January 14, 2025 • 54 mins
DJ Nik and Keith Bliss review "Justice League : Warworld" !!! Enjoy ! If you would like to come on and discuss YOUR favourite movie send us a email with your movie of choice to : happinessindarknesshow@gmail.com . Check out our great tiers on Patreon : patreon.com/happinessindarkness !!!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Something isn't right. I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I need to find a way back. Yes, but to wear.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Why can you tell us about this wizard? I could
take you to his castle. Beyond that, you're the ones
intent I'm dying to run Rob. She's an angel, come
to save us all. Never seen any one fight like that.
(00:43):
You're a wonder.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
We have to kill them before they kids.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
The only way to stop their invasion.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Tex.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
You said you wanted to prove yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
This is the time evil. This as unstoppable as the way. Sure,
that's why we fight for those that can. A good
nay knows that the darkness will always be there that
stands against it. Anyway, We're on other thor away, not her.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
War world. Shum up, people, and welcome to our two
one hundred and seventy sixth episode of Happiness and Darkness
and Superhio Movie Podcast, where we discuss Superhio movies, Marble DC,
Dark Horse, Image and more. Naturally, there will be spoilers, folks,
(01:43):
so you have been warned. I'm one of your co hosts,
did you, Nick, And as always joining me is my
superhero partner in crime and recent birthday boy, mister Keith Bliss.
Hey Keith, how you doing, and a belated happy birthday
to you.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I appreciate it, Thank you much there, DJ Nick. It
was interesting. I had to call the fire department because
apparently two hundred candles on the cake is considered a
fire hazard.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Who knew? I did not.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
But once that died down, you know, we had some fun,
we up and some gifts, and you know, I basically
took the day after recount books, watch TV and just
nerd out. So now I'm back here with you to
review a very interesting movie that I was had forgotten
I had seen put it that way.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Well, it sounds like you had a very good berth
and I'm glad that you all say with to take
the day off from work and enjoy your special day.
And yes, sir, as you rightfully put it, today, I
think it's going to be a rather interesting one because
the day we are discussing Justice League War World film
twenty twenty three. This was directed by Jeff Warmeister. It
was written by Jeremy Adams, Ernie Altbacker and Josie Campbell,
(02:50):
while the score was by Michael Gatt. So getting the
general impressions here, Keith, you mentioned This wasn't your first
go around with this film, So what did you make
of it? On your rewatch?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I had forgotten I had watched this movie. It was
that mid of a movie that I sat through the
whole thing. I think I even fell asleep the first time.
But I rewatched it again, and it's just it's a
filler movie. It's like if we were to watch a
season of a TV show and they hit a low
(03:22):
point in the season and just needed crap to fill
an episode. That's what this movie felt like. It just
felt like they needed something to fill up, you know,
between start of a story and the end of the story.
This was just rando filler movie. It wasn't terrible. It
was very interesting because they broke these characters off into
(03:43):
their own little worlds, as it were, and they got
to live the matrix of murder because they were on
war World for howard long. We don't even know how
long they were there. They could have been on that
planet for years. We have no concept of time. And
as we find out towards the end of the movie
that every time a character dies or passes away, they
(04:05):
just start another iteration of murder matrix and they just
continue on, so theoretically these characters could have been on
there days, weeks, months, years, eons for all we know.
I did appreciate the fact that they gave each character
the trio, Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman their own standalone stories,
(04:27):
and they got to finish each story and they basically
spilled over into each other, and I appreciated that. And
I liked how they started with Wonder Woman and they
set her off on her own little adventure in the
wild West, which I found interesting They picked the Wild
West for Wonder Woman, but I was fine with it.
And the Jonah Hex cameo, who normally plays a anti
(04:53):
hero slash bounty hunder, good guy, whatever you want to
call it, and he was her nemesis in this seemed
a little interesting because again, as we know of this character,
he's not an evil or generally bad guy more often
than not. I'm not saying he's always perfect, but he
is what he is, and I just found it interesting
(05:15):
that they had to face off. And I appreciate the
fact that in all three iterations they didn't kill anybody.
They did not at least deliberately kill anybody. Sometimes there
was explosions, like in the Wonder Woman's land or world,
and that may have killed somebody, but she did not
(05:36):
directly kill somebody. So their core beings of do no
harm kind of was so ingrained within them that it
carried on even in their subconscious and they were going
through the different iterations. And then I liked how Wonder
Woman transitioned into Batman's world, which was this crazy, savage
(05:58):
land Conan the barbarian, weird chaos craziness, and immediately I
thought of Conan the Destroyer when I watched this, and
it made me chuckle because you and I have reviewed
these Conan movies and all I kept thinking was it's Conan,
It's Conan. Where's his dumb sword? And you know, they
fight a giant snake. I mean, like, you couldn't make
this anymore Conan, which is fine because you and I
(06:21):
both enjoyed that movie immensely for how cheesy it was.
And then those two spill over and collect Superman, who
is in this weird Roswell esque crazy body snatcher movie.
And what I liked is it was black and white,
and they did not realize it was black and white
(06:42):
until they get to the spaceship and they're like wait
a minute, there's something different, and Batman's like, yeah, there's color,
and Supers like, oh yeah, that's a thing like that.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
There it is.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I knew there was something weird missing, so it just
I thought that was out of all the weird dumb things.
Just thought that was the funny thing that he just
walking in like completely dead paint. He's like, yeah, wearing
collar that was black and white. It seems like okay,
And you know, the chemistry between the three of them,
I will say it was on point, and the writing
(07:11):
was decent. It was just I don't know the story
that the pacing was just very kind of janking all
over the place for me personally.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
No, I totally hear you when it comes out. I
was rather thrown off when it came to this film
because I assumed you and I talked about a little
bit about this off air coming off of Legion of
Superheroes and the post credits scene we get there spoilers. Folks,
if you haven't seen Leading Superheroes, either go listen to
our review of said movie, or go back and watch
it and then come back to us. But because obviously
(07:44):
you know, when we see Batman in that case, we
see Batman and Superman kind of being vaporized or just
disappearing with this huge crater, and I'm like, okay, this
is the next movie chronologically, so we're gonna kind of
get an explanation of where the heck these guys have
gone to, and in a roundabout way, they do. But
it was it was definitely not what I was expecting,
which I think can also be a good thing when
it's like, Okay, they haven't been transported somewhere else. But
(08:07):
as soon as I saw World World, I'm like, okay,
mongols probably involved, and lord knows what the shenanigans. But
I did appreciate the different settings, and I think also
coming off of something like what If, it felt very
much like what If or the DC version, which I
guess phoss would be Elseworld's. So it did feel like
a mixture different Elseworld story of like what if Wonder
Woman was in the wild West or what if Batman
(08:30):
was in his Swords and Swords and Sorcery scenario. So
I did appreciate that, But like you, as these scenarios
played out, I was getting a little bit anxious and
they'll be like, can we get to why we're here?
And what is going on. So I guess I was
on one side invested because I wanted to know why
we were seeing what we were seeing, But on the
(08:51):
other I wish we had gotten there just a little
bit quicker, because I could see that the writers and
the director were having good time showing us these ultimate
scenarios of these of the Big three of DC. But
on the other I would have liked a little bit more.
And then we got the explanations, Oh yeah, I can
buy this is pretty cool. There were some characters which
I was not expecting to see and kind of annoyed me,
(09:12):
and we all get to that. But I do think
you've made an excellent point. It's a bridge between Legion
of Superheroes and then and Christs on the Infinite Earth's
because that's very much what this builds up to. So
I guess it also has the unfortunate job of setting
up a big event like Christ's on Infinite Earth's, so
that can either be seemingly a filler episode because of that,
(09:35):
because we have to get to the big moment. So
you have like this this setup, But on the other
you know, if you do it right, you can make
people like going, oh, We're getting christ on the Infinite Earth,
and that was kind of what I felt. By the
time we got to the end of this, I'm like, Yay,
this is cool. We're going to get Christ on the
Infinite Earth's next and so we'll see what comes with
that movie. So by and large, it was middle of
the episode, middle of the road for me too, But
(09:56):
there were some things that I did enjoy. So let's
kick off with our big three DC heroes traversing realities
and illusions. We have Jensen Eccles returning as Batman, stan
A Katich as Wonder Woman, and Darren Chris as Superman.
So what do you make of our big three in
this movie, Keith.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
We've as we've seen them before. They worked very well.
The accent still gets me with Wonder Woman, but it's
it's slowly, you know, sinking in for a lack of
better term, I'm okay with it. I'm not saying it's
the greatest. It still seems really kind of odd, but
whatever I did appreciate. You know, they all had to
(10:38):
go through their own trials and tribulations, and I like
the fact that they start with Wonder Woman and she's
on a horse back and this is a very slow
wild West, you know story, and you're kind of like,
all right, I don't know where this is going, and
then it just goes off the rails so spectacular.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
And it was fine because again we're showing each character
in their own little universes going through whatever chaos.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
It was great.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I like hers because it wasn't long, it wasn't too long,
and I noticed the Batman one was a little bit longer,
and then the Superman wants a little bit longer, and
I think that's what kind of as you had mentioned
and I mentioned as well, it causes the dragon. I
think they ended Wonder Woman's at the right point. You're like,
all right, cool, and then it cuts to Batman and
(11:30):
Batman is this Conan esque warrior and he's on the
battlefield just you know, kicking butt like usual. And I
appreciate the fact that he had this batman esque mask,
which even when he doesn't know who he is, he
still has this Batman persona, which made me laugh a
little bit. And he gets it knocked off. And then
(11:51):
when he's going against I just blinked on his name.
When they do go into their fight, he's like, Man,
you're kind of ugly looking, and he makes a joke
about his appearance, and they just kind of chuckle and
continue on. And then Batman goes through his crazy tribulations,
and again, it's not that we're discovering anything new about
these characters. It's just you're basically starting off at zero
(12:14):
again with each one of them. And then we get
the Superman or Clark, who is now a CIA agent
exploring Roswell or some Roswell esque type of experience, and
he's the only one that's in black and white. Which
I think was the most jarring out of all of
this is the fact that it's in black and white,
and I'm thinking, like, oh, it's just retro. And then
(12:37):
when they do get to the space spaceship they get
to a war world, Batman's like, no, it was really
in black and white, and I'm like, oh, Like that
just kind of like blew my mind for a second
because I'm like, wait, they didn't realize this was all
black and white. That seems kind of crazy, like everybody's
literally color blind to the world.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I thought that was an.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Interesting take in that negated his powers. So he was
strong ish and fast ish, but he wasn't full on
Superman because again he didn't have access to the yellow light.
His seemed the most boring, which sounds crazy because it
was literally an alien invasion in his universe and I
(13:17):
was the most bored with all of that. They just
seemed to go on a little too long, the interactions
he had with Diana and Bruce, especially when they're in
the cop car driving away and Bruce rattles off some
random thing about gash trucks and if you knock off
this vent cap you can shoot it with the blah
blah blah and blow up like whatever, and he goes like, well,
(13:40):
how do you know? And he's like, I don't know.
