Superhero Media: Arrow - Season 6

This will probably be something of a short one, as I'm finding that I'm pretty much done with Arrow. There were a few episodes in Season 6 that I really enjoyed, and the programme is still well-produced, but I simply don't care about Oliver Queen and his journey any more. There is one element of Season 6 that is actually stronger than those before it, in that there are no flashbacks to Oliver's life before his return to Star City. I don't know about anyone else, but I got sick of the flashbacks sometime around Season 3. No story-informing flashbacks means, however, that we can focus more on Oliver's relationships, particularly with his teammates, as Team Arrow soon splits into two rival teams, perhaps heading towards some kind of superhero 'Civil War'? Sadly nothing so exciting happens in this season, as the overarching villain turns out to just be some gangster. 

The crossover episode "Crisis on Earth X" shows some promise, but due to the nature of streaming, I have no idea what happened on the other eleven CW DC programmes to fill out the plot. I'm still way behind on The Flash, not to mention I haven't even started Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, Titans, Doom Patrol, Pennyworth or Gotham yet, which random nerds on the internet assure me are all linked somehow and that the queen is an alien Lizard Person. Evil Laurel from Earth 2 becomes a major player in this season, playing both sides against the middle and not really having much to do or any real development. The television programme that this season of Arrow reminds me of is the last few years of Happy Days, where most of the cast had left and only people under ironclad contracts are still kicking around. Seriously, Oliver has defeated the League of Shadows and Damien Dark, why is a gang boss giving him so much trouble? Except for the crossover, only the last few episodes of this season are really worth watching. 

I'm glad that I'm almost at the end of Arrow, the programme really should have finished after the defeat of Damien Dark, if not before. There's not really anywhere left for the characters to go narratively, and the 'need' to escalate the antagonist each season means we'd be staring down the barrel of Green Arrow versus Lady Styx by the time season ten rolled around. As I've said before, I like good endings, concise endings that actually wrap-up the story. Season 3 of Luther and season 5 of Supernatural have these kinds of ending, even if they weren't actually the last episodes of their respective programmes, and I feel that Season 5 of Arrow was the same, with the entire city rising up to fight alongside Green Arrow against the literal forces of evil. Arrow is done, and if it weren't for the bizarre ideal of completion that I can't help but chase, I would be done with it.

EDF IV

The Tank Factories of the Steppes have been hard at work, churning out T-34/85s to battle the Kaiju hordes. Or maybe Nazis, depends what games I get to play with them. A friend at NWA walked me through what a Flames of War Soviet Tank Company may look like, so I got onto painting up 20 T-34/85s for a learning game at some stage, once he's past his current Napoleonic fixation. 

A decent sized Tank Platoon made up of the very-nice GHQ miniatures that came from my father. 

Platoon Commander and NCOs feature infantry on the base for easy identification. 

After 20+ years of 28mm gaming, I'm getting sold on smaller scales with the excellent results that a little washing and drybrushing can give. 

I figure if I'm also using these for Kaiju, then I'll need plenty to be thrown around and stepped on. 

 Looking at these, I really think I need a Soviet Mecha, like Cherno Alpha from Pacific Rim or maybe a giant Red Dynamo? Plenty of ideas for later...

Superhero Media: Legend of the Fist - The Return of Chen Zhen

As much as I enjoyed this film, I really cannot recommend it on the basis that it requires quite a great deal of very specific fore-knowlege to understand. It is only because I just happen to have a good grounding in Chinese history, the Sino-Japanese War, Shanghai culture, superheroes and Wuxia that I was able to tell what was happening at any given point. A group of Chinese volunteers during the Great War lose one of their number, leading the great revolutionary Chen Zhen to adopt a new identity to return to Shanghai and combat the Japanese slowly taking over his country. Lacking a unified military and identity, the Chinese are losing out to the Japanese invaders, having to play along in public while running an underground resistance. Please note that essentially none of this is actually spelled out, but is there if you know what to look for. During the attempted assassination of the child of a Chinese General, Chen Zhen dons a Kato costume from a nearby cinema display and leaps into battle as "The Masked Warrior". 

