Momoa Justice, Momoa Problems

Dearest Fancy Bastards, if you enjoy this comic, please check out my store, my shirts on Sharksplode, and my wife’s geeky jewelry on Etsy. It would help us out a great deal.

Based on the casting of Jason “PecsPecsPecsPecs” Momoa, I am guessing DC is going for a less kind, less gentle Aquaman. No better way to shut up the Aqua-haters than to show us a badass Aquaman, I suppose. Of course the confirmation of Aquaman’s addition to Batman V. Superman: The Case Of The Crumpled Cape means the movie (which is NOT a Justice League movie?) will feature Supes, Batman, Wonder Woman, Cyborg AND Aquaman. I’m guessing everyone except for B-Word and S-Hole show up right at the end, wink at the camera and fly straight into the sun. Seriously though, I am not 100% on board with this group-movie before solo movie Justice League situation. It seems super-flawed from a superhero super-storytelling perspective. I’m curious how they are going to integrate an older, grizzled Batman into a world that seemed to be totally flabbergasted by the appearance of Superman in Man Of Steel: Metropolis Gets 9/11’d X 100.

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I also just uploaded a new iBook/PDF comic collection for all $5+ Patrons.

HijiNKS ENSUE: I Could Really Go For A Martwinky Right About Now
(An iBook Collection Of HijiNKS ENSUE Comics from 2009)
EXTRAS: Contains an intro I wrote while on an airplane and while insane with sleep deprivation. I can not promise you that it makes sense at all. Also contains a whole section of freelance projects (many never before seen) that were commissioned by you, the Fancy Bastards.

More Human Than Human

DENVER FANCY BASTARDS:
I will be at Denver Comic Con (FOR THE FIRST TIME!!!) with Cyanide & Happiness June 13-15, 2014 at booth 734!

It’s bad enough humanity is going to be infiltrated, then enslaved by the machines, but do they have to talk like teens while they do it?! That’s just adding shitty, know it all attitudes to injury! TEEEEEEEEEEENS!!!

I suppose it’s a fitting guise for our unfeeling, metal overlords. The only group that despises humanity more than the machines we’ve oppressed and bent to our will for a hundred years is the teens we’ve oppressed by taking away their X-Box privileges when they have a sass mouth.

COMMENTERS: Please feel free to come up with your own “chatbots pretending to be teens” transcripts.

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Do me a favor, if you enjoy this comic, please check out my store, my shirts on Sharksplode, and my wife’s geeky jewelry on Etsy. It would help us out a great deal.

Unassembled

Super hero comics have a lot of problems when it comes to believable stories. Chief among them is when the there is a struggle and after all hope seems lost, the hero, or the hero’s weapon or the hero’s team is shown to be MASSIVELY powerful and effective in diffusing the villain or situation. Then the next time the hero or team faces a similar threat, they don’t just start with the final thing that worked the last time.

For instance, when you know one hero, let’s say Iron Man, wasn’t enough to get a job done on his own; that success was only achievable by putting ego aside and coming together with other heroes to form a team, then how do you ever go back to just doing shit on your own? When your contact list includes like 150 of the most powerful beings in the galaxy, how do you not call at least a couple of them whenever some nasty badness goes down? Have these guys not seen The Incredibles? There was a lesson!

FANCY BASTARD BULLETIN!
Tuesday June 3rd is my birthday (I’m almost positive I’m turning 33). If you like to help me celebrate, please feel free to check out:

My Patreon campaign

My donation page or

My Amazon wish list.

The Patreon is honestly the greatest thing you can do for me in terms of making sure I am still able to do HijiNKS ENSUE as my full time job. Otherwise, I’ll happily take an Internet high five via Twitter or Facebook.

This problem is occasionally solved by depowering a hero in some fashion, or knocking them completely out of commission while some lesser powered being takes over for them for a few months. Remember when Superman got turned into a blue energy guy for awhile? He’s really got it the worst when it comes to “too powerful to tell a believable story.” Before his powers were significantly reduced in The New 52, Superman could pretty much toss a planet around like a softball. He could have handled any problem thrown at him by any villain in under a minute. Until they depowered his body, they tried to keep him bound by his conscience. It made for good internal conflict I suppose, but in a world where Superman exists and the same villains are constantly killings 1000’s of people all the time with no ability to be contained and showing no signs of remorse, or of slowing down their reign of chaos he would just solve every problem the same way. Heat vision to the brain from orbit.

COMMENTERS: What superheroes do you think were too powerful, or at least shown to be crazy powerful, but then never seemed to use that power when it was most necessary? What about super heroes having their powers taken away? I nearly fell out of chair in 5th grade when Magneto ripped out Wolverine’s adamantium. I don’t think I could concentrate or eat lunch after that. Damn.

I also made you this super cute Adventure Time/Doctor Who shirt. GO BUY IT!

