An incomplete list of the good (and so bad it’s good) tv and cartoons Part 1

So recently I did a list like this, showing all the new stuff that has come on to tv, but I realised that I  wanted to make a shout out to all the older shows that have finished or just have been running so long that I couldn't justify putting them into the last list. I’m also adding both anime and cartoons (because for some reason people think of them as different things) a. Obviously this is going to be incomplete as I haven’t watched all the tv programmes in existence, these will also mostly be genre stuff though if I think of a particularly good show I’ll add it in.

On the rating system, all of these shows are watchable so my system will be slightly different:

1 = bad but fun (either to laugh with or to laugh at),  2 = alright, some might like it, not be for everyone but a decent show, 3 = I recommend you watch this show, 4 = definitely watch this, 5 = if you already haven’t seen this then put down whatever you’re holding and start watching this.

TV

Alice

 A mini-series giving the adventures of Alice in wonderland a new twist. A grown up Alice finds a mirror a falls into another world and begins looking for her lost love and father. With great visuals, a decent story and nods galore to the original, this is an interesting take on the original and leaves you satisfied.

Completed.  3/5

Alphas

See previous articles about this show.

2 series. Ongoing.4/5

Andromeda

The original idea came from the same mind as star trek (gene Roddenberry). It’s the tale of a man out of time with a huge sentient space ship. In his past there was a commonwealth and he was a defender of it. But fast forward three hundred years the peaceful days of the commonwealth are just a legend. He with a rag tag group of aliens set out to recreate the commonwealth in a galaxy gone mad. Interesting show, though the first season is a bit slow, it definitely deserves a look.

5 seasons, completed. 4/5

Angel

A spin off of buffy, and written by Joss Whedon, it is the story of a vampire (back when vampires were cool) trying to do good in the world. Slightly darker the buffy it still has the same humour and the same sense of epicness that makes this show great. Plus if the idea of a vampire fighting a dragon doesn’t get you interested then you show visit a doctor because obviously you have no soul.

5 seasons, completed. 4/5

Arrow

See previous article for more detail, but this show even in its first season has become one of my must sees of the week.

1 season, on-going. 4/5

Babylon 5

To describe this best I would call it a good version of deep space 9. It’s about an international space station which is meant to promote peace, so be prepared for a lot of alien politics. I always preferred star trek myself but I can’t deny this is a great show.

 5 seasons. Completed.  3/5

Band of brothers

About easy company in WWII it is just amazing.

1 season. Completed 5/5

Battlestar Galactica

the re-imagined version takes the idea of a human cylon war and makes it dark and gritty. The series starts off with a small fleet of human survivors fleeing the cylons and trying to find a way to survive. It’s intense and incredible.

4 seasons. Completed. 5/5

Being human

A ghost, a vampire and a werewolf live in a house in Bristol. An interesting look and good world building, I like the fact that all these people have drawbacks, and aren’t awesome superpowers like what is normally portrayed today. A look at how it would most likely ne (you know if it were possible to be a werewolf).

4 seasons. On-going. 3/5

Buffy the Vampire slayer

If you don’t at least have an idea what this is shame on you, go on Wikipedia and become a little bit wiser.

7 seasons. Completed. 5/5

Castle

A detective show with so many genre shout outs it should be listed as sci-fi. A best selling author decides to shadow a police detective and they solve crimes together.  It has Nathon Fillion of firefly fame in it, which makes a run of the mill detective show infinitely more interesting. Funny, intelligent, the best detective show still being made.

5 seasons. Ongoing. 4/5

Charmed

I grew up with this so might be a little biased, but from what I remember it’s about tree witches (always three even though some die or leave and the writers had to come up with more and more elaborate ways to link the three women) who have a book all the daemons want, and so every week they have to kill a new bad guy. Light hearted fun on the whole.

8 seasons. Completed. 2/5

Community

A lawyer who has faked his way into the bar has to go back to community collage and actually get a degree. Though this sounds like another mediocre comedy it is filled with so much hilarity I’m actually chuckling about some of the jokes while im writing this. Filled to the brim with geek humour, for example… you know what just watch a couple of episodes. Six seasons and a movie!

3 seasons. Ongoing. 5/5

Continuum

Time traveling cop goes back to stop future terrorists. See previous article for more info.

1 season. Ongoing. 4/5

Cougar town

The premise of this show was about a newly divorced woman (Monica from friends, yes I know her real name but that is all she will be to me forever) going after younger men. By about episode 6 or 7 the writer’s obviously decided that they instead wanted to write about a group of friends getting drunk and having fun. It was the best decision they could have made. Honestly it’s amazing how well the writers changed direction, and just how funny a show it could be. Plus this show is essentially a reunion for both the scrubs and the friends cast, so we get to see plenty of familiar faces.

