Best and Worst of Geekdom 2023

[Music] what's up my comic comrades we hope you all are having a great holiday season amazingly 2023 is almost a wrap so we want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for watching and hanging out with us through variant's 11th year we have an amazing community and we appreciate all of you so from all of us here at variant thank you for another great year now with 2024 almost upon us today we're going to take a look back at 2023 and highlight what we think are the best and worst entries ktim had to offer and to be clear that will cover Comics movies TV shows and games released this year and we've got a lot to cover so let's get cracking as is tradition around here we're going to start with comics and easily one of the best comics of 2023 is a DC title that launched in 2022 but wrapped up its first Arc this year and that is Tom Taylor's elseworld story Dark Knights of Steel the story focuses on the reimagining of the DC Universe in medieval times as we've said before the best way to describe the series is Game of Thrones meets the DC Universe you see you have three different kingdoms the house of el the kingdom of Storms and Amazonia we even learned that Bruce is the bastard son of jell thus making him half Kryptonian that's right a medieval half Kryptonian Batman and we covered the entire story right here so be sure to check that out staying in the DC camp we have a brand new Batman story that just started at the end of this year and will roll into 2024 and that is Batman mindbomb which kicked off in Batman 139 it tells the story of a personality Batman created for himself as a prot ction against psychological attacks and that portion of Bruce's brain is wanting to take over Bruce's mind fully as it's a more brutal Batman that can get the job done permanently a Batman without Humanity AKA zerr Batman not only that but we see Bruce's xer R has gathered other Zur from around the Multiverse so Batman can get the job done on every Earth at the end of issue 140 we see that zurr transferred his Consciousness into fail safe marking the return of the new fan favorite AI Batman villain what I'm saying is the story is only two issues in and it's already one of my favorites of the year I have high hopes for its continuation in 2024 next we have some more fire and what I think is the best thing in all of comics in 2023 and that is skybound's launch of the ener johon universe the greatest thing about this is that it wasn't advertised or promoted at all Robert Kirkman and skybound just did it shocking all of us fans you see when he launched a brand new series on skybound an image in June called void Rivals all the fans just thought it was another Creator owned independent comic series from the Walking dead and Invincible Creator but to our shock towards the end of the issue we see Autobot Jetfire appear revealing this is part of the Transformers Universe and the launch of the Energon Universe a shared Universe between void Rivals Transformers and gii Joe so far at the time of shooting this video void Rivals is five issues in the new Transformer series is three issues in and the gi. Joe Duke title is one issue in with the Cobra Commander series coming in January and let me tell you I'm up to date with every one of these titles and they are fantastic ftic it's been a brilliant start to a relaunch of characters most of us love since the80s with the addition of void Rivals fitting in great with this universe it's a perfect jumping on point for fans of Transformers and GI Joe as well as having all the elements of nostalgia for die hards moving along to Marvel we have the sins of sinister story which was absolutely fantastic and we covered all of it right here on the channel it really highlighted Mr Sinister and showed us why he's one of the best X-Men villains of all time with him using his genius and genetics and cloning to set himself up to be the ruler of the future but of course there's a lot of twists and turns along the way and again we covered it all it also sets up the fall of X story line which also has been really good you see a lot of the stuff that was set up in the S of sinister Arc starts to unfold in the X-Men Hellfire Gala and fall of X it's here that a clone of Mr Sinister Dr stasis who has a black Club on his forehead basically forces but also tricks Charles Xavier into killing a quarter million mutants setting up fall of X it's absolutely insane and has been a fun ride thus far all in all Comics have been pretty good this year we also have Josh Williamson's Superman title which has been fantastic and Superman keeps getting a bunch of different power upgrades also the new Wally West solo Flash series is off to a great start and even the Star Wars dark droids crossover event has been awesome Comics have inspired so many other forms of media that we all love to consume so let's move on to TV first and foremost let's start off with Marvel TV AKA Disney plus first up we had secret Invasion I think it's safe to say that this one was not so great easily one of the worst shows Marvel has given us on Disney plus which is very unfortunate because it had so much potential it seems like the MCU just can't figure out what they want to do with the Scrolls as they're