Monday, February 1, 2010

Ultimates 3 #3 and 4



Ultimately tedious! Ultimately grating! Ultimately sex-crazed!


71 comments:

  1. But--but you've GOTTA have Wolverine! He guarantees sales!

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  2. Pretty good review, though it did seem a bit unbalanced. You put a lot of time into critiquing Issue 3 and skimmed over issue 4. The jokes for 4 were still funny, but it seemed as though you missed some more humorous moments by not going into much detail. Still good, but could've been a little better if it had been evenly balanced. Your drunk Tony Stark voice is hilarious, though.

    Can't wait to see what's in store for the finale.

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  3. I thought about that, James, but looking back, there's really not that much going on. Half of it is either a fight scene or it's exposition, or that stupid flashback to Magneto in the Savage Land.

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  4. A second on the drunk Tony Stark, I can't help but burst laughing each time I hear it! And a weird point on the art for me: the the main shot of the Juggernaut's costume in the review makes him look like an artillery shell with arms. O_o

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  5. No Wolverine! ADAMANTIUM RAGE! ADAMA-- wait... NO-ADAMANTIUM RAGE! NO-ADAMANTIUM RAGE!

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  6. The violin was a hilarious touch, as was the Bender joke. Anyway, if you'd like to do a bad-but-not-soul-crushingly-bad DC Comic, I'd recommend The Kingdom, universally panned sequel to Kingdom Come.

    ...Heh. "I'll be back."

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  7. I was suprised you didn't make a joke when Robo Captain said "Come with me if you want to like"...



    14 More days Till Mechkara! =D

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  8. Pffft, robots starting war against man, what a ridiculous concept.

    =P

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  9. "Magic bullet" Linkara? No "back and to the left" jokes? You're slipping!

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  10. Lewis: I'll take your word for it, as I myself have no real desire to read any of the Ultimates and expose myself to Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch incest or Venom bukakke (I will make that an internet meme, dammit!)

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  11. Hmmm Xavier/Magneto - now that would make it an almost worthwhile read wouldn't it?

    Shut up stupid fanfic-girl-voice.

    Loved the review but the best part was the countdown after the credits I can't wait for the 15th.
    I doubt that I'm the only one you got on the edge of her/his seat.

    BTW my subscription doesn't show me this update. I just found it by checking manually - so maybe a glitch you should know about Lewis.

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  12. Nicely done. The drunken Tony voice hasn't gotten old yet and the reference to Bender only made it better.

    Fry: Why does a robot need to drink?

    Bender: I don't need to drink. I can stop any time I want.

    So, $29.95 for a Scarlet Witch-killing bullet? I'd say there's no market for that, but there's always the Exiles.

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  13. It took me awhile to finally get the title card but boy when it did hit me....

    Ironbite-it hit me like a ton of bricks shat out from RoboStark's butt.

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  14. I don't know why, but as soon as I saw Cap saying "Come with me if you want to live," I had to pause the video to give myself time to laugh.
    Maybe I was just laughing at the utter stupidity of using that line in this comic. Who knows

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  15. Radar: Well, now we know where Lee Harvey Oswald got the bullets he used to kill Kennedy. Guess he wanted to be sure he wouldn't miss his target.

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  16. I, personaly, don't think that the coloring is that bad. I have seen worse.
    But the story is really pointless sometimes. And the "sudden twist" lacks creativity badly. A conspiracy that leads machines to a war against mutants and humans? Wow. Never heard that before.

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  17. Brilliant review as usual.

    What really annoyed me about this comic was Pyro. In the ultimate universe, Pyro was a good guy and one of the few nice people in the Ultimate universe. All of a sudden he's talking about raping Valkyrie, What the hell?

    Also can't wait for the Mechara stuff.

