Pokemon Adventures Gold, Silver and Crystal Arc: THE PODCAST IS HERE TOO!

We've gotten on several boats before we went across some kinda steep mountains. We're getting to those games soon, I promise. But hey, at least we can talk about them now. Let us go to the Jhoto region, one year after the events of Yellow, and take a peak into the life of the breeder, the trader, and the catcher.

Pokemon Adventures Yellow Arc: Destroying the Pokemon World before it was cool

https://twitter.com/Blaster5426/status/773122018577219584 You asked for this, and now we're going to be doing this until September next year, and probably coming back to it once new arcs are finished, but thankfully that takes a while. And we're doing it in order because it is a story that, for the most part, follows a standard timeline in order of the games release. this is going to be fun, so shall we see how Kanto has gotten on two years after Red won the Pokemon League?

Pokemon Adventures Red/ Green/ Blue Arc: It's Kanto as you always imagined it

I hope you like Pokemon, because you're going to see a lot of it in the next few months. So to kick start the spa... I mean content, lets take a look at a part of the franchise that, while it gets more attention then some, its nowhere near as known as the main three, being the games, TCG and anime. The franchise has had several Manga incarnations, but the one that many bring up is Pokemon Adventures. I get the feeling some are going "But its the first of the month, why is this not a comic review?!" To answer that, its pretty simple. I see comics and manga the same way as I see western animation and anime, in that they're basically the same except for a few changes. The main differences between them? Manga are normally longer then standard comic books, in that Manga are almost small novel sized, where as comics, before getting their complete arc releases, tend to be no bigger then a magazine, being generous. Manga also tends to mimic the anime art style, but to my knowledge, primarily stay black and white, in that there is no colour in them outside of the front and back covers. Are there more differences? Yes, but most of them are culture based. Yes US, there are more countries in the world then yours, or was the .au in the web address for this site not enough of a clue? I know I don't talk with an auzzie bogan accent but still.

IDW Transformers; Last Stand of the Wreckers: How to make Hell on Earth look like a Paradise

"War, is hell"

On one corner you have the honor bound, live to protect Autobots. But what happens when you need something stronger, when you need a looser, glass cannon? That's when you call in The Wreckers. The bots who you send in when the mission is suicidal, who go in guns blazing, and just because you walked off their ship doesn't mean you're walking back on. "Sometimes in teh Wreckers, your first day is your last". Or to put it more bluntly, they are the Autobot equivalent of the Expendibles. So let's take a look at one of their missions. In terms of continuity, this is post Autocracy, but long before Combiner Wars.

Autobot outposts all over the galaxy have been falling to Decepticon forces, with one in particular located on Garrus-9, a prison complex designed to house war criminals run by Fortress Maximus (not the titan), is taken over by a loose cannon, one that even Megatron fears (or so we're told), Overlord. One of the three "Phase six" (for another arc review) decepticons, normally sent in to destroy what's left of a planet and its resistance. Autobot and Decepticon alike fear him because while many kill in the names of their leaders. Overlord can be best described as a sadist, the pain, fear and suffering of others pleasures him. He now runs the prison. With everyone there killing each other either for sport, or survival, in a more primal sort of way. The mission: Break into "G-9", save any autobot survivors and Aequitas, a super computer that serves as a judge and jury for the prison, and get out. Simple enough, right? Well, I won't say how the story ends.

Oh don't worry, I'll come back to this girl later

The simple plot though leads to some terrifying visuals. The bright colour pallete makes all the darker moments stronger, its actually so good that I'd love to see this animated. It's practically begging for an animated form. I also love the contrast of the veteran Wreckers like Kup, Springer, and Impactor to the new recruits like Ironfist, Guzzle and Rotorstorm. It further highlights the strains of war, especially when you're on a team constantly getting fresh parts because recruits keep dying on these suicidal missions.

Kinda heavy, but while I do recomend this arc, it is pretty dark. And considering the other arcs reviewed recently, I think we need to get something lighter covered for next month. In the meantime, I feel like talking about Doctor Strange on Friday, anyone care to listen?

Combiner Wars: Peace is but a brittle thing for them

Encase it might not be obvious, I have no intention on doing arcs in the order they were released, simply being because of how old some arcs are. I'd rather bounce between old and new arcs, as to me, it would be more interesting, and may shine a new light on older arcs. For now, we go back to Cybertron, and while there are many arcs between Autocracy and Combiner Wars I want to talk about, such as Dark Cybertron, Last Stand of the Wreckers and All Hail Megatron, let's see what the toy line has been up to lately, the Combiner Wars.

Worlds Collide: What happens when you mix the Blue Blur with the Blue Bomber?

This is something I get the feeling was being worked on while Archie was getting the rights to do the comics. Think about it, you're going for the rights of two of gaming's most iconic characters (that isn't named Mario), one of whom holds the record for longest running comic series based on a video game. Why wouldn't you bring the two together? Because they did, we get Worlds Collide, so lets see how this goes, shall we?

Megatron's Origins and Autocracy: Because you can't have one without the other

Throughout all of the generations I've seen of Transformers, is it sad to say that I only recall a single dedicated origin story for Megatron? Not to mention, how many Transformers fans who read this can tell me, without looking up a wiki who Orion Pax is? Yeah, you'd think that the two main characters of the series would get dedicated origin stories often, if at all. Well, we have 12 comics that give dedicated origin stories for the two, along with the Autobots and the Decepticons. They won the poll, so its time to look at the two IDW Transformers arcs: Megatron's Origins and Autocracy.

Disclaimer: I have not seen and/or read every single iteration of Transformers. The only time I recall seeing a origin story for Megatron was Transformers Prime and the only two times outside of this series of comics I've seen Optimus Prime referred to as Orion Pax was an episode of Generation 1 and late season 1-early season 2 of Transformers Prime.

Blackest Night arc: "What's this, something to do with zombies that's... ORIGINAL?"

This took longer then what I was expecting, and for that I apologize. This was intended to go up early April, right after the Digimon Marathon, however as you can see, that didn't happen. But, I do keep my word, so here we are, the Blackest Night arc, the first ever Comic book review on this site.

For those who either don't remember, or haven't seen the post covering it, let me explain how these reviews are going to work, at least, how I'll handle them (which has been updated anyway, so...). Due to many comic book stories and characters lasting many decades, it would be almost impossible for me to review entire comic series and still keep a weekly content schedule, especially when you deal with characters that have been around since World War II and before. As such, this will be handled in arcs, arcs that you get to decide. At the end of almost every review, with the exception being this opening period, I'll be putting up a strawpoll that has (at time of writing) 4 arcs, one from Detective Comic (DC), one from Marvel Comics, one from Archie Comics, and one from IDW publishing. These arcs will be picked from any arc that you send me as a request or, if necessary due to how rarely I get requests, are added in by me in order to fill polls. Anyone is able to send me arc requests, even from other publishers (the only reason why its four is because those are the four I know of). Each poll will last until the next Comic review, which I'm hoping to make a monthly occurrence.

With all that out of the way, time to look at Blackest Night.