It feels like 2018 just got started, and here we are already in August. I'd say it was the height of the convention season, what with SDCC having just wrapped up and GenCon kicking off, but really the convention circuit has become a year-round event -- which keeps cosplayers busier than ever!

This month, Critical Blast has selected as their monthly cosplay Bombshell a cosplayer who not only strives to bring characters off the page and screen into life, he also isn't afraid to reinvent them. Whether he's ready for action as IRON FIST or ready for another cold one as Hawkeye from the Redneck Avengers, this Bombshell knows how to bring the heat to his cosplay game.

So without further yakking, Critical Blast is happy to introduce to our readers the...

A daddy takes his adorable little girl out in the evening hours when the moon and stars are in the sky to catch fireflies.  The little girl is barefoot and in her pajamas.  She counts the fireflies she catches, and they light up her jar and glow in the night.  She loves looking at the fireflies but knows she cannot keep them.  She takes one firefly out of her jar, and she tells it good-bye as she lets it fly away.  The little girl empties her jar and sees many sparkling and shining fireflies all over her backyard like tiny stars.  She and her daddy return to their home while she hopes for another firefly night tomorrow.

All year, Saban has been celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the debut of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.  We've gotten the huge SHATTERED GRID arc in the comics, an online channel featuring a new Power Rangers RPG, and there was even a massive Power Rangers marathon on Twitch.  The one thing that everyone has been real quiet about is what they would be doing on the Power Rangers TV series to celebrate.  UNTIL NOW!

First and foremost: If you haven't seen AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR and/or ANT-MAN AND THE WASP, you're probably not even reading this article, so the whole "Spoiler Warning" thing should be a moot point. However, on the microscopic chance that you've just stepped in from Taured and are thus unaware of these MCU events, we'll say it anyway: We're going to talk as though we've all been to the films here. So there, you've been warned.

I was heavy into comics when Vertigo cut its teeth, bringing to comics weirdness for weirdness' sake. It was fun at first, but after a while many of the titles got to where I simply needed to be on the same drugs as the writer to get the context and narrative, and I wasn't willing to go that far.

TAP DANCE KILLER, however, brings a weirdness of a different kind. With a Troma-style plotline and an outrageous cast of characters, TAP DANCE KILLER manages to bring the readers a weirdness that doesn't lose them, posing a series of unanswered questions that don't require immediate answers to understand what's going on.

The second season of CW's RIVERDALE was a dark and tumultuous ride, as the town found itself under siege by the Black Hood, a masked killer who sought out those he had deemed sinners. And as Archie seeks revenge for the shooting of his father, he gets in deeper and deeper with the dangerous Hiram Lodge, with all debts coming due in the jaw-dropping season finale!

With the third season getting ready to drop, now is the best time to binge the entire second season so that you're all up to date on the action with Archie, Jughead, Betty, Veronica, Cheryl, and the rest of the Riverdale Bulldogs and Vixens to find out what happens next! And Critical Blast wants to help you in that endeavor by putting up for grabs this entire second season on DVD! All you have to do is use the following form below to enter. Notice that there are multiple options -- you can take all of them to multiply your chances of winning!

Review By The Masked Ace

In the UK, ITV debuted the first episode of it's new World of Sport Wrestling this week.  While it is not really available to US viewers, it is not particularly hard to find if you want to check it out.  Not that the Masked Ace is suggesting that you should violate any copyright laws...of course...

Apparently Forbes contributor Scott Mendelson thinks Disney and Marvel must atone for the sin of firing James Gunn from his role as director and script writer for GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 3 after a history of pedophilia-related tweets came to light, and he's offered a few opportunities for the corporate HMFICs to "save face" in the way they proceed.

Heaven forfend Disney and Marvel should simply keep their focus on producing great movies. No, they must now be ready to not just hire a new director -- they have to cast one.

There are a lot of dominoes toppling in DOOMSDAY CLOCK #6 -- small ones, but ones that are sure to cascade forward and have a greater impact further into the series.

With TRULY LAUGH, Geoff Johns and Gary Frank delve into the backstory of our dollfaced duo, Marionette and Mime, taking us back once more into that horrid world of The Watchmen where nearly every one is cruel and innocence is lost early in life. Through these flashbacks, we meet Erika as a young girl, and the mute Marcos whose family opens the glassware store across the street from her father's puppet shop. Erika's father is beholden to the police, who use his store as a front for dropping off and picking up payoffs, while Marcos' mother defends him against his step-father. As events cosnpire together, Johns paints a truly sympathetic origin story for this pair.

Pirates, airships, and floating castles … Oh My!  Bert is dropped off at a boarding school at the young age of three by a cloaked man of mystery.  He is said to be an orphan from the streets.  Bert’s world has a strong government presence, with the royal family fighting to regain more power.  Prince Voss is the head of the royal family and is determined to take over at any cost.