3 seasons. Ongoing. 4/5

Dark angel

Dystopian future! Mutant/ Ninjas! Jessica Alba! If you like any of these things you might like dark angel. A government made super soldier on the run helps make the world a better place.

2 seasons. Completed. 3/5

Doctor who

Another show that I’m sure you’re at least familiar with. I haven’t yet had the chance or inclination to watch the old ones but even just the new series is great.

5 (new) seasons. Ongoing. 4/5

Dollhouse

Another joss whedon series, its about a corporation that hires people for years at a time, wipes their mind and then can put whatever the customer wants, so if some rich dude wants a biker chick thats the mind they download into the "doll" (hence the name). Problems start to build up in the first season, then the show quickly explodes in a ball of awesome with world wide conspirises, super ninjas and so many twists, with so many great characters. the premise is a disturbing true but this is one great show.
2 seasons. Completed. 5/5

Eureka
A town full of geniuses, lots of mad science, and more geekery then you can shake a stick at. A light hearted show with a fun disaster of the week theme, but also manages to do series long plots as well. so if you like talking houses, time travel, alternative realities and , much more check this out.
5 seasons. Completed 4/5

Firefly
A scifi western written by joss whedon is one of the most short lived, yet greatest shows out there. full of adventure, stuffed with wit and comedy, jam packed with amazing world building, an all round amazing show. plus the sequel film serenity is just as good. if you are a fan of this, then you a an objectively better person.
1 season + movie. Completed. 100/5

Falling skies

A post apocalyptic future where aliens have taken over and its up to a group of rebels to fight the good fight. the main character is a history teacher so that gives this show brownie points  think of it as independence day if the stupid play to give a hugely advanced computer a virus didn't work. 
2 seasons. ongoing. 3/5

Farscape
An interesting take on the alice in wonderland theme, a man tossed to the far reaches of space trying to find his way home and meeting hundreds of strange characters. the living spaceship he finds himself on is actually some escaped convicts ride.  the first season is a bit dull but once the main bad guy turns up the show goes from stride to stride.
4 seasons+movie. completed. 4/5

Fringe
this has been explained in another article in more depth but basically mad scientists create stuff and another friendly mad scientist has to stop it.
5 seasons. ongoing (though this is the final season). 4/5 

Game of thrones
If you don't know what this is then you a living in the same hole as batman got put into in the new film, except that a tv in, so in an even worse hole. But as i  am a geek hipster and came to this whole thing late (so automatically dislike it), plus i find the books to be meh normally i can't really give a good review of this.
2 seasons. ongoing. ?/5

Going round the twist
This is more because i watched this as a child and i still can't get the theme song out of my head. Seriously watch the little video, it is just full of crazy shit. Form what i remember random things happen to this family for an unknown reason.
4 seasons. completed. 2/5

Grimm
Police procedural mixed with really quite dark fairy tale supernatural shinnagans. As it is in its early seasons it still follows the monster of the week outline, though its starting to branch out. A show which is good now but has huge potential.
2 seasons. ongoing. 3/5

Hercules
This is the live action ninties version, my concept of it is a bit hazy beacuse of all the childhood nestalgia wich stops me getting a good look at it. Basiclly its about Hercules and his sidekick wandering around solving things by being really strong.
6 seasons. completed. 3/5

Heroes
This show started to wander and fall apart in later seasons but the first season or two are simply great. About a bunch of normal people getting powers, it was a huge hit for a reason. 
4 seasons. completed. 4/5 (5/5 for season 1 and 2, 3/5 for season 3 and 4)

Human target

Based on a comic book this is about a dude who protects the weak and needy. he is the answer to a bodyguard, in that he will solve the reason for people to need a bodyguard. full of great spy moments and action moments imagine James Bond if it started life as a comic, and the protagonist worked to be a good guy rather then a cold blooded killer.
2 seasons. completed. 3.5/5 (i know this stupid rating but i couldn't think ofm a better way of describing it)

Jericho
I have actually been re-watching this, and can declare it as the most interesting look at what life would be like in a post apocalyptic world. So a bunch of nukes hit america, but at least the one town of Jericho survives the bombing. this show then is about how a town tries to survive, plus the fact that no one knows what is going on. it feels like each of the large cast is fleshed out, and the problems are real, like the worry about the water being contaminated. sadly this show was cut short but this is still interesting plus season 3 and 4 got made in comic book form.
2 seasons + 2 seasons in comics. ongoing. 4/5

Justified
So imagine a old school american lawman, wide brimmed hat, six shooter on his waist giving the no good cattle rustler a day to get out of town before he forced to use his guns. now transport him into the modern world and that is essentially this show. sound good? that's because it is. one of the few interesting police shows out there and has a huge body count (he shoots to kill). 
3 seasons. ongoing. 4/5

