Mark's Epic Blog of Randomness

By Mark Rodriguez This is what many people have been calling... 'the big one' and even though I have tried to avoid any spoilers back then, it was beyond impossible due to all the 'Is one of the TMNT really dead???' articles on Facebook. I was out of town and hit a bigger comic store but they were all sold out. Luckily, upon returning home, our comic shop still had my issue # 44 safely tucked away in my box. The time has come to take the fight both to Krang and the Shredder, and we found out that Don was pretending to side with the Foot in order to have an army to stop Krang's forces. This was a trick to get Shredder and Krang to kill each other while they try to stop the Technodrome from working. Baxter and his Mousers and Flyborgs all got in the Turtles way, and with Krang having kicked Shredder's ass faster than expected, he was back to activate the doomsday device anyway. Shredder, having left Bebop and Rocksteady in charge of watching over Donatell...

By Mark Rodriguez This is an old interview I had with a website called DBZ Uncensored, which dealt with the censorship differences between the original DBZ and the American dub. It might sound like a distant memory now but back in the infancy of Funimation, Dragonball Z's violent nature and adult humor was heavily censored down for American kids. Not to mention the fact that they skipped the entire first part of the series (Dragonball) and expected kids to be able to randomly jump into the later adventures of Goku and his friends. Of course nowadays anime like Fullmetal Alchemist, Death Note, One Punch Man and My Hero Academia are dubbed as close to the original dialogue as possible and nothing is censored. In fact nowadays Dragonball Super airs Saturday nights on Toonami with a pretty good dub. However, Mexico took a different, and in my opinion, better route. Instead of worrying about making an anime cool and hip for the kids, they used the shocking technique of airing t...

By Mark Rodriguez Krang plans to eradicate all life on Earth with the Technodrome to make it inhabitable for his species. While at first it seemed Don betrayed his family to side with the Foot, it was actually a clever plan from Leo to pit Krang and Shredder's forces against each other. The two big bads do go face to face, but in the meantime, Don was left under the care of Bebop and Rocksteady with orders to take him out upon the first sign of betrayal. Now what will happen? The issue opens with the Turtles watching Shredder and Krang fight, wondering where the Fugitoid was, since he was supposed to meet up with them upon their arrival. Leo decides they don't have time to wait and have to start moving. Krang and Shredder fight it out, determined to finish what they started at the ship. During the battle Krang actually slices Shredder's sword in half. Traag and Granitor put up a fight against Koya and Bludgeon. Shredder manages to swing an axe into Kran...

By Mark Rodriguez Back when the only thing we knew about Street Fighter's characters and story were limited to the games and the SNES instruction manuals, Malibu Comics tried to cash in on the success of the hit arcade game and make a comic. However the comic was so bad, Capcom told them to cut the cord on the third issue, and here we are. Oh, and also special thanks to the Sci-Fi Valley Con for letting me find this copy and in such good condition too. Sagat wants a rematch against Ryu, but the World Warrior has turned down his every challenge. This gets Sagat to the point where he must make Ryu fight him, and he does so by attacking Ken with extra help from Balrog. Ken's bloody clothes, gloves and his scalp have been sent to Ryu, who screams in horror at the fate of his friend. E.Honda VS Evil Aquaman??? This issue starts off with the narration telling us that while the Street Fighters might all be rivals, they all feel it when one of them goes down. We start in t...

By Mark Rodriguez Back in the day when Street Fighter 2 was still new and there wasn't much story beyond the game endings and SNES instruction manuals, Malibu comics decided to give a comic book based on the video game series a shot. Unfortunately it was so bad that Capcom pulled the plug on this after three issues. Last issue Sagat kept trying to have a rematch with Ryu to regain his Street Fighter title. Bison suggested he go after Ryu's friends to force Ryu to fight. Balrog challenges Ken to a fight, who is now some sort of movie star and not in the same shape as he used to be. Ken managed to defeat Balrog, but he's in bad shape, and now Sagat comes in to finish the job. 'Clawed by the Tiger' starts off with Sagat roasting Ken from behind with a Tiger Shot. Sagat tells Ken he's learned many secrets at a high cost as he continues to shoot his fireballs. Ken is surprised Sagat can throw fireballs now and says fireballs are his territory. Sagat ...