Colette Arrand

Author: Colette Arrand

  • Wrestling Worth Watching: WWE Raw (10/17/11) and SmackDown! (10/21/11)

    Wrestling Worth Watching: WWE Raw (10/17/11) and SmackDown! (10/21/11)

    WWE Raw (10/17/11)

    Mexican Fans: They were given a mess of a storyline with a failed 90s jobber (Johnny Ace) at the focal point and a main event featuring Jim Ross and Michael Cole, two men whose voices they only hear on TV if directly involved in an angle. Despite that, the crowd’s reaction to everything was absolutely amazing. The WWE should do Raw and SmackDown in other countries more regularly, especially if they can figure out a way of doing them live.

    Triple H Has Immigration Issues: Stopping him from delivering a 20-minute monolog. Huzzah!

    Swaggler On the Mic: The WWE have been fairly liberal with mic time lately, and it’s resulted in the reemergence of both Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger as the future of the company. Ziggler is just a very good, free-wheeling talker. Swagger, in Mexico, decided to sing the Star Spangled Banner, which was great 1) because of his lisp, 2) because of the crowd’s reaction, and 3), because he lost his place and blamed said crowd. Swagger’s match against Zack Ryder and Ziggler’s against Mason Ryan were nothing too special, but if they’re on the mic, I’m listening.

    Jim Ross: Few men in the current WWE can get away with calling somebody else a “son of a bitch.” Few men in WWE history can do it quite like Jim Ross.

    Michael Cole’s Horrifying Orange Singlet: BEHOLD!

    Jim Ross Makes Michael Cole Tap Out: Pretty much the only positive match-related thing of Raw, which was mostly yakking and fistfights. The Mexican crowd ate it up (I don’t know why), but they deserved better than John Cena’s C-game and an encounter between two American non-wrestlers.

    Questionable Decision of the Week: Having the finish between Jim Ross and Michael Cole decide the stipulation for the WWE Title match between John Cena and Alberto Del Rio. Their storyline has been sadly inessential ever since shunting CM Punk to the side at Summerslam, and now they’re going to settle it in a Last Man Standing Match because Jim Ross made Michael Cole tap out to an ankle lock. I’ve always thought that the face works better in his role if he’s at a disadvantage, but Cena, by choosing one of his specialty matches and making Del Rio look chumpy (a shot with the ring steps put Del Rio away for a very fast 10 count), it’s another situation where it looks like Cena can’t lose. That makes things less interesting than they already were, which is too bad.

    WWE SmackDown! (10/21/11) (Watch it on YouTube)

    The Response to Alberto Del Rio: The scuttlebutt on these here interwebs had it that Del Rio was only WWE champion because of the quick Mexican tour. If that was indeed their intent, it was a great idea. Fan reaction to Del Rio was intense all week long, and his entrance on SmackDown was akin to the Chicago crowd’s response to CM Punk at this year’s Money in the Bank PPV. It didn’t surprise me, considering that Del Rio is 1) awesome and 2) the first Mexican-born WWE Champion ever, but crowd reactions like Del Rio’s are absolute gold.

    Mark Henry vs. John Morrison: If John Morrison is on his way out, as many suggest, you wouldn’t know it from the way he bumps around the ring for Mark Henry in this match, which got more play than their Raw encounter. Morrison’s finishing maneuver again looks pretty chumpy when a guy kicks out of it at one, but watching him get wrecked by the still-awesome Mark Henry is the most enjoyable Morrison’s been, for me, since his run as ECW Champion.

    Daniel Bryan Won’t Be Shaving His Beard Until WrestleMania: Be still, my beating heart.

    Wade Barrett vs. Daniel Bryan: Not as good as their Summerslam-stealing effort a few months ago, but given the constraints of a TV time limit, Barrett and Bryan continue to demonstrate great chemistry (though everybody probably has chemistry with Daniel Bryan). It’s a wonder why their feud didn’t go on longer.

    Michael Cole Brings G.I. Bro Up: Which is streets ahead of making fun of Booker T for being in Harlem Heat.

    Cody Rhodes: He is awesome. You already knew that. He’s also maybe the first person who has managed to make Randy Orton somewhat interesting to anybody beyond Randy Orton fans since Randy came into his own as a fixture in the main event scene. Granted, Orton is still really boring, but at least I want to see the match he’s involved in.

    Máscara contra Máscara: It hasn’t really translated in the ring, but the Sin Cara vs. Sin Cara feud has been an interesting blend of lucha libre and WWE storytelling, the importance of identity and the desire for revenge. In Mexico City, the two Sin Caras collided for what is, I think, the WWE’s first mask vs. mask match, which joins a short list of American lucha de apuesta contests. This match was incredibly important for another reason, too: If Sin Cara (Mistico) failed to have a great match in front of a hometown audience against a guy wrestling his style, I’m not sure how much longer he would have lasted in the WWE. It wasn’t the best match of either man’s career, but it was a good one, the best of either’s WWE tenure thus far. In a nice touch, Sin Cara got to win with his Mexican finisher, La Mistica, a headscissors/armbar combo. If, in a few years, we’ve forgotten all about Sin Cara’s first few months in the WWE, I think this match will probably be the watershed moment where everything went right and things for the former Mistico started rolling in the right direction.

