Comic review: Dark Gods #1- Facebook must be destroyed

Writer: Justin Jordan
Artist: German Erramouspe
Publisher: Avatar Comics
Released: 29th October 2014



This was a strange book. It was almost dead over target, but something went wrong with the guidance systems and its payload ended up being harmlessly scattered over barren wasteland.

I’ll explain.

The narrative begins with a typically white-bread protagonist (think Matt Damon or Mark Wahlberg) telling us that he works for an evil corporation that is carrying out behavioural experiments on it’s users. So far, so good. This is exactly what Facebook was caught doing recently. However, his solution to the problem is to feed this information to the government. What? The government that has been spying on everybody through the NSA? The government that allows huge tax breaks to corporations then uses backdoors in their software to data-mine all of the information the corporations are gathering, including spying on all of our emails? Yes, that government. Why is this guy trusting them? Why would anybody go to the government? My answer? They don’t. They go to alternative media sources like Infowars and Wikileaks. If they went to the government they would be hushed up, arrested, or worse.

Our heroes, Pharaohs and scientists.

Do you see what I mean by ‘strange’ book?

The book then gets even weirder when evil creatures explain to our generic hero that they are feeding on humanity. Who is this guy? Why should we care about him? Do I even care if the monsters eat him? Not really, he’s leaking information to government, so he’s not exactly somebody to root for.

We then get the back-story of the entire human race. There is no God, and humans were created out of nothing. So far, so mainstream. Humans needed gods, so the demons came in, pretending to be those gods. They gave us technology, but this knowledge gave these ‘Dark Gods’ more power over us. Opposing the Gods are men who do things for themselves. These men are pharaohs, scientists and Braveheart apparently. What the Hell? Why isn’t government being mentioned here? What is the one core building block of human slavery that has doomed our entire race since the dawn of time? It’s Pharaohs, Kings, leaders and government. If any demon wanted to gain control over humanity all he would have to do is gain control over the leaders and structures of a society.  When in control of the leaders the demon would control religion, science, history, medicine, education, politics and entertainment, all of the building blocks, and control systems of society. It would be a pretty crappy demon if it limited itself to just one sector of society like a social media website wouldn’t it?

Gods are demons pretending to be Gods. No mention of Islam yet.

Any half-decent control freak demon would want centralised power. The demon would concentrate on government. The biggest and most powerful government in the world today is the US government. The demon would concentrate all of it’s energies on gaining control of this government and would then push for a one-world government so it has centralised control over the entire planet.

It would attempt to establish a New World Order.

That makes sense, right?

The underlying problem with this book is that it wants to tell us a story about evil gods who have been with us since the days of Adam and Eve, but it doesn’t want to link them to government. What sort of useless, feckless villains are they? They want to control and suck off the life force of humanity, but they have no interest in the control systems of humanity? They have no interest in money and power, but they are all over facebook?

That makes no sense whatsoever.

The book ends with a strong independent feminist rescuing our protagonist from the villains, thus emasculating the man, as is traditional in mainstream comic books today, and kind of ending the story in one panel. I have nothing to look forward to now, no reason for picking up issue #2. There is no mystery here, everything has been revealed. The protagonist is a wuss and it looks like the government is going to be the good guys.

Man inventing gods, and evolutionary theory of course

How can a comic book get so close, yet utterly miss the target?

It’s bizarre.

I’ll conclude this review with some speculation, and posit another reason why it all went so wrong. There was a lack of a moral guidance in the story. There was no God, just nothing, and out of the nothing came evil. There was no creator, no deep spiritual moral understanding that we are eternal spiritual beings inhabiting flesh bodies for a short period of time to learn and expand in consciousness.

In place of deep spiritual moral truths there was Braveheart and his modern equivalent, a shotgun wielding feminist with a short haircut and revealing cleavage. I know it’s popular to believe in a godless world these days, at least in the neo-liberal west, but the lack of spiritual awareness leaves a gaping hole in the human psyche, leaving us open to attack by Dark Gods and stupidly relying on government to save us. It’s not progressive, or liberal, or smart, it's just stupid and leaves us easy prey for our real-world government slave masters.

This book gets closer than most, but a lack of understanding about deeper moral truths, human slavery and the eternal nature of the human soul means it’s just another monster book with the usual cast of feminist liberal drippy statist characters.

Rating: 3/10 (For acknowledging that Facebook is a data mining/surveillance control system.

Comic review: Rasputin #1- Wife beating unpleasantness

Writer: Alex Grecian
Artist: Riley Rossmo
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 29th October 2014



I don’t like comic books where fathers are portrayed as absent or violent abusers of their families.

It’s a globalist/socialist/collectivist agenda thing. You know how it goes, right?

You demonise dads, get them out of the family, state gets control, human slavery continues. It’s an old tactic, and used by every authoritarian state. Men are problematic, so they remove them.

Rasputin #1 features a violent father who abuses his son and beats up his wife. Why? No reason is given. I guess he just like to abuse people. I understand. I’ve met people like that, unfortunately.

Did the historical Rasputin have a violent father who beat his mother? I looked it up, and couldn’t find any mention of it. I could be wrong about this. Please correct me if I am, but it appears that writer Alex Grecian has made up the violence in order to tell a better story.  I’m not too happy about that. The life story of Grigori Rasputin is interesting enough without making up some fictional back-story about a non-existent violent father.

The narrative structure in issue #1 of Rasputin is as tight as a duck’s backside. It’s a two-minute read, but it’s a good two minutes, and it looks great. The art is the best thing about the book, telling the story with barely any words used. It’s an example of letting the story tell itself. If you want to know how to do comics, this will be a book you need to study.

The life of Rasputin is old hat when it comes to books, movies and just about everything else that you can think about. It’s been done to death, resuscitated, killed, bought back, and killed off again, again and again. A bit like the guy himself actually before drowning finally did him in.

The question then, why bother doing another Rasputin book? Where’s the need? What’s the point?

I dunno, I guess if it’s good it will all be worthwhile. At the moment it’s very tight, well drawn but the anti- dad stuff leaves me feeling a bit iffy about it all. Again, I dunno. Should I check out issue #2? What’s the point? To see if anything new or interesting happens, because there’s not much hook in this opening issue for me. I admire the technical quality of it, but there’s something lacking for me.

Rating: 7/10

Television review: The Flash: Season 1. Episode 1- Police state, we’re lovin it?

