Reviewing Magic: The Gathering #17 - Urza's Destiny

The final part of the Urza block, Urza's Destiny. Finally, we're done with the Urza block!

Again, this was originally written as a single article alongside its two previous sets, and was split into three due to length.

• Click here for the previous part, Urza's Legacy.
• Click here for the next part, Unglued.
• Click here for the index.

________________________________________

The final expansion in the Urza block, and honestly, there are genuinely way too many cards in these three blocks that are just pretty generic stuff. If not for the Phyrexians, I probably wouldn't have much to say here. Destiny is particularly bad, I feel, because outside of Blue and Black I really don't have anything interesting to work with. I don't even find a single White card I feel is noteworthy.


Rayne, Academy Chancellor, is Barrin's wife! She sort of shows up as a minor character in this segment of the Urza saga, and I think Urza manipulated Barrin and Rayne to get together or something as part of his eugenics Bloodlines project? Design-wise she's kinda boring.

Bubbling Beebles shows off a different variation of beebles that aren't pink and fleshy, but are rather light blue. Apparently, according to the flavour text, there's an "annual Beeble roast", where they roast these things. Thankfully, Rayne is a nice lady that doesn't want to murder beebles for what I assume is going to taste like gnocchi, but apparently the beebles are hated enough by the other mages that Rayne's husband Barrin is all sad about it.


Methathran Elite is one of the Metathran, a race of unquestioning blue-skinned magic-soldiers created by Urza as part of his anti-Phyrexian war thing. We get a bunch of these Metathran peeps, and they're... they're kinda neat, I guess, for a funnily-coloured humanoid. The Metathran are so alien to most other non-Urza wizards, though, that they're apparently treated with fear and suspicion by everyone else.

Aura Thief is a pretty fun illusion! It seems that this is a muscle-man with massive bat wings and the lower body of a snake, and it can summon the lightning. I really love its flavour text, too, noting that it's an illusion that is somehow able to steal reality, whatever that means.


I think this is meant to depict Yawgmoth himself? The god-being that rules over the plane of Phyrexia? I could be wrong, though. And I really do like the fact that this is presented as some sort of a Faustine deal, but instead of a devilish dude with red skin and horns, the weird beaked dude on the left is dealing with a massive machine abomination. Yawgmoth's basically a god-like entity, though, so I assume he could appear in any machine-y shape that he wants to.

The Phyrexian Negator "exists to cease", and they're a more basic-looking creature that really do end up feeling like the 'deafult humanoid robot-demon-man. I do like just how oddly that face is stretched, though, and the bizarre metal goatee that he has. A pretty cool Phyrexian monster, actually!


My word that Body Snatcher is a nasty creature. It's this bizarre machine with what mainly seems to be a robotic body that seems to be replicating the goblin in the background, but sheesh, that mass of flesh ending with a fanged bird-mouth that just out from the Body Snatcher's dome-like 'head' is pretty creepy. I'm not sure what's going on, but when the Body Snatcher comes to play, you basically have to discard a creature from your hand, and when the Snatcher dies, said creature comes back to play. Is it like a bizarre sort of possession?

Phyrexian Monitor is a Skeleton creature, and I do like the fact that this hulking dude covered in rags seems to just have a reptilian snout and maw and no eyes. It's a very striking look, despite being pretty simple. I like it! There's also a lot of neat, wretched-looking creatures in the background of this art piece, too.


The Skittering Horror is pretty nasty, too, and I really do like the implication that this is basically a 'rough draft' made by the Phyrexian commander Davvol, because the moment you play any other creature spell from your hand, the Skittering Horror just gets 'replaced' and dies. It's like this bizarre insectoid creature with a massive head that looks kind of like a Ceratopsian dinosaur, and there's so many random features on its 'face'! There's the one lone asymmetrical eyeball on the crest, there's a tongue flopping out, there seems to be a mosquito-like stinger... yeah, this sure is a horrifying critter!

Slinking Skirge is another Skirge, and most of the Skirges, as I mention before, share the same look, but I do particularly like just how nasty the Slinking Skirge's arms look, with its techno-organic flesh showing from underneath ripped-up green skin. Apparently, the greater Phyrexians dine on Skirges, which is represented by a card draw.


Squirming Mass could've just been any old ooze, but holy shit, the fact that it seemingly goes from a giant jelly into a mass of tentacles that reach out and destroy all the trees around it... I'm not sure if the artist meant to sneak an almost human-like face in the midst of it all. Why do a race of techno-organic zombie-robot-demons need a giant blob monster, I don't know, but they have one!

Plague Dogs makes me think that it's the 'upgraded' version of the Hollow Hound above, with a more mean-looking pose, larger claws and a nastier-looking skull, and judging by its name, it also spreads the same plague that the other Phyrexians in Urza's Legacy does. It's a pretty cool looking skeleton-demon-dog-robot! Honestly, I do really like just how much all the Phyrexians across these three expansions do each have their own unique 'feel' to it, with the real unifying direction between them being that they're all mechanical while aping (or showing off) some organic parts. Like the Plague Dogs showing a bunch of random exposed ribcages that we're not quite sure are made up of bone or the same quasi-metallic substance the rest of it seems to be made up of. I think that's the whole 'theme' of Phyrexia, which is that everything fits as long as it's to some degree robotic or features nasty-looking mutilation.


We've got a bunch of goblins in Urza's Destiny, but the funniest one of them all is probably Goblin Gardener, who is shown to be such a horrible gardener that the crops end up withered and dead after he's done with it. That flavour text is also hilarious. "Save time: eat dirt!"

Marker Beetles is a pretty interesting fictional insect, where they appear to be a weird mixture of aphids and those honey-pot ants crawling along trees and waving their massive fat abdomens in the air. Apparently, I think they're meant to be some form of emergency rations, based on the flavour text and the fact that all of its abilities involve either it dying or being willingly sacrificed by its controller.


I'm indebted to include Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary, because he's a legendary creature. He's an elf leader boy prancing around in the jungle. Very elven. Very boring. He's Multani's successor, apparently. Why can't Multani pick another Maro crerature instead?

Plated Spider is honestly just a giant spider with thorns and spikes all over its body, but I do really love just how dynamic that artwork looks in making the jumping spider end up looking so dynamic and simultaneously somewhat confusing, like it's literally a mass of thorns and vines leaping into the air to chow down on that hapless dragon. Absolutely love the flavour text, too. "Most spiders aren't forty feet tall".


THron Elemental is a creature that's pretty cool, if simple. It's just a massive humanoid made entirely of brambles, and it shoots brambles and spikes at people. It's not until you see the birds in the bottom part of the art that you realize how utterly massive the Thorn Elemental is. No wonder the Phyrexians were beaten back by the elves, at least for a while!

Brass Secretary shouldn't be this interesting, since it's just some butler robot dude writing things on a scroll, but a combination of the scroll coming out of his own chest, as well as that hilarious combination of nose and chin shape, ends up really making the Brass Secretary have such a unique charm to him. He's probably called Jeeves or something along those lines.


Thran Golem is Karn's buffer, spikier cousin. I do like that apparently the Thran Golem constantly grows spikes, and required 'regular trimming'. Okay, then!

And we get the funniest card in this expansion, Fodder Cannon. It's black comedy hilarity enough that these goblin peasants are just calmly getting into the cannon, and I do love that they don't even have the same sort of maniacal expression that M:TG goblins usually have... but just read that flavour text! Find another cousin indeed. From the name to the art to the flavour text, this card's pretty neat!

That's it for now, folks! Click under the break for the story time.

Supergirl S05E10 Review: Post-Crisis Revisions

Supergirl, Season 5, Episode 10: The Bottle Episode

With the Crisis on Infinite Earths over and the creation of Earth-Prime and the merging of all the various CW/DC shows into one happy Earth, it's understandable that there are going to be some hiccups, in-universe and out-of-universe, of the adjustment that people are going to have to the fact that all of the history of these various characters and shows are basically rewritten and revised -- and we know it, and the main characters know it, but there's still something strange knowing intellectually that the events of season one throughout season five, episode eight of Supergirl played out slightly differently in this new, revised timeline. (All of the plotlines from earlier this season about Leviathan and Obsidian North and Rama Khan remain, except Leviathan's hidden once more, and it seems we're still going to be following those this season, although there apparently are some revelations that aren't exactly carried over -- Lena's doomsday plan was erased out of continuity by Lex, apparently, and William Dey's history and motivations are a bit altered although it still involves a dead Russell Rodgers.)

And the biggest among those changes would be the fact that Lex Luthor is now World Hero #1, is the boss of the DEO, and everyone loves him, thanks to his little bit of machination when Godliver Queen was rewriting history, and for the most part, the episode and the show seems to want to let this sink in to anyone who doesn't really quite understand the Crisis proper. Lex Luthor is the boss of the DEO, and we get a particularly painfully-written exposition conversation between Kara and Alex early in the episode, and if that's not enough, Lex re-explains it to Lena again later on when he brings her up to speed to recruit her to his cause. Basically, this is the new status quo -- Lex gives Kara and Alex a bit of a pitch, they can help protect the world from threats (that are not Lex), and they can keep an eye on each other. And with Lena, it's playing to her angry "rarr I will never trust friends ever again' mentality because Lex tells Lena that, well, she knows to not trust Lex, so Lex is a valuable ally that she'll never have the danger of becoming friends with. Lex does admittedly do a couple of things to earn Lena's trust, like revealing that his deal with the Monitor was that Lena survives the Crisis no matter what with her memories intact, and there's that speech with the Truth-Seeker that he doesn't want to be alone after experiencing death.

And, of course, we get the very nice little bit of manipulation from Lilian, who initially attempts to be advising Lena, but is actually also trying to get on Lex's good side. Okay. And also, Lex finally discovers that Leviathan actually exists or something. And Gemmamae is apparently part of Andrea Rojas's board of directors, and wants to turn this whole thing into some Sword Art Online VR stuff. Neat!

The main plot focuses on Brainiac-5. Five Brainiac-5's! We've got 'our' Brainy, Cheerful Brainy, Punk-ass Brainy, Girl Brainy (played by Jesse Rath's sister!) and Dead Eyepatch Brainy. Apparently Al's new bar has became a refugee bar for a bunch of random multiversal orphans who survived the merging of the various different Earths, which Crisis on Infinite Earths tries to gloss over but it's pretty fucking traumatic for these people to have all their Earths wiped out, all the history wiped out, in favour of what we consider to be the 'right' history.

Turns out that one of the Brainiacs is from one of these doomed Earths, but he managed to shrink his Earth into a bottle (well, a cylinder), Golden Age Brainiac style, and he plans to recruit the aid of the alternate-universe versions of the Kryptonian Witches from season 3 to bring it back to full size... which, thanks to multiversal mumbo-jumbo, will cause both Earths to blow up when they cancel each other out. The whole episode is just an excuse to give Jesse Rath some fun over-acting the various Brainiacs, and we get to see our Brainy go through some self-confidence issues as the other Brainiacs question why he isn't like the other Brainiacs... and turns out it's because the terrible-makeup Brainy we've seen in the past couple of seasons is the result of his personality inhibitors, and he's finally restored to his full glory, with yellow hair and green skin. At the end of the episode, all the extra doppelgangers are either returned into the bottled Earth, or merged with 'the Big Brain', the Coluan hive-mind thing. But Girl Brainy manages to convince Our Brainy that he has to work with Lex Luthor without the other Superfriends knowing, because things will fall apart if they don't work with Lex to fight Leviathan. Okay, that's... that's actually interesting, and I'm a huge fan of allowing Brainiac to do more than just be involved in socially-awkward romantic plots. Which is still going to happen, unfortunately, judging by the fact that the first thing Brainy does upon embarking on this logic trip is to break up with poor Nia.

Ultimately, it's a very uneven episode, and the character piece for Brainy doesn't quite work with the inconsistent tone of 'haha sci-fi zaniness' that the episode ges into at times, plus the whole exposition, while necessary, does get tiring at times. It's an okay, enjoyable episode, if nothing else just to look at Jesse Rath's fun acting. But everything else is just pretty dang messy.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• So basically this 'post-Crisis' universe with a lot of characters' histories being retroactively revamped and changed when the multiverse is merged into one is something that happened for the comics universe as well. And random multiversal 'oddities' and doppelgangers that weren't quite merged right are something that also happened in the comics as well, 
• Brainiac 5's new look, revealed to be his 'true' form (green skin, yellow hair), is far more accurate to the comics than his tacky silver skin makeup from the previous seasons. 
• The Anti-Life Equation is a major part of Superman's lore, being the thing that Darkseid is seeking for. It was the end-game for the final arc of the original DC continuity, Final Crisis, and in the comics, the Anti-Life Equation is a spoken formula that, when broadcasted and heard, will cause any sentient being in the universe to lose their free will and submit. In CW-land, it has been reimagined as a deadly virus. 
• Brainy asks his first doppelganger whether his 'face is made out of clay', a neatly stealthy nod to Batman villain Clayface. 
• Brainy's other theories is to accuse the doppelganger of being either a Martian or a Durlan, both shape-shifting species that have appeared on the show. 
• Brainiacs shrinking and putting shrunken cities (and sometimes worlds) into bottles has been part of the character's history ever since the original Brainiac debuted, with one of Brainiac's most memorable acts being the bottling of the City of Kandor prior to Krypton's destruction. For a good while, the status quo pre-Crisis was that Superman kept the Bottled City of Kandor and its population in the Fortress of Solitude, trying to find a way to safely restore it to its original size.

DC's Legends of Tomorrow S05E03-04 Review: Constantine's Ghosts

Legends of Tomorrow, Season 5, Episode 3: Slay Anything; Episode 4: A Head of Her Time

Episode 3:

This episode's theme ends up being a parody of serial killer shows, as our titular Encore ends up not being a historical figure, but a fictional one called Freddy Myers, a bit of an amalgamation and parody of a couple different slasher movies and also Carrie. And, again, it's a fun episode! The setup is done relatively well, with the cast being split up trying to stop the revived Freddy Myers' psychic rampage in 2004 while also trying to reform him and save him from bullies in 1989. Because when psychic killers are involved you can change history for your own good. As I keep saying, Legends really doesn't give a rat's ass about time travel rules other than as a setting and a story vehicle. There are some parts of it that worked out (Ava randomly being a gigantic serial killer mega-geek is so out of nowhere, but it works) and some that didn't (Mick being in school with Freddy felt like just a vehicle for a very bland side-plot), but ultimately it was a fun experience.

Nora and Zari end up taking relative center stage this episode as Sara, Ava and Mick do a lot of the slasher movie tropes while they run around in 2004 where Myers is controlling the school and causing brutal deaths, Ray and Nate get to be goofballs, Behrad is there to shoot wind blasts but ultimately it's Zari and Nora that get the bulk of the screentime. Nora's a bit less complicated, but it's nice, I guess, to see her settling into her role as fairy godmother and how she ends up being able to befriend and rehabilitate Freddy Myers. It goes exactly where you expect it to, and, again, there isn't much in terms of huge twists or whatever, but the scenes are well-executed and we know Nora comes from a real place when she talks about her shitty upbringing not defining who she is. Also, pony jokes. 

Zari, meanwhile... eh, she ends up making a lot of influencer girl jokes, gets into a bit of an argument with Behrad, gets super prissy (wouldn't you, if you're stuck on a spaceship against your will?) and then briefly regains part of her memory from the original timeline, ends up getting trapped in the 1989 Myers scene and gets to be part of the crowd attacked by the real masked killer, Kathy Myers, Freddy's possessive mom. The twist that the real killer is Kathy Myers is actually a nice one -- it's not too on-the-nose, but there's an enough amount of foreshadowing (Ava's ranting line about psychological profiles) to make me go 'oh yeah, that makes sense'. The mom's not quite as developed as she should be, if we're being nitpicky, but it's not like I'm going to call foul for a one-off Scooby Doo twist villain. 

The Constantine plot has him return to his old house with Gary and finding that a shapeshifting Charlie is squatting in it... and I'm not going to lie, I kind of forgot Charlie sort of escaped from the team in the season premiere. It leads to a bit of a drinking scene for Constantine, a bit of an exposition and confession, before Charlie talks Constantine into actually facing his demons and talking to one of the ghosts trapped in Constantine's house -- Astra's mom. This is more setup for the next episode than anything, really.

And this episode is... by god it's dorky and cheesy as hell, from the unashamed usage of high school prom tropes and slasher movie tropes, and there are a lot of 'cringey' moment, to borrow the slang of the more hip folk -- Zari's off-brand social media jokes barely get a reaction out of me, and I'm not the biggest fan of young Freddy's '90's dance or the little photograph montage at the end, but the actors and characters are having so much fun I can't really fault the show. The episode moves quick enough for the jokes that don't quite land to be left in the dust anyway. 

