Bond-Tastic!!

My Top Ten Funko Pops!

2016-04-21T10:35:00.001-02:30

Funko Pops. Everybody loves them. They are cool, collectible little toys that are based on the likenesses of your favorite movie, television, comic book, video game, and cartoon characters. Well, at least that is where it starts, anyway. The list of Funko Pops are endless to the point of a series that features sports and cereal mascots. I can’t think of a single series of toys that has been as all encompassing as what Funko has pulled off with their Pop Series. There are literally thousands of characters to choose, from hundreds of different fandoms. People have taken notice of them, too. They collect them, whether it be an incredibly varied collection of all different sorts, or a focused collection on something such as Disney characters.

Personally, I couldn’t just stop at one type of Funko Pop, and have a pretty varied collection. In this article, I am counting down my Top Ten Funko Pops. Now, I’m not talking about all of the Pops that are out there, just the ones I happily have in my own collection, which has about seventy or so and growing (always growing). So, what’s the point of this list? No real point, just wanted to make a list and this was as good a subject as any, so why don’t we just jump right into it?

10) Chernabog:

There is something that is just awesome about the giant demon that looms large over Bald Mountain, reigning down death and destruction everywhere. Even more amazing is the fact that he’s a Disney character, perhaps the most badass of all Disney characters. The fact that a Funko Pop of the demon from Fantasia (of all things) exists is almost enough to put him on the list. The pop itself is a little bigger than usual, without being 6” in size, and looks sleek and fierce at the same time. His bigger head, permascowl and wings only add to his greatness.

9) Jack Burton:

If you don't like Big Trouble in Little China then either A) you haven't seen it or B) you’re probably in the vast majority that just didn't get it. If you did see it and did get it, however, then odds are you're a fan of Kurt Russell's Jack Burton, who is recreated beautifully here in this amazing Funko Pop, right down to his awesome shirt, moccasins and mullet combo. It's a Pop that truly captures the essence of the character and the actor that played him.

8) Andre The Giant:

Andre The Giant was a beloved wrestling icon who crossed over to pop culture in a big way (no pun intended) and this Pop shows off his larger than life presence beautifully. Andre, like Chernabog, is a bigger Pop without being from the 6" line, which is partly accomplished by his huge head. The best part though, is that this pop captures Andre’s personality better than any action figure or toy that I have ever seen of him. It's a thing of beauty.

7) The Creature from The Black Lagoon:

Every figure from The Universal Monsters line is amazing, but when it comes to appearance, it's hard to beat out the coolest looking one of them all, The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Funko once again managed to capture everything that makes the design of this monster so iconic, from the fish face, to the webbed hands and feet, to the scales. This guy has a huge amount of love and care put into his design, and it shows.

6) Batman '66:

There are plenty of Batman Pops out there, so you can kind of figure there would be at least one showing up on this list and here it is, Batman '66. Why did I pick this one? Well, unlike so many of the other Batman Pops out there, this one isn't as serious, and it has the classic retro Adam West look. Much like the Batman it was based on, this one doesn't take itself too seriously, and c'mon, can this Batman's cowl ever be matched?

5) Slimer:

Who you gonna call? Well, when it comes to the best Pops, you’re skipping right past The Ghostbusters themselves, and right onto Slimer. Just look at this guy! On screen he is about as disgusting looking a character as you can get, so it’s no real surprise he looks to be based more on his appearance from The Real Ghostbusters Cartoon than the movie. Regardless, they still took an ugly as hell character and made him look cuter then he ever had any right to be, and on top of that he’s flying. I think Slimer is the first Pop to do so, and Funko pulled it off by having him floating there with his slime trail connecting him to the floor. And that slime trail? Translucent! It’s just a thing of beauty!

4) Jason Voorhees:

When I first started collecting Pops I knew I would have a lot of horror pops, and Jason was one of the first ones I wanted, but could never find. He was purchased for me as a Christmas gift after I had lost hope of ever getting him, while others like Freddy, Michael Myers, Leatherface and a bunch more were available. That extra bit of want puts him higher on the list for me, not to mention that Friday The 13th was my go-to horror series when I was younger. Jason also expertly conveys Funko’s abilities to take an incredibly evil character and make him look like a nice guy, despite the blood stained machete he holds.

3) Robocop:

One of the greatest action characters of all time is Robocop, that's all there is to it. He's also one of the coolest looking cyborgs ever, with an iconic look which this Pop perfectly captures. His head is a thing of beauty, and every nut and bolt is accounted for here, including the little shock things in his feet which gives me no shortage of enjoyment. Basically this Pop is just damn cool looking, even if you know nothing about Robocop himself. I mean, just look at that gun!

2) Alien:

The Xenomorph from Alien is a scary, slimy, gross, vile looking son of a bitch, but somehow Funko takes all that menace and still manages to make an enduring looking little guy that the whole family can, but shouldn't, enjoy. It is perhaps their greatest example of taking something horrific and taming it, all while staying true to its original H.R. Geiger design. Also, much like Jason, this was a Christmas gift of a Pop I had long wanted, but thought would always elude me.

1) Skeletor:

Yes, Skeletor and he's number one on my list for a few reasons. First off look at him, he's a thing of beauty. Second, much like so many other Pops on this list, he is a very faithful recreation of the source material. Third, he was my first…and you never forget your first. After seeing this guy and purchasing him as an impulse buy, I thought that was it, really. Pops were not something I was all that interested in at first, but as I brought him home and put him on the shelf, I thought that it just wasn't right that he was so isolated, and thus purchased his arch enemy, He-Man, the next day. Then I purchased the set of Rocky Pops, followed by Robocop and well, that's pretty much all she wrote! After a while, I started thinking about and planning my Pop purchases ahead of time, and since then have constantly been looking to see which Pops would come out next. And it's all Skeletor’s fault, that magnificent bastard!

Smackin' It Raw: The Diva's Revolution, Fantasy Booking

2016-03-07T21:41:00.002-03:30

Part 5: Fantasy Booking

Ok so this is the part where I really have fun and say how I would have done the whole thing myself. I know, I know, everyone does this and its VERY easy to say how you would have done something better after something has already tanked and been disliked by so many. Its also fun and really that’s always the name of the game here isn’t it? Lets just have some fun.

Nikki Bella

So first off I have things starting out exactly how it started out, no not with three women from NXT being promoted to the main roster and put in teams but before that when Paige was trying to get the other divas to stand up to The Bella Twins and make a change. I still wouldn’t have any of the other divas stand up to The Bella’s with Alicia Fox still doing the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em thing.” After The Bella’s defeat Paige once again I would have Nikki Bella in the ring the next night flanked by sister Brie and honorary Bella, Alicia Fox. Nikki is bragging about how no diva has been able to get the title away from Team Bella and how Paige failed so miserably in getting anyone to help her out. She says that the diva’s championship is staying with Team Bella and that no one else has the right to hold it. At this point Alicia Fox asks if that means she gets a title shot. Nikki and Brie exchange looks and then laugh it off with Nikki saying that she isn’t a REAL Bella and thus she wouldn’t give the title the prestige it deserves when being held by a REAL Bella. Alicia looks upset but seemingly understands. As The Bella’s are leaving the ring though Alicia grabs Nikki by the hair pulls her back in and starts stomping on her. Brie who was already outside sees what happens and dives back into the ring to save her sister but is also meet with stomps. With both Bella’s down Alicia Fox shouts at Nikki that she was right she doesn’t need to be an honorary Bella because she is a Fox. She then picks up Nikki’s Diva’s championship and lifts it above her head to the approval of the fans before laying the title on top of Nikki and leaving the ring.

Alicia Fox

Right out of the gate here we are leaving the three NXT women in NXT. Despite people calling for them to be promoted to the main roster. There should be no rush to do this yet. First we have to establish that there are women on the main roster already who have the chops to start this divas revolution. Speaking of which it will never be called the divas revolution, instead we will just be giving the divas more on air time for better matches and actual character development. Alicia Fox is a good wrestler though you may not know that judging by what she has done on the main roster, but when in NXT she put on great matches. Having her step up here changes a few things right on the get go first off to establish that she is a capable wrestler in her own rights who doesn’t need to ride The Bella’s coat tails and secondly with her turn against Nikki and Brie, Team Bella is now only a couple week thing that is quickly forgotten about and kills the whole team vs. team vs. team idea that was so prominent and disastrous to this whole divas revolution thing.

With Alicia stepping up we get her having a title match at the next PPV with Nikki barely retaining with help from Brie and their “Twin Magic” move in which Nikki is beaten down and Brie takes her place in the match without the other competitor or referees knowledge to score a quick pinfall, usually a roll up or small package. The next night the Bella’s mock Alicia Fox saying that an honorary Bella could never compare to the real thing and that they are done with her and her coattail riding. Nikki proclaims that she can’t be beat and starts bragging saying that if anyone could last five minutes with her in the ring she would give them a title shot. To the surprise of the fans and The Bella’s themselves out comes Summer Rae, another established wrestler while in NXT who has just been reduced to a managerial role and dance partner since coming to the main roster. The Bella’s laugh at Summer Rae for thinking she has a chance and tells the referee to ring the bell. Not only does Summer Rae surprise Nikki with her offence she actually takes control of the match for a while before Brie interferes giving Nikki the advantage. Now full of confidence Nikki walking around the ring goading the fans as the clock is ticking down. Around the 4:30 mark of the match with Nikki still mouthing off at the fans Summer Rae rolls Nikki up for a small package and gets the three count. Not only does Summer Rae last the five minutes with Nikki, she wins.

Summer Rae

A title match is set up at the next PPV once again Summer Rae starts the match off strong and we get a fairly competitive match until Brie once again sticks her nose in where it doesn’t belong and interferes in the match giving Nikki the win. Once again we get another surprisingly good divas match with another challenger on the main roster established as someone who can take the title away from Nikki at any time.

Once again the next night on Raw Nikki continues to brag about being the best and says that she will prove it because although no one may have noticed it she is starting to creep up on the record for the longest reigning Diva’s champion of all time with less than two months to go. At the mention of that Natayla’s music hits and she comes out on stage. Natayla has been off TV for a little while helping her husband Tyson Kidd in his recovery from his neck surgery earlier in the year but says that Tyson is now able to take care of himself and that they were getting sick of watching The Bella’s cheating to keep the Divas Championship around Nikki’s waist. She said that she had spoken to Stephanie McMahon and that she has been granted a Divas Championship match at the next PPV which is Summer Slam and vows to walk out of that match the new Diva’s Champion. For the first time in a while The Bella’s look legitimately concerned that Nikki will lose the title.

Natayla

At Summer Slam Natayla is dismantling Nikki Bella. She is controlling the pace and style of the match and looks to have the title won, even when Brie got up on the apron to interfere in the match Natayla clotheslines her off the apron. Natayla continues her dominance for a little longer and then finally puts Nikki in the sharpshooter, the fans are going nuts it looks like we will have a new Diva’s champion. Suddenly though Brie remerges in the ring with the Diva’s title and just before Nikki could tap out Brie clocks Natayla in the head causing a DQ victory for Natayla knowing that the title can’t change hands on a disqualification. Brie helps Nikki out of the ring and hands her the Diva’s title as they walk backwards up the ramp not taking their eyes off of the fuming Natayla in the ring.

The next night on Raw the Bella’s are as confident and boastful as ever. Nikki says that she will become the longest reigning WWE Diva’s Champion of all time because the record will be broken six days before the next PPV and that she can go thirty days without defending the title without being stripped of it and she doesn’t plan to defend it anymore until the next PPV when she is the record holder. It is at this point that Nikki brings up that Natayla may have beaten her by DQ the night before but wins and loses don’t matter because at the end of the day she is still the champion and she will become the longest reigning diva’s champion ever in three weeks which will prove that she is better than anyone else.

It is at this point that Stephanie McMahon comes out to the ring. She has seen enough, this is where she gives her speech about the dominance of women in sports and how WWE needs to take that step as well. She tells Nikki that she is a good wrestler but wins and loses DO matter and that the way that she has been retaining her title is a disgrace to herself and the entire divas locker room. She tells Nikki that if she wants to be the longest reigning divas champion she has to EARN it. She says that she is the boss so the not defending the title for thirty days thing just won’t fly with her and that she will be tested in the next three weeks by defending her divas title against the diva’s that she has stolen victories from the last few months and that if she tries to get disqualified or counted out in any of the matches she will lose her title to that challenger. First up she’ll defend the title against Alicia Fox, if she retains then the next week it’s the same thing again against Summer Rae and if she retains then she has to defend her title against Natayla on the eve of her breaking the record. If she wins all three matches she will have earned her spot as the longest reigning divas champion. Nikki complains about it but Stephanie just brushes it off and calls out a very game looking Alicia Fox stating that the match will start immediately.

Stephanie McMahon

Nikki and Alicia once again have a very back and forth match and with the stipulation that if Brie interferes Nikki loses the title its all on the up and up. After a hard fought match Nikki dodges Alicia’s attempt at a spear causing Alicia to run shoulder first into the ring post. Nikki than takes full advantage and hits Alicia with her rack attack finisher for the narrow victory. Nikki has done it the first week but she has two big title matches to go if she wants to be the longest reigning divas champion.

The next week on Raw its Summer Rae’s turn. Once again Summer Rae takes the fight to Nikki in another good match that goes about ten minutes. The fans are rallying behind Summer Rae but like Alicia Fox the week before Summer makes a small mistake which Nikki is able to capitalize on with a small package for the win. Summer is upset with her mistake and clotheslines Nikki out of frustration but the match is over now and Brie jumps in the ring and attacks Summer Rae, Nikki soon gets up and joins her sister in the beat down. As the beat down goes on though Nikki’s final challenger before she can call herself the longest reigning divas champion, Natayla rushes to the ring to save Summer Rae and chase The Bella’s out of the ring. Nikki is holding the title high above her head as she backs away down the ramp screaming “The record is mine!” Nikki screaming that shows that to her the title is secondary to the bragging rights she would get by keeping on to the title. Natayla smiles and Nikki and makes a motion of the title being around her own waist next week.

Finally comes the third match the one that everyone had been waiting for. The fans can sense a title change in the air. They all believe that Natayla will dominate Nikki Bella again and without Brie to run interference this time around are sure that she will not get the record that means so much to her. Things starts out just as everyone anticipated with Natayla taking control of the match early on and despite a few flourishes of offence from Nikki here and there its Natayla’s match. Once again Natayla puts the sharpshooter on Nikki and it seems only a matter of time before Nikki taps out but Natyala put the move on to close to the ropes allowing Nikki to grabs the bottom rope forcing the referee to break the hold. Natayla has no trouble doing this and just pulls Nikki out to the middle of the ring to apply the move again but when doing so this time Nikki has just enough wherewithal to catch Natayla in a small package to get the win. Nikki’s music plays and the fans are stunned. Nikki Bella will now be the longest reigning Diva’s champion. Natyala is stunned, she can’t believe that she got caught in a small package and lost the match fair and square when everything seemed to be going her way. Brie jumps in the ring to help Nikki up and celebrate, Nikki can’t believe she won either and she has truly earned the record. Natayla who still hasn’t left the ring finally offers her hand to Nikki shakes it and says “You win tonight but that title will still be mine eventually so hold on to it as tightly as you can because your days are still numbered.” Natayla then leaves the ring with Nikki watching her looking afraid.

Brie Bella

At this point her music stops playing and Stephanie’s music comes on. She walks out on stage and congratulates Nikki on proving her and the entire WWE universe wrong. Stephanie says that Nikki did earn the record tonight but that doesn’t entitle her to a night off because this Sunday is the Night of Champions PPV in which ALL titles have to be defended, including the WWE Divas championship. She said that Nikki has surprised her though, she has beaten every diva on the roster and doesn’t know who her challenger will be for Night of Champions but if Nikki is the longest reigning Diva’s champion of all time now then that shouldn’t matter to her, if she is the best she should be able to stand up to any competition without knowing who they are in advance. Since she has no idea who she will choose to be Nikki’s opponent though she offers all of the divas a chance to come speak to her and plead their case to be the number one contender at Night of Champions. Stephanie then leaves the stage with Nikki’s celebration now ruined and looking terrified in the ring to what may come next.

At Night of Champions Nikki, flaked by Brie is in the ring waiting on her opponent when Stephanie comes out. Stephanie said she was surprised by how many of the divas came to her this past week pleading their cases. She said that she even received calls from Diva’s that had long since left the company wanting a shot at the title to teach Nikki a lesson and to humble her, she mentions names like Lita and Trish Stratus but says at the end of the day despite their impressive legacies they are retired and not wanting to come back full time which is not best for business. What IS best for business is continuing to expand the diva’s division with stronger competition so when this next diva came to her she new she had found her new number one contender. With that said Stephanie looks towards the stage when some new music comes on and we get the long awaited debut of Charlotte.

Once again Nikki looks stunned but then smiles. This is only one of the women from NXT, the developmental system, there is no way that Charlotte will be able to compete with a real WWE Diva. All of that goes away though when Charlotte gets in the ring and is standing face to face with Nikki. Nikki isn’t scared and is just mouthing off to Charlotte saying that she isn’t even worthy of being in the same ring with her. Charlotte looks around to the fans then slaps Nikki in the face. The bell rings and Charlotte takes the action to Nikki, much like Natayla in their first match Charlotte is dominating the match Nikki isn’t even getting any offence in at all and before she knows it Charlotte has her locked in The Figure Four Leg lock, her father Ric Flair’s signature move, in the middle of the ring. Nikki is doing her best not to tap out when Charlotte does her father one better by bridging herself into what she calls “The Figure Eight” applying even more pressure on Nikki and forcing her to tap out. We have a new WWE Divas Champion, Charlotte.

Charlotte

To show it was no fluke Charlotte does the very same thing again the next night on Raw when Nikki Bella evokes her rematch clause for the title. With this done it takes Nikki Bella out of the title picture for the foreseeable future, shows that Charlotte is a real competitor to be taken seriously deserving of the Diva’s Championship after knocking off the longest reigning divas champion in her first two nights. It also opens the floodgates for other new divas from NXT to start showing up to challenge for the title.

Before they do that though Charlotte’s first opponent is named as Natayla. This is because Natayla was the biggest threat to Nikki’s title reign and because both women had a match of the year candidate for the NXT Women’s Championship just the year before. Natayla could also could also make a point to bring up that match and how she feel’s that if they were to wrestle again now things would be different. Once again they have a show stealer with Charlotte coming out on top. Natayla shakes Charlottes hand after the match giving her her endorsement as The Diva’s Champion and really solidifying her in the eyes of the fans.

Once again the next on Raw Charlotte is in need of a number one contender for her title. She says she wants to be a fighting champion and wants to take on the toughest competition that WWE has to offer. With that said Paige comes out and says that none of this would have happened if it wasn’t for her standing up against The Bella’s and inspiring other women such as Charlotte to step up in the first place. She says she is tired of sitting back and watching lesser talented divas get their shots at the title while she keeps being passed by. She reminds the world that she was the first NXT Women’s Champion and that all the leaps and bounds the divas division has made (Note, she never mentions a Divas Revolution) was because of her. She also tells Charlotte she can only be second best and the only reason she won the NXT Women’s championship is because she had to relinquish it because she had made the leap to WWE and won the Divas championship on her first night in the company, a feat that she neglects to acknowledge that Charlotte also did. Charlotte hears enough of Paige’s ranting and grants her a match for the Diva’s championship which is set up for Survivor Series.

Paige

The build up is intense with plenty of one-upmanship the entire time with each diva trying to prove they are the better with Paige taking the villain route and taking the cheap shots whenever she can to gain the upper hand. Finally, a contract signing is set up in the main event slot of the Raw before Survivor Series with both divas once again taking shots at each other and saying they are the best. Finally, Charlotte says “I guess we will find out who really is the best at Survivor Series and extends her hand to Paige over the table. Paige slowly but eventually accepts the handshake only for her to let go and push the table over on Charlotte she than takes advantage and jumps on top of Charlotte and beating on her until the referees intervene and break them up. Paige says “I’ll see you this Sunday.” As she is being escorted away and Charlotte looks on furiously.

Survivor Series comes with a great match between Charlotte and Paige that goes nearly twenty minutes and steals the show. For any of the fans out there that were still doubters this match is the one that finally proves that the diva’s division should be taken seriously and is as must see as any of the matches from their male counterparts. The match ends with Charlotte once again retaining her title by making Paige tap out to the figure eight.

The next night on Raw Charlotte comes out to a heroes welcome she says that she proved that she was the best last night by beating Paige and retaining the Diva’s Championship. She says that she wants to continue wrestling only the best to prove that she is worthy of being the Champion. Charlotte also shows the first sign of a heel turn when she mentions that although they tore the house down the night before that Paige doesn’t just get a rematch she explains this by saying no matter how good Paige was that she was better and that if Paige wants another show she has to earn it, which causes the fans to boo. She than says that she believes that the number one contender should earn her spot and that she won’t face anyone who doesn’t deserve it. Charlotte insists that a battle royal take place featuring the top divas in WWE with the winner getting the title shot at the next PPV and that she is even willing to give the other divas in WWE a week to prepare.