    Michael Cole’s Reportage on Sin Cara Negro’s Visage: “He’s normal, with a crew cut.”

    To Booker T, this picture represents the ugliest thing in the world.

    Beth and Natalya Get Microphone Time: And sound way less awkward than most divas do on the mic. After Beth and Natalya turned heel, it was only a matter of time before they started getting the facetime necessary to establish themselves as the duo the rest of the divas would need to gun for. Adding that submission move was a great idea, and dropping the lame “eat your vegetables” platitudes was wise. Now they’re only about hurting people to cause the fans some anguish.

    Big Show Doing Push-Ups: PUSH-UPS.

    Ricardo Rodriguez’s Utter Disdain For Mexico: This man can do no wrong. For my money, the best male valet ever (note, there’s a difference between “valet” and “manager”).

    Alberto Del Rio vs. The Big Show: Nothing super fancy, and the cross-armbreaker spot used here was better utilized in the match between Sara Del Ray and Claudio Castagnoli, but the Big Show’s first match in four moths is probably his best singles outing in a few years. He was rejuvenated as Chris Jericho’s tag team partner, but he hasn’t looked this surehanded on his own since his run as the ECW Champion, way back in 2006. Somehow, I’m looking forward to his match against Mark Henry at Vengeance, when, previously, a match between the two would make me reconsider my decision to watch.

    Questionable Decision of the Week I: Sheamus’ nickname, “The Great White,” is now official, appearing on the TitanTron as he heads down to the ring. Of course, the WWE probably wants it to make people think of the great white shark, but anybody watching with even a modicum of sports history knowledge will associate the nickname with the phrase “great white hope,” which dates back to the days when Jack Johnson, an African-American, was a threat to the heavyweight championship of boxing. When he finally won a world championship, the press actually begged for a “great white hope” to prove Caucasian athletic supremacy. Long story short, if Sheamus starts feuding with Mark Henry for the World Heavyweight Championship, his nickname is going to become a cringe-machine.

    Questionable Decision of the Week II: Every diva beyond Beth and Natalya has pretty much the worst theme music since the American Males. Every song–every song–is about how hot the diva is, and is usually sung by some lifeless schmoe who’d be doing the world more good by working late-shift at the local Waffle House. Compare and contrast:

    I think my dislike of a lot of wrestlers directly correlates to how miserable their theme music makes me. Sure, talent is one thing, but I can look beyond that when you’re taking up less than 1% of my week. Run afoul of my musical sensibilities, and that all changes. Eve, like Kelly Kelly, Brooke Tessmacher, and a litany of women the WWE’s hired who’ve gradually transformed into wrestlers, have all improved, but with their music and the commentary team reminding me that I’m supposed to like these women because they’re attractive, I tend to look past the positives and detest that which is rammed down my throat.

  • Wrestling Worth Watching: Ring of Honor (10/15/11) and TNA IMPACT Wrestling (10/20/11)

    Wrestling Worth Watching: Ring of Honor (10/15/11) and TNA IMPACT Wrestling (10/20/11)

    Ring of Honor (10/15/11)

    Briscoe Brothers Interview: I could listen to Jay and Mark talk about hauling 400 lbs. of dead chickens around their father’s farm all day. So far, there’s been a ton of focus on the Briscoes, which makes sense seeing as they’re probably the longest tenured guys on the ROH roster, and they’ve been a consistently rewarding presence. Them chickens smell as bad as Hass and Benjamin.

    The Briscoe Brothers vs. The All Night Express: These two teams have been feuding long enough that I saw them live in Dearborn, MI back in June, but their every match, be it no disqualification, first blood, or Ladder match rules, hasn’t suffered for familiarity. Though I was under the impression that their ladder match was a feud-ender for #1 contendership to Hass and Benjamin’s Tag Team Titles, this bout was also billed as such and, as a straight, no-frills tag team match, was just as good, if not more so, than the one I saw live. Rhett Titus and Kenny King, the All Night Express, are proof that ROH can find (and find purpose for) new guys in the wake of roster-shifting events, and they’ve really grown as personalities over the past year. The finish to this was a little unintentionally funny, as Kevin Kelly begged referee Todd Sinclair to keep Titus and Mark Briscoe away from the ringside commentary table, which was enough of a distraction that Jay was able to kick King in the groin and roll him up for the win. It’s been awhile since a company has put the commentary table right next to the ring, and even longer since that placement played into the finish in some way other than having one guy put the other through it. Clever.

