News & Reviews From The BenCave

Morning/Afternoon/Evening Loyal Readers! Once again, Daryll B. is going to take you all on a weird journey through his thoughts on Fantasy and Sci-fi related stuff over the past week and a half but first....

Rest in Peace Don Corneilius... God I along with my family loved Soul Train and still to this day do the Soul Train dance line at every function. Peace! Love! and Sooouuuuuuuuulll!

I hope everyone got a chance to see Red Tails. It was good, not the "Star Wars" level of good mind you because that would be over the top awesome to a geek like me but it was on par with the HBO version. I look at Red Tails as the perfect companion to it, the action "yang" to HBO's "yin" if you will.....

Thank you cast and creators of Chuck for the years of action and laughter. The 2 hour finale last Friday hit on all the right notes of corny, yet ironic comedy that the series has been known for. The ending could have been more bittersweet as it tied off everyone's individual plots but then again, Chuck was never about leaving the audience with a sour taste. They always tried to entertain and leave us happy. At least for me, they succeeded here...

Word has been put out that this season is it for Fringe and as you all can imagine, the geeky scientific detective is screaming bloody murder. Right now I have a million questions and there's no way they will all be answered in the 8-10 remaining episodes of the season. If you are like me though and with each passing episode you have burning questions in your head, I will recommend Spinoff Online writer Graeme McMillian who always put up the 5 burning questions he's pondering after each new episode:

http://spinoff.comicbookresources.com/2012/01/28/fringe-season-4-5-questions-about-forced-perspective/

I know that I have said that I consider the US version of Being Human to be waaaay inferior to the UK version (returns on BBC America on February 23..yay!), but I will say the first 3 episodes this season have been enthralling. Where as the Ghost and Vampire storyarcs have been noticeably tweaked, I am highly surprised that the Werewolf storyline has been left to grow organically just like its counterpart. I have to give credit to Sam Huntington as wolf Josh and Kristen Hager as his gal Nora for their performances here. It truly feels like the UK version half of the time.

Also, I hope SyFy gives Lost Girl a little time and doesn't cripple it like it has done previously with Dresden Files and Painkiller Jane. Although many of the tropes have been used and re-used, like the Light vs Dark "Fae" angle, to death; the cast does have a great chemistry. Plus, when have you actually ever rooted for a succubus? In addition, I can admit that a lot of the fun I have watching is looking up what kind of fantastic creature was used. I call it the "Fables Effect" where the curious 10 year old fan just HAS to find out more before I can rest easy.

LINKBLOGGING TIME

1. CBR's Timothy Callahan has an interesting take/theory on his favorite book of the Nu52 "Batman and Robin" and its strange warping of family ties in When Worlds Collide this week:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=36689

2. Robot 6 hit me with 2 great quotes/stances that forced me to do some thinking. First, Terry Moore has finally decided to go digital with his books to get them available to the most people:

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2012/01/terry-moore-on-why-hes-going-digital/

Small Press/Publishers will have to go digital to survive with the way (or lack there of) they're promoted by Diamond and other distributors. And I say that as a SiP/Echo/Rachel Rising fan. The more places Moore's stuff can be seen, I know that gals will eat his stuff up.

3. Then, leave it to Erik Larsen to find a funny take that cuts straight to the core stupidity of the whole "Captain Marvel/Shazam" conflict:

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2012/01/quote-of-the-day-erik-larsen-on-the-curse-of-shazam/.

4. David Brothers has had a busy week over at 4th Letter. First Joshua Hale Fialkov did a piece about piracy that got Brothers' juices going:

http://4thletter.net/2012/01/his-reasoning-is-askew/

5. Then yesterday, Lucas Siegel put up a piece at Newsarama about DC's Before Watchmen plans that had Brothers examining the history of the Moore/Gibbons franchise and just why he strongly disagreed with Siegel's take:

http://4thletter.net/2012/02/newsarama-needs-to-do-better/

What can I say? David can always stir opinions up within me that force me to do research and learn something new.

6. On the lighter side, Chris Sims not only points out the major flaw in Superman Returns to a reader but he uses Jackie Chan's Rumble in The Bronx to do it:

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/01/27/superman-returns-rumble-bronx-jackie-chan/

7. Sims, spurred on by the sudden resurgeance in popularity, follows with the 10 strangest episodes of Jem:

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/01/31/best-jem-episodes/

Truly, truly outrageous? That schizophrenic hologram episode was mindbendingly strange and I knew it would make the list.

8. Finally, I made a return to the Weekly Crisis comic site after a couple of months away and found Ryan K. Lindsay's personal review of his predictions for 2011 to see which ones actually came true:

http://www.weeklycrisis.com/2012/01/top-10-tuesdays-ten-predictions-for.html

I actually do this type of technique for my sports picking blogs. It is funny, humbling, and enlightening all at the same time to point out where you went wrong thinking at the time.

OK Readers, that's it for me this week. Next Week, I'll have some graphic novels to review along with Chronicle, Before Watchmen, and Peter Parker/Miles Morales news..? Until then, Keep Fantasizing!