When Bert is thirteen, his school goes on a museum field trip.  Here, things start to happen…magical things!   Bert meets his first pirate, the Professor.  Bert is also drawn through a mirror and begins seeing and hearing things no one else around him can.  He also experiences his powers for the first time.

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s long-running weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

Comics shipping this week

Quite a few new series coming out this week.

It was a foregone conclusion that seemed to take forever, but the inevitable response has finally come down. Walt Disney Studios, parent company of Marvel Studios, has cut ties with Director James Gunn over a collection of tweets and blog statements that relied on pedophilia as a source of edgy humor.

While Gunn took to Twitter overnight to delete the tweets, critics wondered how Disney could see their way to keeping Gunn on the high-profile Marvel Cinematic Universe project, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, particularly in contrast to the swiftness with which Disney subsidiary, ABC Television, cut ties with Roseanne Barr after a tweet, despite her stratospheric tv ratings.

The twitter account @AnOpenSecret dropped some huge bombshell's ahead of James Gunn's appearance in Hall H tonight at SDCC.

Digging deep into Gunn's twitter history, going back as far as 9 years, @AnOpenSecret posted screenshots of grotesque comments made by the Guardians of the Galaxy director. The comments range from discussing pubescent children, raping American Idol contestants, and being uriniated on by a child.

***GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING***

The first season of IRON FIST arrived with mixed reviews, but after a shakeup in the production team, they're ready to debut season 2.

The first season gave us Danny Rand's origin story as we pieced together how he ended up in K'un-Lun and we watched his powers slowly developed. As he embraces his calling, season 2 is expected to allow him to really cut loose with his abilities as his ongoing battle against evil continues.

During San Diego Comic Con, there was a panel to celebrate the 10th anniversary of STAR WARS: CLONE WARS.  The panel ended with one hell of a surprise: 4 years after being cancelled, CLONE WARS IS BACK!  According to Gamespot, "Fans got their first look at an older Anakin, Obi-Wan, Rex, and Ahsoka in a new SDCC trailer, which you can watch below. A total of 12 new episodes of the animated series are officially coming to Disney's upcoming streaming service."

It's a lovely summer day in Gotham City, as citizens throng the World's Science Fair, eager to see the technology of tomorrow!

But wait!

What's this?!?

Poison Ivy -- airborne aboard a flying snapdragon?

It's a good thing the Caped Crusaders are on hand to put an end to this botany gone bad! But the perfidious plant plunderer was merely a cover for another of Gotham's most dastardly villains to commit a crime, as that larcenous librarian, the Bookworm, uses the distraction to steal the world's first electronic book, capable of storing over twenty different books in their entirety! As Batman, Robin, and Batgirl wrap up the sultry siren of shrubbery, he makes his getaway, but he won't be free for long. Because crime doesn't pay in Gotham City.

DC has opened up a website for their DC Universe web platform for pre-orders!  It doesn't actually launch until the fall, but if you subscribe now, you will get an additional three months free when it launches.  The pricing they announced is $7.99 a month of $74.99 for a year.  DC Universe works on desktop and all your iOS and Android devices. It’s also compatible with Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV and Google Chromecast.  No mention of Roku at the moment.

So what do you get for your $75?  Looks like quite a bit...

Smiley is an adorable character who takes a walk through the woods on a beautiful day.  The sun is shining and the birds are joyfully singing.  Smiley decides to count the singing birds he sees in the trees and flying around.  When he gets to twelve birds, he realizes there are more birds than he can count.  Smiley decides to just fly around with the birds and enjoy the day and their song.  Smiley and the birds are very happy until a large, mean bird appears scaring all the birds.  The mean bird chases and snaps at the smaller birds until Smiley confronts the large bird.  The large bird abruptly stops in its flight.  Smiley scares it away.  All the small birds hug Smiley, and they continue to fly around and sing happily.  Smiley then counts the birds backward from ten to one as he descends back to the ground.  And so the story goes, Smiley wakes up.  It was all just a dream!  

At the Hyatt Regency O'Hare in Rosemont, Illinois, anime fans came together to celebrate their fandom and share their love of a genre.

If you couldn't make it, fret not! Our own CosplayKitti was on the scene, capturing the moments and talking with vendors and attendees. Enjoy!

--Editor

Remember that feeling you had when you walked out of the theater after BACK TO THE FUTURE? I don't mean watching it at home on DVD (or VHS), I mean in the theater, because it means you were there, in that moment, in that era, when the 80s were in full swing and pop culture was expanding into new, uncharted waters. It was the time of the arcade games, parachute pants, and a rich variety of music that launched a renaissance.

When I sat down to watch READY PLAYER ONE, I had not seen the theatrical version. I had not read the book. And when I saw the opening scene, with its cinematically ominous Blade Hunter date and the post-apocalyptic landscape, I groaned. I didn't want another one of these.

That lasted for all of about three seconds, after which I was in sheer fanboy ecstasy for over two hours.