And that's just his response to everything. Anytime somebody asked
me a question, he's like, I don't know. And that
is equivalent of I am Batman. Through this entire little
stick is he basically was just saying I am Batman,
but in the I don't know tone, So it was fine.
You know, you got you from pointing to point B.
(14:02):
I would say, the only well, there's two annoying things,
and you and I will both talk about the same
annoying point. But the one thing I didn't like was
when they do finally get to War World, one random
ass character from Superman's environment comes through as well, and
it's like, but why this one and where the hell
(14:24):
was he? Considering they were driving in a car thirty
seconds earlier and they were, you know, in a barn,
and they touch this object. This dude is not on
screen at all, and he just magically pops up, Like
the hell this guy come from? So I thought that
was a little JANKI and I wasn't really needed. They
could have just stumbled upon any random security guard, which
(14:48):
happens thirty seconds after this. So I think that's where
they really kind of turned into a bit of a
lazy writing, because they just didn't know how to get
you know, bridge, the War World esque of it and
then the real world. They were just kind of like, well,
we need to do something and show Superman that he's
super He could have gotten shot by a security guard
(15:09):
and we had the same end results and we wouldn't
have needed Rando Human on the ship or on War World.
Then what I liked is the core characters start to
finally come out there like, hey, look I remember who
I kind of remember who I am, And then they
get the costumes, and the costumes are also funny. I
will say I chuckled at very random points in this movie,
(15:31):
which I thought was weird, just because you don't expect
to be laughing at them looking at their costumes taking
up and going, hey, that looks familiar. And then Batman
puts his on and goes, apparently I like to wear costumes,
and he makes some dumb comment, and wonder One makes
a comment, and Clark looks confused in his costume, like
he's like, well it fits, but I don't know why.
And Diana remembers Clark, but Clark doesn't remember her, like
(15:55):
everybody starts remembering at different paces, which was another thing
I liked. And I going to assume that she remembered
first because she has been outside for a quote, uh,
you know, for lack of a better term, uh, the
war world, because she's transitioned from hers through Batman's to Superman's,
(16:16):
so she's the you know, been disconnected from the machines
for so long. Her memory is coming back.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
A little bit sooner.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
And then Batman's comes back, and then eventually Clark's comes back,
and they just go ham on Mongol and then we
have our most annoying character ever known to man Lobo, which, oh,
I I know I am of the minority, but I
dislike Lobo with so much of my fiber in my
(16:44):
being that I've grown every time he opens his mouth,
because it's Bender doing the voice of Lobo, and I'm
just waiting for him to just say kiss, kiss my
shiny metal ass, and I'd be like, all right, I'm done,
Like that's it's the same actor. And if you guys
didn't know that spoilers, So anytime Lobo talks, I hear Bender,
which makes it worse. And then he's just a pain
(17:07):
in the ass the entire time. And he really is
just there as a plot device to get us through
the story. And it's even basically pointed out to him
by the Martian Manhunter that the Manhunter is the reason
why he did this thing, because Lobo is trying to be.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Like, I helped you, you owe me, and.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Manhunter's like, oh did you now didn't you think it
was a little odd that you randomly thought about that?
And Logo was like, well shit, And he gets mad
at that that he get manipulated and then turn around
and manipulate like no sooner does he get mad at that?
Then he turns around and manipulates Mongole by releasing Superman,
Bat and a Wonder Woman. So it's like pick a lane, dude,
and they just don't know what to do this character.
(17:47):
And again every time he comes on screen, I'm just like, oh,
it's Bender, but worse.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yes, indeed, nothing of course against the John Dimidjo when
it comes to his voice swaking down. I definitely do
love John as Bender. I will say that, but I'm like, yeah, okay,
is John D. Mager, So you will definitely hear that that.
I guess Bender in your ears when he voices other characters,
I suppose, But yeah, when it came to these three
in their journeys, I did, though, appreciate the fact that,
(18:16):
you know, in each scenario, we did have characters that
would inhabit these worlds, like Jonah Hex When it came
to the Wild West. Albeit, I was literally I couldn't
stand the character in this one because he's a villain
and I'm like, usually he's a good guy, and he
seemed like such a stand up guy at first, when
obviously all the other men are googling Diana and he's
(18:36):
the only decent ones like, if you want some decent whiskey,
come upstairs and I'll give you a taste of the
real stuff. But he seems to be the only one
who's not being, you know, a complete chauvinist and just
completely undressing Diana with it with his eyes. He's like,
I like the way you fight, Come and let's have
some whiskey together. But then it all turns apparently he's
like this mob boss almost in the West who owns
(18:58):
this town, and the other people are outside are kind
of like trapped between a rock and a hard place
because they don't have They're literally living trying to live
off stuff inside there. But going inside means you probably
get killed by Jonah's mob or hired goons for that matter.
And so I was really upset and a little bit
disappointed that Jonah X did not turn out to be
(19:18):
an ally but a villain. I get it, it's war world,
so things will be slightly different, but still I'm like,
you seemed like such a stand up guy. You deserve
to get your face punched into a pulp by Diana.
Totally deserve the way you behave. But then you know,
you move on to Batman scenario. There you also have
characters that do inhabit this kind of world. You know,
(19:38):
you were touched up on Warlord, who is the big
guy in you know, the the the big barbarian kind
of guy who has his own comic of course, and
and is in the part of the Sworden Sorcery world
of DC comics, along with Demos, who of courses our
villain in this in this scenario, even though Demos is
completely useless. I mean, it's like he's suppose to be incredibly,
(20:00):
incredibly powerful sorcerer. What are your tricks. You've got a gun,
which you call a magic you know, a magic wand
because of course people in this world all this, you know,
time have never seen a gun, so I guess it
could be a potentially dangerous weapon. But you run out
of bullets, You're screwed because all you do is you
turn into like a huge dragon beast kind of guy.
(20:21):
Of course they're going to defeat you, and like this
is not over yet. I'll get you next time, gadget
and off you go. So I found the Muster be
a little bit underwhelming as a villain, but it was
a nice way to transition into where Batman is and
Batman the Barbarians, So I'm like, okay, cool, he's he's
hanging out with Warlord, which is which is which I
can appreciate, but I do agree with you. Each segment
(20:42):
seem to get longer than the previous one, and I
was really just waiting for the other two segments, especially
the Sword and Sorcery one and the Noir alien invasion
body stature scenario to be over so we can actually
get to where we're going, because I was looking at
the runt of this and it isn't really that long
(21:02):
of a film. It's about I clocks in about an
hour and a half, but it really seems to drag
and like we like we pointed out already, but I
was just rewarting us to get the good stuff. It
did make me chuckle. You know, you said some awkward
moments or odd moments, won't you chuckle. One of the
funniest ones to me was Batman being coated in blood
and guts because he's literally underneath this huge dinosaur or
(21:26):
sauer pod kind of monster, and of course Warlord slashes
the beast's tummy open, gets out of the way, and
Bruce gets coated in blood and guts and he doesn't
look particularly pleased. The thing is, he doesn't look angry,
he's just like, what the hell man, So it's very
un batman like one. Bruce like to be literally coated
(21:47):
in the in the guts of a creature. So I did,
I did. I did find that a little bit so humorous.
But yeah, then as we kind of get everybody gets
to the memories back and we get to this very
much invasion of the body snatches. I think that was
a greater, very astute of you Key to put to
say that, because we're dealing with shape shifters. Of course,
in this case we're introduced to the white Martians and
(22:08):
it's like, who is the aid in here? It's almost
a it's a tripe that we have we have also seen,
of course in other films as well. But I did
appreciate that moment of they look like us. It could
be it could be any of us. So it's very
much the thing as well when it comes to you know,
John Carpenter's the thing, and so I did appreciate, being
(22:29):
a big fan of that movie. But yeah, and it's
almost like a rebooting of these characters, almost them rediscovering themselves.
Dare I say, in a very roundabout way. Then we
we finally get to we have to where we have
to get to. I was happy. I just wish we'd
gotten there a little bit faster. And being a fan
of you know, black and white noir films, I did
appreciate that segment. And yeah, it was it was kind
(22:51):
of fourth wall breaking that Bruce would go, there's color.
So I guess we're trying to give us a little
bit of a fourth wall there too, So it was
it was okay. I but but yes, I would have
appreciated maybe just pacing it just a little bit faster
so we can get to where we have to get to.
But I understand they wanted to really go to town
(23:12):
with these with these other scenarios neck maybe entice viewers
to check out stuff like Warlord and other such characters.
So I guess, then let's get to our next group
of characters, or rather our next character, the last of
the Green Martians and who ultimately saves the day, because
I definitely think he is the MVP in this one.
(23:33):
We have Ike Amadi as the Martian Manhunter or John Jones.
So Keith, I believe you're a Martian Manhunter kind of fan.
So what did you make of John Jones in this one?
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Oh yeah, I have a couple of Martian Manhunter figures
actually here in my office. I do enjoy most of
the stories that they have with them. I was disappointed.
I thought it was great how he was able to
worm his way into the matrix, as I keep jokingly
referring to it, the War Matrix, and learn about these characters.
(24:09):
And he's stated, it has been months that I finally
observed you guys, and I've learned about you and so
on and so forth, and he kind of builds his
own character based on those experiences from these three heroes.
And it reminds me of Vision through the Avengers movies,
(24:32):
because again he's half Jarvis, half well Tron and blah
blah blah. But he's basing himself on the experiences of
the Avengers and things that he's seen the Avengers do.
It's the same thing with Martian Manhunter. With that being said,
I wish we got more of him because he is
such an interesting character. And he even points this out
(24:54):
at the end of the movie that he is the
last green Martian even though there were, however, many white
Martians on the ship. He is literally the last of
his kind, and we all know why he's the last
of his kind because us as fans have read the
comics and know that there was a war between the
Green Martians and the White Martians and blah blah blah
(25:15):
blah blah blah blah. What I liked about the twist
spoilers is the fact that he fuses with one of
the white Martians and becomes this uber Martian, And it
reminded me of since we're going through all the weird
references of the dark Crystal at the very end, when
(25:36):
the two light and dark ying and yang as it
were fused together and become the higher race Sam scenario
with the Martians. He goes on this whole monologue about
having a key or half of a key, and the
White Martians having another half of a key, and we
have to fuse together and become this whatever breed of
(26:00):
because they don't last very long. They basically blow themselves
up thirty seconds after they're fused. I would have loved
to have seen that character more because I want to
know how strong or they are are.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Not.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
It just it was like, wait, you introduced this new
whatever and You're immediately gonna blow them up, fun of them.
Damn it. It was like the high and Low all
at the same time. I'm like, wait, what's happening?
