Jersey Monday: LeBron James (USA, 2006)

Because it was "just" the World Championship (and not the Olympics), this is the recent version of Team USA that tends to be forgotten. They even got relatively nondescript jerseys, as you can see from this picture. The team went 8-1 en route to another disappointing bronze medal, losing to Greece in the semis before rebounding with a win against Argentina in the bronze-medal game.

This was also the first time LeBron James wore his now-familiar No. 6 in competition. As I pointed out last Monday, James wore No. 9 for Team USA in his first go-round before adopting No. 6 in 2006.

As you can see from the picture, these jerseys are pretty plain, particularly by the standards of the last two Olympics. It seems like Nike -- who took over the USA Basketball contract from Reebok after 2004 -- wanted to save its flashier designs for the larger stage. They repeated that in 2010, going with a generic look for the World Championship (which LeBron didn't play in) before unveiling the new look USA font and sublimated flag for this year's jerseys.

Aside from the loss to Greece, this World Championship team will probably be remembered as the one that gave Carmelo Anthony his "great FIBA player" reputation. 'Melo led the team in scoring, averaging 19.9 PPG while shooting 44% from 3-point range. LeBron "only" averaged 13.9 PPG (good for 3rd on the team), while shooting 58% from the floor (33% from 3).

Review: Angel & Faith #12 - "Family Reunion, Pt. 2"

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Using remnants of magic, Angel, Faith, Willow, and Connor have entered the hell dimension where no one should—or really, could—dare go: Quor'Toth! Willow's quest to restore magic to Earth was her objective in attempting the impossible; Angel's objective was . . . something else. And Faith? She's along to make sure that everyone's feet stay on the ground, and out of anything they might regret.

SYNOPSIS


Angel, Faith, Willow and Connor arrive in Quor'Toth, and Willow's magic immediately comes back (but she's rusty due to not using magic for a while). They're attacked by "border patrol" demons, and kill one of them. The other recognizes Connor and flies off. They go to hide in the woods, and come across a hut with a painting of Connor from his days in Quor'Toth. They get attacked, and Connor rips out the demon's heart. In the aftermath, he reveals that his "fake" life was washed away when magic was destroyed.

They're getting ready to leave when they're attacked again by a larger group of the demons that initially attacked them. The demons have some kind of fire grenades, which Willow uses against them, charging them up and blowing up the whole group. After that, a second group of demons emerges, one that worships Connor, because he values life and uses the power of love (really). They think he's back to save them, which Willow does by ripping a tear through which they can escape. They go to a new world, but there's still a group of them held captive by the first group of demons. Faith is convinced they're already dead, and Angel is inclined to agree. They start to head back to the rift to Earth, but Connor wants to stay and save the captives. That, of course, leads to everyone staying.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Angel & Faith's place (aka Giles's old place) has been ransacked while Lavinia and Sophie were out. The culprits: Pearl, Nash and Whistler, who are still there.

REVIEW


I keep going back and forth on how I feel on this issue, and I think I finally figured out why.

I loved all the character stuff, the little interactions between Faith and Willow and Angel and Connor, and the bigger revelations that have to do with who they are. There was a great moment where Faith was telling Willow to keep an eye on Angel, because of how he'd changed in Pylea, and Willow just straight out asked him to keep a lid on his vampire side, then told Faith she needed to be more trusting. It was a small thing that had almost nothing to do with the plot, but it was awesome. The Connor revelation regarding his fake-now-gone family was brilliant, not just in what it meant for him, but in how it affected Angel too (not to mention the later moment where Angel tells one of the "good" demons that he's Connor's father, and the demon calls him "Holtz"... just heartbreakingly awesome).

