Who Is The Fastest Man Alive?

Batman Ninja First Look

Looks like they're making a Batman anime where Batman gets teleported back in time to feudal Japan and becomes a ninja. Cool? I don't know, looks a thousand times better than Justice League does. Although I do have an issue that they're calling him a ninja and then dressing him up as a samurai. I don't know, Warner Bros does these big animated features a couple times a year and I never watch them. I caught the Dark Knight Returns one on an HBO free preview weekend and it was ok.

But hey it's DC/WB we're talking about "OK" might as well be 100% on Rotten Tomatoes for them.

Reportedly Links

Ben Affleck Reportedly Doesn't Want to Play Batman Anymore. Are we at full on crisis mode over at the WB/DC yet? Around the time when Ben Affleck was first announced as the new Batman he went on record saying he would direct a stand alone Batman movie as long as the script was right. First it was announced that he wouldn't be directing the movie now everyone and their grandma is reporting that he doesn't want to do it at all. That's not good. Combine that with how poorly Dawn of Justice was received by critics and the rumors that Wonder Woman is a mess and everyone at the studio hates it, and you're left with a less than rosy outlook for the DC Cinematic Universe.

Oh yeah, it's also been reported that they're trying to get Mel Gibson to direct Suicide Squad 2. Can't wait for the scene where Joker calls Harley sugar tits.

Kate Upton lands 2017 'Sports Illustrated' swimsuit issue cover. I thought we were all over Kate Upton, so congrats I guess, for getting back in the public eye. I think she's tied a record for most cover appearances. I guess I could google it but that seems like more work than I want to go in on this. Someone on the radio mentioned this was some kind of record so lets just go with that.

Also Angie Everhart is the greatest former SI model no one ever talks about. #fact

Inside the Booming Business of Adults Who Play With Toys on YouTube. Oh man, my daughter is all over these stupid videos. She will hand me the kindle and ask to watch "let it go", which doesn't mean she wants the song from Frozen. It means she wants to watch one of these Youtubers that always plays with Elsa and Anna dolls. Next to Paw Patrol and waking up in the middle of the night, it's like her third favorite thing in the world.

Hero Coder Adapts 'Portal' for the Apple II. I don't know if I'd call him a hero, that doesn't look like a ton of fun to play. I'm surprised more of these kinds of things don't exist. Sure pretty much no one has an Apple II in the house but getting your hands on an emulator is super easy. How come there aren't more SNES and NES games. If I was single and had freetime you know I'd be coding up some mods for SFII, sexy mods. Like Guile without a shirt on.

The LEGO Batman Movie - "Behind the Bricks" Featurette

I'll be honest when I heard that the sequel to The Lego Movie was actually going to be a Lego Batman movie I was sort of underwhelmed. I really, REALLY like the Lego Movie and while Batman in it was funny, he was sort of a one trick pony, I was afraid that an entire 2 hours of his schtick would get real old real fast. Well, I am no longer afraid. Everything I've seen on this movie (including some of the tie in merch my son is already enjoying) is fantastic. This might just be the best version of Batman that DC/WB has ever put on film. It's certainly miles ahead of anything they've done int he last 15 years.

Lego Batman, Trailer #4

It doesn't seem like there have been 3 previous trailers for the Lego Batman movie but that's what YouTube says and when has YouTube ever been wrong? I'm a bit torn on this movie, like I'm sure it's going to be hilarious and all but there already is a series of direct to video Lego Batman movies that are pretty good. The animation style is way different but the voice acting is really top notch. I wish they had used some of those voice actors, they might not be big name real actors like Michael Cera or Zach Galifianakis but being a good regular actor doesn't always translate into being a good voice actor.

Shut up Kevin you big nerd, this movie is still going to be great. Hopefully there's a good video game to go with it. I thought the Lego Movie videogame was one of the better ones in the series. Also if we don't get a cool Lego set with Robin in the short shorts and goggles what's the point of all of this? Someone get me that mini-fig!

Garbage Bags Full of Links

The Best And Worst X-Men Video Games of All Time. This isn't a bad list, there are a couple games I'd place a little higher and I think it's cheating picking Marvel v Capcom 2, but overall not bad. It really makes me want to go back and play X-Men Legends. As long as I'm firing up the N64 for some WCW/NWO Revenge maybe I should plug in my PS2 while I'm at it.