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  18. Most of this comic is bad enough that it's " so bad it's good " and is actually endearing ( though not enough so that I don't find your reviews of it hilarious ), but the thing that bugged me was how they regressed back to the original Marvel designs for many of these characters. Iron Man is back in shiny red and gold tights? Thor's using a mallet again instead of that insane axe/hammer thing he used in the previous volumes? Scarlet Witch is wearing her most stripperiffic costume yet ( possibly even moreso than the Gypsy version George Perez had her wear? ). A lot of thought was put into Hitch's redesigns, and with the exception of Cap, they got scrapped in favor of the original models. Which really makes them look like a pale imitation of the original comics, because the Ultimates was actually doing something unique.

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  19. Yeah, I have to agree with the others, your Drunky Stark voice is too dang hilarious.

    Also, if you want an idea of how badly Ultimates fails, Ultimate Pyro was originally portrayed as a Morlock who believed in Xavier's ideals and later became an X-Man, but whose powers were so hard to control his body was mostly burned. Here, however, it looks like the writer and/or artist either forgot or didn't bother with continuity and just did a "modern" version of 616 Pyro - where their definition of "modern" is "swears a lot and is perpetually horny".

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  20. I think you said last week you didn't want to get too deeply into continuity problems of this series, but I'm surprised you didn't say more about Pyro. All his previous appearances in the Ultimate universe presented him as very much the good guy. Here he's not only a member of the Brotherhood but apparently a rapist. I remember a lot of uproar on the internet over that one when these issues first came out.

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  21. Drunk Stark, Drunk Robo-Stark, sex around nearly every page, I can definitely see why the people wanted to see you review Ultimatum if this is the lead into that series. Great review as always.

    Also, I agree the Scarlet Witch/Quicksilver relationship was creepy enough without Wolverine implying Quicksilver wanting his Mother.

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  22. Drunk Iron Man robot. That's funny. Wait, what if the Ultimates Universe is the same universe as Futurama! I mean, everyone's a jerk in both series, and aparently there were superheroes in Futurama's past. NOW THAT I SAID IT, IT MUST BE CANON!

    I humbly request that my lord and master accept my offerings of gratitude for entertaining me!

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  23. Why do people keep letting Hank Pym bulid robots? They either end up becoming supervillians or he ends up having sex with them.

    Also drunken robots almost makes up for the rest of the suckage.

    By the way good review. The voices are awesome like always.

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  24. Was just about to point out that in the Ultimate Universe Pyro was a good guy but... Stephen beat me to it.

    But another goof up was in Pyro's appearance itself. In his earlier appearances in Ultimate X-men he had been seriously scarred because he wasn't immune to his own flame. In addition to suddenly becoming a creepy rapist he now has a face lift.

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  25. What is it with this series trying to make the characters as big of jerks as possible?

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  26. No "Previously, on Atop the Fourth Wall"? You made Billy cry.

    Then again, Billy is a 50 year old who still lives in his mom's basement and likes to frighten little kids for kicks and then steal their candy every Halloween. Actually, I hate Billy, so go ahead and make him cry. That'll fix him.

    Rest of it was good, though.

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  27. So I'm guessing that the whole Mechakara thing will tie in with the shocking conclusion to the Ultimates 3 review (given the warnings the Poyo has given us in previous reviews)?


    Anyway, good review. The only thing I'd comment on is that Juggernaut looked like that Bullet Bill character from the Super Mario Bros. video games. But that's the only additional joke I would have made.

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  28. As utterly inane as this will sound, I simply must post it anyway.

    IRON MAN: Imagine a world with no disease. No war. No famine.

    WASP: What if he says no Captain Crunch?



    Also, Valkyrie continues to piss me off with her ditzy attitude. I mean, seriously. "Pegasus. How cool is this?" Just shut up, Valkyrie.


    Once again, this was a fun video to watch. Excellent job, Linkara!

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  29. What WAS up with that woman's spine?!? I don't think even a contortionist could bend like that!

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  30. I really don't know what are you talking about, the artwork and the color are amazing! Its not as realistic as the work of Alex Ross but i think that is really really good!

