JesseCuster

May 23, 2013 12:40 pm I had those comics. Actually, if I dig around, I might still have it. I remember as a kid seeing that and thinking, "WTF?" Yes... as an elementary school child of the 80s, I invented the phrase "W.T.F.?". If I only had the foresight to copyright it and make t-shirts.

May 21, 2013 12:50 pm Uh-oh. Damn. His Earth-2 reboot was better than ANYTHING DC's done w/ the New 52. There are times when I'm reading an issue of Earth-2 and wishing it was the New 52.

May 21, 2013 12:37 pm As a long time fan, I found myself 'liking' it, but not LOVING it the FIRST time I saw it. I have a ritual with Trek films, one that started w/ Nemesis: I go see the film by myself first. This started off as necessity, seeing as none of my friends are fans of Trek...but some of that has changed now. So upon my 2nd viewing of Into Darkness, I took some commentary I read from commenters on the inter-webs and kept it in mind... and along with a clearer understanding of the Admiral Marcus plot, I realized this film is a lot better than I originally thought. I had this weird roller-coaster ride where I was ok with the film, then down on it as I thought about it, then suddenly LOVING it as I thought about it even more. Some of whats 'cleared' up for me is touched on in your article. Here's what made me really change my mind about the film: - Its still an all-new story. How is it a 'mash up of Space Seed and Wrath of Khan'? Its NEITHER of those things. I do have issues with a '2nd' Trek film having the same villain... its too obvious and keeping it a secret came with a payoff that makes one groan. Space Seed, in this timeline, NEVER happened. Space Seed occurred during the Enterprise's 5 year mission, which in this film, they haven't even confirmed such a mission exists, only in rumor, and thus not yet assigned to (until the end). This means Khan and the Botany Bay were discovered a couple of years earlier than in TOS. And where in Space Seed did a war-mongering Admiral want to secretly use Khan's great skills to design weapons? It took me a moment to accept this, but this is NOT a remake. A re-imagining is the better term, but the re-imagining of Space Seed here really is back story thats told through a paragraph of dialog... we're not watching the discovery and awakening of Khan. We're watching the results of what happens when the WRONG person discovers and wakes up Khan - The Inverted Death Scene. Originally I thought this was cheesy too. It wasn't 'earned' like you all said, I agreed with that at first. Then I read this amazing comment on another website. If I could meet the commenter in person, I would want to shake their hand because they saw something here that I never could have. The Wrath of Khan is 20+ years of the same crew on the same ship... it was a lifetime friendship that ended here. It was a sad moment, it was the END (or at least so we thought at that time). Spock's quote in that scene, which is NOT in Darkness: "I am and always will be your friend". Why doesn't one of them say it in Darkness? Because they are NOT friends yet. The whole intro to Darkness was to establish that, much to Kirk's chagrin, he and Spock were still not quite bro's. So while The Wrath of Khan was about endings, the JJ Abram Treks are all about BEGINNINGS. No, the emotion of the death scene wasnt earned... but that's the whole point. It was this moment, Kirk dying and Spock having to watch him die, that finally made Spock learn the message Kirk had been trying to send him the whole time. We're not witnessing the end, we are watching the true BEGINNING of their life-long friendship. The major problem with all that are us 'old timer' Trek fans who couldn't get past it... so it somewhat failed on that level because a lot of us just didn't get that and are still complaining about what is 'earned'. - The Admiral Marcus 'Conspiracy': This, I will admit, was a complete FUBAR goof on my part. Call me stupid, I don't care, but it took the 2nd viewing to FULLY connect the dots. See, I thought the ENTIRE movie, every little thing Khan did, was at the direction/orders of Adm Marcus. That includes the bombing, the attack on Starfleet Headquarters and fleeing to Kronos. I thought Marcus manipulated Khan into doing ALL those things on purpose, to fulfill some master conspiracy to start a war with the Klingons. I just didn't get it... then why load the Enterprise with Khan's people (which ultimately led to Marcus' downfall, as Khan surrendered knowing what was in the torpedoes). It seems like one of those half-baked "1 Million Dollars!" schemes. From the 2nd viewing, I realized my mistake entirely. The summary of it is: Marcus discovers Khan. He has Khan help design new weapons, using Khan's frozen people as a dangling carrot. Finally fed up with everything, Khan tried to smuggle his people away in torpedoes, but was caught by Marcus, who took all the torpedoes. Pissed off and no longer going to take it, Khan commits acts of terrorism, then flees to Kronos. Knowing he has to cover up his mess, Marcus takes advantage of the situation: Not only can he take out Khan and all of Khan's people, he can start the full on war he wanted at the same time. So the idea of torpedoing Kronos was more spontaneous, not the pre-planned conspiracy I mistook it to be. Again, I freely admit that misunderstanding all that was entirely moronic on my part. Now, there are still little bits here and there that don't make sense, but those are the 'movie magic' bits. Like how does a 300 year old, pre-warp Eugenic able to design such futuristic weaponry? Or why one stun from Scotty on the bridge of the Vengeance knocks Khan out for a minute, but a Vulcan nerve pinch plus 4 or 6 stun blasts from Uhura and he's still fighting? I'm glad I saw it a 2nd time, it really debunked a lot of 'wrong' thoughts I had and made me realize how fun and good this movie really is. Honestly, no other Trek film has been THIS fun since First Contact.