Speaker 1 (26:23):
What?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Because I was not expecting that. That was definitely the
twist I was not prepared for or expecting, just because
of how kind of as we mentioned, slow and kind
of boring. At the certain point this was and a
sudden You're like, wait, you're doing what? WHOA what's going
on here? I wish we got more of that character,
or even see this character or in future iterations of
(26:47):
any movie. I don't really care where, because again, I
like the Manhunter. I will one hundred percent and tell
people that, you know, anytime somebody asks. He is a
character that is as strong as Superman and also as
intelligent and calculating and everything as Batman. If you took
(27:10):
Batman's logic and intellect and crammed it into the Martian
Manhunter or into a body that was a strong Superman,
you have the Martian Manhunter, except Marsha Man Hunter has
this wicked addiction to Oriole cookies, which we're not going
to talk about it again. I was mad, I'd like it.
There's no other way I can really explain it, because
(27:32):
what I appreciate is the fact that he is the
one that faces off against Mongol at the very end,
and he goes and explains everything why this is going
to set the fail, And I love the fact that
he ends up torturing Mongol because again he'd been torturing
Martian man Hitter, or him and his cohorts had been
torturing Manhunter to project all these illusions for who knows
(27:55):
how long and impacting however many people. So he got
his revenge by essentially using Mongol as the battery that
Mongol had always wanted. So I appreciate that while it
may not be the best answer anybody was expecting, I
can respect what he did because he was he didn't
(28:15):
want anybody else inflicted or to be inflicted with, you know, death, violence,
blah blah blah blah blah, because the war world is
just there to feed on all the bad stuff. So
he took one for the team and blew the planet up.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
He was certainly he certainly did, And I'm like you,
I kind of wish we'd had more of that green
Martian white Martian hybrids and kind of got to see
more of what they could do, and this kind of
reminded me of a little bit of what we had
discussed last week when it came to Leja's Superheroes, where
we have this key that seems all powerful and if
(28:56):
it falls into the wrong hands, it can spell destruction
or the entire universe, kind of like the Miracle Machine
when it came to lead to the Superheroes. We have
a kind of the same same situation here where the
big mcguffernal Moss, if you will, or the big kind
of Dio six market and the big thing that everybody's
kind of chasing is this key. And obviously turns out
(29:16):
that the reason why we could neither get never get
the key together because being on different factions, the Green
Martians and the White Martians would never fuse together because
they hate each other. They hate each other to death.
So it's very unlikely that the White Martian and the
Green Martian would ever, should we say, agree to fuse
together in order to operate this key maybe under us
(29:36):
and had Mongol known this, he could have possibly forced
this fusion. But out of that, I'm right there with you.
I love Martian Man Hunter as a character, and sometimes
I feel he's underutilized in the grand scheme of things.
I mean, yes, our three heroes are all fine and good,
we love our Big three, but Martian Manhunter can definitely
(30:00):
he is definitely up there when it comes to his
power set and just the kind of guy he is.
I think he definitely deserves more, and I would not
be adverse to a Martian man Hunter movie, and I
hope that I believe that that might actually be in
the works when it comes to the gun Burst, and
I would be very happy to finally see Martian Manhunter
in live action done properly. So I'm hoping that happens,
(30:22):
and I'm glad that he was the one who ultimately
was the MVP of this because between manipulating the White
Martians and Lobo himself and such, it shows you how
he's not just muscle and he's not just a shape shifter.
He's a multi talented hero. And we're definitely very lucky
that he's on the side of good, not the side
of you, because we would definitely be in trouble if
(30:44):
Martian Manhunter was a villain. Even though I've never understood
the name Martian Manhunter because it does sound more like
a villainous name than a heroic one, but hey, we
love you John, so I think he did a great
job and hopefully he will return in some formal shape.
But seeing the destruction of wor world might be difficult.
So I guess then that's round of five characters. By
(31:04):
looking at our villain and our antihero, we have the
aforementioned John Dmijo as Lobo and Robin Askin Downs as Mungol.
So what do you make of these two characters.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
I appreciate we didn't have to deal with Lobo any
more than we really needed to, because again, he is
just like nails on a chalkboard grading to me. And
again I know I'm the minority. I will guarantee our
listeners will be like he's the greatest something or ever
known de mand and to which I argue, he is
(31:38):
just a generic biker dude. I can go to any
bar Usa and find generic biker dude aka Lobo, So
he's not something super duper original. And yes, you can
argue that about all of our characters. But the fact
of the matter is that much of this story could
have ended the exact same way with our Lobo. This
(32:01):
could have been done with generic hench person, and we
didn't need Lobo there at all because again, as Martianmanhunter
tells him, he planted this idea of a back door
into the matrix so he could then do this other stuff.
So literally, he just needed any warm body, so they
(32:25):
could have just taken random character and would have had
the same end result. And again this character then not
killing Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, same scenario. He just
needed to be knocked out, and then again all of
this would have happened. So the Lobo character was just
there to be there. It was again very much a
(32:47):
waste of screen time because it didn't necessarily add anything
to the story. It was just like, oh, look, the
asshole's here. Cool, great, let's move on. And even when
he does turn sides for the zero point three seconds,
it's not because he's, you know, become this big hero. No,
he's just trying to screw Mongol because Mongo's about to
(33:08):
screw him. So it was just who screwed who first, essentially,
And Mongol is another one of these characters that is
very interesting. But the way he is portrayed in this movie,
especially with his art style, he looks like a prune
with feet. He is this wrinkly yellow looking wither banana
(33:30):
guy who is supposed to be on par with Superman.
He is supposed to have this presence opposed to this again,
this guy who is more addicted to the life energy
of the planet opposed to being a world conqueror. In
the comic books, the reason why he has this planet
(33:51):
is he's conquered it and he is, you know, taking
control of war World and blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah. So he earned it. Here is just he
had it for some reason, and they just kind of well,
we don't need the important details like how we got here,
why he's here, any of this stuff. Where they found
a man hunter, So it turned into we have five minutes,
(34:12):
as we always jokingly say it was the five minute rule.
So they just cut the meat and the potatoes down
to like, well, what do we need to get this done, Well,
we need interaction A, the interaction B and FC happened.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Again.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
We didn't need you know, any honestly, we probably could
have had generic supervillain as well. We didn't need Mongol.
We didn't need the reference to an actual decent bad
guy who has put Superman on his butt more than once.
He's putting the Green lanterns on their butt more than once,
the Justice League, and so on and so forth. So
we have this uber powerful guy that gets blown up
(34:47):
in again zero point two seconds of after being introduced
and really kind of gone on some random exposition dumb
about something. So I think he could have been used
to better Lobo. We didn't need at all.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I don't think we needed him either. It would have
actually been kind of cool with some of the characters
that we'd met previously made an appearance here, case in
point to Warlord, I think would have maybe been more suited.
I mean, maybe play the double agent at first, but
it would have kind of tied back to the friendship
or the alliance they'd had with Batman, and so maybe
(35:28):
having Warlords there would have maybe made more sense possibly
when it came to that. Because I'm right, I agree
with you. Lobo annoys me to the nth degree, and
there are very few characters when it comes to the
superhero world that annoy me as much as Lobo. I mean,
you and I talked about this off air. You could
kind of equate him annoyance level wise to Deadpool. But
(35:51):
the thing is, I guess Deadpool is designed to be annoying,
so you have to kind of feel it because, of
course we've been seen, especially in the comics and taken
even in the movies. He and anoise everybody from Wolverine
to Thanos to all sorts of characters, especially when it
comes to comics, and it's he's meant to be that way.
He's irreverence, He's meant to be the pain and the
buck kind of character that all the other characters can't
(36:13):
stand to have around, and is of course madly in
love with himself and very much like Lobo. Lobo is
is incredibly is a narcissist through and through. You know,
he calls him something he caught. He considersmself to be
like the boss man and the main dude and what
have you, And just the way he carries on. I'm like,
I don't want to see you just go away. And
(36:36):
I'm glad that, like you said, he didn't overstay his welcome.
Granted that we could have done without him, but he
was there enough to not to where I really was like,
I was almost tempted to turn the movie off and
just kind of cool down a moment and go back
to it. But nothing, as I said, as I said before,
nothing against Johnny Midgel's work, because he is a fantastic
(36:57):
voice actor, but it's the character. I think anybody could
have voiced him, and he just would have been annoying
because he is just that annoying. And the fact that
of course he's going to turn turned turncoat, because that
is Lobo. He is an opportunist and he is a mercenary,
just like Dedpool. So he will very much see whatever opportunity,
(37:17):
whatever side is worth playing, he will do that if only,
of course, in his best interest, because he's not a
hero and he's definitely, definitely more, very much the most
selfish of the characters that we have in the DC universe,
and so it's all about him. But yeah, when he
finally kind of kind of got dealt with, I'm like, yeah, see, Lobo,
you thought you were the greatest thing since sliced bread,
(37:39):
but Marsha at Manhunter played you like a violin, so
I was very happy about that. Mongol, Yeah, this design
was curious because I'm used to seeing Mongol being a big, buffy,
chunky kind of guy, you know, very much muscle bound
and like you said, very intimidating, because he can issuald
go toe to toe with Superman and almost any other
(38:00):
big hero in the DC universe. So here he did
seem more desiccated and definitely seemed like the geriatric version
like the way you described him of Mongol, because you
could feel that he was scary or rather intimidating more
from his voice. And I say, definitely say kudos to
to Robin Atkin Downs for doing a great job voicing
(38:21):
the character. But visually he felt like this, he almost
felt like Demos. It's kind of ancient wizard who handles
this staff and is all about wanting to merge with
war World because he wants to become one with it
or whatever reason I suppose, because he loves violence and
War World is all about violence. So it's almost like
the coming together of the two is the perfect union
(38:42):
for him. But of course then he's very quickly dealt
with going back once again to the fact of make
your segments earlier shorter so we can really focus on
why we're here, aka the title of this movie, War World,
give us more of war World. And yeah, we did
get a very kind of backdoor explanation as to why
Mongol is there. But there were some things while I
(39:04):
was kind of scratching my head because if you haven't
read the comics, you won't have a clue of what
the heck is going on when it comes to some
of the moments in this film. Granted, in the comics,
War World is more of a gladiatorial arena where Mongol
just pictures kind of people to fight against each other,
compared to this where it's just like, I love this place,
and to keep it going, we have to randomly kidnap
(39:27):
people from all sorts of earths and use their anger
and their fear to keep war World alive while I
try to get my hands on this key. So I
have no idea where this key is and I probably
never will, while of course torturing the Martian Manhunter half
to death. So I would have liked a bit more.
