Top Level Podcast excerpt:
Michael J Flores and Patrick Chapin talk new Magic Origins card Kytheon, Hero of Akros / Gideon, Battle-Forged; Patrick’s 9th Place Grixis, and more!

Or, to paraphrase myself on Twitter… “New GIDEON + Patrick’s GRIXIS = GGs :)”

This week Patrick and I spent the majority of the podcast on his Grixis deck from last week’s Grand Prix Charlotte, actually. Patrick has been an Abzan (formerly “Junk”) player for about the past year (since, you know, winning a Pro Tour with Fleecemane Lion + Hero’s Downfall) but deep in his bones he is a Grixis Control guy. I for one was overjoyed to see my other-partner crushing the GP Swiss with Lightning Bolts and Cryptic Commands (and for that matter the Modern card he “invented” in Gurmag Angler)… If not the 9th place finish on tiebreakers. We Top Level Podcast heroes are no strangers to 9th place on breakers, sadly.

The whiz! Bang! New! portion of the podcast is obviously around the first one-drop Planeswalker in the history of the game… The Hero who would become Gideon, Battle-Forged. Some of our ideas are probably going to have to be refined (these are first impressions on a fairly complicated new card template, remember) but the fact remains that Gideon, Battle-Forged is quite likely to become a cross-format Staple.

Besides obvious Standard synergies with cards like Collected Company or Brimaz, King of Oreskos; Gideon in a deck with Ornithopters and Memnites might make for an incentive to try the white version of Affinity in Modern. Might Tempered Steel return as a result?

Check out “Fifty Percent Kytheon, Hero of Akros” and enjoy!

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ComiXology Excerpt:
The Page Sisters finally find a new purpose in life: restoring the Great Library. And the one place you don’t want to be is between them and one of the books they want. Meanwhile, Jack Frost has just set upon the greatest quest in a long and distinguished career of great quests!

While technically a nicely illustrated cover (just clean execution by the inimitable Brian Bolland), “nicely illustrated” by itself doesn’t really cut it for our purposes. This is a cover capable of standing out… And for a not-blockbuster title like Jack of Fables, might really need to do so.

There are three things, I think, that make this a great and striking cover:

The first and most important is Bolland’s allusion to Charlie’s Angels. That is really the thing that had me give this cover a second look. The Page Sisters themselves are archetypically “the hot librarian” (it even says so, tongue-in-cheek, on the top-left). “Hot librarians” as described by TV Tropes are “very attractive, but prim and prudish” … “would be gorgeous if [they] would just take off the glasses / let down the hair”.

I’m sure that you have a general concept of what a “hot librarian” is trope-wise; it is a the mayhap-unexpected juxtaposition of attractiveness and restraint, or disinterest. On this Jack of Fables cover Bolland overlays the restraint of the “hot librarian” trope with maybe its polar opposite, in staging and body language. Here the librarians trade in their ballpoint pens for ballistics and channel the teeny bikinis of the 1970s jiggle procedural… Without actually letting down their hair, taking off the glasses, or for that matter revealing a lot of skin. Because the Charlie’s Angels logo was generally stylized in black, the Page sisters can go with a utilitarian spy / ninja black leather look (i.e. avoiding a full-bore Cheryl Ladd), allowing them to be consistent with Angel without betraying the fundamental conservatism of Librarian… But hey! Black leather!

It’s all overlaps and suggestion; the intended male viewer probably likes all of it without actually knowing which things he likes, or what exactly he is looking at; hinting at “over-the-top” while not being over-the-top itself. TLDR: Shockingly nuanced.

The second is all those titles on the giant books in the background. I don’t know if you took the time to read any of their titles but they say things like The Four Little Pigs or The Adventures of Young Moby Dick… That is, titles that are familiar but at the same time nonexistent. What kind of library do these woman run?!?

Finally, Bolland himself. The whole point of using a separate cover artist (especially if you’ve got a perfectly service-able interior artist) is to draw additional attention to your book. Brian Bolland is of course the celebrated genius executor behind (or rather, in front of) Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke, regarded by many to be the greatest Batman story of all time (if not YT). Bolland stacks visual technique on top of visual technique here like a layer cake: A big white chunk of negative space in the back, these sort of uniformly-boring imaginary books, a similarly-generic truck (with equally generic typeface), the Pages-by-way-of Angels in the foreground. I actually think the blah execution of everything behind the Page sisters is part of an intended look, allowing them (and their allusion to Aaron Spelling) to stand out more without having to resort to thick black lines, or, you know, a sledgehammer.