That said, I wasn't a big fan of how the overall plot advanced. They arrive in Quor'Toth and Willow just gets her magic back... just like that? I mean, I know it took some doing to get there, but that seems kind of cheap, like she didn't have to work for it. I honestly expected that process to be more involved than "we're here... and I'm Super Willow again!" Also, the whole idea of Connor ending up worshiped on Quor'Toth kind of cheapens what Quor'Toth had been built up to be. The way Lorne and Holtz and Connor described it on "Angel", it was a land of unspeakable horrors. In this issue, it felt more like the bad side of Pylea. Still, I am very intrigued by the end of the issue, and I can't wait to see where that story goes. 


Artwise, Rebekah Isaacs did a wonderful job with the first set of demons on Quor'Toth, though admittedly, I'm scared of anything with that lamprey teeth layout. The Connor-worshiping demons, with their puppy dog eyes, looked clearly in need of protection, which solidly supported the story. She has all kinds of fun with the designs of Quor'Toth, making it visually seem like a hellscape, even if our merry band of travelers seems a little too comfy there at times. Her cover, pictured here, is just awesome. I think I like it more than the Steve Morris cover for this issue. 


I think in the end there's more to like about this issue than to dislike, especially since most of my concerns are plot-based, and there's only gradual plot progression in this issue. The positives in character development, particularly where Connor and Angel are concerned, vastly outweigh the negatives of the story. 

Review: Buffy Season 9, #11 - Guarded, Part 1

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Buffy is trying something new—not Slaying. WHAT?! Enter Kennedy. Slayer. Ex-girlfriend of magicless Willow. Bossy. She’s joined a company that hires Slayers to act as bodyguards for high-profile clients, and Buffy is her most recent recruit. But Buffy is having a little trouble letting go of Slaying. Things that go bump in the night are kinda her forte. Luckily . . . her first client is having some woeful demon trouble that Buffy can’t wait to sink her stake into.

SYNOPSIS

Buffy has a new job: working for Kennedy, who has set up the former Slayer army as a bodyguard service. Buffy is protecting someone in a hotel when Kennedy radios her about suspicious activity. Buffy spots a demon dressed as a bellhop in the hallway and chases it down, but he's not the assassin. It was a woman who was dressed as a maid, and she gets in the room. Buffy arrives just in time and dives in front of the shot, but it's a blank. The whole thing was a test, which Buffy failed. She decides she's not cut out for this job, and she's meant for saving the world, so she leaves.

Koh tracks down Buffy and wants to enlist her help in finding his enemy, but Buffy isn't sure she's interested in that either. She wants to get her life together. She grabs a stake from her bunk, and heads out, but not before Kennedy stops her. Buffy thinks she should be out fighting zompires. Kennedy thinks Buffy's scared of facing a new challenge, one without "destiny." Buffy storms off. She encounters a zompire attack on patrol, but the police stop it before she could. Dowling explains that since his partner was killed, the department has set up a whole zompire task force. Buffy realizes she's truly not needed on the streets and goes back to Kennedy, who's meeting the client at the airport. This is no training mission. They're protecting Theo Daniels, a software magnate, from a well-known enemy: Wolfram and Hart.

REVIEW

I'm of two minds on this issue. Mostly, I loved it. The storytelling was well done, and even if the whole "fake training mission" setup at the beginning was cliche, it still worked. It actually worked BECAUSE it was cliche. I saw it coming, you saw it coming, Andrew DEFINITELY saw it coming, but Buffy didn't. Buffy didn't see the obviousness of the assassin dressed as a nurse or the whole thing being a training exercise, because she doesn't think like a normal person. She thinks like a slayer: the big scary demon is the bad guy and the way to stop him is through violence.

The whole issue was an exploration of how Buffy thinks -- "I'm a slayer, I slay demons, the people need me to stop the demons" -- and how that mindset is no longer in line with the rest of the world after the destruction of The Seed.

So what's the other mindset regarding this issue? Well, I couldn't help but think while reading it that THIS is where Season 9 should have started. Or hell, at least have arrived here by like Issue 5, rather than Issue 11. That said, between the reveal at the end of this issue and Willow showing up in "Angel & Faith", we're moving quickly down the path toward the convergence of the two titles. And that's a good thing.

