Alliance of 12

Ultimatum - Jeph Loeb and David Finch

Well, what can I say? Finch's art is superb. It's good to see a couple of heroes finally offing the villians. But other than that, it was overly violent, the Blob cannabilism bit was completely gratuitous and unnecessary. It was all a bit... shit, frankly. And kinda lame.

6/10

Ultimatum Requiem by various

UF4, USM and UXM get rounded out by these special issues. Except UF4's is actually a continuation of a plot line left hanging from Ultimatum, USM's is good, but you knew Parker wasn't dead. and UXM's was just... there. It didn't really seem to do anything...

7/10

Ultimatum Spider-Man by Bendis/Immomen

Pretty good but suffers as so many of the Ultimatum event books do, from being tied into the Ultimatum event so much you get confused what's going on. Promises an intersting new direction, however.

7/10

Ultimatum X-Men/Fantastic 4 by various

Again, suffers from being so intimately tied to Ultimatum it can't be read seperately. UF4 in particular suffers from also being tied into the Requiem story as well as Ultimatum itself.

6/10

I really think that this Ultimatum event would've been better if A) either Bendis, Mark Millar or Warren Ellis had written it and B) it had been done as a 12-issue maxi-series or something and not split between seven different titles with plot lines weaving out of the middle of one issue into the middle of another issue of another title.

Shall keep reading, however.

Delta Force Xtreme 2

Novalogic's latest Delta game is quite probably the best so far. It's using the best engine; DF: Black Hawk Down's modified C4 engine, so it's graphically pretty. It's got the right gameplay balance (except for the nerfed grenades and AT-4s) and unlike DFX, you can actually carry on a mission after you die without losing your experience points. I've become hooked on co-op online. 9/10

Ultimate Wolverine VS Hulk by Damon Lindeloff and Leinil Francis Yu

It was a long time in coming, but I think it was worth the wait. Storyline's pretty good, the art's not bad. Overall, a pretty solid effort.

8/10

Random musings.

TNG 'Losing the Peace' by William Leisner

Good book, continuing on the story from the Destiny trilogy. Nice to see more of the Federation and how people are coping. 8/10

DS9 'The Soul Key' by Olivia Woods

Another good one. Wraps up the Mirror Universe story in the DS9 novels, but leaves open a big plot for the future. 8/10

Been playing Delta Force Xtreme multi-player online. It's fun, but not awesome. Much like SP.

Downloaded the DFX 2 demo. Looks like an improvement over 1. Buying it at the end of the month, since it's £10 on Amazon.

Enjoying Panini's GI Joe comic. Pretty good considering it's aimed at 7-12 year olds.

Supervisor at work's annoying. Went off on one at her the other week for being so frigging annoying. Treating me like a 13 year old kid. I'm 31 and been there 13 years. I know the damn job.

Disney buys Marvel: Hope they keep out like they do with Pixar. More money for more movies is good.

Got week-long ban from TrekBBS after I called someone a swine for spoiling the latest New Frontier novel. The bastard. Just hope he got a warning too after calling me a 'mother's whore'.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Okay, they changed stuff, like all this nano-mites crap that means the majority of the villains aren't doing it for the cash, the ideaology or whatever, they're brainwashed. okay, Cobra Commander's not the old used car-salesman from the comic book, BUT they are a lot like the characters in the comics i'm most familiar with.

Snake Eyes is freaking badass. he - as a child - says one line, 'Master...Master...' but other than that says nothing, as he's taken a vow of silence.

Scarlett's hot and a badass. Her crossbow fires laser-guided explosive-tipped arrows.

Duke's badass. He's a real soldier through-and-through, hence a gag from Ripcord that he wasn't born, he's government issue. never seen Tatum in anything before, but he was good. i liked the character.

Heavy Duty's good, he's British and is tough and lugs around a BFG (not the Quake wep, a literal bfg) and takes charge well.

