New/Old MMPR… Eh…

Source: https://comicbook.com/comics/news/new-mighty-morphin-power-rangers-series-confirms-major-time-jump-and-a-returning-villain/

So your new MMPR comic thing is going to be a time jump thing where the Rangers are older, doing their own thing, but have to get back together to fight off against another Rita Repulsa type thing who isn’t actually Rita Repulsa, but a knock-off Rita because… fuck.

You know, I’ve soured on the Boom stuff after the whole Shattered Grid thing. It felt like reading someone’s shitty fanfiction, except you actually had to pay money for it. And I’ve read a lot of shitty fanfiction; I’ve written a bunch of shitty fanfiction. And you know what? I actually didn’t mind that Prime series because, hey, it’s trying something different and that’s what they needed was a new take on familiar material since that’s all they really want to do is take the toybox, shuffle these things up, and mash them up in a new narrative that isn’t bound by what came before. I was fine with that. Hell, just the fact that they dragged the VR Troopers out of mothballs and actually made a compelling series out of them gave me just a little bit of hope that maybe – just maybe – Boom was going to deliver a genuine quality Power Rangers series.

And then that gets shitcanned in favor of this pseudo-future thing where they redesigned the costumes to look like shitty dollar store knock-off toys. They produce a preview for a story that doesn’t inspire much hope it’s going to be offer anything new to the table. It feels like rehash and change for the sake of it rather than… why am I even bothering?

The really sad thing is that Boom already had a viable MMPR product that could be expanded upon. It’s called The Return. There’s no reason why you couldn’t cook up a deal to have OG Pinky Amy Jo Johnson, Matt Hotson, and others get together and whip up a follow-up to that series, especially since that last issue left the door open for further adventures. And look, I’ll be frank; The Return is the best thing to come out of Boom’s Power Rangers comic output in years. It was a good, solid reunion story, the art was fantastic, the characters were fleshed out, and it felt like a fresh take that was both familiar and new. If you had decided to make a new series that continued where The Return left off, hell yeah, I’d be on board with this.

This thing, on the other hand? I’m not exactly sold on it. It feels like a rehash with liberal needless changes made for the sake of changes. Not to mention, aren’t people sick and tired of more MMPR rehashes? Granted, it’s the one with the most mainstream recognition. It’s usually the first thing anyone thinks of when the words “Power Rangers” come up, but I also hear talk about how they need to move on from this or that or whatever the case may be.

Yeah, anyone remember Samurai? Anyone remember Megafarce? Rehashes of Mighty Morphin in all but name and even the ones after that basically reuse elements of MMPR (no more unique morphing calls, some variation of Go Go Power Rangers in the theme song, etc.). Even when they’re not doing MMPR, they’re still doing MMPR. You simply cannot get away from it.

Personally, I don’t care. If they want to do MOAR MMPR, then have at it. Would be nice if they tried something else… in fact, they did try something else and it was good, but now it’s ending because… fuck knows.

Eh… whatever. Doesn’t matter. Going to bed. Bye.

Whom You Hate And Refuse To Support… Or Something

Source: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2026/03/saudi-investment-firm-acquires-a-significant-number-of-capcom-shares

So the Saudis now own a bit of Capcom… or rather their Public Investment Fund owns a bit of Capcom, which adds to their list of video game stakes including EA, Nintendo, Activision/Blizzard, Take-Two, and others… and also they own SNK wholesale. That’s the controversial one because that apparently means Fatal Fury gets real-life soccer players and anus-relaxing DJs with funny accents as “guest” fighters. So does that mean we can’t enjoy Capcom games anymore because they’re partly owned by folks from a country who has a spotty history with human decency? Do we boycott them the same way we boycott SNK… or is it just business as usual?

My answer is… meh.

Continue reading “Whom You Hate And Refuse To Support… Or Something”

Review #1296 – Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth (Nintendo 64)

Kind of last minute while also at the same time sort of lingering in the backlog and bucket list of reviews that desperately need to get knocked off. And this one’s nice and quick, too.