On a slightly related note, I'm worried my PS2 won't stand the test of time. I remember right before I got a 360 it wasn't playing a lot of DVDs and games took an unusually long time to load. I can't imagine it's gotten any better sitting in a box in my garage for the last 10 years. That would be a shame, there were some really great games on that thing. Frankly I'm interested in how all my old machines are going to stand the test of time. I feel pretty confident that my SNES and N64 are made of adamantium but I fear for anything disc based. I might have to have a real funeral if my Dreamcast ever dies.

The Diamond Rio PMP300: Can this classic 18-year-old MP3 player still cut it? Speaking of old technology, the guys at ARS take a look at a nearly 20 year old MP3 player. I'm one of like 10 people that still uses a stand along mp3 player. I like taking it to work and listening to it through a small stereo I have in my office. I also like having it when I'm drawing. Using my phone as an MP3 player is annoying, you have to hit a side button to wake the phone THEN tap something on the screen to skip a song. With the ultra cheap mp3 player I bought on Amazon I just have to hit the forward button and boom I'm on to the next song, I don't even have to look at the thing.

The only thing I don't like about my china direct mp3 player is that it's so incredibly small and light. Like it ways a half an ounce. I'm always misplacing it and because it feels so light I'm always afraid I'm going to crush it in my hands accidentally.

AFFLECK'S BATMAN Solo Movie Title Confirmed. It's THE BATMAN. Now you know.

Stars Getting Rich Off Fan Conventions: How to Take Home "Garbage Bags Full of $20s". Have I talked to you about Comic Book conventions lately? It's interesting I'm part of two convention groups on Facebook, one for Emerald City Comicon and one for Rose City Comic Con. The ECCC one is full of people that are absolutely SALTY over the lack of "quality" stars and last years convention. They want the entire cast of Star Trek, Doctor Who and The Hunger Games there signing autographs and taking pictures. They absolutely can not wait to spend $100 for a picture with Worf and Riker.

But there's a small group of people just under the surface grumbling about how the stars are greedy. $100 for a picture is too much, the convention costs too much because of all of the guest. Then there's vendors at the conventions that are afraid with all the money going to celebs there's not enough going to their tables. The grumbling isn't always loud but it's there.

At a certain point the bubble is going to burst. Soon enough a one day ticket to ECCC is going to cost $100 and people are going to get priced out. Vendors aren't able to get back the cost of their tables the vendors are going to stop paying for those tables. Your large comic book convention is built on a rather unsteady foundation and it wouldn't take much to topple it. Right now the convention scene is still on the grow, but at a certain point just like everything else we're going to see some contraction. It'll be very interesting when that finally happens.

Hey There Deathstroke

https://t.co/0NsNzCtGip

— Ben Affleck (@BenAffleck) August 29, 2016

Earlier this morning Ben Affleck posted this Deathstroke footage, presumably from the new Justice League movie. Looks cool to me, of course looking cool (outside of Superman's suit) has never been a problem for the DC movies. Everyone looks cool, it's just they all say and do stupid things.

Warner Bros Drinks Marvel's Milkshake

Marvel was having a pretty good San Diego Comic-Con, with showy trailers for all their netflix shows plus some casting news for Agents of Shield, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Captain Marvel. DC and Warner Bros took their "pretty good" gave it a wedgie and stuffed it in a locker with trailers for Justice League, Wonder Woman, The Lego Batman Movie, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, King Arthur: Legends of the Sword, and if that wasn't enough a new Suicide Squad Trailer.

As much as I would like to pad my post count for the week here's all of them. Nice to Warner Bros just post these to Youtube after they showed them at SDCC. Pretty much the best way to battle piracy is to just give it away. They've generated a ton of buzz and I kinda doubt the 6,000 or so at Hall H that got to see these first feel cheated in anyway.

Nothing about the reviews or previews or word of mouth made me want to see Superman v Batman so I still haven't seen it. A friend is letting me borrow the DVD later this week so I'll probably get to it next weekend. HOWEVER, Justice League and Wonder Woman both look awesome. I'm all on board the DC hype train. Hopefully Zack Snyder doesn't throw me off it again with more talk about Batman getting raped in prison.