Ripcord's kinda the comic relief, but not in a bad way. he makes wisecracks like McClane in Die Hard and is a stand up guy. I liked him. (when he's been given morphine me makes a joke about Heavy Duty's 'life-like hair' and when HD grabs his wrist he quips he has a 'kung-fu grip' as well as the aforementioned GI joke.)

Hawk is great. Quaid really sells the idea of this guy being a tough nut general who doesn't stand messing.

Cover Girl is wasted as Hawk's aide. and literally by the bad guys.

Breaker's good. I liked him and he's the very Q-like man with all the tech gear.

Arnold Vosloo's good as Zartan and he does wind up shape-shifting and he does use disguises.

Sienna Miller's good as the Baroness. Very much a femme fatale in the way you expect and way hot.

Ecclestone's good as James McCullen. Very much a Bondian villain and winds up as 'Destro' at the end.

Storm Shadow's approriately badass and very much the cold ninja killer. Sadly, no redemption plot for him in 2...

Doctor Mindbender gets a name check and brief appearance, but you only know him as Mindbender from the name.

The Doctor, the man who will be Cobra Commander. Very nasty, very much a comic book villain in appearance and methods. I liked him (in a 'good villain' way)

The Pit's very impressive. as is MARS' underwater facility. (Think Bond turned up to 12) There's a cameo appearance from Brendan Fraser as 'Sgt. Stone' who appears to be a PT instructor type and very no-nonsense. There's a brief glimpse of an Asian woman who does martial arts, possibly Jinx? at least an allusion/homage in the same way the X-flicks did in the first 2 movies with Shadowcat and Jubilee.

They're very much a team and no one character's the hero - unlike the X-flicks where Wolverine rode roughshod over everyone else. Duke's captured and it falls to a chick, an Arab and two black guys to rescue him.

Yes, they're international. No, they're not based in Brussels. Actually, Egypt. No, they're not 'Global Integrated Joint Operations Entity' or whatever bullshit backronym it was, they're simply 'G.I. Joe'. And, despite the internationality, it doesn't really affect the story.

Basically, if you're in doubts as to whether to see it, think of it as a modern Bond movie, but with a team saving the day, not one man.

9/10

Wow. Just, wow. That was an incredible piece of television. Why could the show not have been this brillant from the beginning?

Naturally, I'm rather shocked and saddened that Ianto Jones was killed off and I am gobsmacked by the departure of Captain Jack at the end. Hopefully, he'll run into the Doctor again some time, but one wonders where this leaves Torchwood the show, does it carry on with an all-new cast or does it end there?

The 456 were the creepiest bastard aliens I've ever not seen and I was astounded by the fact that they were using the kids as narcotics...

Everyone likes to rave on about nuBSG and its so-called 'realism' and its 'dark, gritty, depressing' nature. This shat all over BSG.

Magnificent. That show is what I pay a license fee for. Well done, RTD, well done BBC Wales.

10/10

Yeah, that's right, Americanos, Britain got it first!!! YAAA BOO!!!

Ahem...

IT'S FREAKING AWESOME!

Two years after the events of TF1, the Autobots - now including Arcee, Sideswipe and Skids and Mudflap - are part of a joint military force with a Anglo-American force of troops. They're out hunting Decepticons, and the film starts with them taking Demolishor and Sideways in Shanghai. Neither lasts long, with Sideswipe in particular taking down Sideways in bad ass fashion.

The movie barrels along after that, introducing Soundwave, Ravage, the Fallen, Wheelie and Jetfire. The plot revolves around The Fallen's attempt to retrieve the Matrix of Leadership in order to gain Energon by destroying the sun.

This entails a big-ass scrap in Egypt and Devastator, who's not a combiner in the old G1 sense, ripping apart one of the Pyramids.

My few gripes are: Too many of the Transformers, especially the 'cons, go without names. Wheelie, despite his prominent role, is unnamed and neither are many of the 'cons who tear up Egypt. The one is, Sideswipe and Arcee aren't given enough to do. Hated the first one for skimping on developing some of the characters? This is worse.

