Shock Suspenstories: Hate!

The review for EC Comics' Shock Suspenstories #5 is up, but it's to big for Blogger. Go to the link below  to watch the review. Enjoy

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Fantastic Four: The Galactus Trilogy

Here's my first video review, sorry about the sound quality but if you use headphones it should be fine. All images and music are the property of their respective owners. I own nothing. Enjoy.

Swamp Thing Annual #2

   It may be fate or coincidence that I’m reviewing this comic; Alan Moore’s tirade in The Guardian for the most part has been kinda brushed off as the ranting of an old man yelling at clouds. He did have some thought provoking points but there was one comment he made about comic book characters being written for seven and eight year olds. However, the title we’re looking at today is not just for kids…I had to look over my shoulder just now, I was sure I was being stalked by a white rabbit.

    Swamp Thing Annual #2 from 1985 was the climax in one of the first storylines written by Alan Moore when he took over the book in Saga of the Swamp Thing#20, he put Swampy through the ringer and made compelling and thoughtful drama out of the idea of the search for self, mixing it with a healthy dose of hell borne adversaries along with one long time enemy who broke out of hell to gain revenge, that being Anton Arcane. Arcane failed in his campaign to destroy Swamp Thing so as a consolation prize he stole the soul of Swampy’s love Abby, who just so happens to also be Arcane’s niece.

   So this is where we pick up, with Swamp Thing looking over Abby’s lifeless body placed in a patch of grass in the swamp. He makes the decision to follow the trail to retrieve Abby’s soul from hell, hence the title of the story “Down Amongst the Dead Men”. Or Swamp Thing goes to Hell, which ever you prefer.

Who would you go through hell for?

    One of the many abilities that Swamp Thing has discovered since the revelation of his identity( which I’ll get to later on in this review) is to be able to travel through dimensions, and he uses this ability to enter the realm of purgatory where he comes across a woman who has just died and is looking for her son. Happily her son finds her and takes her into a bright light, once the light fades we meet Swampy’s first guide through the nether realms: Boston Brand, better known as Deadman.

    Deadman leads Swamp Things across purgatory and along the way seeing all sorts of shades and poltergeists that David Cronenburg  probably would have cast in a few of his films. Swamp Thing tells Boston of his quest to retrieve Abby’s soul and Deadman’s reply is that if she hasn’t gone into the lights and gone in the other direction, then it’s best to forget about her. I don’t think anyone was expecting a cheery, upbeat response from someone called Deadman, where you?

    The bright light once again appears and from that light comes a stranger, The Phantom Stranger to be more accurate. Swamp Thing and Phantom Stranger had met before and seem to be on friendly enough terms that he’s willing to lead Swampy into the light and guide him through the Heavenly Realms. With this we leave Deadman behind as he wishes him “rotsa ruck”. As I was reading this story for this review I couldn’t help but imagine the fourth Doctor Tom baker’s booming voice as the Stranger’s. It certainly made it more enjoyable for me and gave what he was saying a lot more weight, at least in my mind and yes I thought the 50^th anniversary episode was awesome too, moving on.

    As The Phantom Stranger guides Swamp Thing amongst the green rolling hills of Heaven which kind of remind me of Germany they come across an unexpected person, none other than Alec Holland. Okay this is where I need to explain what I meant before about the revelation of Swamp Thing’s true identity. If you followed the character since its inception we’d had always been told that Alec Holland was actually Swamp Thing who was burned in a chemical fire and reborn in the green muck of the swamp to become what we see today. This was the identity that was in canon before Alan Moore took over and was kinda restored with the 2011 relaunch of the DC Universe which included a new Swamp Thing book which I highly recommend.

    When Moore took over, he changed things up drastically by reveling that Swamp Thing was not nor never was Alec Holland but a creature that had Holland’s memories but was never a man. It was this revelation than began Swampy’s experimentation with his abilities such as the ability to transverse dimensions, it also led to Swamp Thing finding Holland’s corpse and finally laying it to rest. Pretty deep for a kid’s story, huh Alan? By the way, even after that revelation Abby still insists on calling Swampy Alec so in the name of variety I’ll start doing the same.

don't you hate when you get those floaty
things in your eye first thing in the
morning? 