The Flash: Series One- Episode One (the pilot show)

Date of broadcast: 28th October 2014 (on Sky One)

Website: 
http://www.sky.com/tv/show/the-flash



In a corporate Police state that hides its true nature under the illusion of ‘democracy’ the Police, army and numerous government bureaucrats have to be portrayed as heroes.

These order following men and women are the very people who help maintain the current state of human slavery, not the tiny number of billionaires who own and control them. That is why they have to be glorified, made into demi-gods, made into heroes.

The mainstream media’s role is to produce propaganda that glorifies the corporate Police state. They will make the viewers believe that left is right, and up is down, but only if it serves the interests of the corporate elites.

Their purpose is to mislead, distract, and control. That is what they do, and they do it very well.

Peter Parker? Nope, it's Flash. 

They lie to you because that is their job.

Mainstream media propaganda is an extremely powerful weapon for the handful of families that own this planet. Do it correctly and the slave will actually be grateful for his condition of slavery. He will worship his master, and never, ever want to be free. Do it really well and he won’t even see the prison, and will laugh and scoff at anybody that points it out to him. After all, how can he want to be free when he doesn’t even realise that he is living in a cage?

Any reality on corporate mainstream media would expose the very owners of the media groups as the duplicitous autocratic cartel of slave masters that they actually are. Therefore, no reality is allowable on television. I’m not being particularly smart here. I’m just stating facts that we already know.

Only a bumbling, stumbling moron would watch one of their television ‘programmes’ recognise it as the Police state propaganda that it is, and then go onto the Internet and complain about it on his blog.

Yes.

I Know.

I am that moron.

Here's Captain white bread in one of his uniforms

I admit it, but I’m not going to waste too much of my time on ‘The Flash.’ It’s a superhero show where the heroes are the Police and the villains are muggers and bank robbers. Thank God for the Police. Without them we would be experiencing an epidemic of muggings and bank robberies every day of the week. Wouldn’t we? Thankfully the good old Police are there to protect us helpless victims, err I mean civilians, and everything is right with the world.

Err, except, that it’s not.

The Police are not there to protect and serve us. They are there to control us. It’s called a ‘Police state’ for a reason, not a politician state, or a banker state. The Police are the attack dogs of the corporate masters. They obey orders and smash all dissent, all by the letter of the law. See Nazi Germany and the Occupy movement for recent examples. I’m not stating my own personal opinions here, and I do not hate on people because I have some sort of personal grudge. All I’m doing is stating reality, and if you think that comic books are more important than reality then you are already beyond help.

But back to the silly little cop show. The Flash might as well be Peter Parker/Spiderman. He has girl problems, is traumatised by a family death, is very smart, attractive, young, and he is a cop, so a good guy.

The narrative was typical cop show stuff. Not interesting at all. Comic book fans will enjoy the references to comic book stuff (Gorilla Grodd) but it’s just another in a long, long line of hero cops saving helpless victims show. Remember viewers, you are a victim, you cannot help yourself. Wait for the uniforms. Wait for those in positions of authority to help/arrest you.

Professor X makes a guest appearance

See I told you I wasn’t going to waste too much of my time on what is ultimately just another pointless television show.

My summary: It’s a statist, corporate Police state show, with a young, powered up protagonist to make it all look cool to the children watching at home.

It’s a show that glorifies ignorance, apathy and the New World order.

It teaches children that goons in uniforms are gods and that the biggest problem in the banking sector is bank robbers.

Why rob a bank in a mask when you can do it in a suit and tie? Rob a bank in a mask and the Police will try to kill you. Rob it in a suit and they will protect you.

Oh, was I talking about reality again?

Sorry about that.

As for Flash, the super contemporary, super-smart television ‘programme’ for good little slaves?

Go on, knock yourselves out.

Enjoy it.

Don’t listen to me.

What do I know?

I’m just free.

That’s all.


Rating: 2/10 (Because the acting is okay, and at least Flash has a good relationship with his Dad and that’s rare in new world order dramas today).

Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD S2-E1: Starring Xena Warrior Princess as the Pink Power Ranger

Series Two- Episode One: ‘Shadows’

UK premiere: 24th October 2014 (on Channel 4)


‘The American Government is one of the lesser evils,’ so says one of the special agent/power-rangers near the end of the episode, thus encapsulating the entire problem with the premise of the show. When you choose a lesser evil, what do you get?

You get evil.

Oh, by the way, the power-ranger (I’m just going to call them that now, because that’s what they are) who made that statement about supporting evil was Xena Warrior Princess, or at least the actress who used to play her. No, I’m not making this all up. I don’t drink, and I don’t take drugs either. All of this is very real, and very, very stupid.

Agent Coulson. Still the best thing about the show.

So why did I bother watching it in the first place? Because of the last Captain America movie where SHIELD was shown to be compromised by foreign elements, a group called Hydra, who were a very obvious stand-in for the real world globalists, or new world order group that controls western governments. It was a situation where the world of comics had to recognise real world concerns that have been brought to light in recent years by revelations by actual, flesh and blood real American heroes like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden.

Marvel comic books usually ignore the world around them. It’s difficult for them, because they need simple heroes and simple villains. For over a decade now America has been waging war around the globe for corporate profit, based on obvious deceptions and with Orwellian level propaganda being pumped out by the corporate media to justify these crimes against humanity. I assume that Marvel comic book writers are not stupid people. They must realise what is going on, but rather than deal with the contradictions and controversies of our times, they prefer to ignore them, and instead pick up a pay cheque.

The last Captain America movie was such a success because it dealt with the issues that Marvel comic books have been ignoring, and it was bloody entertaining as well. So this new series of MAOS was interesting to me, as it had the opportunity to take the ball from an excellent movie, and run with it.

What it actually did is devolve everything back to simplistic heroes and villains, with a group of childish Power Rangers running around saving poor helpless Americans from the evil bad guys who hate their freedoms. It was the same statist loving propaganda that is being pushed by the comics. Trust the uniforms, trust the politicians, be a helpless victim, do what you are told, all questioning is bad, business as usual.

Twenty minutes in I was finding it all very difficult to watch. There is enjoyment to be had in some of the character interactions, and as a cartoon about villains with cool super-powers, but when you strip it down as an ideological construct it’s as ignorantly chilling as a fly-over before a football match. Support the troops, support perpetual war, trust authority, go back to sleep.

