Troublemaker Late Nite - Movie Review: Batman XXX – A Porn Parody

WARNING!: this article is absolutely, positively NSFW! It features the words cock, titties, dong, bush, throbbing, anal, analingus, finger (in a dirty way), Batman, Ron Jeremy and Wankel Rotary Engine. It is NOT FOR CHILDREN! It should not be read by anybody except the most deviant, perverted nerds on the internet. Granted, that accounts for about 95% of the internet; so read on everybody! Just don’t say I didn’t porn you, er… WARN you. And don't worry, Cap'n Troublemaker will be here to save your sensitive eyes from any filthy filthness.

I first heard about this movie a couple of months ago on either Comics Alliance or Bleeding Cool. I knew without seeing the trailer that I would have to own it eventually. The old Adam West/Burt Ward Batman show is one of my favorite things of all time. I even splurged at Dragon*Con a couple of years ago (the Year of the Kidney Stone) to buy the bootleg DVD set the video vendors there always have because there are so many stupid fucking disputes over the rights that it will likely never see legitimate release.

The idea of a porn parody is nothing new. If you haven’t heard “Field of Reams” at this point in your life, then you are either deaf or a Mennonite. I just didn’t know that they got quite this deep. I always figured The Sopornos was just a porn with thick Jersey accents. I am not a big porn aficionado, as a matter of fact; my purchase of Batman XXX marks the first time I have ever actually spent money on porn. So I hope you people appreciate this.

Welcome A New P.O.O.P.!

A quick update before the dirty nastiness that is happening at 12:01 tonight. I just now discovered that a friend of mine is a tremendously talented painter. I had no idea. Please welcome him to the fold and enjoy his awesomeness - ladies and gentlemen: The Belligerent Monkey!

This is my favorite:

Go here to see a whole monkey-load of cool pop-art, from Star Wars to Buffy to the Man in Black:

The Belligerent Monkey

See you at midnight!

-Phantom

Fantasy Casting: The Smurfs

I watched the Smurfs when I was a kid. I think we all did. It’s funny to see all of the toys that have been released now with no cartoon or movie support, because I would have smacked a deacon to get my hands on those when I was a little kid. Who wouldn’t want Papa Smurf’s mushroom house and a handful of little, blue creatures to cavort around it? Well, I guess I wouldn’t now because I haven’t bought any.

Toy Story 3

It is so much easier to write about a terrible movie than it is a great one. I can go on and on about bad acting, story, effects or whatever; but – as I’ve said before – there are only so many ways to say “awesome”.

Ever since I first heard the release date for Pixar’s latest offering I had known it would be Lil’ Troublemaker’s first movie. The first two Toy Story movies are some of my favorites of all time. I’ve watched them countless times and – with my toy collecting hobby – have a very significant attachment to them. When Lil’ Troublemaker started to have an attention span that allowed for movie watching last year, I gave him my Toy Story box set on DVD. He has now watched those two movies more times than I have. Granted, they aren’t “Toy Story”, they’re “Buzz and Woody” and “Buzz and Woody with Jessie”. But he is thoroughly obsessed.

Toy Review - DC Universe Classics: Blue Beetle & Blue Devil By Mattel

Ever since Mattel jacked the price up on the DC Universe Classics line I’ve been much more conservative with my buying. Three more dollars a figure makes a big difference when you’re looking at buying a whole series, so I’ve resigned myself to giving up on the build-a-figures for the most part.

Fortunately for me, the timing couldn’t be better. There hasn’t been a series since the Kilowog BAF that I have wanted more than half of, and there hasn’t been a BAF I’ve wanted since him, either. Mattel has been putting out waves somewhat more reliably lately, so I’ll give them credit for that. I’m also not going to let my current clash with Mattycollector color this review, because that’s just not how I roll.

The DCUC wave that is in stores right now doesn’t have much to offer for me, personally. Here’s the breakdown:

90’s-era Superboy – I didn’t care about him in the 90’s and I certainly don’t now. I would have bought a Connor Kent if he had a Krypto pack-in, though.