Overall, I'm giving it 9/10

Star Trek Voyager: Full Circle by Kristen Beyer

The post-finale Voyager novels get going again in this cracker. I never read the four by Christie Golden (from what I've heard, I'm glad too) but I followed this okay and it was brilliant. Better than the series and made Commander Cardboard aka Chakotay interesting. Second best Voyager story I've read. Love the fact Voyager's going back to the DQ. 8/10

Star Trek: Mere Anarchy by various

The 40th anniversary e-book miniseries in print. Kirk's Enterprise tries to protect a planet from the effects of a rogue pulsar and revisits the planet over the next thrity years. Great stories, although the first suffers from having to be all set-up and no pay-off. The writers do a very good job of capturing each subtly different era (pre-TOS, TOS, inter-TOS/TMP, inter TMP/TWOK, pre-TUC and post GEN prologue) and the characters. Really enjoyed it. 8/10

Fringe season 1

OMFG! What a final shot!! This show went from kooky, fun and interesting to extremely interesting and kooky fun. And slightly sick. Can't wait for season 2. 9/10

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles season 2

OMG, THEY CANNED IT! YOU BASTARDS!

Especially on that cliffhanger!! Jesus! It did sag a bit in the middle of the season, but I still enjoyed every episode. Great show. 8/10

Heroes Volume 4

The show is still middling. I love it, but being brutally honest, it does suffer from some stupid-ass writing at times. The idea of having the Heroes rounded up and so on was great, as was them going on the run. Daphne's death was tear-jerking. I really hate that they killed her though. The season finale was... well... stupid. I can only hope they make that plot twist worthwhile. 8/10

Primeveal season 3

Boy, this was middling. On the upside, Yay, we got a new Army guy. Great new creatures. I like new character Sarah Page. on the downside, boo! they killed off Cutter and Lucy Brown as Jenny left. Some great creatures too. Loved the knight episode. 7/10

Ashes to Ashes season 2

Great season, definite improvement on series one, which was rather self-parodic at times. Another shock twist finale! 9/10

I really enjoyed this. Christian Bale's good as John Connor. Sam Worthington's also good as the mysterious Marcus Wright and Anton Yelchin gets far more to do as the young Kyle Reese than he did as Chekov in Trek.

The special effects work is brilliant, particularly the model 101 800 series Terminator. (if you know your Terminator-lore, you know what that means).

The film is a tad... patchy in the way it flits from John to Marcus and Kyle and back, but it does a very good job of depicting the world post J Day and thankfully, for a post-apocalyptic movie, largely avoids the cliched 'ruined landmark' thing, although we get a brief glimpse of a burnt Hollywood sign as well as seeing the wrecked Golden Gate bridge.

The action scenes are great and it's really cool to see that - at least by 2018 - the entire American war machine hasn't just vanished, we see a few V-22 Osprey tilt-rotors, a hell of a lot of UH-1 Hueys, a couple of Black Hawks and some A-10s. I was also impressed with the Resistance command being based on a nuclear-powered sub. Maybe next time we can see some tanks of Humvees.

There's some great additions to the metal army, as well, like the lumbering Harvesters who collect humans, the snake-like Hydrobots, the bike Mototerminators and the frisbee-style Aerostats. As well as the return of the 800 series, we also get a return of the aerial Hunter-Killer and a T-1 from Rise of the Machines.

Overall, 8/10

Pine was good as Kirk, Quinto was good as Spock. I also liked Pegg and Urban. Don't really think Cho got much to do. Seldana was good as Uhura. Yelchin's cod Russian accent was even more daft than Koenig's which is laughable since he is Russian.

Storywise, i thought it was okay. Not great. but not terrible. The science was terrible. All that black-hole time-travel bull was even more rediculous than some of the technobabble people slam VGR and TNG for. And a super-nova that threatens the entire galaxy?! Come off it!

I still hate the fugly ship. And i REALLY hated the engineering decks on the Kelvin and the E. it looked more like a pumping plant or power-station than a starship. they seem far too huge for the size of the ship.