Rating: 2/10

Movie review: The Babadook- Terrifyingly real

Movie trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVxOrUjX-bc

Official website:
Www.discoverthebabadook.com

Dir: Jennifer Kent. Starring: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Daniel Henshall, Tiffany Lyndall-Knight, Benjamin Winspear, Carmel Johnson. 15 cert, 95 min.

UK release date: October 24th 2014



The Babadook is an old-fashioned psychological horror movie, with modern technology largely shut out, thus creating a claustrophobic, isolated environment where a bereaved mother and her young son attempt to come to terms with the loss of her husband and his father.

It is a movie that could have been set in 1950, as the ubiquitous surveillance devices stuck to the side of temples are missing and Internet/social media is rejected early on. The mother declares it bad for the child, and that’s the first and last we hear of it. What we are left with is a very quiet house, a busy uncaring world, and a mother and child slowly going insane through lack of connectivity, empathy and the dominance of unresolved grief in their lives.

Isolation and grief

The Babadook itself is a creature that feeds on the isolation, grief and unresolved trauma that dominates the family’s life. The mother, rummaging around her old book shelves to find a new bedtime story for her little boy finds a mysterious book titled, ‘Mr Babadook.’ She reads it to him, slowly discovering that this is no ordinary bedtime story book. She stops reading before the end, but it’s too late. The creature has been given a doorway. He’s in, and for the rest of the movie he makes their lives a living Hell. All is explained, in a subtle way, at the end of the movie, it makes sense, and you leave the cinema feeling satisfied.

This is one of those movies that literally screams quality from the very beginning. It’s shot beautifully, with painstaking attention to detail, but it’s not forced, pretentious and trying to be something that it’s not. Have you ever experienced one of those up their own backsides Hollywood movies that are obvious Oscar bait for some middle-aged big name actor? I have, and they are blooding irritating beyond belief. This isn’t one of those movies. It looks great, sounds great, is unsettling, creepy and scary and it has huge emotional resonance as well.

Terrifying

The acting is exceptional. A bad child actor would have ruined the movie, but the seven year-old kid (Noah Wieseman) in this movie is amazingly good. Surprisingly good really, in that he comes across like a normal, slightly disturbed child. He’s not a Hollywood kid; he’s just a kid. And his mother, she is amazing. The range of emotions she goes through, pouring out onto the screen the torments of her soul, it really is an outstanding performance. I usually ignore the Oscars, but if ever an actress deserves an Oscar, it’s Essie Davis for her performance in this movie.

This would be an easy 10/10 movie for me, if not for the one issue I referenced in my opening couple of paragraphs. I understand why it distances itself from the contemporary issues that are destroying the sense of freedom and democracy in the west. It made the choice to isolate the small family, thus itensifying the sense of isolation and claustrophobia. That choice made the movie what it was, but why not have a couple of nods to what is going on in the world today? Perhaps it wasn’t possible? Perhaps the state surveillance issues of today had to be ignored to make the movie as effective as it was? That’s probably true, but even so, to get a perfect score from this reviewer you have to give me some acknowledgement that you are aware, and engaging with the issues that are dominating our times. It was a great movie, but it didn’t really say anything about the world as it is today.

Apart from that one issue, the movie is a world removed from what I usually experience at the cinema. Genuinely unsettling, emotionally engaging, beautifully shot, with tremendous use of sound and with outstanding performances from the two leads. The Babadook is a superior piece of cinema and the best horror movie since that I’ve seen since ‘Let the Right One In’ in 2008. If you’re going to the cinema any time soon, this is the movie that you’ll want to see.

Rating: 9/10

Comic review: Red Lantern #35- Hailing from the shining beacon of democracy and freedom that is Dubai

Godhead arc: Act 1, Part 5

Writer: Charles (Holiday in Dubai) Soule
Artist: J. Calafiore
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 22nd October 2014

This review is sponsored by the following video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhnUgAaea4M


Writer Charles’s Soule takes the baton for this fifth part of the Godhead series, immediately drops it, slowly walks back to pick it up, and then concludes his lap with an embarrassed jog.

It starts badly when the narrative begins in Dubai, portrayed as a paradise of flesh, fun, beer and sun. The reality behind Dubai can be summed up in the following four paragraphs (I’ll leave a link to the article at the end of this review).

Our heroes chilling in Dubai

‘Dubai is finally financially bankrupt – but it has been morally bankrupt all along. The idea that Dubai is an oasis of freedom on the Arabian peninsular is one of the great lies of our time.

Yes, it has Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts and the Gucci styles, but beneath these accoutrements, there is a dictatorship built by slaves.

If you go there with your eyes open – as I did earlier this year – the truth is hidden in plain view. The tour books and the bragging Emiratis will tell you the city was built by Sheikh Mohammed, the country's hereditary ruler.

It is untrue. The people who really built the city can be seen in long chain-gangs by the side of the road, or toiling all day at the top of the tallest buildings in the world, in heat that Westerners are told not to stay in for more than 10 minutes. They were conned into coming, and trapped into staying.’

Like I said before, it’s a bad start. The narrative then goes straight into ‘America F*** Yeah’ World Police inanity, with the superheroes talking about the evil dictatorship of fictional neighbours ‘Qurac’ (sounds a lot like Iraq, doesn’t it?). They of course have no sense of irony that they themselves are currently residing in a country owned and controlled by a self proclaimed, unelected monarch.

Dubai, where money buys an escape from reality

The heroes then proceed to invade Qurac (again, very familiar) to stop the western unfriendly dictator (as it appears they are perfectly happy with the Dubai dictator) but are stopped by the New Gods who are after their rings. The New Gods hang around for five minutes, get a call on their galactic mobiles and then bugger off again to do more important things in the universe. They leave a battered Quracci dictator behind them, whom I presume will be summarily executed by the Green Lantern Kangaroo court, much in line with current US foreign policy.

What the Hell was this?

I’ll tell you what it was. It was a filler book with the usual US World Police absence of reality mindset from writer Charles Soule. All the book achieves is to half-heartedly put the Red Lantern characters into the Godhead arc. That’s it. A stupid book, inconsequential story and a complete waste of my time.

The Green Lantern Godhead arc has been fantastic so far, so one book out of four being absolutely awful isn’t that bad going really. The arc continues in Sinestro #6 next week, and as it’s written by Cullen Bunn, and not the purposefully ignorant and phoning it in Charles Soule I’ll be looking forward to reading it and forgetting that Red Lantern #35 even existed at all.

