Comic Book Wrap-Up #1: Archie, The Orville, and Lots of DC Stuff!

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I know it's been a minute since I've posted something on here, but that's because I've been re-reevaluating how I'm running both this blog and Josh's Movie Review Corner. I'm cutting back to two posts a week, one here, and one over there. However, rather than do one review a week for each blog, I'm going to do this wrap-up style. So over here, since The Review Basement is now a comic book centric blog, I'm going to talk about however many comics that I read each week. Which means if I don't read any, there won't be a post here for that week. Over on Josh's Movie Review Corner I'm going to be doing the same thing, but with movies and TV shows. With one being the primary focus of the post. For the comic book side of things I was inspired by Ed Gosney II's Cool Comics in My Collection blog. However, while he decides which books he's going to read each week ahead of time, I'm not going to do things that way. At least not for the single issues. Yes, I will be talking about collected editions in Comic Book Wrap-Up, though I don't have any for this week, so that will be starting next time. I've got nine single issues, and an Archie digest size collection, to talk about today, so without any further ado, let's dive into this week's comic books.

The first book of the week is the oldest one that I read this week. Archie #656 was published in 2014. As you can see from the front cover it shows Archie with a girl who's in a wheelchair. Her name is Harper and she's Veronica's cousin. I got this issue on Monday when I went to do groceries. It's collected in the recent anniversary collected edition, The Best of Archie Comics; 80 Years, 80 Stories, which I'm going to be talking about on it's own shortly, and when I saw that this story was in it, I knew I had to talk about it as the Feature issue of the week. 

I admit that when this issue came out in 2014 I wasn't reading Archie. I was reading the Digests, but not the ongoing monthly series. So I missed the debut of both Harper, and Kevin Keller, Archie's first openly gay character. Sadly, unlike Toni Topaz, Kevin Keller, and a few others, Harper only had two appearances in the comics before Archie Comics rebooted everything and Mark Waid took over writing duties on Archie in 2015 and unless she's appeared in more recent issues, which Nick Spencer has been writing, Harper hasn't been seen since then. And she certainly hasn't appeared on Riverdale.

Harper is a great character. I love how she stands up to Veronica, when her cousin tries to dictate her life, and I love her attitude about her disability, because there are times when it's hard to think about things that way if you're disabled. My problem with Harper is her disability itself. She wasn't born with anything. She was injured in a car accident. The most generic and easy thing to do when you're writing a character who's in a wheelchair. Look, I get it's hard to write a good disabled character when you yourself aren't disabled, but not every disabled person was in a car accident. Some have diseases that cause them to be unable to walk, some are born with deformities that take away their ability to walk. I also get that Archie Comics is an all-ages book, and more heavy on the comedy, particularly back in 2014 before Mark Waid helped to revamp the series, but the least Dan Parent, who wrote and did the pencils on this issue could've done is been more creative when it came to Harper's disability. Especially since she was only in two issues before disappearing forever, because apparently Archie Comics isn't interested in disabled people as potential characters for their books. But THAT's a rant for another time, given that it isn't just Archie Comics that has this problem. 

There really isn't much to say about the story, since this was your typical Archie story. Though there's a twist concerning Reggie that is pretty cool, and very off brand for him. And again, having Harper be so positive and asserting herself toward Veronica is pretty cool. Veronica has been really hit and miss in the series before 2015. For the most part she was pretty unlikeable before the 2015 revamp, though she did have moments where she did nice things for her friends. But again, she was generally unlikeable and you never really knew why Archie would date her over Betty, who was sweet, helpful, and an overall nice person. But he did, and it frustrated me when I was a teenager. Can you tell that I like Archie Comics? 

 So the reason I wanted to talk about The Best of Archie Comics: 80 Years, 80 Stories this week is because unlike previous Best of Archie collections like The Best of Archie Comics: 75 Years, 75 Stories and the four volume 70th Anniversary series from 2011-2014, is that the stories are backwards in this edition. No, I don't mean each story is printed with the endings first. What I mean is that while most anniversary collections start from whatever year the first issue featuring a character was published in, this book starts in the present day, 2021 and goes backward until 1941, the year Archie, Jughead, and Betty debuted in Pep Comics #22. So it's kind of like travelling back through time rather than going back in time and then moving forward back to the present day. And this Archie collection has a number of issues in it that aren't in the previous collections that I own, so that's pretty refreshing.

 Over the last few months my sister and I have been watching The Orville on Disney+. She hadn't seen season 2 before, so it was fun watching her reactions to each episode, particularly as we towards the end of the season and episodes like "Identity" came up. Last night we watched the two part season finale. I'll be talking about that over on Josh's Movie Review Corner on Friday, but the reason I mention it here is because Brad showed up last week with some comics for me. Two of them were both issues of The Orville: Digressions, which takes place in the alternate timeline created when past Kelly turned down a second date from Ed due to the memory wipe Claire performed on her at the end of episode 13. It basically tells the story of what happened in this timeline leading up to where we see Ed and Gordon at the beginning of episode 14. Issue one starts with the ending of episode 13 and continues through the first season of the show, with differences in the crew of the Orville. I'm not going to go into spoilers here since that's not the point of this post. It was a good start though.