Donna Troy – I’m honestly not even sure what her story is. Doesn’t she normally have some kind of sparkly get-up? In the “would’ve” category, I could see buying a modern-era Wonder Girl.

Cyclotron – Really? I get the whole Super Powers thing, but this guy just sucks. I am anxiously awaiting Samurai, Apache Chief and an old-school Black Lightning.

Negative Man – I just can’t get into Doom Patrol. I feel like it should be right up my alley, but I’ve tried and I just can’t do it. I really dig this figure, particularly the variant, but not enough to just pick it up without character or emotional attachment.

Cheetah – I’ll buy one of the modern versions if I see one, but I’m not going to go crazy looking for it.

And that’s basically how I felt about Blue Devil and Blue Beetle. I dig Blue Devil because he’s a supernatural character and looks like he should be advertising German whiskey, but he’s not a favorite or anything. The Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle is more of a favorite of Lil’ Troublemaker’s, but I think this figure is an important landmark for the DCUC line and it looks great.

As for this wave’s build-a-figure, Trigon, I only know him from the Teen Titans cartoon. While I do think he is an awesome-looking character – and looks even more like he should be shilling European liquors than Blue Devil:

I’m not going to shell out sixty extra bucks just to get him.

It’s funny – at eight bucks apiece anybody could justify buying a whole series of superhero toys just to build any old character they threw at us. At ten, if you like at least half the series you can probably justify it. At twelve, I needed to really want the build-a-figure and like more than half of the series. Now, at fifteen dollars per figure, that build-a-figure better be a must-have and there really can’t be more than one stinker in the series for me to justify tracking down and paying for the whole set. It’s because of Chemo and Kilowog that I have a Guardian and that awful fucking Shark figure junking up my shelf. I should put ‘em up on eBay just to see what I get. Somebody out there must want them, right? Hell, I’ve got a gay-deco Aquaman I bought on clearance, too.

New Comic Book Day: Top Ten "Holy Shit!" Moments

I thought about doing another rundown of how I’m enjoying comics right now, but I feel more like having a discussion than just writing down opinions, and that doesn’t make for a good article.

Instead, here are the top ten moments in comic books that I have read that made me say, “Holy shit!” either literally or figuratively. As with everything on this blog, I am only including stuff I have actually read, so if you can’t believe that I left out something like the Legion of Superheroes banding together to destroy the evil entity known as Applesauce Lad by having an orgy that produced Brainiac 23, who made an Ad Infinitum Positronic Reality Collider gun that could only be fired with Bruce Wayne’s hand which they had to steal from the Intergalactic Museum of Misanthropes Who Surprised Us All By Being Self-Sacrificing Heroes In Masks then you can just suck it. I don’t read Legion of Superheroes. But feel free to leave your own favorite “Holy shits!” in the comments section.Oh, and sorry some of these are pics and not scans. I just didn't feel like scanning all damn morning.

Fat Strippers, Punk Rock & B-Ball

I didn’t have anything for yesterday. Jeffistopheles couldn’t recover anything off of the flash drive, so I no longer have any backup articles for the days when I just don’t feel like writing or haven’t had time.

But today… oh, do I have a treat for today.

The wife and I spent an evening at the illustrious Clermont Lounge last Thursday amongst punkers, lesbians and exotic dancers who were in no way exotic or dancing. It was uncomfortable and disgusting and we had a great time. This is a long one, so hang in there.

Father's Day Special: The Greatest Dads

I had nothing to post yesterday (Thursday to you, Wednesday to me). Wednesday (yesterday) was the Day From Hell (trademark Richard Lewis) and left me very little time for sleep, let alone writing. I also haven’t heard back from Jeffistopheles yet about my broken thumb drive, so I have no backup material short of cutting and pasting from the old MySpace blog; which still takes time. Time that just was not available yesterday.