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  31. What sucked was I liked Ultron being a good guy in the Ult universe, this universe was suppose to be about how it wasn't the same as 616 and whatnot, which was one of the main reason why U3 sucked so much Loeb just made them all like the 616 version. Hell Thor is suppose to be a cool friendly hippy guy

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  32. Pardon my Malaysian, but where is the "Hai-Ooh" yell from?

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  33. Oh, God, I just realized.

    This is fanfiction.

    Everybody's having sex with everybody else, random character death, Wolverine has a random connection to said random dead character, more sex, and now everybody's robots. (Randomly.)

    Now I'm just waiting for the supernaturally gorgeous teenage girl with Wolverine's powers to show up and say that she's Wolverine and Magda's daughter, and Pietro will instantly fall in love with her because he's ~*~pretty~*~ and clearly has no qualms about lusting after siblings.

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  34. "A lot of thought was put into Hitch's redesigns, and with the exception of Cap, they got scrapped in favor of the original models."
    "and with the exception of Cap, they got scrapped in favor of the original models."
    "and with the exception of Cap"

    I wish I could find it, but I know there's a page out there with a close-up of Cap, and he still has the wings. The thing is, the picture was before it was colored, and the wings were in a spot where a huge area of solid color was supposed to go, so it might have just been a joke.... eh, whatever.

    Anyway, I think it's pretty obvious why they put Wolverine in the comic. Pretty much everyone's fetish is to have sex with their sister/mother figure, while Wolverine watches from the bushes, so he was there to fulfill that role. Or, you know, Wolverine Publicity.

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  35. Actually, Thor shouting 'I am a god - but you are a mortal of flesh and blood!' and killing off Unus with a massive, gory, blow from his hammer was the most awesome part of this comic. Who does he get to kill next?

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  36. Bleh, I started off liking the Ultimate stuff. You can scratch your head about making comics for non-comic readers, but I only got into comics recently because of all that daunting continuity stuff, and reboots like the Ultimate universe helped me out with that. At first I though most of the updates were pretty good, keeping a lot of the original stuff, but trimming out a lot of the confusing bullshit that managed to pile up in the main timeline. I liked the updates to make the whole thing more modern, too. I particularly like Ultimate Nick Fury inexplicably being Samuel L. Jackson. It is kinda bizarre, but I love it. But, naturally, more modern gave way to 'edgier', then to GRATUITY GRATUITY GRATUITY! VIOLENCE! SEX! BOOBS!

    And wtf is up with Cap in Ultimates 3? I am not a big CA fan, but it is like he is a parody of himself there. I mean, 'watch your language'? Hawkeye just opened fire on a non-combatant!

    And ditto on the Pyro thing. Pyro was one of maybe 2 things not completely lame in the latter half of Ultimate X-Men, so screwing him up here is just sad.

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  37. "Now I'm just waiting for the supernaturally gorgeous teenage girl with Wolverine's powers to show up and say that she's Wolverine and Magda's daughter, and Pietro will instantly fall in love with her because he's ~*~pretty~*~ and clearly has no qualms about lusting after siblings"

    Could that be the Ultimate X-23?

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  38. I'm just going to be insistent and point out that Ult. Pyro here is a completely different character. As bad as Kirkman's run on Ult. X-Men was, at least he made Ult. Pyro (and Ult. Toad) interesting by making them part of the X-Men and quite different from their original 616 versions. It was a shame to see him be completely butchered by Loeb in Ultimates 3.
    Anyway, great review, as usual; loved the Bender reference and the drunk Tony Stark voice

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  39. Wow, nicely done Linkara.

    And I agree with previous poster, this ranks right up there with other plunges I've taken into reading fanfic more than being something I generally expect from the actual thing that WILL be fan-ficced.

    Also, Marvel actually had.. a robot.. speak of being used as or considered a vibrator as part of the great shame robotkind has had thrust upon it by humans/mutants?

