The Comic Review #103: Amazing Spider Man: Skating on Thin Ice #1

 

I was originally going to talk about a cartoon that was made by France. And Germany. And British.. And yes, Canada. On a Belgian comic book from the 1980s. (If I somehow got incredibly rich I would bring over so many comic books that didn't have English translations. I really want to read the comic this show was based on AND Cybersix. Why do countries have so much cool shit I can't get too.) I was actually kinda excited to watch it but I cannot. I wanted to do something related to CANADA, THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AND GREATEST COUNTRY OF ALL TIME, so I figured, hey what about that series of comics where Spider-Man goes to Canada! So let's get into this Public Service Announcement comic book five parter (although I'm only talking about the first part today. I will get to the rest of the story another time.) 

This was a comic book that I remember fondly because as a PSA, it was given out to schools and it was in one of the class rooms in my school. Somehow never confiscated from any kid or put away. Just sitting on a shelf. Of course, yours truly would read it all the time. During class. I don't even remember it getting confiscated or put away. I also don't remember any other kids reading it. I guess they wanted to learn. I didn't care because the other kids were mean to me, some of the stuff we had to learn was always hard for me (which caused me to go to SPECIAL ED, yes claw was a SPED as a child. don't really act surprised.)  and I always felt the teacher Mr. Kelly who I seemed to have for SEVERAL GRADES was just mean to me for no reason. I really did not like Mr. Kelly at all.  I'm pretty sure at one point the comic mistakenly fell into my book back. MISTAKENLY and I went home. with it. Mistakenly. And it stayed in my house. Mistakenly. Until it got ruined in a flood. But I loved it. Loved it enough to MISTAKENLY take it home and cherish it.

This was a PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT comic, there are actually a lot of them from the 1980s and I plan to discuss as many of them as possible because I like to talk about the weird and the wild when I talk comic books. This comic was written because some Canadian group wanted it. Marvel got Todd McFarlande to draw the cover. Alex Saviuk to draw the actual comic and Dwayne McDuffie (RIP) to write the first three parts. I never read past the first part as a child and I still have to read parts 3, 4 or 5. I even have them somewhere in this house. Just gathering dust around in my basement. I really should read them but I don't even know where they are. I am so cool aren't I? Anyway I'm glad to get to write this because I finally get to re-read this comic.

We start right in the middle of the Fight between Spider-Man and Electro. I love Electro, even with his crazy costume. He was always fun. Anyway he and Spider-Man are bantering away and Spider-Man gets him on his ass and one of his goons show up and Spider-Man looks at him just long enough for Electro to shoot a lighting bolt at his ass. Electro and the Goon leave while Spider-Man is just unconscious. He wakes up and finds out that Electro is sending Hockey Pucks to........WINNIPEG CANADA??? So he gets J. Jonah Jameson to actually give him money for planet tickets. Spider-Man is going to Canada!

We then go to a community center and we see a black man named Herb Carnegie. I'm pretty sure he is a hockey coach of some kind but I don't want that bit of information to push out a bit of information in my brain about say.......The Snorks or something else. I have mentioned before that I do not care one iota about sports of any kind. I am glad that people get enjoyment out of them, wouldn't take that away from them but I just do not care. Anyway the kid Spider-Man came to interview, Beth, is not very good at Hockey, just fell on her ass. Anyway the main kid of the team, Alan is slacking off. The practice is ended and we see the kids..........SMOKING. OH NO. You see kids you should be like your ol' pal Michael, I never smoked or did any drugs or alcohol like ever! You totally want to be like a man who probably has autism and is going to one day post 2,000 words about the Final Episode of the Snorks. Yeah, actually I'm pretty sure I do have autism. Unlike all the cool shit drug dealers get to do. Be lame like me!!!

Anyway, Spider-Man sees this and is like HELL NO CHILDREN STAY AWAY FROM THAT SHIT. Well no he actually just watches until one kid opens up a hockey puck to find DRUGS in it. Not a bad place to stash drugs actually, Electro's thinkin pretty smart. Anyway the kid gets Alan to take the drugs for free and that's when Spider-Man gets involved swinging away with Alan. To show him something. He shows him his "friend" Ben moving drugs around and selling them. Making money and bringing it back to the main warehouse. Spider-Man tells Alan to stay outside and goes in to take a look. He finds the Hockey Pucks and well Electro! Oh shit while Electro yells at Spider-Man how he left America for Canada to get away from Super heroes. Poor Alpha Flight get no respect from Electro. Anyway Electro's SECRET Partner, Ben and some other kids come out with switch blades to tackle Alan and the other kids.

Electro gets his ass knocked out but his SECRET Partner has the kids and he's not letting them go. He throws knives at Spider-Man after throwing Beth on the ground. Spider-Man webs up all the bad kids in one go because he's a superhero and they are all like weak ass thirteen year olds. The SECRET Partner yells MISSED ME as he jaunts his way out the door. Spider-Man rushes out but only sees a little old lady. He does not listen to his Spider-Sense but we get a great look of a panel that has been seared into my mind. Of an old lady with a giant evil grin on her face. It turns out Electro's SECRET Partner was the Chameleon all along! He gets away as they finally web up Ben the bad kid but Electro has awakened and is ready to fight Spider-Man again, however Alan knocks a puck right in his head so Spider-Man webs him up.  Electro was pretty smart to get out of America but not smart enough to not use something with rubber that like totally messes with his whole power set. Alas.

Alan tells Spider-Man thanks for telling him about substance abuse. Spider-Man then says he won't be here to help the next time so remember what he said. He says this to all the kids but he never took them on a ride around seeing drug related shit like he did with Alan. Anyway Peter Parker watches the kids win the game and then telephones J. Jonah Jameson to say he's going to the BIG SCIENCE FAIR in FREDRICTION, NEW BRUNSWICK (near where I live in Atlantic Canada!) with Beth to write about her and the Big Science Fair. The Daily Bugle is not the most exicting newspaper it turns out. He says that he doesn't think he's done with the MYSTERIOUS MAN who was working with Electro but he if he tries anything to hurt Beth then he's gonna beat his ass. Don't hurt the kids when Spider-Man is around!

FINAL THOUGHTS: Not the most amazing comic. I mean I get the feeling this was kind of a detention assighment kinda thing for everyone involved. Not something they were squirming and rushing to do. Still it is a well told story, Pretty simple but it keeps moving at a good pace. The PSA stuff is done pretty well, comes in naturally as in randomly forced in at the end. Not as amazing as I thought when I would read it in the classroom but holy hot moly was it a lot better than having to listen to Mr. Kelly. Mr Kelly SUCKED.

The Comic Review #102: Spider Man By Zebulon Wells

 

So I was finally interested enough for two reasons. 1.) I'm coming back to trying to review newer comics because I'm kinda over the internet going OH MARVEL IS ALL 100% POOP GARBAGE NOW I HATE IT! Which is exactly why I picked what is considered the worst Spider-Man comics of all time. People HATE this run of Spider-Man with an insane passion divided by 1,000 suns. I get curious when everyone seems to come together and decide to shit all over something. Is it really that bad? Let me put it this way. I'm not exactly jumping in to shitting all over this without saying anything positive but it's mostly not very good. The writer a ZEBULON WELLS did not get deserve to get shit for it, including I believe death threats. I don't know if there's anything worthy of a death threat but I know writing a Spider-Man comic people didn't like is not it. Anyway, I powered through 60 issues and these are mostly my thoughts on them.

1.) The biggest problem is that Marvel editorial is like NO WE WILL NOT HAVE MARY JANE WATSON AND PETER PARKER GET BACK TOGETHER IN ANY WAY. First off that One More Day story, which I still have not read just the whole concept is the dumbest fucking story idea for ANY superhero ever. I know in the Golden Age of Comics they probably had a comic where a man dressed as a Bunny and threw carrots at the bad guys and yes even that is a better story than One More Day. I know Marvel Editorial seems to really want Spider-Man to stay as a weirdo Manbaby but I grew up in that TWENTY YEAR PERIOD where he was Married to MJ and seemed to be getting his life on track. Yeah, I love the stuff before hand but let's let the man be happy finally at least in one area of his life. I love those two together and I really miss that marriage. 

They decided to put her up with Paul, people hate Paul and I can see why but I can't. This character is literally has less personality and charm than one off weirdos from the 1970s like Tapping Tommy, a Tap dancer that worked for Hydra that somehow stopped the Defenders. Yes it's an insane story but it's STILL BETTER THAN HAVING ANY FUCKING HERO (OR THEIR WIFE) MAKE A FUCKING DEAL WITH SATAN WHICH MEPHISTO BASICALLY IS. Getting angry at Paul is like getting angry at a bottle of hand soap. It's fucking pointless. Still they shove in  MJ getting some kids (that lol just disappear) and try to make us care. It really is the worst part of the entire thing. I would tell Marvel Editorial just to stop using the character if all they are going to do is rub salt in the faces of the people who liked the marriage.