    Michel Elgin vs. Eddie Edwards: I think, were someone new to wrestling to watch this match, that the line between “it’s fake” and “it’s real(ish)” would blur just a bit, which is as much as you can ask of an American wrestling match in the internet age. Oh sure, the matches are predetermined, but it’s tough to watch these two chop, kick, and clothesline each other silly without cringing a little bit. I’m still indifferent to Eddie Edwards and his tag partner/ROH World Champion Davey Richards, but I’m starting to warm up to Elgin, who is decidedly old-school looking and is, from the looks of things, two years of male-pattern baldness away from rocking a mean skullet. Despite that he’s only 235 lbs., he looks like an absolute freak of nature and wrestles like one, too. He’s one to watch.

    Questionable Decision of the Week: Taking a commercial break during the main event of a pre-taped show. There should be a moratorium on going to commercial during a match across WWE, TNA, and ROH, to be honest. Cut two minutes away from the opening monologue or any number of hype videos, and you can show a full match, without interrupting the flow with an ad for Hardee’s Steakhouse Burger or Light Strike backyard laser tag. This is especially true of a show you’re posting in full on line. Edit out the commercial breaks and stitch the missing footage back in. Worse, during the Elgin/Edwards match, they cut away from the match as it happened to show an ad for rohwrestling.com. Create a little ad for the bottom of the screen. Don’t obscure the action. It’s the little things that will truly set a product like ROH apart from their competition.

    TNA IMPACT Wrestling (10/20/11)

    TNA’s Largest Audience Ever: They pulled in 2,000,000 viewers for the first time ever this past thursday, which, for the longest time, seemed as impossible as landing on the moon once did. Did TNA’s 2,000,000 viewers get enough to keep them coming back for more? Well…no.

    James Storm: A whopping 23 minutes and three commercial breaks into the opening segment of IMPACT, “Cowboy” James Storm delivers the first good line of the night when he climbed into the ring and said hello to “Curtis Angle.” I’m a simple man, but that sort of disrespect gets me every time. Even after 23 minutes and three commercial breaks of talking. Also of note: “Sting, we both wear sunglasses indoors.”

    Tara & Brooke Tessmacher vs. Winter and Angelina Love: If you asked me in 2007, when Extreme Expose was wasting six minutes of ECW a week, who the better wrestler in 2011 would be, Kelly Kelly or Brooke, I would have said “Well, I hope they’ll both be out of wrestling by then.” Neither of them are, and both of them are now current or former titleholders. It’s easy to point to Kelly Kelly as a person who has majorly improved, but Brooke (TNA finally dropped the “Miss”) actually makes a majority of her offense look convincing, which is something I doubt Kelly will ever master, no matter how loud she screams during the headscissors. Granted, I’d prefer seeing Sara Del Rey or Ayako Hamada (who TNA once freakin’ HAD on their roster) every week, but whoever trained Brooke did a solid job, and should be commended.

    Jeff Hardy’s Full Name: If you say “Jeffery Nero Hardy,” I’m gonna laugh. If you keep calling him “Nero,” like he’s some sort of cat, I’m going to keep laughing.

    D’Lo Brown and Al Snow: I suppose TNA heard the “D’Lo” and “Head” chants at Bound For Glory and decided to give them room during the Hardy/Jarrett confrontation to appease the audience. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but if two Attitude-era guys are being allowed to steal the spotlight from what is probably your biggest angle, and the crowd appears to want it, you should maybe consider refocusing the angle.

    Gail Kim: Awes0me, even if she’s going to be hanging around the eternal screamfest that is Karen Jarrett. Kim’s WWE output has made her fairly underrated, and now she’s back in the company she made her name in. Granted Awesome Kong is no longer around to feud with, but Kim as an active, happy competitor is good news.

    Eric Bischoff Claims He’s the Man Who Made Hogan Who He Is Today: Finally, someone to blame for those Rent-A-Center ads.

    Eric Bischoff’s Kid’s Tattoo: Of all the questionable tattoos in the world, few will come near Garret Bischoff’s tattoo of a surfboard that reads “Bischoff.” I know Eric is a relentless marketer and self-promoter, but this tattoo takes it to a new level.

    Questionable Decision of the Week I: Devoting thirty minutes to Sting/Hulk Hogan, Sting/Dixie Carter, Sting/Kurt Angle, and Sting/Bobby Roode/Kurt Angle. You guys just had your biggest, maybe best, show of the year. How about following that up with some wrestling? Or a shorter segment that leads into wrestling? Something involving wrestling? Please?

    Questionable Decision of the Week II: Roode “getting screwed.” From the way Bobby Roode whined, you’d think that Kurt Angle came down and ordered referee Kurt Angle to call for the bell, rung by timekeeper Kurt Angle, signifying Bobby Roode’s loss to Kurt Angle via phantom submission. He held the rope, dude. If anybody screwed you, it was the dude who decided to end the match that way, and the guy who decided not to mention your arm clearly hanging underneath the ropes. Besides the questionable rhetoric, I got tired of hearing people talk about screwing Roode. I didn’t even laugh when Angle said he screwed him in the ass.

