I finally reviewed Illyana Rasputin’s First Appearance!
Apple Podcast :
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shadow-and-flame-with-magik/id1653932419?i=1000589997085
Spotify :
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5WUrW4L5Kvay5Qo6m4GwXH
Here is the referenced YouTube video :
Thanks for listening and watching!
Apple Podcast :
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shadow-and-flame-with-magik/id1653932419
Spotify :
https://open.spotify.com/show/4ni7QBIN4wind5sVWqqI4M
I have turn this great website into a podcast!
Inspired by my love for Uncanny X-Cast and the daddies over at Turtle Soup Podcast, I’ve decided to throw my hat into the ring of X-Podcasts!
I hope to join the likes of Comic Book Queers : Legacy, the X-Wife Podcast, Oh Gosh Oh Golly Oh Wow, and my latest favorite, Simply Amazing – a Nightcrawler focus podcast.
Simply Amazing is finally the podcast where I had the thought, I should do this, I’m a huge Kitty Pryde fan, I should legit be getting out there and lending my voice to the conversation. Maybe I can buy new trades and just really commit to this.
Plus, it is my podcast so I can play around with the format. I have a ten episodes up already and if you would like to subscribe and provide a review, even if it is simply providing those sweet five stars, I would really appreciate it.
Thank you everyone for the continued support and happy listening!
So many happy things!
After almost two years, the Uncanny X-Cast has come back with Episode 183!
http://www.uncannyxcast.com/main/2019/11/18/uncanny-x-cast-183-year-one-thousand.html
I am beyond excited and just hearing Brian and Rob’s voices is amazing!
Player FM did not notify me of new episodes of my podcasts for a week and a half, so I am now crazy behind on all of my podcasts, including two episodes of Turtle Soup (209 and 210) so I have a lot to catch up on but I might have to resurrect my policy of listening to the X-Cast twice prior to moving on to another podcast.
I am mostly upset about the lack of notification for Turtle Soup, I may have to seek out whoever is Player FM’s direct competitor who is not iTunes.
I miss Brian and Rob so much and I am glad they are enjoying Jonathan Hickman’s run on the titles! I may have to start collecting the trades, just out of thanks. I was already thinking of getting Gerry Duggan’s Marauders title for that sweet Kitty Pryde and Lockheed content.
Comic Book Queers Legacy finally got some X-Competition!
. . .
I Ship It — Image Number: SHP02_1080x1350.jpg — Pictured (L-R): David Witts as Luke, Helen Highfield as Ella, and Riley Neldam as Tim — Photo: The CW — © 2019 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
The other item that has me so excited is that, while watching Supergirl, there was a legit commercial for the second season of I Ship It!
https://www.cwseed.com/shows/i-ship-it/
Here is a link to Collider’s great interview with series creator, Yulin Kuang :
https://collider.com/i-ship-it-season-2-yulin-kuang-interview/
I have seen the first two episodes and they are amazing! The songs are great.
At first, I was trying to align the second season with the first season but I am pretty sure it is a completely different timeline, which is pretty fun!
I am already planning on rewatching season two immediately after I finish it and then, of course, do a marathon of all of the entire series!
Season One had ten episodes, ten minutes each, and Season Two has six episodes, twenty minutes each, so you can definitely sample the series without it being a giant time commitment. Please please, if you are going to give the series a chance, give it until the third episode of the first season as it has one of my favorite songs from the series.
. . .
I finally got the V8 in Mad Max! It does not seem that much different from the V6, but I suspect I need to upgrade the engines and maybe the tires and everything else before seeing it become the beast mode (do people still use that term?) that I suspect it should be.
I completed Act III and I earned the trophy for completing a race in an Archangel. I wanted to go back to the previous three races I have completed, for the “complete every race in the required Archangel” and “blow up one car in each Archangel” trophies but I am so scrap for scraps that I have to get a surplus of scraps again before all of that is possible. So my magic number will be 5,000 scraps and then I will start working towards those races. Races are so easy once you destroy the competition with the Thunderpoon. So I was looking forward to that before I realized how scrap poor I was.
My next story mission is to free Hope’s daughter, Glory. It seems Max has married Hope in his mind but physically, he is still being rather rude to her. I have no idea what Act IV is going to be like but I am going to stick to that path until I get the 5000 scrap and then I will busy myself with those races. I know which ones I have completed at least once, as it has a handy gas tank icon next to the Death Race icon. But I want to use that icon to mean that I have completed the race in the correct car so now I have to do those races again.
https://www.androidcentral.com/supermassives-man-medan-has-multiplayer-eight-games-planned
I’ll add my voice to the news that Supermassive Games has announced that The Dark Pictures Anthology is no longer a five game franchise. There will be . . . eight games! I can only imagine their preorder sales have been incredible and they just are fully committing to making these games. I’m going to preorder as many as I can!
I’m intrigued about the multiplayer games, playing the game with someone else sounds like fun. I’m not sure how that would work as I could never commit to playing for five hours, even in the middle of the day on a Sunday.
I’m hoping it isn’t like Beyond : Two Souls where there is only one ongoing save file so you had to either play solo or with a partner. I want this to be like Portal 2 where there will be options to play single, multiplayer or party mode. Which now I’m trying to think if Hidden Agenda had different tracks, I want to say it didn’t but that game was super short at barely three hours, a length of a full length movie these days. Five hours feels just a tad long to be in front of the system, at least to this 37 year old. If I was in college, then heck yeah, but I got adult responsibilities now and barely no time to play as it is.
I really want to platinum this game so I’m really hoping I can do that and not be held up by the multiplayer mode. In that case, I guess I’ll have to figure out how to operate without any sleep the night before.
Sounds like the second game must be in near completion mode as the third one is filming soon. So maybe they can make two games a year work?!
The fourth and fifth games are in the game design mode and they have story concepts for games six, seven, and eight. This is such an exciting time!
PlayStation has a little more information on the game too!
. . .
Thanks to Dave and Rosie of PlayStation Access for hosting their video containing multiplayer gameplay!
They even got to experience a real life ghost ship! So lucky! Poor Dave, at least he had Rosie there.
. . .
For July 2019, the PlayStation Plus games were changed from Horizon Turbo Chase and PES 2019 to Horizon Turbo Chase and Detroit Become Human.
Which is unfortunate as I don’t own the Special Edition of Detroit but I did get the regular edition for Christmas. I was also really looking forward to playing PES 2019. I was really hoping Konami was going to pull a NBA 2k19 and make their game $2.99 to take advantage of the hype and disappointment loads of people felt. As I would never buy the game for $30 but if it was $3, heck yeah! Especially as PES 2020 is coming out in September and then, no one is probably going to buy 2019, except for me, once it is way cheap. I can hold out, of that, I’m sure.
. . .
Thanks to YouTuber TN_Spicyapples33 for hosting his video of the San Francisco cup!
I’ve only played and completed the San Francisco cup of the World Tour. This is a pretty fun and relaxing game. I can see this becoming a nice chill game to play after completing a night’s worth of playing whatever my main game is. The tracks do not take long and once you understand how the rubberbanding works in the game, I rarely stressed about winning. The only playful stress I had was trying to get all of the coins and come in first place to earn the Super Trophy. Whenever I grabbed all the coins, I wasn’t in danger of coming in second but when I came in first, I often didn’t get all of the points so I had to do some replays.
. . .
Before I can start a playthrough of Detroit, I really want to complete my first playthrough of Beyond : Two Souls. It is silly but that’s just what I want to do. Except I’m not really doing it. I finished the Separation chapter and I started the Dinner chapter. And that was a week ago.
Still a fun game but I’m just addicted to playing Dead by Daylight right now.
My goal is to play a level of Lego Marvel Superheroes 2, then play Dead by Daylight, and then the next night, play a level of Beyond : Two Souls, and then chill (if that’s even the word, as unwind sure isn’t!) with Dead by Daylight.
Instead, with some nights I only get to play for like 30 or 45 minutes, I’ve just been playing Dead by Daylight and completing my dailies (or trying my best!). I’m still no good at it but I’m learning and feeling like I’m getting better.
In Lego Marvel Superheroes 2, I completed the first Inhumans story level and it seems I have one more but making nice progress in the story as well as doing the side content.
. . .
Over on the Spider-Man side of my life, Walker Dennis is still super obsessed with Spider-Man!
The excellent team over at Insomiac added the two new suits from Spider-Man : Far From Home!
The Upgraded Suit
and Night Monkey!
So much fun!
The suits look great in the game too! I started The Heist DLC on Ultimate New Game Plus mode but I just did the first mission as I have other games to make progress with.