Episode 4:

"A Head of Her Time" is probably the first episode in this season that actually moves the serious Constantine story forwards instead of just dancing around the same old status quo, and it's... it's an interesting beast. As I keep mentioning, Legends of Tomorrow is a show that's about wacky zany crazy fun antics first and seriousness second, so it's pretty... interesting to watch an episode that jump back and forth between the very serious (other than Charlie's sarcastic jokes) bit of John Constantine being forced to confront his past and admit that the real reason of him attempting to bring Astra's mom back is to prove to her (who also happens to be his ex) that his study of magic isn't a waste of time. And then we cut to the hilariously over-accented Marie-Antoinette using perfume to get people eat cake while literally dropping her head on the floor.

And both storylines are all right. The Constantine stuff was a bit too information-dump-y for my tastes, but was handled well. Natalie the angry poltergeist tossing around memory flashbacks and writing "LIAR" all over the walls while Charlie and Gary try and get Constantine to tell the truth is a pretty bog-standard Constantine story. Turns out that John Constantine's an emotionally vulnerable piece of shit that did shitty things, that's pretty much par the course. We learn that John used to date Natalie, who left him because of the whole magic business and was approached by her husband to bring her back to life when she got hit by a car, and John did so... only to fuck up and lose Astra to the demons of hell.

Throughout the episode Natalie just wants Constantine to admit this, because she doesn't want Constantine going into hell half-cocked, driven by ego, when he tries to rescue Astra. And apparently the whole 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' thing is going to somewhat figure out into Charlie's story, because Natalie plans to use the Loom of Fate from Greek mythology to do something with Astra. And Charlie knew all about it, because as an immortal shapeshifter, she apparently encountered it and shattered it across the (now-nonexistent) multiverse. Plot device, okay, sure. Meanwhile, Astra ends up seeking out the help of some lady in hell, exchanging favours in order for her to speed up John Constantine's predetermined death-by-lung-cancer. It's a pretty fun scene that is very much steeped in Hellblazer vibes, while still fitting into the whole "fuck fate, fuck destiny" mentality that Legends of Tomorrow irreverently has. My biggest complaint, though, is that the episode just simply doesn't commit enough. We don't quite get enough of a mystery or a sense of conflict from Constantine, and by the time we do the exposition's already over and we're just going into talking about the magic McGuffin.

The time travel plot is... eh? New!Zari is kind of still unlikable and very basic, although like Constantine of course this is because she's actually secretly emotionally vulnerable and this leads her acting like a piece of shit. Of course, Zari being a total bitch to Ava isn't quite on the same ballpark as John "oops I got a kid's soul dragged off to hell" Constantine, but there's a vague thematic connection, I suppose. Sara skips out on the majority of this episode, leaving a very panicky Ava in charge. And poor Ava, of course, tries a bit too hard and tries a bit too much to act like the Time Bureau, and Zari knows all about this since she can read people well, and, well, acts like a total ass throughout the episode. Thanks to episodic-television rules, this means that Zari and Ava are the only two people unaffected by Marie-Antoinette charm spell, and they end up being buddies and working together.

The twist that the two of them aren't affected because Marie-Antoinette uses a perfume, and Zari's brand of social-media perfume or whatever (Dragon's Smell or something like that?) apparently destroys your olfactory senses is a far better twist that makes more sense than Fake Jason Voorhes's Mom last episode, although the conclusion is... again, pretty m'eh. I do like the story of New-Zari slowly realizing how flaky social media popularity really is, as she gets a glimpse into the future to see her career crashing and burning (leading to the aforementioned magic perfume theft). It's just that I find it so, so hard to relate or care about this socialite storyline. Anyway, bottom of the line, Zari apologizes and she's buddies with Ava, because they both learn a lesson about learning how you fit in and stuff.

Oh, also, Marie-Antoinette is played by Courtney Ford for no real goddamn reason other than for us to see Courtney Ford over-ham a hammy character with le French accent (oh, phoo!) and a sequence in the episode involves Mick and Ray trying to wrestle Marie-Antoinette's headless body who somehow got her hands on Mick's heat-gun. There's also the bizarre giant s'more-wearing DJ boyfriend of Zari's which may or may not be a parody of a celebrity but ended up just utterly falling flat for me humour-wise.

Y'know, I really don't want to be too hard on the wacky-time-travel part of this episode, because it sure is enjoyable, but I guess I just don't really find myself invested in the New-Zari storyline. Tala Ashe is fine, because the script calls for this version of her character to be annoying, but this does have the side-effect of me really not caring about New-Zari all that much. We're hopefully getting into the inevitable Zari-Convergence or whatever, though, so yay for that.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Various parts of Constantine's backstory in both the comics and CW canon (via the aborted show) is mentioned -- Mucous Membrane is John Constantine's old band, and his ridiculous punk hairdo is also straight from the comics. Natalie briefly mentions a "Lester" as part of Constantine's friends, which is definitely a reference to Gary Lester, Constantine's friend that he sacrificed to trap and kill the demon Mnemoth -- which happened in the episode "A Feast of Friends" in the Constantine TV show, as well as the iconic tone-setting first issue of Hellblazer. 
• Astra's father, while still sharing the name of his comic-book counterpart Alex, seems to just be a regular dad instead of the child-abusing satanist that he was in the comics. (Comics!Alex Logue probably would be way too dark for this show, anyway) Natalie, on the other hand, is completely original -- Astra's mother never showed up in the comics, and no member of the comics' Newcastle Crew fits an equivalent role, so this is the show just doing its own story. 
• John Constantine's death from lung cancer is taken from the iconic Hellblazer mini-arc, "Dangerous Habits", written by Garth Ennis.
• Apparently, Zari's Earth-Prime family name is now "Tarazi" instead of "Tomaz", further distancing her character from her original comic-book inspiration. Which is just as well, it's not like the two have anything really in common at this point.

