A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, the Girlfriend bought me my first TV console for the modern era, the Xbox.

The pride of this console is an offering from a relatively unknown team called Team Ninja and their gem of a game Ninja Gaiden. A re-imagining of the classic NES title, the gameplay was simply leap (pun fully intended) years beyond its time.

Ryu Hayabusa, the protagonist of the series jumped about like the Energizer Bunny on crack, and the pornographic amount of  blood and gore flying on screen as Hayabusa slashes through the numerous grunts puts Kurosaki and Tarantino to shame.

In one word, it was – AWESOME!

Fast forward a decade (yes, it is that long).

Team Ninja put forth the newest Ninja Gaiden title in the series for the “next” generation of consoles – namely the Xbox 360 and the PS3.

Having been converted to the Ninten-cult, courtesy of the Fiance (again), I will not be able to play this game.

Nonetheless, I still check out the promos and previews for the games from the other consoles. After all, you never know what (consoles) tomorrow might bring. (*nudge nudge hint hint*)

The first teaser was… amusing and I couldn’t help but break into a chuckle.

You see, some of the playable characters in Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 are female “ninjas”. Beside having almost the same agility as Ryu Hayabusa, one of the USP of the game is that the game features, I kid you not, “physically realistic breasts movement”.

Then along came the second teaser trailer and I cannot help but wonder if something went wrong somewhere in the promo department for Team Ninja.

Before I go on any further, I must make a disclaimer..

I Trade wait.

And I suppose this is the only reason why Fables and Ex Machina had not made their appearances on this list yet. I try very hard not to get any spoilers, so yes, I don’t read the individual issues.

Having said that, brilliant though Fables and Ex Machina might be, I’m wondering if they would be good enough to unseat the best books the awesome Blackest Night and the sometimes brilliant Dark Reign had been serving up so far.

Blackest Night has yet to hit a false note (discounting Blackest Night: Teen Titans, but Teen Titans had not been a heavyweight contender for a very long time), serving up suspense, horror, mystery and superb story telling in fell swoop.

Dark Reign, no matter what critics had been saying, managed to massively shake up the status quo in the Mar-verse. The sheer volume of work and the number of characters shaken up by the mega event is truly mind blowing.

True, some of the not so good (ok, horrible) issues of this mega cross over stinks strongly of geek-xploitation, but even the staunchest critics have to admit that the best issues of Dark Reign features some of the best story telling and intriguing character development in the medium for a very long time.

Which brings us to the 2 contenders for the Comic of the week for the week of 17 Sep.

First up, we have Dark Avengers #9. Nick Fury and his “Caterpillars” seems to be everywhere this month.And in Dark Avengers #9, they had a confrontation with Phobos’ Dad, Ares, the @#$% God of War with his “No @#$%” Axe given by Zeus.

By all accounts, it is an inevitable face off. I mean, Nick Fury all but kidnapped his @#$% kid and pitted him against the Dad. What would’ve turned out to be a mindless slugfest in lesser hands became a real character exploration of the various (ok, Ares and Phobos) characters featured in the issue.

Quite a lot of people had been complaining about how the Dark Avengers series had been missing one crucial ingredient, namely…. The Dark Avengers. The Dark Avengers rarely feature in their own monthly, preferring to pop up in other Dark Reign Titles – to the extend of seeming to have the ability to be at multiple places at the same time ( I am looking at you, Dakan). But I prefer to think of each issue so far as Bendis adding layers to each of the Dark Avengers individually.

Dark Avengers #9 certainly shows Ares to be more than a mindless war mongering piece of meat at Norman Orsbornes’ beck and call.

Contender 2 for this week, is of course, Blackest Night #3. Besides continuing the slug fest between the Black Lanterns with Hal Jordan and Barry Allen, (adding the Ray and Firestorm to the lineup for good measures), this issue shows the first movement of the mysterious Indigo Lanterns.

Below is the cover for Blackest Night #3.

With this, I declare Blackest Night #3 the winner of the Comic of the Week for the week of 17 Sep.

No, you did not miss any paragraphs.

The cover is that Awesome.

Out.

Again, another week without any real Blackest Night installments… hell, there aren’t even any Amazing Spidermans

Good news from last week is that my Secret Warriors finally came in. The great news is that it looks like it is all leading up to a throwdown with the THUNDERBOLTS! Boo yeah!

The bad news is that Bendis is no longer doing the writing for #7. And the most gawd awful news is that the art duties has been taken over by a new guy who seems to be having problems with rendering body proportions and yet, in a seeming attempt to flaunt this deficiency, uses a pornographic amount of extreme perspective angles in the book.

Enough of last week. Let’s catch up to the present with this week’s runaway winner.

Chew #3 by John Layman and Rob Guillory.