    Questionable Decision of the Week III: Bringing Jeff Hardy back. Granted, I suppose you could say that he’s part of the reason TNA grabbed their best ratings ever, but I feel like I’ve been down this road a million times, and not just with Hardy, who is making something like his fourth drug-or-burnout-realated comeback in six years. People…they still love him, but after firing his brother for similar reasons that should have seen Jeff out the door, after miraculously getting off light for drug trafficking charges, and based on past experience with TNA writer Vince Russo booked drug and alcohol “redemption” angles (Road Warrior Hawk and Scott Hall come to mind), I can’t help but be skeptical. Granted, Hardy is a mega-over face and won’t be treated like a joke, as Hawk and Hall were, but when the heel says “you no-showed on this company multiple times” and “you’ve got issues that probably aren’t sorted out” and “you don’t deserve to waltz back into your main event spot,” I’m going to be agreeing a lot with the heel, which is bad. Then again, who knows? Maybe Jeff is motivated, mentally ready, and still has enough of a fanbase to justify handing him a fourth of IMPACT Wrestling. If that’s the case, have him say “You’re right, I don’t deserve my spot, but I’m going to earn it,” instead of “THESE FANS WANT ME BACK!” Make him redeemable. Right now, he doesn’t deserve jack.

    Questionable Decision of the Week IV: James Storm beats Kurt Angle for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship…in less than 60 seconds. I understand why, and don’t find fault with TNA for getting the title off of an injured Angle, but this swap is indicative of TNA’s utter inability to change directions as needed. As soon as Angle got injured last night, that should have sealed Roode winning. It didn’t. Then Kurt Angle came out and said that there was a no-rematch clause in their contract. This, of course, makes no sense, as an Angle/Roode rematch is pretty much the only way to go, beyond not screwing up the week before. Then, TNA’s big belt changed hands in less than a minute for the second time this year. I’m not sure that the words “title prestige” mean much in 2011, but if they did, the legitimacy of TNA’s main strap would be unable to hold. Grated, we now stand to see an ROH-lite story of a friendly rivalry between partners over the main title, but all that work TNA put into Roode’s ascension to the main event? Pretty much worthless.

  • Movie Review: The Thing (2011)

    Movie Review: The Thing (2011)

    Forget, for a moment, that The Thing is a prequel/none-too subtle remake of John Carpenter’s 1982 The Thing, which was a masterpiece of latex and animatronics. The Thing, after all, was a remake of Howard Hawks’ 1951 The Thing From Another World, a McCarthian allegory for the secretly infectious capabilities of communism that had, at it’s source, the 1931 novella Who Goes There?, the elements of which have been mined again and again, often to rousing success. Yes, it’s moderately upsetting that, in a year where everything from Conan the Barbarian to Johnny English got a remake or a sequel, John Carpenter and Howard Hawks couldn’t escape unscathed, but if we want these things to remain sacred, we’re going to need to burn Hollywood to the ground. We can’t learn anything from that mindset.

    Instead, let’s note how The Thing is representative of the nadir in American horror films, the product of some 30 years of devolution due to the mistaken belief that the isolation at the heart of terror wasn’t what moved viewers to the edge of their seats, but buckets of blood, focus-tested plot machinations and, oh yeah, ear-piercingly loud spikes in the music. All of these things happen in The Thing, to the point where it’s a relief when the film, already under the impression that everything old is new, moves into the kitchen of the besieged Antarctic research station, where the Thing stalks its prey as if it’d morphed into a velociraptor. For two minutes, it was nice be reminded that, yes, movies have the capacity for real fear.

    Here, the discovery of an alien specimen and his (it’s never “her” in these instances) spacecraft below two miles of Antarctic ice is greeted with the sort of warm enthusiasm one expects from a classroom of bored students in the middle of a PowerPoint presentation. Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), an American paleontologist, is asked along on a mission to the site by Dr. Sander Halverson (Ulrich Thomsen), who is unnecessarily built up as an unethical, slightly villainous dude with designs on unending fame for “his” discovery. You’d think that a movie aiming to massacre a group of people one by one in ways grotesque wouldn’t need a bad guy beyond the monster, but The Thing wants us to root hard for the American girl and the pack of misfits surrounding her, so Halverson is first a headstrong jerk, then a floating head awkwardly photoshopped onto a CGI conglomeration of limbs, stingers, and teeth. It is hard to register even a blip of sympathy for the men and women trapped in Antarctica; no matter how much blood flies: The word “prequel” renders the whole story non-essential, no matter which scientist is the megalomaniac with a questionable grasp on the scientific method. In fact, The Thing makes a strong case for The Thing as it’s hero. After crash-landing and taking a 1,000 year powernap, his crankiness at being woken up by an electric drill is nothing short of understandable.

