I watched Green Lantern: First Flight over the weekend, a DC Animated film. These movies have always been enjoyable and this latest installment in the franchise is no exception.

Test pilot Hal Jordan assumes the Green Lantern mantle from the late Green Lantern, Abin Sur within the first couple of minutes of First Flight and then begins his journey to the Green Lantern Corp headquarters in space. However, the Guardians of the Universe (the masterminds behind the Corp) doubt his capacity to handle the ring based on the fact that he’s a human. Because, y’know, we’re the crudest species, prone to violence, and unable to live peacefully.

However, veteran Green Lantern Sinestro volunteers to take Hal under his wing to help him find out who killed Abin Sur and to prevent the warlord Kanjar Ro from obtaining the mysterious yellow element, which can withstand the power of the green element in which the Corp is based upon.

Jordan soon finds himself at odds with Sinestro’s brand of justice and eventually ends up on opposite sides of the power-mad Sinestro as the latter’s loathe of the Guardians and quest for the yellow element for himself endanger the Green Lantern Corp and in effect, the rest of the universe.

Green Lantern: First Flight manages plot and action quite well without any kind of lull in its 75 minute run time. The viewers are rewarded with a tale of corruption and redemption. And fights between superpowered beings! In space! In addition, I like how the filmmakers don’t dwell on the origin story but instead get right to the point. Also, the voices of Christoper Meloni as Hal Jordan, Victor Garber (Spy Dad from Alias!) as Sinestro, and Tricia Helfer (Six from BSG!) as fellow Green Lantern Boodikka complement their animated characters quite well without overpowering their animated persona. Although I have never purported to be a fan of Green Lantern, First Flight is definitely worthy of being added to the roster of DC animated movies.

Here’s my ranking of the DC Animated straight to DVD movies thus far (linked to my reviews on this site):

1. Batman: Gotham Knight
2. Green Lantern: First Flight
(tied)
2. Wonder Woman (Uh, oops, did I not review this? Well, I liked it The violence in this movie was spectacular. “Was that a head?” my sister asked as something flew across the scene in the initial battle scene Wonder Woman. “Yes, yes it was.” I responded.)
4. Justice League: New Frontier
5. Superman: Doomsday (Supes, I’m really sorry you are at the bottom of my list. You are still my favorite superhero.)

Next in line: Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, to be released in September. Can’t wait!

P.S. I love the idea of the Green Lantern Corp, an intergalactic police force. I want a Green Lantern ring. I promise to use it only for good.

I finally got around to reading Watchmen, a limited comic book series that came out in the 80s. I say finally because my brother bought it come years ago and I even had it on my own shelf for some months now.

Accolades are written all over the edition we have and I have admit, everything that has been said about Watchmen is true. I had no idea what it was about going into it (well, I knew it was about a bunch of heroes, but that’s it) and was brought into well developed story with interesting characters. The last chapter itself could only be classified as “whoa”.

I can’t believe I’ve never read it before. I have heard about it for years now, especially when I was reading Kingdom Come, a 4 part comic series that took place in the DC Universe. People always seemed to mention Watchmen in context. When any interesting comic book miniseries came out, there was always the inevitable comparison to Watchmen. And yet, I had never read it.

Well, now I can say I have read it. I thought it would be funny to pretend that I have always been a fan of Watchmen when I go see the movie, y’know, to make sure everyone thinks that I have been a part of this from the very beginning, but after being reminded that Watchmen came out in 1986 and 87, I realized that my proclamations of such a claim wouldn’t quite fly.

I’m now officially looking forward to the movie. I have been waiting for 20 years to see it.

Hmm, did that last part sound convincing? I’ll try to work on that before opening day…

I watched Batman: Gotham Knight last night. This is the third movie in the recent trend of straight-to-DVD animated features from DC Comics and Warner Brothers. This is how I would rate the movies thus far:

-Superman: Doomsday - Only ok. However, it was at least better than Superman Returns (but seriously, what wasn’t?)
-Justice League: New Frontier - Better
-Batman: Gotham Knight - AWESOME

The movie is broken up into 6 stories, each drawn by different animators, which are self contained yet interconnected:

-Have I Got A Story for You
-Crossfire
-Field Test
-In Darkness Dwells
-Working Through Pain
-Deadshot

Timeline wise, the film falls after Batman Begins and before the upcoming The Dark Knight. The 6 stories are in chronological order, as this is not a Tarantino movie, and bring together a film in which Gotham City is still trying to get used to a vigilante in a Bat costume and Bruce Wayne is getting used to being Batman. Therefore these stories represent different aspects of Batman: how Gothamites view him, how the police view him, and how he views himself.

