Fanboys Anonymous

I've been watching SilphSpectre's True Power tournament on YouTube and after checking out the most recent episode, Janine vs. Brock, something dawned on me: Janine as a character shouldn't even exist.

Indulge me as I go down this rabbit hole with another edition of FANBOYS FIX IT where I'll address why that problem is an issue and how to remedy the situation with a few tweaks that change as little as possible, while making what I think are the best alterations.

Koga Graduates

As it stands with Generation II, the return to Kanto was one of the biggest selling points. Not only was it interesting to see that the Indigo League was actually on the Johto side, too, but that when you step into the Elite 4 challenge, you're not actually fighting the same group.

It wouldn't have made much sense for you to fight Lorelei, Bruno, Agatha, Lance and then Blue, anyway, as Red had beaten Blue. Theoretically, you could have set it up so you beat those 4 and then Red, while Blue goes off and does his Viridian City Gym business, but I think they had a decent idea with Will and Karen and so forth. It still doesn't help that Bruno is a Fighting specialist with his Rock types and all, nor does it make much sense Lance is the champion, but whatever. We're in the interest of changing as little as possible, remember?

So let's say we keep everything the same as far as Koga moving up to the Elite 4 and making the Poison/Psychic/Dark/Fighting quartet happen. I'm cool with that. It's kind of neat to see Koga move up the ranks and fill in the void left by Agatha, especially as she was supposed to be a Ghost-type specialist who actually had all Poison types on her team, anyway.

But with Koga moving up to the Elite 4, who takes his place in running the Fuchsia City gym? It would be too hard to create a whole new area for Gen 2 just to give another location a different gym (unless you went with Pallet Town having a gym now with Red as the leader, but that stops you from having Mount Silver's epic showdown).

Janine is Koga's Clone

Game Freak's response was to have Koga's daughter Janine replace him in what amounted to one of the least interesting scenarios imaginable.

Everything stayed basically the same. Fuchsia City went from having a Poison-type ninja-themed gym to having a Poison-type ninja-themed gym.

Even the Pokemon weren't different. Take a look at their teams:

Koga in Red and Blue:

• Koffing (x2)
  
• Weezing
• Muk
  

Koga in Yellow:

• Venonat (x3)
  
• Venomoth

Koga in Gold and Silver as Elite 4 Member:

• Ariados
• Venomoth
• Forretress (Bug and Steel??)
• Muk
• Crobat

Now look at Janine's team:

• Ariados
• Venomoth
• Weezing (x2)
• Crobat

Every single Pokemon she has is something Koga has had, and it didn't even need to be that way! She could have had Arbok, Beedrill, Nidoqueen, Nidoking, Tentacruel, and Qwilfish. That's a full team of six Poison types that aren't used elsewhere at that point in time.

I think this pretty much means Game Freak didn't have plans to put Koga in the Elite 4 spot. It probably would have been Agatha again, with Koga still operating out of Fuchsia City, and they just decided to put him in there on a whim. Then, out of laziness and not wanting to redo the Fuchsia City gym layout, they just said "eh, it's his daughter, so she inherited everything."

At the very least, giving her different Pokemon should have been done. But it's also a missed opportunity to do something else and that's what I'm suggesting should have happened instead.

Where's the Ground-Type Gym?

Outside of some tweaks to their teams, most Gym Leaders in Kanto didn't change. Brock is still in Pewter, Misty is still in Cerulean, etc. Cinnabar Island was messed up with the volcano, so that gym shifted, but it's still Blaine and he's still a Fire-type specialist. The only ones who really changed were Janine replacing Koga and Blue replacing Giovanni.

By doing so and getting rid of Giovanni, the Earth Badge for the Viridian Gym no longer makes any sense. Of course, it never made sense to begin with, as it's a green leaf or feather, but whatever. Blue isn't a Ground trainer by any means and shouldn't give out that badge. Likewise, without Giovanni in the mix, Ground is the only type that we don't have a Gym Leader or an Elite 4 member representing.

What should happen instead is that Blue should give out a different badge instead of the Earth Badge and a Ground-type Gym Leader should take Koga's place in Fuchsia City.

In regards to Blue, let's give him something that isn't type-specific. My three main suggestions are the Pride Badge (I know, it's in Pokemon Masters), the Honor Badge or the Glory Badge. The idea behind the name is that he's a former champion who used to have a big ego, but learned how to carry himself with the right sense of honor after his defeat as champion. He should instill that knowledge to you as a teacher and you should have pride in defeating a former champion in him.

The design could be something simple. It has no real theme, so you just make it look classy, as if it's something a champion would want to pin on his or her lapel. But you make it green in color, as it's Viridian City, after all, and Blue is technically named Green in the original Japanese games.

In regards to this new Ground-type Gym Leader for Fuchsia City, though, how do we go about that?

I say since the Safari Zone is decommissioned in this game, let's tear it down and have the Ground specialists as the ones responsible for closing it off. They're doing construction in rebuilding that whole place or possibly tearing it down entirely and won't let anyone in there, as it's hazardous.

To make things less confusing, I'd get rid of the Earth Badge entirely. The design just doesn't work as "earth" in any fashion. This also means the Soul Badge has to go, too, since that wouldn't make any sense. Again, it never made sense why Sabrina's Psychic gym has the Marsh Badge while the Poison gym has the Soul Badge, so this at least gets another one of those issues out of the way.

