Marvel Madness - Day Three

Here we go again with day three, once I finish with a section of a bracket, I will attach the file so you can look at if you'd like to.

23. Tiger Shark

vs.
42. Ghost
Matchup Analysis: If you aren't familiar with Ghost, shame on you, you should have been reading Thunderbolts the last three years. Tiger Shark is Namor foe.

55. Black Tarantula

vs.
10. Proteus

Proteus is a very popular, highly powerful X-villian. The only reason he is ranked this low is because his appearances are so rare. Black Tarantula is a classic Daredevil villian that has been very hero-y in recent years.

39. Matthew Risman

vs.

Aleksander Lukin

Matchup analysis: Aleksander Lukin and Matthew Risman are very new characters and both are really just deeply evil men without powers, if you're not familiar with them, just check the Wiki's.

58. Tenebrous

vs.
7. Destroyer

Picture disappeared, you know who he is, and I'm a lazy blogger.

Tenebrous is a new character that not much is known about but he has Galactus level power. Destroyer is probably Thor's second biggest archrival.

18. Hyperion

vs.
47. Count Nefaria

Matchup analysis: Hyperion is only sometimes is a villian and really every time he shows up it's a new one from a different dimension, but as a key adversary in Exiles he was outstanding. Count Nefaria is a classic Avengers villian that really hasn't been seen much in the modern era.

50. Trevor Fitzroy

vs.

15. Blastaar

Matchup analysis: Blastaar is best known for being the second best villian from the negative zone but has been very involved in recent cosmic crossovers. Fitzroy killed Professor X to kick of the Age of Apocalypse and hasn't done much else in comics.

31. Rhino

vs.
34. Spymaster

Matchup analysis: One of these gets to be crushed by Galactus in round two.

63. Tyrant

vs.
2. Galactus

Unitentionally, we ended up with Galactus facing off against his long lost, and short lived son. Interesting, but I'd surprised if this is close regardless.

Pre-season countdown

23. Texas

Short analysis, last season was a fluke and there is too much talent on this team to not be back in the top 25 again this season.

NFL Free Agent analysis: Ochocinco and Haynesworth to Patriots, and the Dolphins trade for Reggie Bush instead of Bradshaw or Marion Barber. Summary: FML, the Fins will never compete in this damn division again.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Currently sitting at 55% complete, found all 100 hidden packages today, and true to form somehow ended up with only 99 of them. Now I have to decide whether to stop playing or actually go back to all 100 spots and see which one I missed.

Marvel Madness - Day Two

44. In-Betweener

vs.
21. Typhoid Man
53. Ord

vs.
12. Harry Osborn (Second Green Goblin)

39. Master Man

vs.
28. Madame Masque

60. Shinobi Shaw

vs.

5. Mr. Sinister

20. Lady Deathstrike

vs.
45. Morlun

52. Deacon Frost

vs.
13. Purple Man

36. Mr. Negative

vs.
29. Lizard

61. Shriek

vs.
3. Juggernaut

Preseason Countdown Continues with.......

24. Tulsa

I honestly don't think I'll take the time to write about these teams until I reach the top fifteen. You can read about the Golden Hurricane here, if you care too.

The more important college football note of the day is the revealed outlawing of Boise State's blue jerseys at home games in Mountain West conference plays. For years, opposing players have complained that the Broncos are practically invisible in those jerseys against the smurf turf, which to me sounds like a lot of excuse-making for taking an ass-whooping at Bronco stadium.

I'd like to point out that regardless of jerseys, every player on the field should take note of where opposing players are before the play starts. Bronco jerseys still have big white numbers on the front, orange trim, and visible skin under the helmet and likely in other places as well. If you got blindsided by an "invisible" bronoco, maybe because you didn't take the time to see where the opposing player was at before the ball was snapped and deserve to have you clock cleaned. The only time I think of this excuse as viable is on special teams plays where players are seperated by great lengths of field and often van't be seen until they are already moving 20 miles per hour but that is the case for any team and unless you think special team alone are responsible for the large number of 50+ point victories over the past few years, I think the rule is ridiculous.

The NFL had a busy day of agreeing to potential deals and trades that can't be finalized until Friday. I found a handful of deals particularly interesting.

- Deangelo Williams resigns with the Carolina Panthers: This is interesting because the Panthers have spent a lot of money now on resigning players that were on the leagues worst team from a season ago. You Cam Newton will get a big deal to tie a good chunk of any remaining salary space so Carolina seems to think a rookie QB and the names from last year will turn the ship around. I personally would have gone after a cornerback or a linebacker.

- Donovan McNabb to the Vikings: This is just huge for Minnesota and with seemingly no QB deals to add for Wahington on the horizon and today's "big get" of Donte Stallworth at WR could mean a 32nd ranked passing offense for the Redskins this year.