Lens-flares. Yeesh. Seriously, what the hell was with that?

somehow it seemed forced that everyone wound up on the E the way they did. maybe it was because of Uhura's determination to be on the E, but somehow it just seemed laboured.

overall, i'm giving it a 7/10

Oh, I've just read on TrekBBS, engineering was filmed at Budweiser brewery. This explains a lot...

Wow. That was awesome. I loved it. Really good telling of Wolverine's origins. Good use of the existing X-movies mythos, with the appearance of teen Cyclops and a younger Xavier, but also good universe-building with the addition of character like Gambit (who thankfully lack the comics version's gumbo-thick accent), Wade Wilson and Blob.

The acting was good, the plot was good and the direction was also good for a guy who's last movie was some African indie flick.

8.5/10

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!!!

Fast and Furious Starring Vin Diesel and Paul Walker

A solid entry into the series. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was stunned that they killed off Letty, and disappointed that Roman Pierce from 2 didn't come back or even get a mention! I nearly cried when the yellow GT500 Ford Mustang got blown up. Overall 8/10

Planet of the Dead: Doctor Who Easter special

Starring David Tennant and Michelle Ryan

This was an exciting episode. I like the alien flying stingray monsters. Good creation. Loved the flying Double-decker. Michelle Ryan was foxy and cool and great. The Tritovore aliens were good as well. Nice that they were neither hostile nor allies. Also cool that the Doctor spoke their language, but we never understood it.

Overall 8.5/10

A Singular Destiny by Keith DeCandido

Following on from the Destiny trilogy of Star Trek novels, ASD sets up much of the post-Borg invasion galaxy. We get several snap-shots between chapters of life in the UFP and beyond, such as a counselor dealing with Vulcans who can't handle the attack, a casualty report of the dead, a report from a counselor who has to report a security guard for mudering six ex-Borg drones, the final log entry of the captain of a ship wiped out by the Borg and personal messages between the lead character's family. Said lead character is Sonek Pran, a 1/4 Bajoran, 1/4 Betazoid, 1/4 Vulcan 1/4 Human history teacher and special advisor to the UFP President who is sent on a diplomatic mission to the sundered Romulan Empire (a former military commander split the RSE into two nations when she grabbed a few worlds and declared herself Empress of the Imperial Romulan State.) This mission leads Pran, and the Aventine, from Destiny, to discover something big brewing...

Although the book's well written and Keith slides in some characters from his own Klingon Empire/IKS Gorkon novels and the SCE series, it does suffer slightly from a coherent narrative. It's a bit to episodic. 7/10

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Overall, this is a good series. The stories are shockingly brutal at times for a kids programme, but they're well written. The CG animation is top-notch too. The only thing that spoils it for me is the boneheaded things the Jedi sometimes do, such as in 'Blue Shadow Virus' Obi-Wan and Anakin wildly diving to catch phials containing the eponymous deadly disease when really they should simply flick their hand and catch the phials with the Power of the Force.

8/10

I'll be seeing Fast and Furious saturday. I'll try to do a review for that...

Okay, so I haven't posted in a while...

Had my birthday a few weeks back. Bought a shiny new digital camera and promptly had fun taking photos of my old GI Joe and Action Force figures. And myself. And my cat.

If you liked the Joe wallpapers I posted a while back, there's more here:

http://www.bloodforthebaron.com/customs/artwork/sundance/index.html

and here:

http://www.bloodforthebaron.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=3090

I've been watching and enjoying The Clone Wars series, Heroes vol. 4, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and a few old Doctor Who DVDs I borrowed off my sister.

I've also been writing an Action Force fan-fic.

And getting pissed off with all these militant Janeway fans whinging about her being killed off in the books. A TV character is killed in a book, and they act like their granny got murdered! GEEZ, get a life people!

YEAH! Marvel and SLJ have sorted things out and the awesome Mr Jackson's signed a NINE picture deal to play Nick Fury, including for Iron Man 2 and probably for Avengers, Cap America and - best news - they're developing a SHIELD picture!!

WOOHOO!!

WOOHOO!!