Rating: 2/10 

Click on link below for the truth about Dubai.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-a-morally-bankrupt-dictatorship-built-by-slave-labour-1828754.html

Blitz review: Justice Inc #3- A good way to learn about 1930’s ‘Pulp’ history

Writer: Michael Uslan
Artist: Giovanni Timpano
Publisher: Dynamite Comics
Released: October 22nd 2014


If you can get over the fact that all of the heroes in Justice Inc are establishment authority figures, thus legitimising the statist/corporate status quo, and if you can also put up with the narrative being largely based in Tibet, that safe comic book home of faux-western spirituality, then there’s some enjoyment to be had in this series.

The characters themselves, although corporate authority figures, are interesting because they are being developed as if they were brand new. The book has little contemporary relevance, but as an enjoyable diversion, and as a way to discover comic book heroes that were big time stars before the current age of Batman, Spiderman and the Avengers, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Issue #3 develops all three main characters, and we even see the birth of one of them, and an explanation of his new powers. The writing has some thought behind it as well. It’s book-ended with one paragraph of context explanation of the narrative so far, and ends with a few pages where writer Michael Uslan explains some of the references made within the story. That’s very reader friendly, and I give him huge credit for that.

You’ll be particularly interested in this book if you want to learn more about the comic book heroes of the 1930’s days of pulp, and Orson Welles on the radio. For that reason alone it’s more interesting than the majority of irrelevant comic books that are on the market today.

The art is fine, not great, but okay, the story has been well researched, and the characters are interesting as well. It’s nothing spectacular, nothing revolutionary, or even that thought provoking, but it’s enjoyable, and as a ten-minute comic book that doesn’t insult my intelligence too much I’m giving it a thumbs up as a good short dose of silly, learn about the history of comic books fun.

Rating: 7/10

Dyatlov Pass Incident- concept album: 1959 by Ellorsith

'1959' by Ellorsith

Released: 26th July 2014

Released by: Caligari records
http://caligarirecords.storenvy.com/collections/277955-all-products/products/9611893-ellorsith-1959-cal-015

Get album (you can download it for next to nothing) here:
https://ellorsith.bandcamp.com/releases



I’m a big proponent of hunting down (and paying for) cool, original, independently produced music that is free from the tyranny of corporate mainstream media control and editorial manipulation, but even I have problems sifting through the hundreds and hundreds of bands and labels that are out there.

It’s difficult to know where to start, even when like myself you are basically only looking within the death/black metal genres. Sometimes I check out the desperately lame corporate metal magazines, but aside from a free CD on the front cover I get little of worth from them, especially when their take on rebellion is to have a go at Jesus and to drink yourself into liver disease. They are lame, tame and almost completely useless when it comes to seeking out original, cool bands, especially bands that actually want to say something that has contemporary socio-political relevance.

So what I end up doing is going on the Internet, normally on bandcamp, and take a lucky dip. I’ll listen to a couple of minutes of a band’s stuff, and pay for a cassette/CD and digital download. If you want to get the attention of somebody like me, somebody who will pay for your stuff, and do a quick review of it on his blog, here are a couple of things that would help me out, and make it more likely that I would check out your stuff.

1- Make your song titles/lyrics have contemporary relevance to the fascist new-world-order tyranny that is being constructed around us right now.
2- Have a really cool album cover/artwork.
3- Do an interesting concept album on something cool, occult, creepy, paranormal, historical, philosophical or socio-politically relevant.

Yeah, I know. Asking bands to discuss important issues rather than having a go at easy targets like Christianity and Fox News is probably asking for a bit too much at the moment. I understand. We have all gone through the same system of educational/mainstream media brainwashing since birth, so breaking out of the matrix is bloody difficult. Most people don’t do it because they don’t even see the matrix in the first place. But having a cool cover on your album is something that a band can easily do, as is an interesting concept album. That’s what led me to check out ‘1959’ by Ellorsith. The cover works, but it’s the concept that intrigued me.

Here's the team at the beginning of their expedition

I vaguely knew about the concept they were taking on.  A team of Russian mountaineers goes missing in suspicious circumstances right in the middle of the phoney US/USSR ‘cold-war period.’ A search party eventually finds their bodies, and it all looks very weird, and absolutely terrifying. If you want more details then click on the links at the end of this review.

In short, nobody is quite sure of exactly what happened, and how an experienced team of mountaineers all died in such bizarre and mysterious circumstances. Was it an avalanche? A military testing site? A Yeti? A UFO?  A Russian snow goblin? You get the picture, anyway the point is that something like this would make a great concept album for a shouty, screamy metal band, and that’s exactly what 1959 by Ellorsith is. They’ve done what should have been done bloody ages ago and made an album based on it. So, to the obvious question, is it any good?

Yeah mate, it’s bloody brilliant. Twenty seven minutes of howling winds, guttural despairing wails, growls, screams, pleading for mercy (in Russian) and the overall feeling of sheer unadulterated freezing cold terror. If you didn’t know this album was about some poor kids being scared sh**less, then one listen will fill you in very quickly, no context needed.

Here they are at the middle, just kids really.

It starts slowly, with a voice that sounds like a young mountaineer recording a voice message before the disastrous, final trek. The background music is already foreboding, menacing, the calm, but bloody creepy as heck calm, before the world falls onto their heads.

What follows is screaming terror, a cacophony, wall of sound snowblast of noise with what sounds like a supernatural beast screaming about what it's going to do to the poor mountaineers. It’s unrelenting, brutal, horrific and intense as anything you can possibly imagine. This is music with a purpose, and that purpose is to invoke a feeling of terror. It does this, extremely well.

The album closes with a track called, ‘Compelling natural force’ which is the phrase used by official investigators of the incident, basically admitting that they didn’t have a clue about what happened, other than it was violent, inexplicable and that everybody died. This track sounds like men lost in a forest, running from something, they are exhausted with nowhere left to run, they stop, cry to their mother’s, and wait for their inevitable death.

If you are planning on a hiking expedition then you’ll want to give this one a miss, especially now in these winter months when the darkness is creeping around us from dawn to dusk. It’s a pretty bloody terrifying listen, creating an atmosphere of constant dread, fear and oh crap, I guess that time has finally ran out for me terror.

The remains of their tents, ripped open from the inside.

