Archive for the ‘DC’ Category

Welcome to the first of our weekly comics shipping list. Here we’ll be showing you the titles that are shipping for that week along with what I think are a couple of the top hot or must read titles of the week. This feature is brought to you by Dr Volts Comic Connection located at 2043 E 3300 S in Salt Lake City, UT. Or you can find them at http://www.drvolts.com

Siege #3 by Marvel

The penultimate chapter in Brian Michael Bendis’s epic mini series is out! The battle for Asgard reaches a breaking point as Norman Osborn’s secret weapon is revealed and another Avenger finally joins the fight! The battle lines have been drawn and lives will be changed before the end of this blockbuster event that will usher in the Heroic Age!

American Vampire #1 by Vertigo

Witness the birth of a brand new species of vampire in this new ongoing series that begins with five extra-sized issues featuring back-to-back stories by exciting new writer Scott Snyder and the master of horror himself, Stephen King! When notorious outlaw Skinner Sweet is attacked by an old enemy (who happens to be a member of the undead), the first American vampire is born… a vampire powered by the sun, stronger, fiercer, and meaner than anything that came before. Plus… Pearl Jones is a struggling young actress in 1920s Los Angeles. But when her big break brings her face-to-face with an ancient evil, her Hollywood dream quickly turns into a brutal, shocking nightmare.

DARK HORSE COMICS
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DC COMICS

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DC Comics announced today that Terry McGinnis will be back in June for a six issue mini-series!

That part of the story is good news for fans of the character.

What might not be so good news is Adam Beechen whose run on Robin made us all wonder if he even knew who Tim Drake was before he started writing.  I will give him the benefit of the doubt on this one, though.

Here’s Alex Segura from DC:

Starting in June, BATMAN BEYOND — a six-issue mini-series from writer Adam Beechen (who’s no stranger to animated characters, having worked on The Batman series a few years back) and artist Ryan Benjamin — will pit the future Dark Knight against his own past, as a dangerous force has begun to target Bruce Wayne’s old foes. Can Wayne’s past put Terry’s future in danger?

Not sure, gang. Let’s check in with Adam Beechen himself. Take it away, Adam:

“The dark future of the legendary animated series comes to the DCU in a six-issue miniseries, as Terry McGinniss, Bruce Wayne’s young successor as Batman, faces his deadliest foe yet — a mystery murderer from the Dark Knight’s past! Old faces return, new allies and enemies step into the light, and the partnership between Terry and Bruce — not to mention Terry and Bruce themselves — might not survive!”

Above, we have the cover to issue 1 by Dustin Nguyen.

If nothing else, lets hope this does well enough so that we can see more stories featuring Terry McGinnis.  And if they need more stories, I just happen to have a pitch…

There are some actors who appeared in the Star Wars movies that were simply in them for too brief a time and haven’t been a whole lot else for us to see them in.

One actor from the prequels I’ve been dying to see more of in film is Temuera Morrison, the Maori actor who played Jango Fett.  He was incredibly talented, and even the most ardent of prequel haters will cop to him being a highlight.

It was reported yesterday in The Hollywood Reporter that Morrison has been cast as Abin Sur, the ill-fated Green Lantern who crash landed on Earth to his death and in his dying breaths gave Hal Jordan the power ring that would transform him into a Green Lantern.

This bodes well for the film and I’m excited to see his part in it.

According to the Reporter, the film starts shooting today.

Here is the cover to Batman #700, an impressive milestone that only a handful of comic book series have reached.

It’s drawn by David Finch.  DCU’s the Source and Alex Segura caught up with David Finch and here’s what he had to say about it:

“Batman is such an iconic character and I’ve been a huge fan for so long that it was a surreal and amazing experience to draw him officially for the first time. I really have to thank Mike Marts for letting me be a part of such an important mile stone in the history of this book.”

Issue #700 hits stands in June (as well as the 700th issue of Superman, and the 600th issue of Wonder Woman) and is greatly anticipated by many of us.

Once again we’ve been given a space in the Salt Lake weekly paper IN This Week, and once again Swank tells you what comics you should buy.

