dvandom

I don't plan to leave Tumblr, but in case anyone bailing on Tumblr lands here, I went through and updated some of my settings, and will check for access requests occasionally this month.

Coherent Super Stories #27 - "Secret of the Silver Skull" featuring the Silver Skull: A fossil hunter in Egypt has found a silvery skull that looks like it might have belonged to a new species of dinosaur, but the more people study it, the more impossible the skull seems to be! Written for High Concept Challenge #19, but I goofed on the premise (which was supposed to involve a silver skull machine, not just a silver skull).

"Channel" was taken, unsurprisingly. My second design of Channel as a superhero.
( He's on the same server as Peaceseeker, my TF:A Optimus Prime homage. )

( No books of note. Only three books total. Whee. )

   Dave Van Domelen, "Hey, there, big fella. My name's KING SHARK. I'm a SHARK." "Ah. Good choice for a NAME, then." - King Shark and (spoiler), Secret Six #32

Let's see if the DDoS lets up long enough for me to post this. :) After some prodding from friends, I went ahead and made a custom figure of Rodeo, using Applejack as a base. The sparkly costume effect I got with a True Navy base coat and a thin layer of turquoise glitter paint (couldn't find a darker blue glitter paint). I "styled" the hair by rubber banding it into place overnight and trimming it down, and protected it from paint with aluminum foil during the painting process.
( Sparkly and peril-prone pony behind cut )

ASH #112 - A Suit of Sables Part 3: The Steep And Thorny Way - Lady Sable's sinister purpose is revealed...she wants to become a god! And as far as ASH can tell, they have at most one day before it happens, at which point they may meet the fate that befell their predecessors at the hands of Lord Ebon!

( Book of Note: Spider-Man #657 )

   Dave Van Domelen, "Tell me he doesn't actually believe that." "I'm not sure. He also puts fins on all of our deep space vehicles." "But in a vacuum they wouldn't do anything." "I know, but -- " - Spider-Man and Reed Richards, referring to Johnny Storm, The Amazing Spider-Man #657

I'll put most of this behind a cut, because I expect to ramble on a bit. But the tl;dr version is this: they obviously started with an ambitious piece of storytelling involving layered metaphors, but at some point got bored and just started tossing in whatever seemed cool at the time. (Edit to add: In other words, it didn't start as a "turn your brain off" action movie, but at some point they stopped trying and it slid into that territory, while retaining enough traces of the "leave your brain on" movie to be unsatisfying to those seeking mindless action.)

There will be spoilers behind the cut.

( And no, they never really explain the title in-story, although I'm sure a lot of reviewers will make some joke about the movie being a sucker punch in the viewer's face. )

Finally, since I expect some people reading this are on the borderline as to whether they'll enjoy the action sequences more than they'll be pissed off by the plot resolution, I'll say that the ending is one of "heroic sacrifice" rather than the "evil wins" ending that the movie felt like it had been heading for. So, if you don't mind that the framing sequence kind of falls apart and that layer one drags at times because the actors can't carry their weight, there's 35 minutes of cool action movie in there. And, hey, there's a lot of straightforward action movies that don't have 35 minutes of cool in them.