Legend of the seeker
So this is based on some excellent books, about a man with a magic sword who fights stuff and a woman who's very touch can make someone love her unconditionally. Ok this sounds kind of crappy any way i write   it but the books are one of my favourite series of all time. plus Cornelia of Buffy and Angel is in it in skin tight latex and whipping people... so there's that. 
2 seasons. completed. 2/5

Lie to me
About an englishman who has spent all his life reading peoples expression, so can read faces like a childrens picture book, if your picture book got uncomfortable by a strange man staring at it for minutes. he and his gang help solve crime and talk about SCIENCE all day. an interesting retake on the eccentric crime solver.
3 seasons. completed. 3/5 

Lost girl
this then is another fairy tale with a dark twist show that are popping up lately, but is pretty decent dispute that. so in this world there are two groups of fey (fairies) the dark and light, the protagonist is a succubus, and won't choose a side. so its lots of her being in the middle solving problems and having a awesome sidekick. the world building is interesting and the show is genuinely fun.
2 seasons. ongoing. 2/5

Misfits

One of the few English contributions, it is surprisingly good, and has won a ton of awards. so it takes the idea of superpowers and origin stories, but it gives them to a bunch of delinquents. Funny, interesting and one of the best and original origin stories around this is a definite must watch.
4 seasons. ? maybe a movie. 4/5


Ok so this article is getting way too long, anf for those who have got this far, you are odviously brilliant people. I will pick up the rest soon but for now i hope you found at least one new show to watch. so for now enjoy part 1, part 2 and the other half of the list will be up soon.

Sorry

So for any of you who have thought to check in and found a severe lack of articles, it turns out that christmas is a busy time. but that,s no excuse. So to make up for it here is a picture of a bear wearing a hat, because why not.

i'm not sure if this was meant to be scary but his eyeless face will haunt my dreams for eternity. the question of how the hat stays all will also haunt me as well.

Squirrel girl, the unsung hero (or why she is apparently better then wonder woman)

So recently marvel announced that they were going to make a guardian of the galaxy movie. Don’t know who they are? Well don’t worry neither do very many people, but during my investigation of them i ran along one hero who i can’t figure out... Squirrel girl. (By the way I’m all for this movie, it sounds great and in the past few years marvel has been really knocking it out of the park with their films. This film looks like it’s going to be awesome but it makes me wonder about DC, and why they can’t produce anything like this). It seems odd that DC can’t even get superman or wonder woman to the big screen. Does no one think this is odd? In a couple of years people are going to know who squirrel girl is, and let’s be honest there are going to be films about her then wonder woman.  And for all those out there who are trying to remind me about the new wonder woman pilot that’s coming out, stop it, it’s not working.  This is the second one that has come out in recent years, so I’m not exactly positive about the idea of a long term wonder woman any time soon. So in my fondest dreams i imagine a time when people talk about squirrel girl in the same breath as the other greats. So for this article I’m going to compare them, and show you how much better squirrel girl is.

So firstly powers, as you might have guessed she has the power to talk to squirrels, and not just telepathic, but she actually went out and learnt the language. She looks like a squirrel, with a long furry tail, strong and fast and has knuckle spikes. So you might have guessed but she’s a mutant. She also has gadgets in a utility belt, where she has all manner of stuff (though its mostly nits, seriously)   So a couple of weeks ago I said that put all my money behind Cyclops as the best mutant. And i still agree with that but frankly squirrel girl is coming in a close second.  Read the above again, its doesn't sound that impressive does it, but she kicks ass. In one of her earliest adventures she beats Thanos, yes that dude at the end of avengers. Alone. With just her furry little tail and the ability to jump really high she beat a bad guy so bad he was based on the Greek daemon of death.  She defeated wolverine! (and yes it made me happy to write that) she beat him up with her fists. That is awesome. She has defeated deadpool, and Doctor Doom. These are major people in the marvel universe

Wonder woman on the other hand has a huge amount of powers, she is the superman for women, with super strength, super speed, flight. But you know all this, she is one of the biggest heroes around. At first a comparison is almost ridiculous; one is a golden age minor character, while the other wears a huge w on her chest while wearing very little. That is one thing that squirrel girl has going, at least she doesn’t have a revealing costume. Also, squirrel girl didn't star in a load of bondage cartoons... so there’s that going for her. Don’t believe me? Look it up the creator of wonder woman, he was massively into all that, it explains why the only weakness wonder woman has is being tied up.