LOVE
MIKE

Amazon summary:
Pilot. Lucas Hood, a recently paroled master thief, assumes the identity of a rural Pennsylvania sheriff to elude mob vengeance and reunite with Carrie, his onetime lover and partner in crime.

I am Jon Snow.

I know nothing; well, nothing about Banshee.

Actually I know one thing from the Top 8 Magic podcast; which is that my BFF BDM is watching Banshee on the treadmill these days. That sounds like a recommendation, no?

I turn on the Banshee without so much as reading the Amazon summary you already have. This is what I find:

• 30 seconds in – Hood leaves a pretty rough-looking prison, walking into the dusty wilderness, before
• 1 minute in – Hood meets a super hot waitress at a roadside diner, then engages in some silent-but-serious bedroom eyes (resulting immediately in conversation-free sex in a not-bedroom with her), whereupon
• 1 minute 30 seconds in – Hood steals a pretty sweet sports car and drives to NYC then
• 2 minutes 40 seconds in – Hood busts up the seemingly legitimate salon-front of his old criminal associate Job (finally engaging in some dialogue); upon leaving he gets back into “his” car and
• 4 minutes in – Hood gets in what must have been a massively expensive street chase (production-wise) that results in an impressive orgy of crashing cars, flying bullets, collateral damage, and the upended doubledecker tour bus from this post’s hero image

At 6 minutes in Hood burgles a motorcycle and rides off into the sunset, evading a second salvo of gunplay.

AND THEN opening credits roll.

SIX MINUTES IN!

Well, they certainly got my attention.

“You had me at hello.”

The Banshee pilot slows down considerably from credits on, but never to the point that you can actually un-glue your eyes from the screen.

I certainly liked it enough to resolve to write something for our fledgling site!

Rather than traditional “episode recaps” I decided I would punch up some simplified Power Rankings for each installment. Here goes for “Pilot”:

III. Job

While Job’s sashay getaway was a mite predictable, it was still cool (as in “refreshingly cool”) to see the difficult-to-peg salon-owning computer hacker blowing up the ostensibly much tougher / hella masculine bad(der) bad guys while pulling up stakes.

II. Hood

On the sex-violence-authority scale Hood really cashed in during the “Pilot”. He gets laid thirty seconds after his prison release; racks up 2.5 criminal bodies; and assumes the identity of the local constable, all before the Easter Egg. How great a day (or episode) did the next guy have to beat Hood out for El Numero Uno?

I. Kai

The show’s nominal antagonist shows off more twists and turns than the letter S in the first sixty minutes of Banshee. He seems to have enough resources to buy up all the local authority, is quick to knock out every tooth of the odd insubordinate subordinate (and instruct he puts them back in his mouth)… And then gets intimate with one of his [presumably criminally] kept women but not before dressing her like an Amish girl and revealing an as-yet-unexplained Jesus back tattoo to the audience mid-moaning. Authority! Violence! Sex! What’s up with this guy? More twists and turns than the letter S for Kai.

Banshee Biggest Loser: Moody

If you ever asked yourself how bad a day could get before it got really, finally, bad for a tv character… Find Moody’s ghost and ask him. Maybe he’ll be able to gum an answer out for you.

LOVE
MIKE

One of my favorite Magic-playing sports fanatics is Patrick Sullivan. Make that one of my favorite humans.

The first time I played Patrick he had two 2/1 White Weenie creatures and a Phyrexian Negator in play while I had a Masticore… that I forgot to pay upkeep on. The beatdown specialist has not been one whit kinder to opponents in the ensuing fourteen years.

A Red Deck specialist with numerous Open, Invitational, and Grand Prix Top 8s, Patrick is both a highly active game designer and a full time Magic commentator for StarCity Games, covering their Open Series and Invitationals. You can follow Patrick on Twitter at @basicmountain.