Some reviews of books: (Spoilers)

Ultimates 3 by Jeph Loeb, art by Joe Mad.

Nowhere near as bad as I'd thought. Nowhere near as good as Ultimates and Ultimates 2. A pretty average super-hero comic, really. 7/10

Ultimate Origins by Brian Michael Bendis, art by Butch Guice

Really good, thoroughly enjoyed it. Not completely in love with Fury as a World War 2 veteran, but hey-ho. 8/10

Destiny Book 3: Lost Souls by David Mack

The Borg are dead. Hoorah. Great book, great conclusion to the galaxy-shattering trilogy. 9/10

Ultimate Spider-Man: War of the Symbiotes by Bendis, art by Stuart Immomen

Another great story in a great comic. Bendis brings Venom back and also corrects the only thing I ever hated on USM; killing Gwen Stacy. And he does it in a really cool way. 9/10

Comments:

So, Marvel's cancelling all the Ultimate books after Ultimatum and relaunching USM, as well as starting 'New Ultimates' and 'Ultiimate Avengers'. The latter being written by Millar as I previously enthused about. Loeb's writing NU. Oh, dear...

The new trailer for Transformers 2 has got me majorly hyped. Even more than the SuperBowl spot did.

Three TV ads have aired in the US for Wolverine's movie. All 3 can be dug up on Yahoo movies. OMG! CYCLOPS!! YAAAAAAY!!!! Plus, y'know, Wolverine... AND DEADPOOL!!

I hate my love-life. I asked out a nice girl I work with. She's just got back with her ex. @*&#!

I've finished my book I've been writing. I've put it aside for now and started writing a fan-fic of Action Force. It's nice to be doing something a tad more realistic after a year of my book and a couple of years doing nearly a hundred Trek fan-fics...

ZOMFG!!!!! TEH GI JOE TRAILER IS AWESOME!!!!!!!1111!

Yeah, I freaking love it. It's available on the official site: http://www.gijoemovie.com/

It looks exciting, action packed and totally cool.

YO JOE!

The Transformers 2 trailer, (official site here: http://www.transformersmovie.com/) on the other hand, is also excellent, but also a lot shorter and more teasing. Looks like a USN aircraft carrier gets a kicking when a careless Transformer lands on it... some brief appearances of unidentified new Transformers and a glimpse of the returning Starscream...

Dragon's Claws was written by Simon Furman and illustrated by Geoff Senior way back in the halcyon days of 1988/1989 when i was a stripling of 10.

Set in 8162, the ten issue tale deals with a world where Earth is drifting closer to the sun, leading to ecological catastrophes and a broken society where violence is rife. In an attempt to quell the masses, the government had created 'The Game', blood-sport in which 5-person teams had to cross urban environments to reach 'home' while rival teams sought to stop them in any way possible. The greatest Game team was Dragon's Claws, who finally left in 8158 following the Miami Bloodbath, instituted by their rivals, The Evil Dead...

With the Game now seen as a brutal barbarity, the government shuts it down. In 8162, the Claws come out of retirement to work for the London based National Union of Retired Sports Experts (NURSE) as a commando force tasked with reining in the other surviving Games teams...

This masterpiece of typically British dystopianism was cruelly ended after 10 issues as the UK comics market couldn't support it, or several of its Marvel UK siblings.

Furman tells a brilliant story of Machiavellian politics, sinister schemes and suitably OTT nutters who competed in the Game. Senior's art work is a delight to behold and the whole thing is a work of brilliance. Presented in this collection are the entire 10 issue run and their guest appearance in 'Death's Head' #2, as well as a new foreward by Furman, an afterward by Rich Johnson of ComicBookResources' 'Lying in the Gutters' column and complete with a one-page charity piece done in 2006.

One of these movie studios snapping up comics properties ought to blag it, quick...

9/10

You know, sometimes it's not a good idea to look back at the stuff you loved as a kid...

Like, Knight Rider. I watched it a few years back on Five. Holy Snot, that show is lame as hell with the rose-tinted specs off. (And before you say it, shut up about the Hoff) or another example is the Transformers cartoons. Don't get me wrong, the 1986 animated movie is a minor masterpiece, but the series itself is utter dreck.