So you might be thinking “pah how ridiculous i like in heroes dark and serious!” (you would also be speaking in a turn of the century British voice).  But seriously don’t judge her by her powers. Many heroes started out a little but ridiculous, and yes her powers are never going to be serious. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Squirrel girl is a left over from a past age, but i don’t think its such a bad thing. After all comics which take themselves too seriously just come off as ridiculous to me (i’m looking at you wolverine). A hero who understands even a little bit how ridiculous he or she is perfect. 

No one seems to care that Chewbacca is about to punch it.

I just what to make this clear from the very start, this isn't another rant about star wars, this is in fact an article about faster than light travel. If you got the badly phrased reference, well done you are obviously the pinnacle of human evolution, if not well... better luck next time. So recently I found out that a scientist called Harold White went in front of hundreds of other scientists and said that he was going to prove that his design for a faster then light ship was possible. The interesting thing about all this is that everyone looked at the maths and it seemed to check out. So now he's going to NASA to try and prove himself right. 

So I want  to let that soak in. a scientist, a smart man by all accounts  has in his possession a theoretically sound way to make a ship that can travel to other planets. I know I use this word a lot but this is simply awesome, in the truest sense of the word.

Ok here are the details, he's basing all his theory on what is called the Alcubierre Drive, which sounds so sci fi that had had to check it several sites and even then I'm still a little worried. The very basic jist of it is that this engine would for all intents and purposes shrink the area of space time in front of the ship, and expand it behind. This would do two things: one it would give you forward momentum, and more importantly two, it would create a sort of bubble which would allow the ship to reach faster than light speeds. The engine could get to Alpha Centauri (our closest pit stop in the galaxy) in two weeks. Alpha Centauri is 4.3 light years away. Mr White though has refined one of the main problems with the original design, that is, it uses much less fuel. The original design needed so much energy that the energy would be the size of Jupiter, obviously not practical. White though has made adjustment to the field that allows the ship to only use a fraction of that, less than a tonne in fact. 

There are still problems though, some quite huge, such as where the fuel is going to come from. unlike any other space ship so far made this ship doesn't rely on strapping yourself onto a huge amount of explosive liquid, instead it uses exotic matter, namely exotic matter that has negative mass, and so create negative vacuum energy. On a side note don't you just love scientists and the great names they give things. Honestly if star trek gave the world anything it gave us generations of scientist who had a thirst to discover new ideas, then give badass names to them. this negative vacuum energy though has yet to be proven in a lab, though the theory is apparently sound, and that is the first step in White's plan. 

The second problem then is what happens to all that energy that the ship produces. as i said before the ship warps timespace around it using the field produced by the exotic matter, but what happens to the energy that is used to propel the ship. to push a ship to faster then light speeds means that alot of energy is going to be pushed backwards, enough to destroy whole solar systems according to some estimates. 

the next problem is that once on course there would be no way to steer, the way you started is the way you're going. this to me does not seem a huge problem though i imagine driving into a star would be a bit embarrassing for the captain. Another slightly more serious problem is whether the ship would survive travelling that fast, even colliding with small particle of matter would case huge explosions. Also the heat generated would be huge.

But despite these problems I’m still ecstatic, after all a bunch of real, non crazy people are still looking into this and are cautiously hopeful. its been years since i was able to dream of visiting other planets without the boring rational part of me (the one i try hard to not listen to) telling me that it could never happen. Space travel has become interesting again, because lets face it the whole taking photos of Mars is ok but the fact that we will probably never go there makes it less interesting. This also comes at a perfect time, as there us a real push to find other planets like ours, which has had great success. so now we have destinations, all we need is for White to be proved right.

But what amazed me most about all this though, is how little most people seem to care. I know it won’t affect many people for years to come even if it is successful but even the possibility that we might one day be able to cross our galaxy in just a couple of months should make people even a little interested. But no, almost everyone I talked to about this either didn't care or even more bizarrely wouldn't even want to go to another planet if they could. to me this is mind boggling. How can anyone not want (to steal a phrase) boldly go where no man has gone before? Has space travel become such a non entity for modern day society that this didn't even make any news websites? Back forty years ago the very notion that we might one day be able to actually explore would have been a cause of excitement, not disinterest or dislike. To sum up then modern attitudes to space are stupid. Soon the rest of the astronauts to walk on the moon are going to die walking on another planet will just be a memory.

Why it is weird that you haven't seen star wars

So recently Disney bought lucas film, and unless they want to make a star wars battlefront 3 a reality (which would be amazing) they really want to make a new star wars trilogy. To get this out of the way, I’m all for this. In a huge way. The purists who are crying in despair about the ruining of star wars should shut up and watch avengers again, that was done by Disney. Hell the whole marvel universe that has been built up for the last couple of years has been because of Disney. Also the extended universe is very hit and miss, but some of the hits are pretty damn good. So there are plenty of good story ideas out there, but even if they decide to ignore that all there is still a good chance that it will be awesome. Anyway back to the issue at hand, it really is weird if you haven’t watched star wars.