The next week on Raw Charlotte comes out to ringside to give commentary on the battle royal and scout who the next number one contender for the title will be. The battle royal consists of nearly every Divas on the roster including Paige, Brie Bella, Alicia Fox, Summer Rae, Natayla, Naomi, Tamina, as well as some filler like Emma, who although great recently went back to NXT and is just here for this match because she was a similar face as well as Cameron and Rosa Mendes. Notably absent is Nikki Bella who is now out with injury. After a hard fought battle royal it comes down to Paige and Naomi with Paige prevailing in the end and getting the title shot that Charlotte refused to give her. After the match Charlotte gets in the ring with Paige and the two start mouthing off to each other Paige points to the diva’s championship around the shoulder of Charlotte points to her waist, smiles and turns to leave. When she does though Charlotte completes her heel turn by attacking Paige from behind continuing to take advantage of her until the referees intervene much like they did at the contract signing. The two have now switched roles with Charlotte the heel and Paige the face.

Charlotte and Ric Flair

Starting at the Tables, Ladders and Chairs PPV Charlotte is now accompanied to the ring by her father Ric Flair who professes that Charlotte is the new dirtiest player in the game and will beat anyone who stands in her way. Paige then comes out and the two have another great match ending when Flair distracts Paige in a failed attempt to trip her from the outside. It was enough to get Paige’s attention and for Charlotte to take advantage and roll her up for a school boy pin while holding a hand full of tights. Charlotte retains but this time she cheats to do so to get over the fact that she is indeed now a villain.

The next night on Raw Charlotte comes to the ring with her father and talks about how she beat Paige twice in a row fair and square without any help from anyone. The blatant lie only causes more people to boo her. She then says that something has been bugging her though and that is the fact that she labeled the Diva’s champion. She says a diva is usually a demanding bitch who asks for outrageous things. She asks her father if he thinks that she is a demanding bitch to which he denies. Charlotte then says she isn’t a diva she is a women and plans to be treated as such. She says that the term diva and the divas championship does not apply to her and that starting the next week she will retire the divas championship and bring back something more suited to herself, The WWE Women’s Championship.

The next week on Raw the show starts off with a red carpet in the ring as well as a pedestal which is covered by a sheet. Stephanie McMahon comes out followed by Charlotte who still has the diva’s championship and Ric Flair. Stephanie says how excited she is by the leaps and bounds the diva’s division has made and tells Charlotte that she is right the term diva is old, outdated and has no place in todays WWE. She says how from now on the WWE divas will be called what they truly are, women. She then removes the sheet from the pedestal to revel the old WWE Women’s Title and hands it over to Charlotte who puts down the WWE divas title and parades The Women’s Title around the ring above her head. She then says that she is the only TRUE woman in WWE and says that none of the divas in the back are worthy of a shot at her women’s title flushing away all the good will she made back with the fans for resurrecting The Women’s Title. At that point we hear music that we have never heard on Raw before the music of NXT competitor Becky Lynch.

Becky makes her way to the ring and says that she has never been a WWE diva and was always called a woman in NXT. She also says that she has been waiting a long time for an opportunity to get to the main roster and now that she is there she will make the best of it. She challenges Charlotte to a match for the newly resurrected Women’s Championship at The Royal Rumble. Charlotte however says no because she has done nothing to earn it. She says that she can’t just come into WWE on her first night and expect a title shot because that is just not how things work around here. Charlotte completely ignores the fact that that is exactly how things worked for her to avoid the challenge which the announcers bring up. Unfortunately for her though Stephanie McMahon is quick to remind her who the boss is and thinking that the two would make a great match makes it for The Royal Rumble.

Becky Lynch

Over the next few weeks Becky wrestles several of the top women in WWE winning each time out to show that she is more than worthy of challenging Charlotte. At The Royal Rumble they have another great match to be added to the list of great matches the women in WWE have had over the last several months that ends when the match is taken to the outside and both women are counted out. Charlotte retains her title and Becky is beside herself for letting her dream of becoming Women’s champion slip through her hands.

Its not over for Becky though as on the next night on Raw Stephanie McMahon makes a rematch for Fast Lane between the two because she and the rest of the WWE Universe wants a definite winner. Becky is ready for her second chance while Charlotte complains because Becky had her shot didn’t get the job done and should now move to the back of the line with the rest of the losers in the back. Her words fall on deaf ears though and the rematch happens at Fast Lane. Both women battle it out again in a hard fought match that once again spills to the outside and we get a repeat of the finish from last months Royal Rumble with both women being counted out. Charlotte starts to celebrate but it quickly comes to an end when Stephanie comes out saying that the end of that match wasn’t good enough and she won’t allow it to happen a second time, she orders the match be restarted and this time there are no count-outs. Becky is ecstatic about the announcement but as she turns around she is meet with a boot to the face by Charlotte as the bell rings again. Charlotte takes advantage and then locks Becky into the figure eight forcing her to tap out. Once again Charlotte retains the Women’s Championship.

Unfortunately for Charlotte though the night still isn’t over as she grabs the Women’s title and holds it over her head her music stops and is replaced by more music that had yet to be heard on WWE but music the fans respond to at once, its former NXT champion Sasha Banks who has had several match of the year candidates in NXT over the last few months and is now moving up to the big time. The fans are going nuts over Banks arrival in WWE as she gets into the ring. Sasha and Charlotte have a stare down in the middle of the ring with the fans chanting “This is awesome.” Sasha looks at the WWE Women’s Championship and then points to the WrestleMania sign hanging from the rafters. Charlotte looks at the sign then at Sasha and wanting to prove all of her doubter’s wrong nods her head and leaves the ring with her father in tow. As she leaves Charlotte points to the Wrestlemania sign and shouts that she is going to steal the show and retain the title. As she disappears to the back Sasha Bank’s music plays again while she stays in the ring for a few moments soaking up the love from the fans…..

Sasha Banks

Smackin' It Raw: The Diva's Revolution, The History

2016-02-26T19:41:00.000-03:30

Who doesn’t like complaining online about wrestling and how WWE did it wrong and how you can do it better? Everyone does so damnit I’m gonna do it now as well! The topic? The much wanted, anticipated and up until recently (I’ll always give credit where it’s due) botched Divas Revolution. In this article, which I have split up into two posts, I’ll give you the background, what happened and where we are now with this revolution, pretty much a brief history. Then in post I’ll talk about how I would have done things differently because, well its just fun to see other people’s interpretations of what could have been.

Part 1: Before The Revolution

The Divas Revolution started out like many revolutions, with the people rebelling against what they were being given and demanding a change. In this case it was the WWE divas. The Divas would go out to wrestle but would usually end up with about three to five minutes of TV time in a three HOUR show, I say TV time because its very important to distinguish the aforementioned TV time with the time they were given to wrestle. Nearly every time there is a match we also get the entrances for both people competing in the match so if the divas get five minutes of TV time its important to know that about a minute and a half to two minutes would be used for the divas to come to the ring and whatever TV is left goes to the match. If only given only three minutes TV time that’s about a one-minute match.

The WWE Diva's Championship.

During one particular week the divas were given an epically short time to wrestle, less than one minute, and the fans had had enough. They went to Twitter and started #GiveDivasAChance. This hashtag trended for days and forced WWE to take notice that the fans wanted change within the divas division. Before to long WWE responded to #GiveDivasAChance with their own tweet that ensured everyone that changes would be made.

WWE Diva's Champion Nikki Bella.

It started the very next week when the divas TV time increased but a slight increase in TV time was only one thing the fans wanted. Soon a storyline started up with fan favourite diva Paige accusing divas champion Nikki Bella along with twin sister Brie Bella of holding down the divas division and that they were only on top because of who they were with in their personal lives, John Cena and Danial Bryan respectively. Paige challenged the rest of the WWE divas to stand up against The Bella Twins and fight back if they ever wanted things to change. Of course Paige was on her own and none of the other diva’s would stand up against The Bella’s with her.

It was a promising start, Paige was expressing the frustration of all of the fans out there and if was happening on TV then it was just going to be a matter of time, a short amount of time, until the change took shape on TV. Everyone also knew how that change would take shape, the women of NXT.

Part 2: NXT

First off a little background on NXT. One of the reasons fans wanted The Divas Revolution was because they saw what was happening in NXT. For those unaware NXT is WWE’s developmental system where their future wrestlers both male and female hone their craft before being called up to the main roster on WWE’s main shows Raw and Smackdown! In NXT it is also important to establish that the girls are called “women” instead of “divas” which is another step forward. Also in NXT the WOMEN are given time to go out there and wrestle. A typical NXT show is only one hour long instead of the three hours given on Raw but on NXT the women are often given up to ten minutes to wrestle, not including the entrances. Think about that for a moment, the divas on Raw get five minutes TV time total on a three-hour show where as the women on NXT get upwards of ten minutes plus on a one-hour show and is frequently featured in the coveted main event spot. There is something that just isn’t quite right about that.

The NXT Women's Championship.

Also the women on NXT had become much better wrestlers than their diva counterparts, both because they are given more time and because they are actual wrestlers as opposed to models who transitioned into a wrestling role which WWE had made a habit of doing for years, case and point divas champion Nikki Bella and sister Brie as well as a host of several other divas on the main roster.

The NXT women had been tearing it up for a while by the point #GiveDivasAChance started which is one of the main reasons the hashtag happened in the first place. The fans saw the amazing matches the women were capable of and they wanted that on the main roster. In particular, they wanted Charlotte and current NXT Women’s Champion Sasha Banks.

Charlotte and Sasha Banks weren’t the only women making waves in NXT though, others amazing stand outs were Becky Lynch and Bayley. These four women comprised a group called “The Four Horsewomen” a play off of the infamous Four Horsemen that dominated the business in the NWA and WCW for years in the 1980’s and 1990’s which included Charlotte’s father and one of the greatest wrestlers in history with Ric Flair leading the charge. The Four Horsewomen were never a group on TV though and more of a backstage group since these were primarily the four women that had been tearing it up in NXT.

Charlotte, Bayley, Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch, The Four Horsewomen.

That isn’t to say they were the only ones though with established WWE diva and all around great wrestler Natayla Nidehart of the infamous Hart family sharing her skills and knowledge, as well as other up and comers such as Emma, Summer Rae and of course the first NXT Women’s Champion Paige. All of them had since been called up to the main roster to varying success with Paige doing great, Summer Rae being given a more managerial role and Emma being comic relief. Only Paige was turning any real heads. Summer Rae hardly ever got to showcase her considerable wrestling talent and when she did get the chance it was all to brief and the fans never got to see her have a real chance to wrestle on the main roster. Emma feared even worse she was put in a horrible comedy role with Santino Marella, who had been just a comedic joke for years, she never stood a chance and was eventually sent back to NXT.

The Four Horsewomen continued to thrive under The NXT banner though. A combination of any two or four of them would consistently put on one of the best if not the best match on every NXT card. After #GiveDivasAChance picked up speed and Paige started to address the concerns herself on Raw WWE knew exactly how to kick start the Divas Revolution.

Part 3: You say you want a Revolution?

Back to WWE and after several weeks of being beaten down by The Bella Twins as well as being ignored by her fellow divas in her quest for change things finally came to a head. Paige was once again in the ring railing on The Bella’s now also flanked by Alicia Fox who went with the thought of “if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em” The Diva’s Revolution finally started. Stephanie McMahon, one of the principal owners of WWE and in storylines the evil daughter of Vince McMahon came to the ring. She had agreed with Paige and said that a revolution was needed. She sited women dominating other sports such as Rhonda Rousey in UFC and The William’s Sisters in tennis and said it was about time WWE did the same, that it was time to show that women could be just as good as the men inside a wrestling ring.

Without further adue Stephanie breathed some fresh life in the divas roster first introducing a surprise in the form of Becky Lynch. Although one of the four horsewomen of NXT Becky wasn’t expected to get her call up just yet so it was a great way to start things off. Becky came to the ring and joined Paige against the three members of what was now being called Team Bella. Stephanie wasn’t done yet though as she next introduced one of the women expected to get the call up Charlotte who also joined Paige and Becky. The six women all started sizing each other up and it was clear a fight was about to start but not before Naomi, another diva that had been toiling in WWE trying to make a name for herself for quite some time came out flanked by Tamina Snuka. Naomi said that there would be no divas revolution without them which made Stephanie bring out the final new member of the roster Sasha Banks, who joined the side of Naomi and Tamina. With the addition of Becky, the thoughts of Sasha also making her debut on the main roster was nearly dashed, she was still after all the NXT Women’s Champion and so logically she had unfinished business there but she still made her debut as well. Now with all nine women in the ring Stephanie stepped out and the first brawl between all nine of them took place. The battle lines were drawn we had WWE Diva’s Champion Nikki Bella, Brie Bella and Alicia Fox representing “Team Bella”, Paige, Charlotte and Becky Lynch representing “The Submission Sorority” which was changed a week later to “Team PCB” after a quick google search showed that The Submission Sorority was also the name of a popular porn website, and Naomi, Sasha Banks and Tamina Snuka representing “Team B.A.D.” or Beautiful and Dangerous. After some quick fighting all three new members of the roster each put a Team Bella member in their respective submission finishers having all three tap out immediately. The fans chanted “This is awesome” after finally getting what they wanted for so long and we were off to the races, The Diva’s Revolution had finally begun.

The three NXT stand outs made a strong debut.

The next week on Raw the divas were given much more airtime, nearly twenty minutes, another great step forward and had matches with combinations of the three teams. Once again the fans chanted “This is awesome” and all was right with The WWE Universe. Unfortunately, this was the start of a bad trend. Every week all we would get would be tag match after tag match showcasing the three teams but there in lied the problem. If every week a combination of the nine divas, wrestled each other no one got to actually stand out and show what they could really do or who they really were. To the fans watching who had no prior knowledge of the three new divas and had not watch NXT they were just that, three new divas. There was nothing overly special about either of them. On top of that the WWE Diva’s Championship was never being defended. If that is the prize that all the diva’s want, then why is it just a background piece to put around the waist of Nikki Bella? If the most important prize never came into play, then its importance ceased. No one cared. Why were there no singles matches? Why did the fans have to suffer through only tag team matches where no one came out looking special? Why did they all have to be segmented into teams anyways? One of the worst moments came when Nikki Bella, The Diva’s champion herself said that winning and losing doesn’t matter. With that comment people began to care even less and it also showed another major difference between the WWE divas and the NXT women since only twenty-five hours earlier in the very same building, Bayley defeated Sasha Banks for the NXT Women’s Title and if winning and losing didn’t matter those two never got the memo as tears of joy flowed freely from both women’s faces after an amazing match that many considered match of the year.

This went on for months before WWE realized that they were squandering a potentially great thing. The same fans who had chanted “This is awesome” were now once again taking to Twitter and other social media to complain once again. It seemed like a case of being careful for what you wish for because WWE will take it and ruin it for you. “You want Charlotte and Sasha Banks? We’ll give them to you and we’ll even surprise you with Becky Lynch but by the time we are done you will wish you never asked for it in the first place so stop you whining and let us give you what we want to give you because THAT is what is best for business.” To their credit though WWE didn’t do that, they knew that had potential new stars and soon singles matches were finally starting to happen. The timing was great too since Nikki Bella was about to become the longest reigning diva’s champion in WWE history so they had a built in storyline, lets just forget about the part where she never defended it and it was pretty much an after thought for months, it was time to get serious about this.

Team Bella: Brie Bella, Nikki Bella and Alicia Fox.

On the eve of Nikki becoming the longest reigning diva’s champion in WWE history Charlotte had a title shot, she could end it all here and stop the evil Nikki Bella from gaining such a distinction. Naturally the heels got intentionally disqualified meaning they came out on top since the title couldn’t change hands over a disqualification and Nikki Bella became the longest reigning champion. Fan’s hated it, they wanted this talentless model who couldn’t wrestle to lose the championship to someone who was clearly much better in the ring.

Let me take a moment to interject here, although The Bella Twins started off as models who had no place in a WWE ring, both improved considerably and can now hold their own, are they the best? No but that doesn’t mean they are not capable and the fact that they are so reviled only makes things better from a storyline stand point, why wouldn’t you want the most hated person to get one over on the hero? It just makes it all the better when the hero finally does triumph.

Team B.A.D.: Tamina Snuka, Sasha Banks and Naomi.

Fans wouldn’t have to wait much longer though, due to the controversial end to the match Stephanie McMahon made a rematch six days later at their Night of Champions pay-per-view in which if Nikki Bella got her disqualified again or counted out the Diva’s Championship would still change hands and Charlotte would become the champion. There would be a definitive winner this time around and this time Charlotte would indeed defeat Nikki Bella by submission ending her record 301-day title reign and in the process also becoming The WWE Diva’s Champion.

Team PCB: Becky Lynch, Paige and Charlotte.

With Charlotte now The Diva’s Champion the Diva’s Revolution was about to take a turn in the right direction though that isn’t to say that there still weren’t plenty more bumps along the way. First though there was a positive move in which the fans were finally able to see the new divas personalities. Charlotte the new champion became the centerpiece of the division which is great, now we are finding out what make her tick. At the same time though Team PCB partner Paige had gotten jealous of Charlotte’s success and turned her back on her partners effectively ending the group. It was Paige now a villain vs. Charlotte with Becky Lynch caught in the middle, well at least that is what I think was supposed to happen but Becky was more so just brushed off to the side.

Becky wasn’t the only one brushed off to the side though as all other six divas that had been up to this point a part of the Divas Revolution was also brushed off. Maybe WWE realized that the fans didn’t want or focus on so many others at once but with this move they also took all of these other divas that the fans were supposed to care about so much and basically said they are over there and unimportant at the moment, which was especially aggravating to Sasha Banks fans since she was the one most fans wanted the most, which was easy to tell by the consistent “We want Sasha” chants.

What we got though was new champion Charlotte vs. newly bad girl Paige. Nothing against Paige she is one of the most popular divas on the roster and definitely one of the best wrestlers but she had by this point been around WWE for a while so it made sense that the fans may have wanted a different challenger (We want Sasha after all) but for now it was good. Personally I just saw it as a way to break up the teams, even if it was just Team PCB at the start to begin a stronger focus on the divas one by one. Up first was the already established Paige who would be used to make Charlotte more popular and a known quantity to the fans who may not of watched NXT.

Paige and Diva's Champion Charlotte.

During one episode of Raw the Divas Revolution seemed in full effect and like WWE was trying harder than ever. We had a decent divas match on the show, though I honestly forget who was involved, much more importantly though the entire show was building to a contract signing for the divas title at the next PPV with Charlotte and Paige in the main event segment of the show. There is no more coveted place to be than the main event of the show, the spot that leaves people wanting to tune in next week or buy the upcoming PPV. To put the divas in such a spot had only been done a couple of times before in the over twenty-year history of Raw so yes, it was a big deal and it did make it feel like we should care about these people.

Then the segment happened and frankly it all went straight to hell. Don’t get me wrong both Paige and Charlotte did a good job on the mic and sounded like they belonged there, they had the passion in their voices when talking about the Divas Championship that had been long gone. They talked about their history, Charlotte mentioned when she first got to NXT that Paige was already there for a while and had trail blazed what women’s wrestling would be in NXT and what it could be in WWE. Instead of making her challenger feel beneath her Charlotte spoke of Paige as an equal and not some one that she could just beat before moving on to the next challenger, you felt that respect. Charlotte also mentioned how it was Paige that had been there for her as comfort when her younger brother Reid Flair had died of a drug overdose in 2013. She said that she is where she is today because of Reid and that she had dedicated her career to his memory. It was real emotion, something that is rarely seen in WWE today from the male competitors let alone their “inferior” female counterparts but on this night they were the stars. Then it all went to hell when Paige said that she never cared about Charlotte and said “Your little brother didn’t have much fight in him, did he?” After that Charlotte leaped over the table that was between them and the two engaged in a massive pull apart brawl.

Everything was going so great until that comment. After that it was all over, that one sentence was all anyone was talking about. Not only was it a controversial thing to say but even worse although Charlotte may have had previous knowledge that the comment was coming Ric Flair and his ex-wife, parents of Reid, had no idea it was coming and was incredibly insensitive. They had lost their son only two years prior and now that wound had been reopened for the whole world to see. On top of that Reid Flair had never competed in WWE so most fans had no prior knowledge of him before Charlotte mentioned him earlier in the segment, there was never any need to bring him up in the first place they were doing just fine having them just fight over the title. Reid’s mother went on social media bashing WWE for doing it saying it was cruel to do so just for a storyline and especially without giving the parents any prior knowledge. Ric Flair was also very upset by the situation but kept from saying what he really wanted in fear of hurting his daughters career. It was a clusterfuck of immediate bad publicity that WWE never brought up again.

The match happened at the next PPV which was ok but for the most part underwhelming and ultimately forgettable with Charlotte getting the win over the vile Paige and moving on to the next challenger.

Part 4: Finally Making Strides

It was nothing if not a rough first couple of months for The Divas Revolution but it was after the Charlotte and Paige feud ended before The Divas Revolution finally started to make any real strides and get to where people finally wanted it at the start.

The teams all pretty much went away for one reason or another. Team PCB was obviously the first with Paige turning on Charlotte and Becky Lynch and then with Charlotte herself turning on Becky to become a heel champion managed by her double hall of fame father Ric Flair and patterning her character more along the lines of Ric Flair’s heel character from the 1980’s. Team Bella pretty much went their own way when Nikki went down with a serious neck injury and finally Team B.A.D. (remember them?) disbanded after Sasha Banks left the group to pursue singles competition leading to Naomi and Tamina to turn on her.