I.
Relatively early on in our friendship I expressed to you that my favorite NBA player was not the obvious choice of hometown hero LeBron James, but the animated Brazilian Anderson Varejao. You responded that that opinion was consistent with having “a black and white MySpace profile pic” and just spammed my wall with a bunch of Josh Smith highlight videos. How did a lifelong Jersey boy get into then-Atlanta’s Josh Smith?

I’ve always been passionately, foolishly drawn to players who can do everything except shoot the ball, and Josh perhaps is the most intense iteration of that player in the history of the league. Combine that with a guy playing with his hometown team right out of high school (a particular charm for a Jersey kid who grew up with Springsteen and The Sopranos), and I was immediately drawn to Smoove. The last few years have been painful, but I really enjoyed this year’s quasi-vindication in the playoffs, even if it came at the expense of the Clippers.

II.
Since moving to California you seem to have transplanted your NBA fandom squarely into the Staples Center. Was there any indication at the time the Clippers were going to be any good at all [let alone perennial contenders]?

The Clippers nailed a couple of drafts in a row, the most important thing for a franchise that, shall we say, wasn’t a free agent destination for the last few decades. Blake seemed like a no-brainer star the second he hit the court, and DJ, Eric Bledsoe, and Eric Gordon all looked like promising players early in their careers. It seemed likely that the group would either develop into a promising core on their own, or that some of them would get flipped for Hypothetical Disgruntled Star X when one became available. You never know how it’s going to play out, but it seemed like only a (short) matter of time before the Clippers became, at the minimum, a 50 win team for a couple of years.

III.
How do you feel about this week’s Clippers trade for Lance Stephenson? (a year ago I would have put him as a Top 20 NBA star BTW)

The Clippers are capped out and don’t own a first round pick this year. Besides trading someone in the Big 3, the only way the Clippers were going to add any talent was by taking a flyer on a guy who wore out his stay somewhere else. Combined with the fact that the Clippers got to dump the heinous Hawes deal, I’d make this trade 100 times out of 100. Feel free to dredge this paragraph up when Lance is screaming at CP3 or running his fingers through Harden’s beard during the playoffs next year.

IV.
As a relatively young Clippers fan, how gratifying is it to have seen DeAndre Jordan’s improvement over the past couple of seasons? Personally, I feel he is like the defensive Steph Curry in terms of development and trajectory.

DJ’s improvement has been startling, both in terms of physique (I screamed “You look heavy!” at him his first year in the league, back when I said things like that at strangers) and his overall basketball acumen. In the long-term, I think the pairing with Blake is awkward enough that I think the Clippers should look to move him for a star who can space the floor, but when he’s engaged he’s one of the most significant defensive players in the league.

V.
Were you ever worried that the Clips were going to win it all, tear off their jerseys, and reveal that — ZOINK! — the CP3 trade had actually gone through and they were secretly the Lakers after all?

No — those dudes hate the other team in LA, and the Clippers rubbing the Lakers’ noses in sh*t has been a 4-times-a-year delight for your’s truly. On a related note, the last few years have revealed some deep insecurities among Lakers fans, like handling a few years in the doghouse is beneath them or something. Were I a Lakers fan, I’d like to think that witnessing the current tragicomic Kobe Bryant era would hold me over until the next transcendent superstar decides to sign over there, but I can’t say for sure. It’s easy to get spoiled, I guess.

VI.
Who is the best player in the NBA? The GOAT?

I think Anthony Davis was the best player in the league during the regular season, but LeBron was so impressive/inspiring/cyborg-ish during the playoffs that I can’t discuss this rationally right now. I hate discussing the GOAT because it’s so hard to account for how different diet, travel, pace of play, etc., were during different eras, but I think LeBron, MJ, Magic, or Bill Russell are all fine answers.

VII.
BDM claims that being a sports fan is like a religion; you get born into it and that’s it. As someone born into the Nets, what can you say to an embattled Knickerbockers guy about how you’ve not only dipped your toe into the Hawks but really gone full-bore into the Clips?

I spent a few years as a passionate basketball agnostic, but I got to do that in part because the Nets were so uninspiring, even when they were very good, that bouncing around didn’t feel like a violation of some sacred oath or something. Now, I go to Clippers games, I’m invested, and I like to think I’ll continue to do so when Chris and Blake inevitably leave and I’m stuck rooting for some sad-sack group of recent lottery picks and veteran retreads in 2020. I might return to basketball agnosticism at some point, but I won’t ever root for another franchise again, assuming the Clippers stay in LA and remain owned by a human instead of a ghoul.

