Getting ready for Agents of SHIELD midseason premiere

There are only a few days left before the midseason premiere of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD on March 8th. A lot has happened to Agent Coulson and his group. There have been some setbacks, some victories, and some twists and turns. Before we think about the future of SHIELD, let's take a quick look back at SHIELD's past.

SEASON ONE Introduced us to a resurrected Coulson and his mobile response team meant to deal with mysterious situations in a world of miracles. The big bad of this season is called the Clairvoyant while Coulson searches for the secrets of his return to life. While handling some strange cases and working to take down the Clairvoyant, the team grows and SHIELD collapses (this is in direct connection of the MCU movie Captain America: The Winter Soldier). Hydra moles within SHIELD are exposed including a member of Coulson's team. The Clairvoyant is also revealed to be a SHIELD/Hydra agent. This story arc concludes with the Clairvoyant's defeat and a setup for next season dealing with Skye's father and the side effects to Coulson's resurrention.

 SEASON TWO Introduced us to Skye's parents and the Inhumans (people given powers by alien crsytals). Coulson's team fights for SHIELD to regain public and government trust. As Coulson learns of his connection to the Inhumans and his leadership is called into question. It is reveled that Coulson isn't the only SHIELD agents left trying to do good, but these agents don't trust Coulson and try to unseat him as director. Inhumans also plot against SHIELD. As this story arc finishes up, Skye is the first of Coulson's Inhuman agents, the rogue Inhumans are defeated, and Coulson makes a sacrifice. In the aftermath, Simmons disappears.

 SEASON THREE Focuses on Coulson's team working to get agent Simmons back as well as the growing population of Inhumans. We meet the government's reponse to Inhumans in the ATCU. Also the threat of a rogue Inhuman who is killing other Inhumans is revealed. As our heroes pursue the Inhuman killer, it is revealed that he is someone close to home. Coulson tries to foster an alliance with the ATCU and works to bring Simmons back. Ward works with Hydra who are also interested in the place where Simmons is; only to find an ancient power. At the end of the first half of the season, Fitz and Coulson bring back Simmons while Ward brings back something else.

That brings us to now. Are you ready for "Bouncing Back" on March 8th (the next episode of MARVEL's Agents of SHIELD)? What was your favorite part of Season Three so far? Leave a comment...

Did CWs Flash jump the KING Shark?

I've already said before that when it comes to superheroes, I'm rather bias. So when my buddy Loose asked me about this week's episode of the Flash on CW, I was ready to talk it up. The meta of the week was King Shark and the Jaws references were awesome!



SPOILER ALERT! if you haven't seen the episode, you are about to enter spoiler land...

The after the final act of the episode we see the continuation of the scene from the last episode where Zoom reaches through the breach and apparantly kills Jay Garrick and pulls him through the breach. Ok, first thing here... why is he so close to the breach? I know its about to close, but still that just seems silly. Its not like he wasn't spending most of the episode trying to stablize them...but I digress.

So Zoom carries Jay's body and drops it in his layer as the mysterious man in the metal mask looks on from his cell. Then Zoom takes off his mask and reveals that he is Jay.

Ok. So if you saw the episode, then you saw Zoom's face. While I kind of figured that was coming, having my chat with Loose got me to thinking. He said that he was disappointed in the reveal of Zoom and that Flash had "jumped the shark!" If you don't know the expression, GOOGLE it. While I appreciated his pun (King Shark/jumped the shark...try to keep up), I asked what he meant. I liked the episode. The Jaws references like "I think we need a bigger Flash..." were cool, the guest appearance of Diggle and Lyla, while we watched Barry, Cisco, Wells, Wells' daughter, and Catlin deal with the consequences of their Earth 2 visit, Jay's death, and the fact that all the breaches were closed. I even enjoyed how the CW had Wally West continue to be a cocky jerk when dealing with Barry. So I liked the episode and I didn't know what he was talking about... then he said Zoom... And then it made sense. Zoom's reveal was almost a parallel to the Reverse Flash's reveal. Wells/Thawne was a mentor to Barry, kept secrets and manipulated others, and as the Reverse Flash he overpowered and outclassed Flash. So Jay Garrick/Zoom is the basically the same. He's someone that the team trusted and he's been manipulating things.

