Average Joe and the Beauty: Shadow Spinner is out now!

You can find it on Amazon.com/ajb.  Here's the blurb below:

After wishing for a more interesting life, average teen Joe Black now simply wishes for a return to normalcy. He lives a life of fear and stress after his principal tries to kill him. Liandra, whose mystical artifact is keeping Joe protected, seeks out information about her past through clues gained from investigating her old friend, Robert Grabas. During these investigations of his research facilities, she uncovers cruel experimentations with low survival rates performed on people who haven't the means to decline them. Liandra uses her mystical abilities to help those who can't help themselves and to uncover the truth about her past, which is tied intricately to Robert Grabas.

Grabas himself is seeking power by all means at his disposal. He seeks to kill Joe by using his old friend, Principal William Patrias to do the deed since the boy saw vital aspects of his trafficking operation. He also exploits his political clout, construction company, and personal relationships to empower himself and carry out his ever evolving goals. He wants Liandra at his side, but since she is nowhere near ready, he will help her unravel her past, the hard way.

DBZ Elsewhere: The Yamcha Side Story That Made Yamcha Cool Before It Was Cool

Comic Panels by RMK writer and artist of DBZ Elsewhere

Yamcha has always gotten a raw deal for as long as I can remember in the Dragon Ball community.  He's the butt of everyone's jokes and it's not difficult to see why with his huge loss record in the series.  You wouldn't believe it, but there is a sect of us who at one point or another thought Yamcha was pretty damn cool.  Most people who watched a ton of the original Dragon Ball series developed a liking for the character after watching him grow along with Goku, Krillin, Tien, and Chiaotzu.  This month, Yamcha's been getting a fair amount of attention with Dragon Ball Super's 70th episode, a fan favorite, giving him ample spotlight and comedic moments.  He even stole the show by winning the baseball game.  Now there's also a Yamcha Side Story series being planned and the 1st chapter is already out (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hYoUg8j1IY).  Yamcha has received a brief resurgence in popularity but before Toei and Shueisha put the spotlight on him, a sole fan decided to give us a glimpse into the past and the day to day worries of a man named Yamcha and that fan is RMK.

I stumbled upon DBZ Elsewhere recently, while searching for chapters of the latest Yamcha side story Dragon Ball Gaiden: Tensei-shitara Yamcha Datta Ken.  While I like the scenario of a fan being reincarnated as Yamcha and using his knowledge of Dragon Ball to make Yamcha great again, it's not really a Yamcha story because it's about another character using Yamcha's body.  RMK's DBZ Elsewhere all about Yamcha and brings up questions that many of us Yamcha fans think of such as who trained him and taught him the Wolf Fang Fist?  It also shows us how Yamcha acts when the Z Fighters aren't around.  RMK really goes in depth when it comes to Yamcha's feelings about being super strong yet parodoxically being weak.  RNK also explores what many would develop if placed in Yamcha's shoes, his failure complex.  Let's be honest, he's always had his share of bad luck and the writers simply blow it off or treat it as a gag, but RMK instead delves deeply into it and shows us how Yamcha might use it to better himself.

I was surprised to find that RMK both wrote and drew his fan comic and that he did so way back in 2003.  I found his writing to be well layered, but not so much that it doesn't resemble Dragon Ball and I found his art to be quite good.  It's not exactly professional quality near the beginning but it stays faithful to Toriyama's style throughout the parts that I read.  I noticed that RMK himself expressed disappointment in his earlier work but I thought it was well done, but I did skip ahead to his one of his later chapters to see if he'd improved and saw a drastic improvement in the fluidity of his style.  I stopped at chapter five so far and each chapter I read added something new to Yamcha's backstory which is something I've wanted from him and Tien for a really long time.

I highly recommend RMK's DBZ Elsewhere comic.  I'll be posting my review of the series once I get deeper into it and it looks like I'll have a ton of chapters to read.  If you want to check it out visit RMK's site at (http://dbzelsewhere.thecomicseries.com/comics/first).


Well that's it for me.  If any of you have read either DBZ Elsewhere or Dragon Ball Gaiden: Tensei-shitara Yamcha Datta Ken let me know what you think of both.  Let me also know what part of Yamcha or Tien's backstory you'd like to know about the most.  Have a great week everyone!

Indie Book Corner: Wick: The Spark Form Chronicles book 1 by Matt Doyle

Highly original, well written fusion of disparate ideas. Ties for the most creative book I’ve read this year along with Exurbia, by Alex McKechnie. 

Wick is what happens when you take wrestling...

...esports... 

...cyberpunk... 

...and of all things, Yugioh... 

And mix it in a blender on the highest setting. You’d think you’d get a mess with such a mix, but instead you get something quite rare and even a tad beautiful.