We’ll probably never know what happened on the Dyatlov Pass, but this album does a horrifically fantastic job of describing the awful emotions that were running through the minds of the poor kids who went through it all.

I’m very much looking forward to Halloween this year, as I always do, but Halloween is always Scooby Doo horror to me. It’s funny, silly old Farmer Jones in a daft mask getting exposed by the stoner Dog and his buddies. 1959 is not Scooby Doo horror; it’s real horror. The kind of horror you feel when all hope is lost and you are running barefooted in the snow with some unknown monstrosity stalking your every frost-bitten footstep.

Some of the mountaineers died of exposure and hypothermia, but some of them died due to blunt force trauma. The injuries were described as being supernatural, coming from something that was not human. One of the female climbers had her tongue missing. That ain’t Scooby Doo, that’s bloody terrifying, and so is this album.


Rating: 10/10 (great concept, even better album)


Click here for more info on the Dyatlov Pass incident:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident

Youtube video on the incident:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVHFHIP9eWk

Comic review: Edward Scissorhands #1- The return of creepy old Edward

Writer: Kate Leth
Artist: Drew Rausch
Publisher: IDW Comics
Released: 23rd October 2014


The only thing that felt contemporary to me about Edward Scissorhands #1 was the absence of any father figures in the narrative. That’s quite a common theme nowadays you know. Why? Simple really, the corporate state wants Father’s out of the home, replaced by Daddy State, who will control both Mum and Children with tax incentives, welfare and school/media propaganda from birth to grave.

But don’t children need a Dad in their lives? Doesn’t the lack of having a loving Father cause huge social, psychological, economic and societal problems? Yes, it does. But with any deliberately manufactured problem there’s a state sanctioned solution just waiting to clean up the mess. That’s what the illegal drugs, prisons, police and military are for. Some of the messed up children put on the uniforms of control, whilst others put on the uniform of prisoners. Abandoned children, now completely controlled by the corporate state. Why would the state want Fathers? Fathers mess things up, so they do all they can to get rid of them. But back to cuteville and old Edward Scissorhands.

I saw no sight or sound of the ubiquitous mobile devices that teenagers have glued to the sides of their heads these days, and there was no mention of any technology that didn’t exist when the movie came out in 1990. That was a bit odd as the book is set in the future, with the main protagonist being a teenage girl who was a baby in that movie. I know this will make me unpopular, but what I do on my blog is let you know exactly what I think about things, no self-censorship at all, just pure unadulterated truth from my mind straight onto the eternal void that is the Internet.

Do you know who Edward Scissorhands reminds me of? Edward Cullen from those dodgy Twilight movies, the eternally youthful old man who gets to hang out with teenage girls of every new generation. Creepy, isn’t it? But let’s not mention that, eh? It’s cute when creepy old guys with eternally youthful faces date jailbait schoolgirls. Isn’t it? If it’s a movie that made money that means it’s okay…….right???

Am I’m being a bit too harsh? Or am I just pointing out the sticky, uncomfortable truth? Because what happened in Twilight appears to be happening again in this comic. It’s a young looking old guy connected to young girls, and we’re supposed to find this cute and romantic? Not me mate.

In this book Edward Scissorhands is physically unchanged from over twenty-years ago, pottering around his Adams Family mansion being all cute and endearing. Whilst he is doing so a young schoolgirl is having Mom and school problems, her father is mentioned, but is physically absent, and so she is ripe for the pickings for cute old man Edward. That is a neon warning sign, and I would be engaging in wilful ignorance if I choose to ignore it.

But it’s supposed to be cute, and a woman writes it, and you’re looking too deeply into things. No I’m not. I’m just pointing out the reality of it all. That’s all I’m doing here. Let’s face it. Would you want Edward to be messing around with your school-age daughter? I bloody wouldn’t. I don’t care how cute it is. It’s just bloody weird, and wrong.

But this is a book about outsiders, I hear you complaining. Yeah, outsiders in 1990 mate, not real outsiders in 2014. The outsider in this book is not a cute (and young) Johnny Depp. He’s an old man living by himself who doesn't have any friends, and there is a young schoolgirl in the village who is obviously going to seek out and befriend him in future issues.

Is that cute?

Are you sure it’s cute?

Do you want to rethink that?

I’m not saying this is all deliberate. All I’m saying is that this is supposed to be teaching us lessons about bullying and being an outsider, but there’s something very iffy about it all. Iffy like the Twilight movies. Iffy in a way that makes me feel really uncomfortable with it all. This ain’t cute. It’s old man weird. Just uncomfortably, check Edward Scissorhand’s hard-drive weird.

Does my reaction say more about myself than the book itself? I don’t think so. I live in the UK, and one of the most famously ‘eccentric’ old men who we all grew up with on our television sets also had a thing for being lovably odd and befriending young girls with absent fathers. His name was Jimmy Saville. We knew him as Jim’ll fix it. He liked to fix things, just like Edward in this book. I’ll leave a link below.

Rating: 5/10 (Cute book with very creepy undertones)


Click link below for the context of this review:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Savile_sexual_abuse_scandal

Comic review: Memetic #1- Don’t worry, government will save you from the Internet

Writer: James Tynion IV
Artist: Eryk Donovan
Publisher: Boom! Studios
Released: 22nd October 2014


A good way to judge the mindset and world-view of any writer’s work is to examine whom they position as heroes/villains in their narrative. In issue #1 of Memetic by James Tynion IV the heroes are the military and the government. The villains, at the moment, are unclear, but the tools they are using are the Internet and social media.

'Look into my eyes.'

The story is simple. A meme of a hypnotic Sloth goes viral. It makes people feel good, then turns them into blood crazed, murderous zombies. The Internet attacks the poor innocent people, so it needs to be shut down by the heroes working in the military and government. Does this sound familiar?

What happened in Tunisia when the people started to get fed up with their government and refused to keep on apathetically and cowardly supporting it? The government shut down the Internet, of course. What happened when the Hong Kong students refused to allow their criminal slave-masters to continue with business as usual? The government shut down the Internet. Or at least they tried to. The students found ways around it, and the Internet continued. Do you know why government fears the Internet? It’s because the Internet is freedom, and when people have freedom why do they need government?

Answer is, they don’t, and so the only interesting thing about Memetic is to find out whether or not government (or the banks/corporations/intelligence agencies/occulted secret societies) that run it are behind the Internet ‘problem’ that has made the government want to shut it down.

