This Review Roundup consists of one new release for January 14th and a couple of other titles that came out over the past month. The first three titles come from Mill Creek Entertainment and I’ll start with the new release, Icons Unearthed: Marvel. I’ve quite enjoyed the Icons Unearthed series so far which dug into Star Wars, The Simpsons and The Fast & The Furious flicks. This one being Marvel I was hoping it would be a deep dive into the history of Marvel Comics. Unfortunately the first disc is the only one that really gets into the comic world, the following 7 discs are about the Marvel Cinematic Universe and really only the first two phases of it. Marvel as a brand has had extreme highs and lows and the series talks about it, but it’s more about what it meant to the movies. Well before Iron Man kicked off the MCU, Marvel had sold off the movie rights to many characters to stay afloat. Stan Lee for decades wanted his characters on the big screen and sold Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men and other characters to movie studios for money. The MCU would be altered because of that. With Sony having Spiderman, Tony Stark had to be their first on screen superhero. This 8 episode set explains how and why each character that kicked off cinema’s biggest shared universe came to be. It tackles Iron Man and its first sequel, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, Ant-Man and some others. It talks about it all coming to a head in Avengers: Endgame, but Ant-Man is the last movie that really gets into specifics. I did like how it explained what happened with Edgar Wright leaving that project and how creative differences with Edward Norton hurt his Hulk film. I also liked the footage of the infamous Roger Corman produced Fantastic Four film. I do think the MCU started going down hill after Phase 2 and there is a ton of information about these movies, but I was expecting this to be about Marvel the company not just Marvel movies. It’s interesting and I learned quite a bit and MCU fans will love it, but I wish it had more information on the comics.
Second we have The Domino Revival. I’m not a religious man so the religious angle of this documentary did nothing for me. I will say I do like the business side of it and that will be my focus. It’s about online preachers and the like and how COVID changed a lot of how they spoke to people. I rolled my eyes at how they claim to have gotten in touch with God, but the fact they were smart enough to use social media and video conferencing during lockdown is good. It starts out with one man as the main focus of the film and how he had a growing religious empire in New York before the pandemic hit. He saw others using social media apps to grow their following and he joined in. He’d walk the streets while live broadcasting and soon his follower count grew. Others were doing the same thing and starting podcasts and what not. Finding a new audience in the new technological world is good business. I may not be down for what they have to say or claim, but I can’t argue with their hustle. Obviously if you are religious you’ll enjoy it more than me, but I was at least able to take something away from the documentary.
Last for the Mill Creek releases is Ultra Galaxy Fight Series 1-3 + Ultraman Regulos/First Mission. Ultra Galaxy Fight: New Generation Heroes sees New Generation Heroes team up to fight the demon Ultra Dark-Killer. Ultra Galaxy Fight: The Absolute Conspiracy brings in aliens and monsters who do battle with the banded Ultra Heroes. Ultra Galaxy Fight: The Destined Crossroad sees a slew of Utraman heroes doing multiple missions. The New Generation Heroes do battle with an army including Absolute Tartarus. Ultraman Regulos is introduced here. Ultraman Regulos is an origin story with Ultraman Regulos learning martial arts on the planet D60. Ultraman Regulos: First Mission is his first mission when he goes out to find Ultraman Ribut and Sora on Planet Maijii. If you read me you know I prefer the older Ultraman stuff that I grew up watching, but this a pretty solid collection that will keep Ultraman fans entertained for hours. It’s like six hours of Ultraman adventures which I binged over 3 days. If you’ve been collecting Mill Creek’s Ultraman releases then you’ll need to pick this one up.
Last we have Ancient Aliens Season 20. I’ve been a fan of The History Channel show since the beginning and look forward to the DVD releases to catch up. The first few episodes of Season 20 are Top 10 lists recapping previous episodes and giving their top 10 creatures, alien encounters, etc. Episode 9 The Mysteries of Scotland was quite interesting as was the episode about the stone spheres that were discovered. The Mayan and Sumerians get episodes and there is one dedicated to Stargates. Puma Punku and the tombs of Egypt also get episodes If you are a fan of the show like me you’ll want to pick up Season 20. I like the different people in the show most famously Giorgio Tsoukalos who is also a producer.
The Nerds Templar 