Chew is a comic that I have been watching for some time. (I know, it’s only at #3, but one day I’ll like to be able to say, HA I was there since the beginning)

The concept of a CIBOPATH, someone who is able to get psychic imprints from the food that they eat is one of those quirky little “I should have thought of it myself” ideas. I started reading #1 out of curiosity to see how far this little idea can be played out and was seriously grossed out and supremely impressed by what I saw.

I was drawn in by the portrayal of a near-apocalyptic future where chicken is banned (and hence a premium black market item) for fear of Bird Flu and a “Big Brother”-ish FDA that stakes out illegal chicken selling outlets.

Tony Chu (Chu – Chew… geddit?), the protagonist, a “by the book and to the letter” paper pusher is not exactly my idea of a “hero”.

But in the first issue, Layman managed to throw enough of a candlelight on Chu’s personality quirks and possible complex family background through the smoke and mirrors to keep me intrigued. The last few pages of the first issue were particularly chilling and it shows how far someone who follows the book would be willing to go for what they deem as “justice”.

Fast forward to #3. Possibly due to the developments in #2, Chu is now quite a badass of an FDA officer himself.

Let’s just suspend our disbelief on the speed of Chu’s personality change from a pencil pusher to a bona fide foul mouthed gun slinger, I personally think it is a jump in the right direction. Now this is a protagonist I can root for.

#3 finally introduced the reader to Amanda Mintz, the lady that’s been prancing around the frames of the earlier issues and quite possibly the love of Tony’s life.

The introduction of the Saboscrivner proves that Layman and Guillory has more than a one trick pony on their hands. The possibility of other pseudo personality disorders and, well… for lack of a better word, Powers reminds me of the moment when I first discovered the X-Men… only, possibly… better.

And the one thing that possibly makes Chew better than the X-Men?

The humour. The Cartoon Network-ish artwork by Guillory suits the feel of the book to a T. The book mixes equal parts of gore, gross out moments and laugh out loud humor to produce a high energy recipe rarely seen in other books today.

I mean, the book is… FUN!! Something a lot of the “darker” offerings from the Big 2 are sorely lacking in these days.

That is why Chew #3  is my Comic of the week for 3 Sep 09.

The Fiance introduced the concept of literal videos to me a while back.

What are literal videos? Takes too long to explain, just click on the dang video below.

This was the first that I was shown and it remains one of the best I’ve seen.

Another video just begging to be turned into a literal video?

No, I’ve not slacked off for the past 3 weeks. I was away for work.

I’ve been catching up on the previous few weeks of comics and not surprisingly, Blackest Night continues to be brilliant.

Even the side series such as Blackest Night: Superman and Blackest Night: Batman impressed, which is much more than what can be said for the side series of other Mega Crossover events these days.

The inclusion of the crap talking Deadman to the  uneasy alliance between the new Batman and Robin is simply… awesome. I was going to complain that too many of the classic Batman Rogue Gallery seemed to be dead, maimed or rendered lame these days, then along came this little ditty…

Brrrr…. what is it? Chills running down my spines is what it is.

Blackest Night: Superman took a very different direction from the other Blackest Night books so far. At the core of it all, Blackest Night is a book about zombies, and conventional wisdom dictates that zombies are commonly associated with… slasher flicks. And what would be a better place to base a slasher flick than the small American cornfield town of Smallville?

Also, it’s the first time I’ve seen an individual running so many colors on the emotional spectrum as seen by Black Lantern Kal L.

As for this week’s entry… to be honest, I am still waiting for my Secret Warriors to come in. I was very sure that THAT or Green Lantern #45 (being a Blackest Night book. Did I mention I adore the series right now) would be the books to top the charts this week. So before, I procrastinate any longer with this week’s entry, I decided that we should just move on.

Green Lantern #45, while good, focused too much on the War of the Lights in space. While it fleshes out Sinestro even more (if you can believe it. The guy has a Corp named after him) as a character, not much happened on Earth, which I felt was where the real fun is.

My problem with the War of the Lights is that there is too much baggage. Too many characters running around that is simply over the head for casual (really) fans like myself. There is too much history to catch up on that I simply cannot be bothered for the moment.

Ditto for Batman and Superman. I just know that the new Batman *spoiler alert?* is Dick Grayson and the new Robin, Damien Wayne. Superman’s New Krypton is a story line that I have not even begin to wrap my brain around.

Don’t even get me started on the X family of books. I cannot get who’s dead and who’s not anymore.

That is the reason why those books have not been on the Comic of the Week list so far. Though to be fair, Detective Comics this week is kind of  brilliant. Like the continuation of the Dark Prophecy for Batwoman.

That is why I’ve decided to cheat a bit and put a Trade Paperback as my Comic of the Week.