bad but then they're also good and this was also perpetuated in the Marvels which we'll get into later and let's not forget how they did the super scroll so dirty in this series essentially kind of making the super scroll the most powerful character in the MCU when they should have just held off linking the super scroll to the Fantastic 4 like the comic books since we know they're introducing the Fantastic 4 very soon it was just such a wasted opportunity then we have I am Gro season 2 as many of you know these are just little 5 to 7 Minute episodes that give us Adventures of Baby Groot and me and my two little girls love it we binged the entire first season when it came out and did the same thing for the second season in short baby grot is adorable and hilarious this is an easy win if you haven't watched it do so the entire season is only like 30 minutes from here we have one of the greatest things the MCU has given us ever and that is Loki season 2 I cannot express enough how much I loved this season it was a masterpiece introducing amazing new characters like OB the writing cinematography character development interaction between all the characters just everything was Flawless not to mention Loki's characters came full circle as we see he was indeed burdened with glorious purpose becoming the god of stories quite literally holding the Marvel Universe timelines together becoming the core of the MCU in a lot of ways again Loki's Arc in the entirety of the MCU and how it concludes in Loki season 2 was phenomen phal I would say his story arc is in the same camp as Iron Man and Captain America and lastly for Marvel TV this year we have what if season 2 now it's not out yet at the time of shooting this video but it does look very good and we did enjoy the first season so we're definitely going to be on the lookout for that moving along we have Star Wars which had four different forms of shows on Disney plus this year first off bad batch season 2 what can I say this is one of my favorite animated series and things the Star Wars franchise is doing all around right now and season 2 was great especially with the finale Tech anyone if you no you know I can't wait for season 3 after that we have the Mandalorian season 3 which unfortunately all in all wasn't that great and it's by far the weakest of the three seasons there was definitely a lot of like what's going on moments like the Cameo of Jack Black and lizo it just felt very out of place and corny don't get me wrong there were several cool episodes and moments but all in all the season felt very disjointed it was like they didn't really know where they were going fully with the season ending kind of back at square one I'm also not sure that I like that the dark saber was destroyed in the end kind of alluding that we have to be done with the old ways and start something new but who knows maybe they'll take the kyber Crystal from the dark saber and use it to make Gru's lightsaber that would be dope or even rebuild it and make a new dark saber all I know is season 3 was a letdown considering how amazing the first two seasons were speaking of let down we also got Star Wars Vision season 2 which I got to say was not as good as season 1 I found myself not even wanting to continue watching the series I still haven't finished it but I'm hoping season 3 gets back on track then lastly for Star Wars TV we have Ahsoka I absolutely enjoyed this first season sure the pacing overall could have been better as the show took too long in certain elements that didn't really matter much but overall it was awesome and come on we got to see live action Clone Wars for the first time in this series I'm talking we got to see Hayden Christensen reprise his role as Anakin Skywalker as Sky guy the Jedi general of his 501st giving us the first live action appearance of a Clone Wars Anakin and Ahsoka as we got the young Ahsoka from the first several seasons of The Clone Wars and then even her looking in the final season of Clone Wars not to mention we got a very brief appearance yet still awesome appearance of a live action Rex for the first time it also introduced an amazing new character a breakout character called balen skull it's just a shame that Ray Stevenson the actor who betrayed him didn't get a chance to see how much we all loved his character with that said Ahsoka season 1 gave us so much Star Wars fan service especially for fans of Clone Wars and Rebels as we got to see Hara Sabine Chopper and Ezra live action for the very first time as for DC TV shows there was was none this year so let's move on to miscellaneous nerdy stuff like The Last of Us starring The One and Only the Mandalorian himself Pedro Pascal this is quite possibly the best video game adaptation we've ever gotten this series was absolutely phenomenal and I know us nerds cannot wait for season 2 in 2024 I need some more clickers then we got the first spin-off series for primes the boys now I've been very vocal the boys is easily one of my favorite shows period so the bar was set very high for Gen V and quite honestly I didn't think there was any way of them being able to match the greatness that is the boys but somehow this series did it it was amazing I'm not saying it's just as good as the boys but