One final point is stop having him date anyone. We now know where the story will end totally which is the same, he will not stay with this person. First off because I don't think any of these new characters will ever stack up to Mary Jane Watson and secondly because if he does somehow marry another woman you'll just have Mephisto take away that marriage. I mean it's totally fine just to do it once why not again. Doing that at all just makes any OH NO PETER'S HAVING RELATIONSHIP TROUBLE story boring as hell. We already know the ending. They break up!

2.) Norman Osborn being a good guy is dumb. Real dumb and I liked it a lot when The Sandman became a good guy. Yeah, they have him be a good guy because his sins were taken away by the brought back to life Sin-Eater. Yeah, comic books are goofy but sometimes they are just too damn goofy. Sorry but there's no way I'm buying that Peter Parker is going to willingly ever do anything with Norman Osborn. I know later on they say he did it to keep an eye on him but that just feels like a shitty ass pull. I hear they even have him pretending to be Spider-Man while Peter Parker is in Space somehow. The man killed Gwen Stacy, they will never have any kind of relationship that makes sense. It is fucking stupid and you need to change it back. It feels hollow because you skipped over the most interesting part of a redemption story which is the bad guy realizing THEY ACTUALLY DID WRONG like I dunno THE SANDMAN DID. Rubbish. All of the Goblin sins shit in this book was just rubbish.

3.) Ben Reiley  the Spider-Man clone is now somehow back after being turned into literally dust way back in like 1996? I think so, in October. Look I am someone hwo kinda likes parts of the Clone Saga. It was a pretty interesting way to shake things up in the 1990s. It didn't all work but again is a better story than One More Day. Now he's evil! Or not! OR EVIL! Or not! It's like you didn't have any ideas for this character but you brought him back because there are fans (like me) who like the character, right? I'd rather he just stay in COMIC BOOK LIMBO forever if no one has any ideas what to do with him. That's just me though. This stuff was also dumb.

4.) speaking of Limbo EVIL BEN REILEY teams up with THE GOBLIN QUEEN (not to be confused with new Green Goblin adjacent character The Queen Goblin) and they do Inferno Part II. A not very good sequel of the 1980s X-Men event. This story brings in the new character of Rek-Rap. A big dumb version of Spider-Man who is now my least favorite super hero character ever.  Yes, Deadpool has been overthrown, port. He is no longer my least favorite. Every single time this character showed up AFTER this story I just sighed and was felt really bad.

5.) The Queen Goblin is apparently Dr. Ashley Kafka who died in some comic but came back as a clone who became evil. I don't even really want to explain any more why that's stupid and I'd spend hours defending the Hypno Hustler.

6.) Now we get to the one thing I really, really quite liked. The ongoing Tombstone story with the Gangsters, like Hammerhead, Crime Master and MADAME MASQUE???? The Iron Man villain. Okay, I like her. This stuff is clearly what the writer wanted to write. The story has all kinds of neat twists and turns. Seeing Tombstone fool Spider-Man is actually pretty great. They end up having an uneasy alliance during a Gang War storyline. It's the best stuff and I really enjoyed it. 

7.) Let's go out on a negative note and say the whole trying to make Kamala Khan and Spider-Man friends just felt hollow. And her death in issue 26 was just out of nowhere and it's weirdly hilarious how she stayed dead literally long enough for Marvel to pump out two comics where they mourn her. Then she comes back as a mutant. I hate this because I am one of the few fans of the Inhumans and thought it was neat she was a part of them. They say she's now mutant and Inhuman and I'm like man you really can't help but mess up the best character you've created in 30 years Marvel, can you? I'm really starting to think that I could run this company better. Oh and it feels like they are trying to do this shit for MCU SYNERGY!!!! keep the movies and the comics away from each other KEVIN JERKIFE.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Uh, read the Gang War storyline. It's pretty fun. Everything else can pretty much be avoided. It did make me want to read the comic event Judgement Day so expect a blog post on that maybe sometime soon. Maybe.

The Final Episode #135: Garfield and Friends (Redo)

 

I have start this off by saying no this is not a part of the Portnoyd Guessing Game. That has to end because I miscounted the number of shows I had on my side and I don't think it was fair to add in new shows after Portnoyd had guessed. So this means due to my massive stupid blunder portnoyd is the winner of the first Portnoyd Guessing Game. He will have a field day with that. I mean I was enjoying doing different shows than my usual "hey let's talk about a cartoon or a sitcom's Final Episode" so we WILL go back to it. However even before I started I got it stuck in my craw that the first ten or so of these posts were just not very good. I knew that redoing the Power Rangers would just open up the flood gates. I think my writing skills and ability has just grown. Imagine what it will be like when I'm actually good at writing! So I will be redoing the first ten posts (for the most part). They were sparse, missing information about things and just felt like those shows deserved better. We will be mixing it up with other stuff because I don't want to just do redos but yeah. I know I harped on Bewitched for doing several plots over again but I still stand by that because 1.) they got paid to do the same thing twice and 2.) I'm looking to improve those older posts instead of shitting them up with more Dick Sargent. Man he was a terrible Darren. Did you know I knew a kid named Darren as a kid and my dad would call him Durwood. My dad's a wild man.

So to discuss Garfield one must discuss a man named Jim Davis. Jim Davis was born in Indiana on the date July 28th, 1945. He graduated High School in the early 1960s and went to college. After college he got a job helping Tom Ryan do the comic strip Tumbleweeds. This got him wanting to make his own strip. Which he did. It was called Gnorm Gnat. It was a giant failure. For the longest time people outside like Indiana did not know this but he had a comic that was in between them. It was found out by YouTuber Quinton Reviews. He did a whole video about it and found the lost comic strip Jon. Jon stared Jon Arbuckle and came out in 1976. Jon Arbuckle was the star of that comic and a very different Garfield showed up there.  You can see how he looks like from the strip above this paragraph. He realized Garfield was the true star of the comic and even renamed the strip to that. He got a syndicate. Changed a bunch of things up and then we had Garfield. Which became INCREDIBLY popular. EVERYONE wanted a piece of his fat orange ass. You had collections of the comic strips. Garfield toys. Garfield plushes (I still have one that's missing a piece of his eye. I still wonder how that happened) Garfield fucking everything. You name the thing, Jim Davis shoved Garfield into it. I mean he did it by making sure the product was as good as possible but there's still Garfield hoses out there somewhere. I'm sure of it.

So now is the paragraph where I blather on about my history with Garfield. I'm pretty sure it had to be because of this cartoon. However I didn't become OBSESSED until I found the comic strip collections at a local book store. I had to have every single fucking one of them. I had to have so much Garfield stuff. I even remember crying because my dad had the idea to cut up a Garfield book for some school project. LOOK I WAS A SENSITIVE BOY  YOU WANNA FIGHT ABOUT IT. That's not the only school related thing that involved Garfield for me. You see the MUSIC TEACHER who wasn't very nice and was totally blunt about mine (and other childrens) music ablitily (she literally said I was terrible and I'm like read the fuckin room lady. Jesus you gotta be nicer about that shit to children) had set up a singing thing and for some reason my parents really wanted me to do it and not skip out on it. I didn't even have to sing just fucking lipsync. I did it and got Garfield Takes His Licks a truly wonderful piece of literature. I gave up on Garfield around the 31st book. I think. I dunno. His time with me was over but I'll look upon it with great fondness. I still enjoy reading the 1980s and 1990s Garfield. The fact Jon is with Liz now just makes my brain explode. It's just not right man.

  So, let's discuss Garfield's history on Television before this cartoon. Jim Davis wrote scripts for several Garfield specials. Here Comes Garfield, Garfield on the Town, Garfield in the Rough, Garfield's Halloween Adventure, Garfield in Paradise, Garfield Goes Hollywood, A Garfield Christmas, Garfield His 9 Lives, Garfield Babes and Bullets, Garfield's Thanksgiving, Garfield's Feline Fantasies and Garfield Gets A Life. This show showed up in 1988 sometime before Garfield His 9 Lives. The first two specials were done by Lee Melendeson and Bill Melendez. The rest were done by Phil Roman and Film Roman. They hired  Mark Evanier. A man who's first job was working with Jack Kirby. He then worked with Hanna Barbera, Welcome Back Kotter, 82 thousand comic books, the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon and many other things. Mark is a pretty talented guy and did a very good job with Garfield and Friends. 

