Lovecraft Country took a trip to Boston and found themselves in an Indiana Jones movie. Or perhaps The goonies instead. I mean, that sure could have been One Eyed Willy’s ship at the end.
This series has been fascinating so far as it seems to be shifting each week, between horror genre tropes and, this week, action/adventure movies.
It ended with a shocking moment too with Montrose’s apparent murder of the mysterious woman/siren that they found in One Eyed Willy’s location. I am not sure the purpose of any of this, but I am definitely intrigued to see where it goes next.
Another wild moment is the seduction of Ruby by the not-dead henchman of Christina Braithwhite, William. He had seemed to be killed when the mansion was destroyed in episode two, but William obviously made it out.
The whole, what I was calling the ‘Leap of Faith’ section of the episode was tense and had some pretty funny quips from our three adventurers trying to get across the gigantic cavern by walking a teeny tiny little board. This board tends to disintegrate as they are on it. It also has a swinging axe (‘Only the penitent man shall pass…’) and a locked door that they needed to open. These seemed to come straight from Last Crusade, if not directly, at least in honor.
Episode 4 was nicely paced and kept me on guard. I am not sure what is next, but I am excited to see where the next step takes me.
If you were not someone who followed box office results, you would not have any idea the answer to the question, “What is the biggest worldwide box office film of 2025?” The answer is the Chinese film Ne Zha II. It has nearly reached $2 billion worldwide, with not much of that total coming from domestic.
Ne Zha II is receiving a wide release in the US, which could push the film to join the $2 billion club.
According to IMDB, “After a great catastrophe, the souls of Nezha and Aobing are saved, but their bodies face ruin. To give them new life, Taiyi Zhenren turns to the mystical seven-colored lotus in a daring bid to rebuild them and change their fate.“
I am going to start off with the strength of this movie. It is, perhaps, the most spectacularly animated movie I have ever seen. Everything about the imagery on the screen was absolutely stunning. The images, the character design, the backgrounds, art design, the colors…. it was legitimately the greatest looking animated movie I have ever seen and that is saying quite a lot.
I usually prefer when a live action film uses subtitles instead of dubbing because the original voices tend to have the proper emotion. That is not usually the case with animated films that I have seen dubbed. Ne Zha II was dubbed with English and, if I am being honest, I was unimpressed with the voice over work. Part of that may have been how the main character of Ne Zha sounded, as he was screaming in that Anime manner, and I have never been a fan of that. None of the voices stood out to me and I found that a weakness of this version of the film. Of course, I do not speak Chinese, so there is that.
The story was a touch confusing, and that might be because this is a sequel to a film from 2019 that I had never seen. I think they updated that part in the opening exposition, or, at least, that is what I guessed. There was another part of the film that I did not love and that was the attempts at humor. I did not find most of the humor to work and I might have preferred them to stick to the action.
Speaking of the action, it was exceptional. This was part of the animation and it was wonderfully laid out and was amazing to look at in every battle. Everything was laid out perfectly and helped build the tension of the film and most of the action also helped to develop the characters.
Ne Zha II is a massive success and is one of the most visually stunning films of all time. It is also the most successful monetary film of all time too. I am glad that I got a chance to see it even the movie may have a few drawbacks when it comes to story and time. It was certainly worth the two and a half hours it took to watch it.
My school’s open house on Thursday made it impossible to get down to Bettendorf to get my comics, so I could not do the comic covers yesterday. Henceforth…Friday!
Then, trying to get to In This Issue Comic tonight was a nightmare. Between an off-ramp that I always take being closed and a wreck on the alternate path, it was crazy. Other cars frustrated the heck out of me and I may have uttered a curse word or fifty. I was battling the clock too since the shop closed at 5. I made it with about 30 minutes to spare.
Good week of covers. One variant. Two original covers. One of two covers by our cover artist leader for 2025.
Also-Rans: Hyde Street #8, Falling in Love on the Path to Hell #9, Superman Unlimited #4, All-New Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider #1 (Cover D), They Choose Violence #3, The Department of Truth #33, Escape #1, All-New Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider #1, The Vision & Scarlet Witch #4, and Krypto: The Last Dog of Krypton #3.
Bronze Medalist
Amazing Spider-Man #10
Cover art by John Romita Jr., Scott Hanna & Marcio Menyz
I loved the design of this cover as it is made to look like the Daily Bugle featuring a story on the “Brutal Side of Spider-Man.” I love the creativity of the concept and the design.
Silver Medalist
Space Quest #4
Cover art by Mark Spears
Another wonderful Spears cover featuring Space Ghost and Jonny Quest. There is a haunting look in the eyes of Jonny and the ghost-like qualities of Space Ghost standout beautifully. I love the smokey background and the colors too. Just an all around strong cover.