- The New York Jets re-signed Santonio Holmes: I heard the rumor that the Jets were almost right at the salary cap when the new CBA was passed, but today they signed Santonio for 50 mill and they are also negotiating with Braylon Edwards, Nmadi Asomogha, and Randy Moss. Do cap rules not apply to New York teams?

- The glass man to be displayed behind center for the Tennessee Titans for, oh, five games or so this year, probably next. Seattle fans don't like what they at QB now but don't seem to broken up about the loss either.

- No signing in Miami yet but Kyle Orton, Ahmad Bradshaw, and Marion Barber all rumored to be potential fish before the week is out. Even better, this likely means that Ricky Williams can go bother someone else for a few years before dying of an overdose or something.

Marvel Madness Begins - And So Does the Preseason Countdown

What happens you have one week with nothing to do except brainstorm and write a little? I mean very little, like you have to do it 5 minute spurts, and you can't research anything you write. What happens is you come up with a ridiculously uneccesary tournament that truly opens your heart and exposes the depth of your nerdiness.

This past week I "worked" at a call center where I was not able to take calls until a large amount of paperwork could filter it's way in from 47 states, but I had to sit and listen to other calls. I could not bring books to read, nor could use a computer. I had a pen and paper and as an attempt to kill time, decided to list every Marvel villian I could think of.

That did not take nearly eight hours, so then I decided to rank them by villany greatness, and then I decided to break them up into brackets for an oversized villian vs. villian tournament for the right to be named the sports blogs greatest Marvel villian. The tournament features 256 villians, split into four brackets March Madness style, with villians seeded 1-64 in each bracket.

The tournament will be scored by reader votes, after you read each blog just leave a comment with your vote on each matchup, whoever gets more votes advances. If there is a tie, I will cast the deciding vote. The current plan is to post eight matchups every day until round one is over, this is a lot but we haves a lot of matchups to vote on and I'd really rather not have this take a year.

Let the madness begin!!!!

We start today in our Broxton region.

As gesture of kindness for those who may not know enough about all 256 character to give a decent vote, I have linked each picture to that characters Wikipedia page. I think my plan will be to keep voting open for 2 days after each post before determining a winner.

24. Vengeance

vs.

41. Black Tom


56. Allistair Smythe

vs.

7. Carnage

40. Gladiatorvs.

25. Wendigo

57. Tinkerervs.
8. General Thunderbolt Ross/Red Hulk

48. Devil Dinosaur

vs.
17. Bolivar Trask

49. Sauron

vs.

16. Dormammu

32. Nuke

vs.

33. Bushman

64. Doppelganger

vs.

1.Thanos

I was unable to find the time to blog my entire top 50 preseason countdown this year, but I will provide the list below and try to get them posted daily from here. Rivals is currently at no. 25 on their countdown.

50. Maryland

49.Tennessee

48. Navy

47. Louisville

46. Toledo

45. Syracuse

44. Fresno State

43. Arizona

42. NC State

41. Miami

40. Texas Tech

39. Auburn

38. Houston

37. Northwestern

36. Washington

35. Utah

34. Penn State

33. North Carolina

32. Clemson

31. Florida

30. BYU

29. Air Force

28. Missouri

27. USC

26. Mississippi State

25. South Florida

Captain America Review

Marvel studios put out two films this year that I was highly skeptical of going into. The previews looked pretty hokey, and like most fans, I was very pessimistic about the casting of Chris Evans as Steve Rogers. I am happy to report that my pessimism is 0 for 2 or Marvel films this year.

Captain America is not as good as Thor or Iron Man but it will leave fans satisfied as they leave theatres. All of the acting is acceptable and as expected, Hugo Weaving shines as the Red Skull, with Peggy Carter and Bucky Barnes also coming across as very likable supporting characters.

The first hour of the movie, in my opinion outshines the second of the movie. Scrawny, puny, young Steve Rogers is so perfect it makes up for many flaws in the second half of the movie. The story of Steve's multiple attempts to join the army, and the relationship he builds with Dr. Erskine is a wonder to behold. There is also a lot of Tommy Lee Jones, which is always a good thing.

The second does not stand up to the first half because after the movie starts with beautiful character development and solid pacing, it feels like you are watching the movie in fast forward as soon as Cap actually joins the war. The movie actually gets so busy that you really never get a feel for Captain America the person, as there is barely a scene in the movie after the point he dons the costume, that Captain America is actually given much in the way of dialouge.

My biggest complaint about the movie has to be the CGI. The special effects seemed really awful at points, and I felt that they were a bit overused. I literally don't think you see a single punch thrown by Captain America that isn't sped up by special effects. Every time Cap fights at all, it's clear he is compter animated and at points it just doesn't look good.

The end of the movie, however, is outstanding and does a perfect job of staying true to the real story from the comics and giving new fans a happy ending. Now next summer is where it really counts though.

Avengers Assemble.

Final rating 7.5/10