This list was made for readers of the magazine who might want introductions to various sorts of comics or comic heroes that might not know where they should start.

You can read the full, unabridged version of the article online here.

To buy the comics listed in the article check out Amazon or your local comic book store.

DC Comics announced early in the week that J. Michael Straczynski (the mastermind behindBabylon 5 and one of the best runs of The Amazing Spider-Man and Thor in recent memory) will be taking over writing duties on Supermanand Wonder Woman comics in July. He’s taking over for them on issue #701 and #601, respectively and he’s been brought in to commemorate that landmark.

When they announced the news, they posted an essay about the Man of Steel by Straczynski (you can read it here) that has had me thinking a lot about Superman.

You see, I’ve always been a Batman sort of guy. In fact, I’ve got every issue of Batman going back 25 years or more and counting in both directions. I always looked at Superman as sort of an over-glorified boy scout and not worth my time and devotion. Sure, I’d read his comics now and then, and certainly when he crossed paths with Batman, but he was never my primary focus.

I always looked at Batman as the more liberal of the two, he was always giving to every charity in the book and believed in an equality of justice and wealth that I could really get behind. And he was just a human. He was frail, had vulnerabilities. Unless someone had some Kryptonite around, Superman was invincible.

But Superman, ideologically speaking, always seemed to me much more conservative. He was a red-stater through and through. When Joker killed Jason Todd (the second Robin) and became the Ambassador from Iran with complete diplomatic immunity, it was Superman who arrived under Ronald Reagan’s orders to make sure that Batman kept his hands off of the Joker, even though he’d murdered half of the dynamic duo in cold blood.

When Lex Luthor became president (during the 2000 election, as a metaphorical proxy for George W. Bush), Superman even followed his orders until he went crazy and tried to take over the world and kill him.

But reading that essay by Straczynski had me thinking about what we all want to be. The best of us. The best part of us. That unyielding optimism that cuts right through any amount of cynicism.

Staczynski says that Superman’s “S” symbol is actually Kryptonian for “No Limits,” and I believe him. Superman is all of the hope that we want. Sure, he’s taking orders from some pretty despicable people, and sometimes the choices he makes aren’t easy, but he’s there, hoping for the best for everyone, even his enemies.

And there’s a vulnerability in that, which I hadn’t really realized before.

When you see that “S”, or hear even a few bars of his theme song by John Williams, or that single frame of him, fallen after his fight with Doomsday in front of a tattered American flag, you get the chills. You look up to him. But more than looking up to him, you look into yourself and see something that could be better.

In fact, Superman, in some cases, could be a much more effective tool for an effort in advancing patriotism and civic pride than any number of miniature American flags. Maybe Superman could help heal the red-blue divide so prevalent in This Divided State, a documentary I produced in 2005.

I suppose my broader point is that if Straczynski can shed that much light on the character and change my perspective of him with one essay, I can’t wait to see what he’ll do with an extended run of him in the comics.

Trust that I’ll be adding this to my hold with all the hope and optimism that Superman embodies.

(This first appeared on Huffington Post)

Wow there’s some exciting news coming out of DC today. J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5 and former Spider-Man writer, will be taking over writing duties on both Superman and Wonder Woman starting this July! Here is what Alex Segura had to say over at “The Source”

It’s go time, folks.

Starting in July with SUPERMAN #701 and WONDER WOMAN #601, superstar writer J. Michael Straczynski – a man who’s created layered and compelling characters and worlds on the big screen, on television and across the comic book spectrum – dives head-first into the DC Universe by taking the ongoing writing reins for two-thirds of the fabled DCU trinity.

We’ll have more details about who’ll be teaming with JMS on both titles – not to mention the exciting new directions he’ll be pointing our heroes toward – in the coming months. But today is about JMS and how he sees these great characters and what they stand for.

Later today we’ll be posting an essay from the writer, nailing in a few paragraphs what makes the Man of Steel and Wonder Woman such important parts of our cultural mythology. In my day-to-day here at DC, I see a lot of amazing things cross my desk. Images, new titles, plot directions, you name it. But this essay is something special. It had me rooting for these characters in a whole new way. It’s that good.