Wick starts in a very confusing way as we’re dropped right into the action with no explanations given. And the action we’re dropped into is...a beauty pageant...no it’s a setup for a wrestling match or something? Oh, it’s...a card game?

Though not clear at first, it’s soon revealed that all the POV characters are a part of some vast and very popular tournament style eSport called Spark Forming. This futuristic eSport uses digital cards as a medium to summon impressively dangerous and beautiful looking beasts and humanoids that do battle in digital arenas. Each of the tournament combatants has his or her own POV, with the exception of two or three characters. And there are certainly some memorable POVs and other characters in the book.

The Plot 

Here’s hoping that I succeed in not ruining or spoiling anything here. The plot revolves around several different mysteries as each character has his or her own reasons for participating in the tournament. Though what each character presents on the surface is not always their true intentions. On the surface everyone is in the tournament for fame, glory, and prize money. Though most of their goals seem to be for things outside the arena. It’s revealed that there is much more going on behind the scenes and Spark Forming may not be as innocent and fun as the world thinks it is. I think that’s all I can say without spoiling too much. It’s vague, I know, but each reveal in the plot was major to me so I reeeeeallly don’t want to spoil anything for anyone else. I’ll just add that there’s some really good character drama that heats up from the middle to the end and the plot comes together nicely as each character’s earlier behaviors are given more light.

The Arena Battles 

The futuristic eSport known as Spark Forming has several unique components to it that made it very unique to me. The first has to be the player entrances. Some of my favorite scenes in the book came from these entrances, which were reminiscent of professional wrestling to me. Each player would have their own music that was presented in this way:

“Song: Came Out Bruised (But Still Breathing) 

Band: Addicted to my Rut 

Genre: Grunge” 

And then once the player is out and ready to start the match you have EPIC summoning descriptions for the Spark Forms like:

“His scales, rippling gently as he breathes, glow a deep, fiery red, Punctuated only by the curious black markings adorning his back and tail. Dark as a starless night, they run the length of his body, forming a line of symmetry for the scimitar-like patterns that trace paths out from the spine.”

Then there are the battles themselves which are far faster, more ferocious, and bloodier than I imagined they’d be. The players themselves experienced some sort of fatigue from the battles along with their Spark Form creatures as each battle required them to be “plugged in” and to use much of their own fortitude along with physical and mental dexterity.

I liked the strategies formed for these matches and thought that the play-by-play by the announcers was a clever way to teach the reader how the game is played. I will say that this is where the book’s lack of exposition hurts it the most. These battles would be much more enjoyable if the ground rules were laid before many of these battles took place. Since I didn’t know how the game was really even played, I never had any sense as to who would win or lose until the very end, so I was never on the edge of my seat for any of the battles. It was more like watching a laser light show until the end and finally going “that was neat,” at the end of it. So I hope more is explained about the card game itself in future books. Maybe even a card list so that we can take note of potential strategies ahead of time. Even with that said, the creativeness of the battles was enough to enthrall me and those were some of the chapters I read through the quickest.

The Characters. 

Going hand in hand with the book’s uniqueness is the strength of each of Wick’s characters. As I said before there are many POVs in Wick, about five or seven if my memory serves and each character brings a unique perspective and rationale to the story. There were a few that I thought I’d dread reading in the beginning, but by the middle I must say that everyone had chapters that I looked forward to. It was mostly to unlock further mysteries in the story which everyone had fragments of, but I was surprised that a book with this many POVs didn’t really offer any weak links for me. Even A Song of Ice and Fire had those Sansa chapters that I freaking HATED, and many of the POVs in A Feast for Crows felt dry and pointless to me, but here, even with so many characters, I had a good time. If you’re anything like me you’ll really become a fan of John Forrester who’s just a fun character in every sense of the word. I kind of want to say more, but I prefer to leave some surprises.

The Quick and Dirty 

Dislikes: 

-Confusing beginning. A lot is being said without much context. You don’t know if you’re reading about a pageant, a card game, or wrestling.

-The extra POVs in the beginning only added to the confusion.

-Could use some better explanations on the cards and the game mechanics to get you more invested in the card game. -The game isn't explained clearly enough in the first few matches forcing you to pay close attention to each match to understand how its played.

Likes: 

+Cool mix of wrestling and Yugioh or whatever combat card game you like. I really liked the on-camera dramatic “promos.” It felt like the 80’s all over again.

+Highly imaginative.

+Cool characters.

+Loaded with intelligence at every turn including characters, dialogue, plot, and much more. +The wrestling references are too good.

+Brilliant creature design and fight choreography.

+eSports taken to the next level.

+Solid characterization.

+The announcers are a clever source of exposition.