I liked Georges Jeanty's B cover (seen here) better than Phil Noto's A cover, but both are pretty good. Jeanty also does a solid job with Kennedy, who gets her first extended run since Season 8 started. It did take me awhile to get used to long-haired Kennedy again, especially since Iyari Limon has had short hair in pretty much everything she's done since "Buffy." Kennedy wasn't a pure Limon likeness, but there were hints there, weirdly enough in the eyebrows.

Jersey Monday: LeBron James (USA 2004)

It's almost Olympics time, so lets revive Jersey Monday and take a trip down Team USA memory lane.

No, you're not seeing things, that's a USA Basketball jersey of LeBron James wearing No. 9, not his now-conventional No. 6. James was assigned the number when he played for the 2004 Athens Olympic Team, now better known as "The Nightmare Team" (though, really, that label applies much more to the 2002 FIBA World Championship Team that finished an embarrassing 6th while playing on home soil in Indianapolis).

James was coming off his Rookie of the Year season, but was buried on the bench by coach Larry Brown, who preferred to ride his veterans. The only players who scored less than James during that Olympics were Amar'e Stoudemire, Carmelo Anthony and Emeka Okafor. James shot 59.4% from the field in Athens, which made Brown's insistence on sticking with Richard Jefferson (32.1% shooting) even more baffling.

This was the only competition in which James wore No. 9 for Team USA. He ceded the number to Dwyane Wade -- who, in a twist of fate, had worn No. 6 in Athens.

Review: "The Dark Knight Rises" (IMAX)

After seeing a midnight screening, one of my friends said something in regards to "The Dark Knight Rises" that served both as a solid assessment of the movie and something that really shouldn't factor in to your decision to see the movie at all.

"If 'The Dark Knight' didn't get nominated for an Oscar [for Best Picture] then this one definitely isn't getting nominated," he said.

That's true. As a film, "The Dark Knight Rises" doesn't stack up with "The Dark Knight", which transcended the "superhero" genre to become something greater. Even with the greater themes it plays with, the third installment in this trilogy feels more like a straightforward comic book/superhero movie than either of the previous two, and I thoroughly enjoyed that.

Though Christopher Nolan has never directly adapted a Batman comic story for any of these movies, he's always leaned heavily on his source material for inspiration. "Batman Begins" was influenced by "Year One" and "The Man Who Falls." For "The Dark Knight", Nolan drew from "The Long Halloween" and "The Killing Joke" for both plot and tone.

This installment combines elements from "Knightfall" -- the comic book story in which Bane is introduced and "breaks the Bat" -- and "No Man's Land", in which Gotham is cut off from the rest of the world. While still not a direct adaptation, I felt like this movie used more specific story elements from the comics than either of the previous two. The movie also owes a lot of its tone -- and the specific detail of Batman returning after a long absence -- to "The Dark Knight Returns", and I think anyone whose read those three arcs will find more things they like about the movie than those who haven't.

The movie starts slowly, in part because it has to introduce a slew of new characters while re-introducing others and explaining how things have changed in the eight-year gap between movies. Christian Bale doesn't appear in costume as Batman until more than half-an-hour into the movie, and it feels longer than that. Even as things start to move into place, the plot still feels a bit disjointed over the first hour or so of the movie.

Part of that is because of the source material. "Knightfall" was a year-long comic event that spawned a two-year follow up and spanned multiple books. "No Man's Land" was also a year long and covered even more books. There's a TON of material there, and trying to mash it all up was an incredible challenge for Nolan and crew to take on.

All that said, the movie more than makes up for its slow start with an incredible back half. It turns around shortly after the key moment from "Knightfall" (if you've read the book, you know what I'm talking about... and, hell, the trailers basically give it away anyway) and from that moment on I was totally engrossed in the movie. The climax is more outsized and action-packed than either of the previous two movies. It's not quite "The Avengers" New York scene, but it's on that level in terms of pure adrenaline.