Reviewing Magic: The Gathering #16 - Urza's Legacy

The second part of the Urza block, Urza's Legacy.
 
Not really much to say here other than a repeat of what I said before -- all three parts of the Urza block were originally written as a single article by me and split apart due to length.

I really don't have a whole ton to say about Legacy, really. We'll discuss the storyline before the break this time, because I simply don't find enough cards that are interesting enough to justify the normal length of these 'reviewing monsters' articles.

• Click here for the previous part, Urza's Saga.
• Click here for the next part, Urza's Destiny.
• Click here for the index.

________________________________________

And one of the secondary characters gets a legendary card, and that's Radiant, Archangel, who ends up filling the antagonistic role of what initially appears to be an obstructive bureaucrat with a point -- that the planeswalkers are fucking up the artificial Serra's plane by dragging it into the Phyrexian war. But then turns out she's either insane, or corrupted by Phyrexians, or both, which is kind of a pretty lame 'out' of writing a morally ambiguous character. Oh well.

Anthroplasm is just such a horrifying creature! Ron Spencer seems to be M:TG's go-to artist for the gruesome shapeshifters, particularly in the Rath block, and the Anthroplasm (anthro means 'man', so this is a protoplasm made out of man) looks pretty horrifying! From the way that the creature just bursts out of the otherwise-normal waist and legs of a human but then twists and melts into this horrifying mass of gore and sinew... complete with that fucked-up looking hand and a pitifully screaming face. Pretty nasty!


BEEBLES! We don't really get to see much of the Beebles after this cycle because apparently people out there hate that one out of the hundreds of cards in a single expansion could be a cutesy, jolly kiddy bit with little pink meat-fairies. But honestly, I love it! Bouncing Beebles are far, far more fun than yet another generic Blue-mana wizard sitting in his laboratory anyway, and I do love the bizarre swarm just fucking around with the artifacts in some poor mage's laboratory. They're neat.

I have no idea what Palinchron is supposed to be. It's this weird-ass pelican with the consistency of rock, and the ability to contort its neck and spine in unnatural ways? And it has some unreasonably buff wing muscles? It's certainly a bizarre-looking illusion creature. And honestly, at this point I'm just guessing that "illusions" are just any utterly bizarre creature born out of a mad wizard's imagination. In this case, it's a bizarre rock pelican contortionist that will activate entire lands and refill mana when it arrives on the battlefield.


The Walking Sponge is a pretty fun creature! It's clearly based on those crabs that walk around with anemones and whatnot on its back, but man, what a pretty fun artwork! The massive crab is walking around with a bunch of volcano-esque sponges, and apparently it shoots out these mutant, electrical fishes out like cannonballs? I think? It's also considered as a "Sponge" creature as opposed to a crab, which makes me think that it's either meant to show a sponge that has mutated a bunch of crab-like limbs, or that the crab is the accessory mind-controlled by a sponge.

Plague Beetle is such a bizarre, creepy beetle, and I really do love just how nasty this creature's face looks. There's just something unnatural about plopping on a maw full of demon fangs onto a giant beetle monster, y'know? I really do love the colours on this piece, too. It's colourful while at the same time still screaming that this thing is likely unnaturally toxic.


And more Phyrexian monsters! The Eviscerator is a somewhat more humanoid example of a Phyrexian, and I think it's meant to represent Kerrick, a Phyrexian agent that shows up in the storyline for Urza's Legacy. It's not the most exciting creature out there since it's just a gangly cyborg-ghoul, though it's still pretty neat.

The Phyrexian Broodlings looks really mismatched, and its flavour text notes how Kerrick "used parts from one beast to build another", which really does sell the hodgepoge nature of these creatures, and why they look so oddly mismatched. My favourite grisly detail has to be the painful-looking way the shoulder of the foreground creature seems to be attached. There's a lot of bizarre details going on with random bits and bobs of machines all over the place, and the creature in the background's head just looking so wrong.


Phyrexian Defiler is another giant cyborg-titan, leaning more towards the 'robot' part of things. It appears to be some sort of massive plague-carrier, because the Phyrexian cards in this set have a slight plague bent to them, and I do love the screaming face under that massive dome. Those scythe-arms look pretty neat, too, and I do like the random bits of wires and whatnot. There's a squad of these things in the background, too.

The Phyrexian Debaser, on the other hand, seems to be the airborne version of the Defiler, and we see the specimen in the foreground actually using some nozzles to spread the gas contained on the massive green sphere on its body. I do like the bat wings, and that 'head' that could either be interpreted as an animal skull or just a fancy boat-front does look neat. Again, another pretty neat Phyrexian design.

Both the Defiler and Debaser have flavour text that detail the horrifying effects that happen from a certain illness, presumably the plague they're spreading.


And the Phyrexian Plaguelord is presumably the dude that's responsible for this plague, and I'm actually not sure what's going on here. I mean, sure, he's a more humanoid figure than most Phyrexians, but where's the "head" or the head-equivalent? What is that bizarre contraption jutting out of his left shoulder? The anatomy of this dude is just so all over the place and really sells this thing as not being human at all, it just shares the vague body shape.

And I'm not even sure what the fuck is going on with Bone Shredder. It's got a bunch of purple wings that resemble some sort of beautiful sea slug, while the rest of its body is like an upside-down wasp with approximately three dozen crab-claws that's apparently in the process of grinding some poor dude's arm bones into dust. Is that what this creature is meant to be? Just a massive mutant upside-down crab-wasp that goes around crushing bones? That's a pretty weird-looking Phyrexian creature. I like it.