. . .
https://www.comixology.com/free-comics
Comixology has three X-Men comics for free!
Uncanny X-Men 201
Uncanny X-Men 211
Uncanny X-Men 266
A total value of $5.67!
I can’t believe I’ve never done a review for 201 or 211, that can’t be right but it must be as they don’t come up when I did a search.
201 is the amazing Cyclops vs Storm issue. 211 is an incredible issue from the Mutant Massacre story. 266 is Gambit’s first full appearance. I have never read 266 but 201 and 211 are some of the best comics!
. . .
We got to watch Spider-Man Far From Home on July Fourth and the theater was barely full, people must have been out of town or something silly.
Such an amazing time!
Like with Endgame, this at the end of the post and there will be spoilers but also, nothing else but Far From Home commentary so you should stop now if you haven’t seen the film!
Serious
Please
Stop
Now
Here
Comes
Some
Spoilers!
Such a spectacular film!
Jake Gyllenhaal did an outstanding job as Mysterio! My favorite scene of his has to be after he’s given the glasses and he’s alone in the bar and there is that half minute of silence and then the entire bar explodes with applause. So great! I sort of want to rewatch the entire movie again just for that one moment of stillness.
I thought before the movie was how does Mysterio trick super spy Nick Fury into thinking there was a multiverse? I mean, there could still be one but with Fury’s resources, how does one fake one? Then the post credit scene, we finally figure out how Mysterio did it. It wasn’t Nick Fury! Though how Mysterio still tricks everyone else working for Not-Fury, I’m not sure. Also, who is that agency? Is it a side SHIELD? Seemed like a missed opportunity to use the Agents of SHIELD team. Or are these guys just private soldiers of Fury’s? But then how does he pay those soldiers? Or are they all human agents of SWORD from Fury’s actual appearance in the film? We really need to watch Captain Marvel.
I got the word “Night Monkey” spoiled for me with the costume reveal but it was a minor spoiler but that was all I got spoiled by, so that’s nice. We also saw it the day after it came out, so that helped too.
We finally got Ned Leeds and Betty Brant together! So great!
Martin Starr was amazing as always and they got JB Smooth too! Such a fun combination.
Peter Tingle, and I kept waiting for it to be called his Spider-Sense.
Nice how the three Lego sets were all actually in the movie proper, that was great. We still only own the Hydro-Man set but we’ll probably snatch up Molten Man, if we can ever find it again.
The biggest day away though was the mid-credits scene. Someone had the genius idea to bring back J. Jonah Jameson AND to have JK Simmons come back and portray the character!
I mean, that voice, that face, that’s everything I want! I imagine they had him bald to separate him from the Tobey Maguire movies and I’m fine with that.
Though, as big of a shock as it is to state Peter Parker is Spider-Man on a popular news outlet, I still don’t feel like it is that big of a deal. Right? I mean, the Stark Foundation can help settle this misinformation. Sure, it’ll follow Peter Parker for a while but if the Stark Foundation or SHIELD can just say it isn’t true, have a nice Skrull appear as Peter Parker standing next to Spider-Man, I just feel the stakes are not that high. It makes for a terrific ending but I don’t anticipate Peter being hounded by the police or Interpol. Especially as the next movie won’t be out until 2021 at the earliest. Funny how we don’t know the next slate of films but it’ll probably come during or right after San Diego Comic Con or D24.
Plus, if Peter is just going to be under the employ of the Avengers or Stark, then he’ll be fine. Sure, he’ll have to go to a different school or getting his GED through the Avengers, but he’ll be okay.
But such a great ending!
Also cool that they actually got Peter Billingsley to come back from the first Iron Man movie. And I was reminded that Billingsley is Ralphie from A Christmas Story! Apparently he was also an executive producer for Iron Man but not for any of the other Marvel films so I wonder how that came about?
Apparently he is friends with Jon Favreau so that explains so much! Favreau is so deep in Disney’s pocket that I can only assume now that he is a majority shareholder in the company. He ought to be with how much money he has made for Disney and Marvel!
Marisa Tomei and Favreau were also great in the film too! Such fun chemistry together.
Always great to see Cobie Smulders in these movies.
Zendaya got a lot more to do in this film and she was super fun. I really like seeing her and Holland together. Also, super realistic how swinging around New York City has to be extremely terrifying!
People are saying the four Elementals are based on Spider-Man villains, which makes sense with Molten Man and Hydro-Man but I don’t remember even seeing the Earth/Sand Elemental. Was he only shown on screen during that exposition map scene? People say the Wind Elemental is Cyclone, which sounds like a stretch as well as he’s mostly just a dude who whirls. But I completely get that if two of them can be identified as Spider-Foes, then let’s label the other two as well.
So much fun that opening montage of our fallen heroes! Makes sense the world at large just assumes Captain America is dead.
That’s another thing, with two years between films, we’ll most likely get Peter’s subplot resolved in whatever next film he shows up in.
https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2476313/are-the-russo-brothers-teasing-new-marvel-footage
Apparently the Russo Brothers are teasing that on July 19th, there will be an announcement at San Diego Comic Con.
Apparently D23 is named after Disney 1923, the year the company was founded. That Expo is to be held on August 23, so expect big news to continue.
We know to expect Black Panther 2, Captain Marvel 2, Spider-Man Home Run, and one day, Avengers 5. Plus, Fantastic Four and X-Men announcements.
I’m not sure if I really need Doctor Strange 2, I feel like the character, much like Thor (and Superman), works better in a team environment or on special guest star status. But who am I kidding? I’ll still watch his movie, I will just have to remember to do so.
Oh, and Deadpool 3 has to happen too? The jokes that movie will have to address will be fun to watch.
Plus, maybe more Disney+ series?
Time will tell!
I also keep forgetting about Eternals too.
https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Phase_Four
Also, there is a rumored Black Widow origin film, Shang Chi, and Guardians of the Galaxy 3.
https://www.universehead.com/comicbookqueers/2019/7/5/episode-91-spider-man-far-from-home
If you want to hear Comic Book Queers Legacy’s take on the film, follow the above link!
https://www.comixology.com/free-comics
This week’s free comics include :
X-Factor (2005 – 2013) # 1
Cyclops (2014 – 2015) # 1
I reviewed Teen Cyclops’ first issue below :
https://shadowandflamewithmagik.com/2014/07/22/cyclops-1/
Such a great series!
Peter David’s run of X-Factor (any of them, really) is really great and I liked the detective agency angle that the third volume had.
. . .
I finally finished NBA 2K19’s prelude within the proper game and I’m finally a member of the Phoenix Suns. I haven’t played an actual game as a Sun, as I’ve been running around the Neighborhood earning trophies, but it feels nice to finally start feeling like I’m accomplishing something in the game. I then tried to do the story mode in MyGM and I was not ready for all of the reading. It definitely is 90% reading, so know that as you are going into it. I lost the Summer League bet as I thought I’ll take a chance an sim the tournament. We won the first round but lost the second so I didn’t earn that trophy and I just feel done with the game at the moment. I’ll probably jump back in eventually but a break is needed.
. . .
I picked up Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 again and that feels good to be completing story missions again. I finally unlocked all of Chronopolis, I haven’t explored everything yet but at least the green barriers are gone. I immediately went and completed the race to unlock Scarlet Spider and I did Spider-Ham’s mission to unlock him.
Apparently, we already had the x2 multiplier Gwenpoole pink brick, so I’m not sure when that happened. So all of that time I was saving 800,000 studs, I could have have had 1,600,000 studs if I had just turn that on from the beginning. I would have sworn that it wasn’t there earlier but that’s okay. I now see I can buy all of the multiplier ones, so I’m going to have to save up again to buy those but it should be easier once i get the x4 multiplier, which turns into an 8x multiplier as these bricks stack.
https://www.ign.com/wikis/lego…2/Gwenpool_Missions_(Pink_Brick_Locations)
I also did Agent Venom’s sidemission to unlock him, which opened up my first Gwenpoole misison which is going to be the next thing I do in the game. That way we can earn Carnage and proper Venom. Then I have everyone I need to do the Free Play version of the level, so I might as well do that to unlock the Lizard.
I saw ahead that Carnom is an option to unlock after beating the symbiote main story mission. Carnom is the combination of Carnage and Venom, and Walker Dennis is going to lose his mind once he seems that as an option.
Walker Dennis really wants to get cut-in-half Spider-Man Deadpool so he’s currently saving his money for him. He saved up money to buy cut-in-half Peter Parker Venom so he’s maybe learning the value of a dollar.