VIII.
Two words: Doc Rivers

A good X’s and O’s guy, a great Leader of Men, and a well-below-average GM, even factoring the Stephenson heist. I wish he would stay out of front office affairs, but as someone who has watched Mike Dunleavy and Vinny Del Negro coach the basketball team he roots for, it’s worth the cost of doing business.

Mike (michaelj) poked me with 8 questions about last night’s Game of Thrones finale “Mother’s Mercy” (kind of like I did with the Jurassic World review the other day). This is what I thought. What did you all think?

I.
Was there any Bran sighting? Warg? Raven? Three-eyed Raven? Catching up with his old buddy Sam about dem old GTs sticking dragonglass into White Walkers? Been a whole season… Anything?

Zip.

Nada.

Nuthin’

Not even a raven. Although if you looked at any message boards after the episode there was a LOT of raving. As far as I can tell there are about four people left who will watch the show next year. We are headed into uncharted territory for next season. Maybe that is where Bran and the Raven are hanging out.

II.
Did Olly end up betraying Jon? I think the producers have done a bonzer job establishing first Olly’s devotion to Jon and then some substantial second-guessing with everything involving the Free Folk. Olly stabby stabby Jonny Snowy or what?

Please don’t ever say that again.

Olly did his best Night King impersonation and slowwalked from the back of the treasonous lot for maximum dramatics. This is also the reason there will only be four of us watching next season.

III.
How’s your temperature on Melisandre? Cold as the coming winter, hot as the Lord of Light, other?

I hate Melisandre. I hate her in the books. I hate her on the show. I hate her so much that I am colder than the coming winter toward her. Speaking of which…

Game of Thrones has been rough on my teenaged fantasies. Growing up — even though the show was already more than two decades old — there was no one hotter to me than Emma Peel from the Avengers TV show. She occupied a lot of my attention and, while she plays my favorite character from this season, Diana Rigg has made my old bones ache this season. And not in the euphemistic way.

IV.
To what degree were you cheering for Sansa before this episode and how has that changed given the season finale’s conclusion?

I hate Sansa in the books but I have really been rooting for her to rule over Winterfell on the show. She has endured a lot more on the show than she does in the books but I am looking forward to seeing where they take her next season (as I am sure the other three remaining viewers do as well).

V.
Are you happy with Brienne’s reduced role going North (relative to being the heavy Riverlands POV character in the books) or would you have rather she went the way of the Greyjoys entirely this season?

The one thing that I really hated in this episode was the whole candle in the tower bit which played a little too Three’s Company to me. We park her on the edge of Winterfell for the last month doing nothing only to have her look away to check in on Stannis making his doomed march on the Boltons. It just didn’t work for me and it was really frustrating because I have loved the show when they have made use of Brienne and this seemed wasteful.

VI.
I had read rumors production had to shut down a whole town to keep the Naked Cersei Church Walk under wraps. Did it happen? To what degree was it a satisfying moment (supposing it did in fact happen)? Or in the alternative… Cersei getting hers or what?

It happened in all of its excruciating glory. It was one of the most uncomfortable moments in the history of the show. My wife had to keep reminding me what a terrible, awful person Cersei is and that I should not feel bad for her. She was pretty upset about the scene because she contends that all the controversy about the Walk of Atonement was just a smokescreen to cover up the Jon Snow betrayal which she was not at all prepared for.

[Post Script: It turns out Headey “elected not to show all” for “Mother’s Mercy”. Whether it was because she was pregnant with a baby girl during filming or some other reason, this does not really change my reading, or Mike’s Game of Thrones Finale Review.]

VII.
Tyrene Sand and Bronn… Match made in Heaven, or match actually made in the dungeons of Dorne (or not a match at all)? Kingslayer did in promise Bronn “a much better girl” and how much better can you get than “the most beautiful woman in the world” who is also a deadly assassin?

He is totally sending her a raven with a casual “Hey, you up?” scroll as soon as he gets back to King’s Landing.

