Wonder Woman!

New WW togs — New and classic TV Wonder Women

Warner Brothers recently released a photograph of Adrianne Palicki in costume as the lead character in the upcoming television revival of Wonder Woman. Predictably, message boards were full of nerd rage at the changes to the superheroine’s look, but I agree with original actress Lynda Carter, who said that viewers should give the new show a chance.

Palicki’s costume is similar to the redesign found in current DC Comics issues, which I’ve been reading. Jim Lee and JMS’s alterations were also controversial when unveiled, but they may be only temporary. I think that leggings are more modern than a bikini bottom, and I’m surprised that the TV version doesn’t have shoulder straps rather than a probably uncomfortable corset.

The blue and red color scheme is mostly unchanged, although I would have gone with a darker blue for the pants and red or black for the boots. The bullet-deflecting bracelets, tiara, stars and eagle motif, and Lasso of Truth are still present.

Fox News wags promptly declared the Princess of Themiscyra‘s new togs as “unpatriotic,” but that’s an overreaction. If Dick Grayson can wear Batman’s cape and cowl alongside Bruce Wayne or Bucky Barnes can fill in for Steve Rogers in a modified Captain America uniform, why can’t Wonder Woman tweak her wardrobe after 70 years?

I’m more concerned with the writing and direction of the new TV show. Ally McBeal‘s David E. Kelly and the leaked script excerpts and auditions haven’t inspired confidence, and NBC’s track record isn’t much better. I didn’t mind camp in the 1960s Batman or 1970s Wonder Woman, and not every metahuman series should be an angst fest like the X-Men or Spider-Man, but a balance of tones, villains, and action would be nice.

To be fair, the network has at least tried to launch superhero shows, such as Heroes and The Cape, but weak writing and weaker ratings did them in (ABC’s No Ordinary Family might be next). For each surprise hit like Smallville, there have been short-lived shows like The Flash, M.A.N.T.I.S., and Birds of Prey.

As I’ve noted before, DC Comics has been more successful than Marvel lately with adaptations from print to animation. Despite their cinematic blockbusters, neither has been lucky with live-action TV. Let’s hope that Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk not only bring back fond memories from 30+ years ago, but also earn a new generation of fans!

Catching up — Megamind

This past weekend, I met fellow blogger Thomas K.Y. and role-player Josh C. at Thomas’ condominium in Lexington, Massachusetts. We watched Megamind on DVD. I liked the superhero movie more than I expected.

Although it’s part of a recent glut of computer-animated comedies focusing on villains turned heroes — including the Shrek franchise, Igor, and Despicable Me — Megamind respectfully spoofs comic book conventions and has a sharp script. The film has numerous allusions to its inspiration but still feels fresh, reminding me of one of my favorite Pixar works, The Incredibles.

Megamind also features a strong cast, including Will Ferrell as the self-absorbed titular alien, Brad Pitt as Superman knockoff Metro Man, and Tina Fey as intrepid reporter Roxanne. The supporting cast also has fun, with David Cross as fishy sidekick Minion, Ben Stiller as museum curator/alter ego Bernard, and Jonah Hill as protégé gone wrong Hal Stewart/Titan. I wasn’t distracted by the celebrity voices, but it helped that I watched the film long after any promotional hype.

Unlike the “uncanny valley” of Robert Zemeckis’ animation, the cartoony yet realistic style of Megamind and movies like Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, How to Train Your Dragon and Legend of the Guardians: the Owls of Ga’Hoole doesn’t bother me. Megamind‘s action scenes were well-choreographed, and we’ve come a long way from the original Tron or ReBoot (whose complete series is finally available on DVD).

I’d give Megamind, which is rated PG for language and violence, a solid B+, 8 out of 10, or three stars. Although I’m still a fan of “traditional,” 2-D animation, I do enjoy the best of the new wave, even if I haven’t yet seen Toy Story 3 or Tangled. I hope to screen the anthropomorphic animals in Western comedy Rango this coming weekend.

After lunch at Watch City Brewing Co. on Waltham’s Moody Street, Thomas, Josh, and I watched Alien vs. Ninja, which is just as silly a “B” movie as the title suggests. Janice and I also ate at regular haunts Comella’s, Acapulco’s, and Wild Willy’s this past weekend.

All-Star Superman review

Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly's Superman — All-Star Superman

Just over a week ago, Janice and I watched All-Star Superman, the latest in DC Comics/Warner Brothers’ direct-to-DVD animation line. It’s based on a well-received story by Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly, who respectively also wrote and illustrated runs of the X-Men, Justice League, Doom Patrol, and Batman.

The cartoon adaptation is fairly faithful to the source material, including its concise retelling of Superman’s origin and allusions to the character’s science fiction adventures of the 1950s and 1960s. While I’ve found some of Morrison’s writing to be too densely self-referential, the 12-issue All-Star Superman is much more successful as a timeless tale of our would-be savior than Frank Miller’s over-the-top and incomplete All-Star Batman.