Visual Links

Twitter Permanently Suspends Conservative Writer Milo Yiannopoulos. Man, that guy has a punchable face doesn't he? So the long story short here is that this guy encouraged his followers to tell current SNL actress and Ghostbuster Leslie Jones just how terrible she is. I don't follow either of these two on twitter but a few people I do retweeted some of the stuff that was sent to Leslie Jones and woof, it was horrible. Like Croatian soccer fans throwing bananas at black players horrible. Of course now this Milo guy and his group of asshats is claiming censorship and that the liberal media is intolerant to conservative ideas and blah blah blah.

Worse than his actions are some of the people defending him. I mean his actions are terrible but I get that he's just a hack trying to get attention. There are people out there that legitimately believe it's their god given right to call someone a cunt on the internet. I do not get that.

Rob Liefeld Is Hiding ‘X-Force’ Sketches All Over San Diego Comic-Con. This is a pretty cool little contest from a big name that totally doesn't need to do this. Rob Liefeld gets a lot of crap because he can't draw feet and a lot of his comics just disappear after issue #2 or 3 but he seems like a decent guy. I really wish he'd make his way up to Emerald City Comicon sometime but I think he has a beef with the group that puts it on.

One of these days I'm making my way to SDCC. It looks like a huge expensive pain in the ass and I get that all the cool comics stuff gets totally ignored but still. It's like complaining that the World Cup Final is rarely a good game, you still want to go just to experience it, right?

Cool visual effects in 16bit console games. I love how much Nintendo and to a slightly lesser degree Sega, were able to squeeze out of their 16 bit systems. It's a sort of creativity you don't see (or at least aren't able to recognize) with the current generation of consoles.

"We Were The Best, Richard" 10 Great Moments From Grant Morrison's Batman. I have a lot of Grant Morrison's Batman run and I found a lot of it to be hard to read. He has this habit of just dropping you off in the middle of the action and I'm the kind of reader that can barely remember what happened in the last issue so I was always going back an issue to see if there was something I missed. I'm guessing his run reads a lot better as a trade, or at least it would for me. I should really go back and reread some of those.

Secretly Links

LEGO's BATMAN (Voice) To Host Syfy's 3-Day Live Comic-Con Coverage. Holy balls, that is one tortured title. What they mean to say is Will Arnett is going to host a show from San Diego Comic-Con for the SyFy network. I could care less about Arnett's participation, I'm just glad that someone network is doing a show from SDCC this year. Yeah, in the time it took me to write that last sentence I realized that it will probably cover Movies and TV exclusively but hey, something is better than nothing. I really miss G4's coverage of SDCC. The last two years they were still in business they did a great job. I remember one year I watched it sick from the couch and it was so fantastic. RIP G4.

Oh yeah, I saw the Angry Birds movie the other day with my son and they had the trailer for The Lego Batman Movie and it was pretty awesome. I'm really looking forward to it. Also Angry Birds was WAY better than it had any right to be. It's wasn't on Pixar's level or anything but what should have been complete crap was actually sort of enjoyable.

Say goodbye to the way the game console market works. Here's a nice think piece on just what the Xbox Scorpio and PS4.5 mean to the console market. What's happening right now is a thousand times more interesting than a couple years ago when the Xbox One and PS4 were announced. We're not just looking at new consoles with new bells and whistles we're looking a change in the way they're made, marketed and sold. Yes, you've always been able to pay a bit more for a console and get a "nicer" experience. A bigger HD, extra controller, maybe a game or two thrown it, but you've never been able to buy two consoles with vastly different specs that play the same games.

I'm going to take a shot a couple long form articles on this next week. There's so much to digest, even as someone that's kind of given up on consoles this E3 was really, really interesting.

The Buick Cascada Is A Lesson In How Much New Cars Suck For Small People. I noticed this trend the other day when I saw my mother-in law driving her Ford Escape. She looked like a child in it. I can't believe she can even see over the dash. I wanted to get a stack of books for her to sit on. Car makers need to take note, the second you can't comfortably rest your arm in the open window you've ruined the car.

There’s a shirt that lets you secretly masturbate anywhere. This is a terrible, terrible idea.

Batman: Return to Arkham Trailer

Talk about cash grab. WB Games and Rocksteady are re-releasing Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City on the PS4 and Xbone. Now don't get me wrong, I totes understand taking an old game and upgrading it with better graphics. Over the last 20 years I think I've bought 3 different versions of Syd Mier's Pirates, every one of them plays exactly the same, the only difference is the graphics. But these two Batman games came out like 5 and 6 years ago. Instead of Return to Arkham they should have just called it Batman: Arkham 2 The Search for More Money.