+Spark form action is bloody brutal fast and intense. +In depth ideas and concepts, very well thought out, with great execution.

+John Forrester is a brilliant character. So are many others, but he is by far my favorite.

All in all, I have to say that I absolutely loved this book.  It was one that I had received by the author for review, but I have to say that it's a series that I look forward to reading more of.  My interest has been piqued with the mysteries, I have come to like the characters very much, and it's a unique world that I am interested in seeing more of.  I'll definitely be reading the sequels.  Don't just take my word for it.  Check out the book for yourselves with the links below.

Author's website: http://mattdoylemedia.com/
eBook: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011SG7TYO
Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Wick-Spark-Form-Chronicles-1/dp/1517128714/

Movie Corner: Justice League: Throne of Atlantis

Hey new and loyal readers!  I'm here today to share my thoughts on the latest DC animated film, Justice League: Throne of Atlantis.  This is my first time doing something like this for a film, animated or otherwise so this is a little different for me.  As with my Video Game and Book reviews, I won't be leaving a numerical, lettered, or star based score but I'll instead list some positive and negative aspects of the film and my thoughts on those.  So let's get right to it!

  

Much improved over Justice League War.

Overall I'd say that I liked Throne of Atlantis but it did a lot of things wrong.  It was a huge improvement over Justice League War and Son of Batman but still carried some of those movies flaws.  I'll do a good point, bad point sandwich to keep this interesting.

Good Point #1: The plot was pretty epic.

We've seen Aquaman's throne story retold many times in the comics and the animated series.  Seems his brother is always trying to usurp him somehow.  But now this one is effectively Aquaman's origin story and it's really good.  Aquaman is now trapped between two worlds.  He's a surface dweller with an Atlantean mother.  There is a shadowy plot brewing in Atlantis and the queen (Aquaman's mother, of course) is trying to keep aggressions between the surface and her kingdom from boiling over while two others are trying to undermine her and start a war on the surface.  In order to keep a lasting peace the queen has sent out her loyal servant Mera to find her son Arthur to rule Atlantis and bridge the gap between the two worlds.  All the while we learn that the Justice League are not team players as Cyborg tries to assemble the crew to investigate what's causing military submersibles to disappear.  Eventually everything comes to a head and Arthur is in the middle of a huge war between the U.S. military, the Justice League, and Atlantis.

Now to counter that we have...

Bad Point #1: Too many events, too many characters, too little time.

How do you make 8 Justice League members look cool and useful in an hour long movie?
Short answer: You don't.

This movie is most likely following events of the comic.  I haven't read this New 52 arc yet but I assume this to be the case, correct me if I'm wrong.  Because of that they are cramming a lot of content into just over an hour.  You don't really grow an overwhelming attachment to anyone because of this.  It just feels like a movie filled with disjointed vignettes.  Aquaman, Orm, and Cyborg come out of this with the strongest characterizations and it looks like they try the same with Superman and Wonder Woman's relationship but that falls flat and feels like wasted footage.  Everyone's kind of just there even in the fight scenes where they'll do an attack and then it cuts to another League member doing an attack and then the next just to give everyone screen time which I applaud.  I just wish that we got more screen time and a purpose for these characters while they were there.  Just one of them could accomplish what it takes all of them to do.  Even Aquaman's story feels abridged here to give the other characters some screen time.  Oh and the ending was way too short.  The way that the villain loses after such a tremendous showing of power will have you rolling your eyes.  It's like they didn't quality test this last part.

Good Point #2: Kickass action scenes and animation.

The bar fight with drunken Aquaman comes to mind here as well as Mera's fight with the Atlantean assassins which reminded me of both Avatar the Last Airbender and Mortal Kombat. They put a lot of work in to make these smooth and it really shows.  DC animation and their overseas team deserves a lot of praise here.

 

Finish Him!

Bad Point #2: Everyone's always posing.

Whenever the characters aren't in action they just look awkward, stiff, and overly muscled.  Everyone's always in a fighting pose especially the guys whenever they're just standing around.

Okay that was a frivolous point so I'll instead go with...

Bad Point #2: Flat Dialogue.

There was very little charm in this script and almost no wit to speak of.  It was very by the numbers and actually pretty juvenile but not even close to as bad as Justice League War.  Because of this I only found a few of the characters likable like Aquaman, Mera, and Cyborg.  Actually Orm was interesting with his over the top haughty way of talking.  I was reminded of Loki from the Marvel movies and that's funny because Aquaman seemed a little like Thor here.

Good Point #3: The women in this movie kick major butt.

Mera steals the show here in terms of action.  She is a highly trained Atlantean soldier or sorceress or something and uses water and some Atlantean martial arts to make quick work of the bad guys.  She is initially even more effective at fighting than Aquaman who fights like a brute, a drunken brute, even when he's sober.  She and Wonder Woman get some really cool scenes to show off in.  **Side note, I can't be the only one that noticed that she borrowed this outfit from Street Fighter Alpha's Chun Li.