One more thing Lorenzo Music is and will always be the best voice for Garfield. I swore some old timey Jazz musician guy voiced Garfield in the first special but memory is a fucking bitch and will lie to you. I'm not pretending that it means I'm from a different universe like those Berenstain weirdos. You just didn't pay attention when your LOVELY MOTHER WAS READING YOU THE BERENSTAIN BEARS BOOKS YOU LOUSY LITTLE SHIT. Anyway Lorenzo's voice was perfect for Garfield (and Peter Venkman before Dave Coulier SHIT THAT JOB UP) and I just had to bring it up. Lorenzo Music also had one wild career before being Garfield. Writing and creating the Bob Newhart show. Writing for the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Sadly he passed away in 2001. Frank Welker picked the job up and nothing but respect for Frank but he just not sound right. I don't think anyone could pick up that job from Lorenzo but that's just me. 

Garfield and Friends ran from September 17th, 1988 to December 10th, 1994. It had three theme songs for its run. The original one, Friends are There (which was the best) We're Ready to Party (which was from season three to six.) and a Garfield Rap for season seven. It was not very good. The Friends portion was U.S. Acres a different comic strip (yes they had a comic strip prior to the cartoon they were not created for the cartoon) that started in March of 1986. It ended in May 7th, 1989. It was a very "yeah this exists" kinda thing. Nothing horrible offensive but despite a big push never really became all that popular. I remember liking the cartoons as a kid but I dunno what I was thinking now as an adult. Anyway they made 121 episodes and 363 segments. I'm pretty sure they were running out of ideas for Garfield and Friends at that point. 

Our Final Episode, like every other episode has three segments. Two Garfields and a U.S. Acres. Our First Garfield Segment is entitled "Arbuckle the Invincible" We start like every Garfield story, out in outer space. We meet two aliens who are told by their leader to go to earth and bring back a cheeseburger. Just one. The leader can't handle more than one. Anyway these two lose the deflector that was keeping meteors away off their ship and wouldn't you know it. it falls from space right into Jon Arbuckle's pants pocket. He was up on the roof putting up a tv antenna. Remember those days? So many people would ask what an antenna would. Then I would tell them I'm going back to bed because I feel very very old. 

Anyway the orb now gives Jon Arbuckle great strength and invulnerability. Garfield wanted to watch him get hurt and did not get that wish. The orb makes it impossible to anything to touch Jon. Jon tells an agent to hit him with a baseball bat and then with a ten ton safe. Garfield from their house with popcorn somehow watching this on tv tells the people NOT to do this. I uh, dunno how Garfield is seeing whats happening. Is that on TV? A Garfield cartoon shouldn't be that wtf? Anyway the Agent gets him a gig. A train runs over him for 1 million dollars. Jon then decides to take off his clothes removing the orb from him. So Jon's gonna get squished to goop. He leaves telling Garfield and Odie that he's gonna get a million dollars for letting a train run over him

Garfield says to Odie, when was the last time anything worked out for Jon? The two aliens which turn out to be just one alien with two heads. if that the case they really should get two cheeseburgers. Won't both heads want one?  Anyway they notice the alien going down their chimney so they go inside the house. They find out that the orb was keeping Jon from getting hurt. Garfield is like "too bad he won't have it when they put him on the rail road tracks" causing them to freak the hell out and chase after Jon. They can't get to him so Garfield is like LETS EAT. They go to a Small Cheeseburger Stand and happen upon the Aliens. They do some alien crap which causes Jon not to be tied to the train tracks and he gets saved at the last second. They end up sitting at the Cheeseburger stand eating Cheeseburgers. What a weird episode.

The U.S. Acres segment is "The Monster Who Couldn't Scare Anyone" and its about Orson telling Booker and Sheldon about a family of monsters A mother adn father and three male children. Igor, Boris and Michael. Michael looks like a regular little boy while the rest of them are freaks. Kinda like The Munsters with the cousin character. Boris and Igor can scare people while Michael cannot. He is forced out of his house until he can scare someone. His father also forces him to wear a paper bag. He leaves the house and tries to scare a goat farmer. Then he sees Roy being chased by Orson's brothers. Roy gets Orson's brothers to run off hoping to score a touchdown in a football game. Roy tries to get Michael the Monster to meet Wade but Wade runs off before he can even see Michael and knocks himself out. Michael is saddened because he will never scare anyone. Orson's brothers come back and start pounding on Roy. Michael comes by, the bag gets taken off his face by a gust of wind and it turns out he looks like a famous TV farmer known for pork sausages. That scares the shit out of the pigs and the run off.

the Final segment is a song, sung all Jamican-y. I dunno the name of the type of music so piss off. It involves a shark and a Pizza delivery system that means you have to be on a boat to get any. They get on the boat. Jon gets stuck on the boat after falling on it. The boat starts to get eaten by a shark. Garfield gets the pizza and then gives it to the shark. This is all sung to you.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I'm gonna be incredibly lenient here for one simple reason. This show had 363 segments. Not every character can be made into 363 stories. Garfield is one of those characters. They clearly CLEARLY ran out of gas. They even make a joke about it in the opening when Garfield talks to you for a second. These still had some pretty good jokes but holy hannah they were just throwing anything at the wall at this point. Still somehow better than the second CGI Garfield Show cartoon. I'm only lenient because I'd probably go crazy trying to think of the 363rd short to involve Garfield for a TV show.

The Comic Review #101: Marvel Voices: Pride Vol. 2 #1 (2022)

 

Hello boys and girls and everyone else out there. It is time to bring back something I did early on in this blog. Like 2020-2021. Which was to review characters and stories that involved people who were GAY. or ASIAN. or BLACK. or a WOMAN. and they were new characters. I did this because they got discussed all over the internet and I believe mostly unfairly. So many of these comics, like every single one of them was trashed and treated poorly. I cannot believe that every single story and character failed so I read some and liked them, of course I just reviewed a Care Bears Thanksgiving special positivity so you really shouldn't listen to me when it comes to well anything. I'm just bringing this back because 1.) I wanna see what new stories and characters they have brought out and 2.) to stick it to people who just want to make it impossible for new stories to be inclusive. Will it always work? No, but stories should still be inclusive. So I'm going to review MARVEL VOICES PRIDE #1 (Vol. 2).

This is a bunch of mini stories, mostly about the character and not punch bang boom. So It'll be different for me too. I have read this before and I'll read it again too. I thought the majority of these specials were pretty good. Let's see if they still hold up. The writers of the stories in this comic are Alyssa Wong, Christopher Cantwell, Danny Lore or Andrew Wheeler. Do not ask me if they are apart of the LGBT community or not because I do not know. I do believe Alyssa Wong is trans nonbinary. I do not really get the non binary thing but I also don't get why Friends got on the top 100 Rolling Stones sitcoms list (which really pisses me off) , doesn't mean it's not a real thing, it just means your pal Claw is stunted in Arrested Development or something.

So let's get to the stories, baby!

Story #1:  Starts with Loki being chained upside down and several people are yelling at him. He is trying to tell people that he is not the Prince of Lies anymore but the Prince of Stories. They are not buying it so he gets into a story with my two favorite BIG GAY RASCALS. Teddy and Billy. Teddy is connected to the Kree and the Skrulls and keeps them from fighting. I'm sure that all Kree and Skrulls love that. They are giant assholes and like to be giant assholes to everyone. I'm sure this Teddy being king will last forever. Billy is uh... Scarlet Witches son who's backstory is so fucking weird and convoluted that I would start the melting of my brain if I were to try to put it all together. Trust me, it's fucking goofy. Billy tells him about the Panic Button they put on everyones phones (Everyone meaning the Young Avengers) 

America Chavez a character that has gotten a ton of hate made me laugh when she used too much super strength and broke the plate and now her pancakes have plate pieces stuck to them. She says she couldn't contact anyone else and that her powers are on the fritz. Is that the most used story for Superheroes? Their powers being messed up? I think so. They mess up a little bit but end up where Loki is after all. I wonder what kind of story he was actually telling to keep what I assume are his exes, which includes a Horse man and a chicken called Mr. Cluck. Loki is a sick fuck. He also fucked a hot fire woman. He likes to feel the BURN.

Anyway he literally just grabs a knife and escapes exclaiming YOU MADE IT! They start fighting and my favorite bit is Teddy just consoling the Horse man. He was very confused looking in that first panel. Anyway it turns out Loki started this whole thing because they weren't picking up their phones to hang out. Loki you mischievous little fuck. Don't traumatize the Horse man ever again!

Story #2: This one involves Hercules who is now like Loki an indivudial who enjoys kissing ladies and men hanging out with HIS MAN LOVER Marvel Boy. I like to think that Marvel Boy is the top because him plowing Hercules just makes me laugh because I'm a juvenile child. They are fighting Kree Soldiers that have been given Olympian power. They discuss how their relationship is weird because they are so different from one another. They meet up with the SUPREME MEDUSA. which is a mix of the Supreme Intelligence and Medusa. Has the power to turn Armadas into stone. Hercules then goes out of the protective square thing Marvel Boy can make. saying "It attacks the mind! I need not worry! I barely use mine!" and then Marvel Boy goes "why am I attracted to the most intelligent women and the stupidest men?" He ends up saving the day by just it seems killing the Supreme Medusa which they didn't want to do? This ending feels very rushed and I can't say that's a good thing.