I would like more of this part of the film
our third act. I would put for an extended third
(39:49):
act compared to our previous ones. So yeah, I just
hope that in future the versions that we get of Mongol,
because I'm sure he'll crop up some point, we'll be
done a little bit better. So before we get to ratings. Keith,
I think we should we should kind of kind of
discuss how this movie ended, because obviously it's a big
(40:12):
lead up to how the movie will be discussing next week,
to where we have, of course, the appearance of the Harbinger,
who miraculously rescues our trio, brings them back to safety,
and we arrive literally at the Monitors satellite, which of
course is very important, just before World World explodes, and
she of course lets our heroes and us the audience
(40:32):
know that what we saw here is nothing compared to
what is to come. So what did you make of
how we were literally led from this to chrisis on
infinite earths?
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Well, I appreciate the fact that they actually integrated it
into the ending of the movie. It wasn't oh the
blows up, we don't know if they survived, blah blah blah,
and then made credits scenes you see Harbager and so
on and so forth. Happens that that was the true
ending of the movie. Was Harborager explaining to the Trio
(41:06):
or the Trinity, depending on which term you want to use,
that your help is needed because there's a crisis coming.
My argument to that is two of the three of
these guys would have survived wor World blowing up. Superman
would have survived it. Wonder Woman one hundred percent because
we saw her take a blast at the face in
the beginning of the movie. Batman, Sorry, buddy, you're a human.
(41:31):
Tough luck, better luck next time. So he's the one
that definitely would have eaten it pretty hard. But the
other two probably would have survived it blowing up, So
you know, was she needed probably not. Did it help
set up crisis on Infinite Earth's movies one percent? And
I appreciate they did it in a natural way, as
(41:54):
natural as you can in a superhero movie, where it's
integrated into the movie, not a bonus scene or if
you unlock some super secret decoder ring type of code,
you're going to find out about this twist or some
other weird crap. So I like that they kept it
classic and just use this as a transition to the
(42:14):
next story point.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
This was probably the most exciting part of the movie
for me, which I think probably tells you what I
made this movie as a whole, Not to say that
it was horrendous, but that was when I kind of
geeked out. Is when the Harbinger appeared because I know
I recognized the character. I'm like, that is the Harbinger. Yes,
we're definitely we're leading up to crisis. So I was
(42:39):
really excited about it, and especially also when we saw
the Monitor's satellite, I was really excited about that because
I also recognized that as well. So I was really
pleased with myself, which I think is very horrible to say,
but I was very very excited and pleasing myself at
the same time. Going now, I'm really pumped, and so
I was almost emptied to seek out and go and
(43:02):
watch Christ and Infinite Earth's pretty much post haste, but
I'm like, cool, your jets, We'll get to it next week,
so you've got tons of time to sit down and
watch it. But I think, at least for me, when
it came to creating the hype for what was to
come next, they definitely succeeded at least where as far
as I was concerned. So say it was the best
part of the movie might not be saying much about
(43:24):
the actual film we talked about today, but I think,
like you pointed out, it was it was well integrated
into where it's like like credits and then post credit
in almost an empty you fashion of suddenly the Harbinger
appears as like crisis has yet to come or something
foreboding for us to think of, Like, oh, okay, I
guess we've got chrisis and up next. So kudos to
(43:47):
the folks on this movie for integrating it that way
and creating the hype for Christs and infinite Earth's and
of course we'll be getting to that next week. So
keith I, do you have anything else you want mentioned
about this film or anything else before we get to ratings.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Just because we've been making some ridiculously obscure references to
everything during this review. Mongol is the Mamra of the
DC universe. I was just you know, oh, I can
transform into the super strong being and you know, back
in my day, I could beat all of you up
like one hundred percent. Is the Mamra where he doesn't
seem like he'd hurt you, but then you go toe
(44:24):
to toe with him and he can throw some fists.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
I love that that comparison. And heck, if we ever
finally get a decent, well like a full lengths ThunderCats film,
I'd be more than happy to discuss it with you.
Because you literally sing my song there. Because ThunderCats are
still a bigger part of my well not in my life,
but it's still a big They have a whole, big
place in my heart. So if we do get a
Thundercat's film, I definitely want to want to discuss it,
(44:50):
even live action, as bad as it could possibly be.
So getting then to ratings, what do you give this
movie out?
Speaker 2 (44:57):
At the end, I was trying to drive us on
as long as possible. I'm going to give it a passing.
I'm going to give it a six point five. It's
not great, it's not terrible. It is the filler movie
to get us from one story point to the next.
It is just there to kind of however long it was,
(45:17):
I can't remember how many minutes it was, but it's
just it's there to fill avoid until the next story starts.
So six point.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Five, I'm I agree with you on this one. I'm
also going to give it a six point five. It
does get to live another day and won't be going
to summer school, so it is a six and a
half out of ten. There were parts of this movie
that I genuinely enjoyed, but it did but the pacing
was just did drag a little bit too much, and
as I said, I think maybe more attention to them
(45:44):
paid to the third act compared to what we previously saw.
So six and a half out of ten for me
as well. So thus get into recommendations. Did you have
anything you would like to recommend to our list? Is
this week? Keith?
Speaker 2 (46:01):
So, there was a whole story arc that was done
with Superman and war World that actually just recently wrapped up,
and it bridges like literally every Superman story and there's
probably about a dozen or so issues. I think it's
like twenty four to be exact, and it is Superman
going to War World, fighting the pits and the whole
(46:22):
nine yards because of things that are happening to him.
So if you like war World and you want to
kind of see more of this gladiatorial version of it,
check it out. It was literally War World Rising, war
Superman Authority Arena, and War World Revolution. And yes, that
is a mouthful of crap, I apologize, And that is
(46:44):
led into the current story that is the Superman Action
comics right.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Now fantastic, and I will say yeah, also in the
older version of War World, for those who liked Superman
with the longer hair you get treats to Superman having
those those incredibly long black locks of his making look
really more badass. If you ask me, I will say
if there were any characters here that you know particularly
(47:08):
took your fancy, like, for example, the Warlord, then you
check out the Warlord comics, especially if you are fans
of sword and sorcery, because this is definitely DC's sworden
sorcery genre. Add it's finest, especially when it comes through
to characters like this and Travis Morgan, who is of
course Warlord, goes on many in an adventure, So if
(47:29):
you want to check out his comics, I would definitely
suggest that you you go. May go back right to
the very beginning. I would even say back to nineteen
seventy five. If you can get that version, which was
of course first issue Special number eight, you'll probably likely
be able to find it digitally or maybe your friendly
neighborhood comic book store might have a copy of that,
(47:50):
but if not, a of course move you can then
move forward on to the Warlord comics themselves, which started
printing in nineteen seventy six all the way to twenty ten,
so there's plenty of those to read. In particular, if
you want to go with the collected editions, I would
strongly suggested to pick up Warlord the Savage Empire and
(48:11):
also Showcase presents Warlord once again. If you are, of
course fans of the Sworden Sorcery, I think this is
definitely up your alley. So folks, of course, if you
do want to weigh in on the movies we discuss here,
you can of course shoot us an email to Happiness
and Darkness How at gmail dot com once again, Happiness
and Darkness How at gmail dot com. You can of
(48:33):
course follow us on our social media on Facebook where
combiances Happiness and Darkness. We'll also of course x at
High Darkness Pod naturally, if you are listening to us
on such platforms as Spotify or podcasts, be sure rate
and review us, as that keeps the algorithm stimulated and
of course what allows our show to reach more like
minded ears like yours. So, as always, a big thank
(48:56):
you to those who have done so. In the future,
thank you to those who will so Keith when you're
not here discussing complex movies like this, Justice Lee, War World,
where can folks find you on the interwebs.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
You know, you can find me hanging some shingles, some shells.
Apparently I'm the new DIY guy on YouTube. It's two
thumbs at nobody dot com. And when I'm not doing
any of that, you can find me on our Facebook page.
I'm always ready, willing and able to talk about anything superhero,
comic books, cartoons, anime, yad yahd yadah blah blah blah.
(49:31):
And occasionally you can find me popping up on some
of our friends podcasts like The Hour Comic. I've been
on there a handful of times, Star Trek, The Undiscovered Podcast,
and many many others, apparently because I have so much
free time to do recordings.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Fantastic stuff, and folks, if you are, of course interested,
Just to throw this out there as a last minute thing,
there is a ThunderCats movie in the works. Apparently Adam Wingard,
the director of such films as Godzilla Versus Kong and
of course Godzilla x Kong The New Empire, he is
(50:07):
scheduled to direct the Thundercat's film. It is not it
hasn't gone to development hell just yet. Apparently he was
approached for an interview and they asked him about this,
and he said that they're still heavily working on the script,
so hopefully it would eventually see the lights of light
of day. I am a little bit concerned when it
comes to a live action ThunderCats film, but you never know,
(50:30):
it could blow us away and it might actually be
really cool. So in case you were wondering, yes there
is they are. There is genuinely work going into a
Thundercat's film. When it comes to myself, you can find
in my day job, of course, the Whiskey and Cigarettes Show,
where we play the very best and nothing but the
best of country music for you guys from Alabama to
Zach Brown. And for more information about that, you can
(50:52):
visit our website which is Whiskey and Cigarettes Show dot com.
Podcast Wise, you can also find myself and those two
lovely ladies Za Sprouse at Rachel Friend on gold Standard
the Oscars podcast. We have reviewed all the Best Picture
winning movies in chronological order. Now as we wait for
the next Best Picture to reveal itself, which should be
in a couple of months hopefully, we are reviewing movies
(51:14):
that we have picked and we also have returning in
new guest co hosts making their way to the gold
Standard Theater and bring their favorite movies we recently discussed,
speaking of which return guest co host Christine Peruski brought
her one of her favorite films, A League of their Own.
We recently discussed that, and this week as of this recording,
we will reviewing a movie that I picked, which is
(51:35):
the nineteen to nineteen Nicholas Rogue film The Witches, So
definitely going to be a fun discussion there. And last,
but certainly not least to myself in Charles Skaggs can
be found of course the Fandom Zone podcast. We have
wrapped up our review of the first season of Preach
Commandos now as we wait for new properties to show themselves,
(51:56):
which will be in March, we'll be coming back to
review daredvil Born again. It's definitely very very excited about
this sec new MCU project and being a huge fan
of Daredevil, I think it's going to be quite the
time and s feelings to come on this show. Next
time we'll be taking on the aforementioned twenty twenty four
(52:17):
Jeff Warmster film Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earth's Part one.
So h Keith, anything else you'd like to mention Our
upcoming movie or anything else before we sign off.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
I'm looking forward to this one. I started to watch this,
but I've yet to finish it. I have horrible ADHD.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
So we'll be.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
Fun to finally hunker down and watch all twenty six
hours of this movie.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
Yes, and because it's twenty six hours long, folks, there
is of course in three parts, so we are going
to be going through it one part of the time,
week per week because if no, we literally like watching
The Lord of the Rings extended editions, so I think
also to spare our brain seeing their prey, multiple characters,
multiple storylines, we are going to go by this week
(53:04):
by week. So that said, of course, we will see
you next time with Justice League christ on Infinite Earth's
Part one. Thank you as always in the Stone supporting us.
