The Twilight People SHOULDN'T Hate

--If you don't care about back story and just want the meat of this article, skip this paragraph.--
In the nineties DC was facing times of dropped sales in some of their Silver Age titles due to younger audiences not really caring about the characters. One of these characters was Hal Jordan. So DC decided to introduce a NEW Green Lantern for the kiddies (Kyle Rayner for those who aren't aware) but needed to somehow do away with the current one. How did they do this? By making good ol' Hal go absolutely crazy and evil, that's how. The three part series EMERALD TWILIGHT begins with Green Lantern vol. 4 issue 48, following the aftermath of the destruction of Hal's city by Cyborg Superman and Mongul (you can Wikipedia that if you need more). Hal is grief-stricken and begins losing it. He starts creating constructs of his deceased parents, and eventually remakes his whole city. The "Guardians" of the Universe see this as a breach of protocol and drain his ring, pissing off Jordan to the point where he goes to their planet, killing any fellow comrade who gets in his way. After which he slams into the Power Battery of the Green Lanterns and destroys it, becoming the villain known as Parallax.

Emerald Twilight has been faced with extreme criticism over the years because it turned a hero that's been around for decades into a villain in only three issues, then introduced a useless pretty boy to take his place. Even now a mass majority of readers say Emerald Twilight was the worst thing to ever happen to the Green Lantern series. Here is where I disagree. Sure, if I grew up reading Silver Age Hal Jordan and then one day he just turns evil I *may* have been a little upset, but to continue that after seeing the current GL universe is completely unnecessary. Geoff Johns has taken that story and turned it into the springboard for literally EVERYTHING that has occurred in the past few years. Parallax turned out to be the entity of Fear, corrupting Hal to be a host, leading to the fallen Green Lantern Sinestro to use that yellow power of Fear to make his own corps, the introduction of the other color emotional corps, and so on. So yeah, A LOT of people hate Emerald Twilight, but to not at least accept that without it, all the great stories fans have now would probably not exist. I leave those people with two options: A world where Hal never went evil and the universe is different in every way nowadays, or have one hiccup in continuity, but use it to make a great run in the future. I for one, take the second option.

Top 5 games of the 20-10

Alright let's get this done.




5) MAG (Massive Action Game)



It's Call Of Duty on a gigantic scale. And I mean GIGANTIC. up to 256-person matches and pretty decent character customization, it was one of the better game purchases I made this year.





4) Pokemon SoulSilver



It's a remake of Pokemon Silver. If you need more reasoning beyond that for it to be on this list, go step on a rake and get hit in the face.





3) Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty



I could say the same thing about this: it's a freakin' Starcraft sequel. As Tychus says, "Hell, it's about time."
But I guess I'll go into more detail: It look fantastic, has a great story with better campaign choices than its predecessor, and this is only the first of 3 games in the Starcraft 2 saga, so I expect great things ahead.





2) Minecraft Beta



Punch trees, get wood. SSSSSSS-BOOM. Nothing further your honor.





1) Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood



This may come as a surprise as my number 1 game of 2010, but I more than believe it deserves the title. The plot that drives the campaign is so much better than the first "half", Assassin's Creed 2, and with added assassination multiplayer, It can even appeal to the drunken frat-boy CoD demographic. Also, the ending. OH BLOODY HELL the ending.


--the end--

Top 6 Scary Videogame Characters

This is mainly my response to Mitch's list, but it also serves to be my newest blog post in how long.

Big Sisters
-Bioshock 2-



Now these girls aren't that frightening in appearance, but that confrontation is quite unsettling. From the music that plays to how bloody fast she is to her plethora of psychic powers, fighting these baddies is not an easy task right away. The Big Sisters only come after you deal with all the Little Sisters in the level so their appearance isn't completely unexpected, but the fight definitely gets the heart pounding and the palms sweating when you have no clue where the dame is coming from.


Alma Wade
-F.E.A.R. Series-



Let's have everyone understand this now. Little girls are creepy. Add one to a horror game and frights are almost assured. Add one to a horror game with psychic powers and things only get worse. Now add a little girl in a horror game with psychic powers who is also REALLY pissed off. That girl is Alma Wade. Now without ruining plot points for the F.E.A.R. games all I'll say is that this is one little girl I would NEVER want to babysit. She can corrupt the world around her, make people see visions of anything, and most horribly she can make people burst into a cloud of blood and turn the bones to dust. Every time I've ever seen her I've either jumped or at the very least said "oh, crap this can't be good."


Creepers
-Minecraft-



Anyone who has ever played Minecraft knows how terribly scary these things are. To anyone who doesn't play Minecraft: 1) shame on you. 2) these are the beasts nightmares are made of.
Final note: SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS


Pyramid Head
-Silent Hill 2-



Well this one is a given. Faceless, backstory-less murdering machine, Pyramid Head holds a high point in just about every list of "scary baddies" ever printed.


The Crusader
-Clive Barker's Jericho-




Well this one was cut a bad break. He's in a trailer for a game that was unfortunately terrible, and worst off that's the ONLY place you'll see this guy, since he isn't even in the game. I'll let the video speak for itself, but despite the negativity The Crusader had to be included because he is just so cool.


Eversion
-Eversion-




This one is interesting because it isn't a single character. This one is an ENTIRE. GAME. Now the first rule for playing this game is that you know nothing about it, so I will not say anything about the game except that nothing is ever as it seems. It's a free download (for Windows only unless you run Wine) and you can find it by simply using Google. So to anyone who wants to see why this is here: go get this game.


