The Nerd Reviews: Comics- Superior Spider-Man #30

If you haven't been keeping up with Spider-Man lately here's the rundown; Doc Ock has taken over Peter's body, alienated all his allies and is now in the midst of a war between Norman Osborn aka Green Goblin...oh and Norman knows that Doc Ock is actually Spider-Man. Now that's out of the way, let's talk about how great this issue is. Throughout the Superior Spider-Man run you caught glimpses of the arrogance of SpOck, how he saw himself above everyone and didn't need a team, and you just knew that it would be his downfall and issue 30 proves it to be true. What I like about this issue is how it's handled, Slott could have easily made it so that Otto just somehow fixes everything or have someone come to his rescue, but instead Slott took this as an opportunity to show character growth. Ock is finally starting to experience just how much of a failure he has really been and they way he goes about trying to make amends for his shortcomings is really amazing and surprisingly human of Otto; it's pretty much the most heroic thing he has ever done as the Superior Spider-Man so I won't spoil it for you, but chances are you already know exactly what I am talking about. Overall this is a very solid penultimate chapter and I really can't wait to see just how it all goes down in the final part and how it will effect the status-quo for the Spiderverse...until the next event anyhow. The only complaint I have is the fact that Spiderman 2099 shows up for no reason, it was as if he was placed there just so people remember that he's in the 616 continuity; anyways this is a good read and I suggest you read the previous 3 issues because you'll be doing yourself a disservice if you don't.

Overall Score: 8.5/10.  The story was very focused and the art was good but I felt like adding Spider-Man 2099 was a throwaway and would have like to seen more interaction between Miguel and SpOck.Still it's a great setup for part 5.

The Nerd fixes: Final Fantasy- Saving the Fantasy

Back when the "Fantasy" part meant something

I'm not gonna lie, I haven't played every single Final Fantasy game there is (I've played 7,8,10,10-2,13,13-2 and Lightning Returns) but you don't really need to have played every single game in the franchise to know that it is really starting to head the wrong way; so here are some ideas I have that Square Enix might wanna borrow ( or steal..totally ok with that) in order to bring the series back to it's former glory.

The Nerd Reviews: Avengers Confidential: Black Widow and Punisher

I love superhero films very much so you can imagine my excitement when this film was announced. I thought to myself " maybe Marvel has decided to get serious on the animation front and produce quality films"...then I saw the movie and was reminded why I should never have high hopes for an animated Marvel film, this should give you some idea how this review is going to go.

Plot:  In an all too familiar setup, you have opposites in Black Widow and Punisher being forced to work together in order to stop a global threat, they fight each other but then start to develop a level of camaraderie and eventually overcome the big baddie. Like I said, it's pretty run of the mill but even by those standards it's lackluster. It's supposed to be a clash of opposite styles but Widow and Punisher aren't that extreme to create a major conflict; hell Widow is known to kill people so she isn't exactly a saint and there is almost zero chemistry between the characters. The movie also suffers from an identity crisis; one minute its Punisher on the trail of a arms dealer, next thing it's about Widow and her past lover, then bioweapons, random appearance of a few avengers and a "global threat" that is easily taken care off by two non powered people. Speaking of Avengers, the title and image is misleading as hell, the avengers appear in the last like 20 mins of the film and serve zero purpose, seriously they don't even speak aside from one line from Hawkeye and a few from Stark ( Captain Marvel is there and doesn't even so much as grunt)...it's just a clusterfuck; it's like they wanted to force the Avengers in there but don't even do them justice and just threw random Avengers together with zero explanation ( I guess continuity is too much to ask). Grade: D

Animation: For some reason, Marvel keeps going to Madhouse for their films and the style just does not work with the characters. Animes are known to have exaggerated movements but in the Marvel Universe you need to be aware of the characters you're using. Widow and Punisher seem straight up superhuman at times, Widow moves with almost DBZ levels of speed at times and Punisher is able to kill people by slamming their heads against stuff with way more force than he should be capable of.

This is the coolest fight scene in the film and it happens about 10 mins in

The fight scenes are serviceable but use too many static shots and lack the fluidity you'd see in an anime or a DC animated film, the movements were outlandish, which add to the coolness factor, but the effects were too gimmicky for my liking. You'd think an anime company would excel fight scenes but the scenes have almost no energy to them. Grade: D

Voice Acting:  To put it bluntly, its subpar. Widow sounds like she doesn't want to be there at all and her grunts during fight scenes are so phoned in ( well to be fair that's everyone). Punisher is serviceable but lacks that grit that you would expect and both the voice actors have no chemistry with each other, which shows during their interactions. The sole bright spot is Nick Fury, voice by John Eric Bentley , who unfortunately has very few appearances. Grade: C-

Overall Score: D+

This film just felt like one giant missed opportunity. They could have delved deeper into the backstory of Widow or at the very least offered a compelling villain, sadly they opted for a buddy film with zero chemistry, lackluster animation and subpar voice acting. I don't know why Marvel insists on going this route when they have a plethora of characters to choose from, this whole Marvel Anime is just not working out. The film would have been much better if they would have just focused on one character, preferably Widow, and maybe added Hawkeye or Winter Soldier to the mix; not this mess of random heroes making useless appearances that do nothing for the story. This could have been a good step in the right direction, but instead we get another stumble from Marvel. They should have used this idea for a Spider-Man/Wolverine film, that would have worked way better than this. If this is any indication of how they are going to treat Widow in her solo film(s) then I am not looking forward to them in the least. I recommend you pass on this film, you will be doing yourself a great favor.