VIII.
This season has sped by like a bullet train! What was your favorite moment of the finale?

The finale totally snuck up on me. Watching these prestige shows is so much different than watching a network show. Something like The Good Wife takes up half a year to play out but this goes by in less than three months. But I am ducking the question. Favorite moment has to be Reek pushing Myranda over the rail. Rooting for some Theon redemption next season.

A lot like yesterday’s Jurassic World review Brian David-Marshall (bdm) sent me a set of questions to answer before tonight’s Game of Thrones finale. Sadly I didn’t actually finish all of them “before” the finale. Hopefully all these make sense.

I.
I don’t know about you but with the wholesale off-book slaughter we have been seeing this season I have no idea who will live anymore. If you had to bet on someone unexpected dying tonight who would you bet money on?

Meryn Trant. Of course they’re basically hitting us over the heads with Meryn Trant; but I believe he is still breathing in the books. Especially with the thin man missing his mussels murdering, Arya is going to owe the Many-Faced God (all the same to him, as I understand it).

[Post Script: Got that one but apparently off on the opinion of the Many-Faced God]

II.
What is your favorite map animation in the opening? I am a big fan of the coin rolling around Braavos.

I have always liked the animation and detailing on the Titan of Braavos.

III.
How much of an emotional roller coaster has Stannis been this season? What would possibly redeem him at this point?

Winning. Winning something. If Stannis takes Winterfell and liberates Sansa I think that would redeem him in the eyes of many viewers. You can’t imagine he wanted to sacrifice Shireen (and remember this is a guy who sent a shadow demon / spawn after his own brother)… He is way deep in “the ends justify the means” so I guess we’ll see assuming he puts up the dubya.

[Post Script: Well, I guess that’s not happening.]

IV.
Was the sacrifice of Shireen revenge on all the book readers for the Red Wedding?

I deleted everything that I had originally written here on account of it would end up looking pretty stupid. I guess the tv producers have a read on Melisandre and Stannis that is quite different from my read [from the books].

I would originally have said that no matter what we think of Melisandre in the abstract she is one of the only people that actually does any magic; who is to say what a terrible price magic costs in Martin’s fantasy universe? Look at what it cost Dany.

BUT!

I guess the sequence was meant to show Melisandre’s fallibility. Certainly all of this undermines my reading… TLDR: Yes? [I am a book reader]

V.
I would be scavenging everywhere for dragonglass and Valyrian steel. Why isn’t Jon Snow making a bigger deal about that. Doesn’t he know anything?

How much Valyrian steel do you think is loose in the Seven Kingdoms? The Lannisters are more-or-less the richest family in the West and they had no Valyrian sword until stealing Ned’s.

Jon clearly knows the value of dragonglass; but it doesn’t seem to me something they have massive stores of, ether. But anyway, I have it on good account that he knows nothing.

VI.
What book character are you most hoping to see in Season 6?

Barristan the Bold 🙁

I hated how he went down. They made such a big deal of Grey Worm saving him from having his throat cut so I assumed he was going to get out of the street fight all right. He is such a great character and such a great influence, so inspiring and so capable even in his old age…

Barristan the Bold 🙁

VII.
Drogon v. Indominus Rex?

I think that the field of battle matters a lot. If they’re tangling tooth and claw on the ground I think Indominus rex has got a huge advantage in speed and savagery; further Drogon at this stage is not fully grown. Indominus has razor-sharp teeth and claws, is lightning quick, and no regard for her own safety. On balance, look at how many spears Drogon took in the rescue scene last episode! Drogon isn’t really a great fighter yet and relies wholly on natural talent right now.

However if Drogon has got the higher ground, you know, way up high… I don’t see how Indominus has much of a chance. Indominus can’t even hide in the jungle like she does in Jurassic World; Drogon can just burn down the whole forest.

Overall I’d pick Drogon but it isn’t a sure thing at all. If Drogon gets too close he can end up with his wings shredded and that would be that.

VIII.
For the sake of non-book readers I am going to ask next question in code and give them a chance to avoid SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

When do you think we will see aetlynCay arkStay again?

I don’t. I assume that they’re just eliminating her life-after-life storyline entirely.

//

Given that I didn’t finish up my take before the Game of Thrones finale actually aired, armed with a little hindsight, I thought I’d weigh in on Cersei’s Walk of Shame.

