It’s here, everyone. Finally, it’s here – Rebirth, the DC Universe’s equivalent of that Old Spice ad:
That thing that’s canon? You’ll love this – it’ll still canon. That thing you used to love that was canon but wasn’t in the nu52? You’ll love this – it’s now canon again. That thing you loved but which was never canon and you never thought would be? You’ll love this – that’s now canon.
But we’ve a bit of overlap between the nu52/DCYou and Rebirth universes still to deal with, and so in the past fortnight, DC has given us a few final nu52 issues to round off some storylines, some of which affect our Diana. So after the jump, as well as looking at DC Rebirth #1, we’ll see how the Darkseid War ends in Justice League #50 and we’ll be seeing what happens to the nu52 Superman in Superman #52.
Meanwhile, alternative universe Wonder Woman origin story, The Legend of Wonder Woman, also comes to a conclusion of sorts in #27 and just for a bit of spice in our lives, I’ll be looking at a movie that got released in the UK last week – Justice League vs Teen Titans.
It’s “What have you been watching?”, my chance to tell you what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.
The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever.
Well would you look at that – back as scheduled. Miracles will never cease.
As usual, though, the networks have carefully timed a batch of new shows to start airing while I’ve been away. I’ll be reviewing them in the next few days, but hold your horses on discussing Animal Kingdom (US: TNT), Private Eyes (Canada: CBC), Feed The Beast (US: AMC; UK: BT Vision) and Cleverman (Australia: ABC; UK: BBC Four) until then, if you’ve seen them.
After the jump, I’ll be looking at the season/series finales of Arrow, The Flash and The Tunnel (Tunnel), as well as the dwindling regulars (won’t someone give us some good new TV, please?): 12 Monkeys, The Americans, Game of Thrones and Silicon Valley. Surprisingly, despite my reduced viewing list, one of these is for the chop because I can’t even.
Before that, though, I’ve seen not one, but two superhero movies!
Deadpool (2015) (iTunes) Ryan Reynolds in the first of Marvel’s adult-oriented superhero movies, here playing a mercenary who gets given mutant powers at the cost of his good looks, so tries to get the Brit scientist/kickboxer who experimented on him (Ed Skrein from The Transporter Refueled and Game of Thrones) to undo the damage so he can get back his girl (Morena Baccarin from Firefly and Homeland). But as well as his looks, the newly-christened Deadpool also loses his sanity – for some reason, he thinks he’s in a superhero movie and chooses to satirise anything and everything about it, as well as talk to the audience he thinks is watching him…
Although not as funny or as daring as it thinks it is and saddled with a conventional revenge plot that all the storytelling tricks in the world can’t cover up, Deadpool has a lot going for it, particularly its potty mouth, and meta jibes at Ryan Reynolds and the X-men. You’ll laugh at about half the jokes and there are scenes that will stick with you for days afterwards. But its own critiques (“It’s almost like the studio couldn’t afford more famous stars”) reveal the film’s biggest problem – it’s subversive enough that the studio wants to keep it safely confined in a box away from the rest of the franchise, unable to play with the big boys. Also, Gina Carano is wasted in a small role, which makes me sad.
But you can’t really knock a superhero movie that has its lead masturbating with a toy unicorn, now can you?
Spider-Man 3 (2007) (iTunes) Somehow I missed/couldn’t be bothered to watch the third of the previous (but one) Spider-Man movie franchises, but with another on the way, I figured I’d watch all the old ones (not including the Nicholas Hammond 70s TV show) just to see how they compare. Here we get Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man finding (yet again) it’s hard achieving a work-life-superhero balance, and despite wanting to marry girlfriend Mary-Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), ends up neglecting her. Then, he discovers that the man (Thomas Haden Church) who really killed Uncle Ben has escaped from prison and acquired the power to turn into and shape sand. And best friend James Franco has discovered Peter Parker is Spider-Man and wants to get revenge for the supposed murder of his father (aka The Green Goblin). Just as Peter’s at his lowest ebb, he attracts the attention of an alien symbiote who turns his costume – as well as his soul – black…
Weirdly, despite its rep, I found this to be the best of the lot – Spider-Man 1 & 2 do not bear up well, despite my having found them reasonably good at the time, and The Amazing Spider-Man is astonishingly dreary and uncompelling. While the ‘Venom’ subtext is a little clunky and the character itself a bit rubbish, the story actually takes novel turns, with forgiveness and doing good lorded over violence and darkness (take note, DC Comics).
Utterly meaningless if you haven’t seen the first two movies, mind.
Yes, I know – why call it Weekly Wonder Woman when the last one was more than a month ago and I’m not going to doing one next week, either, since I’m on holiday? Sigh. All I can do is apologise and confess that since I’m doing volunteer work on Fridays, most of my Friday work ends up on Monday instead, and I therefore usually have to choose on Monday between writing about tele (this ‘ere blog’s raison d’être) and WWW, which can take a good couple of hours to do (even if it doesn’t look like it). Guess which one wins.
However, today, I have the time to do both. Yay! Plus Rebirth is on the way. DC’s partial reboot of its universe, it’s best summarised as “Hey fanboys? Yes, you guys who all buggered off when the nu52 started and who were the ones who actually bought comics? Want to have storylines exactly like they used to be 10 years ago? Want old Superman and Batman back? Well here you go!”
That means, following issue #52 of a whole range of titles, big changes will be afoot, numbering will return to issue #1, nu52 Superman will disappear/die (although maybe not) to be replaced by the old one who was married to Lois Lane and has a kid, and all manner of other things will happen. So I’d better do something to mark the change, hadn’t I?
We’ve already seen a little of what Rebirth means for our Diana, although here’s the full schedule:
But after the jump, we’ll see how the nu52 has effectively ended for our Diana when we look at Wonder Woman #51-52, as well as for Superman as we take a gander at Superman-Wonder Woman #28-29, Batman-Superman #32 and Action Comics #52. Finishing things up, the Darkseid War is nearly ending over in Justice League #49 (that’s got to make up some ground, hasn’t it…? Oh, it’s going to end on Wednesday with issue #50 instead of #52. Do you reckon they planned it that way?), while Wonder Woman has to deal with her sister, Cassandra, and niece Wonder Girl, over in Teen Titans #19.
Meanwhile, the action hasn’t been stopping for various Elseworlds Wonder Women. Wondy has to deal with Superman dying (again) in Dark Knight III #4, continues her WW2 fight in Norway against the Titan in the acclaimed The Legend of Wonder Woman #24-26 (which has recently been granted a second volume), and is having her sexy origin retold yet again in the rather massive Wonder Woman – Earth One.
All that after the jump. But for those of you with an interest in Movie Wonder Woman, here’s some video of Movie Themyscira:
Here’s a picture of Connie Nielsen as Diana’s Movie mum, Hippolyta.
And here’s a picture from the final day of filming:
