Opening Adventures; Rick and Morty: Time for a science question...

This show is aimed more at a maturer audience, airing on Adult Swim. As such, the language used in this review is meant for a more mature audience.

What do you get when you mix Back to the Future, with crude humor? You'd basically get this. I've had this on my radar for a while now, ever since December 2014, always with teh intent on giving this a proper look. I still haven't, but hey, that's what Opening Impressions are for, judging how well the opening episodes of a show work to sell the show. So let's see how well this show does it.

This is a Fan poster by 3FrogBoy on Deviantart.
Link found here: http://3frogboy.deviantart.com/art/Rick-and-Morty-Fan-Poster-562269021

Avengers vs X-Men: So tempting to do a Birds of Prey joke

Not the original plan, but being honest, I couldn't find ways to word it, so I picked another arc, this one, with thankfully better sucsess. So, what could bring the two biggest teams in the Marvel Universe to go against each other? Well seeing as this will probably not be the last hero v hero comic covered, let's find out. I should note, I'm only covering the direct plot of the arc, not before it, and not after it.

The Phoenix force, a power unlike anything you'll find in the MCU (for legal reasons). Its an entity of pure destruction, and its returning to earth, to merge with a girl called Hope Summers, the mutant messiah. The Avengers try to put her into protective custody, but the X-men, refuse. Using a portion of the Phoenix Force, hope flees from the battle, causing the two teams to try and find her. Hope wants to use the Phoenix to reignite the Mutant kind, and trusts Wolverine to, if need be, kill her should she not control it. Before the Phoenix can fully bond with Hope, Iron Man and Giant Man fire a device to try and stop it, but only splinters it, making it bond with Cyclops, Emma Frost, Neymor, Colossus, and Magik (hope I'm spelling some of those right). After defeating the Avengers, the Phoenix five, as they are now going by, are reshaping the planet to their desire, providing free energy, food and water to everyone, all really good things, but because their powers are going unchecked, they need to be stopped. After the first part of their plan, to rescue Hope, barely succeeds, many battles take place, eventually leading to them defeating Neymor, but having his portion of the power return to the other four, making them more powerful.

The rest of the main story is basically that, leading to Cyclops becoming the Dark Phoenix, with all the pieces, killing Professor Xavier, but eventually losing to Hope and the Scarlet Witch. While I can say that this is more then what I was able to do for the Dark Phoenix saga, everything else aside from the visuals and the situation is pretty meh overall. It was more style of the situation, over substance. Might it be because of my lack of time dedicated to it, to get the review, maybe, I hope not though.

Transformers Energon Perceptor Mini Con Team: Why did you want this?

No seriously, why? I put that poll up as a joke, thinking no one would want to see this. How wrong I was. is it just because this is one of the transformers that even the big Transformers Toy reviewers don't do? I don't follow every one who does Transformers reviews, but looking at who I primarily follow, Emgo316, BensCollectables, Thew Addams, Lazy Eyebrow Reviewer and TJ Omega, none of them have done these figures, and I can only confirm one of them has them at all. Last chance to say no... fine...

You wanted them

Allow me to show you what happens when you try to make a combiner small, and cheep. Starting with the vehicle modes, which for Mini cons, they aren't that bad. From left to right, we have High Wire, who's a motor cross bike, and in my opinion the weakest of the three, as you will see later. Sureshock, who's a quadbike, and Grindor... who's a hovercraft... one of these three isn't like the others. Generally when there are Mini con teams, they tend do have some sort of theme. During Armada, these three were the street mini con team, a bike, a skateboard, and a scooter, which makes sense. How does a Hovercraft fit in with a dirt bike and a quad bike? I'd even settle for a hover board, which is how Grindor was used in Energon. Standard features for those vehicles still work here. Grindor is a brick, Sureshock moves with all rolling wheels, along with Highwire... but its a toy motor bike, they don't stand on their own, at all.

I swear there were some good looking Mini cons back then

Robot modes then... can you tell these three are going to combine yet? Have you noticed how much they've had to sacrifice for the combined mode? Then allow me to tell you about them. Highwire first, no, that isn't a miss transformation, and no, that's not a factory defect. Highwire genuinly has no paint on his face. It was so bad that promo images actually showed him with Perceptor's head as his head, which just makes him look super awkward. He (and before I get angry comments, I've had these three for over a decade, I've just always referred to them as male) is also one of those mini cons where a gentle breeze will tip him over. Highwire is very back heavy, as he is the head of Perceptor, and with barely any form of feet, he will just fall. While he is pretty posable, being the only one of the three with standard articulation (head swivel, movable "arms", waist swivel, and two joints in the legs, you can't do much with them, because again, he falls easy, not to mention, HE'S MISSING AN ARM. Again, not a factory error, one of his arms, is his front wheel. There isn't even something that gives him at least a left hand. Sureshock... has been spending to much time in a gorilla cosplay costume. He's all arms and sholders, which can't do much. His arms can do a full 360 movement thanks to the ball joints on them, but that's all you can do. His "legs" lock into place, so you're not supposed to bend them, his feet can be posed in a broken ankle position, but that's it. but at least he's better then Grindor, who is again, a brick. That pose he's in now, is one of two, the other being having his arms back in their vehicle mode configuration, to have it look like his arms are on his hips. Now I'm sure you're probably wondering, if all of them have this many flaws in robot mode, it must be in service to the combined mode.

And you thought Power Core Combiners sucked

See for yourself. This is Perceptor, who is just as much of a brick as what made him up. Starting from the bottom up. Grindor makes up the legs, and due to how his transformation works, they may as well be locked into the position I have them in for this picture. They don't bend at all, and the only thing you can have them do is the splits, not even a high kick because of the weight distribution. Sureshock's cut backs at least make sense here, as he's the main torso for Perceptor, and as a chest, he works, but those gorilla arms don't even work here. They're on a slider joint to get the length right, which is fine, but they molded his arms in a way so that they don't bend forward, only backwards. Combined with the lack of friction in those arms from the years, and move his arms up far enough, and it will look like someone tried breaking his arms. Now then, know all those things Highwire had to give up to be the combiner boss. All he is in Perceptor is the head, and the back pack. He is a Headmaster who fails at being a Headmaster... or should I call him a Titan Master now. Could they not get the rights to Headmaster? He does so many of his forms so badly that I wonder why he was even a thing here. Yes, his head moves, but thanks to the joints its on, move it in any way, and you break his neck.

Some size comparisons, and yes, the three mini cons are in scale with RiD 2015 mini cons

Encase you couldn't tell, this combiner sucks. Every mode has sacrifices, but none of the sacrifices benefit any other mode. The only modes that work are the vehicle modes, but even then there are far better Mini con vehicles. To try and counter this, next toy review is going to start a more recent combiner, Bruticus. But before we get to who'll start it, Vortex, Avengers vs X-Men.

Mediaholics Cinema: Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea

Welcome to the Mediaholics Cinema. Tonight, we are airing Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea. Do note, THIS DOES NOT SHOW THE ORIGINAL MOVIE. This is a commentary on the movie.

PSA: May content plans and beyond (and finally furfilling a promise)

So there are some things on the way this month that I should bring up. Don't worry, none of it bad.. I hope...

As many of you would know, as according to blogger, most of my audience is there, the summer holidays are coming up for America. This will mean Marissa is going to have a lot more free time coming up. How much, no idea. But she does have some plans during the free time, one of them being a review of the anime Zoids, so that's something to look forward to sometime soon.

A joint project both Marissa and I are working on has been given the name of the Mediaholics Cinema. We're going to start doing movie commentaries. The current plan for this is to have both a video and an audio file of the commentary, but in order to not have the copyright bot go after us, the movies won't be in the videos, you will need to find copies of the movies in question. Sorry, but I don't want to be slammed by the copyright bot... probably still will anyway, but one step at a time.

Last sunday, I released the addendum review for Hyrule Warriors Legends, Well, the reason for it is because more weekly content is coming. The planned schedule is for Wednesdays to stay the same from me, Sunday's to be for more smaller things, such as PSA's like this one, Addendum reviews, First impressions and maybe music reviews if I have any, and a new thing from me, Toy reviews.

I am going to say now though, Toy reviews won't happen often, and will probably be selective. The reason being is because doing toy reviews is really expensive in the long term, so I'll only be reviewing what I naturally pick up. I do have plans to review the Transformers Combiner Wars Bruticus, I did promise a review of Energon Perceptor Mini con team, and I am going to be picking up other things, such as some of the Titans Return line, the new wave of BIONICLE, Amiibo reviews will probably happen, things like that. I have told Marissa about this, and she may be doing some as well, but again, its what we naturally get in some way.

So yeah, that's what's coming in May, Hope you all enjoy it, and I'll see you all for the Dark Phoenix Saga. Before I do go, it is Mothers day today for me, so to my own mother, and to any others who do read my work, who aren't from that particular group, a happy mothers day to you, hopefully you can get some rest and relaxation

The Dark Knight Returns

One final jab at Dawn of Justice, as this the last DC thing I'm doing for a while. It should come as no surprise that a part of the inspiration for Dawn of Justice is The Dark Knight Returns, and while I'm not reviewing the comic, I do want to review the animated movies. And yes, I said movies. There are two parts to this. So let's just go in order

Addendum Review: Hyrule Warriors Legends: Now you can take your one man war on the go

Seeing as I've only recently reviewed Hyrule Warriors, and now there's a 3DS version of the game, consider this a continuation of the WiiU's review. I'm not going to repeat myself, as a lot of what works for the WiiU version carries over to the 3DS version. What is being covered here are the differences between the two.

Justice League (+JL: Unlimited): Proof that a slow burn for build ups can work well

So here we are, the big one, in terms of tv shows. The uniting of the Justice League, the coming together of DC's greatest heroes in the shared DC show universe. Unlike something like The Avengers and the MCU, this wasn't as big of a deal back then, as far as I can tell (keep in mind I was 5 when this show first aired, so I'm going off of what I could/ couldn't find online), but it is one of the few most remembered. Batman and Superman worked well on their own, and recycling footage apparently worked, so lets bring them together properly, with more characters to boot.

Very quick, a lot of people have brought it up online, so I won't go into detail. Yes, the 3D animation is ugly, no its not the rest of the show, thankfully. The intro for Unlimited is better animation wise, but doesn't pack that same punch the original did though, so pick your poison.

However, being honest, there isn't much to say that wasn't brought up in Batman the animated series, Superman the animated series, or Batman Beyond, with the only part being the pacing. From what I've seen for this review, which is just over a season, all the storylines are multiple episodes long. There's no one episode plots, everyone taking two, or even three, which I think works in part. It does mean that nothing feels rushed, and with a cast this big, you need that. But the individual episodes might help with the pacing, making the two or three episodes more of an event, rather then just a 40 minute episode. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it is more tedious to watch multi part episodes, it just never feels as bad because they're more like events, so to get them all the time here is a bit of a drain if you marathon them.

If you liked the Batmen shows and you liked Superman, then you'll like this if you haven't seen it already. I know its a cop out, and I'm sorry for that. I have something to make up for it though coming soon.

Batman Beyond: New villains, new suit, new Gotham, new Batman

Before getting to the big one, allow me to make a quick detour for a moment to bring you this spinoff. Set several decades after Batman the Animated Series, to try and make something akin to what the comics industry was doing at the time... and I'm sure comic book fans can already tell where I'll be going with this. So lets tackle Batman Beyond... or "Batman of the Future" as it was known here... not as catchy, is it?

Superman: The Animated series: Now with 100% less bloom lighting

While there are more shows in DC's old animated universe, at the moment, I want to focus on the main shows, the ones that got the most attention, and the ones that people still talk about to this day. I do plan to cover the other shows, but they are for another time. In the mean time, let's take a look at Superman: The animated series, and see if it holds a candle to its predecessor. I should say though that due to time limitations, I haven't been able to complete a full season of the show at time of writing. I want to give this more time, but isn't meant to be, and thankfully, is a statement not shared by next weeks review and hopefully the week after. Feel free to consider this an Opening Impression if you want.