Story #3: This story involves pretty obscure Captain America character D-Man or Demolition Man. He appeared for a good amount of time in Captain America stories and then just disappeared. I don't remember him saying much about his sexuality so they pretty much have him be gay now. Can't say this really bothers me. Rectons happen in ongoing stories as long as the Marvel Universe has gone on. He still seems to be his old chipper self which is really more important to me than anything else. I liked the character before hand and I still like him now. Also I might get YELLED AT but folx is uh not necessary. I get that transgender people (which this story is about) want inclusive non gendered language and I can't really get angry at that but Folks the word Folks was already non gendered. You didn't have to add an x in there duders. 

Anyway this story involves a bunch of new characters. One with a minor universe trapped within them. Another who can make people sad with sad stories. and another guy who likes to burn things WITH HIS MIND. His name is Good Arson. I like him. He's already a beautiful goof of a man. Spider Man is fighting with a bunch of female versions of his old foes and gets thrown through the window. All of them had been in comics previous to this except for the Dr Octopus from the Miles Morales Spider-Verse movie. She's in the 616 now because the writer liked her? I guess so. Not great writing there. I don't care if you make a female version for every Spider Man bad guy just tell me how they exist. Dangit. The writer wins me back by making a terrible joke about bear hunting. You see D-Man is considered a bear because he's big and hairy. Gay people are wild. I love them. They all team up and beat up the lady bad guys. Lady Scorpion freaks out when she finds out that this is the LGBT youth center! She screams Oh no they won't let me back at Gingers! I guess Lady Scorpion isn't gettin to eat any pussy any time soon. Spider Man then says Good Arson's name is flaming. I do think this story could have been better in some areas but it also feels like BABY'S FIRST COMIC BOOK SCRIPT, so I'm not going to really poop on them. I did like several jokes.

Story #4: Now we get to some pretty damn obscure characters. One called Venomm (not to be confused with Venom) who was someone Black Panther fought in the 1970s. I really should finally read those Black Panther comics from the 1970s. Portnoyd will probably call me racist for not reading them sooner. Anyway He is fighting some guys with his snakes (that's his thing. Snakes and snake stuff) that are looking for Wakanda.. Anyway he kicks the shit out of them but is found out by Taku. Taku takes care of the last guy and Venomm says his gift was ruined and we see that he had thrown Taku a surprise romantic evening. Aw, how sweet. You get to smack some guys around and then hug and kiss your m

Story #5: This story involves the Guardians of the Galaxy member Moondragon. She is dreaming that she is a BADASS BIKER BABE because she feel asleep during the 1967 underground exploitation classic Motor Cycle Psychos. They only realize when Phylla Vel tries to wake her up that she won't wake up.  Apparently the Grandmaster is behind this. That kinda feels a bit weird, but okay. I mean he does like to play games with people so I can see him playing with someones mind while they sleep. Anyway inside the dream BADASS DRAGON BIKER MOONDRAGON talks about the mayor setting them up, which is what they were talking about while she was sleeping. The BADASS BIKERS go to fight the Mayor. Which is the Grandmaster. MOONDRAGON THE BADASS BIKER BITCH gets everyone there to join in on beating his candy ass. What wrestler said that a lot? I forget. was that Stone Cold Steve Austin? I can never remember that stuff. Anyway the Grandmaster gets his ass handed to him and Moondragon wakes up. The Guardians realize that the Commodore, the Grandmasters ship is near and get ready to fight in in the real world. Moondragon then goes GUESS ITS TIME TO RUMBLE.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I had a pretty good time reading this. All the stories were at least decent, with the first one and the fifth one being my favorites. The third one probably could have used a look over and was probably the worst of the lot. Still I had a good time with these comic books and will probably do it again with DC Pride. Portnoyd will yell about something like a maniac.

TV You Forgot About #9: The Care Bears Family - Gram Bear's Thanksgiving Surprise

 

Oh hey! Guess what? The fucking images are being shitty again. I had to reset my computer AGAIN. It's really truly wonderful how we are pretty much being forced to use YouTube and twitter and just social media because no one wants to fix the problems with websites like Blogger or Blogspot or anything. Fucking delightful. Gosh darn wonderful. I love it. Is it wrong to just want a small, fun, non-toxic area of the internet to enjoy? I just want to talk about comic books and old tv shows and the Care Bears Thanksgiving Surprise. Is that too much to ask for a person? I really don't believe so. I don't want to use Twitter because it seems just about everyone on it is a toxic bastard and I don't want to use YouTube because if I say something wrong I'll be crucified  and by wrong I mean "I don't care about Lord of the Rings and probably will never see the Peter Jackson movies in my lifetime". I'm sorry I don't feel like getting treated like garbage because I don't care about Hobbits.

So what is this whole thing about, yeah It's been a while. four years in fact since I used this thing. This was at first a place for me to review weird old Holiday specials, then I changed it around to discuss failed pilots.........and holiday specials. of the nine of these I've done eight of them are Holiday specials. I promise I'll have something that isn't a holiday special next time. Maybe. If you are lucky. I will not wait another four years to do #10. That I promise, so I have until November 26th, 2029 to write another one of these. Let's hope I can keep to that promise. I will probably let you down, as I usually do. Sorry.

So did you know there are like hundreds of Thanksgiving specials. I did not realize this. I seriously thought the Thanksgiving specials were like Charlie Brown, Garfield and for some reason only God knows B.C. I was wrong though. It seems every TV show in the 1980s and 1990s had a Thanksgiving episode. Beverly Hills 90201 had SEVERAL thanksgiving episodes. Seriously. I kinda want to watch them now. I went with this one because it was one of the few I could remember. It's a wild time and I have to show you people it. Gram's Bear Thanksgiving Surprise was the 13th episode of the First season of the second Care Bears cartoon. The one with Beastly and Shrieky and No Heart instead of Frostbite and Professor Coldheart. I know way too much about the Care Bears. It's kind of disturbing honestly.

It was written by John de Klein, a man who was an animator for Nelvana. He also was a wrtier for them too. He wrote episodes of Babar, Tales of the Cryptkeeper and direct to VHS Madballs specials. Yes, they had Madballs cartoons. Two of them at least. Animated in my country and voiced by my countrymen. No I haven't seen them but I really will soon. I will probably put them in this category even though I do not think they appeared on TV.  He also wrote the scripts to cinematic classics such as Babar the Movie and Care Bears  Adventure in Wonderland.  His last work was in 2013. I hope John is doing well!

The episode starts off with Brave Heart Lion and Playful Heart Monkey (I just realized like every Care Bear Cousin has Heart in their name. I am not a very observant human being.)  getting apples out of a tree for the Thanksgiving Harvest. I suppose these apples will be made into Happy Apple Pies by Gram's Bear. She is coming in to Care A Lot from uh...Upstate New York. Yeah, that'll do it. Gram's Bear lives in Batavia most of the time. Sounds good! Anyway Tenderheart brings Hugs and Tugs back to Care-A-Lot from the Forest of Feelings. I love these names! Tenderheart on his way sees Share Bear who is going to earth to help a boy named Tony work on his Thanksgiving Speech. Yeah, Tony needs to write a speech about what Thanksgiving is all about!

This is our villain for the piece. His name is Sour Sam. He looks way too much like me for me to be comfortable. He wants to feed everyone in the town Crabby Apple Pies (I swear Share Bear calls them CRAPPY apple pies though) so that they will be grumpy and gassy and unpleasant to be around. I like his Chefs hat. Anyway this is the one and only time Sour Sam shows up. I like random one off villains that showed up because someone didn't want to find a way to jam the regular shows bad guys into their script. So the Mayor comes by and just takes a Crabby Apple Pie and just eats a giant piece out of the pie and then throws it away screaming EVERYTHING IS AWFUL. Yeah, Mr. Mayor in the 21st Century just about Everything is awful. 1986 had us pegged. 

Everyone back at Care A Lot is rocking the hell out doing their chores. Cleaning up the room. You see Good Luck Bear, Cheer Bear, Lottsa Heart Elephant and Yellow Bear. I do not know what Yellow Bear's actual name is. Sorry. Ask the admins of the Care Bear Wikia. I have SOME dignity left! Tenderheart is all like GRAMS BEAR IS OLD AND WILL JUST DO OLD PEOPLE THINGS. However she shows him up by FLYING IN FAST AS FUCK on her scooter. This bear ain't no lazy bum! She's got energy for 10 Care Bears! She also has a high amount of what I like to call Lesbian Energy. My headcanon is that Grams Bear is an old lesbian. I don't see no Gramps Bear! Grams Bear goes inside and guess what STARTS ROCKIN OUT TO THE MUSIC. Tenderheart can go get FUCKED.