     So after this meeting the pair move on and realize that Abby’s soul was indeed dragged to hell by Arcane, so this means having to go through the gate keeper between the two sides. The world goes dark, but light comes when the eyes of The Spectre open. He recognizes the Stranger and is surprised to see Alec, having believed that the elementals were all dead. The pair ask The Spectre to let them pass to retrieve Abby’s soul but get stonewalled because of The Spectre’s desire to keep the balance, that someone coming back to life could disrupt the balance even if that soul (like Abby’s) was wrongfully taken. Alec is ready to rage but the Stranger stops him and ask The Spectre if that included Jim Corrigan, the man who died and returned to life to become The Spectre. Charmed by the clever question he allows the pair to pass into the next realm, Hell Awaits.

     Alec and the Stranger cross over into a realm of chaos, a land of rotting life and bones. This is not a land of fire but a land of perpetual dying; this is hell as imagined by Alan Moore. Again I say, so much for kid’s stories. Alec is resolved to continue and the pair is met by Etrigan the Demon, a character we saw earlier in the story arc. After some verbal parrying between Etrigan and the Stranger the demon offers to guide Alec through Hell for a price, the white flower in the Phantom Stranger’s lapel which blooms as brightly as Abby whom the demon has seen to which all parties agree and Alec goes with Etrigan leaving the Stranger behind who is trying to say that this is against the rules to which Etrigan replies: “The rules? And if I break these rules, pray tell shall I be punished? Sent, perhaps, to Hell?” I have to agree that following the rules seems pretty pointless from here on. Bye, Bye Stranger, see you in Trinity War!

   As Etrigan leads Alec through the lands they come across many demons, but soon they come across Arcane who has become a kind of hatchery for insect eggs and Abby’s soul is not far now. The pair finally comes across her soul being picked at by a horde of demons. Swamp Thing attacks and rescues Abby which doesn’t sit right with any of them including Arcane who might be a bit pissed that he has been robbed of his revenge. The demons led by Arcane chase the trio through hell, but Etrigan is able to slow them down with the use of his hellfire. Soon they get to a point where Etrigan can open a door out of Hell and begins the incantation to open the rift. I have to mention that symbol floating in the air that the Demon uses looks suspiciously like the insignia from V for Vendetta, a little subtle cross promotion perhaps?

     The rift is open and just before they can leave Alec finds Arcane chomping on his ankle to try to keep them from leaving. But Alec shakes him off and leaves Hell with Abby’s soul. Swamp Thing wakes up back in the swamp and Abby opens her eyes to see snow has fallen in the swamp and that Alec is crying, happy to have her back and alive.

Beautiful

    Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing in the 1980s was one of the watershed marks in comics, it’s a highly recommended series that reinvented its main character, brought a more literary feel to comics, and this issue is a high example of how great this series was. When I read news about the Justice League Dark movie that Guillermo Del Toro supposedly has planned this is the story I imagine could be that movie. A lot of Moore’s stories have been transferred to the big screen and they’ve been anywhere from decent to really bad, see League of Extraordinary Gentleman for proof of that. If this was the story that would get the treatment I think it would finally do justice to an Alan Moore work and I do believe that Del Toro is more than capable to make this happen. Sure it would be banking on the nostalgia of comics past, but the argument that it was made for kids would get thrown out in a hurry.

Amazing Spider-Man #309

    For the first review of the new direction I decided to start off with a very particular issue of Amazing Spider-Man. At first glance it’s a very unassuming and seemingly cliché damsel in distress story and it debuts villains that weren’t used very much after this story.  In spite of this, the story is actually very well written, doesn’t go where you would expect it to, and is the very first comic I remember ever reading.

 Amazing Spider-Man issue no.309 was written by David Michelinie and drawn by Todd McFarlane and released in November 1998. It was part of a story arc where Peter Parker was traveling around the country to promote “Webs”, a book of the picture he had taken of himself as Spider-Man. Along the way, Spidey had to face some familiar foes like The Prowler and The Chameleon. Back in NYC, Mary Jane Watson-Parker is currently working on the soap opera Secret Hospital and putting the finishing touches on the couples’ new condo which is owned by a well off fan of MJ’s named Jonathon Caesar who has a big obsession with the spunky redhead. It’s when Peter is in Chicago promoting “Webs” that Caesar makes his move and kidnaps Mary Jane, holding her in a secret room of the building. Peter has been frantic in his search for the whereabouts of his missing wife and it’s here that the story opens with Spidey getting into a fight in a local boxing gym with a low level mob enforcer with the catchy name of Manslaughter Marsdale. After going a short round, Spidey interrogates and threatens Marsdale for information which he doesn’t have.