My goodness how not-titillating was that?

Lena Headey is my favorite actor on the show and I’ve had a giant crush on her since her role as Queen Gorgo in 300. So given the usual angle of how Game of Thrones is shot and shown I had been looking forward to the scene (and to the show’s most despicable villain finally getting an ounce of punishment).

But man! That was rough to watch not fun to watch at all. I just thought how tough it must have been for Lena Headey herself (not thinking about Cersei at all). Maybe she’s an even better actress than I thought, but I got the sense that she was humiliated. It was so awful it made me forget for a moment how much Cersei actually has coming to her :/

In terms of the actual last scene, and how they shot what was pouring out of Jon, you know, near a giant fire… I am guessing we’re going to see the power of King’s Blood next season (one can only hope).

LOVE
MIKE

Yesterday I saw the mid-June summer spectacle Jurassic World.

Brian (bdm) asked me to answer eight key questions about Jurassic World and my Jurassic World experience:

I.
3D or not 3D?

I actually went out of my way to see the not-3D version. I’m not a huge 3D guy in general. 3D is hugely expensive plus I wear glasses already and so I have these awkward glasses-on-top-of-glasses experiences, for like two hours or whatever. Also I have a giant head. Also I can’t remember the last time I was actually impressed by the 3D-ness of a 3D movie over the regular version.

Anyway, I didn’t see Jurassic World in 3D.

II.
Maybe it is just me but all I thought about during the commercials was James Cameron’s Aliens and Paul Reiser’s character. Every time Bryce Dallas Howard said “corporate decided” or referred to a dinosaur as an “asset” I winced. How many movies had their DNA sampled to make this thing?

It’s funny you ask that but I didn’t really register Aliens. I was thinking more superheroes. I didn’t actually see Spider-Man 3 (and I guess no one else did, either) but Bryce Dallas Howard was Gwen Stacy in that; and Chris Pratt was Star-Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy; and I just got finished watching Marvel’s Daredevil on Netflix… Where Vincent D’Onofrio plays Kingpin!

To wit, I didn’t see Jurassic World as being derivative of any specific movie beyond the really superficial macro tropes of scientific progress sometimes being bad, corporations [always] being bad, and the Venn diagram overlap of the two together making for the odd [zombie apocalypse].

III.
Bryce Dallas Howard vs. Jessica Chastain…fight!

Jessica Chastain for sure. I wasn’t particularly sold on Bryce Dallas Howard in this one, actually.

IV.
Can Chris Pratt be a dramatic leading man/non-comedic action hero?

Probably?

Folks are capable of all kinds of stuff that we don’t necessarily peg them for up front. When you first saw Chris Pratt playing a portly loser on the first season of Parks and Recreation did you imagine he was going to end up a musclebound superhero?

Six months no beer. #GOTG Kinda douchey to post this but my brother made me.

A photo posted by prattprattpratt (@prattprattpratt) on Jul 6, 2013 at 11:06pm PDT

… You know, from just giving up beer?

Dan Schneider (the butt of every fat joke on Head of the Class thirty years ago) was declared “the Norman Lear of children’s television” by The New York Times. He went from being an overweight comic punchline on a middling situation comedy to a hugely influential tv guy and writer of Good Burger upon initial retirement.

In Jurassic World Chris Pratt wasn’t even that comical. He pulled off a largely straight implementation of the summer action star, and did so service-ably.

V.
WHY THE FUCK WOULD ANYONE VISIT JURASSIC PARK AT THIS POINT!!!???

Jurassic WORLD Brian. “Jurassic World”, not “Jurassic Park”. Jurassic Park was a totally different amusement park that also happened to be situated on Isla Nublar, and also happened to feature genetically resurrected prehistoric monsters. Sure people died at Jurassic Park, but it is specifically stated in the movie that, say, wearing an original Jurassic Park t-shirt would be considered in poor taste.

This is twenty-two years later! To the customers at Jurassic World, riding a stegosaurus is no more novel than seeing an elephant at the local zoo. What kind of question is this (vulgarity and all)? What are you, the progress police?