It still wasn't all sunshine and rainbows though. Despite Charlotte and Becky Lynch having great matches a lot of that was over shadowed by the negative yet again when during their match at The Royal Rumble, which had a great build up, while trying to distract Becky from the match against his daughter Flair grabbed Becky and planted a kiss on her. This feud had been going great and an unwanted sexual advance from one person to another was just uncomfortable and added nothing to what was going on aside from distracting from how good the match had been up to that point. Suddenly it felt wrong and uncomfortable. I know that it is within Ric Flair's heel character to do something like this but it isn't the 80's, 90's, or even 00's when this was "acceptable" in wrestling now its very outdated and uncomfortable, and no it isn't uncomfortable because Ric Flair is 67 and Becky Lynch is 38 years Flair's junior at only 29 either, though it certainly doesn't help matters. The rest of the match was tainted and people were not longer able to enjoy it like they had before. All that said the match was good and aside from that one awful moment was everything that it needed to be. The real highlight though was after the match had come to an end and Sasha Banks came out to a monstrous response from the crowd. Excitement about Charlotte vs. Sasha Banks was huge.

Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte.

Despite the amount of growing pains the divas division has had this proved that they are indeed on the right track. The focus of the division has really been put back on the title where it belongs and wins and losses matter again, you want to see your favorite win the title now, look no further to the reaction Sasha Banks got at The Royal Rumble. More emphasis has been put on singles matches and developing one character at a time as it should have been in the first place as well as finally giving the three divas that were supposed to jump start the revolution time to finally shine and show why the women’s matches in NXT were so praised in the first place. On Raw now people more excited for the divas matches and they are no longer positioned in the dead spot of the show immediately after something exciting and before something else that was supposed to be enjoyed more, it is no longer a buffer or bathroom break for the fans and can now be one of those exciting segments.

There may still be a way to go as of yet but things are finally steadily improving now. When Sasha Banks came out after the Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch match at The Royal Rumble people were genuinely excited and wanted to see what would happen next, that moment was one of the loudest moments of the night if you are judging it from a viewer’s point of view at home. If the fans in the building are going nuts and think that someone is special, then the fans at home will also believe and cheer for those people when they go to the live events.

While things are finally on the right track there are a few more things to do. First off the announcers need to stop using the worlds “divas revolution” so much if you want it to be a revolution and are given content that seems revolutionary you don’t need someone cramming that verbiage down your throat, you will know it and call it that yourself. Secondly and most importantly they need to just drop the whole “diva” tag as it is. The women in WWE have all pretty much said that they hate the word diva and that it conveys a poor stereotype, diva is a word that traditionally enforces negative thoughts about a woman, not positive. Many of these women have said that they would love to be the one to get rid of The WWE Diva’s Championship and bring back The WWE Women’s Championship again and I have a feeling it won’t be to long until one of them does just that.

And with that we are pretty much all caught up to date so far. Wrestlemania, the biggest event of the year is fast approaching and I wouldn’t be surprised to see two divas matches on the card, a featured match for The Diva’s Championship itself as well as either a tag match or battle royal or something to that extent that allow as many of the divas on the roster to get a chance to be on the card.

This will also wrap up the first of two posts about The Diva’s Revolution and the next post will be the one where we really get to go off the rails and have fun. I am of course talking about some good old fashioned fantasy booking where I will go to back in time to when this whole thing started and do it all the way I would have done it with the benefit of hindsight being 20/20 because let’s face it, its easy to tell people how you would do it better when someone else has already failed in doing so.

My Top Ten Movies Of 2015

2016-01-30T22:28:00.000-03:30

Well, it’s that time again where people fumble through the list of movies that have come out in the previous year and cobble together a top ten list of their favorite movies from said year. Like so many others, I am no different and have slapped together my own top ten list. As per usual, this is not a definitive list as I may see another movie from the la!st year that I may enjoy more than what I already have on here. For example, I haven’t seen The Martian as of yet, and I hear that could be a contender for a top ten list. With that point made, on to the list.

10) The Avengers: Age of Ultron

I almost feel like I’m doing this movie a bit of a disservice by putting it at only number 10. The Avengers: Age of Ultron was pretty much everything that a super hero movie should be. Good action, good story, good heroes, an interesting villain. As far as the Marvel Cinematic Universe is concerned, we have new characters, deeper character development from and between the characters we already know and love, and further advancement towards the next phase.

9) Terminator: Genisys

The Terminator franchise is one that has pretty much been written off ever since T2 in the eyes of many fans, and this movie pretty much does the same, pulling the same trick as the Star Trek reboot did years ago by kinda sorta rebooting the whole damn thing while still keeping it all there in continuity if you want it to be. It is a risky move but since the series deals with so much time travel anyways they were able to get away with it and in my opinion, though I seem to be one of the few who sees it this way, they pulled it off. Sure Jai Courtney leaves a lot to be desired, he makes Kyle Reese seem like a bit of a moron who has no idea about anything and his acting is often times best described as ‘blah’, I did enjoy this movie quite a bit (which is why it’s on this list) and I really hope they don’t pull a Salvation here and do yet another franchise reboot after this one because it didn’t get the response they desired. Instead, I hope they stay the course and keep going on as planned.

8) Spectre

Aside from Quantum of Solace, the Bond franchise has been knocking it out of the park since Daniel Craig took on the role of the famous British super spy and Spectre is no different. Spectre continues exploring Bond’s origins, this time bringing in his most formidable foe, Blofield played by Christoph Waltz. While it may not have hit the heights of Skyfall, for me it was still a great entry into this everlasting series that leaves me wanting more.

7) Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Yes, sure The Force Awakens was very similar to a New Hope in terms of plot and pacing and all that stuff but you know what? That movie is one of, if not THE most popular of all time so why not copy your own success when trying to bring this franchise back for a new trilogy? Its not like everything was the same by any means… the new characters were pretty much all great and fit in wonderfully with the heroes from the originals. Also, you know what? It was Star Wars and it was good, what more can you ask for after those prequels?

6) Chappie

The first movie I saw this year that I really enjoyed stayed the test of the year and remained one of my favorite movies of 2015. Ne il Blomkamp proved that he wasn’t a one hit wonder with this movie. District 9 was amazing but Elysium left me wanting so much more - which is what Chappie delivered for me. It was a great sci-fi/action movie and one that should not be forgotten when people think of the best movies of 2015.

5) Creed

Fun fact, my favorite movie franchise of all time is Rocky. That being said, I was happy with the series and its ending with Rocky Balboa. I was happy to never return to the world of Rocky Balboa and willing to leave it where it ended in that movie. When I heard that there would be a spinoff series I was at first skeptical, but that lasted for all of five minutes as the thought of seeing the further adventures of Rocky, even if he wasn’t going to be the main focal point anymore, was enough to give me wet dreams. More Rocky is always a good thing. Who wouldn’t want another incredible motivational Rocky speech or Rocky montage? I thought this movie did an excellent job handing off the baton from Sylvester Stallone to Michael B. Jordan, Rocky Balboa to Adonis Johnson (or “Creed” if you will). The performances were great, with Stallone delivering his A game and Jordan showing that (despite the misstep that was the new Fantastic Four) that he is an incredible actor who deserves some real recognition.

4) The Revenant

I wasn’t really expecting much out of this movie before seeing it, I pretty much watched it just because Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy starred in it and boy did they make me thankful of that decision. The first thing that I have to mention in this movie is the cinematography, now usually cinematography is just something that I don’t really notice in movies but this one MADE you take notice of it, it is beautiful. In fact, it might have been the most beautiful movie of the year if not for the number one movie on this list (that’s a hint in case you haven’t already figured it out.) The acting is great too with DiCaprio kicking all the ass (unless you’re a bear) in a role that often times left him not talking at all. I don’t want to say it’s a safe bet because you never know, but I’m betting this is the year that DiCaprio finally meets that ever elusive Oscar that he has been after.

3) Inside Out

Pixar is a great studio that must have one of the best track records of any studio out there. The last couple of outings have been great, but I find there has been something missing since movies like WALL-E, Up, and Toy Story 3. Inside Out, however, brings that back in full force. What is it that I’m talking about? Well, I’m talking emotion, which is quite fitting given the movie. This movie brought on all of the emotions - mostly the two that are most featured in the movie – Joy, and Sadness. Watching this movie, I felt the joy and laughed happily. but I also felt the sadness and cried. A Pixar movie hasn’t made me cry since Toy Story 3. Well done, Pixar!

2) The Hateful Eight

For some reason I have been hearing a lot of dislike for this movie, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why. It has a solid cast, an intriguing story, great character development, beautiful visuals despite taking place almost entirely in one tight confined place and of course an incredible script (but that should go without saying, given that it is a Quinton Tarantino movie, after all). The Hateful Eight surpassed all of my expectations and shot up on my list of favorite Tarantino movies near the top, which is quite the achievement with his filmography. So people dislike this movie? I don’t get it. But then again, those who dislike it will in turn also not get why I enjoyed it so much.

1) Mad Max: Fury Road

We all know that Mad Max: Fury Road is completely amazing and it seems to be a pre-requisite that any top ten movies list for 2015 needs to have Mad Max: Fury Road not only on it. but near the top, if not at the top. Well, as you can see, you can add me to the list of people who will put a pillow on the floor so that I don’t get rug burn on my knees since I love this movie so much. What else can I say that hasn’t been said about this movie by everyone else a hundred times over? Well, nothing, so I won’t. Simply put, I love Mad Max: Fury Road, it was my most anticipated movie coming into 2015 and it exceeded every expectation I had for it. What more can I ask for? I love this movie, if you are one of the few people who have yet to see it, then you should go do so immediately.

Bond-Tastic!! Has Returned

2016-01-20T12:59:00.003-03:30

Hello everyone and welcome back to the long dormant (My count is just under THREE years since the last update, not counting the “Bond-Tastic will return” teaser from last week.) Bond-Tastic!! I guess this all begs the question “Why?” As in why no updates or why even bring it back in the first place since its been gone for so long? Well let’s get to those answers.

So why no updates? I guess its easy to just say sometime along the lines of “Life got in the way.” Which I guess is partially true but its not just that, you can also blame changes of interest, not really having enough to say about any certain thing, and yeah after it being left alone for so long a feeling that I should just leave it be. Mostly though I was also going through a bad time in my life when the last thing I wanted to do was worry about updating a blog and what to update it with and since Bond-Tastic!! Was never supposed to be about me putting my personal life out there for all to see the updates stopped.

As for why bring it back? Well that’s simpler, because I wanted to. Because I do have things to say again (More on that later.) Because it feels about right. Because it is a great outlet to say stuff and its great to get my mind off the more pressing matters in life if for only a short time allowing some relaxation time. Bonus, it helps with my typing speed which is always great for someone who supposedly has a career in Records and Information Management.

So what’s going to happen with Bond-Tastic!!? Well there will be more of the same as well as some new stuff altogether. If you look through the archives you may notice that there is quite a bit missing. Namely ever movie review I posted on here has been removed except for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory just because I love that one. The reason for this is because I post movie reviews on Letterboxed, so if you want to check those out you can just click here. Now that is not to say I will never talk about movies on here, I very much well, in fact you can look forward to my top ten movies of 2015 on here before to long. What else will we be seeing? Well the wrestling content will continue but once again I doubt there will be any reviews of any shows themselves save for maybe a WrstleMania or something like that. Comic books topics will naturally still be discussed. More so I will talk about the product and how I feel about it with a list or two thrown in for good measure. There will be other stuff I have never tackled before as well such as music, as of right now I plan to do a list of my top ten personal favorite voices in music or top ten favorite Funko Pop figures among other things. No worries though there will likely never be anything to serious on here this is a place to have fun.

I know this all sound positive and that there will be a ton of new content coming and yes, there will be plenty of new content, in time. That is to say it will be on my time. Sometimes there may be a couple updates a week other times there may be nothing for a short period of time. What I’m saying is it will be update but it will be sporadic so don’t expect that every single time you come here there will be new updates as that likely wont be the case.

Well that’s about it for now, Bond-Tastic!! Is officially back in business and very much looking forward to bringing you some new content. Now lets get out there and spread the word that its back and most importantly, lets have some fun.

Bond-Tastic!! Will Return

2016-01-11T00:33:00.003-03:30

Soon.....

The Essential Guide To Sorting Your Movie Collection

2013-02-16T20:30:00.000-03:30

This is pretty gross isn't it?

Disclaimer

* Before I start this I would just like to say that I don’t intend to insult anyone here. If you sort your movies in one of the ways I recommend you don’t, do not take offense. We are all different people with different ways of sorting movies. Although I call this “The Essential Guide To Sorting Your Movie Collection,” if you have your own way of sorting that is different from mine then by all means go ahead. I just typed this up mostly due to boredom and thought it would be fun to share. So without any other warnings let's just jump into it.

Keep it Alphabetical:

This is BY FAR the most important part of keeping your movie collection organized. Sorting your movies from 'A' to 'Z' will keep your movies in a neat, tidy order and most importantly, easy to find. Want to throw on Pulp Fiction? No problem! There it is under the 'P'’s where it should be. Unfortunately, some movie companies out there do not want to make it easy for you. Every now and then there may be some exceptions. Yes, I know it sucks but I’m here to steer you in the right direction; to let you know when it is acceptable to not go the alphabetical route.

Movies that start with numbers:

There are two different ways you can go about sorting movies that begin with a number. If you have movies like “28 Days Later” or “300” there are two acceptable places to put them. First off, you can put both under 'T', since both numbers start with a T, but I wouldn't recommend it. My recommendation is to start off your collection with those titles and put them all in numerical order, (obviously) before you get to “A”. Then you are off to the races!

Ignore "The's" and "A's":

For movies that start with the words "The" or "A" then file them under whatever word starts next. "The Crow" should go under 'C' and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" should go under 'N'. If you put every movie you had that started with "The" under 'T' then your 'T' section would go on forever, it’s just foolish. Foolish I say!!

The Differently Named Sequel Problem:

Just about the worse thing in the world is when a movie studio decides to fuck with the name of a series. Take The Evil Dead series for example. You have The Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2 and then Army of Darkness. Uh-oh! One of these things isn't like the other! So what do we do with Army of Darkness? If we are going with our strict alphabetical order then it goes under 'A' but then you are breaking up the series. Seems like you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. Well I believe this is one of those rare cases when the alphabetical order rule has to be over ridden. Army of Darkness should go under E after the first two Evil Dead movies. The worse offender of this is the James Bond series. What do you do with that one? Put each one alphabetical under its own name, in order of release date under the number for 007, or under B for Bond? Well if I were you, I would just avoid this entire mess, buy the box set to save you from the stress! If you don’t want to own them all then I’d put them under 007 in the order of release date. Still, if you buy a series in a box set then your work is done for you... just put it where the box tells you. No need to worry about how the hell you’re going to organize those troublesomely titled Rambo movies, just keep them all in the box, put them under R and relax (which coincidentally enough also starts with 'R').

Boxsets that are too big to fit on the shelf:

This can be a serious problem. If the box is the same height of your DVDs or blu-rays, then you can put them where they should go in the alphabetical order of things. On the other hand, if they are too tall then the only real solution is to put them on top of the shelf in all their glory.

Do Not Mix Formats:

Let’s face it, as movie fans we all have movies showcased on various types of formats (DVD, VHS, Blu-ray). Some movies simply haven’t made it to every format. On top of that, if you have a big DVD collection then it is damn expensive to replace it! This may result in some people mixing their DVDs with their Blu-rays. There may even be some VHS in there as well. One of the main points of putting your movies on a shelf is to keep them organized and looking neat. How can this be accomplished when you have cases of various sizes mixing with one another? It just doesn't work. Your DVDs should be all together in one place, your Blu-rays together in another place, and your VHS in another if you still have any of those lying around. The best idea for those pesky VHS' that we all love too much to get rid of (we are all guilty of this) is be placed on the bottom one or two rows of your shelf. Depending on how many you have of course. There is no way that they get nearly as much play as your DVDs or Blu-rays, if any, so keep them closer to the floor out of eye level.

Movies and TV Series Should Not be Mixed:

Just like the title says, movies and TV shows should not mingle together. There is nothing more annoying than looking through a movie collection and having to skip through twenty seasons of "The Simpsons". Just like with the alphabetical order, there is an exception for this, but only one. That exception is when your TV series collection is small. Do you have 200 movies but only own one TV Series? Well if so, then put that series in with the movies! No harm no fowl and it is pointless to have a section just for TV if you only have one or two different shows.

Do Not Organize by Genre:

Seriously don’t do this! If so, the organization of your collection is doomed from the start! More people fall into this trap than any other, especially when your collection is just starting out. It makes sense to divide your movies by genre, who wouldn't want to keep all of their action movies together? The big problem though is when you’re going into sub-genres or even worse, a crossing of genres. First, the sub-genres. Look at horror, if you’re going the sub-genre route you have slashers, zombies, vampires and any other number of monster movie types. Giving all of those their little mini-sections in the horror section is just tedious. Then you have the cross genre movies. Where the hell do you put something like “Tremors”? It would be right at home in either your horror or comedy sections. How about “Big Trouble In Little China”? Action? Yes. Comedy? Yes. Fantasy? Yes. That’s three different genres that you could conceivably put that movie! If your collection is small and you don’t plan on expanding it, then go for it! Otherwise you’re just splitting up your collection in a dozen or more different sections and complicating the ease of finding that one movie you might want to watch.

Do not Organize by Director or Actor:

Okay. This takes the multiple genre problem and makes it even worse. Is sorting by director really an option? I have one friend who seems to think so, but where do you go from there? How do you sort the directors? By name? By who you like the most? By who you have the most movies of? Once you have all that figured out what do you do when you have a person visiting who isn't in the know on which directors directed what? From someone on the outside looking in, the collection just looks like one big unsorted mess. If you’re sorting by actors you have all of those same problems you get with sorting by director plus another very big problem. What actor or actress do you sort them under? Take "The Expendables" for example. Where do you put that? Under Stallone? Statham? Li? Okay well the obvious choice here is Stallone, but you can understand my argument right? It is just a massive mess waiting to happen and trust me, it won’t be a long wait either.

Do Not 'Not' Organize Your Movies:

Above all else this is the most important rule to go by. It sounds weird to say do not 'not' organize your movie's, it’s a double negative but I’m sure you understand. For this one I’m talking to you crazy ass backwards people that have absolutely no organization whatsoever. You folks who take your movie and put them down wherever they may lie in no order at all. Or even worse! The people who don't match their cases with their movies!! For example, you open up the "Inception" case and the "Fight Club" movie is sitting in there! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!? Even if you can manage to find the case of the movie you’re looking for, you will then be on a wild goose chase tracking down case after case with the wrong movie in it.Twenty minutes later and you are so frustrated that you don’t even want to watch a movie anymore. If you are one of those people you have my sympathies and are unfortunately too far gone to help.

So in Conclusion:

I know it sounds like there are too many 'do not’s' but trust me it is all for the best. Just go the alphabetical route. Your collection and any guest will thank you for it. All that said, I know that there are some of you out there who do indeed sort their collections in the ways I say you shouldn't That works just fine for you and good for you on making that work. I think my obsessive compulsive head would just explode thinking about my collection in any other order than the way it is.

This is not my collection but it sure is a thing of beauty isn't it?

Smacking It Raw: WWE's Biggest Winners & Losers in 2012

2013-01-30T23:49:00.001-03:30

THE WINNERS:

CM Punk:

There was no bigger winner in WWE in the last year than CM Punk. Punk started off 2012 as WWE Champion and ended it as WWE Champion without relinquishing it once. The last person who could say that he did that was Hulk Hogan twenty-five years ago. This year he has turned away challenges from Dolph Ziggler, Chris Jericho, Kane, Daniel Bryan, John Cena, Ryback and more. He also went from one of the most beloved figures in the company to the most hated. During all of this CM Punk was also consistently putting on the best matches on the card and restoring the credibility of the WWE Championship.

Sheamus:

While not as impressive as CM Punk’s title dominance in 2012 the 210 day World Championship reign of Sheamus was nothing to scoff at either. Sheamus started his title run with a win against Daniel Bryan at Wrestlemania XVIII that took him all of eighteen seconds. Sheamus followed that up with a match of the year candidate at the next month’s Extreme Rules pay-per-view in a best two out of three falls match. He also knocked back countless challenges from Dolph Ziggler and Alberto Del Rio. Sheamus also stepped up his game having great matches all year long on Raw and Smackdown! Before finally losing the title to The Big Show at Hell In A Cell.

The Big Show:

The year started a little slowly for The Big Show but the big man had one of the best years of his career this year and stayed in the title picture pretty much the entire time. He finally got his Wrestlemania moment this year winning the Intercontinental Championship from Cody Rhodes and while he dropped that title back to Rhodes only a month later in embarrassing fashion he rebounded pretty quickly by turning his back on his fans and becoming the monster he should have been all along. By the end of the year he regained The World Title and would hold it for the rest of the year.

Ryback:

When it comes to the newcomers in WWE this year no one made their presence felt more than Ryback. Debuting after Wrestlemania Ryback had one dominant win after another, although in fairness most of those wins came against local talent that had never been seen of before or since. After a while he moved up to the regular jobbers of WWE like JTG, Curt Hawkins, Tyler Reks and others. By the last half of the year though he was squaring off against more seasoned talent like former WWE champion The Miz and although he ended the year on a couple of pay-per-view loses each one was against WWE Champion CM Punk and under dubious circumstances each time.

Dolph Ziggler:

Even though Ziggler didn't win any championship gold in 2012 he did win The Money in the Bank Briefcase which is just as good. He also established himself as a proved grappler with amazing performances in every one of his matches. Although he did find himself on the losing end of more matches then he ever should of this year he did so while looking like a huge star. He also ended the year with the biggest win of his career when he retained his Money in the Bank Briefcase defeating John Cena in a ladder match.