Share Bear and Tony are finding it very weird out. People just yelling at them. Doors being slammed a guy going I DONT CARE ABOUT ANYONE OR ANYTHING. Wow I didn't know Qix's dad moved into town! They learn from the Mayor that Thanksgiving has been CANCELLED. They Mayor called it off!! Tenderheart being the SHITHEAD that he is just complains about Grams Bear having fun. She's now MAKING the music rocking on on a Care Bear geeeeeetaur.  The Care Bears get a message from Share Bear and they all go to the town, except fot Grams Bear and Hugs and Tugs. They will stay home and make Tacos. Grams Bear's voice actor says Tacos in the weirdest way humanly possible.  

While they search the town to see whats up, Sour Sam puts pieces of Crabby Apple Pies all over the place. Like on the seats of swings or even on the ground. I would not eat Pie I just saw laying around on the ground. It's not even on a damn paper plate! Sour Sam should invest some of his money into these evil schemes if he really wants to make the planet crabby. Anyway he turns all of the Care Bears into crabby assholes. Grams Bear is cooking with Hugs and Tugs and realizes that they have been away for quite some time. She decides to take them down to the small town where all this crazy shit is going on. 

Grams Bear shows up and it seems she and Sour Sam have some history together. Grams Bear must have stopped several of his plots over the years. Anyway Grams Bear, Share Bear, Hugs and Tugs and TONY GABBAGOOL (thats what I imagine his last name is) are left to stop Sour Sam. Hugs and Tugs go to eat some Crabby Apple Pie that';s just laying in the grass and Grams Bear stops them. She tastes a little bit and then goes JUST AS I THOUGHT CRABBY APPLE PIE. Grams Bear gets Tenderheart to eat some HAPPY APPLE PIE which will turn them back into their usual old cheerful selves. However they didn't look BEHIND THEM because Sour Sam got into his PIES truck and used a claw to grab Grams Bear. Oh no!

Share Bear, Tony, Hugs and Tugs just chase after Grams Bear and Sour Sam on her scooter. Tenderheart the DUNCE chases after Share Bear. I like this episode because he takes the STARCH outta Tenderheart's shirt. The red bastard. HE'S PROBABLY A COMMIE TOO. Anyway Share Bear and them crash and we then go to Sour Sam's hideout. Sour Sam asks Grams Bear if she'd like to see his set up and all she says is she'd like to see him behind bars. Grams Bear is hardcore. I'm not really sure if turning people crabby is actually something you can go to jail for. I don't think we have laws against world takeovers. 

Sour Sam gets Grams Bear into a pie tray (after she threw several happy apple tarts at him. I like to think she has them on her at all times, just in case) and is about to turn her into a Crabby Apple Grams Bear Pie! Share Bear shows up and does the old CARE BEAR STARE and Sour Sam jumps out of the way of the Pie Making Machine. The Stare hits the Pie making machine and does nothing. However Sour Sam jumps into his Pie Throwing Machine and tries to hit Share Bear with it. Tony ends up saving Grams Bear in the nick of time. Tony Gabbagool is our hero! Now they have to stop the Pie throwing machine. Tenderheart gets hit by one lol. Then Grams Bear is all like ENOUGH OF THIS SHIT and just uses her Care Bear Stare to shove several pies back into the machine causing it to explode sending Sour Sam in to a pie tin. He gets turn into a HAPPY APPLE PIE. He is now switching from being very giddy and happy to being a grumpy dickhead. 

Tenderheart asks Grams Bear if they can make enough Happy Apple Pies to help the town again and she says theres not enough time. So It's all up to Tony and his speech. HIS SPEECH ABOUT THANKSGIVING THAT IS SO POWERFUL he turns everyone back into being happy, even Qix's dad! TONY SAVED THE DAY! The Care Bears fly off with Sour Sam's Pies Truck I guess as a souvenir of some kind. Now remember not to eat any Crabby Apple Pies this Thanksgiving!

 

NES Game Reviews: Doctors, Dracula's and Dragons.

 

You know I don't think I ever used an image of the Top Loading NES in these. So here it is. I wanted one of these not for rarity but because they seemed to work better. I had so many NESes just stop working for me and I was sick of it. I bought one on eBay with like 100 or so games for not a terrible price because this was maybe 2006? 2007? 2008? I don't fucking know. It was before the shit hit the fan and every thing from the past actually suddenly became worth something. Like I was made fun of for asking someone if they had NES games to sell. That's how low that shit had sunk at one point. Now everyone is like RETRO WOO. Not trying to gatekeep because that's really pointless in the end just saying that I was there when no one else for the most part was. So that NES did not actually work at all. It was broken beyond repair. I even brought it to a store where a guy would repair NESes and sell them and he couldn't get it back. It was gone. STUPID PATTI NORWICKI SOLD ME A BROKEN NINTENDO. I'M ON TO YOU PATTI. Thankfully I did get a working Top Loading NES that is now hooked up to a TV that doesn't even turn on any more. I should see if I can fix that TV, I've had it for 33 years. It's a good man. CATHORAY TUBE TELEVISIONS FOREVER BITCHES. Yes, I used the NES Top Loader just so I could shit out this opening paragraph. Eat me.

When one thing is popular, like for example say, Tetris. It gets a lot and I mean a lot of ripoffs or cash ins. Dr. Mario owes itself to Tetris. It does change things up where you have to kill the little germs but it wouldn't be here without Tetris. I love Tetris and  most Tetris games (only one I do not like and we will get to it) and Dr. Mario is no different, the only problem with Dr. Mario is that I am absolutely terrible as fuck at it. It's actually comical how terrible I am at Dr. Mario. Still it doesn't matter because it's a very fun game, with nice graphics and amazing music. Both music tracks are bonertastic ten star masterpieces of Video Game music. I kinda like getting to the lesser discussed stuff because really there's not much more I can say about Dr. Mario that hasn't been said better by many many other people.

I've only ever played Dracula for the NES and SNES. Both games were based on the Movie that was based on the book. The biggest problem really with both games is the developers going WOW LET'S SHOW THEM THESE COOL GRAPHICS AND THINGS WE CAN DO. And they did. There's some impressive stuff here in that manner. They forgot to do two things. Make stages that were interesting and not poorly made and annoying and also have the play control not be drizzly shit. Those two things take the game down really far down the list if I were ranking all these games. I will not do that because I value my sanity and sometimes it's really hard to decide if one game really is worse than another. Anyway there's not much here that's something you can say than what I've said before. Sad because who the hell doesn't want to kill Dracula as played by Gary Oldman?!?

Hey gang! We are talking about a game that only ONE Youtuber has made a video on. Now that's something. I mean I take umbridge with his NES GAMES NO ONE PLAYED thing because I have in fact played Dragon Fighter by Natsume (and put out by Sofel). This is actually a pretty good game. I find it funny you see a man on the cover because I'm pretty sure you play as a pretty well endowed woman (she's got some wild ass titties) in the game. Like those are titties and not muscles. Anyway you play as a Fighter (of Dragons) that can also turn into a Dragon. It's a simple pretty fun Video game platformer that gets pretty hard later on. I would like to beat this game because it was very enjoyable. The music is pretty good. The stages are pretty well thought out. the Play control is pretty good although I do feel the character could have moved a bit faster. You get to play as different dragons with different fire power which is always fun. I consider Dragon Fighter to be a pretty good NES game that should get more love and respect. Portnoyd is going to fart and barf and pee all over this game I'm sure.

Well to start off, this is pretty much Dragon Ball before Dragon Ball was a thing in North America. I remember getting this game and realizing that before even having to use the Internet. They really did not edit the character sprites that much. Master Roshi is still himself. However they had to turn the panties he wants into sandwiches. Japan is a wild place. Anyway this game is very dated and really quite cheap in many segments. You really have to get up close to the boss and hope he doesn't take away all of your health so that you can get more health in the next section. Also your health seems to go down. At least I believe it did. Anyway Despite that and the wonky as fuck play control. I still like this game. Mostly because it's weird edits and stuff really crack me up. I have not beaten this game as I do believe it's quite hard but again like Dragon Fighter I would like too. 

I said in the last NES game post about Double Strike that it was the most boring shump on the NES. Now we actually get to talk about a very well done NES shump that still somehow does not get a lot of discussion on it. Dragon Spirit has you play as a dragon just shooting the fuck out of every thing on the screen. You get power ups and become more powerful. The game starts off easy with not to many enemies to fight and becomes insane later on. You get good music, good graphics and the play control is very smooth. It's a decent challenge and I really can't say anything more than that. So get off your ass and play some Dragon Spirit and save that Princess, bitch!