Star wars has become huge, a cultural cornerstone which has been referenced thousands or even hundreds of thousands of times, in the unlikeliest of places, from serious dramas to light hearted comedy. Think about that for a second, no other film has that much of a reach, or so many of them in one series. If a film is very lucky, and extremely popular then maybe an idea, phrase or motif will start to spread, for example everyone remembers the t rex scene in Jurassic park, or the ending to citizen Kane. It’s incredible that star wars has so many, think about it most people could name five maybe ten concepts or lines that would immediately make anyone think of star wars. If someone says “that’s no moon”, or pretends to have a lightsaber even the philistines who have never seen it will know the reference. There was even a satellite system named after star wars (imaginatively called star wars, but hey that’s what you get when you put a retired actor in the white house).  Star wars then is film that speaks to both the previous generation and the current one, especially with the new movies coming out there seems to be no signs that this will change any time soon. People who saw the first film in the cinema are in their mid forties now, and with the internet taking off at much the same time it isn't too much of a stretch to say that stars wars has changed our world, even if it was in small ways

.

But do you know the real reason why you should watch star wars? because they are great movies. They are included in almost every single greatest movie list. They have won countless awards and been watched millions if not billions of times. It’s been translated into a hundreds of languages and is generally pretty darn good. It is a huge shame that for some reason genre films are looked down upon as films, that their artistic merit is seen as somehow less then serious films. Think about it what other film has had such a huge impact but is so widely trivialised, and for no good reason. It’s not as if they aren’t great movies, they have everything a films needs. The journey is satisfying, the world building is top notch, each films story is pretty great though the overall plot is sometimes a little spotty (the whole sister brother kissing fiasco). The series is filled with more archetypes then Jung could psychoanalyse, the wandering hero, the wise man, Good vs. Evil, the redemptive journey. Plus it has laser pistols!

i love this poster for so many reasons, but the fact that in India a moon that can destroy planets isn't scary enough, it has to have eyes to make it really scary is probably the greatest thing ever.

Star wars then is one of the all time classics, has permeated so far into our society that to not have seen it is to not quite understand current pop culture. You may understand where the references and quotes are from, but if you haven’t watched Darth Vader tell Luke he is his father (and not know beforehand) then whenever someone makes the reference that memory just won’t be there making the joke mediocre at best. Even if you aren't a big fan of sci fi, everyone should watch them, at least once just to understand (also light sabers are the best thing ever).

Wolverine sucks Cyclops rules

So I was having a conversation the other day with fellow geeks and someone made the point that wolverine was the best x man, a thing that my fellow geeks took as a law of the universe. In their minds apples fall down, cupcakes are delicious and wolverine is the best x man. When I said that this was complete balderdash I was promptly shouted down, it got worse when i said that Cyclops is in fact the best. Since this is my website and they physically can't shout me down from here this is my article all about why wolverine sucks and why Cyclops is the best there ever was.

Wolverine’s stupid back story

Ok firstly Wolverine is trying waaay to hard, coolness is not a thing that you have to strive for, you either have it or you don’t and Wolverine definitely doesn't have it. Wolverine in his long life has been a pirate king (kind of), a samurai  a ninja, a soldier (who almost killed Hitler)  plus a bunch of other things. Does this not strike anyone else as trying too hard to hip and down with the kids?  Remember that he is an old man, and this is as embarrassing as one who refuses to act his own age. The writers want him to be cool so desperately that they keep adding more and more to his back story that it becomes a mess. If they had just chosen one back story I could get behind this crazy Canadian, but because of this misguided assumption that everyone loves Wolverine they had to add more and more and so make him ridiculous. Before you hypothetical readers starts complaining that all long running comic book characters have huge and convoluted back stories compare his back story to Cyclops. His dad becomes a space pirate by accident and pushes Cyclops and his brother out of a plane to safety (which gave him brain damage not allow him to control his powers). He wanders around for a few years beats up a few villains, and then Xavier finds him and trains him. This in my mind is a good origin story small, but important. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t know it but it helps you understand Cyclops if you do, not the sprawling mess that Wolverine’s is. Also i feel this is important to say again, his dad is a space pirate!

