With a new creative team, Darkwing Duck gets a new start at Dynamite Entertainment. Darkwing Duck #1 puts Gosalyn a little more front-and-center than some of the DW comics, with some good-intentioned help that doesn't go exactly as planned, and returns one of the show's classic villains when Megavolt takes control of St. Canard through through people's cellphones (because... electricity?). Okay, so his plan doesn't quite make sense, but there's still plenty of fun to be had.
Bodies found in the woods pointing to a serial killer torturing and killing his victims bring Trent (Ramón Rodríguez), Faith (Iantha Richardson), Angie (Erika Christensen), and Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin) together to all work the same case. "My Stupid Detective Brain" continues to build on the partnership of Trent and Faith each sharing some personal truths with each other and playing on the animosity between Treent and Ormewood (who finds the killer first, only to nearly become his latest victim).
The penultimate issue of the twelve-issue maxi-series gives us Christopher Chance and Ice together on the day before he dies. It's a sweet and beautiful issue with secrets unburdened and love expressed before the sun begins to set and harder truths and pain is shared. For a comic that's just two characters spending a day at the beach it's an amazing read that is all the more painful knowing we're so close to the end.
Discovering Xavier (Percy Hynes White) has drawings of the creature in the woods, Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) offers a sample of his DNA and a claw from what she believes is the monster's cave to the sheriff in an uneasy alliance between the pair. Although she initially asks him to the dance, in a way to explain away her snooping, Wednesday ends up showing up with Tyler (Hunter Doohan) thanks largely to Thing playing matchmaker with the pair.
Kicking off the kind of alternate dark future storyline the brand is known for, Sins of Sinister begins the X-Men crossover event that focuses on the evil machinations of longtime villain Mr. Sinister whose plans of gaining control of the mutants of Krakoa beginning with Charles Xavier and Emma Frost, and later all of Earth including it's mightiest heroes.
The third episode into a series is a bit early for a character to have a major crisis of faith that changes their behavior, but that's what's on tap for "Just Tuesday" after Abbie Stone (Melissa Rauch) over corrects when accidentally outing an undercover cop. The police's attitude to the court trickles down to Olivia (India de Beaufort) who finds herself not getting her usual special perks for the job. In true sitcom fashion, by the end of the episode everything is reset back to normal with a few words from Dan (John Larroquette), some of which land him temporarily in contempt of court. Some fun moments here and there, but a bit of an odd episode to be set so early in the series.
Adapted from the novel of the same name by writer/director Sarah Polley, Women Talking takes us inside the conversations of a group of women (Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey, Sheila McCarthy, Michelle McLeod, and Kate Hallett) of a Mennonite colony who discover that several of the men have been drugging and raping the women at night and now must deal with the hard truth which has been revealed.
With the men involved in the attacks set to return to the colony, the women have been given the choice to either forgive the men or leave. The script focuses on those conversations with the only man involved being a recently-returned schoolteacher (Ben Whishaw) to take minutes for the meeting and record their decision. While obviously sweet on Mara's character, our teacher is, like the audience, merely witness to what will unfold.
After discovering a compass Omega (Michelle Ang) found in a junk yard might be a map to treasure, she and Phee (Wanda Sykes) convince the Bad Batch to go in search of whatever might at the end of the map. "Entombed" offers the expected moments of the Bad Batch working their way through the quest from finding the hidden tomb, to deciphering riddles, to avoiding boobytraps, and eventually reaching their prize. "Entombed" is one of those episodes that will work find for viewers as long as they don't start asking some rather obvious questions (particularly in what happens after the twist).
NCIS investigates the death of a Marine Captain on a beach where signs point to him being killed before an attempted suicide. The tightlipped unit isn't offering any help, although NCIS uncovers two different suspects including a former Marine turned monk (Wes Chatham) who Jesse (Noah Mills) befriends. The episode introduces Juani Feliz as U.S. Marine CID Summer Westmore from Guantanamo Bay who helps with the investigation by delivering crucial information about the unit. Also notable, Tennant (Vanessa Lachey)'s son Alex (Kian Talan) being sick and Tennant discover his girlfriend (Sierra Swartz) cheating on him closing out that subplot.
Fables #157 wraps up the final adventure story of the Snow White and Bigby Wolf cubs with Winter escaping the world on the back of a turtle in ways that will unintentionally alter the small world forever (and bring a friend back with her). The issue then jumps forward in time, which feels a bit odd but does allow you to see how the various children have grown after their adventures.
After Yang examines the lives of a family after the robotic nanny (Justin H. Min) to their daughter (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja) becomes unresponsive. The parents (Colin Farrell and Jodie Turner-Smith) are forced to face some hard truths about how much they relied on Yang who became far more of just a teacher of Chinese traditions to their adopted daughter but a loving older brother whose existence it turns out was more complex than anyone in the family truly understood.
Mostly through the use of the memory crystal removed from Yang's body, we see moments of him in flashbacks with the family as well as a friendship he cultivated outside the family with a young woman (Haley Lu Richardson) no one else was aware of.
The third episode of Will Trent takes some unexpected turns as a pair of recent killings tie back to the murder of a family decades before. Although the episode tips its hand a bit as to who the killer is, the reveal still works especially in how the climax affects Faith (Iantha Richardson). We get a little more bonding between Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) and Faith, a quick look at how Trent has grown attached to Betty, and in the subplot an old mistake comes back to bite Angie (Erika Christensen) leading her back to Trent for comfort. More murder of the week than the first two episodes, "Don't Let It Happen Again" is a solid episode even if the show still hasn't gotten me sold on its subplots yet.
Deadpool #3 is a weird comic. Deadpool awakes in the apartment of Valentine Vuong who apparently is sweet on both Deadpool and the little Carnage symbiote feeding on him. Red flags, anyone? She's found a way to keep it under control and the pair go on a date. To the zoo. And the symbiote emerges to play matchmaker. Um, okay?
While the other plots mainly spin their wheels (except for the end scene of the episode involving the kidnapping of an important figure), "Our Death's Keeper" is most notable for Jack (John Krasinski) and Mike (Michael Kelly) gaslighting an arm's dealer in Budapest in order to push him into revealing where the exchange of the Sokol device will take place. There are several fun segments along the way with the pair slowly turning the heat on the man until finally springing their trap. Elsewhere, Greer's (Wendell Pierce) digging leads to suspicions about Petr Kovac (Peter Guinness) and Wright (Betty Gabriel) is put in an uncomfortable position of how far she can stick her neck out to protect Jack.
While the second issue of the new Gargoyles comic checks in with other characters including some foreshadowing about the egg in the Gargoyles possession and conversations between Antoinette Dracon and her father (who has now been released from prison), the primary story focuses on the kidnapping of the very pregnant Maggie by Thailog and Sevarius.
Letting Harry (Noah Wyle) take the lead, the team goes up against a couple of crooked local cops (Alanna Masterson and Derek Theler) jailing honest people for real estate kickbacks after their homes get foreclosed. The transition from taking down the cops to saving the life of their latest victim is a little more clumsy than usual with Harry in charge, but the team manages to pull off a classic con sending the pair of marks after hidden treasure allowing their greed to blind them temporarily.
Celebrating 100 issues for the character's solo run, Nightwing #100 features Nightwing and his pals the Titans dealing with Heartless' prison break in Bludhaven leading to hundreds of people (both super-powered criminals and normal people held for an inability to pay bail) released on the streets. With the help of his friends, Nightwing is able to turn the tide although Heartless does manage to slip away.
Hollywood's love affair with reboots continues with this modern take on the 80s sitcom Night Court. The Big Bang Theory's Melissa Rauch stars as Judge Abbie Stone, the daughter of Harry, who in the "Pilot" episode takes over her dad's old stomping grounds. The only character brought back from the original show is John Larroquette as Dan Fielding who is lured back to the courtroom by the spunky younger Stone as the court's new public defender. Both the first two episodes are about Abby and Dan struggling to fit into their new roles as the show itself attempts to find its footing.