Instead, let's go with the Quake Badge (the next logical step that they would take as evidenced by future games). If not that, maybe the Hazard Badge where it has a hard hat or a construction tape vibe to it. Or maybe the Terra Badge or even the Dust Badge. Hell, you can even still call it the Earth Badge but just change the way it looks so it is brown and looks remotely ground-related.

The character who is the Gym Leader almost doesn't matter. Go with whatever you want. He/she should have Hikers and such in his gym and he/she should look like a construction worker of sorts. Want to go super punny? Make it a woman named Tera.

As far as her team, our options at this point in the series are:

• Sandshrew / Sandslash
• Nidoqueen
• Nidoking
  
• Diglett / Dugtrio
• Geodude / Graveler / Golem
• Onix / Steelix
  
• Cubone / Marowak
• Rhyhorn / Rhydon
• Wooper / Quagsire
• Gligar
  
• Phanpy / Donphan
  
• Swinub / Piloswine
• Larvitar / Pupitar
  

Onix is a staple for Brock and Bruno, while Steelix is Jasmine's ace, so that line shouldn't show up here again. Blue has a Rhydon on his team, so let's take that out of the equation, too. The same goes for Swinub and Piloswine since Pryce has that covered for his Ice gym. I'd also say since you can't go with Tyranitar, you should skip Larvitar and Pupitar. That still leaves us with plenty of options to pick from.

• Sandshrew / Sandslash
• Nidoqueen
• Nidoking
  
• Diglett / Dugtrio
• Geodude / Graveler / Golem
• Cubone / Marowak
• Wooper / Quagsire
• Gligar
  
• Phanpy / Donphan
  

My ideal situation is to get rid of Forretress on Koga's team and replace that with Nidoking. Then, we can have this Tera character have Nidoqueen along with Sandslash, Dugtrio, Golem and either Quagsire or Donphan.

Why not Gligar or Marowak? Well, Gligar being Ground/Flying and a base-form with no evolutions at that point seems contradictory and less amazing. Marowak also has the Lavender Town stuff on its own and doesn't need more of a focus. I'd certainly have trainers in the gym have those Pokemon, though, so they're still featured as part of this theme.

So that's it. You close off the Safari Zone by having the new Ground Gym Leader doing construction, you feature some of those Pokemon and make sure all the types have a character that represents them, fix the Soul Badge and Earth Badge issue and prevent Koga from being copied and pasted with this Janine character.

What do you think? Is this a good change in retrospect, or do you still prefer the way Game Freak set things up with Janine? Drop a comment below and let me know!

Welcome to another edition of WEEK IN GEEK here at Fanboys Anonymous—a rundown of some of the events, news and stories that went down over the past few days in the geek culture spectrum.

Here are some of the topics I felt like voicing my opinions about:

RIP Chadwick Boseman

Goddamn 2020 sucks. On top of the relentless, constant stream of bad news from all sides of life in general, we've also now just lost a fantastic actor who was taken way too soon. There's no telling what repercussions of this will follow with the MCU, too, as Black Panther was probably going to be one of the mainstay major characters to act as a driving force going forward in the wake of some of the original Avengers no longer appearing in the films.

Boseman was suffering from colon cancer for the past four years. Terrible news. That's the theme of this year. This is yet another crushing, crushing blow that just changes the game entirely and it's so sad to think about just how much more he had to offer that we'll be missing out on.

Equal Billing for The Wasp in Ant-Man 3

The first film, Ant-Man, made sense. Calling the sequel Ant-Man and The Wasp also made sense. Now, Peyton Reed has confirmed that will be the same #3 in that The Wasp will get the same credit, essentially, as a partner and not just a sidekick.

I'm all for it. I just hope the title isn't Ant-Man and The Wasp and Stature or something like that. That's kind of mouthy. Ant-Man and The Wasp 2 would be confusing, since its the third film. Ant-Man and The Wasp 3 would imply there's an Ant-Man and The Wasp 1 and 2, which there isn't.

Tough call. Maybe they can't avoid it being "Ant-Man and The Wasp: Subtitle" or whatever.

Of course, that implies movies are ever going to exist again with the way the world being how it is....

Bob McLeod is not Bob Macleod

Co-creator of New Mutants, Bob McLeod, has apparently had his name misspelled in the film's credits as Bob Macleod.

Ouch. It seems the movie is awful (NOW THERE'S A SHOCKER) and they couldn't even bother to do that right?

The original X-Men film franchise is officially over with the release of The New Mutants and will be expunged in favor of a whole new reboot that will bring these characters into the proper Marvel Cinematic Universe.

To commemorate the now concluded series, I've decided to go back and adjust my "Every X-Men Film Ranked from Best to Worst" list into a more structured Tier List ranking of every movie to see where each movie stands when stacked up against one another.

This franchise has had some massive heights and some embarrassing lows, effectively being at the top of the comic book movie genre one minute and then nearly killing the concept entirely the next, and while some of the films still hold up several years later, others just get worse as time goes on.

So what are the best and the worst? Let's get into it!

* Note: This list is as of August 2020. Future X-Men films will be added to this later.

[S-TIER | OMEGA LEVEL]

These are the best of the best.

1. X-Men: Days of Future Past - Rogue Cut (2014)

It takes a lot to beat out something as great as X2: X-Men United, but the Rogue Cut edition of X-Men: Days of Future Past takes the cake. This gives us the best of what First Class has to offer with that cast mixed in with the best of X2's crew, merging the tones as well to form one of the best time travel movies I've ever seen that feels very natural and not too full of itself. At the center of it all is the figurehead of the franchise, Wolverine, who was in rehab mode from Origins and was able to win back the audience while also saving two timelines. Nice work, bub.