    Stirring oratory about the injustices of being thought a mere tool that was /not/.

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  40. "Could that be the Ultimate X-23?"

    I...I want to reject it outright, but given what we've seen here, I can't. And that's scary.

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  41. Speaking of Ultimate continuity errors, what was with Scarlet Witch just creating dinosaurs out of thin air on a reflex? I was under the impression that her powers were harder to use in the Ultimate Universe because she needed to "do the math" in her head first.

    Oh, and does all this counting down stuff mean that Mechara is really the Ultron robot copy of Linkara trying to take his place?

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  42. masterthecreater is a genius. When I first saw the title card, I thought, "why would you use a palette-swapped Bender Bending Rodriguez to portray Tony Stark..." and then I remembered the liquor. A moment of brilliance before I even clicked Play.

    Of course, the joke existed in your script probably long before master drew the card, but it's still a nice touch to make it the title. Either way, Bender-as-analog-for-ol'-buckethead never would have crossed my mind.

    I'm really on the fence about artwork in the Ultimate universe. I mean, I like it, but I sort of feel guilty for liking it, as if I'm giving in to something I know is wrong. It's like how action movies these days are essentially 90-minute trailers, the Ultimate comics are basically books made entirely of covers.

    Looking forward to Part 5.
    Keep up the good work.

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  43. I'm afraid we're going to have to agree to disagree on the colouring: apart from probably being too dark, the colour choices themselves seem perfectly alright to me. The fireplace scenes are suitably hot (no pun intended), while most of the other scenes have an appropriateness. I particularly loved the introduction of Iron Bender.

    However, what does irk me is the ludicrous anatomy. While his work is expressive and well drawn, Madureira shows an almost Leifeld--esque lack of familiarity with human anatomy. Heck, I even think Magda's spine is one of the lesser sins of the comic, since it's at least physically possible for a skilled contortionist. (as an aside, she might just be hypermobile: my niece can bend and arch freakishly)

    Look at Cap's neck at 3:20, that's just ludicrous. Not even Brock Lesnar could approach such a monstrous set of traps. 14:46 has Thor's body and arms somehow expand three times their size (or his head shrinks). Then you have Wolverine's grossly distended head, and tons of other examples all throughout the comic. I don't know, it just seems... well, cartoonish.

    Now, *if* you're going to just say it's Madureira's style, then it seems somewhat hypocritical to criticize Magda's spine, and not things like Cap's tree-trunk neck, but frankly, I wouldn't give Ultimates the credit. If they intended it to be cartoonish, they'd likely be more obvious in it.

    Also, is nobody else really irritated with how easily Magneto pwns Thor in this? Magneto's badass, sure, but Thor's a freaking GOD. Even if he could neutralise Mjolnir, it isn't as if Thor couldn't just, you know, let go of the thing and smack Mags into the sun with his fists. Then again, maybe Thor's just been substantially nerfed in the Ultimate universe.

    Seriously, I can understand people having problems with overpowered superheroes, but this is Thor we're talking about. I think we can make an exception for a guy who inspired Norse mythology.

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  44. I just thought of something. If Cap is actually a robot controlled by Hank Pym, then all that "watch your language" bull is actually just Pyms OPINION on how cap acts! That's actually pretty cool.

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  45. additional positive feedback
    it was great.

    THANK YOU for the the thor fan service(?)(recongnition?)

    hes the no.1 marvel hero in my book.
    firstly im a dc man and hes more dc level in power and lacks in typical emo marvel stories

    and by gods,he a norse god.
    i dont know why his character never has an ancient old norse feel,but its still cool.

    BENDER IS A PIMP
    cheers

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  46. i second the JFK magic bullet missed opportunity.

    i was laughing for days after that bit in the review it was in.
    (with girls and an expanding room)

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  47. Yeah, Magda's more than a contortionist when you take Wolverine into account and try to extrapolate where her pelvis must be. I mean.... OW!!