Cyclops leads the team

Cyclops has to lead the x men and is (mostly) successful, that is the world hasn't be ended in one of the many colourful ways. This is huge any way, after all I'm pretty sure he’s even saved the galaxy a couple of times but to do all that and keep the team together is nothing short of amazing. Look past the awesome powers of the x men for a moment, and you realise that these are a bunch of badly damaged people. Rouge has intimacy problems, Beast has body image problems and gambit has a pesky gambling problem. Honestly Freud would have a field day, imagine how difficult it would be just to keep them all in line let alone get them to do anything more productive then finger painting. But he does and wins as well, even with an annoying screw up you won’t do what he’s told, or to call him by his real name, Wolverine.

Wooden claws

Not really much to say on this, but when he was born for some reason he had wooden claws. This is stupid. Wood is never cool. And how would it even get in there?  Also why would you have a power that hurts you every time you use it? That is a crappy power any way you look at it. At least Cyclops power was meant to work, before he was thrown out of a plane.

Cyclops gets the girls

In the films, comics, and tv shows one plot line is always there, the Jean grey love story (also this is a complete side point by why doesn't Jean get her own code name? everyone else has one. why is it that she has to be taken over by an alien force/ have her full powers awakened and go on a rampage for people to give her a cool code name?). The question is always who will she choose? And the answer is always the same Cyclops. Do you know why, because moody badass is great for attracting the ladies but lets be honest no one wants to wake up next to a moody badass, as I imagine he would never be the one to make the cup of tea in the morning. Also what kind of guy tries to get with another man’s girlfriend (which is bad enough) when he not only a member of your team, but has also saved your life at least a couple of times that day. And nothing ever happens between then, or at least not for long. It is easy to imagine then that on the few days off the x men have form world saving Logan is on facebook looking through Jean’s photos and generally being a creepy (and very much older) dude.

Cyclops also does well after Jean goes dark phoenix and flies off into a star or whatever else she feels likes doing, as he moves on and falls in love with Emma Frost. The comics make no bones about the fact that she is... experienced in all matter of fun things, plus lets be honest even by super hero outfits hers isn't exactly modest.

honestly this well covered for her,, it's like she got half dressed then got bored .

But Cyclops manages to create a relationship which as she is a telepath who can also turn into diamond, which is no mean feat. And what does wolverine have? The best he has done is squirrel girl (if you don’t know who she is and for some reason have an inability to use Wikipedia, don’t worry I’ll be covering her in another article later). Wolverine puts so much time into creating this image of himself as the gruff loner that he always ends up alone. To be honest if you had to choose one of these guys wouldn't you want to be the guy who can actually be happy.

Wolverine has no responsibility

This is just a continuation of the last one but i felt it important enough to make a new title for. What does wolverine do most of the time? When he is called he makes a decent leader but always quickly gives up the role as soon as he can. Cyclops has to make decisions that effect thousands of people every day, and Wolverine has to decide what... which vest makes covers the least amount of his abs?

looking up both him and emma frost above my search history has taken  an odd turn.

Useless against their biggest enemy (magneto)         

HE IS MADE OUT OF METAL! YOUR MAIN ENEMY IS A GUY WHO CAN CONTROL METAL.  WHY ARE YOU A MEMBER OF THIS TEAM! Seriously choose another team the avengers or maybe any other team out there where the main bad guy isn't able to stop you with a thought. This would be like superman going out of his way to find a guy made entirely out of kryptonite and annoying him until he fought him.

why superman!? all i was trying to do was take out the rubbish!

So that's it, I hope this goes some way to stopping this crazy obsession with wolverine the internet and geekdom in general has with him, and instead give a little love to the poor dude who has to look after a bunch of homicidal teenagers with powers.

p.s. A wolverine sounds awesome but is just a badger, and the only badger that is at all scary is the honey badger. No one would think he was so awesome if he was called badger man.  

Why are comic book worlds anything like ours?

This time on when someone looks waaaay too deeply into comics i tackle such questions as super soldiers, space travel and why I’m practicing my Texan accent! Basically the main question is why is the superhero world anything like ours? For god sake with the invention of the internet the world has changed completely so how in God’s name would an alien invasion not shake up absolutely everything? In this article I will be looking at marvel as I feel a bit bad about being mean to DC and basically ranting about the stupidity of it all.

So to get this out the way, yes i understand that they want the world to be relatable to us, that’s why when a new president is elected they put his face around, and generally try to make it as realistic as possible, but with aliens. The problem with this though is that just can’t work. Maybe back when comic started it made sense, after all if captain America turned up it would be awesome but wouldn't affect the average joe in any real way apart from Frisbees becoming cool again (no ultimate Frisbee people you have a fun game but in no way is it cool, you’re level of cool is around quiddich, but you only win because you don’t have to ride a broomstick). But by this point in the marvel universe a load of huge shit has gone down. Just a few example, the secret invasion where shape shifting aliens declared jihad on earth (really), hulk has the worst intervention ever gets sent to a alien planet finds a wife settles down she dies he gets even more angry and invades earth, and basically wins (this is called planet hulk and is one of the few awesome hulk stories, check it out).  Asgard, like the gypsies they really are decide they don’t like where the are living any more and decide to move to earth. These were just a few of the most obvious ones (which i could remember because I can’t be bothered to go to Wikipedia, seriously try to wiki one thing in comics on wiki, there are like a million links to awesome things and then you've wasted a whole evening) but how would that not effect the world in any way?