For those who have only seen the theatrical version, I highly suggest setting the time aside to watch this extended edition, as it makes for an even more well-rounded experience. The use of Rogue in the story helps fix what went wrong with her character from The Last Stand as well as to up the stakes of the future scenes with the Sentinels hunting our heroes. Let's just say if you wanted this "last chance before we're all wiped out and eradicated from existence" movie to be even darker, you get it. Then, if you want to have some laughs to make up for it, make sure you hit the rewind button and listen to our FanTracks synced up with the film.

Just as with Deadpool, this is a movie that shows that you can take what works in the comics and manipulate facets of it, improve on it, and win universal acclaim from critics, the box office, and fans alike. All the trials and tribulations of what came beforehand with the bad films and the good ones duking it out felt as though they came to a logical conclusion that was worth it all, setting right what once went wrong. By the end of this movie, I was so content with what I had seen that I would have been okay if we never saw another film set in the X-Men universe ever again.

2. X2: X-Men United (2003)

For many, this is the benchmark of what comic book films should be. By 2016, there are aspects of it that have become dated and far surpassed, as you can tell there was still some reservation in the movie industry to go full-on superhero, but holy shit, this movie has so much nerdiness to it that was shockingly awesome for an X-Men fan back in the day.

If you were a fan beforehand, you no doubt geeked out over the allusions to the upcoming Dark Phoenix story, Cerebro being put to good use, Pyro's transition to the Brotherhood of Mutants, Magneto working alongside the X-Men, and diving more into Wolverine's past with the Weapon X program. One of the highlights of the whole list of movies here is in this film when Bobby Drake (Iceman) "comes out" as a mutant to his parents and there are more than obvious parallels to how that process would be for a homosexual teenager to do the same. Then again, if you want something less heavy on the emotional spectrum and more action-packed, you've got to love the berserker Wolverine slashing up intruders in Xavier's mansion sequence or Nightcrawler's White House attack.

[A-TIER LEVEL]

These are the second-best and are considered very good or great.

3. X-Men: First Class (2011)

After the bombs of X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine mentioned above, the series was in a period of much needed healing. A reboot of sorts was a necessity to help save it from fading away into obscurity, so Matthew Vaughn and company had to start fresh while also maintaining the audience that stuck around through the garbage. Prequels can often have a negative connotation after the Star Wars series mucked things up, so when First Class was announced, everyone was justifiably skeptical. After all, the track record was 2–2 and it was being marketed with a title that doesn't correlate with the original cast of characters from the "first class" run, so clearly these guys don't know what they're doing anymore, right?

Wrong. Somehow, for the second time, the casting of Professor X, Magneto and many others was just spot-on and we had a movie that breathed new life into the mutants. The 1960s setting was a fresh change of pace that felt almost like an otherwordly James Bond film with superpowers, yet it also didn't stray too much from coming off as an X-Men film.

Just as with any film, there are some issues—such as the Angel character (anyone named that character seems to be problematic in these films, oddly enough) and the questionable casting of January Jones as Emma Frost—and it certainly rests on the laurels of what the previous movies accomplished, with much of the heavy lifting having been done before its time, but there are some great gems that have kept the saga alive that spawned out of this. Who doesn't love Magneto's story, or how they suited up in yellow outfits for the first time? How awesome is it that the Cuban Missile Crisis was folded into the storyline and attributed to the mutant phenomenon?

4. Deadpool (2016)

I'm sure many people are going to say that this should be higher up on the list, but while I thought this movie was entertaining as hell, I definitely can't classify it as the same animal as all the others. This is a completely different type of movie in general than the typical superhero flick, so it can't really be compared in the same conventional ways. First off, it has a singular protagonist, so it is more along the lines of the two Wolverine films than the ensemble cast of the X-Men group ones. Secondly, it's self-referential and can't be taken seriously, so any laughable parts can be written off as going with the gimmick and not just a legitimate flub on the filmmakers' parts.

That being said, this is still a great representation of the character and something that I enjoyed through and through. It is the true Deadpool film that we were all hoping to get, and it took years and tons of struggling to bring it to the screen. Even more satisfactory was how well the movie did, making it so the fighting was worth it. While producers wrote the idea off as something that could never work, it ended up being a massive hit—earning a worldwide total of over $763 million on a measly budget of $58 million, making it just $8 million shy of surpassing the record of highest grossing R-rated film of all time (second to The Passion of the Christ). That's amazing.

This movie goes to show you that if you do a popular character justice, you don't let studio executives meddle too much, and you have a kickass marketing campaign, you'll be critically and financially acclaimed.

5. Logan (2017)

I'll elaborate on this another point in the future, but my general thoughts for this are that it's very similar to Deadpool in that the movie is a great character study, but not necessarily the best standalone film. There are a ton of amazing things about it, but if I'm honest, I can't tell you any of the character names beyond Logan, Laura and Charles, really.

For the quick thoughts, check out the Minute Man Review. For more in-depth thoughts, check out my Reviewpoint.

6. X-Men (2000)

Just as with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I've previously written up a Fanboys Fix It for this film, so head on over to that article to read more of my thoughts on any problems this movie has. What I will say when it comes to positives, though, is that after 16 years, rewatching this recently made me appreciate it more. This film is responsible for the initial boom of superhero films. If it hadn't have succeeded, we wouldn't have gotten Spider-Man and the rest that followed, which would eventually lead into Iron Man and the proper Marvel Cinematic Universe we have now. It was a gargantuan task to take such a colorful world like the one the mutants live in and to ground it enough in reality for mainstream audiences to accept, while also keeping enough of the comic book flair to not piss off the core fanbase.