Until then, once again, stay super Thank you so much
for the privilege of your time. Choo mobbibull
Something isn't right. I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I need to find a way back. Yes, but to wear.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Why can you tell us about this wizard? I could
take you to his castle. Beyond that, you're the ones
intent I'm dying to run Rob. She's an angel, come
to save us all. Never seen any one fight like that.
(00:43):
You're a wonder.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
We have to kill them before they kids.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
The only way to stop their invasion.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Tex.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
You said you wanted to prove yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
This is the time evil. This as unstoppable as the way. Sure,
that's why we fight for those that can. A good
nay knows that the darkness will always be there that
stands against it. Anyway, We're on other thor away, not her.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
War world. Shum up, people, and welcome to our two
one hundred and seventy sixth episode of Happiness and Darkness
and Superhio Movie Podcast, where we discuss Superhio movies, Marble DC,
Dark Horse, Image and more. Naturally, there will be spoilers, folks,
(01:43):
so you have been warned. I'm one of your co hosts,
did you, Nick, And as always joining me is my
superhero partner in crime and recent birthday boy, mister Keith Bliss.
Hey Keith, how you doing, and a belated happy birthday
to you.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I appreciate it, Thank you much there, DJ Nick. It
was interesting. I had to call the fire department because
apparently two hundred candles on the cake is considered a
fire hazard.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Who knew? I did not.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
But once that died down, you know, we had some fun,
we up and some gifts, and you know, I basically
took the day after recount books, watch TV and just
nerd out. So now I'm back here with you to
review a very interesting movie that I was had forgotten
I had seen put it that way.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Well, it sounds like you had a very good berth
and I'm glad that you all say with to take
the day off from work and enjoy your special day.
And yes, sir, as you rightfully put it, today, I
think it's going to be a rather interesting one because
the day we are discussing Justice League War World film
twenty twenty three. This was directed by Jeff Warmeister. It
was written by Jeremy Adams, Ernie Altbacker and Josie Campbell,
(02:50):
while the score was by Michael Gatt. So getting the
general impressions here, Keith, you mentioned This wasn't your first
go around with this film, So what did you make
of it? On your rewatch?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I had forgotten I had watched this movie. It was
that mid of a movie that I sat through the
whole thing. I think I even fell asleep the first time.
But I rewatched it again, and it's just it's a
filler movie. It's like if we were to watch a
season of a TV show and they hit a low
(03:22):
point in the season and just needed crap to fill
an episode. That's what this movie felt like. It just
felt like they needed something to fill up, you know,
between start of a story and the end of the story.
This was just rando filler movie. It wasn't terrible. It
was very interesting because they broke these characters off into
(03:43):
their own little worlds, as it were, and they got
to live the matrix of murder because they were on
war World for howard long. We don't even know how
long they were there. They could have been on that
planet for years. We have no concept of time. And
as we find out towards the end of the movie
that every time a character dies or passes away, they
(04:05):
just start another iteration of murder matrix and they just
continue on, so theoretically these characters could have been on
there days, weeks, months, years, eons for all we know.
I did appreciate the fact that they gave each character
the trio, Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman their own standalone stories,
(04:27):
and they got to finish each story and they basically
spilled over into each other, and I appreciated that. And
I liked how they started with Wonder Woman and they
set her off on her own little adventure in the
wild West, which I found interesting They picked the Wild
West for Wonder Woman, but I was fine with it.
And the Jonah Hex cameo, who normally plays a anti
(04:53):
hero slash bounty hunder, good guy, whatever you want to
call it, and he was her nemesis in this seemed
a little interesting because again, as we know of this character,
he's not an evil or generally bad guy more often
than not. I'm not saying he's always perfect, but he
is what he is, and I just found it interesting
(05:15):
that they had to face off. And I appreciate the
fact that in all three iterations they didn't kill anybody.
They did not at least deliberately kill anybody. Sometimes there
was explosions, like in the Wonder Woman's land or world,
and that may have killed somebody, but she did not
(05:36):
directly kill somebody. So their core beings of do no
harm kind of was so ingrained within them that it
carried on even in their subconscious and they were going
through the different iterations. And then I liked how Wonder
Woman transitioned into Batman's world, which was this crazy, savage
(05:58):
land Conan the barbarian, weird chaos craziness, and immediately I
thought of Conan the Destroyer when I watched this, and
it made me chuckle because you and I have reviewed
these Conan movies and all I kept thinking was it's Conan,
It's Conan. Where's his dumb sword? And you know, they
fight a giant snake. I mean, like, you couldn't make
this anymore Conan, which is fine because you and I
(06:21):
both enjoyed that movie immensely for how cheesy it was.
And then those two spill over and collect Superman, who
is in this weird Roswell esque crazy body snatcher movie.
And what I liked is it was black and white,
and they did not realize it was black and white
(06:42):
until they get to the spaceship and they're like wait
a minute, there's something different, and Batman's like, yeah, there's color,
and Supers like, oh yeah, that's a thing like that.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
There it is.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I knew there was something weird missing, so it just
I thought that was out of all the weird dumb things.
Just thought that was the funny thing that he just
walking in like completely dead paint. He's like, yeah, wearing
collar that was black and white. It seems like okay,
And you know, the chemistry between the three of them,
I will say it was on point, and the writing
(07:11):
was decent. It was just I don't know the story
that the pacing was just very kind of janking all
over the place for me personally.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
No, I totally hear you when it comes out. I
was rather thrown off when it came to this film
because I assumed you and I talked about a little
bit about this off air coming off of Legion of
Superheroes and the post credits scene we get there spoilers. Folks,
if you haven't seen Leading Superheroes, either go listen to
our review of said movie, or go back and watch
it and then come back to us. But because obviously
(07:44):
you know, when we see Batman in that case, we
see Batman and Superman kind of being vaporized or just
disappearing with this huge crater, and I'm like, okay, this
is the next movie chronologically, so we're gonna kind of
get an explanation of where the heck these guys have
gone to, and in a roundabout way, they do. But
it was it was definitely not what I was expecting,
which I think can also be a good thing when
it's like, Okay, they haven't been transported somewhere else. But
(08:07):
as soon as I saw World World, I'm like, okay,
mongols probably involved, and lord knows what the shenanigans. But
I did appreciate the different settings, and I think also
coming off of something like what If, it felt very
much like what If or the DC version, which I
guess phoss would be Elseworld's. So it did feel like
a mixture different Elseworld story of like what if Wonder
Woman was in the wild West or what if Batman
(08:30):
was in his Swords and Swords and Sorcery scenario. So
I did appreciate that, But like you, as these scenarios
played out, I was getting a little bit anxious and
they'll be like, can we get to why we're here?
And what is going on. So I guess I was
on one side invested because I wanted to know why
we were seeing what we were seeing, But on the
(08:51):
other I wish we had gotten there just a little
bit quicker, because I could see that the writers and
the director were having good time showing us these ultimate
scenarios of these of the Big three of DC. But
on the other I would have liked a little bit more.
And then we got the explanations, Oh yeah, I can
buy this is pretty cool. There were some characters which
I was not expecting to see and kind of annoyed me,
(09:12):
and we all get to that. But I do think
you've made an excellent point. It's a bridge between Legion
of Superheroes and then and Christs on the Infinite Earth's
because that's very much what this builds up to. So
I guess it also has the unfortunate job of setting
up a big event like Christ's on Infinite Earth's, so
that can either be seemingly a filler episode because of that,
(09:35):
because we have to get to the big moment. So
you have like this this setup, But on the other
you know, if you do it right, you can make
people like going, oh, We're getting christ on the Infinite Earth,
and that was kind of what I felt. By the
time we got to the end of this, I'm like, Yay,
this is cool. We're going to get Christ on the
Infinite Earth's next and so we'll see what comes with
that movie. So by and large, it was middle of
the episode, middle of the road for me too, But
(09:56):
there were some things that I did enjoy. So let's
kick off with our big three DC heroes traversing realities
and illusions. We have Jensen Eccles returning as Batman, stan
A Katich as Wonder Woman, and Darren Chris as Superman.
So what do you make of our big three in
this movie, Keith.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
We've as we've seen them before. They worked very well.
The accent still gets me with Wonder Woman, but it's
it's slowly, you know, sinking in for a lack of
better term, I'm okay with it. I'm not saying it's
the greatest. It still seems really kind of odd, but
whatever I did appreciate. You know, they all had to
(10:38):
go through their own trials and tribulations, and I like
the fact that they start with Wonder Woman and she's
on a horse back and this is a very slow
wild West, you know story, and you're kind of like,
all right, I don't know where this is going, and
then it just goes off the rails so spectacular.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
And it was fine because again we're showing each character
in their own little universes going through whatever chaos.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
It was great.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I like hers because it wasn't long, it wasn't too long,
and I noticed the Batman one was a little bit longer,
and then the Superman wants a little bit longer, and
I think that's what kind of as you had mentioned
and I mentioned as well, it causes the dragon. I
think they ended Wonder Woman's at the right point. You're like,
all right, cool, and then it cuts to Batman and
(11:30):
Batman is this Conan esque warrior and he's on the
battlefield just you know, kicking butt like usual. And I
appreciate the fact that he had this batman esque mask,
which even when he doesn't know who he is, he
still has this Batman persona, which made me laugh a
little bit. And he gets it knocked off. And then
(11:51):
when he's going against I just blinked on his name.
When they do go into their fight, he's like, Man,
you're kind of ugly looking, and he makes a joke
about his appearance, and they just kind of chuckle and
continue on. And then Batman goes through his crazy tribulations,
and again, it's not that we're discovering anything new about
these characters. It's just you're basically starting off at zero
(12:14):
again with each one of them. And then we get
the Superman or Clark, who is now a CIA agent
exploring Roswell or some Roswell esque type of experience, and
he's the only one that's in black and white. Which
I think was the most jarring out of all of
this is the fact that it's in black and white,
and I'm thinking, like, oh, it's just retro. And then
(12:37):
when they do get to the space spaceship they get
to a war world, Batman's like, no, it was really
in black and white, and I'm like, oh, Like that
just kind of like blew my mind for a second
because I'm like, wait, they didn't realize this was all
black and white. That seems kind of crazy, like everybody's
literally color blind to the world.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I thought that was an.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Interesting take in that negated his powers. So he was
strong ish and fast ish, but he wasn't full on
Superman because again he didn't have access to the yellow light.
His seemed the most boring, which sounds crazy because it
was literally an alien invasion in his universe and I
(13:17):
was the most bored with all of that. They just
seemed to go on a little too long, the interactions
he had with Diana and Bruce, especially when they're in
the cop car driving away and Bruce rattles off some
random thing about gash trucks and if you knock off
this vent cap you can shoot it with the blah
blah blah and blow up like whatever, and he goes like, well,
(13:40):
how do you know? And he's like, I don't know.
