2.5 Razors

Red Sonja Holiday Special

/ / Comics

The 2021 Red Sonja Holiday Special offers a pair of mostly forgettable stories set in the cold of winter for readers that take place outside of Sonja‘s current timeline.

After being cursed by a dying wizard, Red Sonja finds herself haunted by a ghost in “Sonja’s Carol” forcing the She-Devil with a Sword to look back at her recent choices and how continuing to kill for Draken will poison her future.

In “The Dance of Fire” Sonja sets out after a pair of thieves and killers known as the Gallows Brothers only to stumble across an odd ritual in the woods as a wizard forces Sonja to dance around a fire with the other maidens, offering their lives to the gods for a plentiful harvest. Despite forcing Sonja to dance all night, things don’t turn out as the wizard had hoped.

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Mayday

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Mayday
  • IMDb: link

Mayday is a far less creepy and sexually-explorative version of similar themes found in Zack Snyder‘s 2011 travesty Sucker Punch. Grace Van Patten stars as Ana, an abused and unappreciated hotel worker who retreats from her world into a fantasy where she awakes as part of a small all-girl battalion acting as sirens leading soldiers to their death with a series of false mayday messages that steer them into oncoming storms.

The movie is primarily focused on Ana, her introduction and ultimate rebellion against her new life bringing her into conflict with the sirens’ leader Marsha (Mia Goth). Figures from Ana’s real life appear as different characters on the island including her brutal boss and a few of her coworkers. Mayday is an interesting idea on a shoestring budget that doesn’t quite work but does offer a solid message about standing up for yourself, embracing life’s hardships, and not running away from your problems.

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Wonder Woman: Black & Gold #6

/ / Comics

The concluding issue of Wonder Woman: Black & Gold offers five more tales of Wonder Woman‘s adventures in black and white, with a splash of gold. The six-issue mini-series ends on more of whimper than a bang. My favorite of the bunch, “Attack of the 50-Foot Wonder Woman,” swaps the powers between Giganta and and out-of-control giant Wonder Woman who her adversary has to find a way to talk down.

“Role Model” showcases Wonder Woman’s generational impact on the women of the world by highlighting her relationship with an old friend who has grown into her role of a Congresswoman years later. In “The Prophet” the adventures of an exiled Amazon Berchta returns to Themyscira as told through the fevered visions of someone dreaming Wonder Woman in another world.

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Injustice

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Injustice
  • IMDb: link

Adapted from the 2013 video game and subsequent comic series, Injustice offers a look at a dark future where tragedy befalls Lois Lane (Laura Bailey) which changes the path of Superman (Justin Hartley) and the DCU. The game was far from the first to examine this idea.

Kingdom Come, in which the Joker (Kevin Pollak) is also responsible for Lois’ death, gives us a future where Superman retreats and a new generation of less-honorable heroes take his place. Justice League‘s “A Better World” gives us an alternate Earth where the League has become Lords of a dystopian future. Both are more effective versions of similar themes than what we are given here.

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The Blacklist – Benjamin T. Okara

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: The Blacklist – Benjamin T. Okara
  • wiki: link

The latest case, involving someone killing using secret DARPA technology to murder the scientists who designed it, takes a backseat to several ongoing B-stories involving someone framing Harold Cooper (Harry Lennix) for murder, Alina‘s (Laura Sohn) health and a bombshell dropped on her marriage, and trouble for Raymond Reddington (James Spader) regarding Dembe‘s (Hisham Tawfiq) work for the FBI. The later causes Red to question his return again when Dembe’s life is put in danger by a potential ally and he’s forced to choose whether to protect Dembe or allow him to come to harm. It’s unfortunate that the Blacklister and the invention get bumped for so many of these other stories that aren’t nearly as interesting (although the Dembe storyline does end in a tease as to what Reddington left his former comrade in a box).

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