Culture Blues

Super Snarky Comic-Con Coverage: Day 4 – The End

Much the same as I’ve totally run out of steam reading articles about this convention that used to be a place for nerds from across the country to congregate and is now nothing more than a massive corporate three ring circus, Comic-Con really runs out of steam by the time Sunday rolls around. I don’t think it helps that most of the attendees are suffering from debilitating Magic: The Gathering withdrawal at this point.

This is probably going to be what it looks like.

Most of the new TV series news was dominated by the highly-anticipated The Walking Dead, but NBC's not-at-all-highly-anticipated The Cape and The Event actually screened their first episodes to a largely indifferent/bored audience. The Cape is about a framed cop who is believed dead and then becomes a super hero with the help of a fancy cape. Congratulations, NBC! Your programming officially sounds like Nick Toons castaways. Or like a rejected DC character. Honestly, I don’t know what The Cape sounds like, other than crap. Maybe they just didn’t want Heroes to be the worst super hero show ever.

The Event is about, well, I guess it’s about an event. And NBC will be goddamned if they’re going to tell anybody what the event is… ever. Well, it worked for The Happening, right? Oh, really, The Happening sucked? And everyone hated it? Look, you know you’re in trouble when literally the best thing you can say about a show is “Jason Ritter is in it.” That’s the highest praise anyone is ever going to give The Event, which looks to make us miss Lost by reminding us of everything we hated most about Lost.

The venerable car combat video game franchise Twisted Metal is making a resurgence on Playstation 3. And while that’s not exciting at all, the fact that the game will apparently include live action cutscenes is extremely exciting. That’s right Sega CD fans, full motion video is back! So put down that copy of Night Trap and join us in the new millennium! Or, on second thought… don’t. Just stay down there in the basement… with NBC (zing!).

In “franchises that just won’t die” news, WB is prepping a new Godzilla film for release. Would it be stupid of me to point out that people are only interested in Godzilla as foreign camp? And that we have no interest in seeing a domestic, big budget project? At least not one that doesn’t involve Mothra, or some other giant creature? Yeah, I thought so.

Too hot for TV.

And just to prove their dominance over this year’s convention one last time, Marvel dropped the frickin’ Infinity Gauntlet in the middle of the convention floor. This has already led to rampant nerd speculation about the plot of The Avengers with the most rabid nerds foaming at the mouth due to the possibility of a Thanos appearance. Nerds, listen to me. If they put Thanos in Avengers, you’re going to hate it. Or did you not see when they turned Galactus into a lame, dark cloud in Fantastic Fart: Rise of the Silver Morpheus? Galactic Marvel will be just about impossible to pull off onscreen. They’ll be lucky if they get out of Thor unscathed. So let’s all just hope this is a bit of appropriately cruel misdirection from the Marvel folks.

Well, it looks like it was a miserable event with over-hyped unsurprises and more big names (read: douches) than ever before. If Culture Blues makes me cover this thing next year, I’m probably going to throw a fit, especially if they try to make me go out there. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go pick Ben up from the drunk tank.