Walker D also has saved up his dollars and bought Spider-Claus off of eBay.
So that’ll be coming to us from China and will be here around July 19.
So that’s all pretty exciting!
. . .
https://player.fm/series/2331217
Michael Rosenbaum concluded his two week Smallville run of episodes and listening to them all really made me want to watch some Smallville episodes. Now I’m hooked all over again! I asked on reddit for some Bottle Episodes, as I couldn’t remember any and got a few suggestions:
Season 5’s Lockdown
Season 6’s Static
Season 7’s Traveler
Not really bottle episodes but it gave me a start. I’m going to watch the one where Lionel and Clark switch bodies, Season Four’s Transference. I also snuck Season Two’s Precipice.
I’ll probably bounce around some more and watch more Lois episodes and maybe end on an Alicia Baker marathon of her three episodes.
https://smallville.fandom.com/wiki/Alicia_Baker
Season Three’s Obsession
Season Four’s Unsafe and Pariah
She’s mentioned in two other episodes and as a photograph in two other episodes, so I might try those as well. I was also thinking of watching the six episodes Tom Welling directed as well. Michael Rosenbaum directed Season Six’s Freak, so I should add that to the list too.
I rather bounce around along themes instead of watching every episode. Or start with Season Four when Lois shows up but that’s still a lot of television to watch.
Erica Durance was so great as Lois as was Sarah Carter as Alicia.
So that’s what I’ve been doing.
The free games for May 2019 are : What Remains of Edith Finch and Overcooked!
I’ve been wanting Edith Finch for so long so I’m thrilled to finally get to play it! I’ve seen PlayStation Access play Overcooked and it looks like a lot of fun too!
Edith Finch is one of the best walking sims out there and Overcooked is a four player coop game where players try to get meals out and not set the kitchen on fire.
PlayStation Access :
PlayStationGrenade :
Platinum Chasers :
I like how Adam and Ben are still commenting on the lack of games as we used to get six games and now we only get two. I’m part of the camp that wishes they added a VR game as a third title.
I’ll be pretty happy if they just found a few more crossbuy titles that used to work with the PS3 or the Vita and give those to us on the PS4.
. . .
Most of the discussions on the two subreddit pages I follow for this type of news are going on about the lack of quantity of games and the two games are being praised but they are both older games and relatively cheap on their own.
What Remains of Edith Finch is $19.99 and Overcooked is $16.99 but has a Gourmet edition for $19.99 that I imagine comes with The Lost Morsel, an add-on for $4.99. THere is a free The Festive Seasoning level that I’ve now downloaded.
So a overall value of $37, when sometimes it can be over $60.
PS4 Subreddit’s reaction :
PlayStation Plus subreddit’s reaction :
The games are going to be available to download on Tuesday, May 7, and I can’t wait!
. . .
As Ben states in his video, neither game as a platinum trophy, which seems unfortunate to pair the games together. I think that is one of the other annoyances people have, is that both games are indie titles so one game being offered in May and the other in June, would have been nice for some people. Some speculation is being written about how, even though Sony is skipping E3, we might get some stellar games for June. Time will tell.
Since neither game has a platinum, I think neither of them gets a proper playstationtrophies.org page but on the forum, both are represented.
Overcooked’s Guide
https://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/overcooked/309926-overcooked-trophy-guide-roadmap.html
Of the 11 trophies, I’m going to commit to three of them, for sure. Play a versus mode game, extinguish a burning kitchen, and complete the tutorial. It’ll be nice to get the other ones, which the bulk seems to be, get one star in at least one kitchen per five hub worlds.
I’m going to see if my beautiful wife and Walker Dennis will want to play with me, if not, I’m going to have to solo the game but I should be able to at least do those three trophies on my own. I’m going to be attempting this game first.
What Remains of Edith Finch’s Guide
This is the game I’m going to 100%, for sure. There are seven missable trophies but reading the descriptions, it seems like just knowing which story you are in, check the guide real fast, and make sure you accomplish the goal. It doesn’t seem like any of the trophies’ descriptions spoil the plot. At least, I don’t feel like I have any proper context but time will tell.
Apparently, during a second playthrough, most of the trophies can be obtained except for finding the first peephole which is to the left of the garage on the fence as we approach the house for the first time. We don’t ever get a second opportunity to do that, so if you are trying to get all nine peepholes and 1 telescope. Which, stuff like that, is the reason why I look at trophy guides. Never too closely, as I’m mostly just looking for the word “missable.”
. . .
Walker Dennis and I earned our 18th Platinum!
The first Lego Movie is so good and so many mechanics were used in Lego Dimensions so it just felt comfortable.
I went out the very next day and bought the Lego Marvel Collection! At first, I was going to be an old fuddy duddy and only let Walker Dennis and myself play one game at a time. Then I warmed up to the idea of just completing the story and then allowing us to move on to the second game. Then Walker Dennis’ big brown eyes and hearing myself say it for a fifth time, I agreed to playing the games until we got Spider-Man unlocked. Which it took a long long time before we could access the open world in Lego Avengers. With the game, the Spider-Man DLC is free, but we didn’t have access to the blue terminals that have the option to switch characters, until after the fifth mission, Helicarrier Havoc. We’re four percent done with that game. Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 is pretty quick and it only took two missions and we had Spider-Man, who is freely given.
Going to the individual games’ PlayStation Store pages, we still had the option to buy the DLC, which made me suspect we didn’t get a code for the season passes but once we could open the character page, all of the DLC characters were on the bottom but I checked all three times. It would have been nice, since once you load the disc, we had to individually download each game, so it would have been nice that the prices on the store page changed from the dollar value to the download option. That would have given me some peace of mind.
So I’m cool with whatever game Walker Dennis wants to play, he can play but at night, I’ve been doing one mission of Lego Marvel Superheros 1 and I’m currently just passed the X-Men mission and the Fantastic Four one is next. Which I’m excited about as that means I can defeat 100 enemies using the Thing, as that’s one of the trophies. I’m not sure if I’m going to platinum any of these games as they are massive! I’ll definitely strive to do so but ooof, there are a lot of characters and gold bricks floating about. Plus, those races are pretty hard! I can’t seem to get a feel for webslinging either.
I’m so happy we got Scarlet Spider in Lego Avengers and I know there is a race to unlock him in Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 that once I can, I’ll commit time to unlocking him. Spider-Ham is also an option in 2 so I’ll have to get him there too.
1 has Emma Frost and I made a point to do two missions from Professor X to unlock her, and then I did a third mission to unlock him as well. I sought out Archangel so I now have all of the original X-Men. I’m having a blast!
Playing Lego Avengers makes me want to rewatch the first two Avengers movies. We sold our copy of the first one to upgrade to a digital copy but we haven’t done that so I might have to pull the trigger as that movie was fun to replay. We have Age of Ultron on BluRay but I’m tempted to buy that through VUDU as well. I’m just ready to stop buying physical movies and buy everything through VUDU but then VUDU still doesn’t get all of the special features so here I am buying the combo packs just for the digital copy and a few extra materials.
. . .
My plan is to play one level of Lego Marvel Superheroes 1 and then play Batman The Enemy Within until 11:30pm, and then play until I get to another save point. Which I’ve been able to do for the most part. Last night, I finished the X-Men level, so I went around gathering all of the X-Men I could and unlocking Carnage as I’ve been waiting to get Iceman to unlock Carnage. Walker Dennis turned on the game, and I wanted him to buy Carnage, Superior Spider-Man and a Symbiote Hazmat fellow. Which he did but we went from 1.5 million studs to less than 150,000 studs in a matter of seconds as he started unlocking everybody.
On my list of characters I want in the first game are:
Agent Coulson, for the trophy
The Lizard, Walker got the first Amazing Spider-Man movie for Easter – and Hop – so he’s in a real Lizard mode, he calls him Dr. Connors, which I love)
Howard the Duck, also for the trophy, it is the last one listed and I’m obsessed!
Magneto, he’s needed for so many items in Free Play
Scarlet Spider isn’t an option. I would have held off for Colossus until the very end but he was needed for the Fastball Special trophy so I bought him. I wish they would make a Lego X-Men game, it would be awesome and super cute!
Anyway, this section was supposed to be about Batman : The Enemy Within! I’m in Episode Three and Catwoman showed up! So I want to romance her like crazy as Bruce is going through some stuff. Harley wants to flirt with Bruce but Joker’s man crush on Wayne makes me try to flirt with Harley but keep pushing Joker to keep him happy. I read a great article in GameInformer on how Episode Five is essentially a compilation of our choices so it really depends on everything we’ve done during the four other episodes.