Although 2022 didn't start out strong, the second-half of the year produced some great films. The list this year includes murder, depression, friendship, genius, tigers, family, struggle, art, and perhaps the greatest bromance of all-time.
I'm all for one-off episodes of The Bad Batch. Saying that, they aren't all going to be winners. "Faster" isn't a bad episode, but there's not much more to it than a racing episode as Omega (Michelle Ang), Tech (Dee Bradley Baker), and Wrecker (Baker) head off with Cid (Rhea Perlman) to the races where they are forced to get her out of a tough jam when she makes a bet with an old rival she can't pay. The episode does allow Tech to get a little more time, becoming the hero of the episode by flying the winning speeder. The episode ends with a warning about Cid from a less-than-reliable source that doesn't really tell the clones anything they didn't already know about their partner of convince.
Moon Knight #19 offers a back-and-forth between parallel stories. We get Moon Knight and Hunter's Moon deep in the subterranean tunnels below the city fighting the definition of a throwaway character in Commodore Donald Planet. The fight is reallly just an excuse for the pair to discuss the limitations and costs of Khonshu's resurrections of his hand as Hunter's Moon cautions Moon Knight to be less cavalier with his life.
"Rising Sun" offers the return of CGSI Neil Pike (Mark Gessner) whose undercover mission to recover smuggled guns ends in bloodshed when put between various sides of the local Yakuza when the upstart son of one of the most powerful families starts up an old rivalry for his own gain. Pike seems to get passed around to someone in every episode and this time he's Ernie's (Jason Antoon) problem (although the pair do manage to forge a bond by the end). Other than Team Nernie, the episode is notable for Tennant (Vanessa Lachey) and Whistler (Tori Anderson) having each other's backs and for stirring up the ongoing B-story involving Kai's (Alex Tarrant).
Darth Vader #30 takes some unexpected turns as Darth Vader takes the one captured handmaiden at his disposal, Dormé (who can't believe Sabé is willing serving the Empire), to bring the others out of hiding. Unable to defeat him, the handmaidens attempt to blackmail him with threatening his ship and the lives of all the Imperials aboard. Don't they know who the are dealing with? Let's just say it's not the best plan ever.
Following up one the weakest episode of the show's First Season, "A Cabbage Kind of Day" puts the focus back on Yi (Chloe Bennet) who takes on more responsibility than she can handle in a single day including dealing with one of the babies from the previous episode found still lurking around the rooftop for Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor) and Peng (Ethan Loh) to look after. We also get a bit of a jealous older-brother vibe from Everest who doesn't like the attention the baby is getting from his friends. Certainly better than "Jin's New Look," the episode also features some nice morals for its younger viewers touching on asking for help, jealousy, and finding balance in your life.
Narrated by Miranda July, Fire of Love makes use of archive footage from Katia and Maurice Krafft and their friends to chronicle the careers of the married French volcanologists and their love affair with volcanoes which eventually took their lives in 1991. While offering some insight into the pair and the course of their relationship, which earned them fame outside their chosen profession struggling to make people aware of both the dangers and beauty of volcanoes, the documentary is most notable for the incredible amount of close-up video of erupting volcanoes captured by the Kraffts over the years.
In the First Season finale, Cleopatra (Lilimar), Akila (Katie Crown), Brian (Jorge Diaz), and Khensu (Sendhil Ramamurthy) head out to the planet Hykosis to rescue Zaid's (Xolo Maridueña) parents leading to Cleo's first face-to-face confrontation with Octavian (Jonathan Kite). The comedy from the first-half of the episode centers around Cleo being the team leader (which ends up in half the team being captured). The final-half of the episode involves Cleo's confrontation with Octavian who is in possession of the tablet which caused her time travel and which she chooses not to use to return home leaving her friends at the villain's mercy. Her understanding of the tablet, and its twin, sets up further storylines to be explored in the next season of the show as well.