    There’s really not much to discuss when it comes to The Thing. Winstead is able as the plucky paleontologist, and some of the scenes, under different circumstances, would have been quite tense. Most of the movie, though, is spent deep frying The Thing, or on second guessing party members who don’t quite understand each other. I’ve read that Winstead’s character was inspired by Ripley, from Alien, but that transformation doesn’t take place until the very end of the movie, when we’re good and ready to see the baton passed to Kurt Russell’s gang. The movie’s two most effective scenes happen right at the end. Unfortunately, they’re among the film’s most inconsequential.

    That’s a small part of why The Thing, despite the fact that it is by no means a terrible movie, represents the nadir of American horror movies. I suspect a large part of my misgivings ultimately has to do with my inability to separate The Thing and The Thing in one major department: The special effects. In a movie like this, special effects do the heavy lifting. In 1982, The Thing set a high watermark for special effects, and everything in that movie is more visceral, more convincing than what’s on display here. Having read a review or two, there seems to be the consensus that special effects today are better than they were in the 80s because of the advancements in computer technology, which has effectively rendered whole segments of special effects making useless.

    I think the people who say that the special effects are better now are wrong, for one big reason: Special effects aren’t special anymore. This has been the argument since the special edition re-releases of Star Wars, and while I appreciate the hard work and dedication that goes into rendering a monster like The Thing, I’m less impressed by the ability to point and click something into existence than by the effort exerted to make that thing exist in real time and space. You can argue that a filmmakers’ imagination is no longer shackled by physical or monetary restraint, and, to an extent, that’s true. But movies like The Thing were special because filmmakers like Carpenter refused to let what was possible get in the way of his vision. You give a team of guys a computer and no limits, and what do you get? A wriggling, incomprehensible being assembled from spare, gooey body-parts; a creature who looks incapable of even a facsimile of life.

    But this is where we’re at now. We’re over-saturated and overstimulated. Instead of doing something new, George Lucas has spent the better part of a decade adding bodies into crowd scenes and erasing puppets from his film prints. Instead of making his debut with something new and original, director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. has sucked the marrow out of something he idolizes, because old horror movies are the only ground studios are willing to allow new faces to tread on. And yet we, the audience, apparently clamor for more of this sort of thing, eating regurgitation after regurgitation, sometimes the regurgitation of a regurgitation. It’s like they see us, too, as The Thing, as if they’ve deemed us incapable of digesting organic material. Maybe they’re right.

    Rating:

    The Thing. Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. With Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Dr. Kate Lloyd), Joel Edgerton (Sam Carter), Ulrich Thomsen (Dr. Sander Halversen), and Eric Christian Olsen (Adam Goodman). Released October 14, 2011, by Universal Pictures.

  • The New 52: Wonder Woman #1

    The New 52: Wonder Woman #1

    Of the DC Trinity, Wonder Woman was arguably the hero who stood to gain the most from a universe-wide relaunch. She’s been mucked-up and un-mucked-up so many times that my head spins a little just thinking about her recent history. Of course, the biggest problem with the series has been the nonexistent but perceived need to update Wonder Woman, who, whether written by a New York Times bestselling author or wearing pants, couldn’t sell more books if doing so would save a besieged Paradise Island. The best two Wonder Woman runs in recent memory, Greg Rucka’s and Gail Simone’s, focused not on her image in relation to modern society, but her place in it. Both modernized Wonder Woman, but in ways slight and not off-putting; Rucka’s Diana was an ambassador to the United Nations, and Simone’s was a modern take on John Byrne’s conception of Wonder Woman as a heroine of gods and monsters for our time. They weren’t looking to sell Wonder Woman as anything more than the protagonist of a great comic book, and now, with the TV series dead in the water and hopes for a non-Batman DC Comics movie doing well quashed by the failure of Green Lantern, Wonder Woman is free from the shackles of consumerist oppression.

    The resulting comic book, Wonder Woman #1, is exactly the kind of thing I hoped for from the New 52 initiative, movement in a positive direction for a favorite character of mine. In it, a woman is visited by Hermes, who tires to warn her of an impending attack by a duo of centaur-assassins. The shotgun-wielding woman with a pixie haircut doesn’t believe Hermes, of course, until the assassins beat down her door, brandishing swords and bows. Hermes gives the woman a key, which spirits her off to an apartment belonging to Diana Prince, who you might know as Wonder Woman. As you can see in the picture above, she’s pretty good at protecting those who randomly drop in on her while she’s sleeping. She’s freakin’ Wonder Woman.

    What’s most appreciable about Wonder Woman #1 is that it does not question who Wonder Woman is, nor does it treat the reader like an idiot. You don’t need to be a mythology buff or a Wonder Woman fanboy to understand that ancient Greek gods walk among us, and that it’s Wonder Woman’s charge to protect those effected. Sure, one’s appreciation of Wonder Woman #1 likely increases if you can spot Hera (she of the peacock cape) or know who Apollo is (the oracular god of the Sun…hence the three young women he uses as oracles), or have read any mythology where either a) a powerful being is told that he’ll be killed by a soon-to-be-born child or b) a god sleeps with a mortal and is mysteriously absent to deal with the consequences, but these are stories as old as storytelling, they’re familiar, they’re still good, and here, added to them, is our time and place and a superhero.