For those who don't know, The Green Hornet series was marketed around Kato in Asia, especially the 1960s version starring Bruce Lee, with Green Hornet himself being made secondary through subtitles and clever narration. The martial arts sections with Chen Zhen as the Masked Warrior are brilliant, of course, with Donnie Yen in the lead role, but only happen a couple of times in the entire film. All of the advertising for the film features the Masked Warrior prominently, but he probably has less than thirty minutes of total screen time. In that, calling Legend of the Fist a superhero film is stretching things a little bit, but my search for more non-American superheroes that originate in their home country has me digging through a lot of stuff like this. Thematically, Legend of the Fist, is probably closer to Mafia/Gangster films, in terms that Western audiences would be familiar with; forbidden romance, people getting killed constantly and plenty of traitors and double agents. 

Legend of the Fist is really more interesting as a Wuxia film, or historical fiction than it is a superhero film, with the light-on sequences involving the Masked Warrior. That said, what is there is interesting enough, and could well be expanded. There is an idea of the Masked Warrior being a legend, or perhaps an identity picked up by people from time-to-time to help seek justice, it's not made too clear. Taking that concept, however, and folding it, Batman-style into the culture of Shanghai in a superhero setting could work well. Like a local Zorro or Phantom equivalent, where the person behind the mask doesn't matter so much as what the costume and identity represent to the oppressed peoples. Maybe the Masked Warrior is spotted in Shanghai, dealing out rough justice, so Super Inframan, over in Hong Kong, misinterprets what is happening and the two at set on a collision course by the evil machinations of Fu Manchu? Then we'd have Masked Warrior versus Inframan, in some kind of dawn of a justice team? It'd be better than Dawn of Justice and you know it.

From the Archives - III

A while back, I made a video for my Club's YouTube channel about writing up characters for SuperSystem 4th Edition, enjoy; 

Superhero Media: Gamera Vs Guiron

For those, like me, working through the Gamera series in order, who have found the last couple a bit underwhelming, Gamera Vs Guiron is when it starts to pick up again. Mysterious signals from space are dismissed by leading scientists as natural phenomena, rather than originating from an intelligent source, but two young boys suspect the answer is aliens. Shortly, the boys find a flying saucer and are whisked off to Earth's twin planet, on the opposite side of the sun, where two beautiful women in silver jumpsuits explain that the planet is dying and they need to escape. When the planet comes under attack from silver "Space Gyos", the women summon their guardian monster, Guiron, a lumbering quadruped with a knife for a face. Guiron quickly dispatches the Gyos, slicing it into bits with his face-knife, and the boys agree to help the women flee to Earth, but something's not right; why is Gamera trying to recuse the boys, and what are the space-women really up to? 

You'll be shocked to learn that the plot is much thinner on the ground than I've let on, but Gamera Vs Guiron is a lot of fun, with plenty of 1960s high-camp science fantasy dressing and sets, plus the film features that Gamera clip of him doing gymnastics on a building. I really like the sets, actually, all of the bubble-domes and orange plastic aren't the kind of sci-fi buildings you really see anymore and would make a great wargames table. Guiron is ridiculous to look at, but he presents a real threat to Gamera that Viras certainly didn't, and I kind of love the idea of genetically engineering a monster with a knife face and shuriken that shoot out of its head. There's kind of a Doctor Who vibe going through Gamera Vs Guiron, though probably not deliberately, with the alien planet looking like something from the 1960s Dalek films and the idea of "twin planets" being tied in heavily to the Cybermen history from the classic programme. 

As with my "The Pitch: Gamera", I could see a contemporary adaptation of Gamera Vs Guiron working for a relaunched Gamera franchise. Sexy aliens who turn out to be cannibals, a dying planet, genetically engineered monstrosities, pseudoscience and Gamera carrying a spaceship in his mouth would all still play fine, with a postmodern sheen and a bit of CGI, of course. Hell, Godzilla II: King of the Monsters made a giant moth a compelling character, why not a giant, spinning turtle? This marks me being around halfway through the Gamera Collection in my DVD rack, which I'm feeling good about, because it means I'm getting close to the 1990s films and that I'll be able to move onto another series of films soon. I love Gamera, watch the films pretty regularly, but making myself watch through all of them, in order, in quick succession, probably wasn't my best decision.