Despite the tease that we might see Avengers involvement, there are no mighty heroes in Daredevil #7, instead Daredevil puts a handful of his recruits to good use in preventing police and a corrupt CEO from evicting families from their tenement. A large part of the comic also deals with Matt Murdock's unwillingness to accept fate or destiny and not walk into what he fears is a trap laid by The Hand.
The first two episodes of Will Trent introduce us to talented, but hated, Special Agent Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) and a collection of equally damaged people, many of whom have long-term relations to Trent including his longtime friend and sometimes lover Angie (Erika Christensen), and a brand-new partner (Iantha Richardson) assigned to work with him in his job as an investigator for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The case they'll work through involves an old frenemy (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) from Will's childhood whose daughter is kidnapped.
After taking the leap of faith, our travelers all eventually find themselves in the Immemorial City, beginning with Kit (Ruby Cruz) and Elora (Ellie Bamber) discovering Prince Airk (Dempsey Bryk) has joined the Crone (Rosabell Laurenti Sellers) and each of them will be tempted to do so as well. Despite a large section of the episode suggesting they might be tempted, nothing in the plot actually sells this as likely possibility. We also see the return of lame minions of the Crone (remember those rejects which look like a mix between Hellraiser and The Masters of the Universe live-action movie?) and a final battle which will see one member of our troop fall in battle (well... sort of).
The first issue of a Batman and Scooby-Doo team-up comic to be produced by a different creative team, The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #3 takes Mystery, Inc. to a creepy closed down hotel in Gotham City tied to the Court of Owls where an old frenemy of Daphne throws a party where no one comes except our meddling kids, Bruce Wayne (who is attempting to get the owners to sell the property), and a Talon who crashes the party.
With only three days left to live, Christopher Chance decides to leave Ice and do a little investigating into Guy Gardner's apparent death. For help, he'll call on the universe's most gullible Green Lantern - G'Nort. Given recent events, I didn't expect a trip to Oa was in the offering, but that's what we get with Chance making a discovery leading to another confrontation with the not-so-dead Lantern, and G'Nort vomiting all over a Guardian. You don't see that every day.
The first episode of Alert: Missing Persons Unit introduces us to Jason Grant (Scott Caan) and Nikki Parker (Dania Ramirez) whose marriage implodes after the disappearance of their son. Years later, with Nikki working for the Missing Person's Unit in Philadelphia, she brings Scott in on an unusual case where terrorists have abducted the daughter of an agent of the CIA. The event coincides with the first picture of what appears to be Jason and Nikki's son which makes up the other storyline of the episode, eventually reuniting them with a young man who is accepted as, but may not in fact be, their son.
The plot of the first issue of Batman: The Adventures Continue Season Three revolves around the attempts to kill Muscle in prison, one of which Batman stops when Killer Croc gets into his cell. The source of these hits come from the hitman's former employer Esther Valestra. And she's not the only one who wants him dead.
Feeling more like an episode of The Clone Wars than The Bad Batch, we're given an episode to catch-up on Crosshair (Dee Bradley Baker) who is sent on a mission with Cody (Baker) and other Clones for the Empire needing to squash a Separtist uprising on Desix. Along with offering a check-in with the black sheep of the Bad Batch, the episode also offers an example of how the Empire put the Clones to work after taking power and how similar their missions were... with a few key differences. It's a fine episode that just feels out of place as the season is still trying to setting the status quo for characters not even referred to here. The episode ends with Cody apparently deserting after being unable to execute an order, but the more effective outcome would have the Empire killing him offering another lesson to Crosshair of their brutality.
In the concluding episode of the three-part crossover, Tennant (Vanessa Lachey) arrives in Los Angeles and assumes control of OSP after learning the missing director (Gerald McRaney) is one of the targets of Morgan Miller (Maya Stojan). Also on site are Parker (Gary Cole) and Torres (Wilmer Valderrama), and the episode marks the return of Agent Afloat Lucy (Yasmine Al-Bustami) while also working in several of the LA agents into the story for the first time including Namazi (Medalion Rahimi), Rountree (Caleb Castille), Deeks (Eric Christian Olsen), and Kensi (Daniela Ruah) just in time for Lucy to discover contracts on all their lives on the dark web leading to members dodging bullets while trying to solve the case.
