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Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (1977) #238
This issue reprints a couple Adventure Comics from 1967, written by a sixteen-year-old Jim Shooter, proving he was better at writing comics in his teens than in his thirties. Though I’m sure there’s an abundance of evidence on that one. Shooter also does the layouts, with Curt Swan penciling and George Klein inking. The art… 📖
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Luba (1998) #8
I'm getting worried I was supposed to be reading Luba's Comics and Stories simultaneously to Luba. The last two issues have had ads for the other comic, which makes me wonder what creator Beto Hernandez's version of the Superman shield with the reading number would be… probably something amazingly obscene. Hopefully. This issue's almost entirely… 📖
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Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979, Robert Wise), the restored director’s edition
Star Trek: The Motion Picture: The Restored Director’s Edition occasionally feels like a fan project. Or at least a temp project. Like the new opening titles, set in gold. They look like they were done using an iPhone app. Then there are shots where they couldn’t find the original materials, so the picture suddenly looks… 📖
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Teen Wolf Too (1987, Christopher Leitch)
There are worse movies than Teen Wolf Too. There have to be worse movies than Teen Wolf Too. It’s a mantra you can use when watching Teen Wolf Too. Of course, given the era, there may be even a worse theatrically released movie from the same year (1987). But Teen Wolf Too is just the… 📖
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Batman: Year 100 (2006) #3
Year 100 started with Jim Gordon (named after granddad) not knowing anything about “The Bat-Man of Gotham” and thinking it was an unlikely urban legend in the first issue to revealing he was the warden of Arkham Asylum. And it was filled with super-villains. And then he let the federal police kill them all, getting… 📖
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Werewolf by Night (1972) #2
Frank Chiaramonte inks the Ploog this issue, resulting in some really good art, but not the sublime standard Ploog’s set doing his own inks. It seems like Chiaramonte takes over a few pages into the comic; after a while, the faces lose that Ploog character. The expressiveness. Or maybe, since it’s eventually just the villain,… 📖
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Kill or Be Killed (2016) #5
This issue is where I jumped off Kill or Be Killed the last time I tried reading it. The funny part is I’m now utterly dispassionate about the issue. Sure, I can see where Sean Phillips’s lagging art would’ve bothered me—Dylan runs into his ex-girlfriend (who I think they teased in the first or second… 📖
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Teen Wolf (1985, Rod Daniel)
Teen Wolf is a rather dire Wolf. The best things about the movie are James Hampton as the dad and the werewolf makeup, which seems entirely designed to allow for a stuntman to play Michael J. Fox when he’s decked out. Otherwise, it’s never better than middling and often much worse. Some of the problem… 📖
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Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (1977) #237
This issue is weird. The story’s weird, and the issue’s weird. The story’s weird because it’s about the Legion committing numerous intergalactic crimes because their financial benefactor is in danger. The issue’s weird because, well, the art is… lacking. And the art’s from Walt Simonson and Jack Abel. I’m not the most well-read on Simonson,… 📖
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Batman: Year 100 (2006) #2
About a third of this issue is talking heads. First, it’s unnamed Batman 2039 and his team—including a new Robin, who starts the issue working on a bitchin’ motorcycle for Bats—talking through what led up to last issue’s issue-long chase sequence, and then it’s cop Gordon and his gang looking through the archives for information… 📖
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Werewolf by Night (1972) #1
Werewolf by Night’s got a cliffhanger to resolve at the beginning of its first issue, which is awkward. Especially since writer Gerry Conway’s going to take so many shortcuts. He’s in a race to resolve everything, concluding in a breakneck single-page wrap-up, and he never gets a chance to setup Werewolf as its own book.… 📖
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Kill or Be Killed (2016) #4
The most unrealistic thing about Kill or Be Killed is Dylan isn’t a white supremacist. Like, historically speaking. Also, his classes in graduate school. Much of this issue’s about him trying to find his next target, starting with a subway fantasy about taking out a couple punks, but then it turns out he’s just watching… 📖
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No Highway in the Sky (1951, Henry Koster)
No Highway in the Sky has a peculiar structure. It starts with Jack Hawkins; he’s just starting at a British aircraft manufacturer and, during his tour, meets scientist James Stewart, who’s hypothesized a catastrophic, inevitable failure for the latest, greatest plane. Stewart’s convinced the tails will rattle off the planes, which are made with a… 📖
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Every Secret Thing (2014, Amy Berg)
There’s a lot to say about Every Secret Thing and nothing to say about it. And some things can only easily be phrased as complimentary insults, like Rob Hardy’s photography is valuable because the movie’s an object lesson in how not to photograph a film. Or how director Berg’s a great example of why a… 📖