    I was surprised to see this from Brian Azzarello, whose previous DC work beyond the fantastic, gritty crime saga 100 Bullets and other adult-orientated comics includes a shaky run on Batman and two mini-series featuring more “realistic” takes on iconic villains–Lex Luthor and the Joker–that didn’t really do much for me. The story here is solid, updating some gods as one would expect, keeping others as they were, and focusing on Wonder Woman’s heroism, though I suspect one “life changing” factoid or another will be dropped on her soon enough. The art, by Cliff Chiang, is what really pops here, both in its scale and its attention to detail. Despite the fact that the two women at the center of the book are barely clothed, neither is sexualized. Considering the mild controversy that arose over the cover of Justice League #1, where Wonder Woman, as is typical for the female character in a mostly male book, struck a lascivious pose that looked out of place amid the scowly, barrel-chested bros behind her, who somehow towered over Diana despite her being an Amazon.

    Chiang’s artwork, if nothing else, shows him as an artist capable of portraying a Wonder Woman of mythic proportion without salivating over her. The art’s dynamic nature is helped in large part by some bold inking and a reverence for the style seen in DC’s classic animation, pioneered by Bruce Timm. I wouldn’t return to Wonder Woman just for the artwork, but, combined with Azzarello’s confident tone, Wonder Woman #1 joins Simone’s Batgirl on a very small list of titles that has me both interested in the direction of a character that I like, and a universe that is open to its own curiosities.

  • Wrestling Worth Watching: TNA Bound For Glory (10/16/11) and Webshows

    Wrestling Worth Watching: TNA Bound For Glory (10/16/11) and Webshows

    If you know of any indie wrestling webshows that might be worth featuring in this space, please let me know. I’m all for indies, but, right now, the WWE is the only promotion I know of with a major web presence, in that they have full shows, with full matches, available on YouTube. I wish their developmental league, FCW, did the same, but alas, their TV show is uploaded to YouTube illegally and infrequently, meaning I’ll only be able to cover it here and there, and will probably never have a handle on their ongoing storylines. Bound For Glory coverage is below, but first, you must suffer the wrath of NXT: Redemption and Heath Slater.

    WWE NXT: Redemption (10/12/11) (Watch it on YouTube)

    Derrik Bateman and Maxine: I wasn’t much for Maxine or any of the Diva hopefuls on NXT season three, but this pairing, “born out of spite,” is pretty good, Maxine’s somewhat wooden delivery of lines be damned. Bateman’s just the right amount of cocky, knows how to respond to a hostile/uncaring crowd, and works cheap heat into his promos in interesting ways. The two actually make out on occasion, as well. Not that I watch wrestling for the liplocks, but usually when a man and a woman are dating on WWE programming, you only know it because the woman stands at ringside and looks bored as her man wrestles. It’s a somewhat refreshing change of pace.

    Kissing? GROSS.

    Percy Watson and Titus O’Neil Call Maxine and Bateman the Ugliest Couple in WWE History: Meaning I get to post Harvey Whippleman’s touching ode to Bertha Faye.

    William Regal’s Maxine Fact of the Week: A cousin of her’s is a champion hula-hooper from Bangkok. She grows prize turnips, and is an amateur ferret-wrangler.

    AJ vs. Maxine: Probably the best diva’s match on WWE or TNA this week. Not much competition, but hey, it was pretty good. I wish they’d go ahead and give both women a last name by now, though.

    The Usos vs. C. Reks (Curt Hawkins & Tyler Reks): If the WWE is serious about bringing back tag team wrestling, matches like this are a good building block. Last week’s match and this one between these two teams was quite polished, and both teams look ready for a program against a team like Air Boom or Swaggler, depending on who gets the titles at Vengeance. Until one of them steps up to the main roster, I’ll take matches like this on my internets every week, if you don’t mind.

    William Regal: “I’ve spent a fortune on gambling, partying, and naughty women. The rest I’ve just spent foolishly.”

    Percy Watson vs. Derrik Bateman: I’ll take matches like this every week, too. Can’t say I love Watson’s moveset, but he looks good in the ring. Bateman’s also worth watching. They’ll inject some much needed life into Raw or SmackDown! (or, more likely, Superstars) whenever NXT: Redemption finally comes to an end.

    Questionable Decision of the Week: Letting Percy Watson and Titus O’Neil talk without a script. Or if they were scripted, not firing the dude who wrote it. Between Watson’s frequent Kool-Aid Man interjections and O’Neil’s genuine awkwardness, I spend most of my time annoyed with the two of them.