Thanks to finishing the second episode, I’ve finally reached my Gaming Goal of 2019 by reaching Player Level 15, I’m 6% into it, and I have 18 Platinums, 102 Gold Trophies, 355 Silver Trophies, and 1163 Bronze Trophies, for a total of 1638.
. . .
Apparently there is a really great deal going on right now on the PlayStation Store. I saw something about villains spotlight but nothing jumped out at me but PSPrices makes the deal look very worth checking out!
Zero Escape : Zero Time Dilemma is $7.99 for PS+ subscribers, down from $40, and I might actually buy that as that’s my Vita white whale!
Witcher 3 Complete Edition is $14.99, down from $50 (though I rarely ever see it at full price now)
Lego City Undercover is $8.99, down from $30
Batman : Return to Arkham is $7.99, down from $20, if I wasn’t knee deep into three games and a Batman game, I would it now, but I probably would once it is eight dollars again.
Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition is $20 at GameStop, and I love how PSPrices tells us retail sales as well!
Lego DC Super-Villains Deluxe Edition is $44.99, down from $74.99, I wonder if that includes the latest batch of characters like the Phastasm and the Shazam characters?
Kingdom Come : Deliverance is $13.53 on Amazon! Is that right? Looks like it is sold out right now. In fact, there is a Royal Edition coming out on June 11 for $40, so I need to change my version on PSPrices once they have a link for it.
Injustice 2 Legendary Edition is also $30 at Gamestop, down from $60, but this is another game that is usually on sale too.
Batman : Arkham Knight Season Pass continues to be solid at $20, one day it’ll dip to eight dollars, then I shall strike!
I got to add Lego Marvel Collection to my . . . collection so that’s one less game! I’ll be taking off What Remains of Edith Finch in a week, so that’s exciting too!
I’m looking at Zero Escape : Zero Time Dilemma and it is stating it is a cross-buy title?! Was that always the case?! How did I miss it then?! So many questions! I had the Vita version hearted through the store but I’m going to take a chance on buying the PS4 copy and I hope I end up with both! Alright, that means I now only have 49 games on my wishlist!
Shoot, it only registers as the PS4 version and the Vita version is still available to buy, that stinks but at least I can think that I own it too. I wonder if I should reach out to customer support and get the Vita version?
I’m chatting with Joseph of Customer Support right now. He couldn’t make the came crossbuy and now it sort of killed my enthusiasm for ever getting that game or any of the other Vita games I missed out on. Plus, I was never going to get a Vita. Once if that day ever came, I’ll reignite my desire for them. At least I got a refund out of it.
. . .
https://www.comixology.com/free-comics
Comixology has a rare free non-Marvel title!
Runners Volume 1 : Free Preview
https://www.comixology.com/Runners-Volume-1-FREE-PREVIEW/digital-comic/769939
It is the first two chapters of the volume. Sean Wang is the writer and artist.
. . .
TRIGGER WARNING!!!
AVENGERS ENDGAME DESCRIPTIONS AHEAD!!!
I actually got to watch Avengers Endgame! I don’t want to spoil anything as I was able to avoid all spoilers so I don’t want to spoil someone else’s good time but I think I can make some comments without giving away any real plot points but I have some thoughts I need to get out of my head.
So if you don’t want any spoilers or hints of spoilers, this is the final section so there isn’t anything else read, so come back once you have seen the film!
First of all, this movie is amazing! My wife complained almost immediately as we got outside, that she thought he movie was too long, like like 20 minutes, so that killed some of my buzz to talk more about the film. So we talked about how all of the third act needed to stay, but there were parts in the beginning that probably could have been trimmed or even during the quest portion of the second act that could have been parred down. I thought it was amazing, like, every minute of it, so I wouldn’t have wanted to shorten anything but it was a fun thought exercise.
We took Walker as he did pretty well watching Infinity War on Netflix. He ate too much popcorn and had too much of a Coke Icee so I had to leave two times in the beginning of the film so he can attempt to throw up but nothing came of it. I knew his belly would settle if he stopped eating, and after the second attempt, he sat in his seat and enjoyed the film.
He waited so patiently until Spider-Man showed up, which I don’t think anyone expected for him not to show up, or any of the vanished heroes, so I don’t think that’s a real spoiler (in case someone is trying to read these paragraphs until a real big spoiler shows up – I’ve done it that in the past as reader).
I like how, once the portal opens, there is a good beat of time before Spider-Man swings out, and then Walker would not stop talking about Peter Parker. He also started commenting on wanting to buy the movie, which I told him I really want it too. But he was so excited. Then there were non-Spider-Man moments that he just wanted Spider-Man to come back, so that wasn’t great but once he’s on the screen, he’s in the film and the center of focus.
I loved how, with how epic that final battle was, there is always time for a hug and what a great hug at that!
This entire movie was a celebration of 22 films and ten years of Marvel movie magic! Well, Endgame is the 22nd film so a celebration of 21 films!
As soon as Sam said, “On your left” I don’t think I stopped smiling for the next ten minutes.
Then the ladies all had a moment, that I’m sure someone is going to make posters of and screenshots of, once the film has been out for a month. I appropriated so much how the marketing campaign was so nice to avoid spoilers. Heck, even the Lego sets didn’t spoil anything. Captain America never got on a motorcycle and Iron Man never went to a room that housed all of his suits.
The Avengers Compound shows up, and that would be the one I’ll be tempted to buy if it wasn’t a hundred dollars. War Machine never gets a giant Hulkbuster sized suit. Rocket’s ship is shown but never does anyone ever get into a giant white plane, so of the five sets, only one is in the film. Not for long though, once Thanos shows up, but still, it is there.
The fact that all of Infinity War mattered as amazing! I thought for sure, the last five minutes wouldn’t matter but nope, everything happened and everyone has to deal with that.
Okay, now I have to spoil somethings to talk about some things. So final final warning!
I think most people know there is a time cut, and there is. Five years have passed since Infinity War. Earth has not really moved on. There are monuments with names like the Vietnam War memorial in San Francisco that I can only imagine are represented in every major city, if not every city probably did the same. I wonder if those come down post-movie as it would be haunting to see one’s name on a wall for all time. Plus, ever the first anniversary, they served their purpose and are taking up valuable real estate.
Also, high school reunions have be crazy right? Teenagers are back, half of their friends graduated and then you have to be replaced in your grade and now graduating with half the people you don’t even know. Also, half of your friends are five years older than you too. Except it seems all of Peter Parker’s supporting crew are in Spider-Man : Far From Home, so that whole class of recognizable characters vanished. Which is handy for film purposes. I wonder how much of that film is going to handle the ramifications of the world, probably just a few lines of dialogue.
I missed the line about Tony losing oxygen and we got a fun interactions with him and Nebula. For the life of me, I can’t remember what happened in the two minutes we missed the second time. It was during Black Widow’s debriefing scene.
Thanks to the time travel aspects, we got to revisit some favorite scenes. Which was so amazing to see again from a different angle! Also, so fun all of the movie titles being said and how they all got it wrong. The movie sort of handles it like how Marvel comics handles time travel. What happened happen, and if you change something, it just creates a new timeline so the present will always be the present.
I had to look it up and that is Ty Simpkins’ character, Harley Keener, from Iron Man 3, at the end. So nice how they paid homage to the first Iron Man film as this film closes an entire saga. It helps that Jon Favreau is a director and an actor, and super willing to be in these films. It probably also helps that he’s directing Lion King so Disney has his phone number.
I wonder what phase four will bring and what the overall plot focus will be. Perhaps an epic Doctor Doom plot or just Galactus coming? We have to be working towards Fantastic Four and the X-Men being folded in, right?
Heck, this movie gave us a Hail Hydra! So amazing! And America’s Ass! Captain America can do this all day! I must have been grinning so hard during long sections of the film.
We got two amazing parent scenes, with one’s mother and another’s father. Having a child really does put one’s own parents in a different perspective. Might be worst or better but an understanding does occur. There’s a nice balance, as all things should be.
This movie even went as far as to try to make Thor : Dark World matter! Which I would say is by far the worst Marvel movie, even the Earth portions were not great.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Cinematic_Universe_films
Looking at the top list :
Thor : Dark World will be on the top of my ranking of the films. By a lot! But gosh, look at all of those films, all of them are pretty rewatchable! Which is super impressive and the cast of actors we get in this films are astonishing!
I love that if an actor had a free day to film, they got to be in the movie.
We still haven’t seen Captain Marvel but I’m hoping to sneak it in before it leaves theaters.