Of course, there are issues with it that would ripple throughout all of the films, but in the grand scheme of things, this was a fun movie that knocked a herculean ball of cinematic potential out of the park and deserves to be pat on the back more so than it tends to be.

[B-TIER LEVEL]

These are the third-best and are considered good, but not great.

7. Deadpool 2 (2018)

Check out my thoughts in full about this film here. The TL;DR of it is that I think it's nowhere near as good as the first, but it has some quality moments to it. Two years later, I haven't actually had the urge to watch it again even a second time, oddly, so it may not hold up as much over time.

[C-TIER LEVEL]

These are the fourth-best and are considered average or just okay.

8. X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

By the time I rewatch this, I might end up lowering it a bit, as there are pacing issues, the villain doesn't measure up to his potential, and some characters are superfluous or just disappointing in general, but I left this movie in much better spirits than I thought I would be, considering the reviews.

If you want to hear a breakdown of the hits and the misses, check out the Reviewpoint podcast we did recently on the film. To summarize, this was a movie that has structural problems as far as filmmaking goes, but if you're a fan of the source material, it hits your inner nerd in a way that makes it all worthwhile.

[D-TIER LEVEL]

These are the fifth-best and are considered disappointing as they have more bad than good but aren't entirely irredeemable.

9. The Wolverine (2013)

This film is hard to place, as there are some amazing elements, but the sum of its parts doesn't quite match up to others on this list. The villains are weak (particularly the main one) but not out of theory, just out of execution. For example, the storyline of a dying old man wanting to take Logan's healing ability for himself is interesting. However, Kenuichio Harada is just some assassin dude who looks like he has a stomachache the entire movie, and Viper…ugh…what a shit job on behalf of the writers for that character and the actress bringing it to life.

Some positives are the serious tone, bringing Tao Okamoto and Rila Fukushima into the public consciousness, and Logan's tortured soul. This is a movie that could have benefited from another 20 minutes of screen time and it might have placed a little higher, but it can also be argued that it's on par or slightly better than the next film, just in different ways.

[E-TIER LEVEL]

These are the sixth-best and are considered just flat out bad with next to nothing good about them.

10. X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

Speaking of garbage, few films are as disappointing as the third entry in the X-Men series. The first X-Men film did well, and it was followed up with an improvement in X2: X-Men United, so fans eagerly anticipated the next one with assumptions that it would be just as good, if not better. Boy, were they wrong.

I remember squirming in my seat while watching this, just utterly perplexed at how something with so much buzz and such a great framework to build from had turned into something so terrible. It unnerved me so much that I actually went to see it a second time just to try to convince myself it wasn't as bad as I had thought. It was and still is.

Disappointing is one thing, but with X-Men: Days of Future Past, the filmmakers literally undid everything in canon related to this movie as an apology. It's also referenced in X-Men: Apocalypse when Cyclops, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, and Jubilee talk about how the third film in a trilogy is always the worst.

They kill off Cyclops and Professor Xavier (kind of) in this movie for no real reason or payoff. Jean Grey's storyline isn't handled properly, nor is the cure section of the film. Angel is an utterly pointless character. For all that this franchise has to do with tolerance of other people and accepting who you are, they fucking wrote Rogue's storyline to be that she changes her DNA just to be able to have sex with the boy she's crushing on, who of course is willing to cheat on her if she doesn't give it up! That's a terrible message to spread! The only thing positive about this movie is Kelsey Grammar as Beast, and I feel sorry for him for having gone through this experience.

11. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

This movie is one of the go-to examples of what not to do with the superhero genre. There are so many things wrong with it that are fairly unforgivable, and you have to question just how those decisions were made in the first place. What in God's name were they thinking when they took The Merc With the Mouth and sewed his mouth shut?!

For a more in-depth breakdown of the problems this movie has, check out the Fanboys Fix It article I wrote up a few months ago. To sum it all up: this film needed to make up for what went wrong with X-Men: The Last Stand, and instead it took things to an even shittier level, which made fans beg for the punishment to stop.

[F-TIER LEVEL | DREGS]

These are the absolute worst of the worst.

12. Dark Phoenix (2019)

Terrible. Just terrible. Check out the Reviewpoint podcast for more.

13. The New Mutants (2020)

This was not just a bad X-Men film, this was a damn near irredeemable movie in general. This felt like an awful rough pilot of a bad Syfy channel show that didn't even make it to the second cut before the plug was pulled. It's horrendous on so many levels that I've yet to find the time to want to dedicate to bashing it as that feels like it would be a waste.

How would you rank everything?

Drop your list in the comments below to keep the discussion going!

Lucifer has finally returned to Netflix with part 1 of season 5. In what might be one of the most confusing timelines of cancellations and finishes ever for a TV series, Lucifer went from done to coming back for one season on Netflix, to coming back for another, to splitting that one in half, to having a sixth season.

But hey, you're not going to hear me complaining about it. I get more of one of my favorite shows that way!

So how did this season play out, and did I think it was an upgrade, a downgrade, or a lateral move from season 4 and what came before it?