So, colour me cautious when I saw "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" was coming out on DVD. I loved the show as a kid, it's probably the biggest reason why I became a Marvel fan (the Hulk and Spider-Man live-action shows playing smaller parts), so I was excited, but I was also worried that it'd prove to be crap. I tried watching a couple of clips on YouTube and thought it looked okay, in the cold light of 2008.

So, I got it for Xmas, and watched it last Thursday and today.

And, it's actually pretty damn good. Alright, the animation's not brilliant compared to the CG-tastic toons of today, or even the 90s X-Men and Spider-Man toons, but it's not hideous. The stories are necessarily simplistic for 25 minutes of Saturday morning fun, but hot-damn I love it still.

It also includes a hell of a lot of stuff from the wider Marvel 'verse, including appearances from (among others), the X-Men (including an Australian Wolverine (WTF?!?!)), Cap America, Doctor Strange, Sub-Mariner, Thor and tiny cameos from Daredevil and Iron Man.

It's actually sad there's only 24 episodes. And really, why the hell did Marvel never launch an ongoing book off the back of this? Seriously, it's gagging for it, it perfectly encapsulates Marvel's need to be able to bring in readers without bogging them down in continuity and back-story. There's Spidey, Iceman and Firestar, they go to ESU, they live with Pete's Aunt May, they fight crime. THAT is it. There is an origin story for each hero in season 2 (It's all the season consists of, 3 episodes, all origins) and one for the team in S3, but any time someone shows up who's an old enemy or ally, it's just 'Oh, look, it's Doc Ock/Mysterio/Captain America who we've met before.'

Overall, I'm loving it and giving it 8/10. (I'm knocking a point off for a 3-ep S2)

Yeah, yeah, I know I'm behind with this, but what the hell...

CoD4 is the first (and so far only) game in the popular series to take place outside of WWII. Instead, Modern Warfare places the player in a high-intensity plot dealing with SAS and US Marine troops battling a Mid-Eastern badguy and his Russian Ultranationalist backers. Taking place over 3 acts which take in a mission aboard a freighter at sea, a sniper mission in Pripryat Ukraine (in the Chernobyl evacuation zone) and a high-speed car chase in Russia.

'Soap' MacTavish is your SAS character, a newbie in the regiment and with the SAS you travel to Russia to take on the ultranationalists, while Sgt Paul Jackson, 1st Recon USMC is your character who fights in an un-named Mid East nation.

The missions are varied, featuring one where you get to man a minigun on a Sea Knight chopper and another where you play as a gunner on an AC-130 Spectre gunship, but are still familiar to seasoned CoD veterans including defending a position against attack, planting bombs and seizing objectives. Most of the innovation is in the setting, as you get to use weapons like the Stinger shoulder-launched anti-air missile, Javelin anti-tank missiles and can call in close-air support.

The graphics are top-quality as usual, the levels are pretty well designed, the sound and voice acting are good and the missions are also varied enough to keep from getting boring.

Overall, I reckon it's a good, solid game. I can't comment on MP since it refuses to run under Vista, even though I've tried to get it to run in XP compatibility mode...

8/10

Click on the images for 1024x768 versions Enjoy!

The images are taken from the Intelligence Profiles printed in 'Action Force' by Marvel UK, scanned by www.bloodforthebaron.com

Matt Smith...(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1741002/)

Well, it's an interesting choice and not who I would've chosen (my vote was for Tom Chambers from Holby and SCD http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0150457/) but, as someone commented on the TrekBBS, I don't create Hugo-winning scripts before breakfast, so wadda I know?

Obviously, it's surprising they've gone with someone so young, but here's hoping it makes him stay for a while before leaving. He should then have plenty of time after to seperate himself from the role in further acting, but he will be forever known as the Eleventh Doctor...

anyway, I look forward to seeing him in 2010, but I will be sad to say goodbye to my Doctor, Ten.