Gold Medalist
Nightwing #129
Variant Cover B
Cover art by Jorge Fornes
I saw this on the rack in Bettendorf today and this one too my breath away. I already had the A cover, but I could not turn away from this amazing piece of art. It wins a really strong week.
I watched the first episode of Peacemaker season two last night, but, to be honest, I was really tired and I dozed through a bunch of the show. It is not a criticism of the episode as much as it was how tired I was after all day at school and the open house that night.
So I woke up early this morning and rewatched the episode, and I am so glad that I did. I realized that I actually dozed through the entire bit with Chris (Peacemaker) and his father and his brother Keith in the alternate universe, which is a major piece of the episode.
Before we go on, let’s talk the most important part… the dance routine on the opening credits. I have to say, my first thoughts were that I did not love it as much as I did last year. While I did enjoy it, and the dancing of the cast was as corny and over-the-top as ever, I feel as if the song this season, “Oh Lord” by Foxy Shazam, does not reach the level of awesomeness as “Do Ya Wanna Taste It?” by Wig Wam. That is just a personal preference, and I will say that I found it more entertaining the second time, so perhaps this will be a song that will grow on me as the season progresses whereas last season’s song grabbed me immediately.
Moving on, I thought this episode was really strong and highlighted more of the character aspects of the cast, especially Chris, Economos, and Harcourt. Chris’s entire storyline with the alternate world Peacemaker was amazing. The scene where Chris sat silently as his dad and Keith talked was powerful and a bit sad. I wonder if, in this universe, his dad is not the racist piece of garbage that was displayed last season. They do seem to be working together as a trio.
There was less about Adebayo and Adrian Chase (Vigilante) though they do appear in good scenes complimenting the other performances. I expect more from both before the season ends.
Also, shout out to the Bludhaven reference made during the episode. Bludhaven is the city outsie of Gotham where Dick Grayson, aka Nightwing, resides.
Another major switch came in the “Previously on” section at the beginning of the episode where they made a couple of adjustments to scenes from seaosn one. Specifically, we hear Adebayo make mention of the “Justice Gang” instead of the “Justice League.” Another switch was the iconinc scene at the end of season 1 where the Justice League shows up and we see Flash and Aquaman from their movie sides. Here we get the Justice Gang with Guy Gardner and Hawkgirl making comments instead. None of these adjustments bother me any and it makes me wonder if the plan is not to have Chris move into a different world, but to have Chris’s world be the actual DCU.
I know everyone was making the guess that Peacemaker would jump universes, but I think that is not going to be the way they go. With these few retcons, I think the story will be Chris goes to the happier universe with his cool dad and living brother, but he needed to return to his home world which is the DCU. I could be wrong on that, but I am calling it right now.
Peacemaker season two episodes drop every Thursday on HBO Max.
The third episode of Alien: Earth continued its strong start.
Wendy and Hermit faced off with a Xenomorph, after they had been isolated at the end of episode two last week. They take a lot of damage, but Wendy is able to show how tough she is as she cuts the alien in half with a knife. They learned about the acid blood of the creature.
Boy Kavalier is one of the creepiest and interesting characters of the show. Samuel Blenkin does a great job with this role. Every time he was on screen this episode, I pictured Tom Baker’s Doctor from Doctor Who. The hair, the scarf, the facial expressions. I do not know if this was intentional or if this was just a coincidence, but he definitely had Doctor vibes.
All the science and operating on the creatures as well as Hermit was interesting. It gave a distinct anxiety feel to it because you were not sure what was going to happen. It becomes clear that Boy Kavalier is looking to create his own Xenomorph as they take a little tadpole looking thing out of the facehugger and placed it in a vat with Hermit’s lung, that had to be removed to help save his life.
Morrow is a intriguing character too as he is making a connection with Slightly, with the definite idea that he wanted to return the specimens to his boss.
Atticus, Leti and Montrose are back in Chicago after the death of George and things are stressed.
They have given a story about the cruel sheriff killing George, covering up the truth of his death.
Leti purchased a house that she wanted to fix up as a way to give a safe zone for other black people.
Atticus is trying to find purpose in his life, not sure what he should do.
The white neighbors are causing trouble, setting up their cars to honk their horns consistently.
This episode felt like a self-contained episode featuring a haunted house, and I enjoyed this one more than I did the crammed in feeling from last week. Plus, there were some really creepy moments with the ghosts in the cellar. And that elevator moment with the white neighbor… brutal.
This felt like a pause within the story and it is going to pick back up to the story as Christina Braithwhite is back and in Chicago, showing off her control of Atticus.
Good episode for week three of Lovecraft Country, the thirtieth installment of Sunday Morning Sidewalk.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 