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Not a Justice League of Their Own, or Are They?

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

The problem with the live action Justice League not living up to its pedigree is that it’s missing its seventh member. We have Batman (Ben Affleck), Superman (Henry Cavill), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) leading the charge. In the film, he’s dead but everyone knows he’ll come back to at some point. Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and Flash (Ezra Miller) round off the team. In the comics, there were seven founding members. This number is also very symbolic, usually a measure of completeness. Depending on the culture, just what it means will vary.

As a film which hints at a possible add in the future, the wait will be long to see who that will be. In other mediums, either Green Lantern or Martian Manhunter will become a member. But before this can even happen, a set of solo films are in store for the other half of the team. This baggage is unneeded; let’s just assume audiences know them and offer story arcs which can shake up the DC multiverse (conveniently enough, Flashpoint will be the story in Flash’s solo outing even though no date has been set).

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There’s No Injustice 2 Mobile’s Improved Gameplay!

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Warner Bros Interactive and DC Entertainment released a mobile edition of Injustice 2 (for Android and iOS) well ahead of the console edition due out May 16th, and I did not get any other work done over the weekend because of it.

The gameplay is familiar, and the story mode kept me engaged for hours, while watching Paul Dini and Bruce Timm’s Batman: The Animated Series in the background. While the Mortal Kombat / Street Fighter-like mechanics will always be awkward when played on tablet-like surfaces — tapping and swiping for to activate certain moves — but this game does something to improve the momentum of the character’s moves. I find the controls a lot more intuitive to figure out, especially when I’m the type who does not pay attention to the tutorials much.
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Just Who Is Suicide Squad After? A Movie Review

12489243_1674589672821667_4430624289856009994_o By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

* Spoiler Alert

Suicide Squad is definitely a lot of fun with Deadshot (Will Smith) commanding this team! Technically, it’s Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) but if this individual is going to be the good guy to take care of the bad guys, he certainly needs to learn from Deadshot in how to rile and rouse a team into action. More could have been done in the tale to show these two have a battle of wills and decide who is the most righteous. But instead, the story weaves in and out of identifying who will make up this team and why they are brought together.

The plot felt inspired by Ghostbusters I and II. Certain set pieces were definitely very familiar — where the team has to go into the heart of where the commotion is taking place in a ravaged city. Just who caused the destruction was never revealed in the trailers. It could have been terrorists, another meta-human gone postal or even be an alien invasion. A major reveal follows:

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Hopes and Dreams for where DC’s Legends of Tomorrow Should Go

In regards to where season one of Legends of Tomorrow is going, the writers are building upon what Savage is doing throughout time in his attempts to destroy the Earth.

Legends of Tomorrow TItle Card The episodes building up to DC’s Legends of Tomorrow on the CW are far more entertaining than the pilot premiere — to which only part one aired. The network should have paired the episodes from Arrow and The Flash along with the two episodes comprising the pilot together in a four-hour extravaganza instead of having parts one and two spread a week apart.

Sadly, as with any new program, a part of the show needs to be dedicated to getting newcomers up to speed about the heroes gathered by time-traveller Rip Hunter. Arthur Darvill is certainly having fun playing a serious but over zealous officer of a police force guarding the time stream. He argues to the Time Master Council (they have a rule of non-interference in the natural course of events in the galaxy) must intercede to prevent despots like Caesar taken out earlier in life instead of later. Vandal Savage has completely taken over Earth and is killing innocents as he firms his rule. Anyone coming into this series without watching the other two super-hero shows will still get to see that he is worse than Hitler.

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Suicide Squad Trailer is Here and it’s Insane on Every Level!

By James Robert Shaw (The Wind up Geek)

Sometimes the best heroes are those who walk the moral divide. To them there is nothing left to lose. They have no goodly image to maintain and no moral code to follow. The path to redemption is over a mountain and not on level ground. To the government these people are the most useful to mete out punishment to the guilty without feeling guilty themselves. They are known as the Suicide Squad.

In the first official trailer released during CW’s DC Cinematic Universe special, hopes are raised. My fear of Will Smith as Deadshot being the primary focus of the movie is proven wrong thus far. Instead, I am given the whole menagerie as each squad member is given time to shine in a trailer set to Queen’s headbangingly infectious Bohemian Rhapsody. This is a huge leap from the original teaser trailer that premiered at the San Diego Comic-Con. That trailer focused more on the character development, the whys and the soft silent moments that were meant to build up the anticipation of the film. This trailer takes leave of its senses. It’s loud, it’s action packed and it’s explodes all over your screen. It rampages like an unfettered juggernaut for a whole 2½ minutes. In comparison, it’s more in line with Harley Quinn’s state of mind then any trailer Marvel Entertainment has produced this year.

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Ranking 2016’s Comic Book Films by Impact

Trying to translate every hero into a live-action story is dangerous, especially when some heroes just cannot translate well (Aquaman) as a comic book film.

Captain America: Civil War Movie Poster The past few years have been nothing but a bumper-crop of comic book films. There’s a few one-off’s which are kind of fun, and for the big two, Marvel and DC, just which one will I start to love more? This year will definite it! The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is going to hit a milestone with one of the comicdom’s pivotal moments getting a movie treatment, and the DC cinema realm will finally give rise to the Justice League.

Honestly, I prefer Bruce Timm and Paul Dini’s animated unification of the DC universe. Trying to translate every hero into a live-action story is dangerous, especially when some heroes just cannot translate well (Aquaman). So far, DC is lucking out and doing a better job in the television front. The films have been a mixed bag. Marvel is approaching the point of maybe doing too much. One-off’s are fine. I prefer those over any other item, but even I have to admit to see the Infinity War play on a big screen is going to be exciting.

Going from must see to not really caring, herein lies my choices for films:

Captain America: Civil War (May 5)

I really enjoy following this sub-series of the MCU films more than the rest of the others sagas because there is meat to the geo-political wranglings going on. The reason is not because this hero represents the Red, White and Blue. When I have a passion for the pulps, his origin story stood out more and there’s an aspect in the tales that I adore when observing a man out of time.

Yes, I’ll be rooting for the Captain in this installment and I really want to know how Bucky figures into this revised version of the civil war that’s to take place. It will not be necessarily following what was outlined in the comic books even though everyone will be getting to see a new Spider-Man for the first time. For me, it’s to see how this trilogy of films will affect the rest of the MCU in the future. Could that be why the Master of Mysticism is required to turn back time?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVdV-lxRPFo%5D
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