And that's just his response to everything. Anytime somebody asked
me a question, he's like, I don't know. And that
is equivalent of I am Batman. Through this entire little
stick is he basically was just saying I am Batman,
but in the I don't know tone, So it was fine.
You know, you got you from pointing to point B.
(14:02):
I would say, the only well, there's two annoying things,
and you and I will both talk about the same
annoying point. But the one thing I didn't like was
when they do finally get to War World, one random
ass character from Superman's environment comes through as well, and
it's like, but why this one and where the hell
(14:24):
was he? Considering they were driving in a car thirty
seconds earlier and they were, you know, in a barn,
and they touch this object. This dude is not on
screen at all, and he just magically pops up, Like
the hell this guy come from? So I thought that
was a little JANKI and I wasn't really needed. They
could have just stumbled upon any random security guard, which
(14:48):
happens thirty seconds after this. So I think that's where
they really kind of turned into a bit of a
lazy writing, because they just didn't know how to get
you know, bridge, the War World esque of it and
then the real world. They were just kind of like, well,
we need to do something and show Superman that he's
super He could have gotten shot by a security guard
(15:09):
and we had the same end results and we wouldn't
have needed Rando Human on the ship or on War World.
Then what I liked is the core characters start to
finally come out there like, hey, look I remember who
I kind of remember who I am, And then they
get the costumes, and the costumes are also funny. I
will say I chuckled at very random points in this movie,
(15:31):
which I thought was weird, just because you don't expect
to be laughing at them looking at their costumes taking
up and going, hey, that looks familiar. And then Batman
puts his on and goes, apparently I like to wear costumes,
and he makes some dumb comment, and wonder One makes
a comment, and Clark looks confused in his costume, like
he's like, well it fits, but I don't know why.
And Diana remembers Clark, but Clark doesn't remember her, like
(15:55):
everybody starts remembering at different paces, which was another thing
I liked. And I going to assume that she remembered
first because she has been outside for a quote, uh,
you know, for lack of a better term, uh, the
war world, because she's transitioned from hers through Batman's to Superman's,
(16:16):
so she's the you know, been disconnected from the machines
for so long. Her memory is coming back.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
A little bit sooner.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
And then Batman's comes back, and then eventually Clark's comes back,
and they just go ham on Mongol and then we
have our most annoying character ever known to man Lobo, which, oh,
I I know I am of the minority, but I
dislike Lobo with so much of my fiber in my
(16:44):
being that I've grown every time he opens his mouth,
because it's Bender doing the voice of Lobo, and I'm
just waiting for him to just say kiss, kiss my
shiny metal ass, and I'd be like, all right, I'm done,
Like that's it's the same actor. And if you guys
didn't know that spoilers, So anytime Lobo talks, I hear Bender,
which makes it worse. And then he's just a pain
(17:07):
in the ass the entire time. And he really is
just there as a plot device to get us through
the story. And it's even basically pointed out to him
by the Martian Manhunter that the Manhunter is the reason
why he did this thing, because Lobo is trying to be.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Like, I helped you, you owe me, and.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Manhunter's like, oh did you now didn't you think it
was a little odd that you randomly thought about that?
And Logo was like, well shit, And he gets mad
at that that he get manipulated and then turn around
and manipulate like no sooner does he get mad at that?
Then he turns around and manipulates Mongole by releasing Superman,
Bat and a Wonder Woman. So it's like pick a lane, dude,
and they just don't know what to do this character.
(17:47):
And again every time he comes on screen, I'm just like, oh,
it's Bender, but worse.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yes, indeed, nothing of course against the John Dimidjo when
it comes to his voice swaking down. I definitely do
love John as Bender. I will say that, but I'm like, yeah, okay,
is John D. Mager, So you will definitely hear that that.
I guess Bender in your ears when he voices other characters,
I suppose, But yeah, when it came to these three
in their journeys, I did, though, appreciate the fact that,
(18:16):
you know, in each scenario, we did have characters that
would inhabit these worlds, like Jonah Hex When it came
to the Wild West. Albeit, I was literally I couldn't
stand the character in this one because he's a villain
and I'm like, usually he's a good guy, and he
seemed like such a stand up guy at first, when
obviously all the other men are googling Diana and he's
(18:36):
the only decent ones like, if you want some decent whiskey,
come upstairs and I'll give you a taste of the
real stuff. But he seems to be the only one
who's not being, you know, a complete chauvinist and just
completely undressing Diana with it with his eyes. He's like,
I like the way you fight, Come and let's have
some whiskey together. But then it all turns apparently he's
like this mob boss almost in the West who owns
(18:58):
this town, and the other people are outside are kind
of like trapped between a rock and a hard place
because they don't have They're literally living trying to live
off stuff inside there. But going inside means you probably
get killed by Jonah's mob or hired goons for that matter.
And so I was really upset and a little bit
disappointed that Jonah X did not turn out to be
(19:18):
an ally but a villain. I get it, it's war world,
so things will be slightly different, but still I'm like,
you seemed like such a stand up guy. You deserve
to get your face punched into a pulp by Diana.
Totally deserve the way you behave. But then you know,
you move on to Batman scenario. There you also have
characters that do inhabit this kind of world. You know,
(19:38):
you were touched up on Warlord, who is the big
guy in you know, the the the big barbarian kind
of guy who has his own comic of course, and
and is in the part of the Sworden Sorcery world
of DC comics, along with Demos, who of courses our
villain in this in this scenario, even though Demos is
completely useless. I mean, it's like he's suppose to be incredibly,
(20:00):
incredibly powerful sorcerer. What are your tricks. You've got a gun,
which you call a magic you know, a magic wand
because of course people in this world all this, you know,
time have never seen a gun, so I guess it
could be a potentially dangerous weapon. But you run out
of bullets, You're screwed because all you do is you
turn into like a huge dragon beast kind of guy.
(20:21):
Of course they're going to defeat you, and like this
is not over yet. I'll get you next time, gadget
and off you go. So I found the Muster be
a little bit underwhelming as a villain, but it was
a nice way to transition into where Batman is and
Batman the Barbarians, So I'm like, okay, cool, he's he's
hanging out with Warlord, which is which is which I
can appreciate, but I do agree with you. Each segment
(20:42):
seem to get longer than the previous one, and I
was really just waiting for the other two segments, especially
the Sword and Sorcery one and the Noir alien invasion
body stature scenario to be over so we can actually
get to where we're going, because I was looking at
the runt of this and it isn't really that long
(21:02):
of a film. It's about I clocks in about an
hour and a half, but it really seems to drag
and like we like we pointed out already, but I
was just rewarting us to get the good stuff. It
did make me chuckle. You know, you said some awkward
moments or odd moments, won't you chuckle. One of the
funniest ones to me was Batman being coated in blood
and guts because he's literally underneath this huge dinosaur or
(21:26):
sauer pod kind of monster, and of course Warlord slashes
the beast's tummy open, gets out of the way, and
Bruce gets coated in blood and guts and he doesn't
look particularly pleased. The thing is, he doesn't look angry,
he's just like, what the hell man, So it's very
un batman like one. Bruce like to be literally coated
(21:47):
in the in the guts of a creature. So I did,
I did. I did find that a little bit so humorous.
But yeah, then as we kind of get everybody gets
to the memories back and we get to this very
much invasion of the body snatches. I think that was
a greater, very astute of you Key to put to
say that, because we're dealing with shape shifters. Of course,
in this case we're introduced to the white Martians and
(22:08):
it's like, who is the aid in here? It's almost
a it's a tripe that we have we have also seen,
of course in other films as well. But I did
appreciate that moment of they look like us. It could
be it could be any of us. So it's very
much the thing as well when it comes to you know,
John Carpenter's the thing, and so I did appreciate, being
(22:29):
a big fan of that movie. But yeah, and it's
almost like a rebooting of these characters, almost them rediscovering themselves.
Dare I say, in a very roundabout way. Then we
we finally get to we have to where we have
to get to. I was happy. I just wish we'd
gotten there a little bit faster. And being a fan
of you know, black and white noir films, I did
appreciate that segment. And yeah, it was it was kind
(22:51):
of fourth wall breaking that Bruce would go, there's color.
So I guess we're trying to give us a little
bit of a fourth wall there too, So it was
it was okay. I but but yes, I would have
appreciated maybe just pacing it just a little bit faster
so we can get to where we have to get to.
But I understand they wanted to really go to town
(23:12):
with these with these other scenarios neck maybe entice viewers
to check out stuff like Warlord and other such characters.
So I guess, then let's get to our next group
of characters, or rather our next character, the last of
the Green Martians and who ultimately saves the day, because
I definitely think he is the MVP in this one.
(23:33):
We have Ike Amadi as the Martian Manhunter or John Jones.
So Keith, I believe you're a Martian Manhunter kind of fan.
So what did you make of John Jones in this one?
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Oh yeah, I have a couple of Martian Manhunter figures
actually here in my office. I do enjoy most of
the stories that they have with them. I was disappointed.
I thought it was great how he was able to
worm his way into the matrix, as I keep jokingly
referring to it, the War Matrix, and learn about these characters.
(24:09):
And he's stated, it has been months that I finally
observed you guys, and I've learned about you and so
on and so forth, and he kind of builds his
own character based on those experiences from these three heroes.
And it reminds me of Vision through the Avengers movies,
(24:32):
because again he's half Jarvis, half well Tron and blah
blah blah. But he's basing himself on the experiences of
the Avengers and things that he's seen the Avengers do.
It's the same thing with Martian Manhunter. With that being said,
I wish we got more of him because he is
such an interesting character. And he even points this out
(24:54):
at the end of the movie that he is the
last green Martian even though there were, however, many white
Martians on the ship. He is literally the last of
his kind, and we all know why he's the last
of his kind because us as fans have read the
comics and know that there was a war between the
Green Martians and the White Martians and blah blah blah
(25:15):
blah blah blah blah. What I liked about the twist
spoilers is the fact that he fuses with one of
the white Martians and becomes this uber Martian, And it
reminded me of since we're going through all the weird
references of the dark Crystal at the very end, when
(25:36):
the two light and dark ying and yang as it
were fused together and become the higher race Sam scenario
with the Martians. He goes on this whole monologue about
having a key or half of a key, and the
White Martians having another half of a key, and we
have to fuse together and become this whatever breed of
(26:00):
because they don't last very long. They basically blow themselves
up thirty seconds after they're fused. I would have loved
to have seen that character more because I want to
know how strong or they are are.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Not.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
It just it was like, wait, you introduced this new
whatever and You're immediately gonna blow them up, fun of them.
Damn it. It was like the high and Low all
at the same time. I'm like, wait, what's happening?