Here we have Dragon Strike, which I believe is the first Advanced Dungeons and Dragons game I have to talk about. I think there were like four or five of them on the NES and I just have to ask one question. Were ANY of these games ANY good for like ANY platform? I just remember being annoyed by this game for one simple reason. You had to hold down on a button to become smaller so you could attack different dragons. I remember the graphics being pretty good but the music and everything else was just not very good. I don't really get Dungeons and Dragons at all really. I really don't see whats so fun about it. The only Dungeons and Dragons thing I like is the totally rad cartoon from the 1980s. This game is probably the best of the Dungeons and Dragons games for the NES because it's the only one I can see myself going back to, try to get into the groove of the game. I don't know if I have even played Hillsfar but I'm not really looking forward to it. This game is not very good and I don't like it. Who knows one day I'll probably become the master of Dragon Strike because really I have nothing better to do with my time but until then this goes in the poop pile.

GOOD GAMES: 86

BAD GAMES: 75

OKAY OR POORLY AGED: 25

PROBABLY GOOD IF YOU AREN'T AN IMPATIENT BABY LIKE I AM: 2

The Comic Review #100: The Legend of the Chaos God (Disney Adventures!)

 

Well, this is a different sort of blog post. You see that I like to add an image up on top. I think it works well. It looks good. You see blogspot is having a shitfit right now. It's pissing and shitting and vomiting and puking and that's just my nice and colorful way of saying for whatever reason the images will not show up. They will not go onto the page. Not even one that went onto the page yesterday. I love how the old internet is just rotting away not getting any use for the people like me who want to use it. So either it will be image-less for the rest of time or somehow gets magically fixed by the one sad person they have to do all this. It's all because people just want to make MONEY on YOUTUBE and TWITER by being DICKHEADS that I can't just post WILLY NILLY about some old comic books! I just want to talk about Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers, is that a fucking crime against humanity or something? It's certainly better than being an outrage farmer on Twitter trying to make money by making the internet and this world of our shittier. God fuck ass shit. I wish I could tell my 12 year old self everything that would happen and when to really get his act together. I don't even know what the hell I'm blathering about anymore. Let's get to the next paragraph. (It ended up showing up after I shut down my computer. I do not get it. I am leaving this part here because I want to bitch about how awful the Internet is now)

So, you see this is The Comic Review #100, and images or no images, you are not stopping me from talking on my fucking blog. Anyway, I like when I hit a big number on series of blog posts, it means I stuck to something for an actual amount of time. I'm amazed that I stuck with this blog, even if I don't post for months at a time some times. It's hard with portnoyd doing his little dance. It's like Bugs Bunny (me) and Elmer Fudd (portnoyd). I find something cool to show the world and portnoyd comes in and goes NO THAT ISNT COOL IT DOESNT HAVE DEADPOOL IN IT. I LOVE ONLY DEADPOOL AND MARRIED WITH CHILDREN. WRITE ABOUT THEM. Anyway I think I found something cool enough not even fuddnoyd could have a baby fit over. A five part crossover that involves TaleSpin, Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers, Goof Troop, DuckTales and Darkwing Duck. The almost original group of cartoons from the Disney Afternoon! That's cool!

You might be asking yourself where did something so cool come from? Well my friend. It came from Disney Adventures, a magazine the size of an Archie's Digest. These went on sale from 1990 to 2007. Seventeen years of goodness. I remember getting a few from some random person my parents met. Just a random few magazines. It was weird. I don't remember it showing up but then again in Newfoundland grocery stores where these Magazines would show up they would probably be bought out before my family got there. They probably got 5 whole copies and that's why I never saw them. Anyway, one of those issues must have been issue 49 which shows Donald Duck about to be eaten by a T-Rex. It would have been the image you would have seen at the top if people CARED ABOUT THINGS and not MAKING MONEY ON THE INTERNET. Disney Adventures had articles about Disney stuff and all kinds of other stuff. It was kid based and was pretty neat. People like Marv Wolfman and Matt Groening worked on the magazine. Heidi MacDonald a person the conservative comicsgate group hates worked on Disney Adventures and that makes her a FLAWLESS ANGEL of a human being and BETTER THAN COMICSGATE. I like talking about things Portnoyd knows nothing about and doesn't care about. It's fun.

Anyway, this as I said before was a five part story. A crossover story! The best crossover ever. Avengers Endgame got nothing on this! It was called The Legend of the Chaos God and was written by Bobbi JG Weiss. Bobbi was born on December 25th, 1960 (Christmas Day!!!!) . She wrote for Disney comics, Nickelodeon chapter books. Also Sabrina The Teenage Witch books. What I'm saying is I've never met this woman but I already think she's cool as hell. I hope your upcoming 65th Birthdaymas is a good one, Bobbi! Cosme Quartieri was the Argentinean man who drew these comic book issues.  He has a very short page on the DC Fandom Wikia which says he died in 1950. I do not think that is true because it's very difficult to draw several comics if you have been dead decades before they came out. If the IMDB page is the same guy he worked on ABC Weekend Specials and one of those Precious Moments (you know those ugly ass dolls that every woman over the age of 60 owned 100 of in the 1990s? Yeah he worked on a special with them in it apparently) Christmas specials. He did a good job capturing the look of these characters in these comics and I would like to see his Animaniacs and Looney Tunes comics. The Precious Moments shit though, get that outta my face. (sorry Cosme)

The first part of this story, I already talked about once before but I will do it again. I had planned on talking about each story but then another thing popped into my head and I was like OH MY GOD I NEED TO SPEND THE NEXT HOUR TALKING ABOUT WHAT THE? #6. I want to know if portnoyd even remembers What The?. I might be the only person who does. Anyway this part of the story involves the TaleSpin characters. Baloo, Molly and Kit are flying around in the Sea Duck. They are going to an island to meet Professor Potshed and bring his artifacts back to the mainland. However the Sea Pirates and Don Karnage want those artifacts. They pull out a giant net to take  the artifacts but thats before Baloo just drives head first into the artifacts. We see a crystal and that thing that keeps a Crystal on a necklace fall into different parts. This will be VERY BAD NEWS for the rest of the Disney Afternoon.

They get back to the house and the Mom Bear Lady is being her USUAL SHITHEAD SELF and yelling and screaming about everything. Take a fuckin valium lady! Anyway she opens up the sugar barrel thing that had the EVIL JEWEL in it. She is forced to put it on. I guess that other thing wasn't a necklace but something else. I dunno. Anyway she is now possessed by SOLEGO THE CHAOS GOD. Solego wants nothing more than to return to this earth! Mom Bear Lady takes over the Sea Duck and flies it away but not before Baloo gets a rope attached. Baloo, Molly and Kit are all there. Solego is forcing her to shake them off. Molly starts to fall but Kit uses his cool uh flying thing and saves her. Also Solego wants the Setting the Jewel goes into so he can be freed. Anyway Kit and Molly fly around haphazardly because Kit isn't used to having two people on the flying thing. Baloo gets the door to the plane open and Molly then runs to Mom Bear Lady and knocks the necklace off. They end up throwing the Necklace away in the ocean.

Now it's Part 2 with our favorite group of chipmunks and mice. The Rescue Rangers. Two dog creatures are fishing and well one of the Fish just happens to have the Jewel within it. The jewel then takes over the mind of the dog that happens to look like Djion from DuckTales. I like Djion he was a funny little guy. Anyway he is forced to bring the Jewel to the local museum. Now we go to the Rescue Rangers having a stakeout at the museum waiting for Fat Cat and his gang to come and steal the Golden Setting for the Jewel. They cause the water to come out of the fire esquisting pipe things. I don't know what things are called. I do this for free!  This causes the Guards (with the Jewel) to come in. Fat Cat gets possessed for like half a second, then Gadget. They save Gadget but while she's explaining things Dale gets possessed. Dale chases after Fat Cat to get the Setting. Fat Cat runs up the Dinosaur skeleton and it well falls down. Before Dale or anyone else can get it Meeps, the Cat that works with Fat Cat. You know the one that looks very tired or high on some kind of substance. Yeah that one. Did they ever use that name in the cartoon?

Dale and Meeps get stuck in a old Greek machine that was used to move water around. Meeps comes out first and then Mole (very original name) steals the Setting. He throws it at Fat Cat who has gotten up from below the fallen Dinosaur. Mole knocks the Jewel off Dale's back and it lands on Fat Cat and just as Solego Cat is about to put both pieces back together he gets electrocuted by a Van De Graff Lighting Generator. See You learn things from reading this comic book! I mean if you were interested enough in finding out what these things were but I'm sure some questions were asked. The Rescue Rangers give the two pieces to two crows and tell them to drop them far away from each other, sadly. This won't stop Selgo! We still got three more parts of this story!

Now we get to the issue of the story that I had. The one and only part I ever had as a child. The part with Goof Troop. So, the Jewel gets dropped by a crow in Spoonerville. Pete bought a new fancy robotic computer car. Can you put two and two together. If yes, then you'll realize that this is just like the 1977 horror classic The Car except it has Goofy in it. The Car with Solego's Jewel already in it gets brought to Pete. Pete is trying to butter up his wife Peg so he can keep the car. Goofy is trying to tell him there's something wrong with the car. Imagine all life in your world depending on Goofy. It's looking pretty bad for earth right now! Pete and Peg come back and it turns to Nighttime. Goofy is watching Darkwing Duck apparently and the channels are being changed on him. It's THE CAR. 