I was able to text old friend to the blog, and my oldest friend, Greg, some of my thoughts so that was nice to talk to someone about the movie who also loved the film.
He made a comment about the homeless problem probably skyrocketed but I wrote back how with half the population gone, they probably became homefull.
I was on a track about identity fraud and how my chances of being accounted for, even though I vanished, I would still come back five years later to all of my debt still intact, knowing my luck. It would be like 911 times a hundred.
Does Manifest actually get into the minute details of being gone for five years and definitely being declared dead?
Thor was amazing in the film!
They found a way to keep Loki alive that is super clever and the plot to find Gamora is probably going to be the basis of Guardians 3. I love that they got a new team member, the reuniting of Groot and Rocket was super nice too.
Cap back in the 70s, so great! Cap in the finale, was so heartbreaking and beautiful. I love how Agent Carter : Agent of SHIELD mattered with original Jarvis being shown. No hard references to Agents of SHIELD or the Netflix shows, from what I could tell.
There are all of these news reports to a Black Widow movie and I want that to happen too but I’m not sure how. I knew it was going to be her to take the soul stone.
When Thanos’ missiles were firing into the sky, I had forgotten about Captain Marvel and I thought we were about to get a crazy entrance but it was great to see her. Peter Parker introducing himself to her was amazing, as Walker always refers to him as “Peter Parker” so having the name said by both characters made him so happy.
Greg was wondering if the line about earthquakes was a hint to Namor which would have been cool. Otherwise, it was just a line of dialogue for dialogue’s sake.
I imagine besides lines of dialogue, the time jump and real world ramifications are not going to be reference again. Maybe that would be the plot or the backbone to the Disney+ shows.
We knew Hulk was going to be an Avenger as we saw the Pop Vinyl character.
Okay okay, now we’re getting into major major spoilers territory!
oh my! We finally got “Avengers Assemble!” and it was everything I ever wanted! Then we got Captain America holding Mjolnir! I was so happy!
Fun how we got two more Community alums added to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Yvette Nicole Brown (who looks like she lost a lot of weight!) and Ken Jeong.
When they were in the 70s, there is this great song by “It’s Been a Long, Long Time” by Harry James and his Orchestra that I just loved the old timiness of it. Apparently, it is their cover to a 1945 song.
Nice to see Hiroyuki Sanada in the film, he was Shingen Yashida in The Wolverine and Akihiko in the film.
The film has a great balance of comedy and drama, and so many people and characters got a moment to shine. They definitely got their moneys worth from Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans. Both get such wonderful sendoffs.
We even got Gwyneth Paltrow in the Rescue armor! So many things paid off from previous films.
I know it won’t take any awards besides MTV and Teen Awards and a few technical awards but it really does deserve to be acknowledged next year. Not like it matters but it’ll be nice for the box art.
We really need A Time to Die Hard now!
Just overall, I loved the movie and I want to see it again but I won’t until I own it.
Next stop will be Spider-Man : Far From Home but I can’t imagine we’ll watch it July 5 opening weekend.
For two great podcast reviews:
Comic Book Queers Legacy :
https://www.universehead.com/comicbookqueers/2019/4/29/episode-82-avengers-endgame
Living Between Wednesdays :
http://www.livingbetweenwednesdays.com/blog/1-4
I beat Cosmic Star Heroine, thus earning my 16th Platinum!
Such a fun game! Turns out, I was playing on Agent difficulty, which is Normal. I was just minding my own business, I beat Prime Evil to complete Psybe’s side quest and I marked off the trophy on my list and realized I never earned the trophy. I looked it up and turns out, some trophies are glitched, and most of them are the boss battles. So I panicked as just three hours earlier, I had earned the Recruit 20 Crew Members gold trophy, which took some time. So I was debating about regathering those folks or not when I realized the PS4 had backed up my save file when I turned it prior to eating dinner. So all I had to do was refight the arcade boss for Dave’s side quest and get back to Prime Evil. I was tempted not to redo the arcade but that’s how we got Dave’s best weapon and that guy is a beast once he gets that weapon.
While reading about the glitches and the advice to hard save before each boss fight, I also received the advice to lower the difficulty to Tourism, the Easy mode. What this does is knock off a quarter of the health of the opponents as well as weakens them so they don’t hit the team for too much damage. So I still played the same, the fights were just faster, which was nice and I had made up that hour of playtime in 20 minutes.
I really really enjoying my team of Alyssa, Lauren, Psybe, and Dave – such a great combination of characters and abilities. I’ll put Chahn in the upper tier as well but we can only have four person teams. I’ll probably rank Sue even higher than Chahn.
Lita the Vampire of the Mines’ trophy also didn’t pop for me, but I was prepared for that one. All of the other trophies popped without a problem.
I still wished we could have beaten the main game boss and then had the post-game option to take on the optional bosses and quests, instead of being forced to do it all beforehand. I get the decision though and it makes sense with where all of the characters end up after the story is over but it would have still been nice to have.
If you have an itch for a Chrono Trigger / Old School SNES RPG game, this should satisfy that scratch.
I did like how the game forces us to play with all of the characters at least once. With 11 playable characters, there is bound to be a clear division of characters.
I’ll rank them as
Alyssa
Lauren
Psybe
Dave
Sue, his counter attack is amazing!
Chahn
Z’xorv
Arete
Orson
Finn
Clarke
Clarke is just the absolute worst but he’s a fun dancer so he’s lighthearted. Z’xorv/Arete/Orson, I would just say are fine as is Finn, maybe there is just a clear worst character and a slew of also rans.
. . .
I’ve decided to get back to Spider-Man PS4 as my next game. I’m going to complete my Ultimate New Game Plus and be completely done with that game. I’m so close, I got drugged by Scorpion and had Miles run away from Rhino, and my next mission is Heavy Hitter. Tuns out, I only have four missions left before the end of the game. Heavy Hitter / Step into My Parlor (the Mary Jane level) / Heart of the Matter / Pax in Bello / Epilogue, which doesn’t really count as it is the ending cutscene, as bitter sweet as it is.
The Electro / Vulture fight was as hard as I remembered, as I just get lost in the night and I can’t track Vulture or his weapon he’s throwing around. So I’m really not looking forward to the Rhino and Scorpion tag team nor the final boss fight. Second to last boss fight, I don’t recall being as hard as the others. I’m not dreading Mary Jane’s level but I do want to just burn through it as quickly as possible.
I figure after that, I’ll finish Batman : The Enemy Within as that’ll be a nice plat to have and I just have to enjoy and play the game, there isn’t any side quests or hidden trophies to worry about.
After that, I’ll complete my first playthrough of Beyond : Two Souls and I’m not sure if I’ll actually beat Knack but I feel like that’s the only other game that I made a load of progress in and stopped. Oh, and SOMA, which I might just do what I did with RiME and just have a YouTube video at the ready to get me pass any obstacles.
There might be a few Uncharted 3 trophies I can clean up just to try to get to Rank 15, my only real video game related goal for 2019. I’m currently at Rank 14 with 70% but it took me so long to go from 13 to 14. From there, I’ll have to look at my games again and see which one I really want to invest in. Mostly just the Kill 30 enemies with the Dragon Sniper, RPG-7, Mag 5, and PAK-80, which is four more trophies and most likely pretty easy to obtain.
I really want to get the Lego Marvel Collection too, as Walker Dennis is way into Spider-Man and Legos and I keep wanting to play those myself too. Which reminds me, we still have the first Lego Movie to complete too but he has been way into playing with his actual Legos than wanting to play that game, I might have to secretly play it on my own. By the time we or I complete it, Lego Marvel Collection will have to be cheaper than full price $60. Even buying it for $55 would be a win.
I’m very much influence by the Trophies subreddit, with what game I want to play. Uncharted 4 keeps showing up, so that might be the next game I tackle. I probably should mentally plan on playing at least another playthrough of Heavy Rain and Beyond : Two Souls so I can get it Detroit Become Human but I’ll probably just jump straight to Detroit and do one playthrough of that and maybe make a fun game of having one playthrough and then marathoning a second playthrough of all three games in rabid succession.
Beating Beyond : Two Souls opens up Detroit and beating Uncharted 4 opens up Lost Legacy. Then I still have the two Life is Strange games to play. I keep being tempted to buy Ms. Pac-Man for four dollars and to get the Season Pass of Batman : Arkham Knight but I have plenty of games to play before buying new games or content.
Hellblade : Senua’s Sacrifice also showed up once or twice and I want to get to that game too, so there easily could be my next three games.
