TheRetroCritic

Plagued with a last minute change in director as Joss Whedon took over from Zack Snyder after a tragic event, significant reshoots and a pesky, unshavable super-moustache, Justice League finally gets its official release and the reviews, so far, have been rather mixed, to say the least. Marvel certainly made it look easy when they introduced us to a whole bunch of newly portrayed superheroes on the big screen then skilfully made them interact with each other. The Avengers , it turns out, was something of a mini-miracle. DC's approach to crossovers had proven shaky prior to Justice League with Wonder Woman being shoehorned into Batman V Superman before the character even got her own movie. This new film promised epic action sequences, an entertaining dynamic between all the characters and several surprises like the glorious return of Superman. On their own, there's not too much wrong with these characters: Ben Affleck makes a good Batman, Gal Gadot does a decent job as Wo

I talk about the first two episodes of Marvel's Inhumans .

Released in early 2017, Justice League Dark was an animated feature based on the DC comics run by Peter Milligan following the likes of John Constantine, Zatanna and Deadman as they battle various demonic/magical beings with some help from Batman and the Justice League. The prologue is surprisingly grim and more than earns the film's R rating as we see normal people in various cities panicking when they start seeing demons everywhere. They start killing others, even themselves thinking they're defeating monsters when, in fact, those turn out to only be hallucinations. The Justice League has an emergency meeting where they discuss the possible cause of all this and Batman's investigation leads him to John Constantine. The tone switches radically when the trench coat-wearing occultist and his magical pals enter the picture as we first meet Constantine (voiced by Matt Ryan) as he engages in a high-stakes poker game in Las Vegas with the Demons Three before a fight inevit

Led by Kevin Smith, Comic Book Men was AMC's geekier version of a Pawn Stars -style reality show with Red Bank, New Jersey comic-book store Jay & Silent Bob's Secret Stash as the central setting. Cleverly using a podcast recording as a framing device, the show would include goofy comics-themed conversations, transactions with customers selling or purchasing all kinds of items and a mini-storyline involving the main cast. A sort-of spin-off from popular Smodco podcasts Tell 'Em Steve-Dave and I Sell Comics , the cast in question was a mix of both with Walt Flanagan and Bryan Johnson joining Ming Chen and Mike Zapcic behind the Stash's counter. Season 1 is a short one in that it only has 6 episodes but each of them is about 45 minutes long, a running-time that would be reduced by half soon enough. And this is why this first season remains the best of the bunch: by giving us more time with the cast and having more space to develop the main stories, the show allo

This animated DC feature from 2009 teamed-up iconic heroes Superman and Batman with Tim Daly and Kevin Conroy returning to voice their respective roles. The film sees Lex Luthor become President of the United States and a Kryptonite meteor head for Earth. Lex Luthor's rise to power is one that should have prompted some pretty exciting physical and psychological clashes between Superman and his arch-enemy and, to a certain extent, we get that with most superheroes and villains working for Luthor being sent out to stop both Superman and Batman, who obviously refuse to believe this new public persona of his. This makes for some entertaining fight scenes packed with familiar faces from Captain Marvel to Hawkman, Katana and many others. In the end, we of course get a Superman vs Luthor one-on-one. This is very much a brawl with a lot of punch-outs so if it's non-stop action you're looking for then you won't be disappointed with this one. Superman/Batman: Public Enemies

Gothamized  is a completely unofficial guide to new series  Gotham  and a debate arena for all things Batman. DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE HERE In this 24th episode, I discuss the first 3 episodes of  Gotham  Season 2 and we review Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice . (for my written review of the Gotham Pilot,  click here! ) Hope you enjoy it! You can also find us on podcast  The Big Rewind  (available on Soundcloud, iTunes, Stitcher and Player FM) and send us emails with your Bat-questions, Six Degrees challenges and riddles here:  gothamized@gmail.com (for the pilot episode  CLICK HERE )

In 2014, Marvel Animation followed up their Iron Man/Hulk team-up animated feature with Iron Man & Captain America: Heroes United , another Avengers duo movie. Using the same 2-D wrap technique which gives 3-D characters a more "drawn" look, the film sees Captain America and Iron Man discuss their respective fighting styles before Hydra, led by Red Skull and Taskmaster, invades Tony Stark's training facility and not only steals some of his more destructive technology but captures Captain America himself as well. Iron Man, with the help of trusty artificially intelligent assistant Jarvis, sets off on a rescue mission while Red Skull reveals his evil plan to Steve Rogers. The goal being to build an army with the exact same physical strength and fighting moves (and shield) as Captain America. Taskmaster, using Stark's stealth suit, would then mimic all of Iron Man's moves and, once the world is force-fed the Super Soldier Serum, Red Skull would then easily g

After listing some of my worst , here is my Top 10 Best Modern Marvel Movie Villains . Again, by "modern" I mean post-2000. Here we go: 10 BARON ZEMO Captain America: Civil War Although he may not look much like he does in the comics, the Baron Zemo we got in Captain America: Civil War somehow still works really well. We're first introduced to Crossbones early on in the film and he's your typical supervillain with the badass costume and everything but Zemo is then revealed to be the film's true main baddie and the fact he's a meek everyman you couldn't pick out in a line-up makes him all the more effective. To think that one guy with nothing to lose can single-handedly tear apart The Avengers from within, manipulating everyone from afar, says a lot about what Zemo is capable of. I shudder to think what he has in store next for the superteam...  9 YELLOWJACKET Ant-Man While Yellowjacket may not be the most memorable of all