Miniatures Finished - 12/12/18

Plenty of work to keep me busy, but there's always time to slap a few coats of paint around and keep the lead pile from overwhelming me. 

Green Hornet: After watching the Batman/Green Hornet crossover episodes (featuring Adam West and Van Williams), I had to get this classic crime-fighter on my table. Copplestone

Kato: Can't have the Green Hornet without Kato, best played by the incomparable Bruce Lee. Much like other pairings in Ultimate Alliance (Doctor and companion, Booster Gold and Skeets), players will probably use both Green Hornet and Kato as a single 'character'. Copplestone 

Nick Fury (616): The Heroclix Ultimate/MCU Furies are nice, but I've never been really keen on the classic versions available. Thankfully this version, intended to look like David Hasselhoff from the 1998 film, with a more comic book paintjob, he suits well. Studio Miniatures 

Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy: I did have a Devil Dinosaur, but this new one was a bit nicer and cheap on the secondary market. Regular readers will well know that I have a fondness for obscure comic book characters. Heroclix 

Red Skull: I had to do a 20mm Red Skull for Bush Wars when I began work on African Fascists. For more information on that, take a look at the NWA Bush Wars Blog where I've done a couple of articles. Converted AB Miniatures 20mm 

The Fury: So I did eventually get around to resculpting the head of my conversion for The Fury. It looks a lot better now, though I'd really rather a proper mini that looks like the old Marvel UK comics. Converted Horroclix. 

Superhero Media: Transformers - The Last Knight

But why? Why the hell does this film exist and why does anything that happens in it happen? None of The Last Knight makes any sense, even less so than the previous films in this series, and I really struggled to get through it. After traveling into space at the end of the last film, Optimus Prime returns to Cybertron and is immediately captured and brainwashed into being 'Nemesis Prime' and sent to conquer Earth. That's about the last element of the plot that makes sense in this film, every other major turn feels like it was taken from a post-it note on the writers' room wall. Josh Dhumal comes back, at the same rank, doing the same job. Marky Mark is a Knight of the Round Table suddenly. Bumblebee fought in World War Two. Cybertron is Beast Planet from War Planets and Earth is Unicron, but this never gets resolved. What the fuck? Add the usual "Bayhem" and the fact that no one seems to be able to stay standing during an action scene, and none of this makes sense. 

Did I mention that everyone keeps falling over? Like, all of the time? It's really distracting, like there should be a laugh track over the top, or at least some kazoo music like an old Picture Hall Funny. Essentially none of the characters are interesting, even Antony Hopkins fails to deliver any gravitas, and that's kind of his thing. The Last Knight is almost Bay Transformers Bonox, taking everything dumb, over-the-top and/or nonsensical and filtering out almost everything worth watching. Any clever ideas, like Cybertron and Earth being twin planets, or Nemesis Prime are shunted to the background and barely heard of for the rest of the film. Seriously, Nemesis Prime is in, perhaps, three scenes before Bumblebee turns him good again and we have to fight the Decepticons again. Hell, the US army having to team-up with the Decepticons and releasing several from prison Suicide-Squad style is cool, but doesn't last more than one firefight.

I'm glad this is the last one of these, I don't think I could sit through another. No, Bumblebee doesn't count, it's barely in continuity with these filmic abortions, and thank Primus for that. I'd say that there doesn't really need to be any Transformers films for a few years, but that's not how the industry works anymore, and the franchise does have a lot to work with, Transformers Prime is evidence enough of that. I'm honestly not sure how this proposed "Hasbro Cinematic Universe" is meant to go, do we retroactively count Battleship? I will be disappointed if Marvel Studios can't get the rights back to Rom the Spaceknight though, even though the IDW crossover event around the Dire Wraiths does look pretty cool. I just hope any new films with these characters keep Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime and Frank Welker as Megatron for as long as they can.