Issue #2 starts from the point of "Identity, Part 1" and continues right through until the point where Kelly has gathered the main timeline's crew of the Orville aside from Bortus, Isaac, Ed, and Gordon before the beginning of episode 14. If you've watched the show then you know the ending of this comic, so there's a scene where Ed and Gordon are on Epsilon Eridani Station, which Ed mentioned in episode 14, covering the station's personnel's evacuation and over the comm you here "Kaylon troops have entered the station! Kaylon troops have entered---" and then Gordon says to Ed, "Come on, that's it. We gotta go. You did your job" and they leave. Kinda sounds like in The Empire Strikes Back where Han, Leia and Threepio are still in the command center of Echo Base and you hear, "Imperial troops have entered the base! Imperial troops have entered---" and Han says to Leia, "Come on, that's it" and they leave. It's not surprising since everybody working on The Orville are a bunch of geeks and David A. Goodman, one of the show's writers, writes these comics. So there was bound to be some homage to Star Wars either on the show or in these comics.

I already did a review of Titans United #1 so I'm not going to talk about it much more here. But, it was a good issue and I read it again after I posted my review of it last week. There's just something about these characters that just draws you into their story, no matter how old you are and no matter what era you're reading them in. I've always loved the Teen Titans. At least, ever since the animated series was on TV in the mid 2000s. So it's just fun getting to read the comics, even the ones being published in 2021.

 I Am Batman #1 was a completely didn't experience. I was so confused by the end of it because I had no idea what was going on and so I felt like I was missing something. It turns out, I am. This is another comic that Brad bought for me last week but he didn't realize, and neither did I, that there was a Zero Issue that came out before this and this issue isn't written for people to pick up if they haven't read the Zero Issue. I'm not a big fan of what DC has been doing with Batman these days. It's been so convoluted, especially since Batman didn't get a complete reboot like most DC characters got at the beginning of the New 52 back in 2011, that I just can't keep up with all of it. And this issue didn't really help with that either. I do like Olivier Coipel's artwork in this issue though. It's pretty decent. I just don't have much to say about this new Batman since, well, I don't actually know who he is.

However, later in the week I read the Batman Free Comic Book Day 2021 issue that Brad dropped off for me a few weeks ago. It had a preview of I Am Batman #0 in it and it explains that the new Batman is actually Lucius Fox's son, Jace. It's also a spin-off of Batman: Second Son, a four issue mini-series that just ended a month or two ago (the final issue's cover date is September 2021 and cover dates are usually two months ahead of the actual publication date). Which is fine, I don't mind that. But I should've been able to pick up I Am Batman #1 and read it without any sort of confusion. I shouldn't have to go digging for information that SHOULD'VE been in the issue itself. But that's comic books for you.

I absolutely love Superman: Son of Kal-El #1. Particularly that cover which is homaging the cover for the original Superman #1 that was published in 1939, a year after Superman's debut in 1938's Action Comics #1. I admit that I've never read any of Super Sons nor have I read alot with John Kent in it. But I've enjoyed what I've read of the character so far and I love that he's Superman in this new book. It just feels better than having Batman being Lucius Fox's son, who has no ties to Batman whatsoever. At least not in any of the Batman comics I've ever read. And I love that the new Superman is learning the ropes despite being the son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, and has been a superhero in his own right alongside Damian Wayne in Super Sons. Despite the fact that Damian Wayne is far from being my favourite Robin, mainly because most of the time it feels like he's trying to be Red Hood Jr, rather than Robin, I actually really like him in this issue as well as the conversation between him and John that takes place WHILE they're fighting ninjas who are after Damian (no surprise there). It's just a fun issue and one I highly recommend you pick up if you haven't already.

I've never played Fortnite and I don't know much about it. And this special Batman Day issue doesn't actually tell me anything about the game either. Batman somehow finds himself in that world, with basically no memory of who he is. That's the issue. Not the whole issue as this is just a preview issue for the longer graphic novel, Batman Fortnite: Zero Point. I know the title isn't actually referring this, but the title sums up how I feel about this book. There is zero point to it. I'm sure fans of Fortnite will enjoy it, but if you don't know these characters, this is just another pointless DC crossover with another property similar to Justice League/Power Rangers or Star Trek/Green Lantern. Just from this issue's front cover I see there are alot of weird looking characters in Fortnite.

The final issue for this week, and the second Batman Day issue, is actually a pretty cool concept, Batman: Knightwatch. It's basically Batman, Nightwing, and Batgirl fighting crime in Gotham City based on tips they get on the Knightwatch Network. like a neighbourhood watch, but citywide and keyed directly to the Batcave and the Bat Family's cell phones and other technology. Kind of like Oracle's pre-New 52 network of contacts all over the world. It's alot lighter than most Batman books tend to be these days, which makes it refreshing. I'm sure it's just a goofy little one off but I would love it if they actually did an entire series based on this premise. The story is cool and the artwork is pretty great. In fact it actually reminds me of the artwork in the Batman comics of the late '90s and early 2000s. So that's fun. 