Today (Thursday), however, is my Friday. By the time you read this it will be your Friday. Isn’t it neat how that works out?

Sorry. Anyway, I really wanted to do something for Father’s Day. My original idea was to do a top ten list of father-related movies, but I tried to start yesterday and it just didn’t work out. This was more due to my frame of mind and the incessant demands of a busy work day than a poor choice of subject matter, but I find that once a subject has confounded me it is usually best to just drop it and come back later.

So here, instead, is a list of awesome dads; in no particular order.

He-Man Versus Superman: The Comic Book

This was originally part of yesterday's article since it is included with the set, but I liked this review so much I thought I could get away with splitting them up and making two days' worth of content. Plus, it works for my new "Comics on Wednesday" thing.

This thing is crazy as hell and doesn’t make a lick of sense.

I finally got Matty'd

Toy Review - DC Universe Classics/Masters of the Universe: Superman Versus He-Man By Mattel

He-Man himself has never been a big selling point for Masters of the Universe. Not to me, anyway. I like the crazy creature men with bad puns for names. Something about the concept of reusing the same basic body for almost an entire line of figures, but substituting a crab head, bee head, skunk head or even just a giant fist; then adding some fancy robot-looking armor just appeals to me. I think the original Masters toy line was really the height of 80’s toy exploitation. The whole line must have cost like eighty bucks to develop.

However, now that I’ve got a small collection of MOTU creature guys I felt compelled to have a He-Man. I mean, he is a pretty cool barbarian guy in the vein of Conan or Thundarr. Aside from the whole Prince Adam thing, what’s not to like? So I decided the easiest (and cheapest) way to get Eternia’s mightiest defender would be to track down this two-pack. Thirty bucks off the shelf for this is by far cheaper than I’m ever going to find a single He-Man online and isn’t too much more than it would cost to buy him outright if Matty does another re-issue. Plus it includes Superman, who I generally have no tolerance for but my DC Classics shelf just doesn’t feel right without the big goof.

I'm Back, Having Overcome Insurmountable... Never Mind, I'm Just Back

As discouraged as I am by the loss of the contents of my thumb drive, I feel very strongly that I need to go ahead and get back on the horse before I lose my motivation to write entirely. Actually, I may not have lost everything. Well, I didn’t lose everything – all of my posted pieces can obviously be copied and pasted. What I mean is that as I write this on Friday night Jeffistopheles now has the offending (or offended) flash drive and thinks he can get everything off of it. I sure hope so. There were ten or so unposted toy reviews (the one about the TRU-Exclusive Force Unleashed sets breaks my heart because I really liked it), the middle part of the Heroes Convention piece (which I am definitely not going to try and rewrite) and I don’t even know how many works-in-progress.

I’ll go ahead and tell you that the world isn’t missing out on any great adventures with the Heroes thing. We had fun there, but it just isn’t the same atmosphere as Dragon*Con. It’s an actual, for-real comic book convention. While that is awesome in its own way and draws a much more extensive guest list as far as comic creators go, Heroes just wasn’t as… entertaining. Maybe because it was Sunday, maybe because we weren’t there to party – I don’t know. Things just seemed a lot stiffer and less wacky. Don’t get me wrong – I plan on going next year at least for Friday just to catch all the artists who don’t do Dragon*Con and likely won’t have anything to do with Wizard World (you’d be surprised at how many creators are still sore over the 2005 fiasco).

Oh, The Humanity!

Jeffistopheles will undoubtedly have harsh words of abuse for this one. Last night, after finishing writing about Day Two of our latest vacation, I broke my fucking GI Joe thumb drive. In two. Remember that backlog of toy reviews I kept referencing? Gone. And - being the non-paranoid dumbass that I am - did not have anything backed up. I am severely bummed right now. That and drunk. Diet Mountain Dew and tequila can make you feel a whole lot better about things. Since I don't have anything to offer as an update today, here's a picture I just took of me in the spiffy hat bought on said vacation:

Destination: Heroes! - Day One

Wilmington, North Carolina has been my home away from home since I was born. My parents both grew up there and it is where the bulk of my surviving relatives reside to this day. Despite the fact that I have never actually lived there, Wilmington will always seem more like home than anywhere here in Georgia.

