My thoughts on Ben Affleck playing Batman: Get over it.

How about we give the guy a chance
before damning him?
(via Wikipedia)

I really do not understand the negative reaction to Affleck being cast to play the Caped Crusader other than it's bandwagoning and residual "Ben Affleck is terrible" leftover from when it was hip in popular culture to make fun of him. Yes, he was in Daredevil and that movie was bad, but guess what? It's also a decade old.

Honestly, I think the negative reputation attached to Ben Affleck’s acting career is unfair and unfounded. Yes, Daredevil was not a great movie, but guess what? Not all superhero movies will be solid gold. Some will be solid turds, but every movie genre has those, so it's not even a little deal. Gigli was bad, but it’s infamy has been overblown into an internet meme. Gigli, too ten years old. He’s been in good movies before and after those two, movies like Good Will Hunting, Argo, The Town (which made $154 million on a $34 million budget and was critically acclaimed), Dogma, and more. Gigli and Daredevil are just what they are, bad movies, and every actor has done bad movies.

Yes, this movie sucked. Get over it.
(via iFanboy)

Of course, people whining about a superhero casting is no surprise. When Andrew Garfield was announced as Spider-Man, and Henry Cavill as Superman, people lost their shit. When people started floating the idea of Donald Glover playing Spider-Man, you could form an chain of islands out of all the shit lost over that. The former two turned out well and the latter would have been interesting as hell*.

My honest opinion? Get the fuck over it. Ben Affleck playing Batman is not the end of the world. There are way more important and pressing concerns in life than who is playing a superhero in a movie that will make hundreds of millions of dollars regardless of whether or not you and your friends go and see it in theaters.

*As much as I hate to admit it, I didn't like the idea of Glover as Spider-Man, but I freely admit that I was wrong.

Star Raiders! *wicked guitar riff*

Never played Star Raiders, unfortunately, but when this promo image for a graphic novel based on the Atari game came across my dashboard on Tumblr, I had to post it. The comic was drawn by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez and written by Elliot S! Maggin, and published by DC in 1983.

Picture via fanta-z. h/t Mike Meltzer.

And the next guy to don the cape and cowl is...Ben Affleck

But in all seriousness, I'm going to withhold judgement on this until a later point. Truth be told, I'm not thrilled with the idea of a Superman/Batman movie to begin with, because I think the money could have gone into something better, like a Wonder Woman movie. I mean, is there really a pressing need to give those two characters a movie and not her?

Having said that, I think people should at least give Ben Affleck a break. Yes, he starred in Daredevil and yes that movie was bad, but it wasn't Batman and Robin bad. I think if the movie had been made today, it would have fared better. Plus, it's not exactly easy to make a superhero movie where said superhero is blind.

Reading old Fantastic Four comics

Years ago, I splurged on a copy of Marvel Masterworks Fantastic Four volume 2.

via Barnes & Noble.

I wanted the first volume, but Barnes & Noble was lacking. Still, I came out pretty good, I think. Marvel Masterworks, by the by, is the name of one of Marvel's reprint series, along with the Essentials collection. The main differences between the two collections is that Essentials gives you a lot more comics for a lower price than Masterworks, but all of the comics are reprinted in black and white. I have one of the Avengers Essentials and love it, despite that one drawback. Masterworks, on the other hand, is reprinted in full color and on better paper. I don't know how many issues are reprinted in other volumes, but this one contains issues 11-20, plus the first annual. Ten comics in one slim book for $24.99 is a damn fine deal, if you ask me. The book has a bit of heft to it, which to me, just enhances the value.

Another thing that makes the second volume worth picking up is that it contains the first appearances of several big bads and others, such as the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes, the Watcher, The Impossible Man, Mad Thinker and Awesome Android, Super-Skrull, Molecule Man, and Rama Tut. Whew!

But for all of that praise, there is a downside. Some of the stories I've read so far are short and don't quite hold up today. Issue 15 with the Mad Thinker was interesting in concept, but was just too short and because of that, was resolved too quickly. I'll be doing a separate post about that comic later on. Still, I mean, the collection more than makes up for it with other exciting stories and a pretty nice bonus section that I guess came with the FF's first annual. That section features a rogues gallery of villains, a cut away of the Baxter Building, and information about the team itself.

All in all, I think it's worth buying.

And this is why a crossover between Star Wars and Star Trek would be a bad idea

Credit: VernonX9000.

You know it would happen too. The Enterprise somehow ends up in the Star Wars universe, they meet Leia, Han and the others and Kirk  immediately starts putting the moves on Leia. On the other hand, it would be interesting to see Spock chatting it up with Luke about the Jedi. If it were the Enterprise-D, Data and the droids would having a pretty interesting conversation. Even then, Han would have competition in the form of Riker. I guess some scruffy-looking nerf herders just can't catch a break.

This mashup of Living Colour's "Cult of Personality" and the nWo Wolfpac's entrace music go together like chocolate and peanut butter.

You wouldn't think it they would, but someone on the YouTubes created what is a surprisingly aurally pleasing mashup. Fair warning, the song begins with the a wolf howling, so you might want to plug in some headphones or lower the volume for the first few seconds.

That one time Batman became a mermaid, aka the Silver Age was weeeeeeeeeeeeeeird, dude.

Na Na Na Na Na Na, BatMerman!

So did they just hand out free cocaine at DC Comics back then or what? Normally, I would just leave this here without comment, but I'm sorry, I just have to have some context, because that shit is just bananas.

To Google!

Okay, so after way more Googling than what was probably needed, I finally tracked it down! It comes from Batman #53 from 1949, in a story called appropriately "Batman Under the Sea". Sooo, this was more Golden Age shenanigans than Silver Age WTF.

h/t DailyDCU for the picture.

Thor's Mjolnir bookend, you say?

Oh my Asgard! I must have it!

This fine bookend is being made by Gentle Giant and is up for pre-order at Urban Collector for...$83.99. Oh, why must I be poor!?

h/t GeekTyrant.

Vintage ad shows electronic mail as the wave of the future (at least until you start getting spammed)

Via Gizmodo.

Seriously though, that dude looks like he just shit his pants because apparently Tinkerbelle is delivering his mail. It's amusing seeing what was then a major tech company running an ad for email, but the way the ad describes it, makes email really much more appealing than it is now. Back then, it was a useful method to keep all departments of a corporation in-touch and informed, but nowadays it's mostly just spam and social media notifications.

I like the way the artist set the desk and office up, it looks exactly what an office back then would look like. It presents an interesting contrast with the ad's pronouncement of the "Office of the Future". He has a stapler and a tape dispenser, both of which would likely be rendered obsolete in the Office of the Future and eventually in real life, since physical paperwork is probably dwindling in the age of tablets and touch screens. I don't know whether they still use corded phones (though, all the TV shows and movies seem to think so), but that one right there is outdated as hell. The two (three?) picture frames are a nice touch, but is that an ashtray in front of the double picture frame, though?

All in all, it's a nice snapshot of what a typical 1970s office probably looked like.