John Cena:

John Cena didn't really accomplish a whole lot in the ring this year with his biggest win easily coming from his match against Brock Lesnar back at Extreme Rules. Despite this Cena remained the most popular star and face of WWE the entire year. Cena was also consistently at the top of the card and main eventing every pay-per-view over WWE Champion CM Punk. At the end of the year Cena proved his loses didn't hurt his popularity with fans one bit by winning the Superstar of the Year Slammy for the third time in four years. Cena's most impressive and admirable accomplishment in 2012 came outside of the ring though with his continued charity work including granting his 300^th wish for The Make-A-Wish Foundation, more than anyone else in Make-A-Wishes wonderful history.

THE LOSERS:

Zack Ryder:

Was there a bigger loser in WWE this year than Zack Ryder? I don’t think so. He ended 2011 on a roll after finally capturing the United States championship from Dolph Zigger and it seemed like 2012 was going to be the year of The Long Island Iced Z. Unfortunately it seemed like his roll dropped with that giant ball in Times Square in New York on New Year’s Eve. It took only eighteen days in 2012 before he dropped the United States title to Jack Swagger and it was all downhill from there. He was constantly handed his ass to Kane on a weekly basis to the point where a new cast was added to him every week until he was wearing a body cast in a wheelchair. Thankfully his bones healed much quicker than Bob Orton’s and he was back in no time being made a fool of by Eve the girl that he had been head over heels for for months. He lost the match for his team at Wrestlemania XXVIII. From there on out he lost pretty much every match he had on TV whenever he appeared on TV which became less and less as the year wore on. By the end of the year Ryder couldn’t buy a win if he had Ted DiBiase's money and despite fan support was back to hardly showing up on TV. As the final insult of the year when WWE flashed a “Did you know” fact about the top five WWE Superstars who have the most followers on Twitter he wasn't even on the list in favor of The Miz in the number five spot even though Ryder had well over 100,000 more followers.

John Cena:

Yes John Cena was one of the biggest winners of the year in WWE but make no doubt about it he was also one of the biggest losers of the year. Although still the face of the company this is easily Cena’s most unsuccessful year yet competition wise. After a yearlong build to his showdown with The Rock at Wrestlemania XXVIII he came out on the losing end. After that he was Brock Lesnar’s bitch for the next month until getting the win during their match at Extreme Rules, and even that was after getting the crap beaten out of him the entire match making his win that very much like a fluke. After that Cena won the Money in the Bank Briefcase which he cashed in on Raw 1000 only to lose to CM Punk and be the first person to come out on the losing end after cashing in the briefcase. After that he chased CM Punk for the title only to come out on the losing end every time. He was then sidelined with an injury only to come back and challenge Dolph Ziggler for Ziggler's Money in the Bank only to lose once again. For the first time in years Cena didn’t hold a single championship.

Alberto Del Rio:

It doesn't seem right to add Del Rio to this list but let’s face it he does indeed belong here. Even though he spent several months feuding with Sheamus over The World Title Del Rio could never win the title and never even pulled off a single win in the feud that had any meaning to it whatsoever. Instead Del Rio just looked like a complete non-threat to the champion and in the end came off as a chump. 2013 may of started off great for Del Rio but that doesn't erase the awful year he had in 2012.

Randy Orton:

For years Randy Orton has been neck and neck with John Cena as the face of WWE but this year despite the losing ways of Cena, Randy Orton had it even worse. Orton spend almost no time whatsoever this year in the main event of 2012 and instead has been regulated to one meaningless feud after the other. It got even worse after Orton’s sixty day suspension from his second wellness policy violation. Since then the company has been reluctant to do anything with him. Add to the fact that Orton seems completely bored by being a hero that he is just phoning it in night after night and has never been more bland and boring than ever to the point that when he comes on my TV it usually singles a good time to take my dogs out to poop.

The Miz:

Once one of the hottest heels in the company The Miz was one of the most hated people on TV but like Orton he too has gotten incredibly boring and has been beaten so many times in 2012 he has become nothing but a joke that no one could ever take seriously as a threat and as just become annoying as possible. Just when you thought he couldn't of gotten worse he became a hero for the first time in his career in one of the worse and most uninspired face turns in recent memory which should of freshen up his character but instead has only made him even more bland and boring.

Tensai:

Lord Tensai made his big return to WWE this year after Wrestlemania with a huge amount of hype and big push but he immediately failed to connect with the fans with them chanting “Albert”, his last WWE persona, at him at every turn. After a string of impressive wins it was clear that Lord Tensai was going nowhere. The first change was in his name as he started going simply as Tensai and lost his neat entrance gear. After that Tensai started losing more and more frequently until he was losing every match to the likes of people like Santino and started showing up on TV only every now and again and has become a comedy figure. He may of returned with a lot of hype but by the time the year ended very few could of fallen so far.

Jack Swagger:

2012 started off with some promise for Jack Swagger has he won the United States championship from the year’s biggest loser Zack Ryder only sixteen days into the year and held it for the better part of two months before losing it to Santino who hasn't been able to buy a win for himself for years in WWE. After that it all went to hell for Swagger. He started teaming up with Dolph Ziggler and failed to win the tag team titles at every turn. Soon enough Vickie Guerrero kicked him to the curb in favor of Dolph Ziggler and rightfully so. After that Swagger continued his losing ways even addressing the fact that he hadn't won a single match since losing the United States title. It got so bad that there was seemingly nothing WWE could do to rehab Swagger anymore and had him leave TV on the September 3^rd episode of Raw saying that he needed time off. Since then he has yet to return to TV. If not for missing from TV for the rest of 2012 Swagger could of very easily been the biggest loser in WWE for 2012 and the case can be made that he indeed is since he was written off of TV for his losing ways but given how far Ryder fell since the very start of the year beginning with his lost to Swagger I think Ryder just edges out Swagger is suckyness for 2012.

Bed Time!

2013-01-22T01:05:00.001-03:30

So a few months back a comic collection called "Fearsome Fables" was released by Ink'd Well Comics for a charity called Child's Play. That trade paperback is a fantastic collection of short all ages spooky stories and turned out wonderfully. You can buy it HERE, through Ink'd Well Comics website. You can get a physical copy for $20 or a digital copy for a mere $10. If you haven't bought it yet then what are you waiting for? Do it up!

In that collection me and a good friend of mine, Ricky King, who's art blog full of his fantastic artwork called "From Earth" (Which can be seen HERE) teamed up to contribute our own little four page story to the cause. If you haven't seen it yet, well then your in luck because here is the whole thing in its entirety. Enjoy!

Don't you love comics?

My Favorite 1990's Animated Shows Based On Comics

2012-09-27T09:50:00.001-02:30

The 1990's were a pretty good time to be a comic book fan when it came to animated series. In fact some of the greatest cartoons ever based off of a comic book had their runs in the 1990's so I figured that I would sit down and make a list of my personal top 15 favorites. Granted with 15 we are really scrapping the bottom of the barrel at the end but that's why I choose to do 15 I wanted to show that the entire range of what the 1990's had to offer. That said, there are some shows at the bottom of this list that will have people saying how did THAT get on the list when something like The Incredible Hulk didn't? The quick and honest answer is also the most simple one. Because I never saw it. I have heard good things about The Hulk and there are some others that might be good that I also haven't seen but how can I rank something if I haven't seen it? With all of that out of the way lets just get right into it.

15 Avengers: United They Stand - 1999-2000

Sure this was far from the greatest super hero cartoon out there and when you compare it to Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes it looks even worse. The main problem with the show has to be the roster. Sure there are great Avengers like Hawkeye, Ant Man Wasp, Falcon, Vision and The Scarlet Witch but to round out the team we had heroes like Wonder Man, Tigra. hat might not seem like to bad of a roster of Avengers but the fact that the big three Captain America, Iron Man and Thor are not on the team really hurts the show. Hell Thor never even made an appearance on the show at least Captain America and Iron Man did at least that much.

14 Spider-Man Unlimited - 1999-2001

Anyone who has been coming to Bond-Tastic!! for a while should know by now how much I love Spider-Man so when this show came out I was super excited. It was after all a sequel of sorts to the Spider-Man animated series that ran from 1994-1998 so how could I not be all for it. Unfortunately like many other things to do with Spider-Man in the 1990's (The Clone Saga) this was a huge disappointment. Still it was Spider-Man so I stuck it out until the bitter end of its short 13 episode run. The really bad part about this show? Its on Netflix right now and I know as soon as I'm through r watching the other Spider-Man show I'll rewatch this one as well. Here's hoping its not as bad as I remember.

13 Iron Man 1994-1996

For a while every Saturday afternoon I got excited for the one two punch of Iron Man and Fantastic Four. Iron Man came on first and this show should by rights be up there with Spider-Man and X-Men from the 1990's since it too had the same style and followed the comics the same way but the problem is Iron Man was never as good as the other two up to this point, not even close. Adding to the problem with this show is the fact that although it only had two seasons it changed production studios after the first season causing a lot to change. The main selling point of this show for me though was that this was my first real introduction to Iron Man and the characters that surrounded him in his part of The Marvel Universe.

12 Silver Surfer - 1997

A lot of people make fun of this show for being pretty terrible, myself included. It didn't help that The Silver Surfer is a relatively unknown hero to non comic fans either, just think to those people The Silver Surfer is a naked silver guy who flies around space on a surfboard, you can understand why a lot of people wouldn't care about it. For shits and giggles I decided to rewatch this series on Netflix when it showed up a while back I figured that with only 13 episodes it wouldn't be that bad. I have to be honest although time hasn't been kind to the show with its very dated CGI that's spliced in with the traditional animation it was actually much better then I remembered. Still far from great but much better then I remembered. Also although the CGI is very dated now as I mentioned above it was pretty good and innovative for the time.

11 Wild C.A.T.s. - 1995-1996

When it came out Image Comics were still very new and the hottest thing in comics Jim Lee's Wild C.A.T.s. comic itself had only debuted two years earlier and was behind only Todd McFarlene's Spawn in popularity for the young company so when a children's cartoon was getting the green light from Image it was Wild C.A.T.s that would translate better then any of the other darker grittier comics that Image was putting out at the time. Still even in spite of this Wild C.A.T.s was the best choice it had the most colorful cast of characters and even had a loveable badass rogue in Grifter that all the cool kids would like. The show itself wasn't bad either and like in the comic world was a great although not always better third option to the animated series that Marvel and DC were putting out at the time. Not that such a thing would ever matter the the child audience that it was aimed at. All we ever cared about was that it brought on great super hero action, which it did.

10 Fantastic Four 1994-1996

The second half of the other Marvel hour that came on Saturday Mornings in the 1990's following Iron Man. Much like with Iron Man this was my first real introduction to The Fantastic Four and I always thought that it deserved more recognition then it ever got. The characters were spot on and its followed the comic series in the same way that Spider-Man & The X-Men. Maybe it was the fact that this show was taken a lot more of a lighter feel then the others and made it less appealing to kids going into their teens the the others who knows. All I know is that I liked it.

9 Superman The Animated Series -1996-2000

With the huge success that was Batman: The Animated Series DC would of been morons not to capitalize on that with their flagship (debatable) character, Superman. Superman: The Animated Series enjoyed the same crisp animation and writing team that made Batman so great and it showed every step of the way. As far as Superman goes this is my second favorite thing he has ever been involved with outside of the comic books that he came from, number one being the first Superman movie staring Christopher Reeve who I must admit was always surprised never did the voice work for Clark Kent/Superman here. The most likely reason I can think of was that the show debuted only a year after Reeve's accident. That said though Tim Daly did a better job then Reeve himself could of done here with his voice work.

8 Men In Black - 1997-2001

The first Men In Black movie was great and very imaginitive and with that movie a animated series seemed like a must which was given to us by Kids' WB. The show had a great look, the characters looked like they did in the movie but distinct enough to be its own thing. More importantly the show had some great writing. It picks up where the first movie left us off with the big difference being that Agent K didn't retire. The show gave us lots of great imaginitve alien enemies for The Men In Black to face and some of the episodes were even much better then the second movie. Its to bad they didn't just take one of those episodes and made that part 2 instead.

7 The Maxx - 1995

With only 13 episodes clocking in at a mere 11 minutes each The Maxx proved you don't need to have a long run to be great. Airing late nights on MTV allowed The Maxx to be a little darker then most animated shows at the time as well as much more sophisticated. The animation style of The Maxx was truly something to behold as well with it looking as though it had been ripped from the pages of the comic and changing styles frequently from being very detailed to very cartoonist at other times. If you have never seen this show and have a two or three hours to spare then I highly suggest checking it out since you can pretty well watch the entire series in that short amount of time.

6 Batman Beyond - 1999-2002

Although this show most aired after the 1990's it did debut in 1999 making it eligible to be on this list to me. With its close ties to Batman: The Animated Series and being set in the future you knew that this had to be a good show. One of the most impressive things this show was able to do was not only have Batman being someone new but to pretty much haven an almost entirely new rogues gallery for Batman different from the villains Bruce Wayne fought. Yet in spite of this still manged to make this new Batman, under the guidance of Bruce Wayne, feel very much like Batman and the new villains also all seemed very Batman like and thus awesome. To accomplish that feat alone you would have consider this show a major success.

5 The Tick - 1994-1996

This show was my as well as most peoples introduction to The Tick. This show was fantastic. Not only was it a show about a super hero and the villains he fought but it was also a great parody of the entire genre just like the comic book that it was based on. The fact that the show never took itself to seriously only helped make it more enduring then most other super hero animated series since you knew that you would always be in for a good time and a good laugh whenever The Tick came on.

4 X-Men - 1992-1997

The X-Men had been popular for years in comics but for the most part they were one of those unknown properties to most people who didn't read them. That all changed when The X-Men debuted on Fox in 1992. This show became incredibly successful in large part due to the fact that it was so loyal to its source material in the comics using its most popular story lines in the comics then 30 year history. Add to that the team had a great roster of the most popular X-Men at the time including Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Gambit, Beast Rogue and more. Other popular X-Men not on the team such as Colossus and Nightcrawler also had their moments as guest stars in more then one episode. All this and more leaves this X-Men cartoon #1 on many peoples lists of favorite Marvel animated series of all time.

3 Todd McFarlene's Spawn - 1997-1999

Spawn was arguably the most popular super hero of the 1990's. Things weren't all sunshine and rainbows for him nor should it given his dark origin. Todd McFarlene's Spawn was different from any other animated series based on a comic at the point it debuted and it is still pretty much still the only comic book animated series of its kind. It was incredibly dark, violent, gory and didn't shy away from nudity. The fact that the show was on HBO allowed it to do all of these things as it would of never flown on a Saturday morning like every other show on this list. It wasn't all dark, gritty and gory just for the hell of it though since everything served the story of one of comics more darker characters.

2 Spider-Man - 1994-1998

If this is a list about my favorite animated shows based on comics in the 1990' s then you can be sure that Spider-Man's animated 1994-1998 animated series would be on the list and ranked high. Taking a cue from the hugely popular X-Men animated series that debuted two years before Spider-Man was very loyal to its comic book origins. Sure somethings were changed around, we had The Hobgoblin terrorizing Spider-Man long before The Green Goblin showed up among other things but for the most part everything was spot on. This show was also one of the first to use CGI animation albeit very crude CGI animation that was saved mostly for buildings and vehicles. This show also featured some great voice work from the likes of Christopher Daniel Barnes as Peter Parker/Spider-Man and a very under rated performance of Ed Asner as J. Jonah Jameson. I loved the hell out of this show.

1 Batman: The Animated Series - 1992-1997

Is it really a surprise to anyone that my #1 animated show based on a comic book in the 1990's was Batman: The Animated Series? Despite my love of Spider-Man is there really any other option out there? Everything about this show was absolutely brilliant. From the opening theme song with the awesome music and intro which itself its a fantastic one minute Batman story. The animation style gave birth to an entire universe of DC animated shows including Superman, Batman Beyond and The Justice League. It also gave birth to fan favorite character Harley Quinn which in itself is enough to put it high on any lists. The voice work in this show is also some of the best that has been seen in any animated series, a fact proven to me by the fact that every time I read a Batman comic I hear the voices from this show. When I read Batman I hear Kevin Conroy, when I read The Joker I hear Mark Hamill and so forth and so forth. In short not only is Batman: The Animated Series my favorite animated show based on a comic book from the 1990's its one of my favorite SHOWS of all time animated or otherwise.

Smackin' It Raw: WWE's Tag Team Division

2012-08-31T20:15:00.004-02:30

WWE's tag team division has been pretty bad for a very long time now but it seems like they are trying to make it better now although very, very slowly. So I have decided to take a look at the tag teams in WWE right now as well as a couple of people who could make decent tag teams.

Kofi Kingston & R-Truth: The Tag Team Champions and thus the cornerstone of the division. I'm not a fan of tag teams that have just been slapped together and its painfully obvious that what these guys are. WWE has transition Kofi to a tag team wrestler these days since before R-Truth he was teaming with Evan Bourne in Air Boom with the hope that they could revitalize the tag division. I think Kofi meshed much better with Bourne and they made a much better tag team, they even had half of the four things that ever tag team should have, a team name and matching attire, they still didn't have a team entrance theme or a team finisher though unless you counted Kofi hitting the Trouble In Paradise followed by Bourne's Air Bourne. How sad is it when your team feels so slapped together that all I can talk about is one of the partners old tag teams instead. Maybe if they keep Kofi and Truth together for a while after they lose the titles and they keep competing for them then I wouldn't feel as though they are so slapped together.

Darren Young & Titus O'Neil, The Prime Time Players: The possible future of the tag team division. The Prime Time Players have nearly everything you need to be a successful tag team, the only thing that's missing are those tag titles. WWE should put the titles on these guys ASAP and build the tag division around them as the dastardly team that cheats at every opportunity to keep the titles.

Jimmy & Jey Uso, The Uso's: The Uso's are the guys who SHOULD be the face of the tag team division in my opinion. Being twin brothers they have been a team their entire lives and work better together then anyone else on the roster. On top of that despite the fact that WWE has done them no favors at all since they first got on the roster in terms of building their credibility these guys are still over with the fans. When they come out and do their song and dance at the start of their entrance they always get the people going. One thing that can really push these guys over the top as huge fan favorites is if WWE would bring in their father Rikishi in a managerial role for them though that may not be something Rikishi wouldn't be interested since his wrestling days are still not behind him.

Epico & Primo: These two are another team that work very well together. WWE may be hesitant to put the tag titles back on them any time soon because they didn't seem to be all that over when they were champions but guess what happens when you don't put your champions on TV for weeks at a time, they don't get over. Epico & Primo are both great wrestlers and can put on a great match with any team in the division and I think they deserve another shot at the tag titles or at the very least a nice feud over the titles to get the fans behind them more. Rosa Mendes being in their corner only helps them as she is a perfect fit for the duo and fairly good mouth piece as well.

Tyson Kidd & Justin Gabriel: Kidd and Gabriel were a tag team that were just getting their footing a few months back before an injury sidelined Gabriel but in a shocking move by WWE's part once Gabriel returned they paired the two up again and they are once more finding their footing. These guys can really be a huge fan favorite team with their wrestling styles which compliment each others very nicely. They are also seeming to take the opportunity given to them and make a go for it as well since they have been asking fans on Twitter and Tout to suggest tag team names for the duo with them sending a Tout out themselves saying they may go with “International Airstrike.” It might not roll right off the tongue but hey its something at least. Also helping them out is the fact that both guys are experienced tag team wrestlers with both holding WWE tag team gold in the past, Kidd with DH Smith and Gabriel with Heath Slater.

Camacho & Hunico: These two have been paired together for a while now but haven't been much tag team and have seemingly yet to even consider going for the tag team titles. Why not? They aren't doing anything else and both guys are pretty decent wrestlers if nothing else they can be one more team that adds a bit of depth to the tag division with them challenging for the titles in triple threats or fatal four ways. Maybe they can be a team that another team has to face to become number one contenders. Hell why not make them number one contenders and give them a run for the titles, they have worked together well enough so far why not throw them in the thick of the tag division.

Now as I said before I am not a fan of two guys who have nothing else to do and are slapped together as a tag team. That said some times that scenario gives birth to great tag teams take for example The New Age Outlaws, Beer Money, The Rock -n- Sock Connection, The Hollywood Blondes, Booker T and Goldust, The Big Show and Chris Jericho or The Miz and John Morrison. Its something that has been proven to work before but it takes the right combination of guys to do it. Here are a couple of guys who I think could breath some new life in the tag team division and certainly their careers if they were teaming together including a few that we have already seen together in the past.

Michael McGillicutty & David Otunga: These guys have been a tag team that were slapped together before due to The Nexus ending and they worked pretty well with one another even if they weren't the most over with the crowd. After losing the tag titles they just simply went their own different ways. Why not bring them back together again? Since John Laurinaitis has been gone Otunga has been doing nothing and McGillicutty has been toiling away on NXT it will only help both men to get back together. One of the biggest problems with them before is that they were deeming boring by Jerry The King Lawler, well since then Otunga has really come into his own as an annoying heel that everyone hates while McGillicutty has been coming into his own as well on NXT having great matches. Put them back together and hide their weaknesses by having Otunga do most of the talking while McGillicutty does most of the wrestling.

Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins: These two broke into WWE as a tag team called The Major Brothers and later graduated to The Edgeheads, Edge's lackeys to help keep the world title around his waist. During this time they captured the tag team titles before going their separate ways. Once again like McGillicutty & Otunga these two didn't have a falling out when they split up. With Tyler Reks requesting and being granted his release that leaves Curt Hawkins without a tag team partner again. Zack Ryder has been struggling quite a bit as of late himself so why not pair the duo up once again. When they were a tag team before they were nobodies and although you can make the case that Hawkins still is a nobody they have both improved leaps and bounds from where they used to be and now both have their very own distinct personalities. Hawkins can get a bit of rub off of Ryder and they can be a nice addition to the tag team division.

Rey Mysterio & Sin Cara: Mysterio and Sin Cara are very easy to pair up together and although Sin Cara has been labeled as a huge future superstar ever since he arrived in WWE he hasn't really done much of anything to prove himself. Putting him with the very well established and beloved Mysterio can do wonders for Cara. WWE has been talking about these two having a match at Wrestlemania to set a new record for most masks worn at any public event since last year until both men got sidelined for this this years Wrestlemania but if they can both stay injury free it seems like a it might be the way for them to go for next years Wresstlemania and if they are already a tag team, maybe even champions at the time it would be easy to make the match happen with them even saying they want to do so to set the record.

Drew McIntyre & Jack Swagger: Here we have a classic case of two guys who aren't having anything done with them. Whenever McIntyre and Swagger are on TV you can be pretty sure that both are going to lose whatever match they are in, at the moment they are nothing but a couple of glorified jobbers. They were once so much more though and that is where these two can come together. Think about it Swagger was once a World Champion while McIntyre was a Intercontinental champion and pegged by Vince McMahon himself as the future of WWE. So what went so wrong for these guys? Both have complained as of late after loses that “they are better then this!!” so it seems like it would be easy to pair them off. They can both be put in an embarrassing match together with some other wrestlers and leave together citing they are better then this and just like that you have a new tag team who are out to prove they are indeed better then what they have been given.

Christian & Trent Barreta: This one may seem like it comes from out of nowhere and it kinda does but here's how I rationalize it. There is a old tried and true tradition of sticking a young wrestler with an experienced veteran in a tag team. Doing so gives the younger guy a huge rub instantly just by the association with the veteran. This is something that has worked time and again. As for why I picked these two here's why. Christian has always been a great tag team wrestler and has won the tag titles a total of nine times, seven with Edge, and once with Chris Jericho and Lance Storm. Trent Baretta was also in a pretty entertaining tag team with Caylen Croft before called The Dudebusters. Though they were entertaining they never really got a fair shake and Croft was soon released. It would be pretty easy to pair Baretta and Christian together as well since Baretta's current character can be compared with Christian's earlier in his career when he was more of a goofball teaming with Edge. Christian can just take Baretta under his wing saying that he sees a lot of himself in Baretta and we're off to the races with them.

Michael McGillicutty & Ted DiBiase: Dibiase and McGillicutty are a coulple of third generation wrestlers who really have nothing else going for them at the moment. Teaming them up seems like it could work pretty easily. The only thing I would change here would be having McGillicutty changing his name and going by his real name of Joe Hennig. WWE have said almost every time McGillicutty steps into the ring that he is the son of Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig and grandson of Larry “The Ax” Hennig so why they don't just have him going under his real name makes no sense to me, even if they keep the first name and call him Michael Hennig instead it wouldn't be so bad. They can recycle DiBiase and Cody Rhodes gimmick when they were Legacy of them thinking they are better then everyone else because of their pedigree and that they should be entitled to more then other because of it. I can easily see these two working well together and helping both men make it to the next step in their careers.

Smackin' It Raw: Seven ways to make a three hour Monday Night Raw work

2012-08-18T13:47:00.000-02:30

Every Since Monday Night Raw went three hours it has at times during each show feel like a chore to watch. Making something you love feel like a chore is the quickest way to turn people away but it doesn't have to be that way WWE Raw could work at three hours and be entertaining from start to finish. Here I present to you seven ways in which a three hour Raw can work and while we are at it improve WWE as a whole:

Unify the WWE & World titles:

The two world titles was a great idea when the brand split first happened and the wrestlers on Raw and Smackdown never crossed over to the other shows. That time is long over now though. Somehow there is still a brand split but its only in the loosest of ways with Raw and Smackdown wrestlers showing up on whatever show they want. Hell earlier this year Raw became “Raw Supershow” officially allowing Smackdown wrestlers to show up on Raw whenever they want. The brand split still held where Raw wrestlers stuck to Raw, that is unless there was a storyline reason. But lets face any wrestler can go on either show they want so the point of a two world titles is dead. That said I think they should hold off on a unification match until Wrestlemania this year to give it more of a big match feel but its time for the Undisputed WWE Championship to make a return. That said I never liked it when they called the title that, call it what they did before WWE bought WCW and call it “The WWE World Championship” as a bonus that all incorporates both titles name into one. The worst part about it would be that odds are that the beautiful looking World Title will disappear.

Unify the Intercontinental and US titles:

Same story with the world titles, there is no need for two secondary titles so these two need to be unified as well. Alone these titles have no prestige anymore but if you unify them you can make a big deal out of it and make the title feel special again, have former World and WWE champions compete for it while still using it to elevate the younger talent. I wouldn't wait to unify these titles until Wrestlemania though for this one the sooner the better. Since the IC title has a much greater history in WWE thats the title that should stay.

Make the tag team division relevant again:

Every week we hear on TV how the tag division is fiercely competitive. They must think we are all idiots. That division hasn't been important since the early 2000's when you had a deep tag division with Edge & Christian, The Hardy Boyz, The Dudley Boyz, Too Cool, The APA, The New Age Outlaws and more. Back then we had real tag teams but the last half a dozen or more years our tag teams are more of the two wrestlers slapped together type. Rarely have they had tag team names and their attire didn't match, those things might not seem all that important but it is. It shows better unity between the two wrestlers making them feel more like a team. All that said things are not really as bad right now as they have been in recent years, it looks like the tag division is on a upswing again even if it is going very slowly. For the first time in years we have more then two tag teams that don't feel like two guys slapped together. Curt Hawkins & Tyler Reks feel the most slapped together and they were but they are slowing making it work for them and months ago even took the step to get the matching attires. Primo & Epico, The Uso's, and The Prime Time Players all feel like real tag teams. Oddly enough the Tag Champions Kofi Kingston & R-Truth are the team that feels like and are the most slapped together of the teams in WWE right now. I'd say get the titles off of those two let them go back to single action and give the titles to one of the teams mentioned above. After that bring in more teams and really build up that division and make it feel special again.

Give the divas more time:

The divas division is nothing more then a joke for two reasons. First off most of the girls have no business in a wrestling ring with minimum training at best. The second and in my opinion bigger reason is the lack of time given to the diva matches. Why would anyone care about the Divas title if the matches get less then two minutes of TV time each week and if your lucky five minutes on a pay per view. WWE needs to break out of that trend and look to their past on how to make a good Divas division again. Before Trish Stratus and Lita called it quits the Divas matches were just as long as any other match. With Raw at three hours now there is no reason you can't give these girls 10 minutes out of your three hour long show. You can make people care about the divas again taking the girls who can't wrestle well such as Kelly Kelly and Alicia Fox follow the example of Rosa Mendes and other Divas who have taken a strictly managerial position. Granted both women have shown a lot of improvement which is all well and good but keep the title away from them until they are actually good enough to carry it. Instead leave the wrestling to the likes of Beth Phoenix, Tamina Snuka, Natayla and to a lesser extent Eve and current champion Layla who have both shown they can actually be decent if given the time to wrestle and improve. While we are at it Hire back Kharma who was fired for no reason and bring in Sara Del Ray who I heard was recently hired. Del Ray, Phoenix, Natayla, Kharma and Snuka have it in them to make the Divas division feel like its worthy of more then just the time to use the bathroom or in my case take the dogs out to use the bathroom.

Bring back the Crusierweight title:

With a world title and a secondary title gone the titles instantly feel more special because there are less of them. That said I think there would still be a place for a Crusierweight title to make a come back. The reason this title could make a comeback is because it would be different from the other titles that anyone could compete for. With this one there is a weight limit that would keep the heavyweights from competing for it. Traditionally the weight limit for these titles have been 220-225 lbs I suggest we lower the weight limit to 210-215 lbs instead since more and more of the world title contenders these days are closer to 220-225 already. Bring in a few high flyers and make this division the spectacle that it should be which is the problem WWE has always had with this title. Don't let it become a joke again with divas or Hornswoggle as champion. Make it serious. Reintroduce it in a eight man tournament. On the current roster that tournament could consist of of Sin Cara, Tyson Kidd, Evan Bourne, Hunico, Justin Gabriel, Yoshi Tatsu and to really give it a rub Rey Mysterio and Daniel Bryan who weighs in at only 210 lbs himself. To have two former world champions competing for the title and praising it up will make it feel important right away. During the tournament give each match a bare minimum of 10 minutes with the tournament final having at least 20. It shouldn't have 20 minutes each week but 10 minutes to the crusierweight champion while having another crusierweight match on the show would make the division feel important right away.

More time for matches and less time for backstage skits and bad comedy:

With three hours every week there is no reason why the matches we are getting right now on the show are as long as they were when there was only two hours. This isn't a race anymore its a marathon. There should be at least two matches that are long enough for two segments on the show. That's two matches that have commercial breaks during them. Longer matches usually mean better matches and better matches mean more people caring about the product. It seems like Raw went three hours it seems like the amount of matches and match times are the same and the only thing that has increased is the amount of backstage skits and comedy. We don't want or need that we want and need more wrestling. I hate to take a term from TNA but WWE needs to make wrestling matter again.

Work on getting the younger talent over:

One of the main reason for the brand split all those years ago was to be able to give TV time to the younger wrestlers who would of been overshadowed by all of the established wrestlers that were already on the roster and found their way there after WCW was bought up. That's not the case anymore and if anything WWE needs more main event stars what better way of doing that then by giving the younger guys a chance to shine. Give them more time on TV both in matches and by cutting short promos before the matches. This method has always worked to get younger guys over for a reason. Also while your getting a younger guy over don't bring in a main eventer and have them destroy that person every week. Zack Ryder looked like he was going places late last year until Kane kicked the shit out of him every week on TV and made to look like a loser every chance they got earlier this year. If you want to have a main evener beat a younger guy that's fine but have it be a competitive match where the main eventer wins. That way even in a loss the younger guy seems like he belongs and that he could be a main eventer as well.

Movie Review: Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory

2012-08-02T00:54:00.002-02:30

What can be said about Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory that hasn't already been said a thousand times before? This movie is after all an absolute classic.

We all know what the story is about. Some bum kid buys a chocolate bar that has a golden ticket within the wrapper that wins him and five other kids a lifetime supply of chocolate, a meeting with the mysterious Willy Wonka and a tour of his candy factory. Charlie is the only good kid and at the end of the movie Wonka rewards his kindness by giving him the chocolate factory.

Gene Wilder is absolutely brilliant in this movie which only helps cement him as one of the greatest comedic performers of all time. Anyone who would still argue after watching this movie could also be directed to a couple of Mel Brooks movies. Wilder's delivery in this movie is perfect every time weather he is being funny, genuine, annoyed, crazy or down right creepy.

As far as what I can say that hasn't been said about this movie before? Well I don't know if its been said or not since it seems pretty obvious to me so I'll just go ahead and say it. Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory is a slasher movie aimed towards children and not only that but Willy Wonka & The CHocolate Factory gave birth to the entire slasher genre. Yup you read that right. Willy Wonka is to children what Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, Freddy Kruger, Leatherface or any slasher icon is to adults. Here's why.

As is the case with most slasher movies a group of kids are lured into a dangerous place and one by one each kid is picked off due to their biggest character flaw. One by one each the group of kids are narrowed down as Willy Wonka's cronies those creepy little Oompa Loompa's take them away singing about the fallen child in pure glee while their cruel master Willy Wonka watches on in approval. Soon there is only one child left, Charlie, but that wasn't for lack of trying since Charlie and his grandfather narrowly avoided being slashed to bits by a giant ceiling fan.

Having survived his deadly game in his house of horrors Willy Wonka rewards Charlie with the entire chocolate factory. This might seem like a kind gesture but it is actually Wonka's final ironic revenge. Charlie is a child so poor he could only afford to purchase two or three chocolate bars throughout the entire golden ticket madness but now had access to all the chocolate and candy in the world so you can be sure that at some point this poor kid will develop diabetes. That Willy Wonka is clever if nothing else.

They "kill" one bad kid at a time until only the good one is left formula was quickly adopted by horror and the the slasher genre was born. Most people point to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Halloween for starting the slasher boom but Willy Wonka & The Chocolate factory predated both of those to invent the slasher genre.

To go with all the horror this movie also has one of the most genuinely frightening scenes in the history of film. I am of course talking about the boat ride. Everything starts off good enough with Wonka reciting a fun little poem but it soon all goes to hell. The boat speeds up, crazy images of insects crawling over peoples faces and chickens getting their heads chopped off are projected on the walls and Wonka begins to scream. He is no longer singing a fun little song as much as he is screaming at the top of his lungs. It was a scene so frighting that it was sometimes edited out of the TV version! Not bad for a "kids" movie right? Just to refresh yourself here's the dubious scene in question:

Despite all the horror of this movie its still fun film for the whole family. The songs are fun and easy to sing along with and it carries a good message. Be good little boy or girl or Willy Wonka will lure you into his chocolate factory of death where the Oompa Loompa's will surely pick the child's bones after Wonka is done with them. I give this fun family classic a 8 out of 10!

Re-Ranking Catwoman

2012-07-29T11:13:00.001-02:30

Back on January 9th of this year I put up an article called "Ranking Catwoman" which you can find here. In that article I did exactly what it sounds like and ranked the various women who have played Catwoman throughout the years from TV, movies, animation and video games and in that article I said that I would revisit that article once The Dark Knight Rises came out to put Anne Hathaway where I think she belongs on the list so lets now take a look at where she stands against the rest with the new rankings (and more pictures!)

#10 Halle Berry (Catwoman 2004)

#9 Eliza Dushku (Batman: Year One)

#8 Grey DeLise (Batman: Arkham City)

#7 Ertha Kitt (Batman 1966)

#6 Gina Gershon (The Batman)

#5 Lee Merriwether (Batman 1966)

#4 Michelle Pfeiffer (Batman Returns)

#3 Anne Hathaway (The Dark Knight Rises)

Anne Hathaway might be the most faithful live action of Catwoman to date all without her being called Catwoman once in the entire movie. Much like her comic book counterpart Hathaway plays the part of a bad girl who doesn't necessarily want to be bad, she just does what she has to do to get by and if that means kicking a crippled Bruce Wayne in his bad leg to steal his mothers pearls. Though when the time comes shes ready to do the right thing she is there to help out. All that said though she is still not my favorite live action Catwoman.

#2 Julie Newmar (Batman 1966)

#1 Adrienne Barbeau (Batman: The Animated Series)

Once again you can check out the original article here with details on each Catwoman.

Game Review: The Amazing Spider-Man

2012-07-03T14:42:00.001-02:30

Just when I think I'm done with Spider-Man articles for now he snags me with his web and pulls me right back in. Last week saw the release of The Amazing Spider-Man the video game fittingly enough based on the movie The Amazing Spider-Man.

The last few years hasn't been all that kind in regards to Spider-Man video games in fact you can pretty much say the webslingers games have been on a downward spiral since 2004's Spider-Man 2 which is the benchmark for all Spider-Man games. Spider-Man 2 introduced the open world play of New York, anything you can see you could swing to. In addition to that there was a solid story and game play all around. Up next we got Spider-Man 3 which much like its movie counterpart was garbage and a huge fall from the last game. Ultimate Spider-Man made another good showing but after that it all went to hell with Friend or Foe and Web of Shadows. Shattered Dimensions had its moments but that was followed up by the less then stellar Edge of Time.

So to say Spider-Man games have been hit and miss is a bit of an understatement. So what do I think of The Amazing Spider-Man? Well first off I had reservations because it has that horrible stigma of it being a "movie game" but then again the best Spider-Man game to date had been based on a movie. So with all that said what do I think of THIS Spider-Man game?

Well first off gamers be warned this game takes place after the events of the movie so there are some spoilers in the game that might ruin the movie for you. There is one thing in particular that is a major spoiler for the movie that comes up again and again which is terrible. To release a game that takes place after the events of a movie that isn't out yet was a poor decision. It should of been released the same week or week after the movie.

Of course this is something that will not be remembered even a month from now and all people will remember is the game based on its own merits. So how does it stand up? Well for the first time in years we once again get the open world game play that we loved in Spider-Man 2. New York is your playground and you can go anywhere you see fit. I don't care swinging around New York as Spider-Man is easily one of my favorite game play mechanics of all time. The swing around feels natural and you feel like you are Spider-Man.

The combat system here is pretty much the same as it has been since Spider-Man 2 but if its not broke don't fix it. Sure there are some things that are updated but that's to be expected they are only small updates that make things feel smoother.

I don't care for most of the character designs though, the game makers went for the Spider-Man villains based on animals, ok so that doesn't narrow it down, they went for the villains that are based on and looked more like animals like Rhino, Vermin and Scorpion. The designs were all done in a similar style to that of The Lizard and left a lot to be desired for me.

The costume variety left a little to be desired as well. One of the things I love about the Spider-Man games is the large variety of costumes and Spider-Man has a lot to choose from. This time including the default costume we get 11, though you can make a case of there being only 8 costumes altogether. The default costume is the one we see in the movie with the addition of a belt for some reason, so there is the costume with the belt and without. Another costume is nothing more then a party hat. That's three of your costumes right there. Another costume is the vigilante costume from the movie. The other costumes are for the most part newer ones from the comics.We get the Big Time, Future Foundation, Negative Zone and new Scarlet Spider costumes. The biggest disappointment is the "original costumes." Unfortunately they don't mean the old school red and blue or black costumes but the red and blue and black costumes from the original Spider-Man trilogy. The coolest costume is the Stan Lee skin which at the moment is only available to those who pre-ordered the game from Amazon. These costumes are good and all but what about the original costume or black costume from the comics. What about The Iron Spider, Bombastic Bag Man, 2099, Noir or new Ultimate Spider-Man costumes? Who knows maybe we will get some DLC with them later.

The game isn't about Spider-Man's fashion choices though its about the game play itself and that is top notch. This is easily the best Spider-Man game since the bench mark of Spider-Man 2. Spider-Man seems to be the exception to the rule of movie games sucking with his movie games being the best games he has to his name. If your a fan of Spider-Man and his games then I highly recommend The Amazing Spider-Man there isn't much out there better.

My Top 5 Worst Spider-Man Villains

2012-07-01T02:30:00.000-02:30

After listing off My Top 30 Spider-Man Villains I figured that it would be only right for me to explore the other end a little bit and also list My Top 5 Worst Spider-Man Villains. Spider-Man might have one of the best rogues galleries in comics history (With only Batman's rogues gallery as any real competition to that title) They can't all be hits, in fact there are indeed some real losers out there, I think that these following five are the worse. Somehow "villains" like The Walrus, Grizzly, Gibbon and Kangaroo managed to avoid this list.

#5 Rocket Racer

Real Name: Robert Farrell

First Appearance: Sept 1977's Amazing Spider-Man #172

About: Only mostly a villain Rocket Racer has had most of his run ins with the law as a small time bugler. Has his name would suggest he has a rocket powered skateboard, ok so the skateboard might not be suggested in the name but the rocket powered part is. Although still mostly a villain Rocket Racer unlike most villains has a very strong code of ethics and a deep respect for Spider-Man. Rocket Racer might of been well ahead of his time. Yup you heard that right had Rocket Racer debuted in the mid to late 1990s instead of the late 1970s he could of been a lot more relevant but alas that was not the case. Not helping matters is the fact that he seemed to be the only person to think the Bat-nipples in Batman and Robin were a good idea and stole the idea for his redesigned costume. Awful.

#4 Stegron

Real Name: Vincent Stegron

First Appearance: March 1974's Marvel Team-Up #19

About: Gotta love Marvel's line of thinking. Hey The Lizard is popular so lets make a new improved version of the same character but instead of merely making him a lizard lets make him a DINOSAUR! Yeah kids love Dinosaurs right? He'll be a hit! Well not so much. Stegron even has a similar origin to The Lizard's. You see Vincent Stegron was obsessed with the experiments that Dr. Conners did that on himself that caused him to become the Lizard and recreated them only with Dinosaur DNA from the Savage Land instead of plain old Lizard DNA. Shockingly (not really) Stegron never caught on despite his dinosaurness since he is mostly seen (and rightfully so) as a Lizard wannabe and why use a wannabe when the real deal is already part of Spidey's rogues gallery.

#3 Hypno-Hustler

Real Name: Antoine Delsoin

First Appearance: Nov. 1978's Spectacular Spider-Man #24

About: Disco was really damn popular at one point in the 1970s and during that time we have gotten great characters like Dazzler and Hypno-Hustler. Wait, what's that? You have never heard of Hypno-Hustler? I can't imagine why hes a guy who uses a guitar to hypnotize people so that he can carry out his petty crimes of robbing the small club owners safe. As if that wasn't enough he also has boots that emit knock out gas. Yup this Disco all star was a real dud.

