More than Meets the Eye Issue #1 Review

I'm not a Transformers fan. I had the toys when I was a kid in the 90's. I smuggled Scotch into the cinemas when the first movie came out. Optimus Prime turns into a truck and Bumblebee can't talk. But Humble had a Transformers comic bundle and I needed to donate some money to a children's charity. With all this in mind let's see what I thought about Transformers: More than Meets the Eye Issue #1.

The first chapter is titled The Death of Optimus Prime. Optimus Prime believes he is dead because he is in an unknown location. He believes it is either Robot Hell or Robot Heaven. He checks the co-ordinates on his GPS and it turns out he is on Cybertron, the home planet of the Transformers. He then tries to figure out if he is in the past or the future. It turns out he is in the present. He walks into town and is saddened to realise that he doesn't recognise any of the Transformers walking around and even more saddened that they don't recognise him. This goes on for about 5 seconds until he is reunited with his best friend Sideswipe.

I have no idea if this comic is a continuation of the cartoon or another comic series. But it is clear that there are millions of years of rich Transformers history that I am completely missing out on. Chapter 1 does serve as a good jumping point because the key points of Transformers are relayed. In 20 pages I understand that the Autobots beat the Decepticons in war. The Autobots (somehow) restored their home planet. Optimus Prime passed the leadership position to Bumblebee (who can talk now) and the Transformers hate the Autobots because they remind them of a war they all hid from.

There was one character that stood out from the rest, and that was Flamebot. He is a red Autobot that wants to go off on mythic quests instead of hanging around on a planet that hates him. Already I see him as the Indiana Jones of the Transformers Universe. I don't want to read about robots playing Game of Thrones, I want to read about Transforming Fire Robot going on adventures looking for Robot Knights.

Writer James Roberts shows new readers a glimpse of a much deeper universe. He doesn't assume that readers will know everything about Transformers and instead subtly guides readers through what they need to know. There were a couple of spelling errors that should have been fixed by now, especially for digital copies, but they were few and mostly unnoticeable.

The art by Alex Milne is ok. My biggest complaint I have with the art is that sometimes I couldn't figure out which robot was talking or if a robot had been introduced earlier. I don't fault the artist. There are a lot of characters that have to look a certain way and it just so happens that they end up looking alike. I can see this problem being remedied in later issues as I am pretty sure the story leads away from the densely populated Transformer planet and instead focuses on a lot less characters.

The story perfectly fits the comic book format, A movie with this many Transformers would need a budget of $500 billion. This story might be too mature for cartoons but could potentially work.

Overall it was a solid first issue and I will definitely read more. If you like the movies then you will like anything. If you remember Transformers fondly from your childhood you will love this series. If you barely have a passing interest in Transformers then you will enjoy this.

You can buy it here or download it here.

Ranking the Spiders in Edge of Spider-Verse

Edge of Spider-Verse is a Marvel Comic Series based on a bunch of different incarnations of Spider-Man. Here I have compiled a list of the Spider-heroes ranked on who deserves to be Spider-Man the most. The main criteria I based this list off were: powers, costume, and the alter-ego beneath the mask.

5. SP//dr

Peni Parker, a young Japanese girl with no powers and no parents. The destiny is strong in this one. Her father (presumably Peter Parker) was the SP//dr until he died. Aunt May and Uncle Ben adopt Peni and tell her that she is the only one that can control the SP//dr because of psychic spider-powers. I would argue that the SP//dr is a lot closer to being an Iron Man than a Spider-Man. It is a suit of armor that is controlled by a spider that is controlled by Peni.

The design of the SP//dr is visually cool to look at but it could have been anyone.

The Universe is similar in a lot of ways to the regular Marvel Universe with a battle between Spider-Droid (I can't keep typing SP//dr) and Mysterio and a Marvel Team-Up with a very cool looking Daredevil. 

The Universe would be cool to explore further but Peni Parker sucks. She was chosen by destiny to control a robot. Why can't they just build a different crime-fighting robot and have anyone but a Japanese school-girl pilot it? Peni makes absolutely no choices in her life, people tell her to be Spider-Man and she does it. Her villains could tell her to throw herself off a bridge and she would do it. I am not saying it was a bad story, it was really good, but Peni is the worst of the Spiders introduced in Edge of Spider-Verse.

4. I Walked with a Spider

What I like about Patton Parnell is that he is an active character. He accomplishes his goals as soon as they become goals. He gets stuff done. What I don't like about Patton is that he is a psycho. Put that guy down.