Honestly the only comic I can't really recommend of the ones that I read this week is I Am Batman #1 as it does a poor job of explaining who the new Batman is for people who didn't read the Zero Issue, and you basically need to have kept up with the last two years of Batman comics to really follow what's going on. The rest though are definitely worth checking out though. Including the Batman Fortnite book.

That's it for this week's comic book wrap-up. Next week I'll have a better mix of old and new(ish) comics as well as a trade paperback collected edition. So stay tuned for that. In the meantime please pop over to Josh's Movie Review Corner on Friday where I'll be talking about the movies and shows that I watched this past week. So until then have a great week and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Titans United #1 (2021) Comic Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I'm back with a comic book review. This week I am going to be reviewing a brand new comic book, Titans United #1 by Cavan Scott with pencils by Jose Luis and inks by Jonas Trindade. So let's get into it.

Titans United #1 is a great issue to take a peek into modern comics again, after not being able to keep up with comics on a regular basis in about four years. It brings memories of reading Devin Grayson's Titans from the early 2000s as well as some classic issues of Marv Wolfman and George Perez's New Teen Titans because of the tone. And while the team in this book has some similarities to the teams from both of those books, this team is actually the team shown in the third season of the TV show, which I've only seen the first episode of season 1 so far. Trust me I will be getting to it ASAP. You have Dick Grayson/Nightwing, in his classic Nightwing costume from the late '90s and the 2000s, Jason Todd/Red Hood who is a jerk, Donna Troy with no code name, Rachel Roth/Raven, Koriand'r/Starfire, Conner Kent/Superboy, and Garfield Logan/Beast Boy, with Henry Hall/Hawk, and Dawn Granger/Dove appearing at the end of the issue.

The basic plot of the story, without spoilers, is that a dude spontaneously starts using the powers of the Titans on the streets of San Francisco. But when the Titans try to stop him Superboy's powers fizzle out and the rest of the team is outmatched by their own abilities. Which isn't new since we've seen it with the Avengers, the Power Rangers, the Justice League when they've fought Amazo, when Spider-Man has fought Venom, and when Superman has fought other Kryptonians. So it's nothing new in comics or in superhero fiction in general. But it's interesting because I don't think the Titans have ever faced that sort of threat before in their long history. To be fair, I haven't read EVERY Teen Titans comic ever published, but I have read a decent amount of them over the years and I haven't read an issue where this has been done before. So it was cool to read.

Oh man, Jason Todd is unbearably annoying with his attitude in this issue. It's funny in a way, because that's how I remember Jason being all the way back in the comics from the '80s when he was Robin in the post-Crisis continuity. Of course it's that unlikeability which led to people voting to kill him off in Batman #'s 427 and 428. But you know, DC's not going to do that again when he's been a popular character since he returned as Red Hood in 2005. Not to mention from what I've heard about it, Jason is a major character on Titans. 

This is a great issue. Like I said at the beginning it felt like I was reading Devin Grayson's Titans or Wolfman and Perez's New Teen Titans because the tone is so similar. I haven't kept up with much of what DC has been doing recently because alot of it hasn't been stuff I've been interested in. Particularly since Green Arrow is not being published right now, and the stuff they've been doing with Batman has been ridiculous. But I did enjoy this issue and I hope to get the rest of this series. Titans United is a seven issue limited series, so I should be able to either pick up all of the issues or at the very least get the trade paperback when it comes out, because this was great. 

Alright my friends that's going to be it for me for today. Stay tuned for alot more comic book stuff coming your way because The Review Basement is becoming a comic book centric blog. Comic book reviews, comic book based movie and TV show reviews, and discussions about comic books will all be here. So stay tuned because I'll be back next week with another comic book topic. Until then, have a great week and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

My Favourite Fictional Couple of All Time (Who Aren't Riker and Troi)

 Hey everyone! How're your weekends going so far? Mine's actually been pretty good so far. Tonight I was sitting at my laptop, checking out Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and the stats on Josh's Movie Review Corner, and for some reason I began to think about my favourite fictional romantic couples. Riker and Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Uncle Jesse and Becky from Full House, DJ and Steve from Fuller House, and Emma and Sean from Degrassi: The Next Generation are some of my favourites. However, apart from Corran Horn and Mirax Terrik from the Star Wars: X-Wing novel series and Frank Hardy and Callie Shaw from The Hardy Boys, I don't have alot of favourite romantic couples from novels. However there is one fictional romantic couple that is my all time favourite and that is Rachel and Tobias from Animorphs. Both the book series AND the short-lived late '90s Nickelodeon live action TV show adaptation. So let's talk about why I love Rachel and Tobias, and why I love their romantic pairing. There will be some spoilers for both the books and the TV show, so be aware of that. Also, apologies for using an image of the TV versions of the characters, but there really aren't any images of just Rachel and Tobias together that are from the books and I didn't want to use fan art for it either.