This is it for now, I may edit later with more but I think this is a good place to end it.

A Kick-Ass Rant

Kick-Ass. The title is also the easiest way to describe Mark Millar’s 8-issue comic series that ran from February 2008 to the same month this year, 2010. Though some comic readers may have been a little wary about this title (since it isn’t something a teenager could commonly discuss around adults lest they get a death glare or punished [even when discussing it around my mom I have to call it “that ‘super-hero’ movie with Nicolas Cage {not to be confused with Ghost Rider}]) it is definitely worth the read if you don’t have a problem with copious amounts of profanity and an overall R-rated experience. Kick-Ass is what every teenage comic nerd wishes they could be, a powerless kid who still manages to dress up in a ridiculous costume and beat the crap out of bad guys.

WARNING: From here on out, there will be spoilers. So unless you have already seen/read it, or don’t care that I’m going to be ruining major plot elements, turn back now and come back when you have seen it. I’ll still be here, don’t worry.

How many times have you seen a movie based on a book or comic and thought it was better than the source material? Probably not as many times as you’ve seen a really crappy movie adaptation, and unfortunately Kick-Ass falls into the latter category. Before you open up a flame war saying “oh you suck your opinion is wrong blah, blah, blah” take a step back and realize this is just my opinion, and I’m not holding you at gunpoint to read this.

Sure the Kick-Ass comic was profane, sure it was super-violent, and sure there were some elements that were a little perverse, but that’s what you expect going into a book with such a title. Dave (the main character for those of you who skipped my warning) fantasizes dirty things about one of his teachers, and that fact is only mentioned in passing to further understand the kind of person the story’s protagonist is. The movie takes those few sentences and decides to make a completely needless scene visualizing his fantasy, just for the sake of throwing out all cynicism and jumping into the lake of haplessly juvenile. The movie also could have done without the multiple shots of Dave acting on these fantasies at home, another detail that was only mentioned through internal monologue in the comic.

There are several details of the story that were altered in the movie that are forgivable just for the sake of storytelling ease, but there are also a fair amount of completely unnecessary changes that take the suspense of the comic and chuck it out the window. One of the things that made the character of Big Daddy as awesome as he was, was the fact that he wasn’t actually the ex-supercop he raised his daughter (Hit-Girl, again for those ignoring me earlier) to think he was, he was just a comic book nerd to the extreme that wanted his daughter to live an exciting life. The movie took that twist and completely ignoring it, keeping Big Daddy an ex-cop who was a little off the deep end. Another thing that was changed about Big Daddy was how he died. In the comic it was a grotesquely detailed shot to the back of the head, where in the movie he was burned alive. This wasn’t a horrible change, but it leads to my next big problem with a character.

Hit-Girl is a crazy, ultra-violent ten year old who swears worse than a soldier, everything about her character makes the stomachs of the weak churn. The film version of Kick-Ass keeps most of her character the same, which I appreciated, even though she had an incredibly stupid purple wig in the movie. After realizing that her father has been killed, she brushes it to the side saying “mourn later, kill now.” This first comes across as her being completely hollow and crazy until after the last enemy dies, she turns to Kick-Ass with tears running down her face as she asks, “can I have a hug, my daddy just died.” That single frame was immensely sad while at the same time showing her as a real ten year old girl. The movie threw out the drastic change from violent to sweet in exchange for a more human reaction of instant tears. This doesn’t work in context of her character because she isn’t a normal girl, she grew up wanting not a pony or pretty bows, but assault rifles and butterfly knives.

The last major character screw up is an understandable one, but one that was overdone to the point where it ruined the movie for me. Red Mist had the biggest plot twist in the comic, going from Kick-Ass’s biggest fanboy to pulling a gun to the back of his head and leading to Big Daddy’s death. Being introduced as just another costumed hero that just happens to be doing better than Kick-Ass, there was no real suspicion about any ulterior motives on his part, but the movie version of Red Mist has the word “traitor” painted on his costume with bright yellow ink. Being introduced in the film as the son of the main Mobster (he had that introduction in the comic too, it just wasn’t revealed that HE was Red Mist until the betrayal scene) and basically saying to his father in a scene halfway through the movie “hey dad, I’ll pretend to be a superhero too and trap Kick-Ass for you so you’ll love me and not think I’m a useless piece of crap” ruined all surprise in the third act.

The final big change made was the last scene. This scene took the very last shred of hope that I had in the film and burned it to a crisp. The comic ended with Dave helping Hit-Girl find her mom so she could live a normal life as a normal little girl, but the movie ignores this in favor of inserting a JETPACK WITH GATLING GUNS ON IT to end the final fight, then fly off into the sunset happily ever after. What made them decide to put in a JETPACK WITH GATLING GUNS is beyond me, but it was a horrible choice to replace Hit-Girl gaining a childhood with a GATLING GUN JETPACK. The only part of the final scene I like is that they kept Red Mist saying the final line. Only instead of writing a threatening blog post, he’s talking to himself as he shoots a pistol at the camera, not perfect, but acceptable all the same.

This ends my rant on Kick-Ass, note that this is just a comic nerd critiquing yet another bust of a film adaptation so don’t let me stop you from seeing the movie if you really want to.

“As a great man once said, wait until they get a load of me.” – Red Mist talking about The Joker.