Author: dtm666

I ramble about things.

COMIC REVIEW – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (PaperCutz) Free Comic Book Day 2014

For those who missed out, there was a line of Power Rangers comics put out for a couple years by a company called PaperCutz, who mostly specialize in family-friendly comics. Nothing too risqué, but at the same time, somewhat toned down from the usual comic fare. They mostly did a handful of comics based on the current run of series (Samurai, Megaforce), but eventually got around to doing a couple MMPR comics before the license expired earlier this year.

I found myself with a copy of the MMPR book that they put out earlier this month as part of the Free Comic Book Day event. It’s a story that takes place during the 2-part White Light episode, shortly after Tommy became the White Ranger. By Bug… Betrayed involves Lord Zedd turning Billy’s Rad Bug into a monster because… sure, why not? We also have a subplot of Zack explaining the joys of collectables to Kimberly (no doubt catering to the speculative market who collects these things, grades them, displays them, and does nothing of significance with them), and we also get a shot of Trini almost getting run over by a car… which garnered some negative reaction due to the scene being in poor taste.

For those who don’t recall, the actor who played Trini in MMPR – Thuy Trang – lost her life in a car accident… and pray that the people decrying this in bad taste did not write fanfics that parlayed that real life tragedy into a plot point of their unoriginal narrative… though, for what it’s worth, when I still wrote fanfics, Trini was still very much alive… but I digress.

(2026 Update: They eventually edited the panel so that Kimberly was the one who nearly got run over… in the digital releases, anyway. This one sequence is why Boom didn’t include the issue in their MMPR Archives collections.)

Anyway, it’s a book aimed for the little ones, so naturally the whole thing is dumbed down considerably. The story, while a bit silly, isn’t outside the norm of MMPR – see Season 3’s Follow That Cab, for example – but the dialogue is what gets me. A couple minor errors (Skull is called Spike, wrong Zord calls) and some rather cringe stock words that I can’t imagine any of the actors speaking. Even the artwork feels a bit lacking here. It’s clean looking, the costumes, monsters, and zords look fine… but the teens only bare passing resemblances to the actor who played them – you’ll recognize the hair, but not so much the faces.

Part of me wonders if this was originally intended to be either a Samurai or Megaforce book, but then someone decreed that we need MOAR MMPR and we got this. PaperCutz did put out a couple of MMPR comics, but if they’re anywhere close to the quality of this, I’m probably going to skip on those. Sorry.

WWE Summerslam 2014

Summerslam 2014… the show that they tried to convince you to lay down your 9.99 for a WWE Network subscription while convincing the subs they already got to renew. A couple marquee matches on there, sounds promising, right? Well, you’d figure by this point they would transition to the new WWE logo that’s used in the Network logo, but no, they still have the old scratch logo. I’d imagine sooner or later, they’d have to make that transition because otherwise, why bother making a new logo if you’re not even going to use it?

A bit of a heads-up before we begin… this post was largely written while the show was in progress, with some extra bits added after the show’s conclusion. So if the musings ends up flucuating between past and present tense, that’s why. With that out of the way, let’s begin.

Continue reading “WWE Summerslam 2014”

In Happier News…

Classic Game Room recently reached their original Kickstarter goal of $9,000 to fund the production of a 2-disc “best of” compilation featuring well over 50 CGR reviews to celebrate the show’s 15th anniversary, including a couple exclusive reviews. They’ve even surpassed the first stretch goal of $11,000 and closing in on achieving their second. Your mileage may vary as to whether it’s worth donating to something that compiles material already freely accessible online, but then nobody said anything when James Rolfe did the same thing years ago, albeit through different means.

In any case, I plopped some bucks for the DVD perk, which not only includes the “Best Of” set, but also the Classic Game Room mockumentary from 2007 that I wanted to get my hands on for a while, so done.

Check it out here if it fits your fancy;
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1156035777/the-best-of-classic-game-room-1999-2014-dvd-set

Jason Douchebag Frank At It Again…

Not dignifying this with the usual PR tag, especially in regards to the publicity whore known as Jason Douchebag Frank. In any case, here’s a recent (now deleted) Facebook comment he posted regarding Austin St. John and a video showing of one his site admins some self-defense moves.

What Jason Dumb Fuck here is referring to is a ten-second snippet of video in which Austin St. John was showing some self-defense techniques to one of his admins, but my understanding is that the clip was taken out of context to make him look good (‘cuz he’s keepin’ it real, yo), rather than show the whole video about of his detailing on what a dirty fighter would do. You know, someone who just wants to beat people up without any regard for things like honor or the martial arts or anything of the sort.

Here’s the entire video in question, posted last month, in which he demonstrates to one of the admins of his FB fanpage, that, if you have long hair, there are some ways, with proper training, that you can get out of it.

You want to talk about people who haven’t changed, Judas Frank? How about you look in the mirror and see yourself for the egomaniacal douchebag that you truly are, the kind of person who will take anything someone says out of context and twist it so that you can make them look bad, all under the pretense of a true martial artist. Stop using Jesus as a shield to continue your blasphemous actions and be a real man. Move on with your life. Do better things. Be better. Take the high road for once in your life. Clearly, he has. As did your other castmates. Why can’t you?

To quote a character you once played, sir, NOT EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE REVOLVES AROUND YOU.