Author: Eric Diaz

Are Marvel’s “New Mutants” Headed For The Big Screen?

by Eric Diaz

Speaking with Twentieth Century Fox chairman Tom Rothman this week at Cinemacon in Las Vegas, website Collider got what seems like a juicy piece of info from him during a q&a. It all went down like this:

Collider: I know you guys have like The New Mutants and a lot of characters in the X-Menuniverse.  Obviously you guys are moving forward on an X-Men sequel, you’re moving forward on Wolverine, do you envision New Mutants or some of these other characters as franchises that the door can be open to?  It does seem to me that the superhero genre is bigger than it’s ever been, and you guys have some of the crown jewels.

Rothman: (smiles) Yes.

When can fans expect an announcement on some of these other properties?  Before Comic-Con, after Comic-Con, at Comic-Con?

Rothman:  In the summer.

Are you talking to filmmakers right now?

Rothman: Let me just say this.  All I have to say is, I agree with you in your assessment of the potential in a lot of these characters

The New Mutants, as they looked in their first appearance in 1982

Collider seems to think that Rothman’s big grin when The New Mutants was brought up is a heavy hint that they are getting a movie of their own, but I’m not sure. We already know that an X-Men: First Class sequel is coming, and two competing movies about young mutants in school seems redundant. I think far more likely that we’ll see some New Mutant characters like maybe Cannonball or Sunspot as students in X-Men: First Class 2. The X-Men movies play fast and loose with the timeline anyway.

Tom Rothman earned some goodwill last year with X-Men: First Class, but this is the man who nixed Sentinels in X2, a proper Galactus in Fantastic Four, and we all know what his idea of Deadpool was for X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I’m not entirely sure he even knows what the New Mutants even are.

Will The Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver Appear in Avengers 2?

by Eric Diaz

So The Avengers doesn’t come out for a few weeks still, so is too soon to speculate about an Avengers 2 already? We’re geeks… of course it isn’t too soon… stop talking crazy.

Now, there have probably been something like fifty various Marvel superheroes who have at one time or another been members of the Avengers, but there are only really a handful of what I’d call “iconic Avengers”–members who served in long standing with the team and were a part of their most popular lineups. Of those members, two of the most prominent, The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, were long thought to be unavailable to Marvel Studios for use in any future Avengers sequels. Twentieth Century Fox has the rights to all of the mutants in the X-Men franchise, and both those characters were introduced as the mutant children of the X-Men’s #1 foe Magneto, even though both characters quickly left the X-Men books and became mainstays of the Avengers for decades. Because of this, it was long thought that their mutancy made them off limits to Marvel Studios.

But that is apparently not the case according to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige. In an interview at the British web site HeyUGuys, Feige said in regards to these two specific characters “It’s a little complicated; If they want to use them in an X-Men movie they could, if we want to use them in an Avengers movie we could.” Apparently, they are  among very few Marvel characters who fall into this shared category among the studios.

Could this mean we’ll see our first cross-studio Marvel Universe crossover? Conceivably, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver could be introduced as teenagers in an X-Men: First Class sequel and show up later as adults in an Avengers 2. I’m not saying its likely mind you, but it would be insanely awesome if both studios could get all their ducks in a row and make it happen.

If anyone could make the screwy relationship of mutant sorceress Scarlet Witch with the android Vision make work in live action, it would be Joss Whedon

The DC Universe To Have A “Trinity War” in 2013

by Eric Diaz

According to almost always reliable news source Bleeding Cool, next summer DC Comics is  ushering in an event known as “Trinity War,” which seemingly points to a big fight between Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, AKA “The Trinity” in DC lingo. It is also possible the series is about those three versus everyone else in the DCU, but I’d think having them fight each other would create a lot more publicity and sales drama. No creative team has been rumored yet, much less announced.

You ask me, this whole thing sounds like a pretty blatant rip off of Marvel’s Civil War and Avengers Vs. X-Men. Fanboys love to see their favorite heroes come to blows with each other, it is nothing new. DC’s who New 52 initiative seems to be a giant riff on Marvel’s approach as it is, and this is no exception.

The sad thing is, I’d be way more excited if this was the pre-New 52 Trinity doing the fighting. In the old DCU, those three had a ton of history between them; Superman and Batman couldn’t stand each other at first, only to years later become close allies. Wonder Woman has had major disagreements with both of the guys, especially when she chose to cross the line to kill, something Clark and Bruce would never do. For those three characters with their long history and friendship having to fight one another, now that could be for an interesting story. But in the new 52 universe, we have almost no idea what these character’s  relationships are to each other. They seem to be co workers who barely know one another, as much of their history has been erased (especially Superman and Wonder Woman’s) This might just be a big fight between corporate icons, and therefore a lot less interesting.

Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride Latest Disneyland Attraction To Get The Movie Treatment

by Eric Diaz

Of all the rides in Disneyland’s Fantasyland section, one of the oddest (and coolest) has got to be Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Oddest because Disney’s adaptation of The Wind in the Willows was only a segment in the package film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr.Toad, and not really a well remembered full length classic like Peter Pan and the like. And coolest because the ride literally ends with your Mr. Toad driven car getting hit by a train and you and your fellow passengers being sent to Hell.  Yes, there is a Disney ride that ends with dying and going to Hell. I’d like to see that concept get past Walt Disney Imagineering these days.

Since opening day in 1955, the ride has remained a beloved fixture at Disneyland (although it was removed from Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World and replaced with Winnie the Pooh. I know, lame.) According to Deadline, Disney has announced plans to make a  feature film of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Pete Candeland, director of many music videos and commercials, has been hired to develop a live-action/CGI mix movie. Justin Springer (one of the producers on TRON: Legacy) will produce Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, and the studio is currently looking for a writer.

Disney’s track record with theme park ride adaptations has been very hit and miss; obviously Pirates of the Caribbean is a juggernaut that can’t be stopped, but anyone remember Eddie Murphy’s Haunted Mansion disaster? Or The Country Bears? Aside from Mr. Toad, Disney has revealed in the last few years a slew of ride-to-movie plans, like The Jungle Cruise, a Guillermo Del Toro reboot of Haunted Mansion and the Jon Favreau movie set in Disneyland itself called Magic Kingdom. Now add Mr. Toad to that growing list. The real question is which of this will get made first, if any? And why haven’t they announced a Space Mountain movie??

 

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For Officially Begins Rolling This Summer

by Eric Diaz

After years of speculation, it is finally official: Sin City: A Dame To Kill For will go before the cameras this summer with a 2013 release date, with original co-directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller once again at the helm. Dimension Films, which released the first film, is set to release the second movie as well. One difference is that this time, scripting duties will be split between Frank Miller and The Departed’s Oscar winning screenwriter William Monahan.

Here are some excerpts from the official press release via Deadline.

“The first question I am always asked is “When will you make another Sin City? ,” said Rodriquez. “I have wanted to re-team with Frank Miller and return to the world he created since the day we wrapped the original, but have felt a duty to the fans to wait until we had something truly exceptional that would meet and exceed what have become epic expectations. A Dame To Kill For will certainly be worth the wait.”

Sin City creator, screenwriter and co-director Frank Miller said, “The first Sin City knocked out audiences who had never seen anything like it before. Robert Rodriguez and I are going to shake things up and deliver a ferocious film experience that is going to go even further than the first.”

The original comic series of A Dame To Kill For featured characters from the original Sin City like Marv and Dwight McCarthy. No mention was made in the press release whether Clive Owen and Mickey Rourke would return to their roles, but I’d say it’s a good bet they will.

Sir Ben Kingsley In Talks For Villain Role In Iron Man 3

by Eric Diaz

The Avengers is still a few weeks away, but we’re getting our first real news on Iron Man 3 casting already. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Oscar winning actor Ben Kingsley is in negotiations to play a villain role in the upcoming sequel. According to insiders, the part is possibly not that of the main villain though. Although Iron Man’s #1 comic book bad guy the Mandarin has been hinted at since the first movie, it is far from a sure thing he’ll be the one Kingsley plays, or even be in the movie at all.  The original Mandarin was a Fu-Manchu like racist caricature of communist China, and his ten magic rings are a bit too much like Green Lantern for Marvel’s taste.

If the Mandarin does show up in Iron Man 3, it is a pretty safe bet he won't be looking like this.

If the villain is the Mandarin, he’ll probably be totally re-invented for the big screen. Iron Man 1 and 2 director Jon Favreau hinted heavily towards revealing the Mandarin as the big bad in the third part of the trilogy, but he’s no longer directing, Shane Black is. Still, Favs remains an executive producer, so he might still have some pull to get the Mandarin in. of course, even if the Mandarin is in the movie, Kingsley could still be playing someone else entirely. Remember he’s only rumored to be a villain, not the villain.

The current rumors are that Iron Man 3 would take a cue from the Extemis storyline by Warren Ellis and artist Adi Granov that ran in Iron Man #1-6 back in 2005. In that story, Tony Stark is injected with a form of Captain America’s super soldier formula mixed with nano bots, making him less of a man in a suit and more or a literal iron man. This is probably one of the more acclaimed runs of Iron Man’s book in recent memory, and would probably make a great plot for a movie.

