Random Thoughts On… “Truth”

Thoughts on the current Superman: Truth storyline where Superman is exposed and depowered and etc. etc. etc?

I haven’t been following it all that much, to be honest. But I do give it about a year or two before they reset the status quo to whatever stupid thing they had before.

Comics these days, especially from the big two, have become so much of a clusterfuck that they make it very easy to drive interest away from their product except for those loyal to the brand and for those interested in that speculator market. Nowadays, most of my comic readings is from IDW with the Star Trek stuff and sometimes a Turtles book or two. That stuff’s actually well done, but for the rest of it, I’m like… no thanks. Marvel’s constant need for a mega-event every other month as well as DC’s dreadfully depressing New 52 reboot or whatever pretty much killed it for me. And if it wasn’t for the Marvel Cinematic stuff and the DC Animated movies, I probably wouldn’t have cared about either company.

And you know what? That whole premise with getting rid of the secret ID and turning him into generic jabroni man or whatever? Stupid, lame, lazy… I get that it’s hard to make Superman interesting given the wide range of stories told, but pretty much scrapping everything that made Superman Superman… no, complete clusterfuck that will be gone in all of a year or two. Just… no.

Here’s the thing; I get the idea they’re trying to go for here; break Superman down to his most basic levels and build him up again from the ground up. And I get that. I can applaud that idea… when it’s done right. The problem is that we already saw this idea in play when Grant Morrison did Action Comics back in 2011 and I thought that first storyline was fantastic in setting the backstory for this new Superman and basically crafting a modern take on the original 1938 incarnation of the character, which was probably the closest thing to a “fresh take” on the character as there could’ve been without outright killing the essence of the character. And I was really looking forward to seeing him evolve into the Superman we all know.

Except that never happened. I think that whole idea lasted about a year or so before the series jumped ahead to the continuity of the other Superman book… the one I didn’t care for. The one which featured a totally generic Image Comics-esque brute in Kryptonian clothing. The one which feels like it was written by people who have no flipping clue on how to write a Superman story… let alone a good one.

WCW Halloween Havoc 2000

WCW Halloween Havoc 2000 is the only full show that I have from my original PPV tapings during 2000s… because I used to get all the PPVs and I’d put them on tape and unfortunately, very few of those survived. One of those being Halloween Havoc 2000… Halloween Havoc 2000 was a show taking place during the dying days of WCW. I’m not quite sure if Vince Russo was still writing the shows at this point, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he did.

Anyway, my hopes aren’t high for this show, because my recollections of WCW from this time frame are thankfully few and far between. Because WCW, during its dying days, was hard to watch. It was the classic example of writing that threw shit on the wall and went with what stuck. And it would be a fairly safe bet that my only viewings of WCW around that time were the PPVs that either I or a friend would tape and pass it along to each other to share the torture, as it were. The only time I tuned in to Nitro was when the show was cancelled.

But alas, that’s another story. Onwards to Halloween Havoc.

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WCW Monday Nitro (March 26th, 2001): The Final Episode Of Monday Nitro

The show opens with the WCW signature with the flying logo and thing. And right after, the first person on screen is Vince McMahon in the backstage area of RAW IS WAR.

“Imagine that,” he says with a smug look on his face, “Me. Vince McMahon, on WCW television. How did that happen? Well, I’ll tell you how . See, it was only a matter of time before I bought my competition. That’s right. I own WCW.”

This is the segment that opened up the final episode of WCW Nitro, eminating from a beer hall in Panama City, Florida. Coincidentally enough, this is the first episode of WCW Nitro that I’ve watched in months since making the decision to stick with RAW for my wrestling viewings, as Nitro had become such an unbearably unwatchable show that it wasn’t worth the headaches. This is the only episode of Nitro that I still have on tape in its entirety.

So it’s one of those Spring Break specials where a bunch of drunk kids show up and enjoy the show… or the booze. From the segment with McMahon, we open up with a somewhat impassioned promo from Ric Flair, who talks about the company in a positive light. Seems almost funny looking back at this after having heard Flair on numerous occasions say that he was happy to see the company put out of its misery. Going back to the promo, he challenges Sting to one last match… in TNA.

Okay, perhaps not.

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WCW Souled Out 2000 – The Exodus

WARNING: The following post contains mentions of Chris Benoit. Discretion is advised.

WCW Souled Out 2000 opens with the typical WCW signature video that had opened many WCW programs since mid-1999 and from there, instead of an opening video montage detailing the card for the program, we go straight to the arena shot and pyro, where announcer Tony Schiavone welcomes us to the first WCW Pay-Per-View event of the 21st century. And we begin with about five minutes worth of recaps. This is the sign of a program that has been rewritten (almost literally) at the last second, which might be the norm for WCW, but the reasons here are far more grave than the typical excuse of nobody having a clue as to what the show’s about.

The original card for Souled Out was to feature Bret Hart defending the WCW World Heavyweight title against Sid Vicious and Jeff Jarrett defending the US title against Chris Benoit. Of course, with Bret suffering from a concussion that would end his wrestling career and Jarrett also saddled with injuries that forced him out of action for the short term, WCW was forced at the last second to rebook the top of the card. And that’s how we ended up with the main event of Sid vs. Benoit for the vacant World title.

Going into this viewing, I had not seen the PPV in years; more than likely since its original airing back in 2000. However, one thing I remember was that in the weekend of the show, I’d watch the PPV preview channel and I’d distinctly recall a card that would pop up and announce that Bret Hart would not compete and the main event was going to be Sid vs. Benoit for the World title. Whether that was a WCW thing or a Viewer’s Choice thing, I thought that was a cool bit for them to update the card so that fans would not have false expectations. It is generally a rule of thumb to not mention these things until the show is taking place. So, this forward thinking is actually a surprising gesture. Whether it’d helped or hurt the buyrate… I’m probably the wrong guy to ask about that.

Anyway… on with the show… as it were…

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