The animation captures some of Quietly’s style, especially in farmboy/reporter Clark Kent’s slouch or Lex Luthor’s egotistical posturing. The action scenes are well-choreographed, and like in Young Justice, the urban landscape of Metropolis is ironically more realistic than its current Marvel animated counterparts.

As usual, Andrea Romano has assembled a strong voice cast, including James Denton as Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman, Christina Hendricks as Lois Lane, and Ed Asner in the role he was born to play, Daily Planet editor Perry White. Anthony LaPaglia doesn’t have the menacing gravel of Clancy Brown, but he’s a decent Lex Luthor.

I’d give All-Star Superman three stars, a B+, or an 8 out of 10. It’s rated PG for some violence. I like Justice League: the New Frontier, Batman: Gotham Knight, and the Green Arrow short that was packaged with Superman/Batman: Apocalypse more.

I’m also looking forward to Green Lantern: Emerald Knights and Batman: Year One. Miller’s oft-praised Dark Knight Returns would be better as an animated feature than a live-action movie, even though his vision of Gotterdammerung has influenced many Batman depictions in the past 25 years.

Coming soon: Belated Megamind review and Rango!

Where have I been?

Readers of my blogs may have noticed that there’s a six-month gap in posts, from September 2010 to February 2011. What happened?

Fortunately, it was nothing catastrophic. I had become frustrated with how text and images appeared on my Yahoo 360 and MySpace blogs, and I had gotten busier with work and various games.

At TT, I moved from an associate site editor position to associate managing editor within the Data Center and Virtualization Media Group. I’ve had the opportunity to work with more people and learn new skills. I’ve been juggling some of my old responsibilities of editing and calendaring business information technology articles for online with new ones at the e-publications and special projects unit.

Janice recently changed technical writing jobs and now works in Cambridge, in the same building where her employer was when we moved to Massachusetts more than 10 years ago! She’s getting used to the longer commute by train, and I’m getting back to cooking dinners.

After going to San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago, and London last summer, Janice and I took fewer trips, visiting her family in Upstate New York for Thanksgiving and mine in Virginia for Christmas. We did, however, host several college friends, including Steve M.R. and his young family, Stuart C.G., David I.S. at New Year’s, and Erik B.L. and family a few weeks ago.

Janice and I also went to concerts, local attractions like the Isabella Stuart Gardener Museum, and regular seasonal festivals, such as the King Richard’s Faire, Phantom Gourmet Food Festival, New England Comic-Con, and Super MegaFest. While I enjoy celebrating Halloween, we didn’t have a big party this past autumn.

Unfortunately, I spent most of January recovering from bronchitis and dealing with several snowstorms. Most of the movies I’ve seen in the theaters lately were not big winners at the box office or the Oscars, but I enjoyed espionage drama The American; fantasies Legend of the Guardians, Harry Potter [7] and the Deathly Hallows: Part One, and The Chronicles of Narnia [3]: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; as well as belated cyberpunk sequel Tron Legacy.

French animated film The Illusionist was good, coming close to last year’s favorites of The Secret of Kells and How to Train Your Dragon (I may eventually repost reviews of these). Thanks to movie channels on cable television, I’ll gradually catch up with other flicks, but I haven’t yet had time for a Netflix subscription.

Speaking of genre TV, the current season marks a changing of the guard. I’ve enjoyed the latest wave of shows loosely based on comic book superheroes, including The Cape, No Ordinary Family, and the surprisingly long-lived Smallville, but they’ll probably all be gone soon. Animation has fared somewhat better, with Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and Young Justice as more serious successors to the campy fun of Batman and the Brave and the Bold and Marvel’s Super Hero Squad. I’ll review direct-to-video releases separately.

As SyFy’s Warehouse 13 and Sanctuary cycled out of their midseason schedules, I’ve been watching the V remake, Fringe, Star Wars: Clone Wars, and Sym-Bionic Titan to get my speculative fiction fix. Doctor Who has been going strong after the lead character’s latest regeneration, and I look forward to more Torchwood and the excellent BBC/PBS modernized Sherlock.

Speaking of fictional sleuths, Psych, Castle, and White Collar have been successful in their niche, even as the more action-oriented Chuck, Human Target, and Undercovers have struggled for ratings. I’m glad that caper show Leverage has hung on (and provided inspiration for a good tabletop role-playing game).

In a somewhat more adult direction, Spartacus: Blood and Sand/Gods of the Arena, Pillars of the Earth, and Camelot have satisfied any yearnings for swords, sandals, and sex better than Legend of the Seeker and Robin Hood did. Being Human has replaced the late Reaper and Eastwick as my supernatural melodrama of choice. I plan to blog in more detail on these and upcoming shows, current comic books, and my “Vanished Lands” and “Vortex” campaigns more regularly. What are you reading, watching, or playing?

Holiday update 2007

: Holiday 2007

As I prepare to move my blog from MySpace and Yahoo, here’ s a look back at one of my first posts (note that some of the links may be broken):

Friends, I hope that your holidays have been happy thus far. Instead of sending out the usual annual update letter, I hope that people are reading this blog.

