Hazmatter

As long as most of the CG effects are focused squarely on Ghost Rider himself, I'm not too worried about the budget. Honestly, the CGI on the "elemental demon" baddies from the first one were really very unimpressive, and the fights in that arena equally so. A lot of people forget that you don't really need a lot of flashy computer effects for absolutely everything supernatural. Mephisto (yes, I know what they called him in the flick, and I don't care!) in the first one exuded much more menace than the flashier bad guys without ever really doing all that much. Heck, a lot of people forget that Ghost Rider can work just as well against mundane, mortal evil as against the hordes of the underworld.

Dude with a flaming skull for a head? Hell yes, he needs CGI to work. The guys he's fighting, not necessarily. They've already cut out the lame stunt-performer celebrity and love interest angles at this point, so as long as they learned their lesson in how to tell a more solid story around the character, I'm... tentatively hopeful.

Naaah... I'm betting heat vision.

Just put Luke in the Obi-Wan role of wise and experienced elder mentor to whoever the new young protagonist is. 'Cuz Luke's the only Skywalker we really need!

You've got the order pretty much right. Although, honestly... you might want to just skip Countdown altogether. Grant Morrison more or less tossed it all out the window when he finally sat down to write Final Crisis, anyway.

He's technically already got the glasses...

Oh man... I've heard about this scene for years, but I've never actually seen it before.

Thanks, Marcian.

Yeah. It looks like Tony's going to be the man behind it all at first, but having a seasoned field leader like Cap join the team should really boost their effectiveness.

Considering Hawkeye was in the Vault before Iron Man made it go all kablooey, I imagine he'll be trying to hunt down Black Widow soon enough. As for the others... I expect Cap to turn up around episode 4 or so.

Good showcase of all or most of the villains the team will be running up against, including a few fairly obscure names from the general Marvel rogues gallery. Good use of everyone's powers and capabilities, and Graviton was a fine choice for the opening "epic world-ending" level threat to bring the team together and show off the potential of the series. They even threw in Doc Samson's transformation and an appearance by a SHIELD LMD!

Series premier aired tonight.

Thoughts?

Voted for Colossal Boy, myself. Figure we need an Earth-born Legionnaire to help appease the cranky terrans, and he's got loads of experience with the team.

And he's not Earth-Man.

My backup choices were either Brainy, Cos or Garth.

Might be slightly awkward if Iron Man 3 does a spotlight on Tony's rapidly developing alcoholism, a la "Demon in a Bottle"...

Final part of the review is up. And, as I predicted above, we also get a fairly creepy backstory/origin for the magic gun that's actually far more Silent Hill-esque than anything in the comic itself.

Also, nice callback to last year's SH review with Pyramid Head in the Pokeball!

Honestly?

Better than The Expendables, IMHO.

Yeah, the basic shape of the design works since, yes, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense that the power source of an alien police force looks just like a lantern from Earth. But I have to agree, the whole glowy bio-tech look just seems distracting to me. Maybe it'll look better/make more sense on the big screen, but part of me is wondering why they couldn't just have it be made of shiny green metal. (Actually, that would've made it kinda look like Kyle's battery.)

Yeah, I'm really not sure we need a Hulk TV show remake, especially when we've got the Marvel movies and the Avengers cartoon.

Now if they were to make a new Flash TV show... that could be awesome! (Barry's a superhero CSI! It can't fail!)

I'll probably catch Red as a matinee at least this weekend. I wouldn't be caught dead in a Jackass movie; certainly not one where I have to pay more for 3-D glasses.

It actually reminds me a little of the old TV show "My Secret Identity" as far as the scope of the show goes. Very small-scale, personal stuff about them just figuring out everything now that they have powers.

FWIW, I'm pretty sure Jim has his characters on Virtue. At least, that's what I heard...

Decided to just update the original post with a link to the second part this week. Someone or something continues to try to drive Linkara insane as he dives deeper into the stupidity of this Silent Hill mini.

And... is it just me, or does anyone else get the feeling this will all somehow lead to some manner of revelation about the Magic Gun?

Okay, as someone who hasn't read any of Zombies vs. Robots... would anybody care to explain to me how zombies could possibly be the least bit threatening to the Transformers?

Now Black Lantern Transformers, that would be different.