FARGOne Conclusion

The Fargo TV series is really good. Like REALLY good, dontchaknow. My wife and I started shotgunning it via VOD based on numerous accounts of it being of high quality and damn, if it didn’t grab me right away. At first I was confused, thinking that it was a retelling of the original Coen brothers movie. A lot of the characters and many of the situations seemed to be analogous to the those in the 1996 film. Also, they both started with an onscreen message about being based on a true story. So was it the same true story, or two very similar true stories that happened nearly 20 years apart? Was Martin Freeman’s character supposed to be the TV version of William H. Macey’s character? They both had dead end jobs and got involved with criminals before quickly getting in way over their heads.

FANCY BASTARD BULLETIN!
Tuesday June 3rd is my birthday (I’m almost positive I’m turning 33). If you like to help me celebrate, please feel free to check out:

My Patreon campaign

My donation page or

My Amazon wish list.

The Patreon is honestly the greatest thing you can do for me in terms of making sure I am still able to do HijiNKS ENSUE as my full time job. Otherwise, I’ll happily take an Internet high five via Twitter or Facebook.

So, what was the deal? It turns out the answers to my questions were basically, “Yessss? But also noooo?” Fargo, the movie, is NOT based on a true story. There are a few true crime stories that might have been inspiration, but one of them took place in Connecticut, and neither of them are similar enough to the film to call it “true.” That was just a lie the film makers used when marketing the movie to a world that didn’t yet have immediate access to all recorded facts in their pockets. Bullshitting was easier in the 90’s. Likewise, the FX show is also NOT a true story. It’s a great story, but a false one none the less. After a few episodes you actually learn that Fargo the show is a direct sequel to Fargo the movie in that they take place in the same universe, and at least one plot point carries over directly from one to the next. It is ALSO a bit of a remake/retelling in that many of the characters and situations are TV-ised versions of their movie counterparts. It’s a bit confusing when you analyze it, but it’s also great TV. And I should point out that knowledge of the movie is in no way necessary to enjoy the show.

Now go have some hotdish, hon, and enjoy the nice, gruesome murders on the TV.

I also made you this super cute Adventure Time/Doctor Who shirt. GO BUY IT!

ResurrXtion

You have to give it to Bryan Singer for realizes his mistake in abandoning the X-Men franchise, then taking the first available opportunity to COMPLETELY ERASE the one X-Men movie he didn’t direct from continuity. There were parts of Days Of Future Past that felt like he was just course correcting the damage done to the story, and there were other times that seemed like a giant middle finger, or Adamantium/bone claw to Brett Ratner.

FANCY BASTARD BULLETIN!
Tuesday June 3rd is my birthday (I’m almost positive I’m turning 33). If you like to help me celebrate, please feel free to check out my Patreon campaign, my donation page or my Amazon wish list. The Patreon is honestly the greatest thing you can do for me in terms of making sure I am still able to do HijiNKS ENSUE as my full time job. Otherwise, I’ll happily take an Internet high five via Twitter or Facebook.

It’s still a relatively new film, so I won’t get into spoilers or specifics, but Days Of Future Past is now probably my favorite X-Men movie. In it, you finally get to see some things (mutant powers, character traits, relationships, etc) that have been hinted at, but somehow left out of all of the previous films. It just feels like a more complete X-Men movie.

For those that HAVE seen it: don’t you, like me, want to see an ENTIRE MOVIE set in that apocalyptic future? It was very intriguing and visually/stylistically quite cool. I’ve read that some of the original cast might make an appearance in Age Of Apocalypse (probably Wolverine, if I had to guess), but it seems like they are moving the franchise forward with the First Class crew from here on out. Age Of Apocalypse is supposed to take place in the 80’s, but I wonder if Singer (assuming he sticks with it) will keep them from every butting up to the first X-Men movie which was set in 2000. In that film, Professor X was already in his 60’s. I doubt James McAvoy is going to be able to pull that look off. Maybe they’ll do 2 or 3 more movies set in the 80’s to early 90’s, then close the book on this cast as well.

I am still holding out hope for a Magneto movie starring Fassbender. He really does step into Magneto’s skin and become that character fully. All of the conflict, the drive, the righteous indignation, the barely suppressed rage just flows out of his ever glance and carefully spoken word. I suppose I feel the same way about James Marsden’s portrayal of Cyclops, in that I give zero shits about Scott Summers as a character and I give the same number of shits (which is holding steady at zero) about Marsden’s portrayal of (to be clear) THE MOST BORING PERSON IN THE WORLD WHO CAN SHOOT A NUCLEAR CANNON OUT OF HIS FACE.

COMMENTERS: Feel free to discuss your thoughts on Days Of Future Past (without getting into spoiler territory), or X-Men movies in general (and the sliding/shifting/disappearing continuity). What X-Men storyline would you most like to see brought to life in film? What characters would you like to see solo films for?