it's in there gen V was a great addition to the boys universe and it honestly shocked me how they were able to recapture the boys feeling Vibes so well with a completely different cast and characters you know what geny is essentially what the New Mutants movie should have been next up we have Invincible season 2 at least the first half of it as they're taking a break and then resuming in the new year but the first four episodes much like the first season were phenomenal I love how they're pulling from the Invincible comic staying close and true to it but changing just enough to make it fresh and new easily one of the best superheroes shows out then we have Castlevania nocturn which I sadly haven't finished but the few episodes I did see were absolutely phenomenal the original Castlevania on Netflix is one of my favorite animated shows ever so I can't wait to finish this one and again from what I've already seen it's glorious staying on Netflix we have the Scott program takes off anime which brings back all the original actors to their characters in the series and it's brilliant Netflix also released the newest season of Demon Slayer this year called The swordsmith Village Arc as we know Demon Slayer is easily one of the best animes currently out so of course this had to be on our list but now friends it's time to move on to movies and we're going to start with Marvel all right so kicking off this year for Marvel we had Ant-Man and the WASP quantam Mania which wasn't horrible but wasn't all that great either it was certainly a let down and the box office reflected that they just did Kang dirty in that film you're trying to build Kang to be your next big bad but then you have him defeated by ant literally that makes no sense the movie overall just felt like a more adult version of Spy Kids which is a shame because I really love Paul rud's Antman and Jonathan Major's King but even that wasn't enough to save this movie then after this we have arguably the best superhero film of the year and one of the best Spider-Man films ever if not the best and that is Spider-Man across the spiderverse this movie gave us everything we loved about into the spiderverse and multiplied it the animation styles were beautiful the storytelling was great as usual and the characters were fantastic I mean when miles ultimately learns that he was never supposed to be Spider-Man and gives that famous line everyone keeps telling me how my story is supposed to go but I'm going to do my own thing it just hits me every single time in the fields I I love it it's an incredible movie not just a comic book movie then we got Guardians of the Galaxy volume 3 which was also great now I personally don't love it as much as I feel other people do but I definitely think it's good I'm just not like super over the moon about it I wish they would have killed off several of the Guardians so the movie had more weight if that makes any sense even though I did like the movie they did Adam Warlock dirty in this film and I don't want to hear the excuse that he was just a baby or young the P of the character wasn't good and it wasn't will polter's fault it was just a script that made the character that way then of course we have the most current and last MCU film of 2023 the Marvels now I've been very vocal for years that I'm not a fan of Carol danver's Captain Marvel both in the books and the MCU so it's not shocking that I thought this movie was not good I know there's a lot of people who would say I'm crazy and I'm being too harsh and that it didn't deserve to flop that hard at the box office but hey man I wasn't a fan and that's all I'm going to say for me this is easily one of the worst nerdwise things in 2023 I'm just going to leave it at that although it should be added to film cost Marvel Studios upwards of 300 million to make and it didn't even break 100 million domestically hell worldwide the movie only made $197 million meaning Disney is probably going to lose around 200 million on the Marvels moving along to DC we have the flash which as of now is considered the biggest flop in superhero movie history but even though a lot of people say this movie wasn't good I thought it was one of the better DCU films I mean the fact that we got the return of Michael Keaton Batman in this film is enough for me to like it so maybe I'm a little biased but he was a complete an utter badass in this film he was fighting a Kryptonian all by himself and almost one a 70-year-old Batman almost beat a Kryptonian so good I also really enjoyed Supergirl in the film and the return of Michael Shane and Zod so oddly enough the worst part of the film was the Title Character which actually isn't that shocking considering Ezra Miller and we're just going to forget about Ben Affleck's Batman Man suit because woof then we got one of my favorite superhero films of the year the Blue Beetle movie which didn't perform that well at the box office but I liked it just because the movie doesn't make money at the box office doesn't mean it's not good and this is a prime example because Blue Beetle was so much fun if you haven't watched it it's streaming now it's worth to watch this holiday season trust me and then of course we have Aquaman in the lost kingdom but at the time of