The Lego Batman Movie Trailer

I'm going to get all hipster on you and mention that this trailer for the upcoming Lego Batman movie technically isn't the first Lego Batman movie. There's Lego Batman, Lego Batman: The Movie and like three Justice League spin off movies, most of which focus on Batman. The Lego Batman movie just happens to be a spin off of The Lego Movie and this first one to appear on the big screen.

Ok, now that I got that out of the way I can tell you about how pumped I am to see this. The Lego Movie was fantastic, I absolutely loved it and am still massively upset that Everything is Awesome wasn't nominated for an Academy Award. Batman wasn't necessarily my favorite character in the movie but I can't imagine them doing a Uni-Kitt/Benny team up movie anytime soon, so I'll take what I can get. Frankly I'm way more excited about watching this than I am Superman v Batman. Nothing I've seen in reviews or heard about it from friends has changed my mind about seeing that one. I'd rather see Zootopia or 10 Cloverfield Lane.

Hey, Look at Wonder Woman over here!

So word on the street is that Batman v Superman kinda sucks. It probably won't be a "flop", even the worst Batman movies make money (looking at you Batman & Robin). The budget for this thing with all the advertising is an insane $300 million but with international audiences in the mix it'll still probably make $500 million and that's like the worst case scenario. The biggest issue here is that it's going to fade from the national conscious very quickly, not good for a movie that's supposed to be the foundation of DC's version of a shared comic universe.

With that in mind DC and Warner Bros have already released a still from the upcoming Wonder Woman movie. Forget all about that bad press, Malibu Stacy has a new hat!

It looks fine. I still don't understand why all DC movies have to be so monochromatic. I guess we're trading the gloom and darkness of Batman v Superman for the bronzy beaches of Xena the Warrior Princess. I guess it could be ok, I don't really know and at this point don't really care. Way to derail the hype train guys.

Saved Links

New Doom level released by game creator John Romero. What year is this?

Report: Marco Pappa stabbed in incident with Miss Washington USA last month. How did this news story fly under my radar? It has everything, action, adventure, romance, lingerie football.

The 13 Most Nonsensical Theories About The Identity of Supreme Leader Snoke. I don't know if these are really the MOST nonsensical. They didn't really include the one where he's actually Palpatine in Vader's body.

How Batman’s Silly 1960s Series Saved The Dark Knight. Man, I LOVE me some Batman TV show. Sure it's campy but I'll be damned if it isn't super fun. I watched the TV Show movie from 1968 with my son a little while ago and he loved it too. Someone should reboot that.

The 7 Best (And Worst) Wigs of Current Comics TV. I feel like I should be watching Arrow more.

Spinoff Links

Holy Bricks! I Love Everything About Lego's New Classic Batman TV Series Batcave Set. Holy (insert Lego pun here) Batman! This is a fantastic looking set. It's nearly $300 but you're getting a lot of Lego for your money. 3 vehicles, 9 mini figs and a HUGE playset with lots of features. It sure beats the pants off the Batcave set my son already has.

They really hit it out of the park with the little details on this set, from The Joker's hidden mustache to the pictures of Martha and Thomas Wayne beside the fire poles. I really hope they make more of these sets based on the old TV show. I can't imagine ever fitting this thing in my budget but I'd love to have a Adam West Batman.... I mean my son would love it.

Kurt Busiek on Loss of Public Domain. Kurt Busiek, noted comic book writer and cool guy I talked too once, had a lot of interesting takes on copyright and public domain. It's funny to think that every time something interesting is set to enter public domain the copyright laws keep getting extended. It's almost like some big entertainment company has a vested interest in keeping others from using their beloved mouse mascot.

Agents of SHIELD’s “Marvels Most Wanted”: ABC orders pilot for Marvel spinoff. So Marvel doesn't want me to watch Agents of SHIELD anymore? The show is already on my "I'm not sure I'm enjoying this anymore and there are good shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime I could be watching" list. Take away Adrianne Palicki and things are looking pretty grim.

5 Huge Products That Failed Because Of Hilarious Oversights. I like Cracked but this is a great example of how you can't always take their lists at face value. One of the items on this particular list is the IBM PCjr a computer that was a spectacular failure. Cracked attributes the failure almost 100% to the terrible keyboard the PCjr shipped with and while the keyboard was really really bad It wasn't the single thing that doomed the machine.