    WWE Superstars (10/13/11) (Watch it on YouTube)

    Drew McIntyre: I’ve had a soft spot for Drew since I went to a house show earlier this year. His circumstance is fairly unfortunate, as, after an early-career push as Vince McMahon’s “chosen one,” he seems to have stalled out completely. With a slight change of gimmick, he’d probably do what Cody Rhodes and R-Truth before him have done and rise up the WWE ranks. What doesn’t need to change is his offense. I think I’ve heard every announcer in the history of wrestling say that a guy “uses the ring as a weapon.” McIntyre is the first who the phrase actually applies to. In his match against Alex Riley, he steps back from a flying Riley and shoves his face into the ring apron. I’ve also seen him squash legs between the rings steps and turnbuckle post, and yank the shoulder through the metal girder that makes up the outer perimeter of the ring. I appreciate unique touches like that.

    Ezekiel Jackson’s New Gear: Looking less and less like Ahmed Johnson all the time, bro.

    You don't want to look like Ahmed, lest your career take a Pearl River plunge.

    Ridiculous Claims of Manliness on the Behalf of Heath Slater: This week, we learn that Heath Slater likes to go to bars, put on Skynard, and challenge people to fights. I’d like to live in a world where this was true, because I’d be living in a world where Heath Slater’s face is turned into ground beef on a nightly basis. Alas, I’m merely meant to believe that Heath is some sort of tough guy. I refuse to believe any such claims. It’s either funnier/disrespectful depending on what you make of the assault charges filed against Slater earlier this year.

    I will fight you. But only to southern rock. And only if you're a woman.

    TNA Bound For Glory (10/16/11)

    Kendrick vs. Austin Aries: Just a good opening match between two guys who are very good at what they do. Cool spots aren’t quite enough to get me behind a wrestling match, but Kendrick and Aries are two guys who can string together a solid wrestling match, and they set the tone for a card that was full of blood and violence by going move for move, counter for counter. It didn’t quite steal the show, but it made me glad that Aries went back on the talk that he was retiring from wrestling. He’s great, and I wish more wrestlers were like him.

    Rob Van Dam vs. Jerry Lynn: I’d like to say I was shocked by how not terrible this match was, but their encounter at Destination X was better than expected, and this bout, which added a poorly-named No Disqualification stipulation (if your announcers can’t explain what “Full Metal Mayhem” is, then don’t book the match with that title), was no different. In fact, it was probably a little closer to the ECW matches that finally made Lynn a name after a career’s worth of solid work, and if this is his televised swan song, living up to the encounters that brought you to the dance is a good way to go out. Of course, if he sticks around, I wouldn’t be opposed. Lynn’s a solid hand, and, as long as the crowd doesn’t get on his case about looking like Randy the Ram, his presence in TNA’s X-Division would be welcome.

    Samoa Joe vs. Matt Morgan vs. Crimson: This match was way better than I expected it to be, thanks in large part to Samoa Joe finding another gear and wrestling like his higly-motivated former self, circa 2007. I hardly ever expect logic from TNA three ways, but this one had it, never failed to entertain, and was well paced. I would have loved a Samoa Joe win, but you can’t always get what you want.

    Bully Ray Piledrives Mr. Anderson on Concrete: That spot is in my blood. It calls to me. When Bully Ray actually hit Anderson with it in the back, my heart did a backflip. It’s a shame the piledriver hasn’t gone back to being a match-ending spot (the move used to be instant death), but I’ll take any televised piledriver in 2011.

    AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels: I’m not a big fan of either guy, and I wasn’t quite sure about putting two high-flying guys into an I Quit match, but the match delivered on it’s premise for the most part and justified its goofy ending by having Daniels bumrush Styles at the conclusion. Towards the end of the match, Daniels was choking out Styles with a chair when he grabbed the microphone and threatened to literally kill Styles, which is something I don’t recall happening too much in a wrestling match. Obviously this meant that Styles was going to win, but it was a great, Terry Funk-lite moment that led to the ending, which was less great, but with a flash of Mick Foley’s I Quit match, minus the specter of Milena. The heel, when faced with a face carrying a screwdriver aimed for the eyes, should probably do two things: Lose the eye (like Funk would) or quit out of cowardice, like Foley. Either route was fine, and it’s good that the course wasn’t diverted.

    Lie there while I literally murder you!

    Jeff Jarrett’s Stupid Skull Shirt Gets Ripped Apart: I stopped caring about Jeff Jarrett in 1999, and Jeff Hardy around the first break-up of the Hardy Boyz, and my not caring about either has kind of paid off as Jarrett’s largely been a non-factor in wrestling beyond an OK feud with Booker T and some decent stuff in TNA, and Hardy has pretty much been the world’s biggest flake. The only think I appreciated about the Hardy/Jarrett argument/brawl from Bound For Glory (which is presumably why the tag title match was pushed off the card) is that Jeff Jarrett’s stupid skull shirt got shredded. I hate skull shirts. I hate them even more when dudes over 40 wear them in public. Rip that shirt, Jeff Hardy. Kill it good.