Speaker 1 (26:23):
What?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Because I was not expecting that. That was definitely the
twist I was not prepared for or expecting, just because
of how kind of as we mentioned, slow and kind
of boring. At the certain point this was and a
sudden You're like, wait, you're doing what? WHOA what's going
on here? I wish we got more of that character,
or even see this character or in future iterations of
(26:47):
any movie. I don't really care where, because again, I
like the Manhunter. I will one hundred percent and tell
people that, you know, anytime somebody asks. He is a
character that is as strong as Superman and also as
intelligent and calculating and everything as Batman. If you took
(27:10):
Batman's logic and intellect and crammed it into the Martian
Manhunter or into a body that was a strong Superman,
you have the Martian Manhunter, except Marsha Man Hunter has
this wicked addiction to Oriole cookies, which we're not going
to talk about it again. I was mad, I'd like it.
There's no other way I can really explain it, because
(27:32):
what I appreciate is the fact that he is the
one that faces off against Mongol at the very end,
and he goes and explains everything why this is going
to set the fail, And I love the fact that
he ends up torturing Mongol because again he'd been torturing
Martian man Hitter, or him and his cohorts had been
torturing Manhunter to project all these illusions for who knows
(27:55):
how long and impacting however many people. So he got
his revenge by essentially using Mongol as the battery that
Mongol had always wanted. So I appreciate that while it
may not be the best answer anybody was expecting, I
can respect what he did because he was he didn't
(28:15):
want anybody else inflicted or to be inflicted with, you know, death, violence,
blah blah blah blah blah, because the war world is
just there to feed on all the bad stuff. So
he took one for the team and blew the planet up.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
He was certainly he certainly did, And I'm like you,
I kind of wish we'd had more of that green
Martian white Martian hybrids and kind of got to see
more of what they could do, and this kind of
reminded me of a little bit of what we had
discussed last week when it came to Leja's Superheroes, where
we have this key that seems all powerful and if
(28:56):
it falls into the wrong hands, it can spell destruction
or the entire universe, kind of like the Miracle Machine
when it came to lead to the Superheroes. We have
a kind of the same same situation here where the
big mcguffernal Moss, if you will, or the big kind
of Dio six market and the big thing that everybody's
kind of chasing is this key. And obviously turns out
(29:16):
that the reason why we could neither get never get
the key together because being on different factions, the Green
Martians and the White Martians would never fuse together because
they hate each other. They hate each other to death.
So it's very unlikely that the White Martian and the
Green Martian would ever, should we say, agree to fuse
together in order to operate this key maybe under us
(29:36):
and had Mongol known this, he could have possibly forced
this fusion. But out of that, I'm right there with you.
I love Martian Man Hunter as a character, and sometimes
I feel he's underutilized in the grand scheme of things.
I mean, yes, our three heroes are all fine and good,
we love our Big three, but Martian Manhunter can definitely
(30:00):
he is definitely up there when it comes to his
power set and just the kind of guy he is.
I think he definitely deserves more, and I would not
be adverse to a Martian man Hunter movie, and I
hope that I believe that that might actually be in
the works when it comes to the gun Burst, and
I would be very happy to finally see Martian Manhunter
in live action done properly. So I'm hoping that happens,
(30:22):
and I'm glad that he was the one who ultimately
was the MVP of this because between manipulating the White
Martians and Lobo himself and such, it shows you how
he's not just muscle and he's not just a shape shifter.
He's a multi talented hero. And we're definitely very lucky
that he's on the side of good, not the side
of you, because we would definitely be in trouble if
(30:44):
Martian Manhunter was a villain. Even though I've never understood
the name Martian Manhunter because it does sound more like
a villainous name than a heroic one, but hey, we
love you John, so I think he did a great
job and hopefully he will return in some formal shape.
But seeing the destruction of wor world might be difficult.
So I guess then that's round of five characters. By
(31:04):
looking at our villain and our antihero, we have the
aforementioned John Dmijo as Lobo and Robin Askin Downs as Mungol.
So what do you make of these two characters.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
I appreciate we didn't have to deal with Lobo any
more than we really needed to, because again, he is
just like nails on a chalkboard grading to me. And
again I know I'm the minority. I will guarantee our
listeners will be like he's the greatest something or ever
known de mand and to which I argue, he is
(31:38):
just a generic biker dude. I can go to any
bar Usa and find generic biker dude aka Lobo, So
he's not something super duper original. And yes, you can
argue that about all of our characters. But the fact
of the matter is that much of this story could
have ended the exact same way with our Lobo. This
(32:01):
could have been done with generic hench person, and we
didn't need Lobo there at all because again, as Martianmanhunter
tells him, he planted this idea of a back door
into the matrix so he could then do this other stuff.
So literally, he just needed any warm body, so they
(32:25):
could have just taken random character and would have had
the same end result. And again this character then not
killing Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, same scenario. He just
needed to be knocked out, and then again all of
this would have happened. So the Lobo character was just
there to be there. It was again very much a
(32:47):
waste of screen time because it didn't necessarily add anything
to the story. It was just like, oh, look, the
asshole's here. Cool, great, let's move on. And even when
he does turn sides for the zero point three seconds,
it's not because he's, you know, become this big hero. No,
he's just trying to screw Mongol because Mongo's about to
(33:08):
screw him. So it was just who screwed who first, essentially,
And Mongol is another one of these characters that is
very interesting. But the way he is portrayed in this movie,
especially with his art style, he looks like a prune
with feet. He is this wrinkly yellow looking wither banana
(33:30):
guy who is supposed to be on par with Superman.
He is supposed to have this presence opposed to this again,
this guy who is more addicted to the life energy
of the planet opposed to being a world conqueror. In
the comic books, the reason why he has this planet
(33:51):
is he's conquered it and he is, you know, taking
control of war World and blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah. So he earned it. Here is just he
had it for some reason, and they just kind of well,
we don't need the important details like how we got here,
why he's here, any of this stuff. Where they found
a man hunter, So it turned into we have five minutes,
(34:12):
as we always jokingly say it was the five minute rule.
So they just cut the meat and the potatoes down
to like, well, what do we need to get this done, Well,
we need interaction A, the interaction B and FC happened.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Again.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
We didn't need you know, any honestly, we probably could
have had generic supervillain as well. We didn't need Mongol.
We didn't need the reference to an actual decent bad
guy who has put Superman on his butt more than once.
He's putting the Green lanterns on their butt more than once,
the Justice League, and so on and so forth. So
we have this uber powerful guy that gets blown up
(34:47):
in again zero point two seconds of after being introduced
and really kind of gone on some random exposition dumb
about something. So I think he could have been used
to better Lobo. We didn't need at all.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I don't think we needed him either. It would have
actually been kind of cool with some of the characters
that we'd met previously made an appearance here, case in
point to Warlord, I think would have maybe been more suited.
I mean, maybe play the double agent at first, but
it would have kind of tied back to the friendship
or the alliance they'd had with Batman, and so maybe
(35:28):
having Warlords there would have maybe made more sense possibly
when it came to that. Because I'm right, I agree
with you. Lobo annoys me to the nth degree, and
there are very few characters when it comes to the
superhero world that annoy me as much as Lobo. I mean,
you and I talked about this off air. You could
kind of equate him annoyance level wise to Deadpool. But
(35:51):
the thing is, I guess Deadpool is designed to be annoying,
so you have to kind of feel it because, of
course we've been seen, especially in the comics and taken
even in the movies. He and anoise everybody from Wolverine
to Thanos to all sorts of characters, especially when it
comes to comics, and it's he's meant to be that way.
He's irreverence, He's meant to be the pain and the
buck kind of character that all the other characters can't
(36:13):
stand to have around, and is of course madly in
love with himself and very much like Lobo. Lobo is
is incredibly is a narcissist through and through. You know,
he calls him something he caught. He considersmself to be
like the boss man and the main dude and what
have you, And just the way he carries on. I'm like,
I don't want to see you just go away. And
(36:36):
I'm glad that, like you said, he didn't overstay his welcome.
Granted that we could have done without him, but he
was there enough to not to where I really was like,
I was almost tempted to turn the movie off and
just kind of cool down a moment and go back
to it. But nothing, as I said, as I said before,
nothing against Johnny Midgel's work, because he is a fantastic
(36:57):
voice actor, but it's the character. I think anybody could
have voiced him, and he just would have been annoying
because he is just that annoying. And the fact that
of course he's going to turn turned turncoat, because that
is Lobo. He is an opportunist and he is a mercenary,
just like Dedpool. So he will very much see whatever opportunity,
(37:17):
whatever side is worth playing, he will do that if only,
of course, in his best interest, because he's not a
hero and he's definitely, definitely more, very much the most
selfish of the characters that we have in the DC universe,
and so it's all about him. But yeah, when he
finally kind of kind of got dealt with, I'm like, yeah, see, Lobo,
you thought you were the greatest thing since sliced bread,
(37:39):
but Marsha at Manhunter played you like a violin, so
I was very happy about that. Mongol, Yeah, this design
was curious because I'm used to seeing Mongol being a big, buffy,
chunky kind of guy, you know, very much muscle bound
and like you said, very intimidating, because he can issuald
go toe to toe with Superman and almost any other
(38:00):
big hero in the DC universe. So here he did
seem more desiccated and definitely seemed like the geriatric version
like the way you described him of Mongol, because you
could feel that he was scary or rather intimidating more
from his voice. And I say, definitely say kudos to
to Robin Atkin Downs for doing a great job voicing
(38:21):
the character. But visually he felt like this, he almost
felt like Demos. It's kind of ancient wizard who handles
this staff and is all about wanting to merge with
war World because he wants to become one with it
or whatever reason I suppose, because he loves violence and
War World is all about violence. So it's almost like
the coming together of the two is the perfect union
(38:42):
for him. But of course then he's very quickly dealt
with going back once again to the fact of make
your segments earlier shorter so we can really focus on
why we're here, aka the title of this movie, War World,
give us more of war World. And yeah, we did
get a very kind of backdoor explanation as to why
Mongol is there. But there were some things while I
(39:04):
was kind of scratching my head because if you haven't
read the comics, you won't have a clue of what
the heck is going on when it comes to some
of the moments in this film. Granted, in the comics,
War World is more of a gladiatorial arena where Mongol
just pictures kind of people to fight against each other,
compared to this where it's just like, I love this place,
and to keep it going, we have to randomly kidnap
(39:27):
people from all sorts of earths and use their anger
and their fear to keep war World alive while I
try to get my hands on this key. So I
have no idea where this key is and I probably
never will, while of course torturing the Martian Manhunter half
to death. So I would have liked a bit more.
I would like more of this part of the film
our third act. I would put for an extended third
(39:49):
act compared to our previous ones. So yeah, I just
hope that in future the versions that we get of Mongol,
because I'm sure he'll crop up some point, we'll be
done a little bit better. So before we get to ratings. Keith,
I think we should we should kind of kind of
discuss how this movie ended, because obviously it's a big
(40:12):
lead up to how the movie will be discussing next week,
to where we have, of course, the appearance of the Harbinger,
who miraculously rescues our trio, brings them back to safety,
and we arrive literally at the Monitors satellite, which of
course is very important, just before World World explodes, and
she of course lets our heroes and us the audience
(40:32):
know that what we saw here is nothing compared to
what is to come. So what did you make of
how we were literally led from this to chrisis on
infinite earths?