Presenting Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead.

Yes, it’s another zombie book but an uber brilliant one. It is not so much the brain eating brain-dead-guys or the hack-slash gore (I hate gore) that are cool, as the interactions between the various survivors of the zombie apocalypse. Kirkman just uses the scenario his exploration into the (sometimes dark, somewhat hopeful, always… human?) human psyche in this ongoing soap opera series.

The TPB is at its 10th volume right now, and I think we have just began to comprehend how far this rabbit hole really goes.  By this volume, the main protagonist, Rick is not so much an anti hero anymore. He is just a Survivor like everyone in the book. Nothing more. Nothing less. As the world continues to trudge around knee deep in zombies, we began to see, through Rick’s interactions with new found Survivors and his current crew, what being a Survivor truly entails. It is not a pretty sight. But one you cannot stop starring at.

Highly recommended for… well… EVERYONE. Even those that don’t normally like zombies. Trust me, it’s worth it.

And yes, I trade wait for this series. For one thing, I cannot justify the money output for a black and white series every month. For another, I am pretty sure the anticipation from the month to month cliff hangers will kill me.

Speaking of zombies, apparently Marvel decided to hop onto the bandwagon with this as well.

Apparently Dead Mutants will rise.

Wish we could say the same about originality…

Found this off the Internet.

Personally, I think it’s kinda brilliant, but I know of a few who would hiss and crawl my eyes out for even entertaining the thought.

This is the line that absolutely slayed me:

“There has been controversy over whether or not Jackson can really call himself a Black Lantern, when he appears to be a White Lantern.”

This has got to be one of the most innovative movie trailers I’ve seen recently…

My only complain is that the editor for this particular trailer, like a lot of other trailer editors in recent times, seemed to have an ingrained and deeply felt prejudiced against people who do not suffer from epileptic fits. It is really disconcerting watching fade to blacks at cut throat speed.

As a movie, District 9 is a bit hard to categorize.

I suppose it is considered more or less “mainstream Hollywood”, but it’s production budget is peanuts compared to the amount catered for brainless Hollywood “blow em ups” (I’m looking at you Transformers and GI Joe).

It’s an alien gore flick (think Predator, Mimic and…. ermm… yes, Alien) but the people running scared are the Aliens.

It’s a sort of apocalyptic disaster flick that is… *gasp* not set in America.

More importantly, it is one of those “multi layered” shows with a Message… yet… fun.

It’s one of those shows that everyone can find something to like or find something to hate.

Some “Critics”, which incidentally comes from the German words “cri” meaning “people who are” and “tics” meaning “blood sucking insects”, will no doubt scoff at yet another mainstream “brainless explosion filled” Hollywood flick being churned out of the mass production factory. Yet, some of them will rave about the “parallels to history” and the what a “dark satire” the film is.

Mainstream Hollywood flickers will hate the fact that there is a thinly veiled Message in the midst of their brainless explosions.

Regardless, I love the fact that even though Neill Blomkamp seems to have a Message to spread, the film does not take itself too seriously.

While it is no Iron Man, the special effects are pretty good given the (relatively) tight budget for the film. I HATE gore, but after getting used to the fun and innovative ways the show explodes people/aliens, it actually started becoming quite funny. The term “popping like popcorns” come to mind.

Best of all, I love its narrative structure. Just check out the first 20 minute of the film which sets up the rest of the show using purely “news footage”.

All in all, one of the best films I’ve seen this year.

ONE OF the best films, the other being Pixar’s Up, of course.

I don’t think the Girlfriend will ever forgive me if I did not at least give it a special mention. It’s sweet and, well… buoyant (pun TOTALLY intended).

I love how Pixar is able to tell a story and make you feel, really FEEL for the characters, even without dialogues. They have some master story tellers there that can tell a life’s tale in just 10 minutes. The story of Carl and Ellie has to be one of the most poignant and bitter sweet short films I’ve ever seen. I’m practically guaranteed buckets of tears every time she-who-shall-not-be-named watches it…. Much like the ending sequence for Tim Burton’s Big Fish.

Like District 9, the visuals were truly stunning. Watching it in 3D (yes, with the dorky glasses) makes the experience even more vivid. It makes you just wanna reach out and grab some of them balloons off the screen.

And these 2 films, when you put them beside some of the brainless explosion filled flicks (I’m looking at you, Transformers and GI Joe) just showed that awesome CGI is just a tool for superb story telling. You cannot have a hot bod without a soul.

It’s amazing how much special effects have improved over the past 100 years. It’s not readily apparent. It’s like watching a tortoise grow. And you don’t realize it’s a big turtle until you put photos of the turtles all side by side.

Stupid Roald Dahl reference…

But all the special effects in the world is nothing without heart.