Once again, Nolan and company have completely nailed their casting from top to bottom. Obviously a lot of the key roles are returning from the previous two movies, but the newcomers all shine. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great as John Blake, a role that ends up carrying the movie for large stretches. Anne Hathaway was an incredible Selina Kyle, and almost completely washes away the memory of the disaster that was Halle Berry. Tom Hardy was a perfect Bane, a match for Bale's Batman/Bruce Wayne in both mind and body. The only casting that I thought didn't work was Hines Ward as a speedy kick returner for the Gotham Rogues football team. Totally unbelievable (and I'm only half-joking).

I left the theater at about 3 a.m. feeling like "The Dark Knight Rises" might not have been as good a film as "The Dark Knight" but it could end up being a far more re-watchable movie*. Time will tell if that's the case, but I know it won't be long before I see the movie again. A lot of the enjoyment I took from "The Dark Knight Rises" came from the last 30 minutes or so, and details I can't get in to without badly spoiling things for you.

Speaking of spoiling things, one of the few real problems I had with the movie -- that is to say, not nit-picky stuff that falls into comic book nerdery -- is far too big of a spoiler for me to get in to here. If you want, get in touch with me on Twitter, and we can discuss it.

Lastly, if at all possible, see the movie in IMAX. More than 70 minutes of it is in native IMAX format, and it looks brilliant. It's worth the extra money.

*I watched "The Dark Knight" five times in theaters, then multiple times when it came out on Blu-ray. Then I went almost two years without watching it again. It's so dark that I have to be in precisely the right mood to watch it. It's not exactly a movie that leaves you feeling upbeat.

Pre-Dark Knight Rises Comic Book Movie Rankings Update

So "The Dark Knight Rises" comes out in about an hour on the East Coast, which means it's time to take a look at the comic book movie rankings before this one inevitably shakes them up.

The full rankings are available here but here are some quick tidbits on how things stand:

- The Amazing Spider-Man is all the way up to No. 18 just 16 days into its box office run. It's current made $214M at the box office (through Wednesday) and looks like it should be able to crack the top 15 overall.

- The Avengers has settled in at No. 2, just one full point (out of 100) behind "The Dark Knight". It's not going to be able to pass TDK, though it has a nice cushion about No. 3 (currently "Iron Man") that should hold off TDKR.

- That said, once Amazing Spider-Man passes Road to Perdition for No. 17 and TDKR moves into its likely spot near the top, the top 18 movies will have a pretty obvious character slant to them. There'll be four Batman movies (The Dark Knight, Batman Begins, Batman and The Dark Knight Rises), three Iron Man-led movies (Avengers, Iron Man, Iron Man 2), three Spider-Man movies (Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man) and three X-Men movies (X2, X-Men, X-Men: First Class). That's 13 of the top 18 movies, with the only interlopers being 300, Superman, Men in Black, The Crow and Sin City. And only one of those -- 300 -- is in the top 10.

Mini-Review: Morning Glories #20

Morning Glories #20 was like the episode of "Lost" that told the history of Jacob and The Man in Black, if that episode had been awesome
— Adam Reisinger (@AdamReisinger) July 5, 2012

I could probably leave it at that, but let me expand briefly on my tweet on "Morning Glories" #20. The issue explores the shared backstories of Miss (Lara) Hodge and Miss (Georgina) Daramount and how those are tied in to the history of Morning Glories Academy. As with everything in this book so far, all is not as it seems, and by the end of the issue, we learn something pretty shocking about one of the two characters (I don't want to give it away, but trust me, I didn't see it coming). Nick Spencer continues to weave a masterful tale, and nothing goes to waste. There are parallels between the lives of these two characters in the past and our protagonists now, some obvious, some less so, all of which feel important. Almost as importantly, Spencer trusts the audience enough to go away from the Issue #19 cliffhanger and into a separate -- done almost entirely flashback -- story.

