Things I’m Looking Forward To
Mortal Kombat vs. DC
As crazy as it sounds, of all the news to come out of the convention at the weekend this was the one I was most excited about, mostly because it was so unexpected. I had no idea there was another Mortal Kombat game in the pipeline, never mind a comic book crossover.
There’s not much to say about it at this point, but hell, I’ve only got one other post listed under “Games” over there in the right-hand column, looking all lonely. Even “Manga” has more entries.
Mortal Kombat is a fondly remembered childhood game, a remnant of a more innocent past where me and my friends would trade information on the best way to gruesomely dispatch opponents during the finishing move window at the end of a successful bout. I never really got the hang of Street Fighter, but I was always more of a Sega fan, so MK was my first choice. Like the rest of the world, I favoured the ninjas: Reptile from the sequel, Scorpion in the original. Ah, great times. The more recent entries in the franchise weren’t up to much according to the reviews, so I never bothered with them.
By the same token, while comic book computer games are usually utter pants, there have been some really good ones in the past ten years or so: X-Men Legends was good, and the Spider-Man 2 game was absolutely fantastic. So a great DC comics fighter would be awesome. So yeah, they’ve got me coming and going with this one. In fact, as long as it isn’t utterly unplayable there’s not much chance I’m not going to pick this up. I remember the Star Wars fighter (Masters of Teras-Kasi? Something like that) from years ago that most reviewers didn’t rate, but me and the posse (oh yeah, I had a posse. Believe it) lost hours on, just because we got to use a lightsabre and be Chewbacca.
Final Crisis
I wasn’t expecting to look forward to this at all, what with event fatigue and everything, and oh, I am conflicted. On one hand, I’ve lost all patience with DC obsessively crossing over every single title in their line with a frankly incomprehensible and (worse yet) fucking boring overarching plot. Never mind yet another Crisis.
But. But but but. Grant Morrison.
The interview with him over at Comic Book Resources last week utterly sold me on Batman RIP and this summer’s event, albeit with a few reservations. Obviously, Morrison is awesome and I check out damn near anything he writes, the epic scope of the DCU is never better than when he handles it, and the series promises (really really promises, honest this time) not to cross itself over to destruction. Heck, I’ve not got a huge interest in Darkseid or the Fourth World (one of these days I’ll get round to a post explaining why), and yet Morrison’s got me intrigued between the hints from 52 and the Mister Miracle section of Seven Soldiers.
The reservations: Will Morrison get micro-managed, especially if it looks like the series is already running late? Despite assurances, is it really going to be self-contained? If Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi are on form with their tie-ins (both were involved in the Sinestro Corps War, remember, the best crossovery thing for many a year and a brilliant story in its own right) then I won’t mind dropping some cash on them, but I’m not a huge Greg Rucka fan and I’m not getting his issues so I’m hoping nothing important happens in them, and by important I mean “necessary for enjoyment and understanding of the greater story arc”, not “someone dies horribly”. I recall the fun of DC 1,000,000 being curtailed because of some important points that happened in fucking Resurrection Man, of all titles.
Speaking of the death thing, once again a story is being driven by someone important dying, and seriously, I don’t give a shit. Really I don’t. Used way too many times to be anything other than a cliché, so I really hope Morrison knows this and is going to go somewhere interesting and surprising with it (same goes for Batman RIP, actually). And from the interview, that looks like what he’s got planned, so I’ve got my fingers crossed that he’s going to pull it off. I have faith.