One of the things that makes Rachel and Tobias's relationship so unique is that, unlike Riker and Troi and Corran and Mirax, who all met during the course of their careers in either Starfleet or the Alliance Military, depending on the couple you're talking about, Rachel and Tobias met before they were thrust into a war against alien invaders. They met when they still just ordinary kids. The TV show makes it a little more obvious than the books do that there's an attraction between Rachel and Tobias from the very beginning. Mainly because Jake is the narrator of the first book and he wouldn't necessarily have picked up on it. Though books 2 AND 3 begin to hint at it slightly as Rachel narrates book 2 and Tobias narrates book 3. While the TV show doesn't allow you to get into the characters's heads like the books do, there are a few visual cues and cues within dialogue that show, at least on Rachel's side, there's an attraction between them. Particularly in Episode 3, "Underground" which has a cute scene between them as Tobias walks home with Rachel after the group's meeting at Jake's house. After Rachel's sister Sara takes a picture of them together, they give each other this cute little smile, which is pretty adorable.

In the books though, Rachel and Tobias don't really get together until Tobias regains his morphing powers and gains his original Human form as a morph in book 13 The Change. They hang out before that and fly around with Rachel in her Bald Eagle morph, but they don't actually acknowledge it as dating until The Change. Regardless though, Rachel and Tobias kind of act as anchors for each other. Rachel acts as Tobias's anchor so he doesn't lose himself in his trapped Hawk body. Tobias acts as an anchor for Rachel so that she doesn't lose herself to her more violent tendencies that were brought to the forefront in the early days of the war with the Yeerks. In a way they need each other to tether them to the world they came from and to allow each other to still act like ordinary people from time to time.

You can see the progression of their relationship as in pretty much every Rachel book and every Tobias book, starting with book 13, the book starts and ends with a Rachel and Tobias date scene basically. Mostly in the Tobias books, but the Rachel books seem to end with her going to see Tobias, after book 22 The Solution. It's been a long time since I read Animorphs beyond the first six books so I don't remember for sure if what I just said in this paragraph makes sense or if I pulled it out of thin air.

While the TV show hints at an attraction between them in the very first episode, it isn't until Episode 16, "Tobias", that we see just how deep their bond really goes. In the episode we see that Rachel is the first person Tobias met when he arrived at school, not long before the kids meet Elfangor. And then later, when it shows offscreen moments from the second episode it shows that Rachel and Tobias confiding in each other about their fears concerning their roles within the Animorphs. Which we really don't see much of in the books, because we're already getting the narrating character's thoughts in each book. It's almost a plot device for the audience to be able to get some exposition about how the characters feel, but in a way it inadvertently builds the relationship between the TV show versions of Rachel and Tobias, who are slightly different characters there since the show never delves into the darker aspects that the books explored. Particularly with the books after the first fourteen had come out.

The question I would like to ask is, would Rachel and Tobias have fallen in love with each other and gotten together if the war with the Yeerks HADN'T happened for them? Actually, the answer is simple. No, they would not have. As we saw in Megamorphs book 4, Back to Before, as well as the episode, "Not My Problem", if the war with the Yeerks hadn't happened for them, Rachel and Tobias wouldn't've interacted as much. 

In the book, which actually came out after the episode had aired, Tobias would've ended up as a Controller as he would've joined the Sharing and been infested not long after, and Rachel would've ended up with Marco instead. In the TV episode, Rachel is the one who became a Controller, while Tobias is the only one to meet Elfangor and get the power to morph, becoming an Animorph. I think trying to answer the question of, would they have gotten together if the Yeerks hadn't invaded Earth at all? is a bit more difficult. For the books, I honestly don't think so, because, while they knew of each other prior to the events of the first book, they didn't really interact with each other before joining Jake, Cassie, and Marco at the mall to go home through the construction site.

For the TV show it's a little bit harder to tell. As we saw in the episode, "Tobias", Rachel and Tobias did interact with each other before they helped Jake, Cassie, and Marco find Jake's dog, Homer, who'd run away from the mall, with the kids giving chase in the first episode. So who knows, maybe they would've eventually, but maybe not as quickly as they did in the show itself.

I have two favourite scenes between Rachel and Tobias. The first is at the end of the first episode of season 2, "Face Off, Part 3". The Animorphs and Ax are at the Cyber-Cafe at the mall, after their major battle in the Yeerk Pool. As Rachel had morphed a Yeerk and had gone into Tobias's head, Tobias asks her if she'd learned anything about him while she was inside there, meaning, he wanted to know if she discovered his feelings for her. After they talk about how scared Rachel had been being morphed as a Yeerk, she asks him what the thing was he didn't want her to know in that late '90s/early 2000s way that we've seen on TV hundreds of times. We never get Tobias's answer because it cuts to commercials, or the next scene if you're watching it on iTunes, but it's still a cute scene between them.