I could read this book, hoping than in two-issues time it will be revealed that the government created a panic just so it could gain tighter control on their slave public, but so far I see no hints that the book is going in that direction.

Instead, what I read is a scare story about the evils of the Internet, and with the heroes being the usual feminist liberal crowd working for the military industrial complex, the very evil that has turned this planet into one giant prison camp in the first place.

What I see with this book is an old man going, ‘Oh, look at that scary Internet. It’s brainwashing people. Something must be done about it. Save me government, save me pentagon, save me heroic young feminist.’

Decent art

That sounds like a load of old man bullshit to me, and so I won’t be reading any more of this book. Hey, if I’m wrong in a couple of months I’ll gladly admit my error and buy the trade paperback and put up a grovelling review here on my blog where I will personally apologise to writer James Tynion IV. I hope that happens, but it’s looking a bit unlikely at the moment.

I’m fed up of reading books where the heroes are all ignorant children, pet dogs of the power elite’s who control this planet. Heroes do not wear uniforms. Heroes reject uniforms. Uniforms are slavery. You do not work for the people when you put on a military uniform, you obey orders, you do what you are told, and the people who give you your orders are not good people, they are slave-masters, they are the enemies of human freedom. This is not my opinion. Uniforms have always been symbols of state control and slavery, always have been, and always will be.

Put on a uniform, wear their badges and you are a tool of the system of human enslavement FULL STOP. Stop giving me more uniformed slaves. Not interested mate. Give me a hero unattached to the control system of human slavery. Give me something new, something real, something that doesn’t bow down to uniforms and the corrupt scum who act like God. They are not gods, and we are not their dutifully worshipping slaves.

We need to start a revolution where we refuse to be their poor, helpless, dumbed down sacrificial victims.  A revolution where we stop looking for them to save us from the engineered (Ebola) crisis’s that they themselves manufacture to keep us scared, dependent slaves. We are free people, but people who choose to bow down to the slavery of uniforms, and until we get rid of the tyranny of uniform it will be absolutely impossible for us to be anything other than their slaves.

This comic is still bowing down to uniforms, and because of that one reason, I cannot recommend it for any free thinking person’s reading pleasure. That could change, but at the moment, it’s just another book about a random villain using the Internet to turn the people into zombies. And in positions to save us, it’s the same old crowd in government uniforms, sigh.

Rating: 6/10 (based on my reservations about it's statist worship)

Click link for details of recent government censorship of the Internet during ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Arab_Spring

Click link for recent government censorship attempts in Hong Kong:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/01/world/asia/chinese-web-censors-struggle-with-hong-kong-protest.html?_r=0

Wrestling fanzine review: The Atomic Elbow #11- Nostalgia, the iron claw of death

Get a copy here:
http://theatomicelbow.blogspot.co.uk/

Click here for a very funny pro wrestling nostalgia podcast:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/old-school-wrestling-podcast/id334529079?mt=2

Click here for my favourite song about the death that is nostalgia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMMkXvzTvYA



When the entertainment of your youth enters the realms of commercial nostalgia you know it’s day in the sun has passed. It has become little more than a replay, a spectral apparition for the comfortably numb.

Nostalgia is a box set for the suburb dwelling masses. The silently complicit who pay their taxes for war and slavery whilst not getting involved in the world around them, a world they support through their quiet, apathetic resignation and comfortable, selfish cowardice.

Nostalgia digs up a corpse for this moribund sofa dwelling generation. Look at how it moves when we shake its fleshless limbs. Look at how it smiles when we stretch its toothless jaws. Buy the special edition programme, the T-shirt, the autographed photograph of the dead star. Is that what pro wrestling has now become?

Perhaps there is a new generation of young fans who are going to revive the corpse, but at the moment it appears (at least to my eyes and ears) that those still paying attention to modern pro-wrestling are only doing so for their own personal, nostalgic reasons and because it gives them a creative outlet, with an in-built (and sadly declining) audience they wouldn’t have if they were blogging/podcasting on other, more serious, relevant and contemporary subject matters.

‘The Atomic Elbow’ is one of those creative outlets. A fanzine in the style of the much loved old fanzines that I myself used to subscribe to many decades ago. Full of spelling errors and stream of consciousness thoughts about pro-wrestling put together in an A3 black and white, folded and stapled down the middle, made in the bedroom and local library style. That’s exactly what The Atomic Elbow is. A nostalgic blast back into my past, with the big difference being that the people writing in the fanzine are not, as they were twenty odd years ago, talking about what is happening today, they are talking about what happened in the past. A vehicle of nostalgia, in form and content, this fanzine is not bringing the corpse back to life, it’s keeping it dead, driving the stake deeper, making sure the beast does not stir.

To be fair, there are a couple of brief moments of life in AE11. The Undertaker’s streak being broken is mentioned, but the discussion is more about how they are ruining future nostalgic opportunities, rather than what is most exciting for the wrestling product of today. Dolph Zigler is the favourite wrestler of a lapsed, now back into it female fan. She watches the WWE today with her husband. This is not the fanzine writer that I grew up with. A female, and married? No way, not happening mate. Where are the basement dwelling, anti-social young men? The girl repellent, obsessive compulsive King geeks who wear ECW T-shirts and write reams and reams of over the top prose about the latest five star matches from Japan? Where have they all gone? Suicide, homelessness, career or marriage? I miss those guys. I miss the early days of ECW, the fanzines, the independent shows, the laughing at Adam Bomb and King Mabel, the times before the death that is nostalgia kicked in.

That’s not to say that AE11 is a complete waste of time, because it isn’t. There is enjoyment to be had, but it’s death enjoyment, nostalgia sprinkled with sadness at recognition that most of the wrestlers you are reading about didn’t have a happy ending. The best article is about World Class Championship wrestling, and the Von Erich family. Need I say more? But still, I enjoyed the article. It’s written in a carefree, funny style that, again, reminds me of the old fanzines, plus it gave me some new information on a wrestling event that featured the Ultimate Warrior before he nailed down his gimmick. How did his story end? We know, and it’s sad. That’s nostalgia for you. You cannot live in the past, and if you try it will end up killing you.

So was this just a sad affair then? Another case of going back to the past because the present offers nothing, but when you go back all you find is dead memories and dead people?  It kind of was. The sadness is not in the nostalgia itself, but in the fact that life still goes on, and if you don’t find something new to cling onto, the past becomes a skeletal claw from the grave, tempting you closer, closer, until it grabs, and pulls you into the abyss.