Well, it's actually Solego's Jewel looking for the Setting. He is the one using a wire to change the channels. He finds out that it's in Duckburg, but Goofy finds out that The Car is now alive! Goofy gets Pete to come out just to be grabbed by arms used to clean the Car but now are being used to grab Pete and get his car key. However they get away and talk to each other about what to do. They end up trying to do the things you do in monster movies, like silver bullets or staking a vampire. The stake tdoes not work and Solego shoves both of them into the Car. Pete gives up and puts in the key. They are being brought out of town and Solego wants no company. Before he can remove them though, Goofy grabs the steering wheel and drives it halfway off a cliff. Pete and Goofy get out before Solego's Car falls down over the cliff. However he does dial Floyd of Floyd's Car Shop and well...........You know it's DuckTales time next!

Floyd drove the broken and bruised car to Duckburg. Scrooge is yelling at Fenton that he didn't do any thing and not to pay for the car. Floyd however is so tired he just walks off to get a hotel. I guess he'll come back later to argue with Scrooge. You know you want to be at your best when you argue with Scrooge McDuck over money. Cheap Scottish bastard. However Solego starts saying help help and being a good fella Fenton Crackshell opens up the hood just to be possessed by the Jewel. That's right, he now POSSESSES GIZMODUCK!  Fenton then yells the Gizmoduck words BLATHERING BLATHERSKITE. Solego throws Fenton out of there and drives off.  He then breaks the SHIT out of the Money Bin. Which sends out like a fuckin shit ton of police officers. He drives off realizing the Medallion is not there. They then realize they can talk to Professor Potshed. However they don't get him but his son. Sonshed then decides to tell them the origin of Solego. Who was an immortal that was a huge douchebag and ruled over people. He was captured within that Jewel by a man named D'Shane. I'm going to pretend that D'Shane is Djions great great great great great great great great great great great great great great not so great great great great great great great great great GREAT grandpa. Sonshed then says it should stay in his money bin, however Scrooge says it's at his Jewel cleaners in.......St. Canard. He calls S.H.U.S.H. headquarters so that they can get help from............. DARKWING DUCK.

Tad Stones is all like Darkwing Duck and DuckTales are totally NOT in the same universe. Even if Darkwing Duck has Gizmoduck and Launchpad. Sorry Tad, I love ya and your name is still the coolest, but this comic shows that all of the Disney Afternoon seems to take place in the same universe.  We open up in S.H.U.S.H. HQ where the little goose man? Is talking to Darkwing Duck. Darkwing Duck is thinking of all kinds of amazing things he might have to do for Scrooge McDuck but the old guys like nah it's just picking up a necklace from the Jewelers. At this moment Fenton comes in freaking out yelling the entire story of the Demonic Solego. We then see GizmoSolego threatening a Jeweler. That's before Darkwing Duck shows up.  However he's not very good at stopping Solego who finally puts the Jewel and the Setting together. Oh shit people, The Chaos God is back!

Fenton runs off and Solego starts turning everything he can into members of his black army. Bicycles start chasing people. Even trash cans. Solego then turns the two lions at the St. Canard Library or some Place to life and they well they want to eat Darkwing Duck. Gizmoduck takes quick work of them but Solego just BLOWS GIZMODUCK THE FUCK UP SENDING FENTON FLYING AWAY. he then turns Launchpad into Chopped Liver. Darkwing Duck just runs off until they are on the roof of a building. Darkwing jumps away when Solego shoots his magic it hits the satelite which I guess was mirrored and it hits Solego which turns him back into the Jewel and setting. Solego's own power did him in Sonshed says in J. Gander Hooter (great name for a charcter)'s office. They then put the setting and jewel back in to the Jade Block it was found in, put it in a safe, and bury that safe within Scrooge McDuck's Money Bin, where it will never see the light of day again. GET FUCKED CHAOS GOD, YOU CAN'T STOP THE DISNEY AFTERNOON BITCH.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I loved the Disney Afternoon shows more than most of the Disney movies. They are my favorite thing related to the old MICKEY MOUSE CLUB. This was a fun story with all kinds of action and adventure. Each part felt different but moved the story along. It was pretty amusing and really fun to read. Fuddnoyd will be a nuicanse about it but I liked this story and I think it's a pretty good candidate for 100th Comic Review. I certainly enjoyed it more than I would have enjoyed Civil War, that's because Mark Millar sucks ass and might be the worst comics person ever. Bobbi JG Weiss is way, way cooler. Claw Bunny will one day defeat the Fuddnoyd forever.

NES Game Reviews #32: The Double Dragons Play Basketball on an Airplane Before Going to See Some Doctors.

 

Man the AVGN. He gets a lot of discussion these days. He still somehow gets a insane amount of views but this here is from his like 5th or 6th time doing something with the NES game Dr. Jekyll. None of them really beat the first review where he just feels genuinely beat down mentally by the game. I remember being angry at the AVGN because people would automatically assume a game he talked about was bad without playing it for themselves. Or realizing he was a joke. I kinda got over it. I still actually watch him even if he's clearly burnt out. I mean going back to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for like the 5th or 6th time is just really desperate. I'm not as insane as the guys on the Cinemassacre Truth on reddit. Those dudes are nutty. Anyway I picked this image because this is the time where I review Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Will I buck against the trend like I have before for other games or will I open up my ass and dump all over it and call it the worst NES game ever. Well people you have to read five other reviews before finding out!

First off, I think Double Dragon II: The Revenge might just have the greatest NES Cover box of all time. You are totally renting this game for the weekend. Or owning it. I'm pretty sure I owned the first two Double Dragon games as a kid. I know I had one of them. These were very popular games for that age. Anyway Double Dragon II sadly gets rid of the weird little RPG thing the first game had going on with the moves getting better and different but other than that pretty much improves everything else. The graphics are the best and the music is CHEF'S KISS. I will not hear any sass towards those two things. The punching and kicking of the bad guys is great just as it usually is. The only problem is that they were like You know what this well done beat em up needs more of. YES YOSHI I KNOW MORE PLATFORMING. Sadly Yoshi got his way and this game got way more platforming it seems. The platforming of this stuff was quite poor. It's just the biggest problem with any of these games really. Everything else is perfect.

I'm sorry but this will have a HOT TAKE in fact maybe two HOT TAKES within this mini review. The first HOT TAKE is that Double Dragon III is a good game. Yes, it's a downgrade from the excellent second game, with five levels in the game. The second HOT TAKE is that this game is not as super ultra impossible as most people will say. The game, like the others you just have to get into a groove of punching dudes. These are not very hard games. The hardest part of this game is the final level and the final boss. Marion is VERY HARD. However you can beat her and her smelly mummies. She is NOT impossible. Still this game has pretty great graphics, very good sound and you get to play as two new characters. Sadly only one of them is any good. Chin is too much of a slow assed bitch to really play as but the Ninja guy is pretty awesome. Ninjas are awesome!

I do not know how many times that I have to say that I do not watch sports. I do not play sports. I do not know the rules of any sport. I am not good at ANY sports game except maybe being decent enough at the Punch Out games. It is really hard for me to judge any sports game. I had a Toronto Raptors sweater just because I liked Dinosaurs. I thought the Harlem Globetrotters where made up by Simpsons joke writers. I do not know Basketball. I do not know Baseball. I do not know Soccer. I do not know Football. However I can tell you this game is one I'm very okay at this game. I can even get a few points in! Then the computer smacks my booty and I start crying and turn off the Nintendo. I will say that this is probably the best Basketball game but then again I don't remember any of the other Basketball games for the NES. This game is Konami after all. If you like Basketball then you'll enjoy it.

I think this game might win the award for most boring fucking shooter game of all time. You can literally not interact with the enemies if you don't want too. It's that shittly made. The only problem is that this game goes from so easy you could give it to a 95 year old woman and she'd be able to play it to holy shit this is harder than making sense of my life when you get to ANY boss. They are all so after your ass that it becomes comical. Anyway there is very little to say about this game except I do not enjoy playing it and it's a bad shump. Go play Gradius or some shit. Fuck Double Strike.

I think the genre of "Where the Fuck Do I GO in this game?" is a huge genre on the NES. So many of them just drop you into the game and you just get left wondering where to go. There are many games that are pretty good at this. I like Blaster Master, Clash at Demonhead and Metroid among some others. This one however is just a mess because it never really gives you any hints. It also is a HUGE game where you can go into a different set of areas do get put somewhere entirely different. It's like you need two maps, and honestly I have beaten this game and yes I did use a FAQ. I don't care. I could get over the damn where the hell do I go if the play control wasn't the absolute shits. That's what really sets this game in the bad pile of the Where The Fuck Do You Go genre. Sadly because man that's a cool fucking cover. I just wish I enjoyed playing the game.