Still though, I think a better Zoom reveal would've been Barry's dad or Wally West maybe. For Zoom to be Jay at best seems like lazy writing and at worse is bad writing. Eventhough I concede that Jay Garrick being Zoom wasn't the best writing choice, I'm still going to watch the Flash. And while I think there were better choices, its not a game changer for me at this point. I still love Cisco enough to watch the show for just his nerd commentary.

What do you think? Did the Flash jump the shark or did he just kick King Shark's butt? Leave a comment about your opinion.

Late to the party - Firefly board game

 You can't take the sky from me...

Any nerd worth his weight in comics and pewter models recognizes that line from the short lived cult classic show Firefly. I am a big fan of the show and I wasn't only "late to the party" on the show but also on the board game.

Over 6 years ago I had the flu and was stuck in bed. A friend of mine suggested watching Firefly and loaned me the movie Serenity.Well after the first episode, I binge-watched the entire season and the Serenity movie that day (that was before Netflix and binging was a thing). So I was an instant fan and enjoyed rewatching the episodes over and over ever since. That brings me to a sad fact. For quite some time I had seen the Firefly board game and I avoided it. I couldn't believe that the game was fun, plus, (at least at the time) I thought it was a little on the expensive side (about $50 bucks for the core game).

Fast forward to last week at FLINTCON, an annual local miniature gaming event. This was my first time attending and while I was there to demo a few games...I ended up having a little time to play in some games myself. The real fun began as I noticed the Firefly board game under a table behind me. I immediately asked the person, Mike, about the Firefly game. I told him I never played it and he asked if I wanted to try it. Oh I'm soooo glad he did. I ended up playing the game with Mike and his friend Nic. They broke down the basic rules of the game, made a few references to the show and then we started playing. After about 40 minutes into the game, Mike had to leave.  I was having so much fun, Nic offered to just finish it out with me. I ended up winning the game, but that wasn't the best part; I actually enjoyed the game. The mechanics, the rules, the setup all put me in the mind of the show. It seemed like the next best thing to actually being on the ship with Mal and Zoe. Okay, maybe not the next best...but it was totally nerdgasmic. I have to admit that some of the characters and show references were lost on me. That was cool though, it just gave me a reason to watch the series again on Netflix (like I actually needed a reason..?).

Here's how the game works. Setup involves several decks of cards, a board/map of the 'verse, and a pile of various tokens. This wasn't that big of a deal; it took all of 5 or so minutes. I've played games less fun with way more setup time (koff...Legendary...koff). To start we pick our story card. This is a scenario which outlines the goals of the game and how you win. There are several including a mission that is for a single player. Next it was time to pick my captain. Of those available, I picked Corbin. I honestly had no idea who Corbin was in the show. Nic was able to pick first and he picked Naomi as his captain. Now Naomi I remembered. lady trained as a companion who ran a brothel. I can't remember exactly who Mike picked, I believe it was Monty. Anyway, next we picked our ships. We got $3000 bucks to start and then it was time to fly through the "black", hire a crew, and start doing jobs.  Nic ended up recruiting Zoe while Mike recruited Simon and Bridget. Late in the game I got to hire Wash.

Game play works like this. On your turn, you have two actions. You can either fly, buy, deal, or work. There are several decks of cards that represent the places you buy supplies from, the jobs you work (legal or otherwise), and the encounters you have as you travel the "black" There is an Alliance ship and a Reaver ship that are the big bads. You don't want to have to deal with either. These ships move around the board. As you move around the board you flip a "NAV" card for each space you travel. Hopefully you reveal a keep flying card and you can proceed. There are cards that can stop your move, offer you challenges, or serve you up to the Alliance or Reaver ship. If you don't manage to slip away, you can have to pay fines, lose gear, or kill off crew. Challenges involve dice roles that you add modifiers to based on your crew, their keywords/class/skills, and any gear they have. The SUPPLY decks allow you to recruit crew or buy gear. I  missed buying a fake ID and "fancy dudes" that I couldn't used for several of my challenges. The misbehave deck is for when you are doing illegal jobs and each card from this deck has challenges you must complete to proceed. The tokens come into play with your ship. Fuel tokens are required to move. Your crew can get unhappy and get a disgruntled token (two of these tokens and your crew member quits). Job cards may have prerequisites that are satisfied by crew skills, keywords, or gear.

The gameplay really gave me a feel for the show. Having to balance keeping my ship fueled, doing jobs to get money, keeping my crew happy, dealing with the Alliance, and Reavers, while interacting with specific characters from the show all do the show justice. I give the game an A! I also suggest any fan, even a moderate one, of the show play this game. In fact I almost say its necessary.