The second scene, which I took this post's image from, happens at the end of the series finale, "Changes, Part 3". The Animorphs and Ax are once again at the Cyber-Cafe, though this time it's because their school dance was ruined due to the Yeerks. Tobias shows up, as he'd been occupied learning about his father, turns on the jukebox, because a Cyber-Cafe in the year 2000 had a jukebox, and asks Rachel to dance. She accepts, of course, and they dance. That's it. That's why I love that scene. It's just a romantic couple dancing. I love scenes like that in TV shows and movies. Particularly ones like Power Rangers, Animorphs, and other shows where teenagers have hidden extraordinary tasks, like being a superhero or working on a Federation starship (still salty about Wesley Crusher not getting enough normal teenager stuff on Star Trek: The Next Generation).

When it comes right down to it, the reason Rachel and Tobias are my favourite fictional couple of all time is because they're ordinary kids, with extraordinary circumstances and despite the dark turn their lives take by the end of the books, Rachel and Tobias love each other and find solace in each other's company which is all too rare when you're fighting an army of aliens bent on your enslavement and destruction of your planet. 

That my friends is it for me for tonight. I will be back on Monday where I'll finally be doing my overview of the various trade paperback editions I've had for Batman: Knightfall. So until then have a great rest of your weekend, and a great night and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Star Trek's 25th Anniversary...30 Years Later

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing quite well. Please excuse my absence from The Review Basement this last week, I've been busy establishing the new movie review blog, Josh's Movie Review Corner. To all of you Trekkies reading this, Happy Star Trek Day! Today I'm going to take you back to 1991, when Star Trek was celebrating it's 25th Anniversary. I'll be talking about where I was in 1991 and where Star Trek was as a franchise. So let's go back in time and talk about Star Trek's 25th Anniversary, 30 years ago.

This logo was on everything in 1991. Posters, books, comics, videocassette boxes, toys, and video game boxes all had this logo on them throughout the entire year. I actually had several items with this logo on them. Including a set of trading cards from Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. I actually still have those cards in a binder down here in the basement. I might do a separate post on them at another time, but right now, I had them and that's all I'll say about them. I was in and out of the hospital at this point in my life. With more and more time being spent in the hospital again than out of it. Which meant I was spending alot of time watching TV and movies. However, during the summer of 1991 I had a very special visitor at the hospital. Nichelle Nichols was in Ottawa for a Star Trek convention, celebrating the 25th Anniversary as well as the release of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Anyway, I wasn't able to go so they brought the convention to me instead. I got my Nintendo Game Boys, the Star Trek 25th Anniversary game for said Game Boy (more on that and Star Trek VI in a bit), and some TNG figures from Galoob that came out in 1988 from Nichelle, and she showed me the final trailer for Star Trek VI as well as a reel from TNG's first four seasons that was shown to promote the fifth season, which was just about to start. Now, let's talk about what came out for Star Trek at the time to commemorate the event.

Star Trek: The Next Generation was going strong on TV at the time of Star Trek's 25th Anniversary. Not only did it air it's 100th episode at the beginning of 1991, but went into it's fifth season in September, 1991. In my opinion the fifth season is the show's strongest season and the one I remember seeing the most episodes of as they aired in 1991 and 1992. Commercials for the show were everywhere, people had posters all over the place, there were stickers, trading cards, books, and comics available for the series as well. TNG was everywhere.

As mentioned earlier, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was released in 1991 as a farewell to the cast of the original Star Trek as the vast majority of them would be retiring from those roles though Leonard Nimoy would return as Spock in the two part TNG episode "Unification", which actually aired before Star Trek VI came out, and again in 2009 in Star Trek and 2013 in Star Trek Into Darkness, James Doohan would return as Scotty in the TNG season 6 episode "Relics" and in the 1994 feature film, Star Trek Generations, William Shatner and Walter Koenig would return as Kirk and Chekov respectively in Generations, and George Takei would return as Hikaru Sulu in the 30th anniversary tribute episode, "Flashback" during the third season of Star Trek: Voyager.

1991 was also the year that Paramount requested that Rick Berman and Michael Piller put together a TNG spin-off series to begin airing in January, 1993. That series would become Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and would go on to do things that very few, if any, TV shows did at the time. Particularly if they were airing in first run syndication as both TNG was doing and DS9 would do. I don't think DS9 was announced to the public until 1992, or very late 1991 at the earliest. I'm pretty sure that that's when it was.

In celebration of the 25th Anniversary the first five Star Trek feature films were re-released on home video with new packaging. They were sold individually as well as in the Star Trek: The Movies - 25th Anniversary Collector's Set box set that I talked about in a previous post. Of course this is how I saw these movies for the first time. They re-used the packaging for the 1993 box set that included the home video release of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, which is the set my dad would eventually get.