shooting this video the film isn't out yet so I cannot judge it one way or another let's just hope it's good then as for some other nerdy movies outside of Marvel and DC we have Transformers rise of the Beast I don't know about you guys but I don't expect much from these films I just want to have a lot of good action and Transformer fights and that's exactly what this movie gave us as well as the first appearance of the maximals which was glorious for me because my favorite Transformers is Beast Wars so this was a dream come true in short it was another fun installment in the self rebooted Transformers movie timeline that started with the Bumblebee film then we also got the TMNT mutant Mayhem movie which also was really fun now giv this is yet another reboot for the turtles for the next generation of kids my kids actually as they're the exact age group this movie is for and given that I thought it was a lot of fun I know some people complained about the portrayal of Master Splinter he's like a grandpa not that tough Sensei which I definitely get but again there are so many different iterations of the Turtles out there in movies alone not to mention cartoon series comics and games that if you didn't like this one there's a plethora of other movies and so on to choose from I'm actually excited for a sequel to continue this version of the turtles and see them evolve and come into their own we also have Snider's Rebel moon coming up shortly which again is not out at the time of shooting this but it had to be mentioned as this is something the Sci-Fi and nerd Community have been looking forward to for a very long time and it's dropping literally in a few days after we shoot this video also we have Godzilla minus one which I was able to see right before it left theaters and man was this movie good it was not what I expected at all but like in a good way the movie is more about how the threat of Godzilla affects the people and the main characters in the movie and it just show shows Godzilla as this terrifying force of nature that they can't control which of course is an analogy in reference to war which is what Godzilla has always been about in any case this is easily one of my favorite Godzilla movies ever I know a lot of people are saying it's the best Godzilla film ever made and I can't really argue that but I am partial to some of the classics and the 2014 Godzilla film I would certainly put it in my top three and I can't wait to see it a second time if you're not able to see it in theaters make it a priority to watch it when it hits streaming it's a great mix of new and old and I like how they honored the original Godzilla films by kind of keeping that cheesy motion Godzilla has it almost looks like a guy in a suit at times and it just works and rounding out the year 2023 we have games first and foremost we have Spider-Man 2 which everyone basically loved and his griping didn't win a single award at the game awards earlier this month but the game is still awesome nonetheless a fantastic followup to the first one we also got MK1 which reboots the Mortal Kombat franchise this game is awesome we're massive fans of Mortal Kombat so we were excited about this one and it didn't disappoint another huge game that dropped this year and one of the most anticipated games ever created did was Hogwarts Legacy now I haven't personally had a chance to play this one but Tim and other members of the team have and they freaking love it which seemed to be the universal reaction to the game I mean this is an RPG where you can basically do whatever you want at Hogwarts just the concept sounds amazing so the fact that the team at pory games nailed it is a dream come true for fans of The Wizarding World and lastly we have Jedi Survivor which believe it or not none of us have had a chance to play which is shocking because we're all Big Star Wars fans here at varant I don't know how oh wait I do know how I do know why I haven't played it I don't have a nextg console Santa where are you Daddy I want another Pony however the first game Jedi fall in order was amazing so it's not surprising that we've heard nothing but good things about Jedi Survivor not to mention the gameplay we' seen looks absolutely incredible so we look forward to working our new way through Jedi Survivor in the new year but there you have it friends the best and worst of 2023 and 2023 was pretty dang good we had a few Duds and disappointments but overall things in the world of geekdom were largely positive sure the MCU needs to get their crap together but hey there's nothing to panic about things are going to be fine in any case that's our take on 2023 so now it's your turn to let us know what's on your best and worst list for the year down in the comments other than that we'll see you in 2024 you get it that's like a dad joke but I got two kids anyway happy New Year [Music] everyone d

Channel: Variant Comics

Views: 38,526

Keywords: best of 2023, best movies of 2023, best comics of 2023, best video games of 2023, best and worst of 2023, variant comics, the boys season 4, gen v, loki season 2, ahsoka, spider-man 2, jedi survivor, hogwarts legacy

Id: bXePfTxzukg

Length: 17min 33sec (1053 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 27 2023