Although it does tie in with the two live action films, don’t look at this animated film as a method the production studios can capitalize on the attention Batman is getting with the upcoming feature film. There is an emphasis on quality storytelling here and combined with the stellar animation that utilizes the Japanese anime style, Batman: Gotham Knight is easily on par with Batman Begins and the upcoming The Dark Knight, which is already drawing raves.

As an aside, I was a bit distracted while watching the first story because its plot was the same as an episode of Batman: The Animated Series in which Gotham City kids talk about their stories of Batman. In the episode, each kid’s account was wildly different and conflicted with each other. Before I could pat myself on the back for making the connection, I found out that this particular episode, Legends of the Dark Knight, is included on the special edition DVD.

Highly Recommended.

By the way, this doesn’t mean that I have lost my love for Superman who still ranks as my favorite superhero. I’m still allowed to appreciate Batman, especially because this character always seems to have the best animated series and movies connected to him. I have to admit though, in my mind Kevin Conroy is Batman so when he doesn’t provide the voice acting, as he doesn’t in WB’s The Batman, I won’t bother watching it. However, everything else has almost consistently been great (ok, maybe not Batman: Sub Zero as much but even that was still pretty good).

Until next time (which I believe is Wonder Woman)…

I got my first Mac a while ago and it came with all this cool stuff, including Garageband. I always wanted to try it out so I figured I would create a podcast, which I finally did over this weekend. So here it is folks, my first podcast.

Download Bushra’s First Podcast: The Effects of Reading Post Apocalyptic Fiction

Show Notes:
1. Yes, I realize that although I’m a 26 year old girl the sound of my recorded voice sounds like that of a little boy. What can I say. . .
2. This podcast is a bit disjointed, with a lot of “you knows” in there. I don’t have too much time to edit at this point because I have to get ready for England.
3. The books discussed: Y: The Last Man, World War Z, and The Road
4. The song played at the end: Re: Your Brains by Jonathan Coulton. I bought this song legally off his site :p
5. I didn’t really include any musical accompaniment in this podcast. Therefore, you are just really listening to me.
6. I ramble.

It runs about 14 minutes with the song at the end.

Thanks.

(Ok, so you really don’t have to listen to this if you don’t want to. It really is just meant to be a learning experience for me )

Years ago, I used to read Superman comic books. One comic came out every week and I got all of them. I did that for 5 and half years. While I never stopped being a Superman fan, I didn’t want to keep reading because the weekly comics just didn’t hold my interest anymore. However, reading Superman comics was tied enough to my identity that I wondered what would happen if I stopped reading and collecting them. I know, I know, that sounds a bit weird but if you have doubts, check out the comments in my high school yearbook. Almost everyone mentioned Superman as if it were some kind of inside joke or something. Actually, wait, don’t check out my high school yearbook.

After I stopped actively collecting comics, I would still venture into a comic bookstore now and then (if I happened to pass one by) and maybe buy a trade paperback if a story looked interesting. But those times were few and far in between. I never really got sucked into anything that I had to read.

That sort of changed last week. I heard aboutY: The Last Man from various places and wanted to check it out. This story, about all the males on the planet dying off at once save for one guy, Yorick Brown, seemed intriguing enough that I wanted to see what it was all about. This finite series consisted of 60 issues, which started in 2002 and just ended this past January. Most of the comics were collected in trade paperbacks - 10 different volumes including the final yet to be released volume containing the last issues.

I read the first volume at the Borders by work during my lunch one day last week. Since they didn’t have the 2nd volume, I walked over to the nearby Barnes and Nobles to see if they had it. They did.

So during my lunches for the past couple of weeks, I was reading all of the volumes of Y: The Last Man, switching from Borders to Barnes depending on who had what. Getting closer and closer until the end, I didn’t give much thought about how the final issues won’t be compiled into volume form until June. “I can wait,” I told myself.

Turns out I couldn’t (and didn’t want to) so yesterday I ventured into a comic bookstore in Fremont that I had never been to and hoped they had copies of the last 6 issues. They did. The guy behind the counter said that the ending was sad but that he wasn’t really giving anything away because, really, what else would I expect. I figured he just spoiled for me since now I knew to be prepared.

And yet. . .

Even though I crammed the entire length of the series into two weeks as opposed to the people who had read it over the past 5-6 years, I got really attached to the characters and so the final issue carried an emotional impact. I won’t spoil it or anything but I did sort of get a bit sad and a twinge depressed.

Fiction is so weird sometimes. You know these people aren’t real. The situations may not even be realistic as it was in this case and yet it doesn’t even matter because it will still get you, y’know?

Yeah.

As an aside, I’m wondering why I don’t feel any shame by the fact I didn’t buy most of the series, that I read most of these in bookstores so I didn’t have to buy them. Oh well.

I’ll do a post soon about all the post-apocalyptic fiction I’ve been reading. Stay tuned.