Well, once more I'm taking leave of Gamespot for a week. Come Saturday morning I'm leaving home for a ten hour ride to Virginia to visit Colonial Williamsburg. I'll spend a few days there with my parents and then it's off to North Carolina for me where I'll spend the rest of the week before returning home. Now I know you all love me dearly, but I'm sure you can survive a week without me. Then again I'm sure half of you reading this don't ****ing care.

So basically I've decided to devote my blog solely to reviews for Anime, DVD's, Movies, Comics, Books and posts detailing The Adventures of Albert and Chives(a forty part serial beginning in August!*). This time I'm reviewing comics! To be specific I'm reviewing an entire comic series, one that lasted for fifty-two issues and was published weekly for an entire year. The series in question is 52.

Name: 52

Publisher: DC

Produced: Mid 2006 - Mid 2007

Number of issues: Fifty-two

Availabilty: DC's currently releasing the series in a four volume trade-paperback format. This is your best(legal) option for reading the series as the books are rather inexspensive. The other method is to buy all fifty-two issues seperately. Be nice to your wallet, just buy the trades.

Review:

From 2005 to 2006 DC puplished a massive cross-over between all their titles known as Infinite Crisis. During this cross-over, heroes fell, trust was lost, bonds were broken, and millions of innocent civillians lost their lives. When all was over and done with DC titles all skipped a year forward in-continuity in an event known as One Year Later. During the skipped year Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman, the three heroes at the heart of Infinite Crisis, dissapeared, leaving the world to be defended by others. This is were 52 begins, chronicling the lost year from the point of view of DC's B-list superheroes(Booster Gold and Skeets, Adam Strange, Animal Man, Steel, The Question, Renee Montoya, the new Batwoman, Will Magnus, Natasha Irons, and Ralph Dibny, to name just a few of the characters this series spotlights). The reader is strung through quite a large number of storylines such as Question, Renee, and Batwoman's attempts to save Gotham(and the rest of the world) from the hands of Intergang and their hellish cult of crime. There's also the story of Lex Luthor's Everyman Project, Black Adam's rise and fall, World War III, and Ralph Dibny's quest to bring back his wife. There's something for everyone in this series really. Problem is, if you don't know quite a bit about the history of DC you're probably gonna be lost for quite a while.

When it comes straight down to it though, this is a pretty damn good series. The writing remains consistent, rarely will you read a poorly written issue, and the artwork is always highly detailed and a joy to look at(the covers, especially). Unless you despise DC and their characters you'll certainly enjoy 52. A suggestion though? If you don't know a damn thing about DC's storylines in recent years, check Wikipedia or read some of their more important stories(like Infinite Crisis, not really that great but it'll provide some backstory as to what the hell is going on, or Crisis on Infinite Earths, the first DC crisis) before this one.

Final Rating: 5/5

DC's been putting out a lot of **** books in recent years but this is certainly a diamond in the rough. Read it if you enjoy good writing and a schormgasbored(how the hell do you spell this?!) of interesting stories.

Rantings:

Unfortunately DC started a follow-up of sorts two months ago called Countdown, another year long, weekly series. Unfortunately Countdown's removed a few things from 52's formula that helped make it interesting, such as the real time element(each issue represented a single week of the story, while Countdown's issue represent a small portions of a full month) and the B-list main characters(Countdown focuses mainly on the better known heroes and characters). It's also supposedly pretty poorly written, has bad artwork, and is said to be just pretty damn uninteresting overall. Avoid it if you can. Me though? I'm latching on to this beast and riding it to the end, just so I can give you my sharpened opinion of the series in ten months, when it's over and DC's gearing up for Final Crisis.

*EDIT* - Reading through the first six issues or so of Countdown. The art's not as bad as I've heard, but the writing certainly is. Avoid it for now.

Signed,

ZeroWingEvil91 - Reading and watching through a sea of crap to bring you the good stuff since January 2007.

*Editors note: No idea on how long this'll actually be or a set date for when I actually start writing this, but I'll get to it eventually my dear Syrinx. Just for you.

I figured I'd do another one of these out of boredom.

Name: Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack

Release year: 1992 - 1993(Japanese)

2004(American)

Length: Ten Forty-five minute episodes(Released across seven DVD's)

Age rating: 14 and up - Contains large amounts of nudity, violence, and graphic, detailed, surgical scenes. Not for those with a weak stomach.

Originally released as a series of direct-to-video episodes in 1992, Black Jack is certainly one of the finest anime of the past several decades. The series is based around the titular character Black Jack, a disfigured rogue surgeon with the skills of a god, and his "daughter" Pinoko, a Teratogenous Cystoma given human form by Black Jack. Together the two travel the world solving horrific and disturbing medical mysteries, for massive amounts of money, almost a forerunner to House, M.D. if you will. The series features a realistic and beautiful artstyle, as oposed to the cartoony style of the manga version. Other than the opening themes, which are best described as terrible enough to make your ears bleed, there are absolutely no complaints regarding the music. The stories range from disturbing(Episode 1), to bizarre(episodes 5 and 6), yet they remain consistent in their quality throughout the series, always brilliant. As noted in the age rating above though, this series is not for those with weak stomachs. There are copious amounts of nudity(which the series really could've done without, honestly), frequent violence, and very detailed, very graphic, surgical scenes. Still, if you can handle some blood and uncovered mamories then this is deffinitely worth watching at least once. Especially considering that the series is currently available in two inexspensive boxsets.

Extras: The DVD's contain no extras other than art galleries, trailers for other series, and director's commentary for Episode Three and Ten. Dock one point from final score if you like your DVD's with tons of extras.

Final Rating: 5/5

 I recently decided to write down all the stupid and nerdy things I've done or aquired recently. Behold the product of boredom!

 First item of buisiness! My copy of Doctor Who season two just arived last night much to my great joy. The DVD's contain the original unedited versions of each episode. Everything is the same as the original broadcast versions(right down to the little BBC logo at the begining of each episode). No scenes cut or anything else. The extra's also make for interesting viewing with some rather.... odd outtakes(think Cybermen playing soccer with K-9) and deleted scenes. Like the first season before it this set also includes an extra disc with 14 (edited) episodes of Doctor Who Confidential. My rating? A perfect 5/5.
 
 In even less interesting news the Crystal Tower in Final Fantasy III is an evil whore. It knows what it did.....

 Also Castlevania fans may wish to check out the Portrait of Ruin board where crazy people are currently arguing over the credibility of rumors involving two new games in the series which may or may not revolve around the events of the 1999 incident. Go read it and let your voice be heard! If you don't then you're a comunist!
 
 This has been Devin *last name witheld because it sounds stupid* with the Nerd Report. Join us next time when I'll be joined by a group of kittens who claim Nintendo stole the designs for the Wiimote from them after a rather scandalous night out on the town. Thank you and good night. *insert generic local news music.*