Music Monday: The Cranberries - Linger

Do you have to
Do you have to
Do you have to let it liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinger

Infographic: Batman's bat-suits through the decades

Created by Benjamin Moore for Screen Rant, the infographic charts the evolution of Batman's costume from its first appearance in 1939 (Detective Comics #27) to about 2011. It also includes the bat-suits from the movies, cartoons, the '66 TV show, video games, and from The Dark Knight Returns. Dick Grayson's (Robin, Nightwing) and Azrael's bat-armor are in there too.

Click to enlarge.

I've always been fond of the gray and blue versions of the bat-suit. In all honesty? Never been a great fan of the movie costumes. Just not digging the whole rubber suit thing. I mean, it's pretty bad when Batman can't turn his head, isn't that a major liability when you're fighting gun-toting criminals and supervillains armed with all sorts of deadly weapons?

Then again, I'm more than a little bit of a grumpy cat when it comes to this nerd stuff.

My DVD collection is smaller than I thought

Didn't realize it until I went up to grab a DVD so that my dad could test a player he got at a yard sale. I knew it was small, but I didn't realize how measly it was. The list:

Star Wars Original Trilogy box set
Seasons One & Two of Red vs. Blue
The Untouchables
Three Monty Python's - Life of Brian, Holy Grail, and Meaning of Life
Fellowship of the Ring and Return of the King special editions (never have gotten a chance to buy The Two Towers)
The Shawshank Redemption
Blade Runner
Clerks and Clerks II
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
The Last Samurai

I wasn't joking when I said it was small. I've never been much of a DVD collector, even when I have the money to buy them. Usually, I would end up buying games or books instead. I also plan on getting Netflix at some point, so buying DVDs might be a moot point.

Hot diggity damn, there's already a picture from the set of the Batman vs. Superman movie!

via Darth Sebious.

Amazing!

A new Sherlock Holmes enters the arena: Sir Ian McKellen!

I've heard of an Abundance of Katherines, but never bushel of Sherlocks. Or maybe it would be a peck? Is there even an accurate unit of weight?

Anyway, according to Geek Tyrant, Sir McKellen is set to play an elderly Holmes in an adaption of a book by Mitch Cullen called A Slight Trick of the Mind. Here's the description:

In 1947, Sherlock Holmes, long retired, lives in a sleepy Sussex village with his housekeeper and her amateur-sleuthing son. But far from living out a peaceful retirement, he is haunted by an unsolved case from fifty years ago. He remembers only fragments: a confrontation with an angry husband, a secret bond with his beautiful but unstable wife.
With his legendary mental powers on the wane, and without his old sidekick Watson, Holmes is faced with the toughest case of his life - a case that might finally reveal to him the mysteries of the human heart.

Man, Sherlock has certainly exploded back into popularity over the past decade, hasn't he? Two TV shows, two movies (soon to be three, counting this one) and played by three great actors - Benedict Cumberbatch, Robert Downy, Jr., and Jonny Lee Miller. I have to wonder, is this resurgence because the stories and character are entertaining or because they're in the public domain and thus cheaper to adapt and reuse? I'm about 60/40. Hey, I'm a cynic.

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.