tony Stark against the mandarin. I won't spoil too much else, but I would recommend this and Eoin Colfer's other works.
Squirrel Girl series- 2017-
Miles Morales: Spider-man- 2017
Black Panther series- 2018
Loki- 2019 upcoming, spring
By Mackenzi Lee
This is Part one of a three book deal of historical-fiction teen prose novels about marvel anti-heroes (I know it sounds odd.) It will center on Loki and have him as pansexual, since that is already established in the canon. This sounds very interesting and I would like to speculate that the other protagonists might be Gambit, Deadpool, Namor, or Elektra. Although, Gambit would be best.
Captain Marvel- 2020 upcoming

This decade, like the 1980s has a bit of a shortage of original-non-teen novels. But there are some, I'll discuss here.
Iron Man: Virus- 2010
Alexander C Irvine
This was the one of the first Iron Man books written and published after the release of the movie. And, really I feel that it is just an attempt to capitalize on the film's success. It also uses the Extremis storyline, but then that was adapted into a book, so there's not much new here.

                                                      Deadpool: Paws- 2015

By Stefan Petrucha
This is the only book starring Deadpool and one of the only books published directly through Marvel. And although I haven't read it, I will say that it looks very good and I want to read it. The Jaws parody aspect could make for good comedy throughout.

Runaways- 2018
By Christopher Golden
This book is from the same author of Dardevil Predator's Smile and was made because of the Runaways TV series on hulu. Although this is an original novel, I've read the comics so I kind of get the material and if it's like the comic it should be pretty good.

Thanos: Titan Consumed- 2018 upcoming
By Barry Lyga
Although not the first book to feature Thanos it was going to be the first novel set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, that is until it was discovered that it was misreporting that led that to be believed. Nonetheless, I am still excited to read this because it will still draw inspiration from Infinity War and the MCU.

Thank you for reading, I hope that this list might be a resource for someone wanting to read these books, and if not it's was a resource for me. I will try to read at least most of these books by this time next year. That's pretty much it, so stay connected.





Sources:
http://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/howard-the-duck/257522/weird-things-we-learned-from-the-howard-the-duck-novel

Star Trek/ X-Men Novel Review:
https://io9.gizmodo.com/5873156/the-star-trek-x-men-crossover-that-no-one-remembers

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_novels_based_on_comics

https://news.marvel.com/comics/25383/marvel_press_unleashes_new_novels_set_for_2016/

https://www.themarysue.com/marvel-ya-novel-loki-genderfluid-pan/

X-men/ spider-man time's arrow book 1: the past