Star Trek: The Next Generation would also start coming out on home video in 1991. The first releases were the initial Columbia House Video Library releases that contained two to three episodes per tape. After that Paramount Home Video began releasing the series on home video with one episode per tape, starting with "Encounter at Farpoint" on September 5th 1991. Of course I had the first two volumes of the Columbia House releases as well as most of the first season of TNG in the Paramount Home Video releases when I was a kid. TOS had previously been released on home video, but this was the first time that TNG was being released.

Star Trek - The Astral Symphony was an audio collection of select tracks from the soundtracks of the first five Star Trek movies that was released on CD and audiotape in 1991. The cover art was designed to match the box art for the Star Trek movie VHS releases. I never had this collection. I knew about it because of a preview for it on some of the latter season 1 TNG VHS tapes before the episodes. 

The aforementioned Game Boy game was released too. There were versions for the Nintendo Entertainment System as well as versions for the computer. I have the Game Boy game still, but I remember playing one of the computer versions. I think it was the DOS version that I played at the hospital. I don't remember for sure though. 

Finally, on the week of September 28th 1991, Star Trek 25th Anniversary Special hosted by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy aired on TV. It would get a VHS release in 1992, but this was a TV special that celebrated Star Trek's 25th Anniversary and went behind the scenes on Star Trek VI. I have the special on VHS and it's a pretty fun watch. I did a review of it either late last year or early this year on this blog, so go check it out if you haven't done so already.

It's amazing to see how Star Trek was 30 years ago. Back then there were five movies, with a sixth one on the way, two live action TV shows, with a third one on the way, and a barely acknowledged animated series. There was no internet, no streaming services, and no DVD or Blu-ray box sets. The only way you could watch Star Trek is either on TV or if you were lucky and were able to get either the Collector's Edition or Paramount Home Video VHS releases of each series. Or if you were REALLY lucky you were able to tape each episode of TNG as it aired. Nowadays you have every series on DVD, you have all but two of them on Blu-ray, you have all the movies on Blu-ray, all of the shows and movies on streaming services and the classic shows from the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s and 2000s are still being shown on TV. Plus there's the internet. Not to mention you have 13 movies (with a 14th and possibly a 15th on the way), you have a total of nine Star Trek shows to watch, with two more on the way, and over 800 episodes to watch. I don't think I can name another franchise that has that much to watch.

I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow over on Josh's Movie Review Corner with a review of Cruella. So head on over there tomorrow for that. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

20 Years is a Long Time...

 Hey everyone! How're your weekends going? Mine's been pretty quiet so far. I posted my catch up review for What If...? over on Josh's Movie Review Corner and the weather is really nice today. Which is a bonus. So this post is going to be something a little bit different. I'm going to be talking about my first day of high school, which I was on my way home from at this exact time, on this day, 20 years ago. So let's get into it.

On Tuesday, September 4th, 2001, I started high school. I was 14 years old and couldn't wait to get away from middle school. That had been a miserable two years despite having some really good teachers both years. It was my classmates who were the problem. Puberty turned them into real jerks and I ended up not getting along with the vast majority of them even though I wanted to really badly.

It's funny because going into high school I had ideas in my head about how it would go. My friend, Andrew, was already at the school because even though we're the same age, I was in the grade behind him. So I already had one friend at the school going in, with my other friend, Garrett, joining us the following year as he was in the grade behind me. I knew that Andrew had a girlfriend so I figured it'd be me, him, her, and one other girl with maybe one other guy to make a group of five, with Garrett joining us later to make a group of six. A nice, round, number to make a Power Rangers team. Of course, I didn't say THAT part outloud considering it was 2001, not 2011, and people would look at me weird, if they weren't already doing so because of my wheelchair and the fact that I had two backpacks, with one that had a tube coming out of it, with the other end connected to me. So I figured that that's how high school would go, because TV and movies promised me that that's how it would be. Surprisingly, for the first few weeks that's how it looked like it would be for me too. After that things took a drastic turn and when I got back to school after I had surgery to repair my left foot (as much as possible anyway) I found I had a group of ten or more people to hang out with which was bizarre.

Anyway, on that first day of school I connected with Andrew before going into the school and once inside, we met Claire, who was Andrew's girlfriend at the time, and a friend of theirs named Simon. I actually didn't get to spend much time with them that day because I had grade nine orientation activities going on for most of the morning and into the lunch hour. I ended up meeting a ton of grade 12 students because the grade 12s were basically leading the grade nine orientation activities, and would also end up sitting with some of them at lunchtime that day. One of the girls was actually a neighbour of mine, who lived on the street behind my place, though I didn't know her from my neighbourhood since she was older than I am.

Going back a little bit to homeroom, Andrew and I were in the same homeroom for the first month or two and then my homeroom teacher moved us into another classroom after that for whatever reason and that's where I stayed for that period until my final year or two of high school. I had a surprise waiting for me. One of the girls in my homeroom, who was about the same age as the grade 12s that I met later in the day, was someone I'd actually known at Greely Elementary School back in grade 2 or grade 3. Her name was Melissa and I knew her from there. So I ended up sitting with her most mornings, until one particular morning, but I'll get into that another time.