VI.
Who wins in a fight, Indominus or Godzilla? Indominus or Iron Giant? Indominus or MechaIndominus?

For those who haven’t seen the movie yet, Indominus rex is the big danger of the movie; essentially a leveled up Tyrannosaurus rex. I hate to call her “the villain” of the movie, but she is certainly putting a lot of humans and other animals in danger.

Indominus rex can grow up to 50 feet according to Science Exposition Man early in the film; but the one running around the theme park is not yet fully grown. Even then, Indominus rex would only stand at about 18 feet tall. Godzilla (or Gojira to non-Philistines) was scaled to about 164 feet in the original 1954 film; as buildings in Japan actually got taller, future installments of the Godzilla franchise made for a taller monster (and even taller, say 400+ feet for American viewership given the larger American skyscrapers or suspension bridges). A Godzilla that is much smaller than the buildings around him is just less imposing. Point being, any version of Godzilla is much bigger than even a fully grown Indominus rex and can also expel some kind of crazy radiation dragon breath. Indominus rex has a keen head on her shoulders (and some cool abilities I don’t want to spoil) but I think she is just out-sized by even the classic 1954 Japaneze Kaiju.

The Iron Giant is 42 feet tall and also made of iron. We see Indominus rex messing up bulletproof glass and generally tearing up the furniture, but I am skeptical she would be well-suited in that pairing. I’d still pick not-Indominus on this one, while recognizing The Iron Giant’s kind heart might end up his undoing… You never know with these softies, made of iron or not.

And Indominus v. MechaIndominus? We’ll just have to wait for the sequel!

For reference:

VII.
Best reason to see the movie?

The movie certainly has its moments. There is a nice long sense of tension where you don’t know what will happen next. There are some leaps in logic you might have to just accept, but I was personally comfortable shutting off my skepticism for the purposes of a popcorn afternoon with the kids. I liked Jurassic World well enough and would generally recommend seeing it if you’re in the market for an action movie.

It was also somewhat thought-provoking, but maybe not in the ways it was originally intended. I think that the director wanted the movie to be about the dangerous or dehumanizing ramifications of consumerism, rampant greed, and progress gone amok… But it was really ultimately about the shortcomings of shortsighted or lazy individuals. Most of the disastrous moments in the movie, the times when something went wrong that could have been avoided would have been avoided if someone just dotted an i, crossed a t, paid attention at his job, had one fewer doughnut, or kept one fewer secret. The highly successful people — exemplified by Chris Pratt of course — were characterized by quick thinking and a willingness to take actions others would never be flexible enough to think of, on the spot.

But the BEST reason (as with any project involving Judy Greer) is that Judy Greer was in it. <3 a Judy Greer.

VIII.
Best reason to skip it?

I think if you are in the market for going to the movies, and for that matter going to a summer action movie, it is a perfectly sound choice. I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to see it if I weren’t. Heck, I haven’t even seen Mad Max: Fury Road yet!

LOVE
MIKE

ComiXology excerpt:
Batman’s fighting off the effects of the strength-enhancing drug, so he’s locked himself away in the Batcave and instructed Alfred not to open it–no matter what Alfred hears! Now, The Dark Knight faces the monstrous challenge of battling his own nightmares.

Desperate.

That is what I see when I look at this Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez cover.

Desperate. Pathetic. Wasted.

None of these are words that we typically associate with The Dark Knight.

By default we think of Batman as being confident, self-assured, and powerful. In the face of not just danger but near-certain death he holds his head up straight and stares enemies many times more powerful than he is straight in the eye… Right before spitting in it. Probably with kryptonite gum.

But what does Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez give us here?

Not just desperation; not just that unkempt mop and unshaven chin (neither being signals for “billionaire” or “playboy” for the cowl-less Caped Crusader); but a lazy slouch. Bruce in this shot is barely able to stay in his chair (let alone spit in the eye of an angry Kryptonian).

My longtime collaborator (and onetime comics editor) Brian David-Marshall loves to talk about comic book art as more storytelling than “mere” portraiture; and this cover does a great job of telling a story.

Why is Bruce falling out of his chair?

Why is Bruce out of control of his hair?

Mayhap he should have enrolled in D.A.R.E.

Do you see what is falling out of our hero’s hand?

Pills!

This is what comes of pills. Not even The Dark Knight is immune to their insidious effects. They can reduce a straight-backed superhero to a slouching scamp.