. . .
http://turtlesoupshow.com/episode-196-cocaine-and-crystal-death/
Turtle Soup played Walker and mine voicemail around the 50 minute mark, which felt pretty good. I hadn’t realized my pauses were so long, maybe it only feels that way to me but it is hard to record a voicemail with a five year old but it turned out pretty well.
Thanks to YouTuber 420 Romantic for hosting the video!
Brian McKnight’s Back at One is such a great song!
Walker Dennis and I earned the Platinum for Lego Movie 2 : The Game on Sunday! This makes my 15th Platinum and our second that we earned together after Lego Dimensions.
That character on the left, Walker has started calling, Peter Parker, as Peter Parker is one of the words that he’ll say every six or seventh word, it seems like. He’s a tad obsess at the time.
We had a great time while we played the game. The camera was still a little wonky when we were inside buildings and we seemed to start having rooms not fully load for us when we were playing together but if I dropped out of the game, the room fully loaded at that time. So hopefully by the time the DLC drops in April, they would patch the game to fix on some of those.
We were super happy with our Syspocalypsestar came out! We were able to squeeze all of the buildings onto that tiny map, some of them like the Batcave, take up so much space! I was building most of the purple master brick buildings so I could keep track of which ones we made. So I have Walker play on my PSN account and I play on his non-PSN-connected account. A guest account is what it officially is called. We have one for my beautiful wife but she hasn’t played on her account in quite some time. Walker D got his mother to play Lego Movie 2 for a little bit, she found a few purple master bricks and he was so happy.
Anyway, so I unlocked the City Planner trophy – Build 20 Buildings in Syspocalypsestar. Which the Lego games have been kind enough that if I unlock one on his account, it usually gets reflected on my proper account. Or vice versa, we will complete a level, and both of us will get the trophy, which is really nice. I did notice a few times that it didn’t seem to happen but then it would happen later. So we switched controllers, I made six or eight smaller buildings (he had been building various buildings as well) and I got the trophy and the platinum.
I was getting a tad concern about empty land masses and we still have six buildings left to go but then I discovered we could build on top of the river and the lake so we have a floating zoo and a few other buildings, built right on top of the water. That was pretty fun.
Now we are just waiting for the new DLC, and I’m hoping the three new worlds come with at least two additional trophies each. Simply complete the main quest of the planet and then obtain all master bricks in said planet. If not, we will still have a great time exploring the planets.
. . .
So I kept thinking about the great Indoor Sale that is on the PSN. I didn’t quite have the $60 to buy the Lego Marvel Collection, I held it in my hands at GameStop, but I did not treat myself to it. Walker really wanted to play the first Lego Movie game, and I knew it was $7.99 but it gets as well as $4.99 but since we got the plat in the second game, we were essentially done with that game and I wouldn’t mind just having an active Lego game so we can spend that quality gaming time together. Turns out, there is an Old West DLC pack that comes with four characters and four additional pants, for $2.99 so all together, it was a $10.98 game, which is still cheaper than the $19.99 GameStop wants the game for the game. They said they could easily order it for me but I sort of like the idea of finding it in the store. They currently have their 4 Games for $20 deal but I can never find four games all under $9.99. That would be two free games. I can find one, and maybe a second one and at that point, I’ll buy two random games – and that thought I guess is what makes it a thought I can’t shake, but one day, we’ll take advantage of a deal.
Instead, I bought two $10 PSN and finished off my gift card that my wife got me for my birthday. Which had $50 on it and I essentially spent it all on what Walker wanted. We got TellTale’s Back to the Future game, a Spider-Man Funko character from the PS4 game, and two PSN cards. Which I still have $12 from, that I will eventually spend on myself. I’m just trying to keep $20 in the wallet for the day I finally treat myself to the Arkham Knight Season Pass, which is well worth it for $20 but it can go as low as $7.99 and for $8, it is super worth it. Especially as I won’t really do all of the combat challenges. What I should do is just buy the Season of Infamy like I want but I do want those other Batsuits and Batmobile designs. I’m a patient gamer so I can wait. I just have the all consuming thoughts I have to fight back.
So I bought the two cards, the nice guy at GameStop gave Walker another Emmet and Star collection. Walker kept wanting me to tell the nice clerk why we were buying two PSN cards, even though he could clearly hear us talk about what our intentions were but Walker is still a tad hard to understand (especially when he’s excited) so I told him, he told us a nice story about how he was watching a Chris Pratt interview and the interview ended and the screen notified him that if he stuck around, he can watch the first Lego Movie and he totally did! That movie still holds up! The second one is in stores on May 7th, so we have it added to our Amazon cart.
But this link doesn’t mention Digital Copy, so I won’t be adding that one to our cart just yet but I’m hoping the digital copy gets added to the link or as an option. What we should do is just buy it directly from Vudu but I’m not sure if we are there yet.
So now Walker has five Emmets and now a happy star face item and a sad star face item. And two spares of each in our spare container.
I spent the weekend assembling furniture (a cabinet, a shoe rack and a bookshelf) so our place is coming along nicely but I didn’t get a chance to buy the first Lego Movie game. From what I see in our trophy list, Walker was able to beat the Prologue and the first three levels, so that’s great. I see there is a glitchy trophy so hopefully he didn’t break the bench outside of Emmet’s house as we’re supposed to wait until we have Batman do all that but worst case, I create a second file and do it there. I had to help him do a few of the sections but then I gave it right back and went downstairs to continue unpacking and assembling. We finally got everything out of boxes, so that feels great. We just need another cabinet for our board games (we have so many!) and to hang pictures, and I think we might be done for the most part, outside of other decorative goals.
I have to rewatch the second movie again but I might have to say I enjoyed the second one more but it might just be because it has more than two memorable songs.
I’m really hoping we can watch the Captain Marvel movie, especially before Endgame but there hasn’t been any talk of doing that.
I haven’t played any more of Cosmic Star Heroine besides maybe an extra hour, maybe? I unlocked Sue and we’re still on the original planet, we are still in the process of escaping the AFI. We were so close with Lego Movie 2, I just committed to that and then I was tired after watching our shows and went straight to sleep. With The Voice, we are crazy behind on our shows, and the moving, but we are getting Walker back onto a proper sleeping schedule with the move so we actually have like two hours to be adults which is nice.
We are caught up with Supergirl, Arrow, and Flash. We might have three episodes of Riverdale but we are caught up with all of our Hulu shows too. I haven’t heard much about Riverdale so it was my fourth wanted show. I want to keep up Supergirl as Jon Cryer is Lex Luthor and I thought he did a great job in his first of three episodes.
https://insideofyoupodcast.com/episodes/jon-cryer
He did a great episode with Michael Rosenbaum that I was tempted to relisten to (I might still do it) but what I didn’t fight the temptation was to watch Hiding Out, such a great movie! I always forget Annabeth Gish is the love interest in the film. She was great on the West Wing and I hadn’t realized John Spencer was an FBI agent in the film too! It is all connected! A real shame Cryer was never on the West Wing. She’s also great in Pursuit of Happiness and her episodes of Sons of Anarchy in season seven.
I wanted to watch Arrow, even though the future stuff is not grabbing me (like at all!). I get that Amell doesn’t want to be in every scene but I don’t miss the flashbacks at all so seeing flashforwards doesn’t interest me, PLUS! Another future timeline while Flash is also having future timelines, it really is too much. Plus, Flash’s daughter has yet to wow me. Flash got Sarah Carter from Smallville she hasn’t had a chance to smile yet and she has one of the best smiles I’ve seen from an actress! I’m forgetting what made Arrow rank higher than Flash in my interests but it did. Shame the show is ending after next season (8) but I also get it. I’m surprised they don’t just end everything but I imagine contracts keep them from doing that. I’m not a fan of the idea of replacing Supergirl with Superman, it just doesn’t feel right but I would love to get a CS Superman show with Tyler Hoechlin, superbaby and all.
Blue Bloods has been really bringing it. Modern Family feels like wheels turning but the latest episode wasn’t that bad with Phil and the boyz but Mitchell making a fool of himself at Cam’s western theme bar wasn’t great. It was just so hard to watch and so sitcom-y, like he should have just excused himself and went home and not caused four additional problems. Like, he shouldn’t have allowed him to be the first one to chug the beer, he was doing dance moves in the line that no one else was doing, it just felt awkward and not funny awkward. “Stand By Your Man” is the episode title.
Black-ish wasn’t bad either, at least Junior is finally being given a storyline but I’m also just waiting for both shows to just end, they feel like they ran their course, a season ago. But we don’t have that many sitcoms left for us to watch either. I’m liking Goldbergs and Schooled – Goldbergs can get a tad hit or miss, I’m hoping they just send Barry to college and he matures there, the character could use it and the show really doesn’t need two Ericas. Though I’m all about Geoff (expect for that spelling) and Erica’s relationship. I did like her on Schooled though and I think Schooled just has more energy and focus.