   Having gotten nowhere, Spidey leaves to brood about how Mary Jane’s disappearance must be a plot by one of Spider-Man’s many foes to get to him. Contrary to that thought, we find Mary Jane having dinner against her will with her kidnapper Jonathon Caesar who is proving to be very unstable in his obession with her. Between the collage of photos of MJ and his threats to cut her face up if she tries to escape, now that I think about it unstable is being generous. 

   Caesar is informed by his bodyguards that Spider-Man is searching for Mary Jane and based on that information decides to hire some specialists to deal with the web-slinger. The next morning and with nothing else to go on Peter goes to the Daily Bugle and gets the brush off from J. Jonah Jameson who in spite of his gruff demeanor is keeping an ear out for any information about Mary Jane’s whereabouts. He says this in front of his secretary Glory Grant who comments that JJJ must have a heart after all, but he brushes it off by saying there could be a story in this. Long time readers of Spider-Man will know that in spite of Jonah making Peter’s life as Spider-Man a living hell and being near disrespectful of Peter himself, the funny thing is he does actually care about him. This scene could just be chalked up to him saving face.

   After this Peter goes to visit Daily Bugle editor Robbie Robertson who’s lying in traction in the hospital. There was a storyline running concurrently with this one in The Spectacular Spider-Man where Robbie was visited by an old friend who had become an up-and-coming mob boss named Tombstone. Tombstone wanted Robbie to join his organization and when he refused his old friend decided to let it go, but not before breaking Robbie’s back. This scene harkens back to that storyline and Robbie relates to Peter the feeling of helplessness brought on by his current situation, a feeling that with MJ’s kidnapping Peter can relate to.

      Looking in on Mary Jane and her tribulations with Caesar, we’re introduced to his hiredassassins Styx

And I got Cable's old guns for half off too

 and Stone. Stone’s a short but burly guy who has a generic costume with big guns on his shoulders, kind of the model of an over drawn, over muscled 90s anti-hero character if the artist had some restraint in his depiction. Styx is a little more interesting, a tall, skinny, eloquent man who literally has the touch of death as demonstrated when he uses it to kill a houseplant. MJ takes one look at this and understandably worries for Peter’s safety, but as soon as they see Spider-Man swing by the two chase after him in a vehicle called the Turbo-Hopper which looks like a cheap version of the Green Goblin’s glider if they bought it at a yard sale.

   As Spidey tries to get to a better ground away from civilians Stone blasts him with gas,sonics, and then a strobe burst that blinds him. I’m surprised he didn’t break out the gun that fires turtle shells. Back at the apartment Mary Jane finally makes her escape, first she tries using a broken lamp to electrocute Caesar who is standing in a puddle of melted ice, but Caesar is wearing rubber soles so MJ clocks him with the broken lamp. Caesar’s bodyguards come in and since they don’t have rubber soles the trick works this time, the shock knocks them cold and Mary Jane escapes taking one of their guns with her.

     Back at the fight Spidey’s bouncing around avoiding what Stone’s throwing at him, Stone then hits Spider-Man with a heat beam and then coats the ground with an adhesive gel that traps him when he hits the ground. As Stone continues blasting Spidey, Styx moves in for the kill only to be stopped by…..Mary Jane Watson-Parker who comes in guns blazing and runs Styx and Stone off saving her husband’s webbed butt. I know it’s cliché at this point in 2013 but I can’t help but give MJ a “you go girl” for saving Peter aka the damsel in distress.

   Reunited, the pair calls the police and Caesar and his bodyguards are arrested and led away. As they head inside, Peter begins putting himself through a guilt trip about not being there to protect Mary Jane which she immediately grinds to a halt saying that this would have happened no matter who she was married to, and that the whole point of their relationship is that they’re both their for each other no matter who’s in trouble because according to MJ, that’s what love is all about.