Rating: Look, but don’t linger. 

Insane Tales from the Dead Issue 2, Volume 1: Halloween frights

Writers/ Artists: Doug Randazzo and numerous

Released: Halloween 2014

Website to order a copy: 
http://www.insanetalesfromthedead.com/



A good horror short, in the style of a television episode of Tales from the Crypt or EC horror comic has to have a satisfying ending where a twist in the narrative leads to a morally dubious character getting the instant karma that s/he deserves. Horror therefore isn’t really about the horror; it’s about the good story. If you don’t have a good story, if you don’t have strong characters, and if you don’t have a strong ending, then you don’t have a good horror narrative. What you have instead is grimness, and a celebration of being gross for the sake of being gross. It can be very childish and teenage boy as well. Oh look, it’s somebody sawing a guy’s leg off.

KEWL MAN!

Do you know what I mean? What made the movie Seven a good movie? The horror, or the twist at the end? It was the twist, wasn’t it? It elevated what would otherwise have been just an unpleasant movie about a disgusting individual into something that made you feel satisfied, and totally grossed out of course, when you left the cinema. It made you feel like you got your money’s worth. That’s what a good movie is supposed to do, horror or otherwise.

Thus, when I read ‘Horror’ genre comics I’m looking for a good story first, and the horror, and art, are secondary concerns. ‘Insane Tales from the Dead Issue 2, Volume 1’ has points of interest, but does it contain a fully formed, satisfying horror story? No, it doesn’t have one of those.

What it does have is a funny story about aliens making everybody on planet Earth need to go to the bathroom at the same time. The story concludes with a ridiculous panel where the entire planet is subjected to its second world-wide flood, but this time Yahweh/Allah/El/Jehovah/Whatever is not involved.  That was a funny story. There was no moral lesson, no characters/ protagonists, but it was funny, and probably the best thing about the book.

A werewolf tale didn’t work because the protagonist was unfairly punished whilst his unpleasant, horror hating girlfriend was spared. It should have been the other way round. That would have been satisfying to the reader, but instead, the opposite happened.

A tale about alien musicians was more or less an advert for a bands myspace (does that still exist?) page.

‘Torture’ was unpleasant, and it went nowhere.

A story about a squirrel being tamed and then killed by a watchful crow was equally unpleasant, but it had a better structure to it.

Some pages of random horror artwork followed. A guy called Mortuss Art showed some talent, but the rest of it was a bit ‘high-school teenage boy doodling in the back of his textbook’ in its quality.

It sounds like I didn’t much enjoy this book, but I don’t want to conclude this review by giving the impression that I hated it, because I didn’t.

I would much rather read independently produced comic books, such as this one, than all of the mainstream superhero, statist junk that dominates the comic book industry today. I enjoyed the roughness and amateur nature of it all, and it wasn't trying to be something that it was not. It screamed independence and ambition, two HUGE plusses in my book.

I want people to keep on producing independent comics, to do them over and over and over again until they’re so bloody good that some twit like me will be absolutely unable to say one single negative thing about them. I’ll leave this book thinking, and laughing about aliens making everybody poo themselves. I’ll tell you what. That’s a lot more than I’ll get out of reading the latest copy of Spiderman, Avengers, Wolverine, X-men, Captain America or Batman.

Rating: A couple of Pumpkins and a bag of sweeties

Comic book review: Winterworld #3- The cult of Gore

Writer: Chuck Dixon
Artist: Butch Guice
Publisher: IDW Comics
Released: 8th October 2014


Why was I reading a comic book about some bloke, his teenage ‘charge’ and her cute badger? Why was I reading what is ostensibly just another post apocalyptic, dystopic wasteland book? I wasn’t quite sure. There was something about the writing, something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, until now.

Issue #3 has clarified a few things in my mind. I know why I’m reading the book now, and I’m glad that I let my subconscious mind guide my comic book reading choices.

This isn’t going to be a long review. I hate them, and who reads them anyway? There’s going to be nothing about the art here. There will be no analysis of the panel layout and narrative flow. I have something very simple to say, a quick point, and so I’ll make it and get out of here.

Creepy cults are common in comic books and action based narratives. You know how it goes, right? Charismatic leader, brainwashing, ridiculous ideas, end of world scenario, cult is bad.

There’s a ‘cult’ comic book out there at the moment that’s doing pretty decent business. That book is called ‘Sheltered, by Ed Brisson and Johnnie Christmas. It’s not a bad book, it’s okay, and it’s doing the cult thing quite well. The problem however is that it’s just another cult book, in a long line of cult books. The book is William Golding's Lord of the Flies, updated, somewhat, for the ‘Prepper’ generation. The main problem I have with ‘Sheltered’ is that the cult it chooses to demonise is a cult that is politically safe to do so. It’s a safe area, and because it’s safe it doesn’t really say anything. The biggest cult problem of our times is the cult of government worship, but comics don’t go there. Some cults must not be discussed.

Winterworld #3 introduces a cult that isn’t often acknowledged, at least in the neo-liberal mainstream media, as a cult at all. No, it’s not the cult of government worship, but it’s a good second best.

The cult that is being addressed here is the cult of man-made global warming believers.

I couldn’t believe it when I first read this. A 2014 comic book where the UN funded, Al Gore worshipping corporate man-made global warming fanatics are shown to be the deluded, nonsensical cult of gibbering, creepy morons that they actually are.

Chuck Dixon, thank you.

I have in my hands a comic book that appears to be mocking the corporate sponsored, anti-human, anti reality cult of man-made global warming. How did this get pass the liberal censors? Has anybody noticed this yet? I’m reading a ‘cult’ book where the cult is based on a real-life, ideology driven cult.

Wow.

Brilliant.

I knew there was something about this book, something that was keeping me reading. Now I know what it is. It’s the writer.

Chuck Dixon is a rare comic book writer who knows what is going on, and I’m so grateful that I’ve managed to find him. Somehow, subconsciously I’ve managed to stumble into something alive, something refreshingly honest in this age of corporate mainstream deception.

Winterwold is a book that is exposing a cult that actually needs exposing. This is what comic books should be doing, but so few of them actually are.

