Sometimes you're lucky to review an item that simply put, you know going in you already love. I mean, what can I tell you about the film Goodfellas that hasn't already been said? It's up there with the first two Godfather films as one of the greatest achievements in gangster cinema. So glorious is this film that it transcends the genre and isn't JUST a gangster film. It's simply a masterful piece of storytelling. Beautifully written, masterfully directed, and featuring some of the best performances of the past quarter century. It's fingerprint is upon so many films that have come since. Goodfellas has created stereotypes and tropes of the genre, yet when it was released it was original and vibrant. The only question to be pondered: does it hold up twenty-five years later.

By now you know the main players: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo and Jeremy Renner are back in “Marvel’s The Avengers 2: The Age of Ultron,” reprising their roles as Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Thor, Hulk, and Hawkeye, respectively. The S.H.I.E.L.D. brass, Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury and Cobie Smulders’ Maria Hill are also back, along with Anthony Mackie as The Falcon and Don Cheadle as War Machine. Idris Elba appears as Heimdall but Tom Hiddleston does not reprise Loki in this installment.

That’s already a rather ponderous list and we haven’t even got to the bad guys yet.

by Chris Delloiacono, Mike Maillaro and Jeff Ritter

This week!

• Ring the bell for Verne Gagne

• Extreme Rules Results

• NXT Results

• Pro Wrestling Syndicate - Spring Breakdown Results

One of the things Zenescope is known best for is they have a variety of series that are modern day versions of various classic and fairy tale stories, most notably their Grimm and Oz lines. So, when I heard that Oz: Reign of the Witch Queen was supposed to be a very good jumping on point for Oz, I decided to check it out.

Before I get into the review, I do want to say that one of the early impressions I had about these books was that they had done a lot of cheesecake redesigns for the characters. In fact, when you search for “Zenescope Grimm” on Google, one of the first images that comes up is this: 

Mike Maillaro: So, this week’s topic is something I have been thinking about a lot lately.  With the rise of Netflix exclusives, Amazon, Hulu, Sling, Roku, and on and on, it is harder and harder to justify the cost of cable TV.  So the question is:

Where do you see Television in 5 to 10 years?  

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s 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

When you initially fall into Paige Britt's THE LOST TRACK OF TIME -- and make no mistake: you fall into this book, you don't just dip your toe into it -- you may, if you're a reader of some experience, find yourself in familiar territory. So familiar, in fact, that I kept waiting for Norton Juster's Milo to drive past looking for the off ramp to THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH.

Which I should now clarify by saying that THE LOST TRACK OF TIME is absolutely nothing like THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH; it's more a literary fraternal twin, if anything. But I digress.

Charmed Season 10 #7

Written by: Pat Shand
Art by: Dimat
Cover by: David Seidman
Colored by: Valentina Cuomo
Lettered by: Christy Sawyer

Published by: Zenescope
Cover Price: $3.99

Warning! This review contains quite a few spoilers!

Even though I just reviewed Charmed a few months ago, this was supposed to be a good jump on issue for new readers, so I decided to give it another shot.  This story was mostly a stand alone story, though there was a lot here that provided closure to hanging story threads, and a lot of setup for future storylines too.

Convergence: Justice League of America #1 by Fabian Nicieza and Chriscross

Convergence Week 3 by Mike Maillaro and Mike Weaver

This week, we have Pre-Crisis Gotham City, New York City (Kamandi), Gotham City (Red Rain), Central City (Tangent), Durale (OMAC), and Pre-Crisis Legion Metropolis as our combatants...though I will say up front, you don’t get to see much of these characters in many of the tie-ins.

Convergence #3 by Jeff King and Stephen Segovia

Very interesting news posted by Gamespot this morning:

Today during a special event in San Francisco, Telltale Games and Marvel Games announced a partnership for a new game due out in 2017.

The event is ongoing; we'll have more details on the new game as they become available.

Telltale has also published a blog post about this announcement, though it doesn't offer much in the way of specifics.

"Announced this evening in San Francisco, we're excited to reveal an all-new partnership with the incredible team at Marvel Entertainment. We'll be teaming up on the development of an upcoming Telltale game series project set to premiere in 2017!"

Source: Gamespot

By Mike Weaver and Mike Maillaro

Runaways Vol. 1 - Pride and Joy

Written by: Brian K. Vaughan
Art by:  Adrian Alphona

Published by: Marvel

by Chris Delloiacono, Mike Maillaro and Jeff Ritter

This week:

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s 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

I'm going to preface this week's column by saying this is one of the weakest comic weeks I've had in a long time.  Very few books jumped out at me as MUST TALK ABOUT!  And even the few I did, were real stretches.  The only book that I am real excited about is Uncle Scrooge #1...

As I am sure you guy are sick to death of me saying, I loved Star Wars Rebels Season 1.  It definitely felt more like Star Wars than anything I've seen in a long time.  At last week's Star Wars Celebration, they posted up a trailer for season 2.  Check it out:

SCARLETT COUTURE is a book that gets your attention through its stylish designs, eye-popping colors, and an overall unique approach. Many of the panels appear to be animation cels overlaid with blurred photo backgrounds that were then flattened to give the piece an overall unified appearance.

Mike Maillaro: Welcome to Blast of the Week.  Each week, the Critical Blast staff will post our thoughts about various entertainment and media topics.

This year's topic is Netflix's Daredevil series!

FROM THE DARK, available on Blu-ray, tells the haunting tale of a young couple who are on a road trip around the Irish country side. When they develop car trouble, they seek help at a nearby farm house and it isn’t long before they discover a terrible evil is lurking in the dark.  A creature has been awakened from a thousand year slumber by the owner of the house who unearthed it while digging in the bog, and the couple soon learn the only safety they have from it lies in the light. But night is falling quickly, and the darker it gets the more powerful the creature becomes.

The movie has a very limited cast and stars Niamh Algar and Stephen Cromwell as the young couple Sarah and Mark.

By Mike Maillaro and Mike Weaver

Convergence: Justice League International #1 by Ron Marz & Mike Manley

Summary:The Justice League International (Blue Beetle, Red Tornado, Martain Manhunter, Captain Atom, Fire, and Ice) were trapped in the dome.  Most of them have lost their powers, but they continue to protect an unappreciative Metropolis from threats like Metallo.  The dome comes down, and several heavy hitters from Kingdom Come arrive to challenge them.