You could make a much stronger argument that the PCjr was ill conceived right out of the gate, targeting a market that wasn't there. It wasn't 100% compatible with the standard PC software most businesses ran so you couldn't bring work from home. It was far more expensive than offerings from Commodore or Atari AND it didn't run games very well.

It was a serious computer that couldn't handle serious software AND an overpriced hobby computer that couldn't play most games. It came with weird features no one would use like swapable ROM cartridges and a co-axial output so you could hook it up to your TV. Rumor has it that IBM intentionally nerfed it's compatibility because they were afraid of businesses buying PCjrs instead of the hgher end work stations.

Who cares if the keyboard is terrible (something they addressed almost immediately anyway), at the price they were asking (some $3,000 in today's money) why would anyone want one?

The funny thing is that the Tandy 1000, which was a huge hit, is based on a lot of the same hardware as the PCjr but by cutting the price, simplifying the peripherals and making sure it was near 100% compatible with PC software Radio Shack sold a ton. It was the perfect entry computer to the PC market, not the flawed mess IBM tried to hoist on customers.

And now both of us know way more about the IBM PCjr than necessary.

Batman v Superman: Trailer #2

Well that certainly looks like a movie.

Random Thoughts you might have already seen from me on twitter:

Lex Luthor looks like the worst. When they cast Jessie Eisenberg in the role I was hoping we'd basically get Mark Zuckerberg as Lex Luthor not Jessie Eisenberg doing a manic Gene Hackman impersonation. I get it that they threw in Doomsday so there can be a big knock out punch em up fight scene but Luthor is your big Villain, make him your BIG VILLAIN.

This is going to be the most Marvel Team-Up movie of all time. They tipped their hat too much in the trailer. Almost every issue of Marvel Team-Up had the two good guy fight for the first 5 pages or so before they discovered who the true villain was and teamed up to defeat them. It's like when Iron Man, Captain America and Thor all fight in the first Avengers movie for 2 minutes, except that's the Entire movie. Yay?

Affleck's Batman voice is ridiculous, but honestly it's probably a bit less ridiculous than Bale's was so I guess it's an improvement?

If Batman made a movie about Superman, this would be it.

Batman v Superman Sneak Peak

Did you feel the disturbance in the force on Monday night? During an Episode of Gotham DC/Warner Bros graced us with a 30 second sneak peak of Batman v Superman.

Honestly, this looks terrible. Right from the get go you have a group of guys bowing to Superman. In what world is Superman cool with a bunch of dudes bowing to him? I just don't get it, I'm sure there will be a huge audience for this kind of grim take on Supes and Bats beating the crap out of each other but it sure isn't this guy.

Hey, Look at that Joker

A couple days ago Empire Magazine, who I'm pretty sure only exists as a magazine so they can be the first to leak superhero movie pics, premiered a cover that shows Jared Leto in full on Joker costume from the upcoming Suicide Squad movie.

I like it, I don't love it or anything but the more I see of him dressed as the joker the more I like. Sure he looks ridiculous but pretty much every on screen incarnation of the Joker looks ridiculous. I think people are freaking out just because it's so different. Also I'm guessing the stories of Jared Leto being a wackjob on the set of the movie probably don't help. It's like nerds want him to take the role seriously but no TOO SERIOUSLY. I don't know, I'm still excited for the film. If DC has to make their films all dark and gritty they might as well make a movie about a bunch of killers teamed up to fight even worse killers.

New Batman v Superman Trailer... kind of

Is it weird that we live in a world where the porn parody of Superman v Batman has infinitely better special effects than Superman II?

These porn parodies always seem to get a lot of attention when they're released. I've heard quite a few nerds actually defend them as fan films, saying they're more true to the costumes and characters than the official movies are. A while ago I saw one (the Avengers) with all of the sex cut out ( I think it was on DailyMotion.com) and it was TERRIBLE. Minus the crotch zippers, the costumes actually looked cool but the dialogue and acting was exactly what you would expect. It also made zero sense, I'm guessing the sex scenes contained more plot than you would imagine.

Also Axel Braun kind of sounds like a tub and tile cleaner.

Batman vs The Joker (in toy form)

Why is it that I feel like this 5 minute stop motion animated film is going to be better than the new Batman v Superman movie? Prove me wrong DC.