You know for all his bitching I think the AVGN secretly likes this game. Why would he go back to it for three reviews, a weird lets play episode and a fake movie review. I think he likes this game and won't admit it. You have another fan to talk to with it James, Portnoyd in his wrongest opinion ever stated likes this game. Or doesn't think it's complete shit. I don't know about you but once I beat this game twice to get the best ending because me and another NES FAN were trying to beat all the NES games we could. This was in 2006. We both beat Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and I do not think we enjoyed our time with this game. I certainly did not. This game was a ugly, wretched mess. First off you go so fucking slow as Dr. Jekyll making it incredibly fucking hard to do anything with the bombs people drop. You also get one fucking weapon that just hits bees. Wonderful. Then you get into the Mr. Hyde stages which are more fun but you also don't realize until you look on the internet that if you meet up with Dr. Jekyll you get hit with Lightning which makes no fucking sense because Dr. Jekyll IS Mr. Hyde. THERE'S NO MEETING UP TO BE DONE YOU SHITTY FUCKERS. This game is a painful, ugly slog that gets put on my worst of NES games list. I don't give a shit, this game is awful rubbish and I hate it. This game causes Robert Louis Stevenson to spin around in his grave like in the ending of Dr. Jekyll and Hyde Together Again an obscure 1980s comedy film no one reading this has ever seen or ever will see. It's still better than this piss shit garbage. It's not the worst NES game though. There is one game I hate more. We will see it hopefully. Anyway, wasn't it weird that this and Tom Sawyer were made based on books from the 19th century. That's just really weird  to me. I don't even remember any popular Dr Jekyll or Tom Sawyer things that came out in the late 1980s. Oh well, fuck this game in the ear.

GOOD GAMES: 83

BAD GAMES: 73

OKAY OR HAVEN'T AGED WELL: 24

GAMES THAT MIGHT BE GOOD BUT IM AN IMPATIENT BABY: 2

NES Game Reviews #31: Donkey Kong Double Dare Against Donkey Kong Jr's Double Dragons.

 

I just went with the Donkey Kong 3 arcade banner thing for the opening picture because I felt like it and because I can't do another picture of the NES right now. Need something else. Anyway did you know that this year 2025 was the 40th anniversary of the NES which also makes me feel old because it is also my 40th anniversary of being a part of this thing we call life. This wonderful but also sad thing we call life. Anyway before I get too depressing let's cut the chitchat because we got another six video games made for the NES to talk about. We will get to the end one day. Maybe.

This game seems to be very love it or hate it. A lot of people seem to hate it. Personally I love it. Just something about the different kind of gameplay is very enjoyable to me. This time you do not play as Jumpman aka Mario Mario from the Super Mario Brothers. And yes I consider the 1993 Super Mario Brothers movie to be canon. No Nintendo you will not stop me from feeling that way. I will wrestle Miyamoto to make it canon. I mean I will fail because a 70 year old Japanese man could clearly beat me because I would get tired 3 seconds into the match but damnit I'd try! For 3 seconds at least! Enough about that weird movie that I like. We are here to introduce Nintendo's most famous character. Stanley. Stanley the Bugman! He kills bugs! Donkey Kong now controls bugs for some reason! I do not know why I use so many exclamation points! I just like them! Anyway you shoot the bugs and move onto the next level until it gest to hard. I got pretty good at this game but I don't think anyone else enjoyed playing it for the SCORE CHALLENGE. TOUGH SHIT FOR THEM.

This was the Donkey Kong game I liked playing the most for the old NES. I mean it's the one I remember playing the most as a child. Something about this one just worked the best for me. I guess I liked playing a kid character? I dunno. This one is actually the hardest one for me to get into a groove with for the NES now as an adult. Something about this one is just harder than the rest for me. I mean it's still an excellent arcade style game. Probably even better than the original because no levels were removed (unless I missed something and there was a removed level) I like the weird level with the electricity that looks like it just popped out of the movie Tron. I wish Tron was considered a bigger deal at Disney because maybe they wouldn't have let that doody face Jared Leto ruin it. Oh well. Oh, before I go did you know that Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr had cartoons in the early 1980s? Well they did. And so did Q-Bert and Frogger. I have never seen the Donkey Kong or Jr cartoons but I did see a Q-Bert one. They were greasers and it was the 1950s. Q-Fonzie. Yeah. I had to mention that because I do not know if we will ever get to the Qs. 

Now we have what is single handedly the most pointless NES game of all time. Not the worst. Just the most pointless. No matter what game you consider the worst to be, someone out there wanted it badly. Someone wanted Ikari Warriors, or Dr. Jekyll or MUSCLE or whatever. Not a single fucking living creature ever wanted this game. Not even the big nerdy ones that loved math. No one put Donkey Kong Jr Math on their Christmas list. You instinctly knew it would be of poor quality. Even if you were a little math nerd you still knew you could get your hidieous math fix somewhere else. You knew and that's why this game became weirdly rare. Because it was passed up on again and again. This game was a punishment from your parents because it doesn't even do anything interesting. It's not remotely fun to play in any way.  This was until the NintendoAge mongoloids came in and just shit their pants over this game. It came a necessary part of your collection. That's a part of what made them so frustrating and shitty to me. The need to prioritize awful garbage like this game. They really ruined NES game collecting and I will never forgive them for that. You either got this game because you were bad at Math and your parents thought this would somehow help or your parents bought every single black box game in 1985 to keep your dumb ass happy and away from them (hi port!). Anyway fuck Donkey Kong Jr Math and fuck NintendoAge. Rest in piss you shitty fucks.

Well, I guess I have to review this even though I just reviewed Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. This game puts both in one cartridge. I don't know why they didn't put part 3 and hell shove in Donkey Kong Jr. Math for the hell of it. Anyway this was the Donkey Kong game I had as a kid. I loved it. I would play it before watching The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show on ABC. I really don't know what else to say than that. There's not much else to say. I can say I really like the box art. It's very cute with a really angry Mario just giving Donkey Kong a concussion because Donkey Kong became nicer. The Donkey Kong of 1981 would have squished Mario's legs to shit killing the bastard. Anyway, HERE PORT HERE'S THE DAMN DONKEY KONG CLASSICS REVIEW!

This is a show based on the most famous show of 1980s Nickelodeon. 1980s Nickelodeon was weird and wild. Just the most random shit picked out from other places and made by them. Double Dare was popular as shit for like five or six years. It even got turned into a syndication show. However we to the best of my knowledge never got it here in Canada. I never got to see it. I did however get to see the weird Canadian ripoff of it. It was called Uh-Oh and it had a man named the Punisher in some weird BDSM gear. It also gave away hilariously awful prizes. Like some shitty off brand walkman. Great stuff Canada! I never really liked Uh-Oh! but it stuck in my mind like everything eles form the past. My brain is nothing but things from the past floating around in there. It's frightening and bizarre. Anyway, this game is not great. The trivia answering stuff you'd find in one of the 9000 Jeopardy games made for the NES is fine. Nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is when you have to do the end of the game challenge. The controls in this section are so so bad that you will want to throw your Nintendo at the wall and yell and scream like you were a 5 year old child. So for that alone I cannot say this game is anything more than OK. I mean it ruins the part of the game you really wanted to play right? The crazy obstacle course.  Portnoyd will laugh at me for never getting to see Double Dare.

Alright! It's fucking Double Dragon time. The 1980s and 1990s had like 18,609 beat em up games and it rarely got as good as Double Dragon. I think this might be my favorite beat em up series. Just smacking the guys around in this one felt so good all the time. The characters you could beat up were very memorable. Like Abobo. Is Abobo supposed to be a weird freak or just a deformed man. I like that he can hide in caves and just bust out of them. Abobo rules. Abobo is my hero. I want to be like Abobo. Okay I promise to not say Abobo again. I will try to stay with that promise but it will be hard. It's just so much fun to say and to type. Anyway, the only problem I have with any of these Double Dragon games is when you have to jump from one platform to another. They always bring them in later on in the game and the jumping is just very awkward. That's the only problem with any of these games. Pretty great graphics for the time. Incredible music. It's just the game should have just kept to smacking dudes instead of jumping over pits. Still a worthy addition to any collection. I mean if I thought it was a good idea to collect games these days, which I don't. This game now goes for $30 and you know how many copies I saw in Newfoundland? way too many. With the Newfoundland Rule (that being anything found in Newfoundland can no longer be considered rare) being put into place, people should literally be giving you copies of this game. For free. 

GOOD GAMES: 80

BAD GAMES: 70

OKAY GAMES: 24

GAMES THAT I AM TOO IMPATIENT TO PLAY BECAUSE IM A LAZY BOY: 2