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All-New Collectors’ Edition (1978) #C-55
The cover promises an “epic-length novel,” which apparently works out to sixty-one pages. It’s four chapters, starting with Superboy traveling to the future for Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad’s wedding. Once there, he discovers a militaristic world where the Legion (and the U.S.) is fighting moon colonists, led by the Chinese. We find out later… 📖
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Frasier (1993) s07e02 – Father of the Bride
This episode’s very funny, but often in a “the less you think about it” way. The script’s credited to Mark Reisman (his first credit on the show), and it very impressively gives almost everyone in the main cast a story thread. Except for John Mahoney, who gets a couple hilarious bits but not a thread,… 📖
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Ginseng Roots (2019) #9
As a series, Ginseng Roots is a litany of successes; some are unimaginable because of the content (who knew Wisconsin ginseng farming trivia could be so engaging), but the overall success is creator Craig Thompson’s ability to present the information. This issue’s all about the current ginseng industry through the perspective of one company—Hsu’s Ginseng… 📖
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Marvel Spotlight (1971) #4
The issue opens with a splash page of Jack Russell, in his hip seventies clothes, waking from a nightmare about being the Werewolf by Night (unsure if it’s a nightmare or a werewolf outing), and it’s somehow obvious the art this issue’s going to be superior. In that one page, artist Mike Ploog gets in… 📖
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Kill or Be Killed (2016) #3
What is the deal with the heads? Seriously, this issue starts with talking heads between Dylan and Kira—which has numerous issues—and it really looks like artist Sean Phillips cut out a head and pasted it on a body. But without adjusting the scale. It’s comically weird, though it does improve in the rest of the… 📖
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The Equalizer (2021) s02e18 – Exposed
“The Equalizer” wraps up season two with a cliffhanger; it’s been renewed for two more seasons, which means it’s safe for a good while, so it’s a playing renewal chicken cliffhanger. Though it is kind of perpendicular to one. No spoilers. The cliffhanger’s manipulative but also not. It’s predictable (the scene leading up to it… 📖
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Luba (1998) #7
This issue came out over a year after the previous one, and creator Beto Hernandez does some deck cleaning, mostly for Luba and Khamo’s so-far series-long arc about him being in trouble with the police. But first, there’s a Steve Stransky story; Steve’s been in Luba before (and maybe New Love) as Guadalupe’s friend, but… 📖
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Batman: Year 100 (2006) #1
This first issue of Batman: Year 100 is an all-action issue. It’s the future, so people can get around pretty quickly, including federal cops flying around in, I don’t know, hovercraft. Helicopter cabins without rotors or skids. But the future’s also got its low-tech; the first sequence has a pack of police dogs chasing “The… 📖
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Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (1977) #236
Who’s James Sherman, and why have I never heard of him before? He pencils two of the three stories in the issue, with Bob McLeod inking him on the first, Joe Rubinstein on the second, and he’s good. He’s a little too designed-focused, but more on the second story, and the design element comes from… 📖
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Frasier (1993) s07e01 – Momma Mia
The season’s off to an excellent start with this episode, which also inadvertently shows how much “Frasier” has changed getting to season seven. First is with Kelsey Grammer directed episodes; Grammer’s first couple efforts didn’t have him around—I think he was entirely absent in one, and showed for the intro in the other—but he’s front… 📖
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Marvel Spotlight (1971) #3
There is no backup story in this issue, just Jack Russell’s third adventure as Werewolf by Night. Writer Gerry Conway—through Jack and the werewolf’s narration—is very clear about it; the first outing as the werewolf was two months ago, meaning we’re skipping Jack’s second Larry Talboting and going straight to the third. There’s not much… 📖
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Kill or Be Killed (2016) #2
I’m not reading the back matter on Kill or Be Killed for lengthy reasons, but if there’s some explanation why artist Sean Phillips is drawing the twenty-somethings with odd bodies—their heads are too big for their bodies and slightly too round—I may regret not knowing. May. This issue opens with another of the illustrated micro-prose,… 📖
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Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (1977) #235
This issue’s got two stories, benefits of being a fifty-two-page giant on the regular. The first story’s by Paul Levitz, Mike Grell, and Vince Colletta. Colletta also inks the second story, but the rest of the team’s different; second story is Gerry Conway and George Tuska. The comic itself is basically burying the lede—Conway’s second… 📖
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Marvel Spotlight (1971) #2