Not only does Wilmington benefit from a wonderful lack of any major metropolitan area, it is also proximal to the Wrightsville, Carolina and Kure beaches; each of which have an abundance of diversions to offer. It is a great place to visit and – aside from a slightly elevated cost of living – would be a tremendous place to live.

So anyway, my parents moved back to Wilmington a few years ago. They now live in a nice little condo that is three doors down from my mom’s mom and a few streets over from my sister and her husband. I suppose some people would consider it great that they are all so close together. Personally, I think they’re all nuts. But I love them anyway, which is why I packed the wife, Lil’ Troublemaker and four days worth of supplies into the Mountaineer last Thursday to pay them a visit. Was it an adventure worthy of relating to you, my loyal readers? Probably not, but I’ve got twelve hours to kill here. Judge for yourself… NEXT!

Vintage Troublemaker: Mil Mascaras Versus the Aztec Mummy

I needed more time to put together a post about the past weekend - the trip to the beach and the stop at Heroes Convention. Instead, I give you some Vintage Troublemaker about Mil Mascaras and Lita! Angry Matt co-stars! Plus, I'm super-fat here. This was about seventy pounds ago. I really shouldn't have been going out in public.

Toy Review: Masters of the Universe Classics Mer-Man by Mattel

I always liked Mer-Man when I was a kid. I think he might have actually been the first Masters of the Universe figure I got. I wasn’t positive I was going to order him when I got on Mattycollector for Walter Peck and Optikk, but I ended up in the queue really fast and got caught up in Toy Buying Madness. So I went ahead and put our fishy friend in the ol’ virtual shopping cart.

Was it the right decision? Find out… NEXT!

Movie Review: Ninja Assassin

I wanted to see this movie back when it hit theaters – I believe that was Thanksgiving of last year – but just never got around to it. With nobody home but me and Otis this past Sunday night, I decided it would be a good time for some Hardcore Ninja Action.

For some reason I was positive David Goyer had written and/or directed this thing, but it turns out it was written by Michael Sand and J. Michael Straczyinski (mostly the latter) and directed by the super-awesome James McTeigue. Did they kick righteous fucking ninja ass? Let’s find out…

Heroes Convention 2010

So it turns out I'll be in North Carolina on Sunday. It just so happens that so will J. Scott Campbell, Brian Bolland, Mark Waid, Steve Niles, Ethan Van Sciver, Skottie Young and about a bajillion other actual, real-live comic book personalities.

Heroes Convention is taking place this weekend in Charlotte, which is sort of but not really on the way home from Wilmington - where we'll be visiting Ma and Pa Troublemaker. Jeffistopheles is watching Otis and the house, so I guess we'll have to bring him a nudie girl sketch or something.
Expect a LIVE REPORT!  on Monday. Except it won't actually be live because I'll write it Sunday night after we get home and  then post it on Monday.
And of course there's always the possibility that we'll have severe relative fatigue by Sunday and just come straight home. Find out... MONDAY!

Until next time, stay creepy

-Phantom

Toy Review: DC Universe Classics Walmart Exclusive Undersea Assault: Aquaman & Black Manta by Mattel

d happen to those fuckers.

Walmart has two exclusive DC Classics two-packs right now. The problem is that I only want one figure from each set and I’m not one of those douchebags who will swap figures out and return things. Those people should have their thumbs cut off. And yet I still don’t hate them as much as I do scalpers. You don’t even want to know what I think should happen to those fuckers.

Toy Review: Masters of the Universe Classics Optikk by Mattel

While my ability to say “no” to Mattel’s Masters of the Universe Classics offerings does indeed grow ever weaker, I couldn’t possibly skip Optikk. He’s the closest thing we’re likely to see to a Residents action figure.