Just to start off with the idea that there have been separate alien attacks on earth is going to provoke some kind of response, and no creating the avengers is not a proper response, honestly what kind of dumb idea is it to trust the whole world to an alcoholic, an anger management problem, a Russian spy, a assassin who could probably do a whole lot more with a sniper rifle, a steroid infused old guy and an alien who in all of our legends is kind of a dick? If I ruled the world if some dude offered me this idea I would fire him so hard that even is grand kids would sue me for unfair dismissal.

Another thing about the invasions, obviously the ships have crash landed on earth after death was averted by a god complex in a red suit (by the way I’m being mean to iron man but i think we can all be honest, he is the most awesome avenger) why wouldn't the government or corporations snatch that shit up? On a side note most of the things I'm going to talk about will involve America because sadly in American media they like me to forget that that other countries exist. So anyway for a country that spends over 1.4 trillion dollars (or as I used to equate money when I was 7 years old, 14 trillion blackjacks or fruit salad sweets) why wouldn't they have utilised the technology yet? And before you start to mutter “but we don’t understand it” think how many aliens live on earth, who would understand it. For god sake Stark, Mr. Fantastic, Bruce banner they all at one point have even built space ships. So why doesn't earth have a bitchin fleet, hell if America started to build a fleet of war spaceships i would be on the next flight to America and start practising my Texan accent and trying to remember what Texan people say, and so would at least half the people reading this. It makes no sense then that a nation that after one terrorist attack declared war (on the wrong country but I always imagined that when bush heard that it was mostly Saudi Arabia just shrugged and said “close enough” ) why wouldn't they declare war on space?

fuck you space

Another thing that bothers me is why isn't the technology any better than in the real world apart from when the hero is involved? I mean for a man whose goal is to create peace by creating a huge WAR MACHINE (this is a whole different rant, and one where 60% of it is me complaining that I am not iron man or Robert downy jr.) why doesn't he also give the secret to unlimited energy to the world? And to be more precise why hasn't anyone taken it? I know a lot of what I think of as fact when it comes to spies and assassins comes from 007 but seriously off the top of my head why don’t they get someone to sleep with him, and then try to steal his heart thing?  It would literally solve so many problems it would be unbelievable. For the love of god there is an A.I in there! And of less importance worldwide but much more importantly to me at least, he has a jet pack! If someone had invented a jet pack and wasn't giving me one i would be so mad i would need to be exposed to gamma radiation just so I could properly show the level of anger. The technology created by these heroes would change the world so much it would be unrecognisable.

On another side note in my last article about comics I said that people would begin to idolise the justice league, which I still think is true, but in marvel the opposite is true. If I lived in the marvel universe and saw the current problems the world has today, then saw some rich dude walking around with so much tech that could help I would probably start to hate him. Same kind of goes for the others, the steroid infused killing machine who tries to preach about justice? Stop bashing people’s skulls in with your awesome shield and pretending that the 1940s were better because there were a lot of problems back then too. The only one I would like is hawkeye (mainly because he’s an archer and I have a soft spot for them), but even then I would have to admit he’s a bit of a dick.

Captain America himself raises a lot of questions, or to be more precise the failed super soldier type of hero. Off the top of my head I can think of maybe six different characters that started with an injection (1 captain america, 2 wolverine, I know he had healing but the whole point of weapon x scheme was to make super soldiers, 3 deadpool, 4Samson,5Nick fury as he got an injection that makes him immortal, 6 green goblin). Now some of them had powers to begin with but even so how are there not millions of super soldiers running around by now? There has been plenty of times in the history of science that the formula was forgotten, sometimes forever, a good example of this is Greek fire, honest to god they (the Greeks obviously) sprayed it on ships and it would burn them to the ground. For hundreds of years the recipe was lost until people invented napalm. Napalm isn't Greek fire but its probably BETTER and it was invented because scientists knew that it was possible. The same must be in the marvel universe, you know that there is a way of creating another captain America, how can a military not want this to happen? Hell I would totally join the military if they were going to give me super powers, even for a crappy one like jubaliee (remember her from the 1990s x men cartoon, who could make fireworks? Did anyone else feel that she was in at as the pity mutant, the one you leave to guard the car while you take down magneto for the 78^th time). Because let’s be honest with all the crap that happens in the world on a regular basis no one would want to be normal.