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Well, I appreciate the fact that they actually integrated it
into the ending of the movie. It wasn't oh the
blows up, we don't know if they survived, blah blah blah,
and then made credits scenes you see Harbager and so
on and so forth. Happens that that was the true
ending of the movie. Was Harborager explaining to the Trio
(41:06):
or the Trinity, depending on which term you want to use,
that your help is needed because there's a crisis coming.
My argument to that is two of the three of
these guys would have survived wor World blowing up. Superman
would have survived it. Wonder Woman one hundred percent because
we saw her take a blast at the face in
the beginning of the movie. Batman, Sorry, buddy, you're a human.
(41:31):
Tough luck, better luck next time. So he's the one
that definitely would have eaten it pretty hard. But the
other two probably would have survived it blowing up, So
you know, was she needed probably not. Did it help
set up crisis on Infinite Earth's movies one percent? And
I appreciate they did it in a natural way, as
(41:54):
natural as you can in a superhero movie, where it's
integrated into the movie, not a bonus scene or if
you unlock some super secret decoder ring type of code,
you're going to find out about this twist or some
other weird crap. So I like that they kept it
classic and just use this as a transition to the
(42:14):
next story point.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
This was probably the most exciting part of the movie
for me, which I think probably tells you what I
made this movie as a whole, Not to say that
it was horrendous, but that was when I kind of
geeked out. Is when the Harbinger appeared because I know
I recognized the character. I'm like, that is the Harbinger. Yes,
we're definitely we're leading up to crisis. So I was
(42:39):
really excited about it, and especially also when we saw
the Monitor's satellite, I was really excited about that because
I also recognized that as well. So I was really
pleased with myself, which I think is very horrible to say,
but I was very very excited and pleasing myself at
the same time. Going now, I'm really pumped, and so
I was almost emptied to seek out and go and
(43:02):
watch Christ and Infinite Earth's pretty much post haste, but
I'm like, cool, your jets, We'll get to it next week,
so you've got tons of time to sit down and
watch it. But I think, at least for me, when
it came to creating the hype for what was to
come next, they definitely succeeded at least where as far
as I was concerned. So say it was the best
part of the movie might not be saying much about
(43:24):
the actual film we talked about today, but I think,
like you pointed out, it was it was well integrated
into where it's like like credits and then post credit
in almost an empty you fashion of suddenly the Harbinger
appears as like crisis has yet to come or something
foreboding for us to think of, Like, oh, okay, I
guess we've got chrisis and up next. So kudos to
(43:47):
the folks on this movie for integrating it that way
and creating the hype for Christs and infinite Earth's and
of course we'll be getting to that next week. So
keith I, do you have anything else you want mentioned
about this film or anything else before we get to ratings.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Just because we've been making some ridiculously obscure references to
everything during this review. Mongol is the Mamra of the
DC universe. I was just you know, oh, I can
transform into the super strong being and you know, back
in my day, I could beat all of you up
like one hundred percent. Is the Mamra where he doesn't
seem like he'd hurt you, but then you go toe
(44:24):
to toe with him and he can throw some fists.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
I love that that comparison. And heck, if we ever
finally get a decent, well like a full lengths ThunderCats film,
I'd be more than happy to discuss it with you.
Because you literally sing my song there. Because ThunderCats are
still a bigger part of my well not in my life,
but it's still a big They have a whole, big
place in my heart. So if we do get a
Thundercat's film, I definitely want to want to discuss it,
(44:50):
even live action, as bad as it could possibly be.
So getting then to ratings, what do you give this
movie out?
Speaker 2 (44:57):
At the end, I was trying to drive us on
as long as possible. I'm going to give it a passing.
I'm going to give it a six point five. It's
not great, it's not terrible. It is the filler movie
to get us from one story point to the next.
It is just there to kind of however long it was,
(45:17):
I can't remember how many minutes it was, but it's
just it's there to fill avoid until the next story starts.
So six point.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Five, I'm I agree with you on this one. I'm
also going to give it a six point five. It
does get to live another day and won't be going
to summer school, so it is a six and a
half out of ten. There were parts of this movie
that I genuinely enjoyed, but it did but the pacing
was just did drag a little bit too much, and
as I said, I think maybe more attention to them
(45:44):
paid to the third act compared to what we previously saw.
So six and a half out of ten for me
as well. So thus get into recommendations. Did you have
anything you would like to recommend to our list? Is
this week? Keith?
Speaker 2 (46:01):
So, there was a whole story arc that was done
with Superman and war World that actually just recently wrapped up,
and it bridges like literally every Superman story and there's
probably about a dozen or so issues. I think it's
like twenty four to be exact, and it is Superman
going to War World, fighting the pits and the whole
(46:22):
nine yards because of things that are happening to him.
So if you like war World and you want to
kind of see more of this gladiatorial version of it,
check it out. It was literally War World Rising, war
Superman Authority Arena, and War World Revolution. And yes, that
is a mouthful of crap, I apologize, And that is
(46:44):
led into the current story that is the Superman Action
comics right.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Now fantastic, and I will say yeah, also in the
older version of War World, for those who liked Superman
with the longer hair you get treats to Superman having
those those incredibly long black locks of his making look
really more badass. If you ask me, I will say
if there were any characters here that you know particularly
(47:08):
took your fancy, like, for example, the Warlord, then you
check out the Warlord comics, especially if you are fans
of sword and sorcery, because this is definitely DC's sworden
sorcery genre. Add it's finest, especially when it comes through
to characters like this and Travis Morgan, who is of
course Warlord, goes on many in an adventure, So if
(47:29):
you want to check out his comics, I would definitely
suggest that you you go. May go back right to
the very beginning. I would even say back to nineteen
seventy five. If you can get that version, which was
of course first issue Special number eight, you'll probably likely
be able to find it digitally or maybe your friendly
neighborhood comic book store might have a copy of that,
(47:50):
but if not, a of course move you can then
move forward on to the Warlord comics themselves, which started
printing in nineteen seventy six all the way to twenty ten,
so there's plenty of those to read. In particular, if
you want to go with the collected editions, I would
strongly suggested to pick up Warlord the Savage Empire and
(48:11):
also Showcase presents Warlord once again. If you are, of
course fans of the Sworden Sorcery, I think this is
definitely up your alley. So folks, of course, if you
do want to weigh in on the movies we discuss here,
you can of course shoot us an email to Happiness
and Darkness How at gmail dot com once again, Happiness
and Darkness How at gmail dot com. You can of
(48:33):
course follow us on our social media on Facebook where
combiances Happiness and Darkness. We'll also of course x at
High Darkness Pod naturally, if you are listening to us
on such platforms as Spotify or podcasts, be sure rate
and review us, as that keeps the algorithm stimulated and
of course what allows our show to reach more like
minded ears like yours. So, as always, a big thank
(48:56):
you to those who have done so. In the future,
thank you to those who will so Keith when you're
not here discussing complex movies like this, Justice Lee, War World,
where can folks find you on the interwebs.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
You know, you can find me hanging some shingles, some shells.
Apparently I'm the new DIY guy on YouTube. It's two
thumbs at nobody dot com. And when I'm not doing
any of that, you can find me on our Facebook page.
I'm always ready, willing and able to talk about anything superhero,
comic books, cartoons, anime, yad yahd yadah blah blah blah.
(49:31):
And occasionally you can find me popping up on some
of our friends podcasts like The Hour Comic. I've been
on there a handful of times, Star Trek, The Undiscovered Podcast,
and many many others, apparently because I have so much
free time to do recordings.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Fantastic stuff, and folks, if you are, of course interested,
Just to throw this out there as a last minute thing,
there is a ThunderCats movie in the works. Apparently Adam Wingard,
the director of such films as Godzilla Versus Kong and
of course Godzilla x Kong The New Empire, he is
(50:07):
scheduled to direct the Thundercat's film. It is not it
hasn't gone to development hell just yet. Apparently he was
approached for an interview and they asked him about this,
and he said that they're still heavily working on the script,
so hopefully it would eventually see the lights of light
of day. I am a little bit concerned when it
comes to a live action ThunderCats film, but you never know,
(50:30):
it could blow us away and it might actually be
really cool. So in case you were wondering, yes there
is they are. There is genuinely work going into a
Thundercat's film. When it comes to myself, you can find
in my day job, of course, the Whiskey and Cigarettes Show,
where we play the very best and nothing but the
best of country music for you guys from Alabama to
Zach Brown. And for more information about that, you can
(50:52):
visit our website which is Whiskey and Cigarettes Show dot com.
Podcast Wise, you can also find myself and those two
lovely ladies Za Sprouse at Rachel Friend on gold Standard
the Oscars podcast. We have reviewed all the Best Picture
winning movies in chronological order. Now as we wait for
the next Best Picture to reveal itself, which should be
in a couple of months hopefully, we are reviewing movies
(51:14):
that we have picked and we also have returning in
new guest co hosts making their way to the gold
Standard Theater and bring their favorite movies we recently discussed,
speaking of which return guest co host Christine Peruski brought
her one of her favorite films, A League of their Own.
We recently discussed that, and this week as of this recording,
we will reviewing a movie that I picked, which is
(51:35):
the nineteen to nineteen Nicholas Rogue film The Witches, So
definitely going to be a fun discussion there. And last,
but certainly not least to myself in Charles Skaggs can
be found of course the Fandom Zone podcast. We have
wrapped up our review of the first season of Preach
Commandos now as we wait for new properties to show themselves,
(51:56):
which will be in March, we'll be coming back to
review daredvil Born again. It's definitely very very excited about
this sec new MCU project and being a huge fan
of Daredevil, I think it's going to be quite the
time and s feelings to come on this show. Next
time we'll be taking on the aforementioned twenty twenty four
(52:17):
Jeff Warmster film Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earth's Part one.
So h Keith, anything else you'd like to mention Our
upcoming movie or anything else before we sign off.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
I'm looking forward to this one. I started to watch this,
but I've yet to finish it. I have horrible ADHD.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
So we'll be.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
Fun to finally hunker down and watch all twenty six
hours of this movie.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
Yes, and because it's twenty six hours long, folks, there
is of course in three parts, so we are going
to be going through it one part of the time,
week per week because if no, we literally like watching
The Lord of the Rings extended editions, so I think
also to spare our brain seeing their prey, multiple characters,
multiple storylines, we are going to go by this week
(53:04):
by week. So that said, of course, we will see
you next time with Justice League christ on Infinite Earth's
Part one. Thank you as always in the Stone supporting us.
Until then, once again, stay super Thank you so much
for the privilege of your time. Choo mobbibull
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