    I tried to figure out what that flashback was doing and I came up with two theories:
    1) Somehow one of Magneto's children might really be Wolverine's, which would make Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver half-siblings, which perhaps in the minds of the writers made it less messed up?
    2) It was just supposed to imply that the two were already psychologically messed up and we should feel sorry for them, and not so judgmental. Unfortunately, the comic already said that thinking the relationship was wrong made us prudes from the 1950s, so saying it was the result of awful childhoods would totally negate that.

    This review was dang funny! Trolls can bitch at you if they like, but the voices and the Bender references were great. You also didn't play out the song too long the way you did last time; we all knew the lyrics, so you just had to do the start and we were cracking up. I'm really looking forward to the "exciting conclusion"...and to the madness that will be 2/15.

    Btw: everyone realized that the robot apocalypse in Ultimates 3 is nicely meshing with Mechkara's looming evil plans, right?

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  48. I have to confess, I thought wolverine's retort to That-Guy-From-Wanted-Crossed-With-Sam-Fisher was pretty funny.

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  49. What's your e-mail address.

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  50. I think you goofed--from what I see Pym wasn't piloting the robot, he went inside it and made it melt.

    But I think your Tony Stark impersonation is one of your best voices yet!

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  51. Okay, so the violin almost made me spit coke all over my computer... XD

    Who on earth thought the brother/sister thing was a good idea? Seriously?

    Also: Oh, so that's how you pronounce the name of Thor's hammer? I'll have to reread "And Another Thing" now that I can say it right.

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  52. Ok, so Wolverine says "She could've been mine". And the book is about revolting robots. And you didn't play "You could be mine"? IT'S A TERMINATOR 2 SONG, FOR PETE'S SAKE!

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  53. Ok, so Wolverine says "She could've been mine". And the book is about revolting robots. And you didn't play "You could be mine"? IT'S A TERMINATOR 2 SONG, FOR PETE'S SAKE

    I second that. A great moment if you do another missed opportunities segment though.

    And about these sex scenes. My god! They are to stupid to be based on any desire to portray sex. They're too ridiculous to be considered erotic. What's the point. This comic is too immature to have uncensored swears so I guess it comes as no surprise that sex should be portrayed with all the realism of a pre-internet teens imagination with boomerang backs.

    Anyway I'll leave the ranting to the professional. One last thing, Linkara. My girlfriend, being a music education major, was disappointed you didn't play your violin. Of course if you did, I'd have to here about what you were doing wrong.

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  54. Just had a Linkara-a-thon, catching up on the last few I missed. Just finished, and saw this one now, and man, was it funny!

    Not as familiar with the Ultimate universe, but man, what a sick and horndog filled place! You sure Frank Miller has nothing to do with it?

    So anyway, I'm all caught up, and you always deliver! Until they release All-Star Ultimates, MAKE MINE LINKARA!

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  55. I understand they want to tell a mature history, but rape insinuation, incest and sex in every issue isnt the way do it, instead it comes as childish. "Look, boobs. We are big boys!"

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  56. Hahaha! Oh man, the Wolverine singing "Somewhere over the rainbow" made me spit water on my keyboard, im not joking, really.

    I hate you...

    ...no I don't

    Anyways, I really liked the Tony Stark drunk voice.

    Needs more Bloodgun though, I dont know why

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  57. As hilarious as this review was, there was one thing that bothered me: that you didn't actually PLAY the violin. I was really looking forward to that when you brought it out, too. But you brought Drunk!Tony back, so it's cool.

    And interestingly, this was up at Marvel today:

    http://marvel.com/news/comicstories.11166.psych_ward~colon~_the_ultimates?utm_source=rss_new_news_feed&utm_medium=feed_link&utm_campaign=rss_feeds

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  58. I didn't think the colouring was that bad. But hey, everyone has different opinions on things, no biggie.

    Drunk bender voice is just... giggle-tasttic. Howw dare you make me laugh so hard that it makes irn bru come out of my nose.