Cosplay is the sincerest form of flattery eh, Mera?

Maybe Green can be my Player 2 outfit?

Bad Point #3: Green Lantern, Flash, and Shazam seemed mostly useless here and unnecessary.

Green Lantern and Shazam were also barely funny.  I like Green Lantern but I'm not the president of his fan club and even I can see that he is handled in a way that makes him completely unlikable in these movies.  He has hardly any redeeming traits and that's a shame considering that Hal Jordan is actually a really cool and interesting character but every chance DC gets they like to crap all over him in these team movies and wonder why his solo stuff doesn't do as well.

Continuing that point, what's up with Green Lantern and Shazam's humor?  It's so immature and tactless.  I can understand this with Shazam I suppose since he's technically a child still but did we really need two of these characters?  Is this a movie for kids or adults?  I think that was forgotten as they were writing it since there's a nice amount of profanity in it.  Oh and Green Lantern's constructs are so lame here only doing further injustice to the character.

Really!?  A giant vacuum cleaner?

Even GL is unimpressed.

Final Thoughts

This was a cool Aquaman movie with some Justice League parts shoehorned in.  All the stuff with Aquaman was really cool and I would've enjoyed seeing more of his training, adjustment to Atlantis, and reluctance to take the throne.  This could've been done better without the League in it but it was cool seeing them there too.  Overall I liked it and I hope that DC's movies continue to improve, if not then I'm signing every petition that I can find to reinstate Bruce Timm at the helm of these projects.  By Zeus' beard that man is a genius!  If for whatever reason you still think Aquaman's a joke (probably because you're a pop culture drone) then this is the movie that proves he's not which I'm sick of saying because Aquaman hasn't been a joke since Super Friends went off the air and let me remind you that everyone was a joke in Super Friends.

Abridged version below:

Likes

+Great Plot.

+Superb animation, except when heroes are just standing in stiff poses.

+Great Action.

+Kickass women especially Mera.

+Some standout voice work like Cyborg.

Dislikes

-Too many characters too little time.

-Superman, Wonder Woman, and Lois Lane situation seemed shoehorned.

-Green Lantern, Flash, and Shazam seemed mostly useless here and unnecessary.

-Lantern's constructs are lame and don't give any sense of his coolness.

-Shazam and Lantern are supposed to be comic relief but neither are very funny in this with their middle school humor.  Is this movie for kids or adults?

-Stiff poses.

-Some poor dialogue and sometimes spotty voice work.

-I still don’t like Batman’s new voice, from Jason O’ Mara.  Bruce Greenwood from Under the Red Hood and Young Justice should’ve inherited the role after Kevin Conroy.  Greenwood provides the intimidation that O’Mara is missing.

-Many moments are rushed such as Aquaman's introduction in Atlantis, the final fight of Arthur and Orm.

Trivial

=Chun-li suit for Mera

Opinions of DC Animation

I'm a huge fan of DC Superheroes, especially animated shows and movies based off of them.  I've been the biggest fan of Batman and his animated showings since I could remember.  Ever since I read a few JLA comics and saw their portrayals on Bruce Timm's animated Justice League series I've grown to really like characters like The Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, and of course Superman.  Then I read more DC comics and watched the fascinating Justice League Unlimited, read character wiki's, and really learned a lot about the DC history and mythos.  To step into the dangerous world of comic book wars I'll venture to say that DC has always held the advantage over Marvel in terms of animation.  The only thing that came close was Spider-Man's 90's cartoon.

Now I say all that because I'm not the biggest fan of the direction that DC animation is going in now.  Instead of original content they've instead settled for making abridged versions of existing comics storylines except with some tweaks both minor and major.  This isn't always a bad thing as many of these adaptations were really good: Dark Knight Returns Part 1 and 2, Batman Year One, Under the Red Hood, Justice League the New Frontier, and Flashpoint Paradox are just a few that come to mind.  I didn't like Justice League War or Son of Batman very much because of the poor characterizations for characters like Deathstroke, Wonder Woman, and Darkseid.  Shortcuts were taken to make these movies short and it shows.  The problem with War was that every single one of the characters was boring or annoying.  The dialogue lacked wit or charm and just felt flat.  The dialogue seemed immature and yet the action was bloody and there was a large body count.  So it was trapped between two worlds not sure who it wanted its target audience to be.  It could've bridged that gap a lot better like Under the Red Hood, Mask of the Phantasm, or Batman Beyond return of the Joker.  Throne of Atlantis suffers from a few of the same problems only it’s mostly a huge improvement.