He gets bitten by a spider and becomes an evil Spider-Man. He keeps his prey preserved in webbing around his basement and eats them when he is hungry. The guy is a freak and is the furthest a Spider can be from being a hero.

But he makes his own choices and actually has powers, so that puts him ahead of Peni.

3. Spider-Man Noir

Spider-Man Noir is such a cool guy. It looks like he put close to zero effort into his costume and that fits his personality. It's dark and that allows him to not draw attention to himself (cougheveryotherSpider-Mancough) and he has a pistol holster. The Peter Parker of Spider-Man Noir is no Super Genius and he still has more sense than most. By having a gun he makes his job that much easier. Why walk up to a Super Villain and punch him when you can just shoot him?

Spidey-Noir still has a hero's heart and cares about his family and doing the right thing. He knows he has to show responsibility without having to take responsibility for everything. 

2. Gwen Stacey: Spider-Woman

 While Spider-Gwen is not the highest ranked Spider in this list, her story has easily been the highlight of Spider-Verse.

Spider-Gwen got bitten by the spider that normally bites Peter Parker. Insecure about being a whiny-bitch, Peter Parker turns himself into The Lizard. Spider-Gwen kills Lizard-Parker and learns a valuable lesson in responsibility, which is... don't kill people? I guess. Overall I like Spider-Gwen's transition from using her powers for fame to using them for heroics. By her killing Lizard-Parker it gives her a much more active role compared to the traditional story. You feel for Gwen because she made the mistake, she didn't let the mistake happen, and she struggles to deal with it. It's awesome.

Spider-Gwen's costume is also amazing. It is a derivative of the traditional Spider-Man costume but it has so much that is unique. The black and white separate her from most other Spiders. Her costume isn't sexualised, you can tell she has boobs but the attention is never drawn to them.

Gwen is truly deserving of being a Spider-Man and her recently announced ongoing series is proof that a lot of people feel the same way.

1. Aaron Aikman: The Spider-Man

Aaron Aikman is a self-made Spider-Man. In every other universe Peter Parker is the Spider-Man. If you were in a comic book and you were named Peter Parker (or a derivative) you could bet that you would be Spider-Man or at least be related to one. Aaron Aikman goes against destiny and makes himself Spider-Man. Aikman is a geneticist that was researching the healing properties of insect DNA and injected himself with some science magic and gained spider-powers. He also invented his own web-shooters, spider-stinger and rocket boots. In the three years Aikman has been Spider-Man he has been continuously refining his armor, weapons and accessories.

The Spider-Man lives in a futuristic version of the 1960's. This can be seen in the style of dress as well as The Spider-Man's Beatles do. The villains in this issue have never been seen as Spider-Man villains in other universes before either. The world is brand new with the only link to other Marvel Universes being that there is a Spider-Man.

Aikman is more deserving of the Spider-Mantle than any other Spider-Man in Edge of Spider-Verse. He continuously tried to better the way he combats crime as well as not just being handed the Spider-Man title from destiny. 

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Disagree? Good, that means you are thinking about it. Subscribe to this blog for more on Spider-Man and comics coming in the coming days or weeks. 

Guardians of the Galaxy Pinball Review (Android)

A couple of days ago I bit the silver bullet used to kill werewolves and I paid $3 for the Avengers Pinball and The Guardians of the Galaxy Pinball. This is big for me. I would rather spend $70 on a PS3 game than $3 on a mobile device.

I bought the game after seeing the movie, which was amazing (that's my review, 4.75 stars), and seeing this article, I didn't read the article. But I did read the title, 'Guardians of the Galaxy Pinball may be best table yet'. And boy did that title get me intrigued. I bought the Marvel Pinball App for $1 and it came with The Avengers table, I had to fork out another $2 for the Guardians table. It is worth noting that as of the time of writing this Marvel Pinball is free on iOS.

Now I have played a few pinball machines in my time, my father was a Pinball Wizard and my mother a Pinball Queen so I spent a lot of time playing them as a child. The only other digital pinball I played was Pokemon Pinball on the Gameboy Color, and that sucked major balls compared to the real thing. Shit I also played Sonic Spinball, but that is more of a spinball than a pinball so it might not count.

So how do the Marvel App Pinballs hold up compared to other digital titles I have played? It blows them out of the park. They look, sound, and feel exactly like a real table. Obviously they are smaller, and lighter, and portable; but other than that they are a true recreation of actual pinballs at a tiny fraction of the price.