Oh, and Star Soldier continues to underwhelm on Nintendo. Oh goodie.

“But WAIT!” you yell, “What about Star Soldier R, which you are?”

To which I say, “You mean the WiiWare one? The one you can’t get anymore?”

Exactly.

WCW Monday Nitro (March 18th, 1996) – The Go-Home For Doomsday

For those keeping track of your WCW events calendar, this is indeed the go-home show for Uncensored ’96, a generally horrible PPV event featuring one of the worst ego-stroking main event cage matches in history: the Doomsday triple-decker cage match pitting the Mega Powers of Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage against the Alliance To End Hulkamania, which comprises EIGHT or more VILE VILLAINS… or something.

Look, I did the write-up years ago on this thing. I have no desire whatsoever to watch it again. All you need to know is that Hogan goes over… because that works for him, brother.

In the meantime, we still have this show, which opens with Giant and Loch Ness battling out in the entryway while Lex Luger comes out for his scheduled TV title defense that is rendered a countout win because either Giant or Loch Ness never made it to the ring… shouldn’t the match be thrown out if that’s the case? Not that it’d matter because Luger would still call it the fastest title defense of his career. Hell, him NOT having a match would actually given credence to that since he’d have a title defense that lasted about zero seconds.

Steiner Bros. defeated Public Enemy in a pretty fun brawl that saw a table or two get broken… which is then followed by Arn Anderson jobbing to Brother Bruti or Booty Man or whatever the fuck he’s called this week… good lord, this gimmick sucks. The High Knee… as in heinie? Even Russo would gawk at that shit, guys. And then the Road Warriors defeat the Nasty Boys in another fun brawl before we get the main event of Hogan and Savage against Ric Flair and Kevin Sullivan, which ends with Brian Pillman running in and being followed by the return of ZEUS of No Holds Barred fames and some guy called the Final Solution, who turned out to be Jeep Swenson, who played Bane in that Batman & Robin movie that nobody liked apparently. And then the heels cut a promo to end the show.

Hey, the two tag matches not involving the Mega Powers were kinda fun and even Luger celebrating his non-title defense was kinda funny, but this Hulk Hogan jerk-off session to build towards the biggest BJ main event is dreadful and I hated every moment of it.

Formerly State Of… Now Just Plain Update…

Happy St. Patty’s Day. Enjoy your green stuff today.

Anyway, this was last week’s State Of The Blog thing that’s since been downgrade to a plain ol’ site update. Feeling sick the previous week and also some other stuff I had to deal with. A new video schedule was revised and updated on the March SotB post, which you can access on the sidebar. TLDR; the big Vania reviews are now set for April, while this month has more Tetris… exciting stuff, I’m sure.

Meanwhile, WCW Nitro Musings will continue on as scheduled… nothing else wrestling related on the horizon. For those who didn’t catch the Elimination Chamber musings last weekend, please do so because that’s about the extend of modern WWE as you’re going to see covered. I figured I’d comment on the Cody title win from last week until I realized that I’m past the point of actually caring about this Mania card and anything I’d say would be just random words on a page… which is pretty much what this is to begin with, but I’d like to say something worthwhile whenever I write (or type, in this case) words. Would be nice.

On a final note, I guess I should congratulate Joe Hendry on winning the NXT championship. I have a feeling that’s as far as he’s go before he ends up on the midcard doing jobs to The Miz or Logan Paul after they strip away everything that made the guy special in the first place. How ironic that the guy who used to run NXT when it was a really good show is somehow the same guy who can’t get me excited about CM Punk vs. Roman Reigns… which we already saw LAST YEAR (to an extent, but still…)

Enjoy your St. Patty’s Day, kids.

P.S. On a proper final note, I finally got around to fixing all the links in the Bite commentary page. Now if you want to hear my hot takes from 2002-2012, those links work now. Not sure why you’d want to, but it’s easy to go back and point and laugh. Have fun, I guess.