#2 Big Wheel

Real Name: Jackson Weele

First Appearance: 1978's Amazing Spider-Man #182

About: Now here's a crappy low level villain if there ever was one. Simply put Big Wheel is a giant metal wheel that has spikes, guns, arms and runs over things. Sounds great huh? Jackson Weele is naturally a crooked businessman who was blackmailed by fellow Spider-Man "villain" and top 5 worse Spider-Man villain, Rocket Racer, and attempted to gain vengeance on the kid by running him over in a giant wheel or something. Spider-Man saved the other would be crappy villain and Big Wheel flew into The Hudson River. Somehow Big Wheel has shown up more then once and every now and then pops up to terrorize skaters everywhere and to be a general non-threat to anybody.

#1 Typeface

Real Name: Gordon Thomas

First Appearance: Nov 2000's Peter Parker: Spider-Man Vol. 2 #23

About: You know your a crappy villain when you make Big Wheel look like hes on par with The Green Goblin but that's just what the pathetic Typeface does. Spider-Man might have some of the best villains in comics but as you have seen in this article hes got some pretty lame ones as well but all of those lame villains take a backseat to this smuck. Basically he writes letters on his face and uses weapons shaped as letters to fight with. Watch out Spidey Typeface just threw a giant lower case "g" at you!

Well there we go that pretty much sums up all of my Spider-Man villains lists, hope you enjoyed them. If so make sure to comment below or share it Twitter,

My Top 30 Spider-Man Villains Part 3 #10-1

2012-06-27T21:02:00.000-02:30

With twenty of my top thirty Spider-Man villains behind us its time to dive headfirst into the top 10. We probably have some of the most popular Spider-Man villains represented in the top ten as they should be the real question is the order. Well that might just surprise you.Well enough of the stalling already lets just get right to it.

#10 The Hobgoblin

Real Name: Rodrick Kingsley

First Appearance: June 1980s Spectacular Spider-Man Vol. 1 #43 as Rodrick Kingsley and Mar 1983s Amazing Spider-Man #238 as The Hobgoblin

About: Even though Norman Osborn was now "dead" the writers of Spider-Man were still longing to use The Green Goblin. They wanted Norman back but this was back during a time when a new character didn't return from the dead every month so a compromise was made and The Hobgoblin was born. The Hobgoblin had stumbled on Norman Osborn's Green Goblin gear and stole his for his own changing the colors and name. The Hobgoblin was a instant hit with fans and for a short while became Spider-Man's primary enemy. Like what was done with The Green Goblin before him there was a mystery set up around the identity of who The Hobgoblin was and just like before it played out in Amazing Spider-Man for a very long time before the big reveal of Rodrick Kingsley. Also like The Green Goblin there have been many people to take up the guise as The Hobgoblin but once again like The Green Goblin at the end of the day its only the original that truly matters.

#09 The Kingpin

Real Name: Wilson Fisk

First Appearance: July 1967s Amazing Spider-Man #50

About: Like the name should suggest The Kingpin is not only one of Spider-Man's top villains hes also one of Marvel's top villains epically when it comes to a lot of the street level heroes in Marvel such as The Punisher and of course his #1 adversary Daredevil. However The Kingpin has long been a sharp and painful thorn in the side of Spider-Man. Being The kingpin of crime Wilson Fisk has sent a lot of trouble Spider-Man's way in the form of other super villains that he sends to take out Spider-Man for him. Despite the fact that he holds the New York underworld under his thumb he is just as much a family man as he is a criminal mastermind if anyone threatens or hurts his family he makes sure to use all of his many resources to make sure that person learns their lesson one way or another. The Kingpin has also set up many other business to help New York and for charity. This was of course to keep people from making the connection that Wilson Fisk and The Kingpin are one and the same.

#08 The Scorpion

Real Name: MacDonald "Mac" Gargan

First Appearance: Dec 1964s Amazing Spider-Man #19

About: Macdonald Gargan was nothing but a lowly street thug until he was hired by J. Jonah Jameson to go under an experiment to give him super human powers. In a mad quest to defeat Spider-Man Jameson selected a scorpion as the animal that the tests would be based on given that the scorpion is a natural predator of spiders. The experiment was for the most part a success giving Gargan the proportionate strength and abilities of a scorpion but in a huge draw back the experiment also caused Gargan to go a little mad. After being defeated in his first encounter with Spider-Man The Scorpion swore vengeance on both the Wall Crawler and the man who turned him into the monster he now was, J. Jonah Jameson. Over the years this has caused a lot of intense battles where Spider-Man has to repeatedly save Jameson's life who will in the end most likely just do an editorial about how it was all Spider-Man's fault and how he and The Scorpion were probably in cahoots from the beginning. In more recent years Mac Gargan had abandoned the Scorpion persona in favor of bonding with the Venom symboite but after a few years of this the symbiote was stripped of him and he once again became The Scorpion only this time with a major upgrade.

#07 Venom

Real Name: Edward "Eddie" Brock

First Appearance: Dec 1984s Secret Wars #8 (Alien Costume) May 1988s Amazing Spider-Man #300 (As Eddie Brock)

About: Easily the most popular of all of Spider-Man's modern day villains Venom is also easily the biggest threats to the web slinger. During the Secret Wars Spider-Man's costume had been damaged so he went to get a new one but on the way accidentally released an alien symboite which had been imprisoned. Despite the initial tingling of his spider sense after the symboite touched him the warnings went away. The symboite quickly creates the famed black costume, soon Spider-Man discovers that the symboite has powers of its own, such as enhancing his own strength, creating its own webbing and changing into other clothes. Eventually Spider-Man finds that the symboite feeds off his emotions making him very angry and dangerous. No longer wanting anything to do with the symboite he rejects it causing the symboite to harbor very bitter feelings towards Spider-Man an attribute it would share with its next host Eddie Brock who blamed Spider-Man for all the troubles in his own life. After Eddie Brock and the symboite bonded they declared themselves Venom. Now together all of Spider-Man's most personal secrets was learned by Brock such has his secret identity of Peter Parker. This and other knowledge would be used to exploit Spider-Man time and again by Venom. Another advantage that Venom had over Spider-Man was his ability to override Spider-Man's spider sense so that Spider-Man would never know when Venom was about to attack him. Somewhere along the way Eddie Brock was separated from the symboite and put in prison, where he shared a cell with Cletus Cassidy. When the symboite returned to Brock they re-bonded and escaped of prison but in doing so the symboite left a piece of itself behind which boned with Cassidy to create Carnage. Venom's hate for Carnage was so strong that it caused him to put aside his differences with Spider-Man a number of times so that they could team up and defeat him. After being a threat to Spider-Man and his family for several years Eddie Brock who never desired to be a villain in the first place eventually used the symboite for good instead of evil, despite his hate for Spider-Man and the battles they were sure to have when ever they encountered one another. After a while Eddie Brock discovered that he had contracted cancer soon after which the symboite left Brock and offered itself and all of its knowledge to Mac Gargan, The Scorpion. After joining with Gargan the symboite once again regained its vicious streak and has pushed the already unstable mind of Gargan over the edge and again become a huge threat to not only Spider-Man but anyone who decided to get in his way. After the symboite was separated from Gargan it was once again put to use for good with Flash Thompson who is the current host. Gargan and Flash are all good and all but its Eddie Brock who is easily the best host of the symboite to date and after several years apart from each other I continue to count down the days until they are once again together, hey it has to happen sooner or later right?

#06 Kraven The Hunter

Real Name: Sergei Kravinoff

First Appearance: Aug 1964s Amazing Spider-Man #15

About: After hunting every dangerous animal he could think of Kraven The Hunter got bored of hunting big game and wanted a new challenge. He got that challenge when he heard of Spider-Man and knew that if he could defeat him would be known as the worlds greatest hunter. Immediately Kraven left the plains of Africa and made his way to New York City where he picked up the trail of Spider-Man, eventually they fought and after thinking he had defeated the web slinger Spider-Man pulled out a victory. This would ultimately be Kraven's downfall nearly every time he faced off against Spider-Man as he constantly underestimated his foe. Eventually Kraven starts to lose his sanity and becomes obsessed with defeating Spider-Man thinking of only that. Eventually in the classic storyline Kraven's Last Hunt he accomplishes this goal and after thinking Spider-Man to be dead he buries him alive. After this Kraven dons Spider-Man's costume in a mad attempt to prove that he is better then Spider-Man at his own game after defeating a bunch of street thugs Kraven hunts down Vermin, another Spider-Man villain, and after defeating him cages him. Eventually Spider-Man comes to and after escaping his grave finds Kraven who no longer has any interest in fighting him claiming that he has nothing to prove to him. Instead he releases Vermin who since Kraven was wearing Spider-Man's costume thinks it was actually Spider-Man himself who attacked him. Kraven then leaves Spider-Man to fight Vermin and after deciding that he has done everything that ever wanted he picks up shot gun and turns it against himself ending his life knowing that he had soundly bettered Spider-Man in every conceivable way. But of course this is comics and the dead never stay dead forever. After other family members picked up the mantle of Kraven The Hunter the true Kraven was recently brought back to life.

#05 J. Jonah Jameson

Real Name: John Johnah Jameson

First Appearance: Mar 1963s Amazing Spider-Man #1

About: While not a villain in the traditional sense I don't think that anyone can argue that J. Jonah Jameson is one of the top villains that Spider-Man has to go up against. Since Jameson is a popular public figure and considers himself a man of the people who would never do anything to hurt anyone or commit any crimes he cannot be arrested. So how is he a villain? Well how about the fact that he uses every single resource available to him to try to make New Yorkers hate Spider-Man, something that has worked quite well for several years. Whats more Jameson has was the man who paid to turn Mac Gargan into the Scorpion for no other reason then to destroy Spider-Man, he also commissioned a the first several Spider Slayer robots for the same reason. Still at the end of the day though Spider-Man takes Jameson's hate against him with stride because he knows that despite going about it the wrong way Jameson only means well. His rational is that if you were truly a hero then you wouldn't hide behind a mask and the real heroes were the normal people who put there lives on the line every day like police, firemen and astronauts like his son John. At the end of the day though Spidey always gets the last laugh on old Triple J since Jameson has Spider-Man on his payroll and doesn't know it.

#04 The Green Goblin

Real Name: Norman Virgil Osborn

First Appearance: July 1964s Amazing Spider-Man #14

About: When it comes to Spider-Man's villains The Green Goblin takes a back seat to no one. When Norman Osborn ingested The Goblin Serum he gained superhuman strength, stamina, durability, agility, reflexes, and healing factor most importantly though he also gained his psychosis. With the addition of his goblin glider, pumpkin bombs and other trademark weapons you have one of the most iconic comic book super villains ever. The Green Goblin's worst acts make nearly every other Spider-Man villain seem tame. He was the architect behind the clone saga that caused Peter Parker to think that he was a clone of Ben Riley who was at the time believed to be the real Peter Parker. During this revelation The Goblin killed Ben Riley who was the closest Peter ever had to a real brother. After his own apparent death his legacy caused his son Harry who was the best friend of Peter Parker to go insane himself and take up the mantle as the second Green Goblin, his worst and most defining act of villainy though is of course the death of Peter's first love Gwen Stacy. Nearly every time you see The Green Goblin you know something epic is going to happen even more now then ever since he rose to power in the Marvel Universe becoming not only Spider-Man's greatest enemy but one of the biggest threats to every hero in The Marvel Universe.

#03 Electro

Real Name: Maxwell Dillon

First Appearance: Feb 1964s Amazing Spider-Man #9

About: Max Dillion was a lineman for an electric company when one day he was struck by lighting while repairing a power line, the lighting strike caused a change in Dillion's nervous system giving him electrical powers and causing him to take on the name Electro. As one of Spider-Man's villain's he can claim what no one else can. He was the first man to defeat Spider-Man. When Spider-Man first tried to touch Electro he was nearly killed due to the charged electricity within him. Another time after regaining his lost powers Electro defeated Spider-Man again and demanded he beg for his life, Spider-Man did so and Electro was more then satisfied and left Spider-Man to live. another one of his most high profile crimes came when he caused a breach in the super villain prison known as The Raft allowing almost every villain imprisoned there to escape. Although a constant threat I find that Electro is often times forgotten when talking about Spider-Man's greatest villains. Not only has he defeated Spider-Man before but he has done it more then once most villains can't even claim one victory over Spider-Man let alone multiple victories.

#02 Doctor Octupus

Real Name: Otto Gunther Octavius

First Appearance: July 1963's Amazing Spider-Man #3

About: Doctor Octopus is easily one of the leading villains in Spider-Man's rouge gallery. Due to the dangerous experiments he often took part in he created four metal arms to conduct his experiments from a distance but after a lab accident they were bonded to his body. When compared to Spider-Man's other rouges Dr. Octopus' genius is unrivaled and ranks up there with any of the most brilliant minds in the Marvel Universe including the likes of Mr. Fantastic & Iron Man. He is also one of the best multi-taskers in the entire Marvel Universe with the mental capability to be able to use each of his metal arms to do four completely different things at once while using his own hands to yet again for another task. He also both formed and lead the original Sinister Six which pushed Spider-Man to his limits. Another time he beat Spider-Man's partner at the time The Black Cat near death putting her in critical condition after. The biggest defining moment of his villainy however was murder Gwen Stacy's father Police Captain George Stacy.

#01 Mysterio

Real Name: Quentin Beck

First Appearance: June 1964s Amazing Spider-Man #13

About: Yes! Mysterio! I LOVE Mysterio! In my opinion Mysterio has got to be not only one of Spider-Man's most under rated villains but one of the most underrated villain's in all of comicdom. The guy made special effects for movies and brought that talent into his life of crime, I'm thinking that these days that ability makes him more relevant then ever. His awesomely original powers of illusion also makes him brilliant tactician. On top of that hes got one of the best costumes that have ever been seen in comics. Its a completely green skintight outfit with a grid on it, a nifty purple cape with fantastic eye buttons keeping it in place and of course the fish bowl! I love the fishbowl! You know what else makes Mysterio super under rated and awesome? His goal of evil much like everything else with Mysterio is truly original. He doesn't want to rob a bank, or even that age old conquer the world thing, no all Mysterio uses his powers for is to drive Spider-Man mad! That's it! He doesn't even want to kill Spider-Man, just make him go insane, well not just Spider-Man he wants to drive Daredevil nuts too I guess but that's all the better! He's also succeeded in his evil plot of insanity driving on multiple occasions with Spidey as well before Spider-Man realized he was being screwed with by Mysterio but still that gives Mysterio a higher success rate against Spider-Man then nearly all of his other villains! Everything about Mysterio is stupendous! Did I mention that I LOVE Mysterio? Because I do.

So there you are my top thirty Spider-Man villains. Not every one of Spidey's villains are home runs though some of them are just plain awful and since I just did the top thirty Spider-Man villains then keep an eye out in the next few days for the top five worse Spider-Man villains. We're gonna have some real stinkers on that one. Until then though let me know what you think of my top thirty villains with a comment below.

My Top 30 Spider-Man Villains Part 2 #20-11

2012-06-23T18:30:00.002-02:30

With part one of my Top 30 Spider-Man villains in the books its time to move on to part two with #20-11. We really start to get into some of the real classic Spidey villains this time around so lets just get down to it with #20.

#20 Tombstone

Real Name: Lonnie Thompson Lincoln

First Appearance: March 1988s Web Of Spider-Man #36

About: Growing up in Harlem Lonnie Lincon was bullied non-stop due to being an albino. In response to this He eventually became a school bully himself, taking protection money. Joe "Robbie" Robertson at the time was a classmate of Lonnie's worked for the school newspaper and was going to run a story on Lonnie's bullying but once Lonnie found out he scared him into canceling it. After high school Lonnie took up a life a crime and became a hitman. He trained hard and became a expert hand to hand combatant and also filed his teeth down to sharp points which would catch his victims off guard and making it easier to kill them. Eventually, now known as Tombstone, he would get the attention of The Kingpin who would hire him to become his personal assassin. Once again Robbie found out about Tombstone and now as editor and chief of The Daily Bugle decided to do a story about him again after feeling guilty and partly responsible for the deaths of the people Tombstone had killed, maybe if he had stood up for himself and published the story in high school Tombstone would of been stopped or reformed.After finding this out Tombstone framed and then attacked Robbie. He would of killed Robbie if not for the interference of Spider-Man who defeated him and sent him to prison. However Robbie had still been framed for crimes that Tombstone had committed and was sent to prison as well. There Tombstone continued to make life hell for Robbie until he eventually broke out only to be confronted by Spider-Man who he then proceeded to beat nearly to death until he was saved by Robbie returning the favor. After helping recapture Tombstone Robbie was given a full pardon. Since then Tombstone has popped up time and again to fight Spider-Man and has since gained super human strength as well.

#19 The Chemeleon

Real Name: Dmitri Smerdyakov

First Appearance: Mar 1963's Amazing Spider-Man #1

About: Just as his name might suggest, The Chameleon can change his looks to impersonate anyone he so chooses. The Chameleon is also the half-brother of Kraven The Hunter and one of few villain's to discover Spider-Man's secret identity of Peter Parker, albeit with help from Harry Osborne in the guise of The Green Goblin. After this discovery he went on to cause problems in Spider-Man's personal life as Peter Parker attacking his family on many occasions despite the fact that it usually ends embarrassingly bad for him since he once was beaten by Mary Jane with the aid of a baseball bat and even worse Aunt May with the aid of a plate of oatmeal-raisin cookies, and no that wasn't a joke, it actually happened. Despite the embarrassments though his worst act came when after discovering Spider-Man's true identity when he created two robots that were supposedly Peter's parents making him think that they were actually still alive. Recently The Chameleon has really upped his game and has become a bigger threat then ever, there are no worries about Aunt May beating him in combat any more.

#18 The Shocker

Real Name: Herman Schultz

First Appearance: Mar 1967s Amazing Spider-Man #46

About: The Shocker has been around for a long time and has constantly been a thorn in Spider-Man's side ever since but rarely ever enough to be any real threat. Although always ready to fight Spider-Man, The Shock is more of a career criminal who would rather not come into contact with Spider-Man at and all just get that big score. For the most part Spidey seems to relax a little more when fighting The Shocker dodging all of the shock waves from his gauntlets and cracking wise the entire time until he is able to get close enough to knock out The Shocker with a single punch. Despite this though The Shocker deserves a lot of credit for never giving up and always coming at Spider-Man full steam ahead whenever they meet up. Maybe one day The Shocker will shock the world (horrible joke very intended) and be the guy who brings Spider-Man to his knees.

#17 Rhino

Real Name: Aleksei Sytsevich

First Appearance: Oct 1966s Amazing Spider-Man #41

About: Ah the Rhino, a great big powerhouse lummox of a villain with the brain that leaves a lot to be desired. I love the Rhino. Weather hes facing off against people he conceivably has a chance against like Spider-Man or The Punisher, who he has somewhat befriended over the years knowing that unlike Spidey Frank Castle will kill him, or weather hes facing off against those he doesn't stand a chance against like The Hulk or does anyone remember that one panel fight he had against The Silver Surfer that time? Yeah that didn't end well for him. Either way for a character who seems like he would have no where to go creatively has said nuts to the odds and has continued to grow as a character from that big stupid strong guy to a villain who has a conscience and may have no trouble robbing a bank but doesn't want any innocent bystanders to get hurt in the process. He has even talked The Punisher out of killing a few bum villains on at least one occasion. Recently The Rhino has grown more of a mean streak again when coming into contact with Spider-Man and other heroes but we have still seen no real evidence that he would hurt any bystanders.

#16 Morbius

Real Name: Michael Morbius

First Appearance: Oct 1971s Amazing Spider-Man #101

About: Morbius is yet another tragic Spider-Man villain who's life has been ruined due to his own science. When he discovered that he was dying of a rare blood disease, Nobel Prize winning chemist Dr. Michael Morbuis tried to cure himself with a combination of that involved Vampire Bats and electric shock therapy. Although he was successful in curing himself of the blood disease he also was transformed into a living vampire and developed a craving for human blood (or plasma if you watched the 1990's Spider-Man animated series. Despite trying to ignore the blood lust he failed time and again so decided to feed off the homeless and the not so innocent. Although he has worked on several cures for his blood lust it never lasts. During one confrontation with Spider-Man he bit the wall crawler causing headaches and dizziness for weeks.

#15 The Sandman

Real Name: William Baker, but better known as Flint Marko

First Appearance: Sept 1963s Amazing Spider-Man #4

About: Flint Marko was little more then another two bit criminal until one day when fleeing the authorities. He hid on a beach which was a site for nuclear testing and once he came into contact with the irradiated sand Marko's body started to bond with the sand changing his molecular structure and giving him powers to turn into any type of sand. With his new found powers he dubbed himself The Sandman. The Sandman was another Spider-Man villain with a conscious unlike many other Spider-Man villains although he kicked his crimes up a notch he always tried to make sure that no one got hurt. Eventually his conscious got the best of him and he joined Spider-Man on occasion to battle other villains. Liking the idea of being a hero he decided to give up his villainous ways to the point of even becoming a reserve member of The Avengers. Eventually though all good things must come to an end as The Sandman returned to his evil ways turning on Spider-Man and claiming that he was never a good guy at all but was merely pretending. Once again up to his evil deeds The Sandman is again a thorn in Spider-Man's side whats worse his stance on not hurting others has loosened up a bit, he'll still try to avoid it if possible but now has no trouble putting others in danger if it helps his own means.