Whine to Jack Kirby that you can't write this and see where that gets you

   My memories of this story were at best vague, but in rereading it for this review I found this to actually be a really good story. Mary Jane goes from victim to hero and proves that she’s more than capable of taking care of herself. David Michelinie to me is the best writer in the Spider-Man books to have ever written Mary Jane’s character during the marriage era of the book. He writes MJ not as the female lead sitting on the couch waiting for her super hero husband to come home or the traditional damsel in distress  but as a strong, capable woman with her own life and ambitions outside of her relationship with Peter. I’ve heard about how some writers don’t like writing Mary Jane because they didn’t know what to do with her during this period but Michelinie proves that to be utter crap and just the whining of uninspired writers. J. Michael Straczynski can also be credited as someone who wrote MJ’s character just as well, focusing on her career as an actress of both stage and screen. However, his involvement in the infamous “One More Day” storyline tarnishes that for me and for many others who are fans of Mary Jane and want to see the marriage restored.

     This is a story I would recommend for anyone who wanted to get into reading Spider-Man, it’s a good self-contained story that while it doesn’t show Spidey in all his glory it does show how well the dynamic between him and MJ can really be when you have a writer who actually tries and doesn’t give in to cliché tropes. Once again, David Michelinie, I salute you sir and thank you for writing the very issue that got me into reading Spider-Man.

Stranger in a Strange Land

  Hello ladies and gentlemen and to all ships at sea, welcome to the very first book review of Classics of Pop Culture,…yes you read right, an actual book with pages and no illustrations and big words. If this is your first time being exposed to my website and you decided to click on this review then congratulations, you’re braver than you thought. Stranger in a Strange Land is by Robert A. Heinlein and if you don’t know who Heinlein is then don’t worry, you’ve seen his work.

Whether it’s The Puppet Masters which was adapted into the classic sci-fi movie The Invasion of the Body Snatchers to Starship Troopers, Heinlein can be placed on the same level as other sci-fi luminaries as Issac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, and Ray Bradbury.

   Stranger in a Strange land was released in 1961 to a reception that was the literary equivalent to tear someone’s heart out, throwing it in the trash and then lighting it on fire. One critic went so far as to call the book:”…..an affront to the patience and intelligence of the reader.”

    Since then however it has gained status as a classic of the sci-fi genre and is considered a huge influence on the counterculture of the 1960s with its discussions of examining traditional concepts of religion, monogamy, money, and death and experimenting with a course of life that would work for them as opposed to shoehorning themselves into traditional mores. The only negative aspect I can find in this is that it stills holds onto the idea of males being dominant over females, which is fairly prevalent throughout the novel. However its popularity did grow to the point that fans of the book were known to visit Heinlein at his house and discuss the philosophies presented in the story. 

    Stranger in a Strange Land came about from a brainstorming session between Heinlein and his wife. The story was described as a retelling of the Jungle Book but with the human character being raised by Martians rather than wolves. Thankfully they decided to avoid the signature Disney sing-a-long. 

    The story centers around Valentine Michael Smith, a child born to explorers on the very first expedition to Mars that ended in disaster. Another expedition twenty years later finds young Mike alive and well having been raised by the native Martians. Once he is returned to Earth, Mike is confined to a hospital to allow him to physically acclimate himself to the gravity of Earth. Sadly that’s only the beginning of Mike’s problems.

    Since he wasn’t raised on Earth Mike has no understanding of customs and concepts that humans hold in high regard and in some cases that naiveté gets used against him. One early example comes as Mike is very nearly tricked into signing away his inheritance, you see the explorers of the first expedition to Mars were an extraordinary group who were in the upper echelons of their fields and whose contributions to Earth society not only advanced it technologically but also makes Mike a very,very,very rich man due to his being their only direct descendent. How rich are we talking here? Imagine if Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark, Scrooge McDuck, and Richie Rich decided consolidate their wealth into one pot…..it wouldn’t come close to the wealth that Mike now has access to.

    Luckily, Mike has made plenty of friends along the way who enlightens him about the ways of the world. One key friend is a nurse from the hospital named Jill who not only became Mike’s first female friend or “water brother” according to the customs of the Martians, but is the first human female that Mike ever meets. It’s Jill whose concern for Mike’s well-being encourages her to take a chance and help Mike to escape the hospital.

   Another very important water brother is a man by the name of Jubal who is a lawyer/doctor/writer and also happens to be a cynical curmudgeon who takes Mike and Jill under his protection on his personal island along with his entourage of secretaries and maintenance crew. It’s Jubal’s knowledge and craftiness in political circles that allows Mike to gain his freedom. He also becomes a father figure to Mike helps him to learn the customs and culture of Earth and in turn helps him to grow in his understanding or “grokking” of what’s going on around him.