We've got a Goblin Welder, and I really do like that apparently he's being moved down by a pulley system that's attached to his pants and hat while he's going around doing some wacky goblin tinkering on these robots' faces. It's very old-school cartoony, and you just know that there's going to be some hilarious slapstick going on here. And failing that, apparently the goblin welder broke the robot and turned it into an ashtray. Okay!

Goblin Medics has a pertty fun artwork, although they're not doing too poorly of a job, actually. They have little ambulance hats and are evacuating the goblin in the middle! Hilariously the cards actually just deal damage to people.


There are a fair bit of Viashino in this set, but none of them are doing anything particularly noteworthy, just generic 'cool lizardfolk' poses. Except for Viashino Cutthroat, who apparently earned his stripes by killing a particularly lazy goblin scout that's fallen asleep. Very cutthroat of you, Viashino man.

Pygmy Pyrosaur is here because I kind of enjoy the artwork of this little spindly lizard that breathes fire. It's a pretty neat creature that doesn't necessarily fall into the "obligatory Red-mana hydra/ogre/cyclops/roc/goblin" that has became kind of stale as of late.


We got the sentient Swamp-Thing-style nature spirit Maro back in Mirage. And now we get a named Maro, Multani the Maro-Sorcerer, who's pretty neat! It draws from the basic Maro artwork while having a neat, stern expression. He's a guardian of the forest that come to blows with Urza due to some past sins, or something... and honestly, I'm just happy that some non-humans actually end up seeing play as legendary creatures.

Might of Oaks! MIGHT OF OAKS! Run from your lives, it's fucking squirrelzilla, and it's going to crush all civilization! Bow before its might and despair!


The Thran War Machine actually looks ridiculously clunky, but I love it for it. I think the idea is that unlike the Phyrexians, the Thran, being their predecessors, are a lot more just dudes in mechanical suits of armour? I do love the absolutely wacky proportions on the Thran War Machine, as well as that.... 'face', which is sort of embedded within the 'chest' and the 'shoulders' of the robot. Admittedly, this War Machine looks like it'd probably topple over if a treefolk tackled it a bit hard, but it's still neat!

DC's Legends of Tomorrow S05E01-02 Review: Hardly A Superhero Show Anymore

Legends of Tomorrow, Season 5, Episode 1: Meet the Legends; Episode 2: Miss Me, Kiss Me, Love Me

Episode One

Legends of Tomorrow is an enjoyable show, but at this point it's hardly a show based on DC comic characters, is it? Everyone is either an in-name-only adaptation or have diverged so much from their original adaptation or are just straight-up OC's created for the show. John Constantine's probably the only member of the cast that even feels like he's a quasi-faithful attempt at adapting a comic book character. The rest of the show has really embraced the sheer madness of just being a show about a group of time-traveling space policemen without any impulse control. And at this point I'm just sometimes kind of torn between really liking this very IDGAF mentality of the show to really wishing we got something that's a wee bit more faithful to the comics, y'know? At the same time, this is Legends of Tomorrow, and it really doesn't give two shits what you think, it's still going to be doing its own thing, and it's going to be zany and fun. And for all of the grief I may have about Legends being evolved so far beyond its initial conception, it's still a dang fun show to tune into, y'know?

Which is where we get the second first episode of Legends of Tomorrow's fifth season, "Meet the Legends", where apparently the entire episode is supposed to be a documentary that the U.S. government is doing in order to make sure they document what these so-called Legends of Tomorrow are doing after they gained fame at the end of the previous season. The montage of wacky Japanese ads in the beginning of the episode and the fact that apparently the Legends have to work to prove they're legit in order to not get the Waverider impounded or some shit is just pretty par the course for Legends. Oh, and also there's the dual emotional bombs of four of our heroes remembering the events of Crisis of Infinite Earths (which is mostly glossed over with a couple of lines of dialogue; as well as Sara mourning for the episode) and the whole Constantinepoint bit last season that ended up with Zari being poofed out of existence and replaced with Behrad.

The make-a-documentary trope is one that has been done a couple times in the Arrowverse, and I don't particularly feel like this episode is a particularly good showcase of it -- other than the expected "censor this" and "we're going to cut that out, right?" jokes, the documentary crew and the conclusion of the movie festival at the end that the Legends pooh-poo on are all just kind of just there. Hell, even the main timequake plot of Grigori Rasputin coming back to life again as an undying man ("Encores", as different members of the team insist) for realsies feels like it's just there. Don't get me wrong, it checks all of the boxes for an enjoyable Legends episode. Our heroes play dress-up; Rasputin is one hell of a hammy motherfucker; the Legends getting into hijinks and fucking up each other's plans as they execute like seven different plans at the same time are all good for a lark, and Sara's bit this episode is a neat bit of emotional depth. But it just feels like... it's just there, an average Legends of Tomorrow episode. And that doesn't mean that it's automatically bad because it doesn't innovate or whatever, since a repetitive fun episode is always at least fun, but at the same time it's just kind of there.

The Big Bad Plot (tm) is a follow-up on one of the better reveals of the previous season, that Astra Logue, the girl that Constantine couldn't save and is angsting over, is basically a goddamn soul baroness in hell, and she's the one sending historical villains back to the time when they died, and that's going to be a neat source of angst for Constantine. I do worry that it's going to fall back to the same old 'can you redeem the villain??' storyline with Nora Darrhk for the past couple of seasons, but there's enough differences in it for me to be invested. For one, unlike Nora, Astra isn't the slightest bit conflicted about what she's doing; and Constantine's way more prone into doing more morally ambiguous things than Boy Scout Ray. (For one, Constantine spends a good chunk of this episode taking a demon-in-a-kid's-body out for a drink to a pub).

