Spider-Noir, Harley Quinn and Kite Man

A trio of alternate superhero shows!

Spider-Noir

This currently single season story has Nicolas Cage star as a 1930's private detective who also moonlights as "The Spider", their version of Spiderman - and guess what? When you have a good story, good characters and good acting you get a good result! Without a doubt this is now our favorite version of Spiderman. On Prime you even have the option to watch in in black and white if you want. Highly recommended and hope they make a season two!

Harley Quinn (and Kite Man, Hell Yeah!)

This currently five season animated comedy features the titular Harley Quinn who starts off breaking up with Joker and then forming her own gang. A lot of the laughs come from the irreverent way it treats the whole cast, with many extras dying gruesome deaths, but it can quickly get abrasive if that's not your sort of thing. Definitely shines brighter in the earlier seasons than the later ones. 

Kite Man, Hell Yeah is a currently one season spin off from Harley Quinn and follows the adventures of the guy whose power is he has a kite? It has the same tone too so if you like the main show you'd probably like it.

The Faces of Harley Quinn

From the recent DC games I was playing.

She's got a lot of screentime. :)

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

Where bullets solve everything!

In this game you play as one of the criminals recruited into the expendable Task Force X to retake Metropolis from Braniac's invasion - and he just so happens to be controlling the Justice League! While Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Deadshot and King Shark have slightly varying modes of speedy and vertical transportation all of them heavily employ firearms to deal most of their damage: especially in boss fights where you don't want to or simply can't be next to your target.

The game play is quite fun and the animations are fantastic, but they really shot themselves in the foot by making the "after the main game chapters" which continues the story (albeit lacking cut scenes now - replaced instead with comic strips), adds new squad members, and pretty much makes you fight the same bosses with slight twists but in exchange for a huge amount of grinding. I only did the easier / faster half of those chapters before calling it quits. While I did enjoy this, I can't really recommend it because of that. 

Birds of Prey and the Rise of the Black Swan

Two action movies that go in completely different directions.

Birds of Prey

"and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn" is a really long winded way to get the Harley Quinn name into this title which actually takes place in between Suicide Squad and The Suicide Squad. Told from Harley's point of view this takes place right after she gets dumped by the Joker which removes her "protection" from all the many people she has wronged. Margot Robbie does a great job again as Harley, but the intentional disjointed story telling at the start as well as her narrating the tale really does make it suffer a bit, along with the usual blind luck and idiot bad guys that seem to permeate superhero shows. There's also an obvious boys vs girls theme going on which should be expected.

That said it still is quite entertaining to watch if you can stick with it, and there are some really good fight scenes thrown in - especially one which lets Harley display her proficiency with a bat. If she wasn't crazy I'd say she should always be carrying one! Definitely one for Margot Robbie or Harley Quinn fans and one that should at least be on the radar for action fans. For kicks my wife also tried recreate the breakfast sandwich featured here and it was pretty good, so there's that too! Not the best superhero flick but not a terrible one either. I give it three diamonds out of five, and I'd only watch the bat fight scene again.

SAS: Rise of the Black Swan

Hunting season is open!

A band of train hijackers have a wrench thrown into their plans as SAS operative Tom Buckingham (Sam Heughan) happens to be onboard for a vacation. An excellent script, exciting action sequences and good acting all around make this a very enthralling movie with very few slow parts. Also, now I know about the Channel Train tunnel between England and France which is probably common knowledge to most people but that was a new one for me.

Yes the baddies do goof a bit, especially at the end, but that just makes for a more exiting tale. Highly recommended for action fans, Outlander fans, or simply fans of good movies as this "Die Hard on a train" will satisfy most viewers. I'd definitely watch it again and give it four train loos out of five.

F9 (Fast and Furious 9) and The Suicide Squad

A contrast of what to do with large casts.

F9 (Fast & Furious 9)

Plot armor front and center.

Dominic Torreto's (Vin Diesel) quiet life is interrupted when his crew come to him for help on an urgent mission which involves a lot of vehicles, explosions, and a few decent fight scenes. Plot wise though... the writers must have looked at the previous movies and said "how can we make this even more ludicrous?" They succeeded.

Gangsta's in space yo

Almost nothing makes sense in this film so if you watch it, it is purely for the spectacle of the action scenes and to see them use the "oh this character isn't actually dead" again trope which they've already previously done. Much like bloat of superhero shows these days if the writers are braver in pruning characters (especially favorites) I think it would make for a stronger series. As it stands I don't think I'd give it a second viewing and score this two space cars of five.

The Suicide Squad

A high death count makes for a great movie.

They're a fun bunch!

Much better than the previous Suicide Squad, this movie again throws criminals with special abilities into an important yet dangerous mission in a foreign country. It is funny, gory, violent and very entertaining. The main crew are quite likeable this time around, and surprisingly it is Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) who seems to be the odd-girl out with an unnecessary side plot but she is fantastic as usual so I'll let that slide. Not much else to say other than I highly recommend it and would definitely watch it again! Four starfish out of five!

Invasion of the Everything

Part of my Explorer of Tyria journal - you can find the rest here!

Guildwars 2 zones have come under attack by the forces of the seemingly too smart for her own good jester sylvari, Scarlet - who made her grand(er?) entrance during the closing ceremony of the Queen's Jubilee. She's far too interesting to be Trahearne's evil twin, so I'm now guessing she is the "Harley Quinn" to the Mad King's "Joker"... and I'm Batman! Well, no I guess I'm just one of the Gotham PD in that analogy because everyone is a hero and because I'm not rich. :P

Harley is way hotter than Scarlet though.

She's been a busy little plant though as not only does she have the tech and forces of the steam creatures, the sheeply stupid molten alliance and a small country of aetherblade pirates at her disposal - she also has twisted the watchwork knights in Divinity's Reach to her will turning them into... uh... Decepticons? From her barricaded position within the Crown Pavillion she sends them out in huge numbers via steam portals, and joins the forays herself just to remind everyone who is behind the attacks.

Really have to keep an eye on the clock if you want to participate in stopping these though (and to continue the story, you NEED to participate in at least SIX or have a buddy who already did that for you). A window of 10 minutes at the start of every hour is all you have to waypoint to the hot zone and once there expect to be way pointing around more to stop the gazillion foes warping in. Thank the gods Kiel won with her cheaper WP costs!

If you miss the entry window you will be sitting on your hands for 50 minutes, being left out and simply "waiting to have fun". GW2 likes introducing mechanics where you wait to have fun. They really are carefully going through that first manifesto and breaking every point they had. One of the achievements needs you to participate in 13 at the minimum (13 hours on the hour) but likely it will be more since you need to luck out and get 13 unique zones.

Fortunately the rewards are pretty good, better I think than the Crown Pavillion circuit but that may look more appealing after Kiel's WP reduction runs out after the next few weeks. I know I'll be participating as much as I can, that's for sure. Never had as much gold as now, yet I still don't have enough for a commander tag. I'm poor. :(