But before we get there, let’s touch base with JMS about this news. Take it away, sir:

“For as long as I’ve been doing conventions (starting in the early Cretaceous period, when it was just me and a handful of pterosaurs on a panel debating whether or not mammals with opposable thumbs were really necessary to the writing of quality comics, a point still hotly debated today), there has always been the same question from folks in the audience: “Is there any one character who is your dream character to write for?” The answer has always been the same: Superman. When I first came over to DC, that dream was realized in part by Dan DiDio’s gracious invitation to write the first of potentially many Superman original graphic novels. Now the dream has come fully true with the opportunity to write for the mainstream title, in a story that returns Superman to his roots in a way that will have the whole country talking about him in ways that we haven’t seen in a long time.

Similarly, the chance to write Wonder Woman – the nearest analogue to Superman in the DCU – is massively exciting. She’s a vital, powerful character, and we hope to bring a more contemporary sensibility to her character will retaining everything that makes her unique.

That DC is willing to jump-start these two runs in the pages of their respective anniversary issues is a great opportunity and a vote of confidence in what we have planned for these characters. I’m looking forward to this with more excitement than words can convey.

It’s gonna be a blast.”

After DC broke the news JMS had a few words of his own to say about his love for Superman. Here it is:

One of my very earliest memories as a child is of watching one of the Superman cartoons created by Max Fleischer. In particular, a scene where Superman puts his cape around Lois Lane to protect her from an incoming tide of molten metal. I imprinted on that image like a baby duck, and a lot of what I laughingly call my personality was formed in that moment (which is why a cel-recreation of that image is one of the first things you see upon entering my home, before you get to the row of wall after wall covered with artwork by Alex Ross, Curt Swan and others, as well as just about every bit of Superman memorabilia ever produced).

As a kid growing up in the mean streets of New Jersey, Superman was an icon for me. It was a tough life: we moved about 21 times in my first 17 years, we didn’t have much money, and every day was a struggle. When I told grown-ups that I was going to be a writer someday, nobody listened, nobody thought I had a chance, because as far as teachers were concerned, kids like me who came from nowhere and nothing were dead-enders, destined to end up working at the gas station at best or in jail at worst. Writers were supposesd to be Ivory Tower guys with leather patches on the elbows of their smoking jackets, who went to the right schools and came from the right families. I lived in the world of No, a place populated by bullies and street fights and tenements, with no possibility of escape.

But Superman…see, Superman could do anything. If there was someplace he didn’t want to be, he could just fly away. And he couldn’t be hurt, which to a kid who got beat up pretty regularly in fights and elsewhere was a pretty attractive idea. Superman taught me the morals and ethics I draw up on to this day: to play fair, not to lie, and to be willing to put yourself between harm and those you care about.

If Superman could do anything, then maybe I had a chance. Maybe I could become a writer. Maybe I could even learn to fly. That symbol, the S, became a badge for me, and growing up I always made sure I had it somewhere on me, like a shaman’s charm. That may sound silly, and from a grown-up perspective it probably is silly, but as Henry Kissinger once said, it has the added benefit of being true. And it helped me get through the hard times, which is why I continue that practice to this day…right now it’s on a key-chain in my pocket.

For me, and I suspect for a lot of people, that symbol stands for the belief in our own potentiality, in what we think we can do, and try, and aspire to. I was watching the news recently, and they were showing Palistinian protests, followed by a story on the night life scene in LA, and later on, a live report from London about somethingorother…and in the background of each of those stories there was somebody wearing a Superman t-shirt or cap. It’s universal.

And there’s a reason for that, a secret no one knows, but I’ll tell you, because of how long I’ve known you, and our longstanding friendship.

And the secret is this:

The Superman symbol is Kryptonian for No Limits.

And whether or not you speak Kryptonian (or Kryptonese), you know that…you know that deep inside, where even the cynicism of the world cannot reach.