COMIC REVIEW – MMPR: Zord Quest #1

Zord Quest is a story that treads on fairly familiar territory; after an incident separates the Rangers, each one goes through their own personal trial to prove their worth as heroes in order to overcome the latest monster of the day from Lord Zedd. Chances are you’ve seen some variation of this story when it was called Alien Rangers and the little kid Rangers each went on their own personal journey to recover a piece of Zeo Crystal that would set up the next incarnation of Power Rangers.

Zord Quest almost follows that same template, but doesn’t quite hit the mark. It’s a one-shot story that gets resolved quickly. The trials that the individual Rangers go through serve only to reinforce their teamwork and apply their newly learned lessons to use in order to defeat the latest monster of the week. The trials themselves are resolved fairly quickly with no real substance behind it. There’s a sense that Zord Quest wants to say something, but fails to actually say anything.

On top of that, the continuity snafus are hard to ignore. The story supposedly takes place during the second season (or Year Two, as the book calls it), but they’re still using the Dinozords, which were mostly inactive and replaced with the Thunderzords. (Funny how all these MMPR Boom comics that wasn’t their main series always default to using the old Megazords and not the later ones despite timeline placement.) Lord Zedd is at least the main baddy. but his characterization is inconsistent with what was established during that time. It’s a story that neither fits with TV or comic continuity and as someone who followed this franchise since the very beginning, things like this do grate a bit.

Still, I’d be hard-pressed to call this bad. At worst, it’s a fairly ho-hum story with some questionable continuity snafus that almost harken back to the Hamilton Comics days, but on the other hand, it’s also straightforward in its storytelling that leads to the very obvious resolution and on that count alone, it’s more than fine. I do appreciate the much grittier artwork that’s at least a fair departure from the usual bland artwork that I’ve seen in some of these Mighty Morphin comics during that series run. It’s not quite perfect.

Zord Quest doesn’t offer much in terms of substance or anything that hasn’t been done before, but it makes for a quick read if you’ve got nothing better to do and can forgive the continuity gaffes. I’d call this “merely okay” and move right along.

Review #1295 – WWF No Mercy (Nintendo 64)

Happy 3:16 Day. Celebrate the occasion with a listless episode of RAW that tries to sell you amateur hour rehearsals at the community theater as “cinema” while praying for the one bald guy to show up and raise some hell…

Or you can watch this video that covers an old WWF video game that people really like for some reason. And it’ll take less time than an episode of RAW, Smackdown, or even NXT, for that matter! Wrestling is fun (allegedly)!

You want mercy? Take your ass to church.

Bleeding Cool Should Stop Using That Paul McGann Clip

Why is it that every time Bleeding Cool does an article (or clickbait, whichever you prefer) on Doctor Who, they make a point to include a clip of former Doctor person Paul McGann on a podcast confirming that a series of AI-doctored (no pun intended) pictures featuring him in costume were not real? I get that you want people to know that there are fake photos floating around that aren’t real, but if someone has never seen these fake photos – such as yours truly – this comes across as “We’ve got nothing else to post to make this article look like anything of substance, so we’re just going to repost the same Paul McGann clip that we’ve posted several times over the PAST MONTH ALONE!

Seriously, folks. Stop using that clip every time you talk about Doctor Who. If your regular readership saw it once, they’ve seen it a thousand times. And while I’m not a regular reader, I have seen enough Doctor Who posts on this site that I can safely say that clip is on EVERY DOCTOR WHO POST ON THEIR GODDAMNED SITE THAT I’VE READ.

Enough. Find something else to fill the void. Promote the next Big Finish audio or upcoming comic. Just about anything that Doctor Who isn’t a complete and utter Doctor Boo in at the moment. That’d be nice.

Here. I’ll give you an example.

Doctor Who’s one TV Movie starring Sylvester McCoy and a couple others is being redone in 4K, so it won’t look or sound like shit anymore. How cool is that?