While the Guardians of the Galaxy table is really good, and definitely worth the extra $2 there are some noticeable problems. The game starts with a Multiball, all the balls in the table come out at once and you muck around with them for a minute, this minute doesn't seem to affect the score too much, the highest I got from it was 2.2 million points. After the minute-multiball-mania, Peter Quill ( GuardianOfTheGalaxyMan) says that he needs his 70s inspired music and it is your job to hit a ball that launches at you into a specific ramp. This will net you an easy 5 million point headstart if you can land it. As well as the 5 million points you are also treated to a 10 second trailer with the title of the movie flying in space, it is terrible and takes away from the flow.

If you are trying for a high score you will need to repeat the minigame every time, all up it takes about a minute and a half, just to start a new game. It may be fun a few times, or every now and then but you could honestly just leave your phone on the desk until the real game starts and not really be penalised for it.

There are these cartoon figures littered around the table and they will dance around and spout typical pinball one-liners. Overall they add a layer to the game that could not exist on an actual table but there are certain point when they can get distracting. For example there is a skill game that has Peter Quill and Ronan (AntiGuardianOfTheGalaxyMan) shooting plasma at each other. Ronan also shoots plasma at your ball when he wants to vaporise it. It's fine if he wants to vaporise my ball, it's distracting when he wants to vaporise Peter Quill and it looks like it vaporises my ball. I have lost my ball because I thought it got vaporised only for it to fall down the guts of the table.

Those are my only two complaints. The stupid long intro, and the sometimes distracting nature of the cartoons.

I have spent the last three days playing this game. My thumbs are worn down and blistered from playing the game too much. I have probably racked up about 14 hours between the 3 tables I have. It is most definitely a fun game.

The ball feels like a ball, you never find yourself cursing the game for unfairly putting the ball in dire situations. You are always in control.

The music in the game is heavily inspired from 70s rock and it sounds amazing. It fits the tone of the movie by not being overly dramatic and by just being fun. It's the song in the trailer above if you want to hear it for yourself.

The voice-acting can get a little repetitive but the characters all have voices true to their movie counterparts. Quill will deliver one-liners differently than his movie counterpart but sticks to the tone. Groot is amazing, whatever he says in certain situations is exactly what he would say in a similar situation in the movie. Rocket, Drax and Ronan are perfect, Quill and Groot are obviously different voice actors, but it is a little harder to tell with Rocket, Drax and Ronan. Gamora was jibbed in this game though. She is told to wait in the ship at the start of the game, she tells Quill to leave his music behind and she sounds exactly like Peggy from Married With Children, otherwise she has no other lines in the game. Maybe a couple on her mini-pinball, but nothing worth remembering.

An amazing addition to this game are the Leaderboards. In the beginning (two days ago) I was always trying to improve my score, just for the sake of beating my score. Now I look at the scores of the world. Currently I am ranked 22nd in the world. It's a great feeling and now that I know I am competing against the world I can easily improve my score again.

The game is great despite its flaws. It is better value than buying a real pinball, it is better value than putting dollar coins into a pinball at the pub. So far it has cost me 30 cents for every hour I have played and the more I play it the better the value will be. If you are a fan of the old brick and mortar pinballs I recommend buying the game. If you hate digital pinballs, maybe don't buy it. If you think you will get your moneys worth out of it then you should definitely buy it. I bought it and I had no idea I was going to enjoy it so much. As a game I would give it 6/10, as a pinball I would give it 8.5 out of 10.

The Widespread uses of Multimedia Journalism

How common is multimedia journalism in the media I consume?

I am a student in his early-twenties, I live, breathe and eat electricity. What’s a newspaper? Newspapers are those dry magazines that used to be delivered daily so my parents could read their horoscopes and do the crosswords. They did, and still do, provide a recount of what happened the day before. If something happened on the 20^th of May you could read about it on the 21^st of May. Without an exceptional reason I would never read a newspaper. I would absolutely never pay for a newspaper, even with an exceptional reason.

I would subscribe to the Daily Bugle

How about television? Kids these days love television, right? When I was a little fat kid I had the television guide memorised. The television guide was actually in the newspaper, I’m not sure if it still is. The cartoons finished at 5.30pm on Channel 2, and then I would switch to the Channel 10 news to fill the void before The Simpsons started. But it isn’t the 90s anymore, why would I watch television? Everyone and his dog are trying to sell something to me and my dog. I live in the future, I’m not going to wait around until 5.30pm to find out something that happened at 4pm, why would I want to be an hour and a half behind the latest stories as well as sit through 10 minutes of advertisements?

I’m an iBoy. If something happens in Bulgaria I know about it instantly. As people we are given the gift of Government-level surveillance. The Australian Government wants to censor information; they don’t want a particular story getting out to the citizens? Have fun with that, because I read it on Reddit 3 hours ago. Multimedia journalism isn’t just widespread in the media I consume; the media I consume IS multimedia journalism. Traditional journalists get the same raw information that I get, I’m not special; I am one of billions.