I’ve told this story before in other places, so at risk of being redundant…back a few years ago, I was at the Chicago Comic Con when a guy in his 20s grabbed a bunch of expensive stuff off a table in the dealer’s room and made a run for it. The ownere ran after him down the aisle, yelling “stop him!” As he came in my direction, everybody parted like the Red Sea.

I brought him down like a gazelle, and we held him until the police showed up.

Afterward, one of the con organizers said to me, “Why’d you do that?  He’s a big guy, you could’ve gotten hurt.”

And I pointed to where I’d been standing when it happened: right in front of a ten-foot-tall cutout of Superman. “How could I stand in front of that, in front of him,” I said, “and do nothing?”

As Superman has been for me, so Wonder Woman has been for a lot of women readers, so the chance to dive into that character is something I’m eagerly anticipating. This is a strong, mythic, powerful character who for some time now has been kind of drowning under the weight of her own mythos, so I’m looking forward to paring away some of the layers of debris and undergrowth that have piled up around her in order to get to the core of the character. Coming from the world of TV and film, the first rule you learn is to service the main character more than anything else, so I’ll be writing with an eye firmly fixed on that rule.

As part of that process, we’re going to be looking more closely at how Wonder Woman appears, and functions, and her role in the DCU…and what we have planned will, we hope, come across as dynamic and powerful as she deserves to be.

Similarly, we plan to bring Superman back to his roots, to really explore who he is…how he sees us, and how we see him, in a much more personal way than we’ve seen in a while. This is part of a larger effort that will have national ramifications, but I can’t say much more about it than that for now. Keep an eye on this website for more information when the time is right…but for now, let’s just say that Superman may be a lot closer in proximity to you, the reader, than you ever guessed.

To kick off both efforts by appearing in the anniversary issues of these two characters is a great opportunity, and a good jumping-on point for readers.

If there’s any other message in this to readers, it’s in these two characters as icons of hope, that it doesn’t make any difference where you come from, or where you went to school, or who you are, there’s hope. That a kid from Jersey with Superman as the icon that kept him alive for years would one day end up writing the character is as absoutely unlikely as it is utterly inevitable. And if that’s true for me, it’s true for you, if you follow your dreams and your passions in full flight.

Don’t give up.

No Limits.

It’s never too late to learn to fly.

J. Michael Straczynski

Even though I’ve personally been enjoying the Superman titles for the last couple of years with the New Krypton story. And I’ve really like Gail Simone on Wonder Woman. I think this will be a much need breath of fresh air for both of these titles. Especially from a man who obviously has much love for these characters!

According to Latino Review, David Goyer, the co-scribe of The Dark Knight and Dark City, has been hired to write the next live-action installment of the Superman franchise.

You can read the full report here, but here are the highlights:

Thomas Tull, the head of Legendary, got tired of all the discussion and decided chingate, let’s do it.  So he went to Goyer and Goyer had an idea that actually takes the movies back to the John Byrne incarnation.  Modern.  Believable.  FUN!  So Tull got Goyer hired.

The film will not be called Superman and will be called THE MAN OF STEEL.

Other bits of news include the fact that Brandon Routh and Bryan Singer are not expected to return.

Perhaps to me the most interesting bit of news in the original report is that Mark Millar was never in consideration to write Superman because apparently Paul Levitz hated him.

This could be the Superman movie we’ve all been waiting for, the villain is reported to be Brainiac and it’s not an origin story.

So, take that for what it’s worth.  It makes a lot of sense that Christopher Nolan would go back to David Goyer after he turned in good work for his last two super-hero properties, but Goyer isn’t exactly the name I would think of for something as light and Boy Scout-y as Superman needs to be.  But Christopher Nolan seems to know what he’s doing in the DCU, so we’ll all wait and see.

This week, I decided to introduce readers to the Soap Opera of comics and the many Robin’s of Batman. I’ve always been surprised how few people know about all the Robin’s and this was my attempt at cramming that history into 300 words.

As you can tell, I got cut off in the print version (below) but you can read the online version here.

If you live in the Salt Lake or Park City areas, you can pick up a copy of IN This Week on newstands everywhere.