There are a couple of status quo shakeups, of course. Mona (who honestly never really worked as well as the show hoped she would) gets more or less benched as Mick hands over the reins of his smut-novel writing pseudonym to her. And it's kind of a good thing, too -- Mick being a novelist started off as a charming one-off joke everyone loved into a little recurring aspect of the character that everyone loved into something that the show really loves beating into our heads at the expense of everything else about Mick's character. Also written out of the show is Nora, who's no longer Gary's fairy godmother but, is sort of a freelance fairy or some shit? Eh. Oh, and also, while trying to fix the weird, buggy Gideon AI, Nate ends up discovering a hologram message from Zari (when did she have time to record it?) before reality re-aligns itself and Gideon ends up having absolutely no memory of the message she played.

Anyway, depite my slight negative tone for the review, I still really did enjoy this fun, wacky romp. The jokes are on-point, the acting (Caity Lotz in particular) is on-point, it's just that the premise of the episode itself feels just a bit too samey to feel like it's meant to be this big season premiere. Still, s'okay.

Episode Two:

That said, while Legends is fun, the episodes I've seen so far have been pretty samey. And that's not a bad thing; Legends is a fun show and it having fun episodes is basically what it's meant to do, but it also means that I think I'll be a lot more comfortable dipping into multi-episode reviews (and will probably do so for other superhero series that I watch from this point on). "Miss Me, Kiss Me, Love Me" is... it's another 'samey' Legends episode and don't get me wrong, it's still fun as all hell, but there really isn't a whole ton for me to say here. We pick a time period; this time the gangster-themed noir set as our heroes try and stop an immortal Bugsy Siegel. This isn't the first time Legends have done an old-school gangster time jump, and the one we got here is... it's, again, pretty fun, and there's enough moving parts in the episode as Ray, Constantine, Ava, Sara and Mick all get a bit tangled up in the different tropes of the time period with the corrupt cop, the self-serving dame, the big mob boss, et cetera. It's entertaining, but doesn't really give me a whole ton to really discuss.

It's Ava that ends up taking center stage this episode (after Sara's relatively muted affair last episode) as she ends up basically trying her dang best to fit in, talking to Mick about it as she has to struggle with being a clone-robot person that's been tailor-made to lead the Time Bureau (yeah, that weird sci-fi backstory for the Bureau is just kind of ignored now, huh) for her entire life into being... well, basically free. This leads to an embarrassing drunk-singing moment, and Ava basically nestling into having a place on the ship. There's a lot of fun discussion between Mick, Ava and Sara. In Mick's eyes, this position of deciding where you go, being unburdened to anything and anyone other than your family, is just straight-up freedom. For Ava, she just feels utterly lost. It's a pretty fun aspect of these characters to explore, and a fair bit more interesting than the season premiere's "guys let Sara mourn healthily please".

Meanwhile, Nate hangs out with Behrad's family and stumbles upon new-timeline Zari Tomaz, who is a gloriously fun oh-em-gee-guys instagram celebrity. The acting is great, what with Zari being a gloriously confused over-the-top celebrity, while Nate's trying to not come off as a stalker creep when he's talking about all of this "I knew you from another life" bit, and poor clueless Behrad's just trying to stop Nate from getting into her sister's pants. Zari ends up, throughout the episode, figuring out where she saw Nate before -- a video of the Legends' exploits at some point in the past, and she's baffled how Nate and Behrad somehow showed up like 50 years ago or something, leading to the big moment at the end of the episode with Nate and Behrad teleporting Amnesiac!Zari into the Waverider. Okay, then. I can't lie, I've never been a big fan of amnesia plotlines, and most 'alternate reality amnesia' storylines in comic books have never wowed me, but at least this one is well-acted? I'm not particularly invested, but I am kind of interested to see where this goes.

The Constantine/Astra bit continues with another confrontation, but we're just at the second episode in a season so obviously it leads nowhere. Bugsy Siegel somehow got his hands on this cool hell-gun with hell-vaporizing bullets that can murder demons and we briefly get a discussion on the Legends weaponizing the hellgun against Astra. And Constantine straight up just teleports back to hell and waltzes up to Astra's bar and murders a bunch of her bodyguards, but ends up not having the heart to pull the trigger on her, instead vaporizing Siegel instead.

Anyway, an all right second episode. Again, I really do find these episodse to be fun dumb devil-may-care fun, but at the same time I really don't find much to talk about a fair bit of these. It's just fun to watch, y'know? Just zany fun, and sometimes that's all you need a show to be.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The little chibi drawing featured in "Meet the Legends" is courtesy of long-time Arrowverse fan artist Lord Mesa, whose work was previously featured in an episode of Arrow. 
• Ryan Reynolds is noted to be starring in a "Detective Beebo" movie, which of course is a nod to how in real life, Ryan Reynolds starred as Detective Pikachu. 
• The four video clips in the documentary of people reacting to the Legends' exploits are actual real-life youtubers who make reactions to Legends of Tomorrow episodes, namely the channels Blindwave, Free Bicycle Tours, Abnormallyadam and Married2TheReal.

Kamen Rider Zero-One: Hyper Battle DVD

Kamen Rider Zero-One: Hyper Battle DVD: What Will Hop Out of the Kangaroo? Decide on your Kangaro-own! That's How You Know It's Aruto!

A faster episode review this time around. I wasn't super sure about how to handle these 'special' episodes, becuase since Ex-Aid Kamen Rider have been really giving us a whole ton of extra content outside of the regular TV show. But hey, I'll talk about the ones I watch, I suppose. These Hyper Battle DVD's tended to just be jokey one-off segments with a far more zany and comedic tone than the show usually has, and the premise for this one is pretty simple -- Aruto has to make a new power-up item when the rest of his Progrise Keys are lost.