Can multimedia journalism be structured in a linear fashion using multiple elements? It can, but why would it limit itself? If you read a multimedia story you are given the privilege to find out opposing information and judge it for yourself, you can watch video evidence of the story, you can see hundreds of pictures; each speaking a thousand words. A linear story? You would have to skip every hyperlink, not follow videos to find similar information, and not look up related articles. There are no doubt many linear journalistic stories on the Internet, but how is that special? It isn’t. It is an underuse of the technologies available. If people wanted linear storytelling then go watch the television or go read a newspaper.  

Superhero TV Shows VS Movies

Credit where credit is due. Inspiration for this post comes from IGN, and also I have been watching a fuckload of Arrow. Full disclaimer, I love Superhero Movies. I've blogged on all the recent comic book movies. The aim of this blog is to present the pros and cons of the movies and the shows.

Character Development

In any of the Spider-Man movies only a couple of people develop over the show. Peter Parker goes from nerdy highschooler to a Spider-themed Superhero. His antagonist will go from good guy to bad guy, sometimes back to a good guy. His aunt will get kidnapped and give hints that she knows Pete is Spider-man. Most superhero movies will have similar characters and develop them. 

But if you watch Arrow. If you watch fucking Arrow. Then you see the most ridiculous amount of character development for a superhero and his supporting cast. I'd even say the most out of any screened-superhero. For the first couple of episodes I hated Oliver Queen. I thought I had seen enough superhero movies to know that if I hated the protagonist not much would change my mind. But fuck me was I wrong. Oliver Queen is the man, he gets shit done. He has flaws and he recognizes them, and it happens over a believable length of time. 

World Building

If a Superhero has more than one villain appear at a time it is often criticized as been overcrowded. The Avengers worked so well because every major character had already been introduced. In a movie the audience expects to be entertained for the whole movie, and justifiably so, the filmmakers don't have the time to flesh out every character and introduce new ones in a single movie. Whereas a television show has nothing but time to introduce characters and develop their motives and relations. Over two seasons of Arrow, Oliver Queen has fucked like 200 girls (198 more than Peter Parker) and has 50 villains (45 more than all the Movie Avengers combined). 

There are so many secret societies running around in Arrow that it is hard to keep track of. Sure there are many alluded to in the Marvel Movies and some even brought to the forefront, but Arrow does a lot more with them albeit over a longer stretch of time. Movies barely scratch the surface of the source material, the first Thor barely showed any of Valhalla and over 5 Spider-Man movies we can't see anything as great as a Spider-Man Nickelodeon cartoon.

Actually Superheroes

What makes a hero a hero? How many times do you have to save the world to be considered a superhero? In the movies Tony Stark defeats a bigger Tony Stark to be considered a superhero. Spider-Man fights a Lizard-Man and is considered a superhero. Captain America defeats Red Hitler and is considered the world's first superhero. That is one guy, until the next movie. I would like to believe that in between movies these heroes are fighting other villains, but the movies keep telling us that nothing new has happened in a length of time. Spider-Man didn't gain any new enemies between the Lizard and Electro. In a television show you see the day to day lives of a superhero. And every day he is fighting some new guy with powers, or making a new friend. You see the inner workings of a superhero in a superworld.

Movies have their place. They are huge budget escapes with high stakes. Big events. Fun popcorn time. Large water coke with ice please. Deep-fried peppermint choctop. They are easy to see, you can see them with friends that barely care about the source material and every movie is different. TV shows require a lot more time and energy but the payoff is greater, even if the reward isn't equal to the time invested.

Get pumped for the Daredevil TV Show coming out.

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I have a Twitter, so follow me or else : @KrisCreedYo

Superior Spider-Man Discussion

What day is it? The 17th of April? No. No. Get excited. It's fucking Spider-Man day.

Why is it Spider-Man day? Because the second Amazing Spider-Man movie comes out today? Yeah, I guess so. But also. Wrong. Today the final issue of Superior Spider-Man comes out. Man am I pumped. I'm going to buy this bad boy first thing in the morning.

This blog is going to be broken up into two sections. This section, which is sort of an intro-y section and the next section, which is me going on about how great Superior Spider-Man is.

To say I was excited would be a statement.