Warner Bros. has been doing a pretty good job on their DC original movies, bringing to life stories from the comics that wouldn’t fit into a regular series or with the standard continuity of anything else that has come before it.

Sometimes, they score a hit, like Superman: Doomsday, sometimes they catch a piece of the ball and knock it to the back of the park but in foul territory, like Batman/Superman: Public Enemies, and sometimes they knock it out of the park, like with Crisis on Two Earths.

After watching the preview of this film on the Public Enemies DVD, I’ll admit that I was skeptical. I’ve always been of the opinion that most of DCs “Crisis” story lines were too convoluted for me to follow and too dense with characters I couldn’t remember for me to care, but Crisis on Two Earths, despite its awkward title, really boiled down a Crisis story to its essence and nailed it.

It made me excited over Crisis stories and wish that this is how they were told in the DC Universe, proper. This film opens up with Earth-2’s Lex Luthor and Jester (a pretty generic Joker ripoff) stealing some manner of technology and escaping from the Crime Syndicate, which consists of a Superman riff called Ultraman, a Batman riff called Owlman, a Wonder Woman riff called Superwoman and so on. These guys are evil and on their Earth they’ve completely subverted the people into making them rich gangsters.

Lex Luthor is the leader of this Earth’s iteration of the Justice League and develops a way to get to our Earth, wherein he asks the Justice League for help. The entire league, sans Batman, agree to go back to Earth-2 to help Lex Luthor. Batman stays behind, insisting that The Justice League is tasked with saving only their own Earth from criminals and intergalactic threats and the like, but his attitude soon changes when the Crime Syndicate hatch a plan to blow up Earth-Prime, which would cause a chain reaction that would destroy every Earth in the multiverse.

I really liked this movie, the voice acting was good even though Kevin Conroy wasn’t Batman. I mean, seriously, Kevin Conroy should ALWAYS be Batman. James Woods was excellent as the creepy and psychopathic Owlman and Mark Harmon filled Superman’s shoes quite capably. The animation was top-notch and the action sequences had an incredible kinetic energy to them. They were exciting and fit in with the story to the point where each and every one of them meant something. They were all very, very cool to watch.

On a side note, I can see the Italian American community upset about Ultraman. He’s a greezy goomba and, though it worked for me, they seem to get upset about any iteration of Italian American as a mobster, and that’s pretty much all Ultraman is.

Having said how much I liked this movie, there is a major problem I had with the film and I need to preface this with a MAJOR Spoiler warning.

There, you’ve been warned.

At the end of the film, and Owlman has set the QED device to blow up and destroy Earth prime, Batman changes the coordinates of the bomb, batarangs Owlman to it, and then leaves him to explode. It seems incredibly out of character for Batman to specifically tie a villain to a bomb and send him off to who knows where for him to die. It was very un-Batman. I understand the stakes were high, and this guy would probably try it again, etc, but that’s Batman’s one unwavering rule: The Bat does NOT kill.

So, that was my biggest gripe.

Aside from that, they decoded the film version of a Crisis story perfectly.

As for the Spectre short… Wow… On the disc there is an 11 minute short film that was written by Steve Niles featuring the Spectre. It had the look and feel of a 70s exploitational cop procedural on 16mm and though it was incredibly short, the first rate animation and story concentrated into such a tight time frame worked so well that I’d almost like to see more of these instead of more feature length films. A disc of these would be to die for. I must have watched this five times and shown it to twice as many people, I couldn’t believe how excellent it was.

The last thing on the disc I’d like to mention is the preview for the next DCU Animated film, “Under the Red Hood.” The good news is that we’ll be seeing portions of my favorite Batman story, A Death in the Family, animated. The bad news is that they are basing this off of Judd Winicks lackluster run, taking Jason Todd out of the grave and under the hood. We’ll see how it plays out, but this was my least favorite Batman arc in the last 20 years.

Overall, this disc was worth the price of admission and it has hours of bonus content that will occupy your time for…well…hours…

To order it on Amazon, simply click the link.