    D’Lo Brown: My inner-child wanted to know why he wasn’t still wearing a chest protector.

    You're looking at the real deal, now.

    Sting Finally Gets a Cleanish Win Over Hulk Hogan: Too bad it was still marred by awful storylines, copious interference, and, oh yeah, the fact that Hulk Hogan, after a back surgery, can’t actually wrestle. Also, too bad it wasn’t in 1997. I was expecting him to hit the leg drop and dissolve into a puddle of goo. Instead, he bled buckets and awkwardly turned face. MORE ON THAT LATER.

    Bobby Roode vs. Kurt Angle: It was just OK, a lesser version of any number of Chris Benoit/Kurt Angle matches, which I was never really that big a fan of, to be honest, and was certainly lacking Benoit’s intensity. I would have been fine with that had Roode won, but he didn’t. MORE ON THAT LATER, TOO.

    Questionable Decision of the Week I: Karren Jarrett as the special referee of the Knockouts Title match. TNA’s women’s division can usually be counted on for a solid match, every time out, but not with a special referee who is obviously only going to pull for one of the four people involved in the match, who obviously doesn’t know much about refereeing, and who obviously doesn’t have much business in a wrestling ring. I don’t know if I’m supposed to see the irony in a former-stripper ragging on the women’s division for looking like strippers, but it added too much unnecessary b.s. to a match that should have been about one woman’s quest to win her first title. Instead, we get a screwy finish and a ton of impending drama that’s going to be hard to care about. This match, by the way, is where the PPV nearly lost all its momentum.

    Questionable Decision of the Week II: Hulk Hogan turning face. The crowd ate it up, but seriously, it’s 2011: Stop devoting valuable television time to the architects of the nWo. They’re never going to be responsible for something that big again, and I can’t say that I’m looking forward to the any number of eventual Hulk Hogan matches, especially because one of them will probably be against Ric Flair, who is another guy who should probably be legally prohibited from stepping foot into a building with a wrestling ring.The live crowd ate up Hogan turning face because Sting asked him too, but, beyond it bearing a resemblance to Return of the Jedi, it ate up a lot of time that could have been devoted to, I dunno, wrestling.

    Questionable Decision of the Week III: Kurt Angle retains the World Title. Way to create a new star, guys. I don’t care if Roode has a case for a rematch; if you build a show around this being a career-defining, page-turning moment in the history of your company and, on the biggest show on your calendar, fail to follow through on that promise, what was the point of making that promise in the first place?

    I'm with you, dude.

    Random YouTube Video of the Week

  • The New 52: Hawk and Dove #1

    The New 52: Hawk and Dove #1

    Because I’m an incredibly mature young man, this review was going to consist of nothing but panels from Hawk and Dove #1 where a character has their teeth clenched. About three pages in, however, I realized that that course of action would result in the longest post in the history of this blog, since almost every panel drawn by 90s comic book superstar Rob Liefeld features a man or woman with his mouth agape, pearly whites smashed together. Seriously, more teeth are gnashed in a single page of Hawk and Dove than in a year’s worth of One Life to Live. Instead of posting single images, I’ve mashed all the teeth gnashing into one image. Observe:

    The horror…

    If you’re a big time Rob Liefeld fan, rejoyce–he’s in full force here, and while his art has gotten a bit slicker since the days of special edition first issues with plated-titanium covers that’ve been preserved and polybagged for future value, slicker inking techniques and better paper quality can’t hide the man’s ineptitude. Liefeld’s cause could have been better helped by Sterling Gates’ script, which sees the titular heroes of the book save the Washington Monument from a terrorist’s hijacked plane (which, depending on your taste, may be a bit too exploitative), but, thinking about it, having an overmuscled action hero and his impossibly proportioned femme-sidekick save America’s favorite phallic symbol makes perfect sense.

    What doesn’t make sense, at least to me, is the decision to relaunch an entire freaking universe in an attempt to move out of the past, only to hand one of 52 new books over to an artist who represents exactly the sort of thing comic books, as a medium, need to run away from. Don’t get me wrong–there’s certainly room for a throwback here and there, and I’m looking forward to checking out DC’s western and military anthology books and hope they do well. Hawk and Dove, however, represents DC’s first major fumble. Yes, Liefeld is a magnet for controversy, but it’s not like he’s a creative giant on the level of, say, Grant Morrison, who is controversial in the sense that he at least does something different or interesting when handed the ball. Rob Liefeld’s kind of controversy doesn’t create cash–it drives money away. The guy hasn’t been cool since his Levi’s Jeans commercial and, fittingly, Levi’s haven’t been cool in 20 years, either. Despite all this, Hawk and Dove will probably go on for another five or six issues, ending either when sales drop or Liefeld gets tired of the project and decides to move on to something “new.” And he’ll probably be paid unjust sums of money to do it, too.