Looking back on that day, it was really overwhelming because I was at a new school, which was bigger than either school I'd been to prior to this, I had new teachers, which rotated every day seen as how I had a different teacher for each class, and new classmates. Plus I stood out like a sore thumb because I was the only person in the entire school who used a wheelchair. So everyone knew who I was, even if I didn't know them. Which was bizarre, but something I was used to since it was that way at Greely Elementary School. Heck, Claire and Simon knew who I was before I met them, because Andrew talked about me apparently. What helped me get over the feeling of being overwhelmed was having Andrew, Claire, and Simon there with me, and that group of grade 12s being friendly helped as well. I remember being tired when I got home, luckily I didn't have any homework to deal with that night. 

Then again, if I'd known what struggles would be coming my way over the next five years, I might not have been as excited as I was to start high school. I survived though and made some lifelong friends along the way, so that was a bonus. That would come later though as I have a few more milestones coming up in the next few weeks to talk about too. 

That my friends is it for me for today. I might be back tomorrow or Monday to post details on how I'm going to handle both blogs. In the meantime go check out my latest post over on Josh's Movie Review Corner, where I reviewed the first four episodes of What If...?. I'll post the link down below. Until then have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Josh's Movie Review Corner Link:

https://joshsmoviereviewcorner.wordpress.com/2021/09/04/what-if-episodes-1-4-review/

A Look Back at a Rather Unusual Computer Game

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Thursday. It's actually gotten cooler outside and I'm wearing pants (instead of shorts) for the first time since like May. So that's a bit of a change from what has been the norm for the summer. Today I'm actually going to be taking a look at a computer game that I had when I was a kid that I don't think very many people have heard about. It's called Geoffrey Goes to the Fair for Windows 95 and Windows 98. So let's get into it.

The impetus for this blog post is that I actually found a playthrough of this game on YouTube. It blew my mind because for years I thought my siblings and I, along with people who were in my class in grade 3, where the only people who knew about it due to our unique connection to it, which I'll be getting into in a few minutes. Yet, due to that playthrough, it appears that more people know about it than I thought. Which is really cool.

Geoffrey Goes to the Fair is a children's activity game based around Geoffrey Giraffe, the mascot of Toys "R" Us, which is amazingly still a thing here in Canada, and is set at a typical country fair that some of us grew up with. There's a clown where you can get balloon animals from, an ice cream sundae tent, a train you can ride on, fair games, a haunted house, a stage where there are sing-along songs, and a ride along train where you learn colours. It's sort of like the mini-games section in the first Pokemon Stadium for the Nintendo 64 or all of the mini-games in the Mario Party franchise. It has very early 3-D graphics that actually rival the best early games that were released for the Nintendo 64. Oh and all the characters are anthropomorphic animals. 

My siblings and I played this game all the time. We took turns of course, but it was alot of fun. However, we got it in 1996, and we didn't have a compatible computer to play it on until 1998, so for two years the only place we could actually play it was at our grandparents's place up at the lake. Then, during the winter of 1998, including during the ice storm that happened in January of that year, my dad had a laptop for work that he brought home and had with him during the ice storm when he couldn't go to work. So, we played it on that laptop. Then sometime in 2000, we got a computer that we could actually run the game on. And we did play it until I was in high school, so 2001-2002 is probably the last time I remember playing the game. 

The reason we even had this game in the first place is because my special education teacher in grades 2 and 3, Mr. Burke, voiced several characters in the game. He voiced the clown that I mentioned earlier as well as several of the characters in the haunted house. I think he also voiced one of the Monkeys that operated the fair games or the one that operated the train ride mini-game. I know he definitely voiced the clown and a few of the characters in the haunted house. I was in grade 3 when the game was going to come out and my parents bought it from him. I don't even remember how much it was or anything like that, but I remember that we got it specially from him. Which was pretty cool.

My favourite mini-game was the ice cream sundae one. The idea of it is that you had to serve as many ice cream sundaes within a particular amount of time while getting the orders right by listening to the Penguin who was the ice cream parlour guy. Though I messed up a few times because I let go of the mouse before I had finished dragging the ice cream or toppings to the ice cream cup. To those of you who know me in real life, particularly two friends of mine, you know that dropping ice cream is nothing new. So the fact there was a game where I dropped ice cream when I was a kid, and couldn't even eat ice cream, is impressive. Lol.

That's all I have to say about the game. I thought it was cool seeing the playthrough and wanted to talk about the game itself because, well, it's one that I played alot when I was a kid and one I've been hoping to talk about on the blog for a while. That's all.

That's gonna be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow to talk about the trade paperback releases that I had for Batman: Knightfall. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Only Murders in the Building (2021) Episodes 1-3 Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I didn't really have anything to post  on Monday or Tuesday which is why I didn't post anything on either of those days. Today on the other hand, I've got the first three episodes of a new show that's on Hulu in the US and on Disney+ here in Canada, called Only Murders in the Building to talk about. This is a spoiler free review so don't worry about that if you haven't watched the show. So let's get into it.