. . .
Since it is Spring Break, my wife is home with Walker and he really wanted her to play the first Lego Movie game. She countered with wanting to play LittleBigPlanet 3. They had this conversation before bed so I had time to redownload the game. Turns out, we only completed four levels of the Prologue and didn’t earn a single trophy so I stayed up longer than I should have (like until midnight!) and got all of the create trophies and the simple trophies like turn into the three new character, OddSock, Swoop, and Toggle.
Talking to my wife, I was sharing how I regret not getting the Marvel costume kits, as I would have wanted all of them and doing that would be crazy expensive.
Since we live in the modern world, I checked eBay and was disappointed there were no codes for the characters since the Marvel license has lapsed.
Then I found this link!
https://www.gamestop.com/ps3/add-ons/littlebigplanet-marvel-costume-pack-2/88864
I took the chance (and the $5.99) to buy the Marvel Costume Pack 2.
So now we have Spider-Man! Which is amazing that the one character we wanted was the one we can find! They are so cute!
If anyone knows where I can buy at least the Venom costume, please let me know! I’ll gladly pay another $5.99 for that pack.
Before I found the Marvel Costume kit, I bought the Ghostbusters kit –
Walker is still big on Ghostbusters and I was just trying to make selling him on playing the game easier.
I also bought Batman, and he’s super cute too! Essentially, I just bought all of the characters I wanted. I still regret not just spending the money on the Marvel characters. I’m once again reminded why Thou Shalt Not Hesitate is the greatest of the commandments!
I then woke up the next day and decided I’ll buy the TMNT pack as they are super cute too!
I need to buy another $10 PSN card to stay above $20.
If Walker really takes to the game, I’ll be tempted to get the 12th Doctor set. If only all of these sets were not $5.99 each and I’ve been wondering if when Dreams comes out, if there will be crazy sales for LBP but I’m pretty much at my end point of characters I would be tempted to buy. Now I really have to start working on the trophies for this game, as I’ve spent a lot of money on the game. At least there isn’t any Spent 24 Hours in Create Mode but I was willing to do it this time, just spend an hour a night on it.
It was nice though, in an hour and a half, I had spent $14 and had earned 30% of the trophies from LBP 3 which is 15 trophies. Which I’m reminded of my 2018 PlayStation Life stats and I’m sure 2019 is going to be crazy more productive and I’ll be very curious to see what those numbers look like. I’m already three months into the year and I feel like I’ve gotten so many trophies and have played so many games thus far!
. . .
I’m getting excited for the April 2019 Free PS Plus games!
I found a website that took some guesses at the games. Reddit’s PlayStationPlus subreddit has a Predictions page too. I imagine one day the Nathan Drake Uncharted Collection will be a free game and that will be a bummer as I love those games but I also already own those games. That day is going to happen eventually. I came close with God of War III as I had borrowed a copy for the PS3 but having the remaster edition in my Library is pretty nice.
I would love to play What Remains of Edith Finch or The Order: 1886, and Walker would love Gran Turismo Sport. I’m not much of a fighting game guy but Tekken 7 or Mortal Kombat X could be fun. At least those are quality games unlike Kung Fu Panda Showdown.
I took a guess at Lego Movie 1 and Cosmic Star Heroine as those are the games I bought. I was pleased to see others took the same approach and wrote which games they bought in March.
I would love to play Horizon Zero Dawn and I imagine it will be free one of these days. Firewatch would be a treat too.
I got Hellblade : Senua‘s Sacrifice for Christmas, so I’m hoping that isn’t a free game anytime soon. Then again, the sooner it is a free game, the sooner it is no longer an option. Shadow of Colossus and Oxenfree would be nice too.
Apparently there is a trend to make one of the games a game that features multiplayer, which makes sense as one has to have PS Plus to play multiplayer (except for free games and a few other exceptions) and one other game (usually a smaller title), so that’s good to think about going forward.
http://turtlesoupshow.com/episode-194-josh-gropin-and-the-black-hole-boys/
Episode 194 of Turtle Soup is immediately one of my favorite episodes of the show! Not like the previous number of episodes were subpar, but this was just raised to the top so quickly for me! I’m pretty sure my enjoyment of the episode all comes from Eric and Ryan reviewing proper issues of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (47 and 48) which it has been a minute since they reviewed issue 45 and 46 back on April 3, 2017!
http://turtlesoupshow.com/episode-149-ninjara-and-dem-demon-ass-darlins/
Took some searching but I found the episode! Well, that explains that! Almost two years ago! They reviewed several specials and miniseries but not the proper series. Episode 150 is the episode they review Movie III.
I’m such a huge fan of Chris Allan and Stephen Murphy’s (Dean Clarrian) run of Adventures, from issues 23 through 70. My second favorite run would have to be Gary Carlson and Frank Fosco’s run of Image Comics Ninja Turtles, 1 through 23. I’m so happy that IDW is reprinting the Image run and going to give the series a proper conclusion. I want to get those trades once they come out! The first one is out in August!
I might have to put $30 aside for it! It comes with the first 13 issues, which I love the concept of that, so the second volume will be the second half of the series and then it will follow up with a cheaper three issue volume (which ideally comes with all of other TMNT Image appearances) and then I can have the entire Image run on my shelf in three books. I did add all of the TMNT Adventures to my wishlist but that is from Volume 7 to the latest and final Volume 16, so it is all out there now. They don’t seem overly expensive with 16 being only $14.
So ten volumes, so that adds up pretty quickly! Maybe next year.
. . .
Eric and Ryan cover a lot of topics over the course of the 2 hour and 15 minute episode (and 15 seconds!)
They stopped short their run of Mirage titles as these were the last proper issues of Archie in 1993 so the next few episodes are going to finish the Black Hole Trilogy and a couple other issues. So I’m super excited!
I can’t stress enough how great being a Patreon supporter for the podcast.
https://www.patreon.com/turtlesoupshow
We just got our rewards too!
Eric really outdid himself this time!
Ryan’s face is a coaster and the other picture is a sweet arse magnet!
One day, I want to be on the ten dollar tier but we just moved into a house and bought a 2017 Suburu Forrester so fun expenses have to be cut back a tad.
They put a callout for all of their correspondents to reach out so I’m hoping typing this article gets me to record a voicemail as there is a story I really want to tell for the show.
The episode is just chock full of side content and quick moments of hilarious comments.
There are references to John Mayer’s Room for Squares and a fun story about how Mayer arranges his concerts which seems very smart for a guy who such a songbook like his.
There is a fun moment where Ryan’s microphone is causing him troubles as they have to pause the show. I like when Ryan starts trying to explain to those who can’t see him and then he realizes no one besides his co-host gets to see him, which has happen on a few occasions.
Ryan tells this story about Josh Groban that gives the episode its title. I’ve never tried to pretend to be someone else, even jokingly, to try to get some loving but neither has Ryan but maybe it might be a fun experience. I kept thinking of how Bryan Johnson of Vulgar, Tell ‘Em Steve Dave, and Comic Book Men fame had a long standing and one sided feud with Josh Groban. That’s really all I now of Groban.
Ryan makes a fun Spinal Tap reference and modifies it for Cyclops, who gets no sex or drugs, though Cyclops has rarely had trouble getting sex.
I like how Ryan was thinking of Juggernaut’s origin but got it confused with the Summers boys but Eric got that sorted out and even remembered Vulcan!
Great email question about appreciating the Turtles in a different light than when they started the show so many years ago. That’s how I feel about my love for Leonardo as I always go for the leader types but the Image run really put Raphael in the front seat for me. That run such a great ride!
Eric’s birthday was coming up (it has since passed) and besides milestone years, birthdays are just not the same thing once you are in your 30s.
Eric first brings up the topic of wet t-shirt contests but the episode ends on a killer discussion about it. I’ve never attended one and it just seemed like a thing movies did but I want to say I barely remember it from any movies. Like it was a concept that I heard about, got a mental picture of, and that’s been good enough.
Then they finally get to reviewing issue 47 and Ryan butchers inker John D’Agostino and he apologizes for being a dumb English speaker and then has to correct himself again as he’s a dumb American speaker. The episode is just full of quick asides like that that really punch up the episode with comedy.
That quickly gets a brief mention how they are alright but not alt right that made me laugh harder than I was expecting. By then, I was lock in on the show and was already thinking of relistening to it (which I rarely do with any podcast these days) and if I was going to relisten to it, I’ll write a long article about my adventures back into the episode.