So to finish of this rant then, the marvel universe is screwed, there is no real way that their world could be anything like ours, and its annoying that they don’t really acknowledge that in any sort of way. Another thing we learnt is that i would totally be a guinea pig for some mad scientist and that if space travel was invented there would be one random dude wandering around America with a huge stenson pretending to be Texan and saying howdy to every person he meets.

Alphas – the x men but awesome

I mentioned this show before a couple of weeks back, but with the second season ending in such a spectacular fashion i feel its time to talk about it more. This show does the who mutant outsiders the best I've seen in a long time, maybe even the best yet. Don’t get me wrong x men is great and one of my favourite teams/ mass of teenage angst of all time, but alphas finally does what so many other shows have tried and failed, to make super powers and the stories that go with them mildly believable. So i can gush more effectively about this show I'm going to compare it to another recent super hero show, Arrow. This is the new green arrow gritty reboot that came out about three weeks ago and before i start to poke holes in it, i want to stress that it is as great a show (so far) as Alphas, it just falls into some of the traps that Alphas didn't.

Ok so first of all there is the main premise of the two shows (and others like them), being a superhero is a viable thing. Normally with such programmes the writers expect a bit of suspension of disbelief, which i am happy to do if i get shows such as Buffy (it surprises me that people don’t think of Buffy as a superhero series, she’s a super powered vigilante trying to keep the world safe and stop apocalyptical happenings, what else would you call her?) or misfits. But these two shows are going for realism, something which is somewhat of a double edged sword in that if you’re not careful it can limit the range of the series. But luckily both series have so far managed to keep the pretence of realism in place. This is no mean feat when part of the roster of superheroes and villains is a girl who can turn invisible and  another who has ninja powers (its really super agility but when ever I see him do a flip or something else awesome but entirely unneeded i think of ninjas) but they manage to pull it off.

“i am the night, the shadow, the embodiment of fear... look at this SWEET ASS FLIP” every nijna ever

They use medical babble to and try to stick to what the human body can do, and give each of the powers a flaw. This on other websites has been seen a a bit of a gimmick, but the human body is not designed to be able to lift a car, and so when it does the body suffers. It makes the powers seem more real, and it also makes the all important decison of which power you would have if you could that bit more difficult. Alphas then sets up a world in which these people could exist, and would be human, with human problems as well as super hero problems. The Alphas powers makes sense, for instance super strength puts a massive strain on the heart it is part of a enhanced fight of flight reaction that grants him strength but forces his heart to pump much faster then is safe. And the more awesome the power the more extreme the consequence. In one episode a man can move super fast but is dying, as his body is eating itself, as it can’t sustain itself. Medicine

That's the problem with shows like arrow, because he is technically not super powered the writers seem to presume that they can set him in the  normal world, and that it would work. But the problem with superheros is that they could never work in real life, where bullets are real, getting to a crime scene would take an hour or two by train and very few people are good or bad. Arrow is a vigilante, and with a vigilante it is had to see them in any other light then as criminals with better training. They break the law, almost kill hundreds of people and even if they do just tie someone up what would the police have to arrest them with? Being in the way of this masked crazy person. Being caught by a super hero in the real world would seriously help the criminal during the court case, and the hero would end up freeing more bad guys then anything else. To make the arrow more of a super hero then vigilante there needs to be just as much world building as for Alphas, maybe more. With mutants most people could guess the precautions and effects on society, or on the person, after all it has been done more then a few times for example in the excellent 1990s version of the x men cartoon. But with such programmes as Arrow and the sadly cancelled The Cape, just as much or perhaps more care needs to be made to show a world very like ours but that could accommodate green arrow as more then a crazy vigilante who is a danger to himself and others.

Alphas also has one of the most interesting villains around at the moment, Stanton Parish and his red flag group, a bunch of home grown terrorists who see no other way to get the recognition they deserve. Writing this i realise that the motivation for most of the group is unclear, sure the government are being dicks to the mutants but why would you blow up trains and cupcakes stands (I’m not sure if they do this, i just like to think they do) to prove it. But maybe its not about trying to prove anything, or gain anything, perhaps its just that these people who have had to hide all their lives want to fight a war against the oppressors  Their leader is Parish a civil war soldier who can live forever, and sees no way that humanity can live with mutants. The show spends real time making you hate him, but understand him which is an impressive trick for any show to do.

Alphas then in as excellent show, it makes mutants normal and has at least the veneer of science to make it respectable. The characters have much more depth then they could easily of had and the plot is gripping. The second season has just finished with one of the most interesting season finales I have seen this year. Its definatly one to watch.