Picking up from the cliffhanger ending of the NCIS episode that kicked off the three-part crossover event, the kidnapped Tennant (Vanessa Lachey), Hanna (LL Cool J), and Jimmy (Brian Dietzen) find themselves being held in Hawaii by a woman claiming to be CIA Agent Melina Delvin (Dawn Olivieri). Parker (Gary Cole) lands in Hawaii, taking control of the investigation, and begins searching for Simon Williams' known associate which turns up a dead body and another woman also claiming to be CIA Agent Melina Delvin (Maya Stojan) who claims Williams' network is vast and includes rogue agents within the CIA. It turns out neither Melina plays well with others.
With multiple teams in town for Professor Dale Harding's (Robert Picardo) retirement, the party turns into an investigation when the professor turns up dead of apparent suicide with evidence of stolen Department of Defense files on his computer. The set-up allows for multiple team-ups with Tennant (Vanessa Lachey) and Knight (Katrina Law) performing some aggressive driving at the academy, Callen (Chris O'Donnell) and Hanna (LL Cool J) interrogating McGee (Sean Murray) who is a suspect for about three minutes, and Hanna alternating between helping and annoying Kasie (Diona Reasonover).
Finding a way to work in a Pilgrim scene obviously inspired by The Addams Family Values, "Friend or Woe" puts Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) in Pilgrim garb as the students are sent into town on Outreach Day to help with local businesses. After saving Eugene (Moosa Mostafa) from the bullies, Wednesday ropes him into some snooping about the the drawing of her ancestor and the Pilgrim from her Nightshade book. Later she heads into the woods to investigate the original Pilgrim meeting house leading to another vision of her ancestor and a rioting Pilgrims who burned outcasts alive.
Just before Christmas, the Leverage team targets a trucking company whose new owners' (Garrett Coffey and Kate Eastman) predatory practices are stealing money from employees and lining their own pockets, and also smuggling guns for the local mafia, while planning to gut and sell the company. After the team's antics tank the inspection of the prospective buyers, Parker (Beth Riesgraf) and Harry (Noah Wyle) step-in as a reality-TV crew gaining more access and getting the would-be influencer of the siblings on-tape about her dirty business practices (a thread which the episode drops after the smuggling in discovered).
Aboard a stolen alien ship with unusual hyperspace technology, Luke, Leia, Chewbacca, Lando, Lobot, and Amilyn Holdo find themselves off the map in unknown space. Attempts to jump back to hyperspace leave the Rebels exactly where they started unable to leave "No-Space" where they run into some strange locals who inform them there is no way home.
The Fourth Season of The Dragon Prince, rebranded as Mystery of Aaravos, picks us the loose thread off the imprisoned archmage Aaravos (Erik Dellums) and the plans of Claudia (Racquel Belmonte), her boyfriend (Benjamin Callins), and her resurrected father (Jason Simpson) to release him. Working to prevent this, and continue to try and bring the human realm closer to their neighbors, are Callum (Jack De Sena), and Rayla (Paula Burrows) along with the Dragon Prince Azymondias.
Our fellowship moves out of the woods and crosses the Shattered Sea in the aptly-titled episode that follows the same previously-used formula. Points of interest are Prince Airk (Dempsey Bryk) making a new friend who is obviously evil, the reveal that Prince Graydon (Tony Revolori) has some magic ability in him, Thraxus (Amar Chadha-Patel) discovers he's unworthy, our travels squabble, and (after another episode of being a horrible character best killed off an left in the wasteland) Kit (Ruby Cruz) grows up a wee bit (we'll see how long that lasts).