 

DC Comics Brings Back He-Man & The Masters of the Universe This Summer

by Eric Diaz

Of all the 80’s toy properties that have had huge revivals in the past decade, like Transformers and GI Joe,  one of the biggest that didn’t get too far in recent times is Mattel’s billion dollar juggernaut Masters of the Universe. There was a 2002-2003 toyline and animated series revival that didn’t really take off like Mattel wanted,  and a big budget movie was planned and later scrapped. Since then (aside from a retro toy line made for adult collectors) there hasn’t been so much as a peep coming from Eternia.

But that’s changing this July, as DC Comics is bringing back He-Man and the Masters of the Universe in the form of a six issue comic book mini series. Writing the book will be longtime comic book veteran James Robinson (Starman, JSA, the upcoming Earth 2) and artist Phillip Tan, best known for his work on Batman and Robin. According to MTV, the premise of the series has Skeletor,  “the skull faced arch-enemy of He-Man has figured out a way to rewrite the reality of Eternia, casting himself as the ruler of Castle Grayskull, and our heroes – including He-Man – as regular peasants with no memory of their previous life. And while simple woodsman Adam may dream of wielding a massive sword, and fighting in battles, he thinks they’re just dreams. That is, until a mysterious sorceress approaches him, and sends him on an epic journey to save all of Eternia.”  

Our first image of the new Phillip Tan-ized He-Man coming this summer from DC.

According to Robinson, he wants to de-cheese the Masters storyline and make it grittier, which will be tough when you have characters named He-Man, Meckaneck and Ram-Man as your leads. As a kid, I was obsessed with all things He-Man and She-Ra, from the ages of about 7 to 12. I had every damn toy and watched the show religiously. Of the many things I was obsessed with as a child, like Star Wars, the DC and Marvel heroes and Star Trek, I was into He-Man the most, and ironically, it is the property I care about the least now as an adult. Once I was old enough to realize the entire mythology was merely created just to sell me toys and the stories were all secondary, I just stopped giving a shit. Still, I have a bit of a soft spot for those old toys, as they were pretty bad ass. Maybe the nostalgia factor alone might be enough to at least get me to check it out. And I’m totally in if he fights Superman again.

My first exposure to He-Man, a good year before his cartoon hit the air, was this 1982 DC Comics Presents issue where he met Superman. Now He-Man has come full circle and is back at DC Comics again, some thirty years later.

X-Men: First Class Sequel Gets January 2013 Start Date

by Eric Diaz

The sequel to X-Men: First Class is now officially a go; although director Matthew Vaughn had already been asked to return, and a script was currently being written, nothing concrete was confirmed regarding when/if the new movie would start shooting, at least until now. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Fox  informed talent agencies Thursday that they plan to begin shooting the sequel to X-Men: First Class in January of 2013. That means Lionsgate could move forward with a Fall  start date for the Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire without a conflict for newly minted star Jennifer Lawrence, who is set to star in both films.

Not much else is known about First Class 2, except that it probably won’t be called First Class 2. If filming is set to begin next January, that means either a Christmas 2013 or Summer 2014 release date. Given that Jennifer Lawrence is now a big star (or at least the “it girl” of the moment) she’ll likely get a bigger part than last time. Rumors have the movie taking place anywhere from the mid 60’s to the 70’s, but right now is little more than fanboy speculation. Personally, I vote for the 70’s…because that increases the chances for an appearance by Dazzler, not to mention killer sideburns for Michael Fassbender’s Magneto.

Michael Bay To Possibly Take On Halloween Next

by Eric Diaz

Look everyone! A new reason to hate Michael Bay! Yeah, and you thought that whole Ninja Turtles business was bad. But according to Bloodydisgusting.com, Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes studios, the studio behind semi-recent horror remakes like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Amityville Horror, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street is looking to handle the next installment of the Halloween franchise for Dimension Films.

But wait! Didn’t Rob Zombie remake Halloween already you might say? pffffttt. That is SO five years ago. True, Dimension Films had a Halloween 3D scheduled for this October, which was set to be directed by the team behind  My Bloody Valentine and Drive Angry, Todd Farmer and Patrick Lussier.  But that quietly dissolved recently, and Halloween 3D was pulled off the 2012 schedule. Now Dimension is said to be looking at Bay’s company to relaunch Michael Myers the way they relaunched Freddy and Jason and Leatherface.

The real question is whether or not this is going to be a continuation of the Rob Zombie Halloween series, as Halloween 3D was going to be, or be yet another reboot. I’d put money on the latter, as I’m sure Bay will want to put his own spin on this franchise and not just do a part three to someone else’s series. And before you even say “but five years is too soon to reboot!” I remind you that The Amazing Spider-Man is coming out only five years after the last Tobey Maguire installment; never underestimate the short attention spans of  the American public.