I wasn't fortune enough to have the time to binge these episodes in one go like I had planned. This week was swamped with WWE coverage over on my other site, Smark Out Moment, so I could only watch about an episode and a half per day when I was trying to sleep (and I averaged 2 hours of sleep per day). But I wish I had been able to check them all out in once, as it was a breeze to get through them. I don't think I would have reached a moment where I would have gotten annoyed with still having more episodes left.

I had stated before that I like Netflix as a much better home for the show than before. They don't push the boundaries too much, but they're still able to play around with a bit more risque material, but most importantly, timing. Not having to adhere to the same commercial breaks or placing certain episodes on sweeps weeks or anything like that allows much more flexibility.

I do think maybe this could have used two more episodes, though. Sometimes, it did feel as though a plot thread was introduced and resolved in the same hour and could have had a bit longer to build.

Last season, for instance, was Amenadiel having a protege of sorts who died in something like the next episode. This time, it was Maze and Lilith. I think one more episode's worth of that could have been better. The same for another whole episode of Dan dealing with having found out Lucifer is the real devil.

I'm overall a fan of that, by the way. Not necessarily how they did it (as that's not at all how I imagined it would have gone down) but the fact that it happened. It had been a little while since someone new learned the truth. Now, it's just Ella, oddly. I actually thought Ella might be before Dan, who would be the main antagonist of the final few episodes of the show before ultimately being okay with things, as a ceremonial "I'm okay with you and Chloe, too" type of thing. But hey, maybe they have something better in store for that.

Chloe quickly realizing Michael wasn't Lucifer is the type of thing that I enjoy not seeing dragged out. Had this been 20+ episodes on Fox, I think that would have been at least 6 episodes of meandering through that storyline. Here, they get right to it.

Also a thumbs up for how Chloe is quite mature about all this. You're in love with THE DEVIL and you're essentially like "Okay. Some weird shit goes on. But let's approach this like adults." I don't think I could do that. Kudos.

Poor Ella. I don't remember this random obsession with bad boys, but that helped set up Pete. I immediately liked him and then thought that it was way too easy for me to like him, so he must be evil. Look who was right.

The TV show parody of Lucifer and Chloe was great. I could have done without the flashback noir thing, though. Too campy for my tastes.

Some other quick notes and random tidbits I found interesting:

• I loved how Linda still holds the sex she had with Lucifer in reverence.
• No Eve? Damn.
• That tease of God at the end wasn't the best cliffhanger in the world, but the mere fact God is now in the show made me interested to see where this goes.
• Very curious what the end game is with Charlie. I'd imagine he's not just 100% normal mortal and that's the end of it, unless the story is about Amenadiel learning to come to terms with how his son isn't special in that way. Maybe he's the type of person who becomes a saint in the future or whatever.
• I dig Michael as a villain. I hope he's not taken out of the equation too fast in the next episodes.
  

As a kid, two of my favorite movies were Tim Burton's Batman (1989) and Batman Returns. To this day, I still love them, but as my fandom and knowledge of the Batman mythos has expanded, I've found myself more and more critical of the way they chose to handle some aspects of those films.

Naturally, we've all heard the complaints that Joker shouldn't have killed Thomas and Martha Wayne instead of Joe Chill, or that it's weird Penguin is a monster and Catwoman has some sort of zombie cat powers. As a kid, it didn't even occur to me that Batman is straight-up killing people and going against one of the biggest foundations of his character, either.

But this post isn't about those things. It's about these two films creating brand new characters when they could have used a variety of others from the comics and had them work out just fine. And I'm not talking about going out of your way to name the mayor something specific. I'm talking changing the names of some rather large supporting characters.

The inspiration of this came about from a random recent rewatch of Batman, when it dawned on me that half the characters from '89 could be other people.

Bruce Wayne, Vicki Vale, Joker, Gordon (even though he's nothing really like him), Alfred and Harvey Dent...these guys are solid and don't need to be changed. Everyone else, though?

But what about Alexander Knox? If you think about it, his characterization is mostly that of an annoying, persistent reporter. He's not a villain, but he's far from a hero for nearly all of the film, too. He's also got a vibe that he doesn't get the hint when he's hitting on Vicki, which could be considered creepy.

Who should he have been? Creeper. Jack Ryder has been interpreted over the years as a talk show host, a reporter, etc, but he's always got at least some of an antagonistic vibe to him. In a 2010 comic, they even mention that he dated Vicki Vale. Obviously, you can't judge 1989 based on 2010 information, but that means its out there in this realm nevertheless.

You might not want to have two characters named Jack in the same film, but when you're writing the movie, Joker has no name. You don't need to name him Jack Napier. Or, just do it anyway. People can handle General Ross and Everett Ross in the MCU. Just call him Ryder for the whole film.

He's very Joker-esque and you could even play into that by having him dress up for the big parade and/or succumb to the toxin and turn into Creeper. Since this isn't an origin story for him, he could die and it's okay.

Then, there's Lt. Max Eckhardt. If I were to describe you a corrupt, overweight cop with a hat who smokes and has a scruffy face, who do you think I'd be describing. That's right, Harvey Bullock.

Granted, maybe you don't want to do Bullock because he's ultimately a hero, just a flawed one. But you've got Arnold Flass you could go with, too, like what they did with Batman Begins.

Carl Grissom? The mob boss in town was originally going to be Rupert Thorne and took inspirations from Carmine Falcone. Obviously, you could have gone with either of those or any of the countless other mobsters from the comics. There are far, far, far too many to name.