Neither will you, child, be able to walk away unaffected (if even you can still walk at all) (see not even Batman can).

Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez communicates a shocking amount of emotion into this image, layers upon layers of meaning, without a single speed-line. His story is not reliant on a single word balloon or stray line of detail. Through body language he can give Bruce’s ripped abs a sense of desiccation rather than core strength; and the same kinds of lines that typically communicate a lack of fat around the rib cage here seem more like a lack of oxygen or nourishment. Along with the shag and beard, Garcia-Lopez’s hands tell a tale (two tales actually): the left is warily weary but the right completely exhausted. Though we see essentially only two pieces of furniture (a pretty stock, if normally luxurious, captain’s chair and a pretty cool wicker cowl-perch), the non-furniture spiderwebs in the top-left give us a setting of disuse, even ruin. One of the sharpest, fittest, most on-the-ball billionaires in the DC universe — on top of every other negative emotion already communicated — is living, or at least sitting, in a zone of neglect; abandonment.

Overall, this is just a great cover. Technically it’s really well composed; I’m fine with the inks but it’s the combination of flat color and negative space that really do it for me. I’m just such a sucker for flat color.

In case you’re wondering what you’re reading, this is Superficial Saturdays — a column I am carrying over from my original blog Five With Flores — that talks about comics covers (as in “superficially” judging a book by its cover), you know, on Saturdays. If you liked this, you can check out the previous sixteen installments over at Five With Flores.

I do hope you liked this! Thanks for checking our comics content out here at Fetchland.

LOVE
MIKE

Manadeprived Exerpt:
Once more at the corner of Waverly & Gay, you can find Brian and Mike talking about the Invitationals, basketball, comics… you know, everything!

Last week Mike and Brian met on their habitual corner of Waverly and Gay in the West Village of New York City for the usual brand of Top 8 Magic podcasting + “ambient noise”.

While this episode is entitled “Everything” — as in “every thing to every one” — it is not actually about every single possible thing. It is not even about every single possible interesting and germane thing; for instance there is no mention of this [brand new] website on the podcast despite its having been recorded less than one week ago.

However it is about a good many things (some of them good), which we will detail forthwith:

Avaricious Dragon (and some other spoiled cards from Magic Origins) – Mike calls Avaricious Dragon “awesomeawful to lovehate” … He seems torn about completely hating it and speculating about when it might actually be good enough but ultimately decides that the competition relative to Thunderbreak Regent may be too heady. Though Mike had been successful with cards like Bottled Cloister in the past (and Brian points out that archetypes like Burning Bridge have been successful contributors to decks across multiple eras) Mike points out “you can’t Doom Blade a Grafted Skullcap”.

“Draymond Green is a hell of a drug.”
-BDM

Mike wonders how Andre Iguodala and David Lee can’t crack Steve Kerr’s Golden State Warriors rotation [clearly Steve Kerr listens to this podcast having revised his rotations for games three and four]. Overall Mike is concerned about the fouls on the GSW side, and argues that narratives about “calling it down the middle” or “keeping it even” miss the point if one team is actually fouling much more than the other.

“Everything” is the latest episode of Top 8 Magic, a longstanding podcast hosted by Michael J Flores and Brian David-Marshall, and the spiritual ancestor of Fetchland. Top 8 Magic’s current home is Manadeprived.com and is sponsored by Face to Face Games.

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Top Level Podcast Excerpt:
In addition to discussing PVDDR’s Esper Dragons and Adrian Sullivan’s Dimir Control, Patrick and Michael discuss GR Devotion and other recent top finishers.

Earlier this week Pro Tour Champion / Pro Tour Hall of Famer Patrick Chapin and I did a podcast on Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver over at Top Level Podcast.

Topics included two important decks featuring Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver (Hall of Famer Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa’s continued dominance with Esper Dragons and Adrian Sullivan’s Pro Tour Dragons of Tarkir Top 8 follow-up, this time packing ALL FOUR copies of Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver) as well as some other up-and-coming or returning decks in the Standard metagame including G/R Devotion plus some hither and thither changes to Abzan Megamorph / Abzan Control.

But mostly why you might want to be on Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver right now.

(if you haven’t already) give “Time to be Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver” a listen:

LOVE
MIKE

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