May 17, 2013 2:00 pm I really enjoyed the movie for what it was... to me, ANY Trek is 'good' Trek. But I'm really trying to overcome my disappointment w/ the Khan reveal. Its just TOO obvious. ST1 was a reboot, but it was an ALL NEW original story, not a remake or rehash, thought I guess there is some 'reinvention' of the characters within it. Having a Star Trek 2 with a Khan villain and, oh hey, a major character 'dies'... it feels like they were trying very hard to see how they could reinvent Star Trek 2: WOK rather than just come up with a wholly new story. However, at the same time, its NOT WOK at all. The incident with Space Seed NEVER happened, basically we're seeing more of a re-imagining of Space Seed than Wrath of Khan really (as a result, ... there is nothing personal between Khan and Kirk to really propel the story). So I'm really mixed on this. On one hand, I dislike that its Khan and ST2.... on the other, it really is an all-new story for the most part, so maybe my complaint is invalid as a result? And it all seems so smug, like "A lot of people said Khan, we said it wasn't Khan... but AHA... guess what? Its Khan!". Alrighty then.... uh, thanks? I guess? Even more odd is Peter Weller's Admiral Marcus. So, the last time we saw Weller in Trek, it was an episode of Enterprise where he played a xenophobic 'racist' who wanted to get rid of all aliens from Earth (and coincidentally enough, used bio-engineering and genetics as a means to his ends). Now he plays a mad Admiral, manipulating a bio-engineered warlord, to start a war with Klingons. If you knew about Weller's character from Enterprise, then you immediately knew something was up with character going in to ST2, and that just seems a bit obvious as well. And then the bigger irony is... all of that works very well in the IDW comics. Had this Khan story been an arc in the current ongoing comic, I'd have thought it was really great. I would rather see re-told stories in 2ndary mediums, while the films are reserved for something all brand new. Overall though, I still had a lot of fun with this film... all of the above is just overthinking it after seeing it, even though I say things like 'disappointed' and 'disliked', that would be like saying you're disappointed that you ran out of ice cream after eating the whole carton by yourself.

May 17, 2013 8:12 am This show just ramped up in the last few episodes, I was always 'entertained' by it and watched every week, but the last 2 episodes actually had me on the edge of my seat (coming from one of the world's biggest cynics, that saying a lot... at least in my little imaginary world). All those little set-ups right at the end with each set of characters getting all emo with their 'goodbyes' and every single one in some type of peril... bravo. Well done.... it completely busted predictability. (Of course, once you saw you-know-who jump in to save the other-you-know-who... then you kind of knew...who... was going to... you know.) Did not expect it to go that way either, not until that moment. I figured he was a super-villain in the making. Guess not! I have the feeling that Season 2, Dinah (I refuse to call her Laurel!) is going to get all Lois Lane and finally figure some things out.... maybe season 2 we'll get some Canary action? I hope so!

May 17, 2013 8:05 am He knew Ollie was coming for him, he wanted to finish it, wanted to finish Ollie.

May 16, 2013 12:22 pm Did he pay the troll toll? Did he get into that boy's soul?

May 16, 2013 12:17 pm Its really a platforming game with a fight mechanic (that originally started off as a rhythm game before being adapted to Arkham), set in a faux-sandbox world. Don't get me wrong, its tons of fun (I own both and played them both twice over), but its get way more praise than it should. Seeing as Warner owns Rocksteady and Warner Interactive are using all the same resources (not reinventing anything), the worst this game could be would be akin to Fallout New Vegas VS Fallout 3, or like Star Wars KOTOR compared to Star Wars KOTOR2. Not as good, but still fun. I want a game more like GTA or Red Dead with Batman/DCU, a real true sandbox-style game with a persistent world.

May 15, 2013 12:45 pm While never say never, when Avengers and Iron Man 3 hold the #1 and #2 spots for highest grossing opening weekends of all time, you'd have to imagine Agents of SHIELD has got to be a slam dunk in ratings. The writing will have to be extra-bad to make this tank, like Heroes Season 3 bad.

May 15, 2013 12:40 pm You all realize all this is speculation based on an edited piece of dialog from a 3 minute trailer? Besides, we're talking Joss Whedon who typically does a good job of balancing intelligent ideas with action. My guess is that Coulson's resurrection, at some point, will be come a plot point of the series.