The week before Christmas was busy, even though Janice and I had finished most of our gift shopping. Working on two issues simultaneously to get most of this week off kept CW‘s copy desk humming. On Saturday, 22 December 2007, we went to the local dump and post office, and I got my car inspected (which went more quickly and was cheaper than the previous week’s repairs).

We also had a Chinese-American buffet lunch at the Hunan New Taste, stopped by the Walpole Mall and the Big Y supermarket, and picked up my subscription at the New England Comics in Norwood, Massachusetts.

On Sunday, we stayed in because of the latest snowfall and caught up on television. What are your favorite holiday specials? Mine include classics such as A Charlie Brown Christmas, Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and various versions of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Janice’s include A Garfield Christmas, Bill ‘n’ Opus: A Wish for Wings That Work, and Will Vinton’s Claymation Christmas.

Of course, numerous Rankin-Bass cartoons and stop-motion specials have marked the holiday for generations, including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Little Drummer Boy, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, and The Year Without a Santa Claus. More recently, we have A Muppet Family Christmas and Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Robbie the Reindeer, and Shrek the Halls.

I also had a quip-filled City of Heroes (CoH) virtual session with David I.S. and company, and Janice baked in preparation for seeing her folks. We plan to have a relatively quiet New Year’s Eve, since we’ll both be working that day.

We drove to Upstate New York on Monday, Dec. 24, first to Janice’s parents’ home. Like my parents, Marvin and Linda M. live atop a hill on five acres in the country. Unlike my family, they have numerous pets and a steep, icy driveway. Janice’s middle sister Shelly was already there with her husband Melvin W. and children Rebecca, Laura, and David.

I checked out photographs of friends on teenager Becky’s Clie handheld device, played chess with tween Laura, and played pool with 9-year-old David and his father. Shelly told us about her missionary work in inner-city Utica, and after a tasty lasagne dinner, we drove down to Janice’s youngest sister’s home, where we were staying.

We joined Melinda and Gary L. and their children Amanda and Joshua for Christmas Eve. I helped keep the kids occupied while the other adults finished wrapping a pile of presents. Amanda demonstrated her recent violin lessons, and I talked with 6-year-old Josh about various superheroes. Their cat Chocolate kept us company as we slept.

On Christmas morning, unwrapping continued, as the Manwillers and Wrights reconvened at the Lewis home, which has the most open space. Among other things, we got DVDs and an electric snow shovel. We had a ham luncheon, followed by Laura and 8-year-old Amanda playing with animal toys and David and Joshua playing with action figures and videogames. Becky is old enough to participate in most adult conversations.

Thanks to Gary’s PlayStation 2 and Xbox, I played an off-road racing videogame with Melvin, as well as Justice League Heroes with Josh. Although I don’t have the money or time to add console systems to my crowded tabletop (pen-and-paper, dice-and-pizza) role-playing, teleconferencing, and CoH PC gaming schedule, it was nice to try them out once in a while. Josh also demonstrated Spider-Man and Star Wars Lego II for us. (Lego Batman and Indiana Jones games are coming!)

I telephoned my family in Virginia, but I still missed being with my parents, brother Peter, sister-in-law Kelly, and nieces Ava and Lili. I hope to see them sometime in spring of 2008. But first, we’ll be at Dexter V.H.’s latest wedding in New York City in just over a week!

We returned to the Boston area on Wednesday afternoon after taking out the Lewises and Janice’s mother to lunch at Applebee’s. On Thursday, I caught up on e-mail and prepared for various games, including last night’s D&D3.5 “Vanished Lands: Holy Steel” teleconferencing team and tomorrow’s D&D3.5 “Vanished Lands: the Broken Chains” holiday makeup fantasy session. I’ve got to work today.

Of course, no year’s end blog post would be complete without a set of “best of” lists. IGN.com has a pretty good rundown of movies, genre television, and comics, but here’s my abbreviated version for 2007:

–Favorite movies: Children of Men, Pan’s Labyrinth, and Ratatouille

–Favorite SFTV shows: Avatar: the Last Airbender, Doctor Who, and Pushing Daisies (Fellow blogger Ken G. has also noted the untimely demise of the underrated time-travel drama Journeyman, but at least Pushing Daisies and Reaper got picked up.)

–Favorite comic books: Captain America, Detective Comics, and The Spirit

–Favorite musical singles (and videos): “Gone Gone Gone” (Robert Plant and Alison Kraus), “Rehab” (Amy Winehouse), “Umbrella” (Rihanna)

–Favorite RPG releases: D20 Mutants & Masterminds 2nd Ed.: Ultimate Power, A Practical Guide to Monsters (Dungeons & Dragons 3.5/4e), D20 Star Wars: Saga Edition

What were your faves? I look forward to blogging about such entertainment and more in the coming year, and may it bring good health and prosperity for all!