Alicia Hunt can't be replaced with Harley Quinn, as the character didn't exist at that time. But apparently, she's based on Black Mask's girlfriend Circe. But maybe if you took her and Bob the Goon and replaced them with some sort of Punch and Judy variant? I'm blanking on any specific names other than those two, but I'm positive they must have had some male and female henchmen at some point in the comics before 1989.

Then, there's Batman Returns and the immediate thought is that Max Schreck should have been Harvey Dent.

I know, I know. Dent isn't an awful, corrupt businessman. But Penguin isn't a freak who spits out black sludge, either. For this series, I think they could have made it work to have it be that Dent was actually corrupt—or, maybe, instead of having Schreck be a villain from the start, he/Dent just flat out isn't. He's targeted by Penguin and a lot of things play out in a similar, yet tweaked way. You've got an election, some media conferences, family money, whatever stuff you want to work into there. I think Dent can fit in mostly all of it.

But maybe you find out that while Dent is a champion for some of the good causes in Gotham City, he also has a darker side to him. He's Two-Faced (eh, eh) according to Selina Kyle, his secretary. Sometimes, he's on a good day and he's a charmer and a real hero. Other days, he's a real jerk. You can flip a coin to bet on which personality he's going to be on any particular day, she says.

At the end of the film, when Selina zaps him, maybe that's what causes his face to be scarred.

Ice Princess? Maybe she's Gilda. Maybe you can even change some of the oddball random characters like Jen to other people. I'm sure the database has countless names you can pull from different comics that are almost entirely unknown, but would be neat little references.

Ultimately, would it matter if the guy who gets his nose bitten is some random character who popped up in one issue in the 1950s or whatever? No. Especially back then when these films came out, average moviegoers weren't as obsessed. Even this day, you can ask most people to name 10 Batman villains and they'll probably struggle after naming Joker, Catwoman, Riddler, Penguin, Mr. Freeze, and the mainstreams. Nobody but the hardcores are going to bring up Birthday Boy.

Despite these observations, these movies are still awesome in their own way and two of my favorite films of all time. This was just the ramblings of a fan who had a few minutes to talk about a little quirk.

Welcome to another edition of WEEK IN GEEK here at Fanboys Anonymous—a rundown of some of the events, news and stories that went down over the past few days in the geek culture spectrum.

Here are some of the topics I felt like voicing my opinions about:

Planes, Trains and Automobiles Remake

The classic Thanksgiving film is getting a reboot with Will Smith and Kevin Hart.

I'm sure it'll be fine, but it won't capture the same magic the original did - and that's coming from someone who doesn't even love the movie as much as most people do.

Will Smith is phenomenal, but he's just not Steve Martin. They're two completely different amazing performers. Kevin Hart is great, too, but he's not John Candy. You can't just take two talented people and think they'll be the same as two other talented people.

But hey, I might check it out. Why not, right?

Olivia Wilde to Direct Spider-Woman Movie

All incarnations of the Spider-Woman character have never felt like they're worth a dedicated film, in my opinion. That goes doubly for when Sony has control over the characters and just desperately wants to have its own MCU, no matter what the cost.

The two studios who keep throwing things out there with no plan are Sony and WB, so at this point, Olivia Wilde directing a film like this feels like a 50/50 shot. Morbius got made. Most other movies didn't (thankfully).

With the idea that Wilde is "completely revamping" the character, I feel there's even less of a reason to get behind it, because more often than not, instead of fixing the problems behind it, people just make things worse.

The Batman Logo

Matt Reeves tweeted the logo for his upcoming The Batman film.

Meh. I mean, it's plain text with a grungy texture and a transparent version of the bat logo. It's not exactly thought-provoking or anything.

Call me crazy, but I find it more dynamic if a superhero film has a logo that has an actual logo and isn't something that could very easily be just a generic R-rated action flick if you change the text. That could say anything and it wouldn't make you think it was Batman without the logo overlay.

I'd rather have something more along the lines of the bottom left here or the Arkham game ones.

Ben Affleck Returning as Batman in The Flash

So Batman will be in The Flash and it'll be played by multiple people, with Batfleck being one of them.

Good call. I'm all for this.

The Batman Trailer

Okay. This had an awesome vibe to it. It didn't even feel like a Batman film. It felt more like a legit crime thriller. That has me kind of psyched. However, I'm not getting a Bruce Wayne vibe from Pattinson yet. I'd like to see something that shows more of his acting to sell me on him. Right now, he kind of looks like a kid who wants to be Batman, rather than Batman.

Wonder Woman 1984 Trailer

Nope. Not feeling it. This seems like its exactly like the leaked script and that was kind of trash. It feels VERY early 2000s superhero flick and not modern.

Gotham Knights

Is this set in the same universe as the Arkham games? You know what? Screw it. As long as Batman isn't actually dead (as that would be weird), this is still amazing.

Court of Owls? Sweet! Getting the ability to play as Dick and Barbara and Jason and Tim (I'm assuming its Tim and not Damian)? Super, super cool.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

Um....what? What is this? Also, they didn't show any footage of the game itself, which isn't surprising, since this CG stuff always looks so much better and it convinces people that the rest of the game will look like that.

I'm definitely interested in this. It's a Justice League thing, so of course I am. But this is really weird.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods

That's the title of the sequel. You know what? Not bad.

The Suicide Squad Teaser

So "it's so wacky and great and crazy and awesome and perfect you guys" is the gist of it. I guess we'll see. I still don't get the idea of having Deadshot but not Deadshot with the same basic "I've got a daughter" angle, if that's true. I mean, I've heard of Bloodsport before, but still. It seems like they wanted to do Deadshot and couldn't get Will Smith back, so they just said "idk, how about uh...." and tossed a random other character in his place.