   In turn, Mike also teaches his water brothers the philosophies and language of the Martians, one concept that seems to stick almost right away is the word “grok”. “Grok” seems to be the Martian word for “to drink” but is also used to describe comprehending or understanding and ironically, it’s the first Martian concept that Mike’s water brothers tend to grasp. Mike also begins to grok the concepts of love and sexuality which result in Mike and Jill getting together as well as gaining experiences with Jubal’s secretaries.

   As Mike grows in his grokking he’s exposed to the religions of Earth, specifically the Fosterites who try to entice Mike into joining their sect mainly to have access to Mike’s wealth. Mike senses“wrongness” to the sect and is put off by them, but groks their need to find meaning in their lives. In his exploration of religion and philosophy he finds that all of them have a piece of the bigger puzzle which he boils down to a Martian saying that even he admits is a rough translation: “Thou art God”.

   Eventually it’s from this grokking that Mike decides to try to teach these concepts through the veneer of religion and creates his own which attracts followers from all sects of religion attracted to the Mike’s charisma and the freedom of self that he offers those willing to practice his teachings. This of course pisses off the hierarchy of many, chief among them the Fosterites who actually set fire to Mike’s temple.

     I don’t want to spoil the ending of the book because I’d like to encourage listeners to read this book, there so much more to the story than what I’ve described here. It’s interesting to note that after Heinlein’s death, his wife released a version of “Stranger” with an extra 100+ pages. I haven’t read this version but it might be worth it to some listeners to seek this version out and see for themselves the version of the story that Heinlein wanted to release and what those extra pages could have that shapes or reshapes the story.

   So in the end this book definitely fits the definition of a classic and is a book I would recommend to anyone interested in science fiction. There are many others that I could recommend as well but this is one of the few where I would say “read first”. Well I hope you folks enjoyed the review and ‘til next time, cheers to you all.

  

  

A Solution to the New 52

    Sorry it’s been so long since my last…well, my last anything but life tends to get in thsometimes and I won’t bore you with the details. Yep, shock of shocks; I do in fact have a life. However with recent news about another blunder made by DC Comics, this time concerning the last minute aborted plans for the marriage of Batwoman to her girlfriend it just added to the pile of missteps the company has made since the 2011 reboot of their entire universe. Now I could get into a countdown about the actions of DC but internet reviewer The Last Angry Geek made such a video that explains their blunders better than I ever could. So I would advise my readers to check out that video after reading this article.

  I have to admit that I was one of those who questioned why on earth DC was going this route, aside from the obvious cash grab that is. But I had resigned myself to judge slowly and see for myself what the results of this relaunch would be, the results of that were rather disappointing. I can’t say that I read every issue of the New 52, but I can say that in the majority of the books that I did read I almost immediately noticed a trend, a questionable new direction. This direction could arguably be traced back to around 2004 when a lot of DC’s books started to take a darker tone very much like Marvel’s books. This to me is a rather big mistake because DC for all intents and purposes tossed away one of the elements that made the company stand out, that of the lighter tone of the world and of the idea that these characters were the type one could look up to versus Marvel’s character being the types one could relate to.

    Since 2004 that dynamic had been gradually shifting with the characters being written with the attempt to be more relatable but in the worst ways such as being more egotistical, melodramatic, given to extreme shifts in character or even any amount of character purged all together. The New 52 seems to be the culmination of this direction with a few more add ons, that being that the stories tend to reflect the worst attributes of two eras: DC’s Silver Age and early 90s Image Comics. Basically what it boils down to is this: the stories for the most part seem to be very thin in terms of development, almost as though they were first drafts that got rushed out. Image Comics had this very same problem but made up for it with very flashy art work but even then the chinks in that armor were noticeable. The extreme bodybuilder look, the lack of expression in character’s faces the lack of background art, the over-sexualization of female characters were all hallmarks of comic books during the 1990s but it was Image that was at the forefront of these practices.