Thank you Chuck Dixon. Thank you for sticking your head above the parapet. Thank you for treading the less trodden path. Thank you for introducing real world ideas and concepts into the depressingly conformist and painfully politically correct neo-liberal world of 2014 comic books. This might start a new fad. Reality being addressed in comic books. That would be something new, and something worth exploring, don’t you think?

Rating: 9/10

Comic review: The October Faction #1: Halloween greetings from the Worm

Writer: Steve Niles
Artist: Damien Worm
Publisher: IDW
Released: 8th October 2014


I love Halloween. Everything about it screams (literally) silliness, fun, excitement and adventure. The cold, wet, dark nights, the Pumpkin lights, the trick or treating, the scary movies, and the even scarier comics as well, of course.

Worm and Niles are the spooky twosome who bought us the wonderfully gothic Monster & Madman, and here they’ve teamed up, just in time for Halloween 2014, to give us another dose of gloom and doom, comic book style.

Truth be told, I was already adding this book to my pull-list before I even read it. All you have to do is look at the names on the cover, flick through the book for a couple of seconds and you’ll already be a fan. The story involves a spooky Adam’s family scenario, monster hunters and mysterious goings ons involving a wife who has slowly become less attached to her husband. Is she having an affair? Nah, that would be far too boring. So what is she doing? What do you think? It’s coffin related, and that’s all I’m giving away.


The art, by the fantastically named Damien Worm, is gloriously gothic and enveloped in shadows, bloody memories of the recent past, seances, tormented spirits and haunted house atmosphere. It’s the colouring that does it. You have to look closely, but don’t linger for too long. You might not like what you find lurking in the gloom encrusted shadows, and once seen the spirits of the dead have a horrible habit of burying themselves into the deepest, hidden recesses of your mind. The book could be written in Mongolian for all I care. The art alone makes it a must by book for all fans of gothic horror.

Are you a Goth? If so, you need this book badly. If you’re not a Goth, then get the book anyway. Trust me, you’ll love it. You’ll discover something new, something awesome, as the kids says these days, or not, probably. I don’t know what the bloody kids are saying these days. What do I know? I’m old.

I’ll tell you what I do know though. I know a good slice of Halloween fun when I see it. This book is exactly what I need in my life right now. My decorations are up, my Medusa head is telling me to look into her eyes, my haunted tree is mocking me, and my Ghoul in a coffin is periodically jumping out at me as I scurry past his place of rest in my living room. Did I mention that I love Halloween? And I also love, love, love this comic. Put down that Batman book, and get yourself something spookalicious, just in time for Halloween.

Rating: 9/10

Television review: Gotham- Episode One: Penguin makes it worthwhile

UK Channel: Channel 5

UK Season: 1, episode 1

UK Premiere Date: 13 October 2014 at 9:00pm

Country of Origin: USA

Show trailer: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d1zpt6k5OI

Official website:
 http://www.fox.com/gotham/



There wasn’t anything particularly new in Gotham episode one. It was a television programme set in some alternate reality where people have mobile phones, but it didn’t resemble anything close to what you could call contemporary reality in a 2014 context.

The 'good cop' doing his cop show pose. 

It was established that the city is corrupt, and that you are probably better off just going along with the corruption if you don’t want to end up with a bullet in the back of your head. The main protagonist was, as you might expect, somebody new to the system who is going to change it by sticking to his personal code of morals, where he will do what is right, even at cost to himself, and his family. The problem was that this first episode had a cop out ending where the individual (a young Commissioner Gordon with a cool haircut) was faced with this moral dilemma, only to dodge it completely.

The underlying moral philosophy that will drive this show is that you can change a corrupt system by joining it. This is standard fare in all (corporate sponsored) television programming, pushing the idea that an individual can change a system by working within it. I have a problem with that. My main problem is that it’s a philosophy that (much like the ending of this episode) gives people a moral cop out. You don’t change a system by joining it. It incorporates you, and if you think that you are bigger than an entire societal system of evil and corruption, that you can change something a billion times bigger and more powerful than yourself then you an egotistical, programmed and utterly deluded individual. By joining any evil system you strengthen it, and the world keeps on turning, just like it always has done. All rebellion is incorporated. If you join, you lose. You change evil by refusing to join evil, not by kidding yourself that you can change it from within.

Penguin, the best thing about the show.

The show, looking at it from a character and narrative standpoint, wasn’t terrible. The plot was predictable, in that the killer wasn’t the killer. Of course he wasn’t, he never is in these shows. That was fairly obvious, but there were a couple of characters that made it more interesting to see it being played out. James Gordon was what you might expect from a show such as this. He was good cop playing with bad cops. The Penguin character was great though, a snivelling ambitious, cowardly, weasly psychopath who cares only about himself, and his future career progression. The guy who played him was the best thing about the show, by a long way. The ‘Fish’ character was somebody we have seen before, a ruthless crime boss. The twist was that she was not at the top of the crime pyramid, and was being used by a bigger fish in the pond. They kept that twist to the end, and that elevated the plot into something a bit more interesting than I thought it would be. The Bruce Wayne character has been done to death, so it was a good idea to keep him in the background. The child actor wasn’t great, but he looked like a young Bruce, so that will be enough. The fun part of the show, for comic book fans at least, will be to spot the younger versions of their favourite villains. This one had a young Poison Ivy. Her Dad was a low-level criminal; she hated him, but hated the Police even more. That makes sense. Oh yeah, the show had the Riddler in it as well.  I could watch the show just to spot the villains. That could be fun.

Gotham says nothing about our world. It’s just another cop show, with good cops and bad cops. The viewer’s point of view is obviously on the good cop, as he tries to change a corrupt system. Good luck with that mate. The plot was blah, with some nice twists at the end to make it appear more interesting than it actually was. The show looked big budget, and it also looked a bit like old comics. That was okay. The bloke playing Butler Alfred had a horrendously fake English accent. He’s English as well, so that was a deliberate choice made by the programme makers. I still don’t understand why they do that. What’s wrong with an English guy just talking like a real English guy? Oh yeah, Catwoman. She was hanging around, looking like a lost kitten that would survive about a minute and a half in the real world. She was too feeble for me, but, again, like Bruce I guess she was cast for her looks, nothing else. I’ll conclude this review with a couple of reasons why the programme wasn’t a complete waste of time. The young villains, and the Penguin. That’s all there is here. Is that enough? As a one hour weekly distraction? Yeah, it’s just about worth checking out. If you like your old Batman comics then the show should have enough to keep you interested, at least for a while.

Rating: 6/10