Welcome to another edition of the Fanboys Anonymous FANTRACKS podcast! For this episode, the panel will be watching the latest release of the DC animated films entitled Superman: Man of Tomorrow, set to relaunch the series with a new direction.

For copyright reasons, we cannot provide the movie itself, but after a short introduction, you will be told when to sync your copy of the film so you can following along with us and listen to our thoughts on the movie as we crack some jokes, expose plot holes, and discuss anything else that comes to our minds for commentary.

FanTracks Episode 30 hosted by Tony Mango along with Robert DeFelice .

Make sure to subscribe/follow on whatever platform you're listening, leave your comments on the videos or this post, share this with your friends and geek out with us!

Make sure to subscribe to Fanboys Anonymous on YouTube, Google, iTunes, Spotify and more!

Welcome to another edition of WEEK IN GEEK here at Fanboys Anonymous—a rundown of some of the events, news and stories that went down over the past few days in the geek culture spectrum.

I never bothered to watch The Office when it was running. I had convinced myself that since it was so popular and it was advertised as "that cooky Steve Carell show", I would hate it, so I shouldn't even bother.

What a mistake that was.

Many people have treated this COVID-19 pandemic as a means to catch up on movies and television, and while I haven't had the free time to do that, I did decide on a whim to give The Office a shot, if given the opportunity.

What's the worst that could happen? I watch a few episodes, hate it, figure "I was right all along" and move on to another thing?

Well, I liked it from the start and got hooked to the point where I loved it.

Binging all 9 seasons of a show like this during the span of one month was a journey. It wasn't nearly the same as growing 9 years older with these characters like most fans of the show, though. But even still, I decided to write down a lot of my thoughts along the way and share them so those fans could see how the series was viewed through different eyes—and yet, I get a sense we still came to the same conclusions about a lot of things.

There's no clean, organized way of doing this, so let's just dive right in.

Jim and Pam

The love story between Jim and Pam is the crux of the show. Had that not worked from the beginning and continued to be solid, the whole series has a bad foundation.

Thankfully, they never ran into much of the tropes so many of these shows fall victim to. Even the good ones, like How I Met Your Mother and Scrubs, are guilty of some really cliche situations and plot contrivances.

One of the things I absolutely loved about The Office was how there wasn't manufactured tension for extended periods that drove the show. Nearly every show has nearly every episode about how the characters are fighting with one another or there are entire seasons dedicated to a problem that could have been solved with a few seconds of talking.

Like "real people", there were moments of issues between Jim and Pam (and other characters), but it wasn't some sensational thing. They'd argue or have things in their way, but most of the time, it didn't feel like some writer just threw in a wrench because "wouldn't that be interesting?" That did happen a few times, but not often.

For example, a lesser show would have had Jim be a terrible person to Karen. Or for Karen to pop back into Jim's life and try to win him back so Pam is on the defense. Or, with the inclusion of Cathy, they would have had that awful trope where she kisses Jim and Pam sees it, walks away and doesn't see that a moment later, Jim scolds Cathy for doing something he didn't want. Then, a whole season revolves around him having to prove he didn't initiate the kiss or have feelings. Had that happened, it would have been awful textbook crap and I'm glad The Office was better than that.

Instead of just tolerating the romantic subplot, the Jim and Pam angle was one of my absolute favorite things about The Office. I rooted for them from the start and didn't feel disappointed along the way.

Immediately, I pegged Jim as the most likable character. I also thought Roy was shitty and needed to go, which made him a great foil. Katy as a fake Pam was a nice touch.

I'm glad the show didn't stall on their relationship. You know they're interested in each other right out of the gate, they establish their feelings early on, and each season they take one or two steps forward (until, admittedly, they hit a bit of a snag. We'll get to that with the season 8 problem or so.)

You can kind of live for those moments where Jim has spent time away at the Stamford branch and by the end of the season, he asks Pam on a date. You're thinking FINALLY, and it didn't take 6 seasons to get there. It was basically 2, since the first season's so short.

Good lord. The teapot note. My heart. When that came back at the end, that was a beautiful touch, and I'm glad we don't get to know what was said on it. We don't need to know.

I'm glad both Jim and Pam are more than just their relationship, too.

Pam's the heart of the show in a lot of ways and even though she didn't get to become some majorly famous artist, she got her moment in the sun. Also, what the hell, people? You didn't go to her art show? Awful friends. That was a great moment when Michael was so proud of her and bought the painting, though. I loved that. Major highlight moment for the series.

Jim's got his future career that he'll be much happier with, overall, than selling paper. Even though it's sad to think the gang can't all just keep hanging out, that's not life. You need endings to some things and this is a happy ending. That guy was always better than this job and now, he gets a chance to fulfill his true potential. He was there to meet Pam and develop these relationships and then to move on. Happy ending.

Jim and Pam make the show. Had they been written off or anything, it would have needed to been cancelled. They were both such great, lovable characters and their relationship was amazing.

Dwight K. Schrute

My first impression was "Dwight's a great character, but I can see myself getting annoyed of him once they try to make him break out too much."

There was only one instance of that, which was the episode The Farm.

It's to my understanding this was somewhat of a backdoor pilot to see if they could do a spin-off with that group and give Dwight his own show, right? If so, thank God it didn't happen. That would have been brutal, as I couldn't even take that episode.