There is a panel in 47 where it looks like cops are fighting straight at Sarnath’s butt. Now that we have moved into a proper house, I have my comic book question within arm’s reach but the closet has boxes in front of it so for the time being, they are still denied to me. I want to be able to start following along as I wasn’t able to really do that with Uncanny X-Cast but I can do that with the turtles.
There is a camera man name Squint in the issue that Ryan glosses as Squint-antino, which is almost as funny as Eric’s Don’t Peek-at-choo joke from earlier in the show’s run.
The color choice to make Sarnath so black that he’s blue like Clark Kent’s hair, which was a real thing back in the 90s!
I love whenever the guys can work in “Did you say Clang?” It is up there with whenever they reference “that’s what they told me/her/us,” “Movie III,” and “that’s a little too Raph” which that final one gets played with a bit this episode too.
Master Splinter comes off a little high or relaxed this issue with how all he can muster to what he’s witnessing is an “interesting” and later, an “indeed.” Which transitions into a story of Ryan seeing a possum that if he was high, would have freaked him out as it looked like a skull coming at him. I should write that Ryan reviews 47 and Eric gets 48, so the first hour is heavy on Ryan’s point of view but Eric peppers the show with comments too that are equally funny.
They even reference the Oans from Green Lantern comics.
Fun exchange and tribute about how Murphy goes all the way back to issue one, which adapted the Eyes of Sarnath episode into the comic’s first three issues to tell this latest adventure. Which is pretty great that he did that. Adventures was really great at keeping track of its own continuity. I like those first 22 issues of the series, but it didn’t get legendary status until Allan shows up for 23.
I like how they talk about how Sarnath has two missing eyes but has his third eye but he is still blind so stating he has one of his three eyes implies he has a third of his vision but he is still at zero vision.
A tad dark exchange occurs about fathers blinding children and at least those kids had a dad that shouldn’t have made me laugh but it did.
April tries to warn the Turtles about the cameras but Mikey keeps repeating that he’s a ninja.
Some fun discussion about how, without his bandana and elbow and knew pads, how naked and odd lucky Raphael looks.
What was Raphael going to ask Ninjara? I don’t think he was going to propose marriage but maybe just to say his first “I love you” to her or to try to put a label on what they are doing.
At roughly the hour and twenty three minute mark, we start reviewing issue 48!
Ninjara looks foxy, all day!
The above is the page they discuss how it is more words than art, which reminds them of a Bendis layout. Donatello really does know a lot about black holes.
Ryan explains what it means when we see oxygen masks in fighter jets, it means there is no life support systems. Like in Star Wars, with Tie fighters and x-wings, those ships don’t have force fields either, so the pilot fights harder in battle. They also can’t warp out of a fight either.
Some discussion about which side of the vehicle should the gas tank be on. I like it when it is on the driver’s side, so I just get out and start pumping instead of having to walk around the vehicle.
The guys really brought the comic book references in this episode as Eric was describing what aliens look like, he mentions Jim Lee’s X-Men and Dark Horse’s Concrete, which I hadn’t thought about Concrete in years!
Eric and Ryan’s love for Stump and Stick and Cudley the Cowlick always comes through whenever those characters show up.
I’m not sure to address them as “Eric and Ryan” or “Ryan and Eric,” I’ve been trying to track how others do it in voicemails and emails but I think most people simply go with “guys” or “Turtle Soup Boys” or names like that. It made sense with Rob and Brian of Uncanny X-Cast fame as it was the one syllable name followed by the two syllable name so I try to follow that with Eric and Ryan. Either way sounds fine though.
Both issues have a Mutanimals back up, issue 48’s features a new brand of mercenaries. One of them has the Punisher skull not on his shirt but on his dick. The 90s were an interesting time.
The episode starts to wrap up around the 1:53 mark with twenty more minutes of bonus content left.
The guys discuss Kevin Eastman’s latest project, Drawing Blood and Ragdolls.
https://www.newsarama.com/44114-kevin-eastman-studios-may-2019-solicitations.html
One comic is an fictional autobiographical story of a guy who earned success with a giant juggernaut of a hit franchise in the 80s and decades later, trying to create a new passion project. The other comic is about the actual giant juggernaut of a hit franchise, which is super meta. Which I like the idea of how he must have came up with the parody of his life comic, started having to draw images from the fictional comic, then realized he might as well just completely draw the fictional comic as well.
Ryan’s friend Jonathan posted on Facebook how he was inspired by Eastman’s project to create a side podcast where he reviews episodes of Turtle Soup. Which I had that exact idea to create The Uncanny X-Cast Legacy podcast where I review each episode of Uncanny X-Cast, and I actually started some work on the first episode but then I realized how silly that would have been but I still think about it from time to time.
After the sweet new song, we get into more about wet t-shirt contests. Growing up in hot Yuma, Arizona, I’m surprised wet t-shirt contests were not a thing but I can see why those were not a thing post-2000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_T-shirt_contest
Above is the page that they were reading off from.
Which I completely get the notion of reading a Wikipedia page and rabbit holing down and across so many different pages.
One such rabbit hole I went down was for Cetacean Stranding :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetacean_stranding
Which is crazy how often it happens. I thought it was more of a once a year thing but it seems to be happening all of the time and not just one rogue whale but entire pods of whales.
Which led me to the concept of Whale Fall :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_fall
As I had never really given much thought to what happens to dead whales. They have so much oxygen in their lungs that by the time their carcass hits the ocean floor, entirely new ecosystems can be created!
Pretty much, I’m a big nerd for ocean life as our oceans are as unexplored as space! We just can’t get to so many locales still and so we’re still discovering things about our own billions year old planet, which is both impressive and frightening. What is out there!
I forget what reddit page I was on that introduced me to the concept of Danvers State Hospital :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danvers_State_Hospital
Which is a real mental institute that inspired Batman’s Arkham Asylum.
Danvers State Hospital was build according to the Kirkbride Plan :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkbride_Plan
Which actually had batwing inspired style floor plans that sprawled outward from the center. Which seems super smart as people associate bats with mental stability. Which I’m sure was super fine until Batman came along.
There are still some of these institutions that are in used today.
So yeah, these were all of the thoughts I had based off of Episode 194 of Turtle Soup!
I did leave a voicemail so we’ll see if we make it to Episode 195, I’ll let you know if I do.
Look who came back! Comic Book Queers! Now they are Comic Book Queers Legacy, which I like. I still have the desire to do my Uncanny X-Cast Legacy but what I want to do, I feel like I need a script or at least, an outline, for how I want to do it. I’ll probably get around to doing it but if I did, I’l have a great time doing it.
https://www.universehead.com/comicbookqueers/
https://player.fm/series/comic-book-queers-legacy
Brett and EvilJeff have seven episodes, as of now, I’ve downloaded the first episode and I see that episode seven deals with the X-Men. In the past, I only listened to their x-men themed episodes as DC and other topics didn’t appeal to me, besides movie and television episodes that I also watched. My plan is to hear all seven episodes and get current and see if they structure their current show like their old one, where it is heavy focus on the topic at hand. If so, I’ll listen to the first parts and see if i should continue on. Worst case, I’ll just listen to episodes one, two and seven and go from there.
I rediscover them as they started following me on Twitter and I thought I should at least see what they were up to now. Apparently they have other shows in their network, I’ll probably not branch out unless they promote them on the show and they sound interesting to me.
A couple tweets down their timeline, they plug episode seven so I knew I wasn’t too far behind.
UniverseHead, is the proper name of the network, and all the shows are relatively new, no one has more than 12 episodes from what I see. What unites them is that they are all Chicago based podcasts. So that’s pretty interesting, as I’ve always been a fan of Chicago.
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/comic-book-queers
Stitcher has their old episodes, I’m not sure if all of the links are still active. A tad irritating that it loads five episodes at a time, instead of just a 100 at a time, as they stopped at episode 240. I had stopped well before then, as they added a new crew and I’m pretty certain that Brett and EvilJeff were no longer featured in the episodes and those were the two I liked.
I’m so excited that they are still way into the X-Men and still not that into DC, so essentially the perfect podcast for me. I’ve been really wanting a podcast that goes into the X-Men and this is going to be that podcast for me. I could maybe do without the two Iceman segment but it is silly and could be fun. They don’t make an appearance in the second episode.
The second episode describes, like the X-Cast, that they are in two different cities. Brett in Chicago and EvilJeff in Los Angeles.
Definitely a podcast worth listening too!
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Shadow and Flame with Magik 