    Gah... it still stings...

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  59. It seems "He's counting down..." to my birthday. I'll be getting a accidental birthday gift from one of my favourite internet reviewers! While you don't know me I still want to say thank you since it's always nice when something cool happens on your birthday.

    Also, I (like many others) had to pause your video when Captain America said "Come with me if you want to live" because I was laughing so hard

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  60. Why don't you cut down on the jokes? Honestly, I just watch this stuff for information on bad comics, not to hear bad jokes. Half of them feel forced. Just because you *can* make a joke doesn't mean you should. Also, that'd cut down the review time and make things flow more smoothly. Also I have a few friends that want me to remind you that "brevity is the soul of wit."

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  61. This "Heyooooo"-joke at 3:01 - I have seen it a couple of times in your videos and still can't make the connection. Where is its origin?

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  62. I think my favorite thing about Wolverine getting shot up is that Captain America is clearly visible in the background doing nothing about it. At all. He's just watching.

    And Cap STILL doesn't do anything when Wolverine's got his claws at Hawkeye's throat.

    Ah, it's been awhile since we had a good "BY DIEHARD'S CROTCH". (\o/ for the hate on "who wants to live forever" too. Let's form a club.)

    So wait, they're not giving me a good timeline on this. How do we know for certain Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver aren't related to Wolverine again? And Magneto seems awfully nonchalant about his wife doing this. Does this happen with any man who comes into the house? Has he just given up scolding her for it? It's not very Magnetolike of him.

    And...that's it.

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  63. Reb Brown, eh?

    Leave it to a friend of Spooney to refernce Mr. Brown outside of Reb's usual crap.

    Also I have a question, which manga/anime has the most cheesecake in your opinion?

    P.S. Can you review or do a Comic in 5 Panels of Identity Crisis? It's not as bad as you believe, but the padding is a pain in the ass.

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  64. Seriously, the Kaishaku Valkyrie kicks more ass in her series than Ultimate Valkyrie. Linkara FTW

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  65. Is every episode released in October going to be a horror comic review and a review of a section of the Clone Saga? What are you gonna review next from that saga? In my humble opnion, you should go throught the Scarlet Spider books, Sensational Spider-Man/Dan Jurgens, and Blood Brothers before tackling Revalations.

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  66. Yep, you've get this comic pegged. It is definitely playing to the lowest common denominator and/or playing off all the sex and violence as "being edgy and appealing to the mature reader". Nice touch getting the violin for the flashback, and I admit I had been wondering why you still did your "drunk Stark" voice for Robo-Iron Man.

    Looking forward to you letting us know even more reasons why to avoid this comic in your next show!

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  67. ZenOfThunder, if you want just an informative review of a book, there are plenty of other sites and weblogs for that (heck, if it's a trade paperback or collection, even Amazon has some decent critiques). Atop the 4th Wall is a review program, it's true, but it uses satire as part of its critique.
    It hardly justifies the medium of video if the content is purely "informational," a text entry with a few scans could achieve that just fine. If I'm going to sit and watch someone do a review, I expect a little personality, otherwise the videos would just be a huge waste.
    In any case, a wise man once said, "anyone who tries to distinguish between entertainment and education doesn't know the first thing about either."

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  68. You are on your damn A-game. I felt like the last few segments you did were funny, but not hilarious, but these Ultimates 3 ones have just been spot-on. I also agree, thanks to that plot twist I actually wound up with a sort of Stockholm syndrome affection for this book.

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  69. BY DIEHARDS CROTCH!!!!

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  70. I know this has nothing to do with the review, but EVERYONE GO BUY THE TRADE PAPERBACKS OF A SERIES CALLED "SWEET TOOTH". I JUST READ THE FIRST ONE AND IT WAS FRIGGIN AMAZING!

    *ahem*

    Anyways, I always love your reviews of these big crossover comics. Great stuff. I loved your drunk voice. XD

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