Sometimes, they went a little too out there with the farm stuff in general and could have dialed it back a bit. But they'd frequently tone it down for some other episodes. My preference was always more of the office stuff with him, rather than getting deep into the weird, over-the-top rituals and such.

But how great is Dwight? They really found the right balance of making sure he's weird, but not annoying, and someone you could see yourself growing to pity-love if you were around the guy and could witness how strange he is.

He doesn't get nerfed when his character grows. As in, once he starts showing emotions, it's not like they destroyed his edge. They really, really did well with him.

I'm very glad they made it so he's Phillip was his son and Angela just didn't want Dwight to want to be with her for that reason. Nice touch. I'm also glad Dwight and Angela got together just in general. It was hard not to want that to happen once they had such good chemistry early on.

SO happy with the rapport Dwight and Jim had for the final episodes. Their rivalry was more like siblings than enemies, so you needed to have them end on good terms. Having them both endorse the other as a good potential manager shows they can put their egos aside. Hugging each other and Dwight making Clark move out of Jim's seat was a great gesture. And I LOVED the dynamic of A.A.R.M. I could have eaten up a whole season of that.

Dwight deserved to be the manager. That's the best ending I was hoping for him.

Michael Scott

It's odd. Michael was the main reason I didn't watch the show when it was on and now that I did, I'll flat out say when he left, the show got worse.

My first impression was that I didn't really like him, initially. It took a little while for me to warm up to the character. A few episodes in, though, I was pretty sold. I can't actually tell you even when it was that I started liking him, but it might have been The Dundies (season 2 episode 1). Eventually, the note I wrote was "Michael would be so infuriating to work for, but he's too nice of a person to dislike."

His rhythm of being the centerpiece with which everything revolved around worked so well because he was equal parts subdued for the cameras as well as crazy for the plot. It's a mundane setting and you get the sense that Michael's the driving force for a lot of the antics that go down. That's the way it should be. He serves a purpose as the main protagonist because he's the subject.

That's why it's such a downer when he leaves the show and they can't find a new rhythm. Again, we're going to address this further down in another section, but in short, I feel like once Michael leaves, the series goes downhill and doesn't recover until the finale.

Speaking of when he left. Maaaaan. I got a little choked up with his letter of recommendation for Dwight, but when he and Jim said their goodbyes that weren't really goodbyes, that got me really teary.

As far as his love life went, I'll admit that I grew a little tired of Jan at times. She went from a solid foil to a great character to one that overstayed her welcome. Then, after she left, I was glad to see her pop up for a cameo.

But Holly was key. She worked so well as his true love that it was great to see his exit from the show at least came about for a happy reason. Seeing that Michael has kids and is happy and grows up a bit (but not so much that he can't still crack a "that's what she said" joke) and be Dwight's best man (as Jim's surprise, nonetheless) was so so so so goooooood.

Andy Bernard

So much to unpack here. Where do I get started?

Andy was a roller coaster ride and not for the right reasons, most of the time. Here's the adventure I went on with his character:

1. Hated him. I thought he was just a side element that would be gone once the Stamford storyline ended and he was there just to be "a worse Dwight" to prove that Jim would rather work with Dwight in comparison. Totally wrong.
2. Totally right about one thing, though. When he was brought in with the other Stamfordites, I was hoping he and Karen would be the only two that would stay and they'd find a role for them on the show. Eventually, Karen started to prove herself as not having much of a character, so I was okay with her leaving the show, too.
3. However, once Andy started being the suck up to Michael, I liked the character a lot more. He served a purpose and was different from Dwight in that role.
4. Dating Angela? Not a huge fan of him during that time. He got a little obnoxious and they went a bit too far into the idea of poking at him so we'd prefer Dwight. It worked, but it made Andy more annoying.
5. Trying to date Erin? Endearing. I liked him again.
6. Andy's brought on as the manager and becomes Michael Lite. More on that later.
7. But hey, he went ahead with the tattoo. He's trying. Also, cute moment that its a Nard Dog. I really liked that camaraderie and it made me feel good that maybe he'd work out well as the new boss in the long run for the show.
8. Then, he became too much of a focal point and I'm annoyed with him again because too much of season 8 was about Andy and Robert California.
9. But hey, he's not anywhere near as bad as Nellie. Holy shit. Let's get rid of her and bring Andy back!
10. Aaaaand now I hate Andy again when he leaves on the boat trip because he's become an entirely unlikable character. It's almost as if they had a vendetta against Ed Helms for being busy with The Hangover.
11. Ultimately, he lands where he should have. Andy's better off at Cornell and while they made him a meme to get made fun of, they also didn't fully crap on him in the finale.

• Hilary Swank is hot. C'mon now.
• I love that the same stripper kept popping up.
• Whatever happened to Danny Cordray?
• I expected a little more payoff for the Scranton Strangler.
• So was Kevin's fudging of the numbers the reason why Scranton was always doing better?
• Astrid is Hunter's kid, right?
• Who the fuck is Louanne?

Welcome to another edition of WEEK IN GEEK here at Fanboys Anonymous—a rundown of some of the events, news and stories that went down over the past few days in the geek culture spectrum.

1. Cody
2. Enzo
3. Nicole A
4. Ian
5. Danielle
6. Memphis
7. David
8. Janelle
9. Tyler 
10. Christmas

Welcome to another edition of WEEK IN GEEK here at Fanboys Anonymous—a rundown of some of the events, news and stories that went down over the past few days in the geek culture spectrum.