No matter how successful the newest iteration of Star Trek is, there will always be a part of me that compares them to the original Trek crew. Certainly there are talented actors on Abrams’ V.2 Trek project, able to make the characters their own, but there may never be an ensemble that affects me the way the 1966 cast could. Of course, it should be noted that I am a sucker for a good “team”, whether it be Ted Mosby and his pals or the cruelly and criminally underrated Justice League Detroit squad of my youth, and breaking down the…
Browsing: Major Spoilers
There are those who complain that zombie-flavored stories are too prevalent, as if the use of the shuffling dead were in itself a genre, rather than props used to evoke a particular mood. For my part, I enjoyed the early installments of ‘Marvel Zombies’, especially the bits where undead Peter Parker laments having killed and eaten his family in the same tone he used to whine about working for J. Jonah Jameson, and have often thought that it would be interesting other hero-types in similar settings. How might Indiana Jones face a wave of revenants? Or George Costanza? Would Jack…
In this installment of Critical Hit: A Major Spoilers Dungeons and Dragons Podcast: Just because they are orcs doesn’t mean they are up to no good. NOTE: Level 14 character sheets are now available at members.majorspoilers.com and the Critical Hit Logo T-Shirts are indeed at SlashLoot.com
As a fan of comic book history, it’s interesting to look at the various “boom” periods, and the characters and concepts spawned from those expansion points. The original Golden Age post-Batman explosion featured any number of loony concepts for books, from Madame Fatal (cross-dressing two-fisted mystery “woman”) to The Clown (who was a clown.) In the 90s, we discovered that all you needed to be a superhero was a pair of shoulder-pads and a noun that sounded badass. My favorite epic expansion, though, came circa 1966, where the success of the Batman television show led to the creation of dozens…
Zach gets educated on the ways of Charlie Chaplin, and by the time his viewing of Modern Times ends, he comes to a realization that Stephen has been talking about for years.
The various rumors swirling around Star Wars Episode VII seem to imply that the original actors will be playing versions of themselves that are, like the actors themselves, 30 years down the line from the Battle Of Endor. I find myself enjoying that idea, wondering what a 70-year-old Han Solo might be up to, or what kind of fighting techniques would be most appropriate for 62-year-old Luke Skywalker, legendary balancer of The Force. There are problems with that sort of story-telling (notably seen in the recent 50th Anniversary Doctor Who special, wherein an elderly Tom Baker made an appearance, while…
Hot Foods That Taste Great Cold Top Five is a show where the hosts categorize, rank, compare, and stratify everything… from cars to gadgets to people and movies. From stuff that is hot, and things that are not nearly as interesting – it’s Top Five. It’s been a week since we stuffed our gullets with turkey and stuffing and everything else that makes the holidays great. Now we are looking at leftovers and hot foods that taste great cold!
Stephen and Matthew sit down to review Marvel’s Young Avengers #13, and one of them has never read the series before… can you guess which one?
Reviving a dormant property can be tricky business. Though I can clearly see the appeal of the revamped ‘Battlestar Galactica’, I have long held a quiet little grudge against it for not being “my” Battlestar. Some mock me for it, but I have always had a soft spot for the zeitgeist of original show, taking its clear Star Wars envy and pairing it with a then-timely concept (ancient astronauts from beyond space colonizing Earth) and a neat design aesthetic to create something unique. Certainly some of the effects are laughable now, if you’re that kind of cynical schmuck, but the…
IT’S NEW COMIC BOOK DAY! Major Spoilers runs down the comics we are looking forward to, and recommending, this week.
This week on the Major Spoilers Podcast: Frozen warms the heart, Sleeper gets mixed results, and DC may be looking to make inexpensive superhero flicks.
Munchkin is a dedicated deck card game by Steve Jackson Games, written by Steve Jackson and illustrated by John Kovalic, that has a humorous take on role-playing games. This week on Munchkin Land, what else does Steve Jackson Games have for you? How about Zombie Dice! Eat brains. Don’t get shotgunned. You are a zombie. You want brains. More brains than any of your zombie buddies. Zombie Dice is a quick and easy game for gamers and non-gamers alike. The 13 custom dice represent victims. Push your luck to eat their brains, but stop rolling before the shotgun blasts end…
Growing up in the 1970s, hardly a week went by without encountering an episode of ‘Gilligan’s Island’ on one of the eleven channels that my elderly Quasar could drag out of the Cable TV ether. As an adult, I recognize the archetypical power of Sherwood Schwartz’ vision, even finding parallels between the castaways of the SS Minnow and the classic stock characters of Commedia Dell’Arte. But all that high-falutin’ falderal (Doo dah! Doo dah!) is thrown by the wayside at the appearance of young Mary Ann Summers, the fresh-faced farm girl who stole my heart. The quintessential Girl Next Door,…
It’s a common lament (to the point of becoming trite and utterly meaningless) to say that death in comic books means nothing anymore. To be honest, there has never been a time where comics as a whole have treated the subject in a consistent and final manner. In the Golden Age, many heroes had their demise as an origin (See Captain Triumph, Kid Eternity and more), while even in the more “realistic” Bronze Age of comics, Gwen Stacy’s tragic end was followed almost immediately by resurrection fakeouts and the eventual return of her clone. Of course, comics are not alone…