Modern Marvel movies have gotten a lot of things right over the years including telling more out-there superhero stories in an approachable way, pulling off the craziest crossovers and bringing to the screen some iconic characters in style, heroes and villains alike. But there were also missteps and we also got some less-than-stellar efforts with less-than-stellar villains facing some of our favourite heroes. So, before I list my favourites, here are 10 of my worst modern (post 2000) Marvel movie villains: 10 THE LIZARD The Amazing Spider-Man The Andrew Garfield-starring Spider-Man reboot may not have been the most original piece of storytelling out there, once again laying out the whole Spidey origin story so soon after Sam Raimi's trilogy. Having said that, it had its moments. One of the most disappointing things about it, however, was The Lizard. Not only did the filmmakers seemingly go out of their way to make the character look nothing like he does in the comics

After sitting through the controversial new Fantastic Four film   and revisiting Marvel's 2005 attempt at bringing Jack Kirby and Stan Lee's beloved, (and ever-so slightly) wacky superheroes to life cinematically, I thought I'd finally look back at the sequel, a film I did not care for upon its release and did not watch after that. Until now. Is it as bad as a remember it? Luckily no. Much like the first Fantastic Four movie, I had more fun with this effort than I expected. The cast (except, of course, Jessica Alba) once again does a pretty decent job, Chris Evans particularly, and the addition of iconic character The Silver Surfer was an inspired choice. A mixture of (now dated) CGI and practical effects (with good old Doug Jones once again buried head to toe in make-up) plus Laurence Fishburne's booming voice, the Surfer is such an interesting character he almost fully overshadows the Fantastic Four here, making us wish we were watching his movie instead of

In this 62nd episode, Adam (aka The RetroCritic) and fellow film buff Jamie discuss movie news, review The Man From U.N.C.L.E.  and talk retro stuff. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE Email us here if you have any questions, requests or contributions:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes ,  Stitcher  and  Player FM  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic #TheBigRewind retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com youtube.com/TheRetroCritic youtube.com/Cablogula

I finally talk about this year's super-flop Fantastic Four .  (aka Fant4stic)

In this 60th episode, Adam (aka The RetroCritic) and fellow film buff Jamie discuss movie news, review  Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation  and talk retro stuff. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE Email us here if you have any questions, requests or contributions:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes ,  Stitcher  and  Player FM  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic #TheBigRewind retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com youtube.com/TheRetroCritic youtube.com/Cablogula

After the way Season 1 left things (messy), you could forgive this follow-up season to struggle for a bit before fixing things and getting started. Unfortunately, Season 2's brand new ideas fail to rise above what the whole season is essentially about: filling up those plotholes. Ironically, in the process, new plotholes are introduced and the new stuff mostly fails to gel convincingly with the old stuff to the point where a lot of episodes bring something up that's quite interesting only to cover it all up by the end of it. Take the whole Harvey Two-Face Nathan Petrelli thing, or the potential death of Noah Bennet as foreseen in one of Isaac Mendez's lost paintings, or even Mohinder possibly turning to the dark side: all subplots with potential but none of them really know where they're going and none of them really delivers. Like Season 1, this is very much a season of two halves. Except here it's much shorter. For one half we're mostly concerned with

Going through this first season of Heroes sure brought back memories... I remember thinking that was one hell of a show, unlike anything else I'd seen and admiring how fresh, bold and new it all was. To a certain extent, this still sticks. Heroes did jump on the bandwagon of growing superhero movies early making it very much of its time. Since then, we've had grittier, smarter comic book movies and edgier sci-fi series ( Fringe anyone?) so looking back, Heroes almost feels like a kids' show... with the occasional bit of gore, of course. I mean, it's still kinda edgy but in a cute oh-let's-not-go-too-far-with-it type of way, it's restrained but still goes a long way to make this at least a bit more adult-friendly once in a while. Without Sylar, Zachary Quinto's cartoon villain, going around slicing people's heads off, Heroes would be the show Marvel would produce if Marvel was run by your grandfather's dad. The plot sees a group of 'spe

Young reviewer Kieran Stansbury tackles the Lego Batman games: LEGO BATMAN: THE VIDEOGAME Just as the Lego team was running out of ideas they come with an absolute blinder.  Unlike past Lego games, Batman does not follow a story-based line, instead, it follows its own path for each character from The Joker to Batman in Gotham.  The gameplay is much like the usual Lego game: you're going around smashing things and collecting red bricks, also each level with each character has hidden canisters which, if all collected, unlocks something.  With classic characters like The Joker, Batman, Robin and The Riddler, this is a great game to play, however there is no online multiplayer, only local co-op which does let the game down a bit but overall, as I have mentioned already, it's a great game. LEGO BATMAN 2: DC SUPER HEROES The new city of Gotham awaits the new Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes , and so is Arkham. New family-friendly