Justice League: Gods and Monsters REVIEW - SPOILERS

SPOILER WARNING!!!

Years ago, one of the first comic book titles I collected was Marvel’s WHAT IF series. How they changed outcomes or had characters make other choices that affected their lives. I loved how the writers took established characters and flipped the script on them. When I began reading DC Comics, this love increased exponentially. DC had the multiverse, countless alternate universes with characters whose lives changed while seemingly slightly…ended up monumental. Elseworlds stories have for the most part been awesome. Stories Superman Red Sun, The Nail, Flashpoint, The Dark Knight Returns, and Kingdom Come are just a few titles that came from our favored heroes choosing the other option or fate taking another path and those choices made for epic stories.

Justice League: Gods and Monsters was an equally impressive addition to the Elseworlds fiction. The animation for the feature was well done and was fine for telling the story. While DC Animation has yet to disappoint me with the art from their projects, the involvement of Bruce Timm (creator of Batman: The Animated Series) was apparent. Reimagining DC Comics trinity (Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman) made for an interesting tale.  I really enjoyed how other heroes and villains are present in this reality, but are on the cusp of getting their powers. One of the best parts of watching the feature was looking at characters and figuring out which hero or villain they were destined to become. We see glimpses of Cyborg, The Atom, and Mr. Freeze to name a few. There were a few names that were dropped that I didn't recognize and had to look up after the movie. Fed right into my nerd nerve....I think I had a few nerdgasms during the flick and for sure at least one afterwards.


I liked the villain of the story as well. It’s often said that DC comics has the most interesting bad guys. Whether you figured out who the big bad was early in the film or if you didn't see it coming; the villain worked well for the story. You're almost meant to think Lex Luthor is the antagonist, but that's a little too obvious. Will Magnus and his Metal Men was an intriguing villain in motivation as well as action.

Perhaps the best part of Justice League: Gods and Monsters isn’t the art or the story but the fact that like the Elseworld stories Kingdom Come and the Dark Knight Returns… the Gods and Monsters universe isn’t stopping with the single feature film. Prior to the animated release there were three online short episodes that featured each of the main characters (Gods and Monsters Chronicles). I watched each one and they were well done…cool, interesting, and each gives a brief look at each characters personality. There are several follow up comic books being published as well as an action figure line.

For Justice League: Gods and Monsters, the future continues to look bright. With all the follow through and follow up on the universe through various media, I give the flick a solid A. It’s a must see for any DC comics, DC animation, and general super hero fans.

ANT-MAN a no spoilers review

NO SPOILERS

I had to make a deal with my wife to see Ant-Man on the Thursday before its official release. But alas that is the life of a nerd dad. Ok, maybe I’m laying it on a bit thick, but the deal was way worth it...Still I digress.

If you are a super hero fanatic like myself, you'll enjoy this movie. The special effects are well done. The shrinking and growing scenes are cool and believable. The CGI ants were also cool. My wife was actually surprised by the number of ants in the ANT-MAN movie…lol. There were a few times that the shrinking scenes were a little hard to follow, but I'm sure it'll be fine the second time I see it.

Michael Douglas and Paul Rudd do a good job of portraying our heroes. The torch passing between the two works well on screen. Former Lost hottie Evangline Lilly was cool as Hope. At first I thought her character was too rigid, but she warms up later. As expected with a Marvel movie, the weakest part of the film is the villain. While Corey Stoll is ok, it’s like he can’t make up his mind whether he was nefarious, psychotic, or simply misunderstood. While that might work with say the Joker, it makes Stoll’s motives seem more manufactured. Besides Rudds’ wisecracks and humor, there is the "plucky comedy relief" from what equates to sidekicks; in the form of Michael Pena, T.I., and David Dastmalchian. Their roles are funny and well placed. Pena is especially fun with his unique method of explaining things to our hero.

What makes this film especially good for me is the reason that I have a soft spot for all the Disney/Marvel super hero films...the Marvel Cinematic Universe! The fact that the films are connected and you get cameos and mentions of events from other films tickles my super hero loving bones. Some of the things they mentioned (nods and connections to other Marvel characters and movies) in the film almost gave me a nerdgasm. Then there are the cameos, and those actually did give me a several nerdgasms.

There are TWO post credit scenes, so make sure you stay for both.

Ant-Man is a must see for the super hero/comic lover, the Disney film lover, and everyone in between.

I give Ant-Man a B+