Dan Slott didn't get me into Spider-Man, that honor goes to Brian Michael Bendis with his Ultimate Spider-Man. But when Peter Parker died I swapped right on over to Amazing with his Big Time run. It was amazing. There was enough of a backlog for me to read up to #698 to get current on Spider-Man and then disaster struck. Peter Parker was dying. For me, Peter Parker was dying again. And I relate to Peter Parker, because everyone does, that's his character. A relatable guy with spider-powers. I just stopped reading Ultimate because Peter Parker was dead and now I had to stop reading Amazing because Peter Parker was dead. And Dr.Octopus was taking over. That fat guy with the stilts for hands. But fuck me swinging. Web swinging. Spider-Ock was awesome. He was a completely different Spider-Man to Peter and he kept it fresh.

It wouldn't be a Spider-Man Day without some music.

Spiderpus would kickass, take names then kick some more ass. He was organised. He protected the whole city, albeit in a totalitarian fashion, but he set out to do what he believed needed to be done to preserve Peter's legacy. And he made friends and enemies and he started having sex with a midget. Spiderpus was very open-minded, and that is what I expect from a super-hero. I think her name was Anne-Marie, which is more creative than Mary Jane. Just.

And he gave himself more powers. He redesigned the spider-suit to give him like, extra vision powers and he had octopus tentacles come out of his back. And he had henchmen and spider-bots and giant spider-bots. He launched an assault on Shadowland, the most powerful organised crime land in the Universe and he barely broke a sweat. He saved lives using synergy and proactivity. He even started a Spider-Man Incorporated.

I know it sounds like I'm taking the piss out of the comic. I am a little bit. But I love it. It is the first series that I have read the entirety of it's run as it came out. As amazing as Amazing Spider-Man was this series is more amazing (can't think of a better word). If you haven't read this series because it has a fat octopus-man in the body of a skinny spider-man then you are doing yourself a huge injustice. As it stands this is one of my favourite comic book series of all time.

It is also the only comic I have ever gotten signed by it's writer. Thank you Dan Slott for making this.

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Follow me on Twitter if you want to talk Spider-Man- @KrisCreedYo

Captain America: Winter Soldier Aussie Thoughts

G'day mate. You've been hurt before. It's ok now. The first Captain America movie was beloved by a lot of people. Those people were Americans. Some other people may have liked it but it was Captain Stars & Stripes the Amazing Patriot VS Nazis. The movie was probably fine I, like all my friends, fell asleep watching it. I still went on movie discussion forums and all I saw was praise for the first Captain America movie. I have since chalked this up to patriotism.

So when the reviews for the second Captain America movie started rolling in positively I had to critically think whether it was going to be a good movie or not. The positive reviews could have been American propaganda for all I knew and expected. Surprisingly though, Winter Soldier was amazing.

The movie expands on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Not everything is as it seems, which is great for a 70's style action spy thriller modern superhero movie epic. There is corruption within SHIELD and Captain America doesn't know who he can trust, so he trusts the first person he meets after being told not to trust anyone and also he trusts the person he ran past at the beginning of the movie. It is still really cool though.

Comic elements are made more apparent in this movie than the previous Iron Mans and Captain America. Not everything is cemented in reality, thus making the movie a lot more fun than previous movies. The Triskelion from the Ultimate Comics makes an appearance and is moved to Washington DC from New York. Everything makes sense in this movie. Corruption. Super Villains.

This movie could have easily been Agents of SHIELD: The Movie. The plot is SHIELD centric, the villains are villains of SHIELD more than Captain America, though the titular villain does have a lot in common with Cap.

This photo would have worked better in my Zombie Apocalypse/Captain America blog

The casting was perfect. Chris Evans nailed Captain America moreso than the previous movies. Scarlett Johanson provided more depth to the Black Widow. Samuel L Jackson showed Nick Fury as more than the all-knowing badass that he has been depicted as. GHB had an amazing cameo as Batroc the Leaper. Holy Fuck The Winter Soldier was a beast, he was the Terminator mixed with Robocop mixed with Captain America, massive beast. Cobie Smulders was a badass, that Falcon guy was a badass, the badass guy who fought the Falcon was a badass. Any one of these characters could have been swapped with John McClane and the movie would make perfect sense. That is how badass everyone is.

The theme of the movie, Surveillance VS Freedom Cage Match XXX, correlated a lot with what is happening in the real world. It shows insight into Big Brothering the world and whistleblowing. Americans may take more from this movie than the rest of the world but the message is internationally relevant.

With this movie Marvel has expanded the Earth elements of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The world is now being lifted from realism into something a lot more fun. Intrigue, superpowers, super villains. This movie has it all.

If you are wondering whether to see this or the Lego Movie, do yourself a favour and see this one first.