Based on true events, Vicky Krieps stars as the restless Empress Elisabeth of Austria whose behavior becomes increasingly erratic as she nears her 40th birthday, although the plodding script takes quite awhile to get to the point where her behavior becomes of interest.
With beautiful costumes and elaborate sets, writer/director Marie Kreutzer decorates the film and fleshes out its style with splashes of modern music. The problem with Corsage, for me, is the dreadfully slow pacing making it hard to care for any of the bland characters in those costumes or any of the events playing out across those elaborate 19th Century sets.
Two more episodes don't do much of anything in regards to the investigation of what happened to Aelita West (Charlotte Riley), but we do get more the convenient here than gone medical effects on Flynne (Chloë Grace Moretz), a short confrontation between Flynne and Cherise (T'Nia Miller), and the introduction of yet more characters in another hired killer (Ned Dennehy) in the present and a pair of investigators (Alexandra Billings and Anjli Mohindra) in the future. Because both episodes are so geared to adding more to the story, unfortunately we don't get much movement on existing stories, although we get some flashbacks including one that shows the injuries to Conner (Eli Goree) were caused by one of the experiments from the future (which you would expect to have some sort of payoff).
The Third Season of Titans is centered around the resurrection of Jason Todd (Curran Walters) as the Red Hood and the temporary relocation of the Titans to Gotham City to fight him in Batman's extended absence (which doesn't make a lick of sense). Todd's return relies on the Lazarus Pit but with a switch being the Scarecrow (Vincent Kartheiser) is the person responsible for his resurrection and his dependence on an anti-fear drug that leads to a more deadly path for the Red Hood.
There's also the resurrection of Donna (Conor Leslie) who for some reason the show continues to under-utilize. We get less of Raven (Teagan Croft), the addition of Barbara Gordon (Savannah Welch), another Titan dies, and Superboy (Joshua Orpin) gets a girlfriend.
For those that don't remember, there was a time back in the 1980s where the Hulk was grey... and a mob enforcer for a casino in Las Vegas. Decades later, Peter David returns to this version of the Hulk, lumbering around in tailored suits on a casino floor and in back alleys of Vegas, and also throws in both Spider-Man and the Kingpin for the first issue of Joe Fixit as well.
The Jack Ryan (John Krasinski) on the run storyline continues with Jack and Mike (Michael Kelly) tracing the information on Sokol back to its surprising source whose experience adds weight to the fact that Sokol is real but whose position isn't likely to be accepted by the West. Greer (Wendell Pierce) continues to investigate the assassination and makes a discovery about a larger threat which helps confirm Jack's information about Sokol. The episode also makes quick end of the Russian super soldier after Jack which the show had built up over two episodes.
Moon Knight's battle with the Tutor comes to a close as he and Tigra crash the vampire's party to bring a few presents of their own in violence and death. We get some great back-and-forth dialogue between Moon Knight and Tutor, as our hero stalls a bit for time allowing his back-up to arrange the first-half of his surprise in setting off the ball room's sprinkler system. With the Tutor still oblivious to the dangers his entire network is in, the priest of Khonshu blesses the water.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch returns for its Second Season with the Empire's power growing and a dangerous but lucrative opportunity for the crew offered. Looking for a big score, for either retirement or help with the Rebellion (the Clones have differing opinions on their next course of action), the team accepts a risky mission stealing from the Empire who are cleaning out Count Dooku's vaults. Even a single cargo container could be the Bad Batch's biggest score. However, things don't go quite according to plan. Both the first two episodes focus on the heist, where the team gets separated, and then bringing the group back together (albeit without the big score they hoped for).
Eliot (Christian Kane) returns home... again. For those who don't remember, one of earliest episodes of Leverage focused on Eliot, with his Leverage pals in tow, returning to Kentucky to help out his high school sweetheart. 14 years later, Leverage: Redemption sends Eliot back home to Oklahoma (not Kentucky) and a small town (rather than a ranch or farm) in attempts to make up with his estranged father. While in town, he uncovers a fracking conspiracy and cover-up that brings in the rest of the team to save the small town.