     Don’t get me wrong there are some books from the New 52 that I do enjoy the new Swamp Thing and Animal Man series are personal favorites and of course the Batman books have been consistently good. As a Superman fan I find those books rather lacking but if I was to launch into that this would be a much longer post. For the most part though the people I’ve talked to seem to be for the most part disappointed with this new direction and I doubt that DC has any intention to reverse course on this endeavor any time soon. So what can we, as comic book fans do? I think I do have a workable solution to this, I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this but I think it would be a worthwhile course of action.

    I’ve always been a big believer in voting with your wallet, and I think this is a case where that philosophy can be applied. Instead of buying the New 52 books, or at least the ones that aren’t worth our effort, we should buy up everything from before this current reboot. Every single issue, mini-series, trade paperback, collection, and e-comic from that era, if you don’t like the current direction then buy up the stuff from the previous direction. It’s all out there and available and it would show a noticeable shift in DC’s sales reports and tell them that THIS is what the fans want, not what THEY SAY we want but what we really want. Would DC respond to this? How would they respond? I don’t know, all I can say with any certainty is: it couldn’t hurt.

Here's a link to the Last Angry Geek's video concerning DC Comics and their misstepsTop 11 DCNU mistakes

My thoughts on Ben Affleck as Batman

Trying to make a case for you so please behave
   

  

    It seems that everyone else has thrown out their opinion of the news of Ben Affleck’s casting as Batman in the Man of Steel sequel; most of it has been quite negative. I have to admit that my knee jerk reaction to the news was to make a joke to a friend of mine that his casting was one of the signs of the oncoming apocalypse. Now that I’ve had a chance to mill it over the only negative opinion I really have is that fact that DC and Warner Brothers feel the need to add Batman to a Superman sequel before putting a much better story out there to build on Man of Steel like The Dark Knight built on Batman Begins.

    But back to the matter at hand, and I’m sure that the six people who read this are a bit curious about my opinion so here it is: I’m actually fine with it.

And there goes three fans, for the other three left I will explain….

   First off, Ben Affleck is not a bad actor. I find that he’s actually a very good actor that has a problem with choosing projects to star in. I’m sure if you were to think of at least five Affleck movies off the top of your head only one of them would be any good. Granted his last superhero movie, Daredevil, was not a great movie. It wasn’t a good movie if I’m being honest. But there were a lot more problems with that film than just Ben’s perceived lack of acting chops.

     There is one movie that Ben starred in that showed that not only could he act but has the appropriate range to play Batman. Hollywoodland was a movie that came out in 2006 that starred Affleck alongside

I really should watch this again

Diane Lane and Adrian Brody. In this Ben played George Reeves, the man who played the title character in the 1950s Adventures of Superman television show. In this performance Ben played a man who was conflicted by the fame he had gotten by playing such an iconic character who was a hero to millions and the resentment he felt at that role typecasting him grinding his career to a halt and ultimately leading to his suicide.

   This is where I feel the casting works because Batman is a conflicted character, torn between being Batman and Bruce Wayne, the temptation of crossing the line between hero and outlaw, the desire to stop his crusade or continue the war, this is conflict and Ben is good at this. If Ben can pull this off, which I believe he can, this can be a transformative moment in his acting career, I dare say this might even be a redemptive moment for his career after being considered for so long to be the king of bad movies.

    It’s been known to happen; one example is Robert Downey Jr. who started off as a child actor in the 1980s and was lauded for his talent and also for the massive problems with substance abuse he would have throughout his adult life. His career got a shot in the arm and now he’s been Tony Stark in the Iron Man and Avengers movies, he’s played a version of Sherlock Holmes, and he’s become a well-respected A-list actor. Who saw that coming?

   One more example that comes to mind is the late, great man in black himself Johnny Cash. Throughout the

The man

1980s his career went into a huge slump. Nashville was trying to push out the old guard of Country music and bring in new blood to appeal to a new generation. So they tried to put guys like Johnny out to pasture, but in the mid-90s he got together with Rick Rubin at American Recordings and produced some great music that not only put Cash back on that map but proved that he was still relevant and captivating to a new generation of fans. Who’s ever going to forget his cover of the Nine Inch Nails’ song “Hurt”? I know I certainly won’t forget it anytime soon.

So in the end, Affleck’s casting could very well be a good thing for all parties involved, and we should wait and see what the end result will be before we rush to conclusions. In the end, judge slowly is what I’ve learned in life. Of course if they can get a different director than Zack Snyder on this picture it would improve things by leaps and bounds. Cheers to all!

                                                                              -RC