#14 The Vulture

Real Name: Adrian Toomes

First Appearance: May 1963s Amazing Spider-Man #2

About: If your a fan or retro things and Spider-Man then you no doubt love the 1960's Spider-Man animated series, in which case you have heard one thing from The Vulture over and over again. "You can't beat a man with wings Spider-Man!" Although a fantastic line and great taunt he never proved that in the series. In the comics he was always much more threatening, coming ever so close to defeating Spider-Man on several occasions and has been part of numerous different line ups of the Sinister Six. One of his defining moments came with the death of Nathan Lubensky who sacrificed his life protecting his fiancee Spider-Man's Aunt May from being kidnapped by The Vulture. People like to quickly dismiss The Vulture as nothing more then a lame villain who's just and old man with wings but there is much more to it then that. Sure hes an old man with wings but his suit also gives him superhuman strength along with the flight and he is also a brilliant engineer and inventor who's always packing plasma guns and grenades. The Vulture might be old but he is far from a pushover.

#13 The Green Goblin II

Real Name: Harry Osborn

First Appearance: Dec 1965s Amazing Spider-Man #31 as Harry Osborne, Sept 1974's Amazing Spider-Man #136 as Green Goblin II

About: A hero is only as good as his villains so what was Marvel to do when they killed off Norman Osborn, A.K.A. The Green Goblin, Spider-Man's greatest villain. Well it was obvious, create a new Green Goblin! As for who that should be once again it had to be obvious the son of the first Green Goblin, Harry Osbourn. Much the Green Goblin himself the idea was just crazy enough to work and boy did it ever. Another Green Goblin should of been a horrible idea but its execution and Harry's turn from best friend to arch enemy was done perfectly.

#12 Carnage

Real Name: Cletus Kassidy

First Appearance: Mar1992s, Amazing Spider-Man #360

About: In the early 1990's Venom was all the rage in Spider-Man comics, so Carnage was created as an even more evil symboite to feed off of Venom's popularity and for a time, it worked. The Carnage symboite, which was a offspring of Venom, bonded to serial killer and all around nut job Cletus Kassidy. Carnage went on killing sprees that almost always had to be stopped by an uneasy alliance from Spider-Man and Venom. The worst act of them all came at the height of Carnage's popularity in the fourteen part "Maximum Carnage" storyline where he teamed up with other villain's Shreik, Carrion, Demogoblin and Doppleganger to have perhaps the biggest and most prominent killing spree in Marvel history requiring not only Spider-Man and Venom to team up but to also get help from other heroes including The Black Cat, Captain America, Iron Fist, Cloak & Dagger, Deathlok and several others. The Carnage symboite has also attached itself to Spider-Clone Ben Riley during his time as Spider-Man to create Spider-Carnage and also The Silver Surfer creating Carnage-Cosmic.

#11 The Lizard

Real Name: Dr. Curtis "Curt" Connors

First Appearance: Nov 1963s Amazing Spider-Man #6

About: Of all of Spider-Man's villains, The Lizard is the most tragic, hell he's one of the most tragic villains out there anywhere. Dr. Curt Connors is a brilliant scientist with only one arm worked on an experiment with lizard DNA that would allow humans to regrow lost limbs. At first it seems to good to be true, unfortunately the lizard DNA caused Conners to transform into the vicious Lizard. Whenever faced with having to fight The Lizard Spider-Man is always torn, he has to stop this monster but at the same time he doesn't want to hurt his good friend Curt Conners. Although The Lizard has pushed Spider-Man to his limits on numerous occasions Spider-Man has always come out on top finding some way to transform The Lizard back into Dr. Connors while hes at it. Recently The Lizard has become a much more horrific character. After Connors transforms again The Lizard kills and eats Connors son Billy in effect killing any presence of Connors in The Lizard. The Lizard then sheds his skin and has a new more dangerous form then ever before. He is now much smarter then he ever. Despite this though after defeating The Lizard this time around some of Connors emotions and personality were passed on back to The Lizard.

My Top 30 Spider-Man Villains Part 1 #30-21

2012-06-19T04:20:00.001-02:30

When it comes so a super heroes its pretty much split down the middle on who people think has the best rogues gallery, you either think its Spider-Man or Batman as for who has the third best rogues gallery? Well that's up in the air, its all about Spider-Man and Batman.

Although I do love me some Batman my favorite super hero has always been Spider-Man and with that I always tend to land on the side of Spider-Man when the who has the best rogues gallery arguement comes up.

Either way I figured to celebrate the awesomeness and depth of Spider-Man's rogue gallery I would do a count down of top 30 Spider-Man villains. The fact that 30 are being named puts him above most other heroes rogues gallery, seriously how man other heroes out there have enough villains that you can name 30 of them? Well ok Batman. Despite the fact that I am only naming 30 I had to wittle the list down from over 50 villains that I could think of but lets face it if I made a top 50 list there would be some real losers on there as well.

Honorable Mention, The Burglar:

Real Name: Unknown

First Appearance: Aug 1962's Amazing Fantasy Vol. 1 #15

About: There isn't much to this guy but I feel I have to put him on this list somewhere even if it is only a honorable mention. While not one of the most evil people Spidey has come up against or having any powers at all The Burglar has affected Spider-Man's life more than any other villain that he has come up against. The Burglar killed Peter's beloved Uncle Ben, thus instilling his Uncle's famous words of "With great power comes great responsibility" in him forever and creating your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

#30 Tarantula:

Real Name: Anton Miguel Rodriguez

First Appearance: April 1967's Ghost Rider #2

About: The Tarantula was originally created by the South American republic of Delvadia to be a counterpart for Captain America. He has finger claws and spike toes on his shoes built into his costume which are more often then not poisonous and is a rather skilled hand to hand combatant. Soon enough things would sour between The Tarantula and Delvadia and he left to New York to begin a criminal career where he has run into Spider-Man several times. For the most part he worked as a goon for hire but was a pretty pathetic one losing to a host of heroes like Captain America, The Punisher and of course Spider-Man time and time again.

#29 The Trapster:

Real Name: Peter Petruski

First Appearance: Jan 1963's Strange Tales #104

About: Trapster is a guy who invented a crazy glue gun which rivals Spider-Man's own webbing. While usually a Fantastic Four villain he has tangled with Spider-Man his fair share, pitting his paste against Spidey's webbing. Originally he went under the name of Paste-Pot Pete and although he quickly changed his name to The Trapster the Paste-Pot Pete name has stuck to him (no pun intended) and has become a point of mockery brought up by Spidey pretty much every time they face off much to the chagrin of Trapster.

#28 Kaine:

Real Name: Kaine (Clone of Peter Parker)

First Appearance: Dec 1994s Web Of Spider-Man #119

About: One of the few good things that the unfortunate clone saga brought us was Kaine. Kaine was the very first clone of Spider-Man as opposed to Ben Riley as most people thought. The Jackal however hated Kaine as he considered him a flawed and imperfect clone due to Kaine's quick degeneration process. Kaine's powers are also slightly different from Peters. Along with all of Peter's powers Kaine also has a much stronger spider-sense that actually gives him small glimpses into the near future. He is also much stronger then Peter. Kaine was also the man responsible for the death of Doctor Octopus, who pretty much returned from the dead half a year or so later. These days Kaine has completely reformed though and is the new Scarlet Spider.

#27 Vermin:

Real Name: Edward Whelan

First Appearance: August 1982's Captain America #272

About: Edward Whelan was a brilliant genetics researcher who worked as an assistant to Armin Zola (Nazi!), but when Whelan objected to use humans as test subjects Zola's employer, Baron Zemo (another Nazi!!) decided that Whelan would be the next test subject turning him into a cannibalistic rat-man who was dubbed Vermin, naturally. Vermin has for the most part not been that much of a threat he mostly keeps to himself in the sewers of New York however he will defend his territory at all costs. Once after burying Spider-Man alive, Kraven The Hunter, who had taken up Spider-Man's mantel decided to find a suitable foe to prove his superiority, hunted down and defeated Vermin. Soon after his defeat Kraven released Vermin who then nearly killed the real Spider-Man. Vermin's human personality was mostly lost in the experiment that created him and now although his humanity does briefly reappear from time to time he has more of a child like quality to his speech and how he feels about things.

#26 The Spot:

Real Name: Jonathan Ohnn

First Appearance: Dec 1984's Spectacular Spider-Man #97

About: As a former scientist for The Kingpin, Dr. Jonathan Ohnn experimented on Cloak's (of Cloak and Dagger fame) dark dimension which provided him with the ability to teleport by opening portals in space. Donning a horrible costume and dubbing himself The Spot he started a life a crime but his crimes were easily foiled by Spider-Man and The Black Cat. Spot although a brilliant scientist was never that good a villain even to the point where he teamed up with fellow crap villains Kangaroo, Gibbon and The Grizzly to from the appropriately named Legion of Losers, though it was Spider-Man who dubbed them this. Once again Spot along with his new cohorts were easily defeated by Spider-Man. Spot unlike the rest of those characters in The Legion Of Losers is the one with the most potential and has recently really stepped up his game in the last few years.

#25 Swarm:

Real Name: Fritz Von Meyer

First Appearance: July 1977's Champions #14

About: Swarm is a Nazi (Yes another Nazi!) scientist who's real name is Fritz Von Meyer, need I say more??? Ok so I'll say more but you have to admit that that was one hell of a lead off. I've always liked Swarm a lot even if he has never been that big of a villain. While studying killer bees (as if a Nazi would waste his time on any sort of non-killer bee) Fritz decided to try to control them via a psychic beam but was instead completely consumed by a maddened swarm but if there's one thing we've learned is that you just can't keep a good (bad) Nazi down and he somehow became the bees master in the process (comics everyone!) Not content to just steal money Swarm has much grander plans like the Nazi that he is he has tried to conquer the world on several occasions but is always stopped by Spider-Man who thinks of brilliant tactics in fighting a swarm of bees like covering his costume in raid and putting the stuff in his webbing to disrupt Fritz's psychic link with bees. God I love fictional Nazis!!!

#24 Mister Negative:

Real Name: Martin Li

First Appearance: Jan 2008s Amazing Spider-Man #546

About:The newest villain on my list. Of all of the new villains that came out of Brand New Day Mister Negative is the best. Mister negative is a mob boss with some neat powers, he can heal with his touch which is different for a villain but he also has mental control over others, super human strength and of course change his appearance to give himself the look of a negative photo. In one of the better cover ups for a mob boss Mister Negative runs a homeless shelter helping those on the streets in need and even cured a dying Eddie Brock of his cancer while giving him the power to become Anti-Venom at the same time which would be something that would come back to bite him in the backside more then once. Of all of the villains that were introduced in the Brand New Day storyline Mister Negative has the feel of a classic Spider-Man villain more then any of the others and that alone is reason enough o include him on my list.

#23 The Jackel:

Real Name: Miles Warren

First Appearance: Dec 1965s Amazing Spider-Man #31 as Warren, Feb 1974s Amazing Spider-Man #129

About: Although not one of the most threatening villains Spider-Man has ever face The Jackal has caused him more grief then nearly any other. The Jackal is the villain who is was mostly behind the entire clone saga since it was him or cloned Peter in the first place. He was thought dead for years but returned in the '90s to be a thorn in Spider-Man's side in very big way revealing to Spider-Man that he was actually the clone he had created years earlier and the person who was thought to be the clone now going under the name of Ben Riley was in fact the real Peter Parker. The stress of the situation was more then Spider-Man had ever gone through before and made him eventually pass the role of Spider-Man on to Ben Riley since both believed only the real Peter Parker, which at that time was thought to be Ben, should be Spider-Man. The Jackal was eventually killed but his legacy lived on with the new Spider-Man. Eventually of course it was revealed that Ben was the clone all along and was then killed by the returning original Green Goblin, Norman Osbourn, who was revealed to be the mastermind behind the whole clone saga. God that storyline sucked! So yeah The Jackal, not so much a threat himself but lots and lots of grief, and lost Spidey fans, came with him. Oh yeah and it turns out he wasn't killed off with him returning yet again during last years Spider Island in which he infected everyone in New York with Peter's spider powers.

#22 Hydroman:

Real Name: Morris "Morrie" Bench

First Appearance: Jan 1981s Amazing Spider-Man #212

About: Here's a guy who has all the potential in the world to be one of Marvels most powerful villains, I mean he can turn into and to a small extent control water for petes sake, but due to his own short sidedness, ego and obsession with taking out Spider-Man among other small beans things is little more then a second stringer above the likes of The Kangaroo and The Gibbon, but way out of the league of guys like Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Venom or even The Vulture. Instead Hydro-Man seems content with his crappyness when he is just one big move from taking that next step. Alas though that seems like its out of Hydro-Man's reach as he has no sense of judgment and focuses solely on killing Spider-Man, and poorly at that.

#21 Hammerhead:

Real Name: Unknown

First Appearance: Oct 1972s Amazing Spider-Man #113

About: On paper Hammerhead is a mostly lame villain. He's a 1920's-30's style gangster with a baby blue pinstriped suit and a head made of adamantium that he uses to ram people with as though he were a common billy goat or a lamer version of The Rhino. But once again lame premise or not Hammerhead is a character who has worked time and time again for Spider-Man sure hes only a C grade Spider-Man villain who has never had a definitive story, the closest being a couple issue story arch that just came out last year that revamped the character, but hes still a fun character that's always fun to see pop up every now and again.

Well that will do it for part one of this three part series on My Top 30 Spider-Man Villain's be sure to come back again in the next few days for Part 2 which will feature #20-11 and feature a lot more of Spider-Man's bigger villains.

Electric Superman

2012-05-12T13:30:00.002-02:30

Superman was having a hard time in the 1990's. He died, he came back with a mullet, he got married. It seems like DC did just about everything that they could to keep the man of steel relevant at the time and for the most part it didn't work. The biggest shock (no pun intended) though came when DC decided to strip away everything Superman was known for and pretty much start him over fresh. Naturally I'm talking about when he went electric.

Now right away we all knew this was destined to fail. Superman can't be electric, hes The Man Of Steel for crying out loud. Still though I guess you can't blame them for trying something right?

So for those of you who don't know DC abandoned Superman's old powers and look and gave him a bunch of new powers and a fresh coat of paint. With these new powers he could open portals to other dimensions, divide his consciousness into separate entities, absorb and translate energies from any form into any other, merge with computer and other electronic and electrical systems, control the forces of magnetism, and create a solid energy field, manipulate electrons, become invisible or intangible and teleport and finally visually detect the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Well they took away a shit ton of powers but they replaced them with a shit ton of new ones! On top of that he was no longer weak against kryptonite. There was a trade off though, now whenever Superman was Clark Kent he was just a regular powerless human.

The sales started off strong, of course they did this was Superman and it was something radically different, people had to check it out. Naturally however this couldn't last forever and before long Superman fans were calling for the man of electricity to go away and the man of steel to return and when the sales started to reflect this then the time came for a return to tradition. A storyline was cooked up were Toyman split Superman into two distinct Supermen, the blue superman that had been around since the change and a red one.

Both had the same powers but had slightly different personalities. I don't know a whole lot more on it but by the end both Blue and Red Supermen merged back together to bring back the traditional Superman of old, well if you consider the mullet traditional anyways, and they have never looked back since.

Here's the thing. I actually liked the electric Superman. Sure it couldn't last nor would I of wanted it to but I think that DC shouldn't of wasted so much time and energy on this new Superman, what they could of had out of this was a fantastic new character. I don't care what anyone says that costume was awesome, all they had to do was remove that "S" shield and there you go all new character with an amazing set of powers. He could of been big instead it was just used as another attempt to make people care about Superman in the 1990's.

Smackin' It Raw: The Top Ten Stories Of WWE

2012-05-08T19:00:00.002-02:30

I don't know if any of you realized it or not but on last Saturday May 5^th The WWE celebrated its 10th anniversary under that name. As we all know it had previously been WWF. I decided to sit back and think about the last ten years of the last ten years and here is what I came up with in my opinion.

#10 Muhammad Hassan's Terrorist Attack Against The Undertaker:

Unfortunately not all of these stories will be good ones and the first story is one of those less then bright spots. WWE has had a long history of villains that are very anti-American, look no further then Ivan Koloff, Nikolai Volkoff, The Iron Shiek and even Sgt. Slaughter during The Gulf War. It should of come to no ones surprise that after the September 11^th attacks that before to long there would be an Afghan sympathizer. Enter Muhammad Hassan. This time WWE threw a very interesting twist on the old character though and made him American born and raised but after the September 11^th attacks he was persecuted by his fellow American just because of his Arab background. It was an interesting twist that could of given him a great run if done properly but unfortunately WWE couldn't help themselves and just went to far with it. On the July 7^th broadcast of Smackdown! which had been taped a couple of days earlier Hassan had sent a bunch of masked men to attack The Undertaker even going as far as to choke The Undertaker with a metal wire. The even more unfortunate thing about that was the date. July 7^th 2002. For those of you who don't know that was the day that there were terrorist bombings on the trains and buses of London. There was no time to edit the segment or even remove it in time so to the horror of everyone on the same day of these terrorist attacks WWE Smackdown! Also featured a segment that included a terrorist attack. The backlash was instant. Muhammad Hassan was taken off of TV with UPN stating that they would never allow the character to be seen on their network again. Two weeks later at the Great American Bash PPV The Undertaker defeated Hassan by power bombing him through the stage and he was never seen again.

#9 The Death Of Eddie Guerrero:

Much like the first story the second one is also a sad one. Eddie Guerrero was no stranger to alcohol and drug abuse but in one of the best feel great stories in not only company but wrestling history Guerrero did what so many other wrestlers failed to do and defeated his demons. He was living and a clean life and enjoying everything that he hard worked his entire career to achieve. He was arguably the most popular wrestler on the roster and finally getting his recognized as one of the greatest wrestlers in the world and on February 15^th of 2004 finally won the ultimate prize of the WWE championship from Brock Lesnar. Unfortunately the damage that years of alcohol and drug abuse finally caught up with him and he died in his hotel on November 13^th 2005, leaving a legacy and “Eddie” chants that can still be heard to this day.

#8 CM Punk's Shoot Promo:

Finally a good story! Not only is this a good story but it is also the most recent story on the list. Despite a couple of Money In The Bank and WWE title wins CM Punk for the most part was being misused and he had had enough. With his contract set to expire last summer CM Punk did the unimaginable. After getting a WWE title shot against John Cena, Punk told the world that his contract was set to expire at The Money In The Bank PPV in which Cena would be defending his title against Punk and that he was not going to renew it. He would win the championship and walk out on WWE with it. As if that were not interesting enough the next week at the end of Raw Punk did something that was even more unimaginable. After his match he walked up the ramp and gave what would become known as “The promo” in which he aired all of his grievances with the company, many of which were shared by the fans themselves. It should of made Punk a huge villain going into the PPV against Cena but something funny happened. Every fan agreed with him. Overnight he went from being reviled to becoming the voice of the voiceless and made WWE more interesting then it had been in years. At The Money In The Bank PPV Punk and Cena wrestled win what would become match of the year which ended with Punk winning the title and as promised leaving WWE with it. Sure he showed up again two weeks later but that promo skyrocketed Punk to the main event of WWE. He wasn't see as a guy who was almost there anymore, he was a guy who was there and started to be treated as such.

#7 The Return And Demise Of ECW:

Nearly five years after closing its doors anytime something amazing happened in WWE, epically something including a weapon or a hardcore maneuver the chants of “ECW, ECW, ECW!” would always fill WWE arenas everywhere so on June 12^th 2005 at the One Night Stand PPV WWE gave the fans what they wanted, a one time reunion show of all of their ECW favorites back in the ring for one last ECW show to give the company the resolution that it deserved. Or at least that was the intention. With the strong sales of The Rise and Fall of ECW DVD along with the very impressive buyrate of the PPV WWE decided to do it again one year later and not only would they do another One Night Stand PPV they would also bring ECW back as a third brand in WWE to air on Sci-Fi that would be a true companion to both Raw and Smackdown! Not long after the return of the weekly ECW show however it became quite apparent that it was a very watered down version of the company that we all loved. After only a few months the third brand became a joke with terrible ratings that had the fans begging for the end of ECW once and for all. On Febuary 16^th 2010 WWE aired its final episode of ECW TV to make way for the next show that had great promise at the start only to fall even further then ECW ever did, that show being NXT which can still be enjoyed, or not, to this day.

#6 The Undertaker's Streak:

In 2002 The Undertakers Wrestlemania winning streak was a solid 10-0 after defeating Ric Flair. It was a very impressive accomplishment that had never been reached before to be sure but I think even at that point neither WWE or The Undertaker knew just how big The Streak would become. To be honest it wasn't until Wrestlemania XX the year The Undertaker went 12-0 after defeating Kane a second time that it would really hit its stride. That was the year The Undertaker had returned as The Dead Man after a couple of years as The American Badass. Still it would be another year before the streak would become the focal point of a feud going into Wrestlemania. For years it had been there and was a big deal but never had it been involved to the point it was at Wrestlemania 21. That was the year that The Undertaker faced off against a young Randy Orton, at that time The Legend Killer. Orton was poised more then anyone before him to end the streak and he had no problems saying that he would do so. Naturally Orton lost. The next three years were a wash for the streak storyline again with The Undertaker going up against Mark Henry in a casket match which was used for no other reason then to pad the stats of the streak since they wanted it to grow and had nothing else for The Undertaker that year. The next two years The Undertaker faced off against Batista and Edge respectively but those years despite the streak being on the line everything was more so built around the fact that they were both title matches. Then the next year at Wrestlemania XXV the streak became more important than any title that could be on the line when The Undertaker took on Shawn Michaels who vowed to end the streak. He failed but their match became an all time classic. The next year Michaels attempted to do it again this time with his own career on the line, once again he failed and went into retirement. At the next two Wrestlmanias Triple H took up the cause of trying to end the streak only to fail both times himself. At this point there is no need for a title to be on the line The Undertakers Wrestlemania winning streak is one of the biggest matches on the card and will most likely remain so for as long as The Undertaker wants to continue wrestling.