As always, the art from penciller Joe Eisma and colorist Alex Sollazzo is spectacular. This is almost always the best looking book I get every month, and I love just looking at it. One of the highlights of this issue was seeing Lara and Georgina grow from a young age to their current one, as Eisma actually made them look distinctively youthful in each appropriate flashback.

If you haven't been reading "Morning Glories", Issue #20 isn't exactly a "jumping on" point, but with the first 19 issues all collected in trades now, it's a great time to add it to your monthly pull list.

Charmed Comic Review: Issue #22 - "Prue Ya Gonna Call?"

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Magic gangs fight for control against government forces seriously out of their depth. Even with Piper, Phoebe, and Paige on the case, there is little they can do without their own magic. Overwhelmed and outnumbered, the side of good must hang all their hope on the single most powerful witch in the world.

SYNOPSIS

Prue/Patience (who will be referred to as Prutience for the rest of this synopsis) is using magic to fight off a gang and protect a magic-less demon in the hopes of getting information from him. Meanwhile at the Manor, Piper appears to have gotten some of her powers back, freezing a vase briefly before it falls and breaks. Prutience, who now has the powers of all the Charmed Ones, orbs in. Darryl doesn't recognize her as Prue, and Phoebe admits she's having trouble seeing Prue's soul too. Prutience explains that Rennek stole the Grimoire, and the sisters believe that's what's causing all this. While Paige fills in Darryl on the Grimoire, and Glynnis (the maker of the Empyreal Sword) shows up saying her non-magic weapons have become magical, Piper and Prutience talk about her absence and why she stayed away.

Meanwhile, Glynnis says the sword Leo has now ISN'T the Empyreal Sword, which means that Rennek must have it, and he's using it in conjunction with the Grimoire to control what's going on on Earth. Rennek observes things from his plane and sends another large magic gang at the manor. Prutience uses all her powers to hold off the gang, and the Charmed Ones get their powers back in the battle. Phoebe has a premonition in which she sees Prutience dead, but can't do anything to act in time. Prutience unleashes all her powers and dies.

She ends up in between life and death, where she meets up with Cole, who is helping all the souls who can't move on, since magic shifted on Earth. Prutience and Cole talk, with Prutience wondering why she's the one who always has to sacrifice. Cole says he has a way to get back to Earth, which he was going to use himself to help the sisters, but he thinks Prutience would be better suited for the job. Paige uses her healing powers and brings Prutience back. Prutience is once again powerless, but has a new lead on Rennek, thanks to Cole.


REVIEW

Holy crap there was a lot of dialogue in that issue. It was 24 pages long, but it felt like 36. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, necessarily, but the issue really requires multiple reads to take everything in.

We continue to get filled in on what happened during the story jump between Issues #19 and #20, with this issue answering the mystery of where the hell Prutience has been during all of this. It's too bad that we didn't get to see more of The Charmed One before she lost her powers again. That would've made for a cool issue or even a mini series.

I loved the scene between Cole and Prutience, even if it raised the question of why the Prutience's soul form "in between" looked like Patience and not Prue (contract issues are awesome!). It was fair for Prutience to wonder why it was always her that had to sacrifice, because it really has been. She lost Andy in Season 1, died in Season 3 and gave up her magic in Season 9. That's rough.

I thought Darryl was kind of underutilized, but with so much going on, someone's going to fall by the wayside. Still, it was weird to go from big splashy reveal at the end of Issue #21 to him basically serving an expository role in #22. Then again, at least he was in the issue, unlike Coop and Henry.

We've been assuming for awhile now that Rennek caused this, and now we've got solid confirmation on that. I'd still love to know how he pulled it off and what his endgame is, but I'm assuming that's coming. Trying to squeeze all that into this issue might have literally made the words explode.