The special episode starts with Jin, who sort of dicks around with the Zetsumerize keys they have in the Metsu-base. He trips and drops them onto the cables that are connected to the Ark, and this creates a brand-new Zetsumerize Key with "???" on it. Aruto and Izu, meanwhile, are wandering around and come across a boke and tsukkomi comedic act, featuring the robot comedian Boketarou, and Aruto gets nostalgic for a comedic duo he was once part of and we get into a conversation about friends and by god Aruto, you're a massive moron if your response to "do you have some nakama" isn't instantly "it's you!" That's the emotional plot of the Battle DVD, I suppose.

We get our requisite action as Jin transforms Boketarou with the new key and turns him into the Vicarya Magia... but unlike a regular Vicarya Magia, Boketarou is very hard and resistent to Zero-One's attacks. Which I think is a joke on his 'hard' jokes or something? Izu apparently took the wrong suitcase, bringing instead the vice-president's holiday equipment instead of the Progrise Key suitcase, leading Aruto to get himself beaten up and literally stabbed in the anus by the Vicarya Magia. Then Boketarou reveals that he can change forms between different Magias, turns into the Onycho, and then buggers off.

We just jump from joke to joke, including a bit where Izu is about to commit seppuku with a gigantic wrench that she wants to unscrew her head with, which is easily one of the funniest jokes in the special. Less funny is the protracted arguing scene between Aruto and Satellite Zea, with giant question marks and whatnot, and eventually the vice president's tour guide book gets tossed into the Zea fabricator and the cartoon kangaroo on the cover gets turned into a new Progrise Key.

Aruto fights the Transforming Magia in front of a warehouse (tm) and we get a cool little palm-thrust moment, but Aruto gets overwhelmed before Izu appears with the sweetest smile and explains a pun Aruto makes, before giving Aruto the brand-new Hopping Kangaroo Progrise Key. The ability is 'pocket', and apparently it's a Doraemon-style pocket dimension? It also comes with the requisiste punching ability of the kangaroo, allowing Aruto to bop Boketarou in the face, and then we get into something that's not necessarily funny, but just kind of bizarre. Hopping Kangaroo's pouch pocket opens, and a terribly CGI'd Nigiro (the sushi chef humagear) stretches out of the pocket and manifests in front of a sushi stand, and starts cooking sushi... and apparently Hopping Kangaroo will translate the occupation of nearby Humagears into attacks. Aruto demolishes Boketarou's shellfish form with a hammer and a salt blast, he turns into the Onycho form and runs into the dark warehouse, and Aruto chases him in and summons Mamoru, who uses the power of security guard flashlights to knock him off his perch. Then Mamoru straight-up joins Aruto in suplexing the Onycho Magiaa!

We need more action, so we get Jin transforming and charging in, and then Vulcan immediately shows up, and then Boketarou tarnsforms into the Frog Magia, summoning CGI frog babies. Aruto's pocket kangaroo dimension summons Matsurida Zed, and they use the power of dance to repel the CGI frog babies. Meanwhile, Vulcan gets to use one of the Zaia Progrise Keys we'll probably never see a form for, Trapping Spider, to trap Jin onto a spider-web. That's unexpected and kind of cool. But the Aruto-vs-Magia fight ends up knocking Vulcan onto the web, and then Aruto unleashes his finisher, a comedic ora-ora-ora flurry of boxing punches that blows up not just the Magia, but also Vulcan and Jin as well. The fight concludes with Aruto making this nice sappy speech about how he is so thankful for the Humagears (before they disappear?) and just scampering off with Izu, completely ignoring the fact that Vulcan was there moments ago. Both Fuwa and Jin are still stuck on the spider-web in the toku warehouse.

The episode ends in Aruto's office as he gets the progrise key suitcase back, he gives a brief talk about how all humagears are his nakama, then we cut to a huge over-acted jyaaaaaaaan joke with Aruto and Izu dressed up as a comedic duo with glittery suits.

It's fun stuff. Admittedly a lot of the bite that the Hyper Battle DVD would have had with the Humagear actors returning is kind of muted considering that I just watched an episode of Zero-One where the same thing happens in a much larger scale in a larger scale. Plus, I don't think Hopping Kangaroo's gimmick is all that funny or awesome enough to really end up elevating it beyond a bizarre one-off form. Still, for a Hyper Battle DVD, I suppose this one is all right. The Zero-One cast do lend well to more comical outings. 

Random Notes:

• Hyper Battle DVD's have been kind of these little joke-y one-off episodes that have been a staple since... Agito, I think? These are little special DVD's that come packaged with the Televi-kun magazine. A lot of the earlier series had varying premises, but they almost always were tongue-in-cheek, ridiculous, and from Kabuto onwards tended to debut a new tie-in form or weapon that is exclusive to the Hyper Battle DVD. For a while, the Hyper Battle DVD's also were in the form of those 'select your own path' interactive DVD segments, but a lot of the more recent ones are just straigth-up episdoes. 
• The Gimmick Watch:
• "Pocket! Authorize. Progrise! The Fourth Dimension of Space! In its pouch contains infinite possibilities."
• "Territory! Progrise Key Confirmed. Spider's Ability: Kaban Shot!"
• The fact that Aruto knows Matsurida Zed, but Metsubojinrai.net is still active, means that the placement of this special can only be slotted in-between episodes 13 (the end of the Dodo Magia arc) and 14 (where all the Mestubojinrai.net stuff went down). 
• Jin doodling a bizarre fusion of all the Magia is adorable. 
• It does feel a bit muted considering episode 24 had a much stronger "all Humagears gather together to help Aruto" moment, but considering the DVD was released long before that episode, I suppose it's a neat foreshadowing for the direction the show is taking?