#5 WWE Goes PG:

During the late '90s and into the late '00s WWE had been TV14 but in July of 2008 to please its sponsors and to reach out to the younger demographic the WWE return to being PG for the first time since The Attitude Era. It is a move that has had long time fans who remember the days of The Attitude Era complaining ever since. Despite that and the fact that the ratings doesn't seem to reflect it the move back to PG has been a rousing success for the company who have expanded all of their division significantly and continues to do so.

#4 The Brand Extension:

Ok in all fairness the brand split happened a mere ten before WWF became WWE but aside from that ten days it was all as the company was WWE. It doesn't mean a whole lot these days with Raw Supershow and the Smackdown superstars appearing on both shows but when the brand split happened there was none of that. The only wrestlers that crossed over to the other shows were The Undisputed Champion and the Women's Champion. By six months in even that went out the window with both brands being completely separate from another and both having their own world champion. The only interaction between the two brands would be during the PPVs and after a while even the PPVs became separate with both Raw exclusive and Smackdown! exclusive PPVs. The most surprising thing about the brand split was the fact that after a while the shows even gained viewer loyalty with some fans only watching Raw and others only watching Smackdown! These days the brand split is still in effect but just barely. Its pretty much run its course with Smackdown! wrestlers appearing on Raw every week and Raw stars able to appear on Smackdown! every week if so desired. Its only a matter of time before it is done with altogether.

#3 WWE's Wellness Policy:

If there was ever a silver lining to come from the death of Eddie Guerrero it was WWE's Wellness Policy. With pressure mounting WWE put its own drug testing into effect meaning it would supposedly be the end of drug use in the WWE. At first it seemed very secretive on what would cause a violation of the policy but what was known was that if you fail one test your suspended for 30 days and second failure would result in a 60 day suspension and a third failure would result in getting fired. Its a lot more clear what its about these days and many wrestlers have been suspended over the years. It has for the most part been a great success though with many wrestlers being forced to live a cleaner lifestyle that will hopefully result in them living much longer then the generation of wrestlers that came before them. One of the greatest success stories of the policy came from MVP, Montel Vontavious Porter however who after doing the test discovered that he had Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, a rare and potentially life threatening condition that causes the heart to beat faster then normal. Also under the Wellness Policy WWE has reached out to any former superstar that used to work for them to get treatment paid for in full by WWE to get cleaned up and turn their life around.

#2 The Rise Of John Cena:

Like him or not in the time of WWE John Cena has become the face of the company he is to WWE today what Steve Austin was in the 1990's and Hulk Hogan was in the 1980's. I don't have much more to say about this story on the list then that but I don't think anyone could doubt what Cena has meant to WWE and pretty much everything WWE related in the last ten years.

#1 The Chris Benoit Double Murder Suicide:

I really didn't want to end on a downer story on this list but lets face it there was nothing that effected WWE more in the last ten years then the tragic double murder/suicide that happened to Chris Benoit's family at his own hands. Benout was without a doubt one of the most respected wrestlers in the history of business that managed to climb to the top of the business after years of being told he couldn't. Then on the weekend of June 22^nd to June 25^th Chris Benoit flushed his legacy down the toilet for the legacy of a man who would murder his wife and seven-year-old son then kill himself. Benoit did more for WWE and the wrestling business more in that one weekend then he ever did in in the middle of the ring and tragically it was something that resulted in a black eye for the business and much more tragically the death of his wife and son.

Other Newsworthy items:

The Big Returns:

Wrestling fans have a great memory and what better way to exploit that then by bringing back as many top stars as possible. Sure this isn't a distint thing that has only occurred in the last 10 years so I didn't include it there. I just think its fun to throw out a few of the names that came back during this time that some thought we may never see in a WWE ring again, most notable Bret The Hitman Hart, The Rock and most recently Brock Lesnar.

The Big Exits:

Its not all about big returns though as some pretty noteworthy names have also said goodbye since WWE got the “F” out, weather all of these remain permanent is anyones guess but those names include, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, Batista, Edge and Kurt Angle. Yes Angle quickly made his way to TNA but it was during this time he left WWE.

WWE's Continued Charity Work:

I love how WWE is always getting bashed in the mainstream media whenever something bad happens but they are never praised for all the good that they do unless its just a small blurb somewhere. Their annual Tribute To The Troops show is a great example of how WWE reaches out to all of those that put their lives on the line so the rest of us can have a free world, I realize I'm Canadian but we have troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan as well so it hits home for me as well. Also lets not forget about all the good for they do for Make A Wish. WWE might grant more wishes for Make A Wish then anyone else in history but this is something that seems to be glossed over, as far as I'm concerned there is nothing better then granting the wish of a sick child and they should be praised for this much more then they are.

The Rise And Fall of The Women's Division:

There isn't a whole lot that could be said about this one. At the start of this period the Womens Division was better then it had ever been in the companies history, now ten years later its at an all time low. A real shame.

WWE Studios:

WWE got in the movie business during this time and after some initial, very limited, success in theaters they have since made all of these projects direct to DVD.

Also just for fun I thought I would make a list of the Champions in WWE at the time of the name change:

WWF Undisputed Champion: Hulk Hogan. Its pretty fitting in my opinion that the final person to be called The WWF Champion was Hulk Hogan, there is just something right about that. These days Hogan is in TNA trying to but ultimately doing nothing to improve that product.

WWF Intercontinental Champion: Eddie Guerrero.

WWF World Tag Team Champion: Billy & Chuck

WWF Crusierweight Champion: The Hurricane

WWF Women's Champion: Jazz

WWF European Champion: Spike Dudley

WWF Hardcore Champion: Steven Richards (Who was in the middle of a huge two day title reign!)

And that's all I got for you. So that was the biggest news in the last ten years in WWE (In my opinion) and here's to the next ten.

Smackin' It Raw!: Wrestlemania XXVIII

2012-04-02T13:23:00.004-02:30

Well its been another year and we got another Wrestlemania in the books. So what are my thoughts? Well lets just dive right in and find out.

World Tag Team Title Triple Threat Match (Pre-Show):
Primo & Epico defeats Tyson Kidd & Justin Gabriel & The Usos

Never saw it. Although I would of liked The Usos to get the win I don't really mind that Primo & Epico won though I'm all for long title runs as I feel it help give a title more prestige and credibility and lets face it the Tag titles need that more then any other title in WWE save for the Divas title.

World Title Match:
Sheamus defeats Daniel Bryan

This was easily the biggest let down of the night. We just as well say that Bryan vs. Sheamus has been bumped off the card for the second year in a row. Although I rooted for Bryan I didn't mind that Sheamus won and figured as much that it would happen the only thing that pissed me off is that we were robbed of what could of been a potential show stealer.

Singles Match:
Kane defeats Randy Orton

The first match was a surprise because of how short it was this match was a surprise because of Kane getting the upset victory. I like Kane much more then Orton so I was very happy to see him get the win. As for the match itself it was damn boring and couldn't end quick enough.

Intercontinental Title Match:
The Big Show defeats Cody Rhodes

Three matches in and the stink of disappointment is in the air at this years Wrestlemania yet again with this match. Cody Rhodes is awesome in every way and it really sucks that he dropped the title to The Big Show here. Cody was great in the match and Show was his usual self which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The match was pretty much as good as I thought it would be but the ending was a big disappointment.

Tag Team Match:
Kelly Kelly & Maria Menounos defeats Beth Phoenix and Eve

Once again we get another throwaway divas match just because we need a divas match. It was no more or less offensive then any other one out there aside from the awkward finish. For the most part I'm no fan of celebrities coming in at Wrestlemania and getting the spotlight and here is no different but I will say that at least Menounos seems to be an actual fan of WWE and gave it her all bad ribs or not I can't help but respect that. That said though I would of rather this be singles match for the Divas title with Beth defending against a worthy opponent such as Kharma and if shes not ready to come back there is nothing wrong with Natalya taking that spot, at least then we could of had a good match.

Hell In A Cell Match:
The Undertaker defeats Triple H with special guest referee Shawn Michaels

It took our fifth match but finally we got one that was great. There was a fantastic story told in this match between the three men who have stolen the show at the last three Wrestlemanias and here in this match we finally got the ending that pulled on the heartstrings and had everyone at the end of their seat. The image of all three men standing together on stage after the match is what wrestling is all about. Oh yeah and The Undertaker going 20-0 is also great but we all knew that was going to happen anyways.

Twelve Man Tag Team Match:
Team Johnny defeats Team Teddy:

Despite there being no way that this match could of followed the one before it we still got a pretty decent clusterfuck of a match that allowed everyone who should of been on the card to get there and have a Wrestlemania pay day. Team Johnny winning was the only outcome that I wanted to see here despite what anyone says I love John Laurinaitis the guy is a goofball but it works in his favor very well. The only thing I never understood about this match is how could Laurinaitis, a man who was only interim general manager of Raw, a title that plainly states that he is only the general manager until they can find a suitable replacement, go from that to GM of both shows or even be qualified for it? Ah well I guess we all know that wrestling logic doesn't need to make any sense.

WWE Title Match:
CM Punk defeats Chris Jericho

This match lived up to all the hype around it and more. Easily the best technical match on the card. I really have nothing more to add to it then the fact that both of these guys went out there and showed why they are indeed the best in the world.

Brodus Clay Segment:

After all of this we get Brodus Clay come out with his Momma and her bingo club eating up and wasting time that should of belonged to the Daniel Bryan and Sheamus match. WWE really needs to get the ball rolling on The Funkasaurs again. He was great at first but all he does is wrestle one meaningless squash match after another and they have made me not care about him really quick. This only made that feeling grow.

Machine Gun Kelly & Flo Rida sing John Cena and The Rock to the ring but not really:

Ok now I'm pissed off. Fist that stupid Brodus Clay segment went on over five minutes now we get ten minutes of singing from these bums. Stuff like this at Wrestlemania always pisses me off epically when it was time that could of went to Bryan and Sheamus. Instead we get Machine Gun Kelly and his group who all desperately need to eat a Big Mac so they don't look like they are sick and dying sing a stupid song followed by Cena coming to the ring and they we get Flo "its not Florida" Rida eating up another load of time singing his stupid song before The Rock comes to the ring. I thought these people were supposed to sing Cena and The Rock to the ring? What happened there? They just sang their own crap songs and then Cena and Rock came out to their usual entrance themes. I am so pissed off about the Bryan Sheamus match going 18 seconds at this point.

Singles Match:
The Rock defeats John Cena

After twenty wasted minutes that could of went to Daniel Bryan and Sheamus we finally get that match that has been built and hyped up for an entire year. What can I say after that much hype and build up there was no way that the match could of lived up to its HUGE expectations. Don't get me wrong it was a good match, but it wasn't great which is watch this match should of been. As far as I'm concerned this will go down as a epic feud with a good match to top it off. Not a great one. Shame. The biggest suprise that that The Rock won the match. Sure I like The Rock more then Cena but this just seemed like a stupid move to me. Why let the guy who is there day in and day out for your company do the job when it would of benefited him so much more to get the win. As far as I'm concerned this match was a must win for Cena. The Rock didn't need this win since he'll be back in Hollywood again in no time.

Overall Wrestlemania was worth the price of admision alone for The Undertaker vs. Triple H match which was the show stealer again this year with Punk and Jericho following very closely behind. Its hard to even compare those two since they are two completely different types of match. As I said Rock vs. Cena was good but not great like it needed to be and in my opinion the wrong man won. The rest of the card was about what could be expected aside from the Daniel Bryan and Sheamus match which is something I will always hate.

Top Ten Marvel Heroes I Would Love To See Pixar Tackle

2012-03-01T20:17:00.006-03:30

Since Disney acquired the rights to Marvel Comics and became its parent company people have been clamoring for Disney and more specifically Pixar to do their take on some of Marvel's characters. Naturally I'm no different, here are the top ten Marvel movies I would love to see Pixar tackle in alphabetical order.

Ant Man & Wasp:

I'm not quite sure how we got there but the name that has been thrown around the most for a Marvel Pixar movie has been Ant Man. Really I can't disagree with that decision, Ant Man is a great character and has never seemed to get his due but I say why not up the ante a little and make it an Ant Man & Wasp movie. These two characters go hand and hand together, their peanut butter and jelly. On top of all of that as a romantic couple these two are one of the best in all of comics history but seems to get no attention sure they are not as popular as other Marvel couples like Spider-Man and Mary Jane or Mr. Fantastic and The Invisible Woman but they should be. The thought of Pixar making this movie would be amazing they have had experience with creating a world with the point of view of the very small with A Bugs Life and with the advances in technology that has been made in their animation since then this one would be awesome.

Cloak & Dagger:

Cloak and Dagger are the story of a couple of teen runaways who gained their powers when they were injected with a new synthetic heroin (though it was revealed years later that both were mutants and the injections had simply awakened their latent mutant abilities) Cloak becomes engulfed by darkness while Dagger is engulfed in light. After gaining their powers they decided to take up a war on drugs and to help other runaway teens. Cloak and Dagger might be quite a bit darker then what Pixar is accustomed to doing but they have shown in the past that they can do dark all we have to do is think back to the trash incinerator scene in Toy Story 3 for proof. The dark and light themes could make for some amazing visuals and it would be great to see Pixar going outside of their comfort zone and doing something that is rated a little higher than G though that has never hindered them in the past.

Doctor Strange:

Pixar has been known for its far out there ideas and when it comes to comics there is no character more out there in concept then Doctor Strange. To me Doctor Strange is a perfect fit for Pixar. Just thinking about all of the great visuals that we could get from Doctor Strange being a master of magic and the mystic arts has me salivating. On top of this despite being one of the more popular characters in Marvel Doctor Strange has never gotten a big break in the world of film. All he has has is a terrible 1970's made for TV movie, a couple episodes of the 1990's Spider-Man and a direct to DVD animated movie in 2007. Out of everyone on this list however Doctor Strange seems like one of the most likely to get a live action treatment some time in the future.

Hercules:

Hercules might be the toughest sell on this list for no other reason then the fact that Disney did their own animated version of Hercules in 1997 so Pixar may very well be hesitant to do another animated version with Marvels version of the character. Still that being said Marvel's Hercules is quite different from Disney's Hercules and I think there are room for the both of them. Marvel's version of the character has always been a fan favorite but has always been a C lister at best but in the last few years has gained a lot more steam and has made it to the B list at the very least. To see Marvel's incredibly jolly but extremely bad ass when he has to be in a Pixar movie would be great.

Heroes For Hire:

Luke Cage and Iron Fist are two characters that seem to of been around forever but have both really picked up steam in the last ten years or so, Luke Cage epically. That said when most people think of these characters they think of the '70s and that's just where I would love to see a movie with these two take place. Another fun thing about this movie is the differences between Iron Fist and Luke Cage. Iron Fist is the finesse man with all the skills and a principals from the eastern world while Luke Cage is the power house street tough from with the street smarts from New York. These two would be clashing personalities would be as great on screen as they have been in comics for decades. Pixar could have some real fun putting that decade on screen with two heroes who would start off doing the job just for the money, they ARE The Heroes for Hire after all and then as the movie goes on it becomes less about the cash and more about doing the right thing, a motto both have come to go by these days.

The Inhumans:

The Inhumans are one of the more unrated teams in comics. You take a dash of X-Men and mix it with The Fantastic Four and you have a pretty good idea of what to expect. The X-Men portion comes because when a inhuman comes of age they go into The Terrigen Mist, which is a natural mutagen that alters the biology of an Inhuman giving them special powers. The Fantastic Four part comes into play with The Inhuman royal family headed by their king Blackbolt, a character who cannot speak because even the quietest whisper from him could level a mountain. Pixar has proven they can deal with a lack of talking through WALL-E but they won't really have to worry about it here as Blackbolt is the only one who can't speak unless absolutely necessary, Pixar could really pull at the emotional strings here on that one letting him speak at the right moment for massive destruction. Other Inhumans include their queen Madusa, Karnak, Gorgon, Triton, Crystal, Maximus and of course Lockjaw. Like The X-Men and Fantastic Four all of these characters have their own unique powers and abilities that could make for some amazing visuals and action scenes and hey if Pixar doesn't want to give us a new Incredibles movie then why not The Inhumans?

Namor: The Sub Mariner:

Much like Aquaman, Namor gets a bad rap and I can't think of any real reason for it. Is it because Aquaman gets a lot of shit and Namor is the Marvel equivalent to him. All that said Namor is a complete bad ass and always has been, he is one of the original anti-heroes who just so happened to be one before a anti-hero was even a thing. Back in the 1930's and 1940's Namor teamed up with Captain America and fought the Nazi's, in the 1960's he was a asshole who was a thorn in the side of Mr. Fantastic all while trying to steal The Invisible Woman away from him. All the while and since then Namor has been the arrogant king of Atlantis. Pixar has experience with going underwater with Finding Nemo but that was nearly a decade ago now and their technology has advanced by leaps and bounds. Add to that the amazing scenery and backgrounds that you could get from Atlantis and you got one of the most beautiful movies that Pixar has ever done.

Rocket Racoon:

Now here is a character that seems custom made for Pixar or Disney. Rocket Raccoon is a Raccoon (obviously) who flies about as the guardian of The Keystone Quadrant, a area of outer space that is sealed off from the rest of the space in a spaceship with his first mate Wal Russ who is (SHOCK) a walrus. Its not all cute and fuzzy though as Rocket Raccoon is a master military tactician how seems to also have a serious case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. All of these other characters on this list might make for a great Pixar movie but Rocket Raccoon is a character that would be a perfect fit for Pixar. The fact that Rocket Raccoon is also a pretty obscure character most people wouldn't even second guess as anything but another original Pixar creation.

Rom: Spaceknight:

I guess if Pixar doesn't want to go to outer space with Rocket Raccoon then they could go to outer space with another pretty obscure Marvel space character with Rom: Spaceknight. The big difference between the two is obviously one is a raccoon and the other is a robot. Unlike most characters on this list I know next to nothing about Rom aside the fact that hes a space robot who's comic was only created to help promote a toy, much like many TV shows in the 1980's, and although the toy died a death pretty quick the comic went on to a pretty decent following that helped the comic last an impressive 75 issues. What I do know about it is that Rom is a spaceknight who battles a evil aliens race called The Dire Wraiths who employ the use of dark magic and can shape shift. Although that's all I know about Rom I know that Pixar can make a hell of a movie out of this.

The Runaways:

Every kid thinks that their parents are evil, but what if they really were? That's the plot behind The Runaways. There is sooooo much more to The Runaways then that though. Not only do these kids discover their parents are evil super villains they find out that through that they themselves have special powers. One is a witch, another is a alien, another a mutant another is the daughter to time travelers and gets a pet dinosaur that she has a telepathic link with and so forth. While running they discover that they are not all as different from each other that they had originally thought and all come together for a final showdown with their parents. Pixar are no strangers to the amount of character development that this movie would require and unlike most superhero movies this one has a different angle that you know they could nail.

Comic Strips

2012-02-23T18:22:00.007-03:30

A couple of years ago I entered a contest at a local free newspaper that well, had a contest to have your comic strip in their paper. This was my contribution, I already forgot what it was called but it was about two crappy super heroes who spend their days failing to fight crime and nights at the local watering hole. Here are the five that I submitted.

Senebti Moon Knight

2012-01-24T01:39:00.005-03:30

Well that sure didn't take long. Looks like once again Moon Knight is getting the ax. That's right after issue #12 hits the shelves Marvel is going to cancel Moon Knight once again. For those of you keeping count this will be the third Moon Knight comic that has been canceled since 2006 with each series Moon Knight vol. 4, Vengeance of Moon Knight and Moon Knight Vol. 5 ending with a total of 30, 10 and 12 issues respectively.

I guess when you add it all together a 52 issue run isn't all bad but still it isn't a single 52 issue run, its three different runs. Each one of which in my humble opinion has been better then the last. Who knows maybe we will be lucky and Marvel will announce yet another Moon Knight series before 2012 comes to an end. It certainly wouldn't surprise me since Marvel loves their reboots. More #1's do mean more money I suppose. Still weather they bring Moon Knight back for another series remains to be seen though since the current one still has a few issues to go.

Am I the only one who thinks Moon Knight fits in fine with these other characters?

Moon Knight to me is one of those characters that not a whole lot of people care about but those that do care about him love him very much, as you can guess I would go into that category. I guess I'm still waiting for that one writer to come along and really tap into the greatness that is Moon Knight and drags him out of the B or C lists and throw him straight into the A list, I mean seriously is Deadpool is on the A list the Moon Knight most definitely should be. Unfortunately the latest run of Moon Knight was written by Marvels top dog Brian Michael Bendis and if he can get more people to give Moon Knight a chance then I don't know who can.

So it looks like from here on in the only Moon Knight action I will get will be in Secret Avengers a book I was about to drop but now seems as though it will stay on my old pull list so I can continue to get my Moon Knight fix.

So Moon Knight until your next series hits the shelves, hopefully sooner then later, I must bid you Senebti.