As if it wasn't enough to throw all that story at us in this issue, Zenescope also unleashed a new artist, in the form of "Rubine" (just one name). It's a vast difference from Dean Kotz's style, and kind of reminiscent of Dave Hoover's early work on the series. The lines are tight and a lot of that "sketchy" shadowing is gone. The likenesses of the three sisters are pretty good, and he (I think it's a he... though admittedly I have no idea) has each of them with a vastly different hairstyle, so it's easy to quickly identify them.

I did find it interesting that Prutience looked more like Shannen Doherty than she had in previous incarnations, particularly in the scene with Cole. I don't know if that was a conscious move by the artist or just my imagination, but there appeared to be a hint of a likeness there. Nothing that would get Zenescope in legal trouble, obviously, but... well, you can get the issue and judge for yourself.

Previous Issue #21, Reversal of Misfortune Read Review

Charmed #22 Prue Ya Gonna Call

Next Issue #23, The Darklight Zone

Review: Angel & Faith #11 - "Family Reunion, Pt. 1"

FROM THE PUBLISHER

When yet another unexpected visitor shows up on Faith and Angel’s doorstep, the pair are pulled into a quest that has the potential to give Angel everything he’s been looking for—you know, if they succeed and survive.

SYNOPSIS

Willow, who showed up on the last page of the previous issue, is in London with the broken scythe, to help restore magic, and she needs Connor to do it, because she needs to get to Quor'Toth. Angel isn't exactly on speaking terms with Connor, but eventually agrees to help. They head to L.A. -- after Faith gives Nadira a heads up/hand in battle and makes sure the Giles aunts will mind the house -- where they meet up with Gunn. He takes them to Conner, and Angel and Faith have a touching father/child reunion (better than the one Faith had with her dad, which Angel throws in her face). Willow convinces Connor to help, against Angel's wishes, and they use the scythe for a ritual that tears a hole in reality and opens the way to Quor'Toth. Everybody in!

REVIEW

After two arcs that established Angel's motives and Faith's purpose, it's already time for this book to start converging with "Buffy: Season 9", and you have to figure the next two arcs will set that up, with each series ending with a big crossover arc. And what better way to get things started than by having Willow show up. Aside from Buffy, she was the character most personally affected by Angel's actions at the end of Season 8, and she has her own personal history with risky and unnecessary resurrections. Plus, I mean, it's Willow. How can you not love more Willow?!

By involving Gunn and Conner in the story, Christos Gage makes sure this is an "Angel" book, and not just Angel in the Buffyverse. Plus, I just miss Gunn. And not "Angel: After the Fall" Gunn. Real Gunn, from the show. He didn't get a ton of panel time in this issue, but he felt like real Gunn.

I also enjoyed the tension between Faith and Angel in the second half of the book. It felt natural. The two characters obviously have a mutual respect for each other, but the way they're wired, they're bound to clash.

I didn't think the scene with Nadira worked at all. She's becoming a very one-note character: she gets in fights, Faith shows up and helps, they clash because Nadira thinks Faith isn't doing enough to help find Pearl & Nash (who've also been kind of absent for awhile). Maybe a few issues away will help things.

There also wasn't a lot of action -- the scene with Nadira was about it -- but Rebekah Isaacs did enough with the artwork that I didn't mind. Her panels always look amazing, whether its a throwdown or a talking head debate.

I'll be interested where this arc goes -- particularly, I can't wait to see how Isaacs draws the Quor'Toth scenes -- but I think it's off to a good start.

Review: "The Amazing Spider-Man"

(Note: there will be spoilers below. Because that's just how I roll).

In many ways, "The Amazing Spider-Man" is an example of what's wrong with Hollywood. It's a quickie reboot of a well-known property, it rehashes a story we've seen multiple times in multiple forms, using the latest trends (in this case, 3D) to put a new shine on an old tale.

For those reasons, and more, I expected to dislike "The Amazing Spider-Man". But when I saw it, I found myself not disliking it, then, at some point, actually liking it. It's a fun movie marked by good characterizations and incredible action, one that sets the tone for a new "Spider-Man" trilogy that could surpass the original.