So, here’s to more movies with heart and soul. Awesome visuals help too.

This is proof that good advertisements transcend languages. Do watch to the end. It’s worth it!

Of course, the ad looks suspiciously like this one…

Proving once and again that originality is overrated.

For the moment, my favorite comic related imagery is this…

What’s not to like? It features my favorite characters (Delirium, Dream, Death, Desire, Delirium’s flying goldfishes… if only they have Destruction) created by my favorite writer (Guess…), drawn by one of my favorite artist (Michael Allred), paying tribute to my favorite band (Beatles… that’s Abby Road for those of you who just came out from under the rock. Be careful of the sunshine).

Days like these, feels like someone up there wanna look out for me.

I take it as a sign.

Also… my favorite quote of the moment:

Penny: While you’re there, could you pick me up some comics for my nephew’s birthday?

Sheldon: I think you mean comic books. “Comics” are feeble attempts at humor featuring talking babies and anthropomorphized pets, found traditionally in the optimistically-named Funny Pages.

Thanks Jacq. Big Bang Theory rocks! Appeals to the inner (REALLY) geek.

With no real Blackest Night installment this week, I was pretty convinced that this would finally be the week for Wednesday Comics (WC). WC is a new anthology that comes out every Wednesday (REALLY), or in sunny home town, Thursday featuring many one page stories of (relatively) popular DC heroes… much like the 1 page comic strip serials seen in the newspapers( think Prince Valiant, Dick Tracy, etc…)

The cool thing about WC is that they have a truly hardcore stable of creators which translates to some (wet) dream pairing up of writers and artists working on hugely established characters.

Exhibit A: Post 100 bullets (something I should definitely blog about) Azzarello and Risso working on a noir-ish Batman murder mystery. Hot dames, check. Wittily punny (or is it punnily witty?) dialogue, check. Hard talking, smooth dealing men, check. Batman? Check! Check! and check!

Exhibit B: Neil Gaiman (yup, HIM again) and Michael Allred in an almost trippy Metamorpho adventure. Neil Gaiman, check! Michael Allred, check!

The whole comic is consistent in keeping with the tone of  the newspaper strip. The dialogue is accessible (meaning comic nerd will not be the only ones who will understand the speech) and a lot of this is because, like all Sunday comic strips, the stories does not carry the baggage of continuity. EVERYONE can just hop on and be entertained.  We have Agatha-ish mysteries, Last boy on Earth fantasy adventures, War stories and of course, Super hero tales. There really is something for everybody.

And did I mention the art? The deliberate news paper-ish lettering and adding of color half tones to the images to make the strips more vintage looking really brought on a wave of nostalgia… in a VERY good way

Sample art. Un Photoshopped

The reasons why WC is not top of the pops this week?

1. It’s an anthology. For every cool Busiek Green Lantern story, there is one lousy and confusing Wonder Woman one. Having a book with something for everybody means everybody has something not to like in the book. Though the average quality of the book is good to rock your heart out superb, there are still some jarring tales that just does not sit very well with you (I’m looking at you Wonder Woman)

2.  Three words. Brian Michael Bendis with his Secret Warriors.

The Group that Fury built during Secret Invasion finally come of age. With the addition of a new kick ass member and the return of the Howling Commandos, the Secret Warriors are slowly shaping up to be the prickly thorn in Osborn’s backside. It’s like watching the growing of the Rebel movements in Star Wars.

Finally. Reason number 3.

And the top reason why Wednesday Comics is not the king of the hill THIS week.

Post Secret Invasion, we’ve seen this team take a beating week after week after week. We bemoan the lost of the darkly humored Thunderbolts and silently, we think that this incarnation of Thunderbolt is just gonna be the forgotten step sister to the Dark Avengers.

I mean… villains masquerading as good guys that save the world for personal gains. That’s basically the premise of Thunderbolts since its conception. So with the Dark Avengers around, who need the Thunderbolts?

The final page of #134 throws that question right open. The final reveal shows the huge and intricate web of deception that has been built around the readers. We’ve been played for WEEKS. And this normally means 2 things.

1. The old direction for the book is not working and the editors decide to take creative liberties and give a big twist in the tale to bring it in a whole new direction (think soap operas)

or

2. It was planned for all along. (Much like George Lucas planned his Star wars to be part of a nine-0-logy. It’s all bout the money, it’s all bout the dum dum de de de dum) (think soap operas)

Either way, consider me gullibly swindled due to the smoothness in the handling of the twist.

Without giving too much of a spoiler away, I’ll say this image of a future cover of Thunderbolts says it all…

It begs the question… WHO are the Thunderbolts?

And for those not afraid of a spoiler, I would say this lil minx will be getting a LOT of exposure in the coming year.

Oh, I forgot to include the context…