I only heard about Only Murders in the Building last night right before I decided to watch it. I was on Twitter and there was an ad for it as I was scrolling through, catching up on the people I follow. Being that I don't watch alot of new stuff on Disney+ outside of Star Wars and Marvel, I wasn't paying attention to this show at all, as I didn't even know it was coming out. So I logged onto Disney+, saw that the first three episodes of the series dropped yesterday (it's a Tuesday show), and saw they were only about 36 minutes each in length and settled in for the night. It was so good. I'm not a big fan of murder mysteries because I tend to figure it out before the characters do, be it novels, comics, movies or TV shows. I mean, yes, I like old mystery novels like The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, but generally the mysteries are fairly easy to figure out once all the suspects have been revealed. There were only one, maybe two, episodes of Castle where I was just as stumped as Castle and Beckett were.

The premise of the show is there are three True Crime podcast fans who live in the Arconia, a high end apartment building in New York City who find themselves investigating an actual murder when one of their neighbours is killed during a fire alarm that caused the evacuation of the entire building. They also start their own True Crime podcast. The three leads are Charles (played by Steve Martin), Oliver (played by Martin Short), and Mabel (played by Selena Gomez). Charles is a retired actor, Oliver is a Broadway director who made a mistake fifteen years ago that cost him any chance to direct another show ever again, and Mabel is a young artist who is renovating her aunt's apartment at the Arconia. 

One of my favourite things about this show is that it's a comedy, but it plays itself straight. Almost like the way the 1966 Batman TV series did. But, it's not campy like Batman and Star Trek: The Original Series are. It feels more like The Dukes of Hazzard, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, and Murder, She Wrote. It's fun, but doesn't let the humour overtake the show. 

Speaking of The Hardy Boys, there's a huge connection between this show and that book series. Mabel read The Hardy Boys with her friends when she was a kid and pretended to solve mysteries like Frank and Joe did in the books. On top of that they show actual books from The Hardy Boys Mystery Series (the original series) in the show. They're all the blue spine, revised text, versions, which I talked about in a previous blog post, as well as the plastic cover reprints from '80s and early '90s, though the original revised text versions from the '50s, '60s, and '70s are prominent in these three episodes. Which was a huge draw for me when I was watching the first episode, which is all I'd intended to watch when I put the show on last night.

I'm not a huge fan of Martin Short even though he's in several movies that I've seen over the years, but what immediately made me want to see what this show was about was Steve Martin as I have seen him in many movies over the years and enjoy his work quite a bit (my favourite being Cheaper by the Dozen). The surprise for me however was Selena Gomez. I watched Wizards of Waverly Place a few times when it was on in the late 2000s and early 2010s because my sister was watching it and even though I was in college and working my butt off, I always tried to make time to hang out with my sister, which meant occasionally watching Wizards of Waverly Place and iCarly and possibly Hannah Montana and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody/The Suite Life on Deck. But, I remember Selena from Wizards of Waverly Place and was impressed with her acting but I didn't really follow her career after that. I didn't have much interest in that second generation of Disney Channel stars that started filtering in in the mid to late 2000s like Miley Cyrus, Cole & Dylan Sprouse, Zac Efron, and Ashley Tisdale so even though I watched Wizards of Waverly Place from time to time, I wasn't hugely familiar with Selena Gomez. Though I did find out that both she and Demi Lovato were on Barney & Friends in the early 2000s, long after I'd stopped watching that show.

I was used to Selena playing sarcastic characters as her character on Wizards of Waverly Place was quite sarcastic, but what surprised me about her character on this show, Mabel, is that she can play mysterious quite well. She's not letting Charles and Oliver in on her secret connection to Tim Kono, the murder victim, or that she knows more about the possible reason for the murder than she lets on. As the audience, we know though and I find it fascinating to watch it all unfold. 

The best part of this show, for me anyway, is that it's not formulaic. It's not like the police procedurals that have dominated the airwaves for decades. There's only been three episodes so far, but I haven't been able to figure out who murdered Tim Kono. When The Hardy Boys was on I figured out that Frank and Joe's grandmother had something to do with why their mother was killed pretty early on in the season and I had a work in progress theory as to who the actual murderer was. With this though, I have no clue. There's at least one suspect that I believe it could be, but I'm not 100% sure. In fact I'm not even 10% sure about it. Mainly because the show isn't predictable.

Overall, Only Murders in the Building is a fantastic show so far. I'm actually excited to find out what's going to happen next. I love the characters, especially Mabel, and I love the connection to the The Hardy Boys book series. If you like comedies and murder mysteries you're gonna love this show. I highly recommend you watch it. It's on Hulu in the US and on Disney+ here in Canada. 

And that my friends is it for me for today. I'll probably be back tomorrow with another post. I've got a cool one planned. Two actually. One for tomorrow and one for Friday, though I might wait until next week. We'll see though. In the meantime have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.