But let's put aside comparisons to the Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire films for a second and measure "The Amazing Spider-Man" on its own merits.

The heart of the movie is the burgeoning relationship between Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy. In perhaps the biggest change from any previous Spider-Man continuity, Peter tells Gwen that he's Spider-Man, and does so relatively early on. That's the kind of change that could ruin the whole movie, but Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone have such good chemistry and get into their characters so well that it works. In fact, much of the strength of the movie is in the depth Garfield brings to Parker/Spider-Man, covering the full range of the character. Stone exceeds all expectations as Gwen Stacy, almost to the point that I don't want to see her suffer her character's inevitable fate.

The big action scenes in the movie come between Spider-Man and The Lizard (the mutated form of Dr. Curt Conners) and take advantage of all the improvements in technology over the past decade. The 3D, as it's used here, enhances the movie, and director Marc Webb uses every angle possible to bring the hand-to-hand battles to life. Putting it as simply as possible, it just looked really cool.

I had my concerns about Denis Leary's Captain Stacy, but the character was used pretty much exactly how he should have been, right down to his death (oh, spoiler alert). I thought his death in this movie was actually more powerful than Uncle Ben's, though that could've been because I knew 100% that the latter was happening and wasn't certain that they'd cover the former.

A lot of the marketing of the movie centered around the mystery behind Peter's parents, which concerned me, but the movie itself doesn't get bogged down in that. It's what connects Peter to Dr. Conners and The Lizard, and plays a role in the climax of the movie, but it's not like every five minutes Peter is saying "I need to figure out what happened with my parents." I'm assuming it'll play a bigger role in subsequent movies, which will be fine, since they've laid the groundwork here.

Really, I ended up only having two significant complaints about "The Amazing Spider-Man". First was that I didn't buy Sally Field as Aunt May at all. In a movie that otherwise had really great casting/characterization pairings, that one failed on both levels. Secondly, I thought Peter revealed himself as Spider-Man or used his powers in public sans mask/costume a little too frequently. By the end of the movie, Gwen and Dr. Conners know he's Spider-Man (as does the late Captain Stacy), it's hinted that Aunt May suspects it, and tons more people should be able to piece it together if they think about it.

But in the end, if you get caught up in comparing every little thing that happens in "The Amazing Spider-Man" to its movie predecessors or even its comic source material, you might not enjoy it, but you're also missing the point. It's a worthy entry into the Marvel movie canon, and I look forward to seeing what these creators and actors bring to the series next.

Mass Effect: From the Beginning (Again)

As I mentioned in last week's post, with the Mass Effect extended cut now out (and played through multiple times), I wanted to go back and play the entire series from the beginning. So I did.

No, I'm not done yet, not even close, but I have started my complete Mass Effect replay. I wanted this experience to be different, so I made different choices right from the beginning. Or, at least, I tried to.

My original Shepard was female, Earth-born and a sole survivor (the latter two being character choices made at the beginning of the series that drive dialogue). This time I forced myself to play as BroShep, with the spacer/war hero background. I also went soldier instead of adept, which turns the game into much more of a shooter than an RPG combat game.

Really, though, as I've played through, I find myself making a lot of the same choices I made the first time around, except in specific cases where I force myself to do something different. One of those "forced" choices was going to be to have Ashley be my romantic encounter instead of Liara, but then I got Liara on the ship and now I'm conflicted. We'll see how that goes.

So far I'm only about 12 hours of gameplay into this playthrough, and I'm remembering just how grand in scope the original "Mass Effect" was. If you do all the side missions and have all the side conversations with your crew, the game really can take FOREVER. I've tried my best to zip through the conversations (while still having all of them), but it's a grind. Still, there are some great moments, particularly when it comes to meeting a character again for the first time.

I could go on and on, but I'll save that for when I'm further along. For now, I'll just share some quick thoughts.