From the first page, it’s clear there’s going to be something special about Werewolf by Night. The narration tells us we’re in modern Los Angeles, but artist Mike Ploog visualizes it like an old Universal horror movie set. The architecture, anyway; the accruements are all modern. The page has three panels; the first two have… 📖
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Kill or Be Killed (2016) #1
Kill or Be Killed kicks off with approximately thirty-three pages of story. I feel like it’s got to be thirty-two, but the quick count was thirty-three. And writer Ed Brubaker packs those thirty-three pages. The comic starts with a bunch of gory action killing as our hero, Dylan, shotguns a bunch of bad guys. Well,… 📖
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Cyrano (2021, Joe Wright)
Cyrano has good production design from Sarah Greenwood and costumes by Massimo Cantini Parrini. And there’s one time Ben Mendelsohn doesn’t seem terrible. And I suppose his musical number is the most personality the film ever shows because it’s like a really shitty Disney number, like a “Disney’s jumped the shark with that one” type… 📖
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Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (1977) #234
I’m going with DC’s current conventional wisdom on where to start reading Paul Levitz Legion of Super-Heroes (based on their latest collection of those issues), and I’m not surprised to see the first issue in that run written by Gerry Conway. Back to the seventies, where creator runs were short and had to be nimble.… 📖
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Luba (1998) #6
This issue is primarily a comedy soap opera, expertly executed by creator Beto Hernandez. But first, he does the opening Luba story, only it’s a Khamo story. Juxtaposed against Luba and Ofelia herding the children—and getting ready for Socorro to go away to gifted school—is Khamo and the “cops” he’s helping. It turns out he’s… 📖
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The Equalizer (2021) s02e17 – What Dreams May Come
I’m sure it’s happened before, but this episode has a guest star who appeared on the eighties “Equalizer,” too. In the first scene of this episode, Queen Latifah meets with spy guy Neal Benari to check up on her nemesis, who’s overseas after killing Chris Noth (offscreen). Presumably, we’ll get some sort of return visit… 📖
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Earth-Prime (2022) #3
I can only assume the cast getting teleported away at the end of the feature story will matter in later Earth-Prime issues. Maybe they’re doing the Arrowverse version of the Beyonder. While I’ve been aware of the series (an “in-continuity” comic story for the CW Arrowverse shows, which are all now mostly canceled), I didn’t… 📖
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Them! (1954, Gordon Douglas)
Them! combines Atomic Age giant monster sci-fi and “by the book” police procedural, with a little (too little) war action thrown in. Nine years after the atomic bomb tests in New Mexico, residual radiation has caused common desert ants to grow to enormous sizes. In their hunt for sugar, these ants quickly have become carnivores,… 📖
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Luba (1998) #5
This issue’s got three stories, but thanks to creator Beto Hernandez’s structure of the second one, it feels like four stories. The first story is the Luba story, though something in story two (and a half) calls back to one of her solo stories even though she’s not actually in it. Beto just opens with… 📖
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From Dusk Till Dawn (1996, Robert Rodriguez)
From Dusk Till Dawn doesn’t have any great performances; it has a bunch of decent ones, a couple good ones, thankless ones, middling ones, bad ones, maybe problematic ones, but no great ones. And it could use a great performance because the script’s full of scenery-chewing dialogue courtesy second-billed Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino writes a movie… 📖
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Doctor X (1932, Michael Curtiz)
Doctor X has pretty much the wrong prescription for everything. After a genuinely creepy first act, which has police autopsy consultant Lionel Atwill telling the cops the only place a monthly serial killer could get a particular scalpel is at Atwill’s school and then giving them a tour and everyone there being in some way… 📖
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Punch-Drunk Love (2002, Paul Thomas Anderson)
There are probably better movies with seven-minute end credits than Punch-Drunk Love but I doubt there are any where those seven-minute end credits are padded to give the film a more respectable run time. Punch-Drunk Love is an approximately eighty-eight-minute marathon where writer and director Anderson hones in on his protagonist, played by Adam Sandler,… 📖
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The Batman (2022, Matt Reeves)
The first rule of the The Batman is the most interesting thing about Batman is Batman, so new Batman Robert Pattinson spends his time in the costume, with only a handful of scenes moping around as Bruce Wayne. The second rule of The Batman is “show, don’t tell,” which is strange since the third is… 📖
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Snoopy, Come Home (1972, Bill Melendez)
Snoopy, Come Home’s parts are better than their sum. The film’s a number of vignettes, usually set to music, sometimes with songs. Sometimes there’s connective material between the vignettes, sometimes the circus shows up, and it’s time for a new scene. Also, sometimes, the vignettes have a rough cut between them. Not too rough, there’s… 📖