Honestly, I can’t even get riled up about this too much. Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake was already the polar opposite to John Carpenter’s classic film in almost every respect, whatever Bay ends up doing can only be as bad, but probably not worse. It’ll just serve as a reminder to everyone how brilliant the original was. Again.

Shortlist For Captain America 2 Directors Is Revealed

by Eric Diaz

For awhile now, we’ve known that Marvel Studios has begun preliminary plans for their post Avengers movie line-up. Iron Man 3 is already confirmed for 2013, as is Thor 2. But there are still two untitled movies set for 2014 from Marvel. One is rumored to be a brand new property (probably Dr. Strange, possibly Ant-Man) and now it looks like the other is going to be Captain America 2. Vulture.com has released a shortlist of contenders Marvel is looking at for the directing gig, and oddly enough, original Captain America director Joe Johnston is nowhere to be found.

So far, this is who Marvel seems to be warming up to the most: George Nolfi, the writer-director of The Adjustment Bureau; F. Gary Gray, director of the American remake of The Italian Job, and the real surprise here, Anthony and Joe Russo, from television’s Community and Arrested Development. According to the original article, Marvel studio chief Kevin Fiege is said to be a ‘vibe guy; He likes to see if he gets along with people before he’ll decide about spending the next two years with them. And apparently, they hit it off with Kevin in the room.”  So in a nutshell,  it comes down to who’ll come cheap and not get on Feige’s nerves for any extended period of time.

Seems strange that Marvel wouldn’t even approach Joe Johnston, who most agree did a great job and nailed the whole World War II period vibe of the first movie. But maybe Marvel is just being cheap again; Johnston would no doubt want a substantial raise, and Marvel is going to have to pay Robert Downey Jr a lot of money to come back for Avengers 2, as he only signed for Iron Man 2, 3 and Avengers after the massive success of the first Iron Man movie. And unlike directors like Joe Johnston or actors like Terrance Howard and even Edward Norton, RDJ can’t be replaced. So maybe Marvel is gonna start saving their pennies, and this might be phase one of that.

Has MGM Found Their New Carrie?

by Eric Diaz

According to the Vulture.com, MGM has narrowed down their choice for the title role in their remake of Brian DePalma and Stephen King’s 1976 classic Carrie down to two actresses. The two main contenders for the part are said to be Chloe Moretz, better known to geeks as Hit Girl from Kick-Ass, and 24 year old Haley Bennett, who most people would only know from the movie The Haunting of Molly Hartley. Moretz is still only fifteen, so she hasn’t completely gotten over her awkward phase yet, which is a good thing. Bennett is a bit too sexy looking for Carrie White to me, and there is nothing I hate more than when Hollywood throws on a pair of glasses on an obviously sexy twenty something and musses up her hair, and suddenly expects us to buy that they are awkward outcast teenagers.

Is Hit-Girl Chloe Moretz our new Carrie White?

Some of the other actresses who tested for the part were Dakota Fanning, Emily Browning (Sucker Punch) Bella Heathcote (Dark Shadows) and Lily Collins (Mirror Mirror) In my opinion, each of these actresses is way too conventionally beautiful (and too old)  to play the part of pale and awkward Carrie White, so I’m glad they were passed over. One of the big problems with so many of these horror remakes of classic movies is that every teenager looks like they are potential Victoria’s Secret or Abercrombie & Fitch models. Look at the original versions of Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th; the teens look like teens, some of them even have visible zits. Now they all look they came out of some weird factory that only makes perfect, chiseled people (this factory also supplies the CW Network with the cast for all their shows) Carrie needs to be someone who can look real, awkward, and believably seventeen.

The last tidbit from this article is the most interesting: It seems director Kimberly Pierce is looking for either Jodie Foster or Julianne Moore to play the part of Margaret White, Carrie’s crazy fundamentalist mother. Either of these choices raises my interest level for this project a thousand fold. After seeing her play another ultra conservative unbalanced mom in the form of Sarah Palin in Game Change, I could totally see Julianne Moore totally delivering in this part. Or it could also be a huge acting comeback for Jodie Foster, who hasn’t had a mainstream hit movie in almost a decade. Either choice at least give me partial hope this project won’t be total a waste of time. But whoever ends up in either part has rather huge shoes to fill, because Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie totally owned those roles.

" I smelled the whiskey on his breath. Then he took me. He took me, with the filthy roadhouse whiskey on his breath, and I liked it. I liked it!"

How DC Comics Drove A Lifelong Wonder Woman Fan To Quit Buying Her Comic

by Eric Diaz

I’ve been a huge Wonder Woman fan for almost my entire life, since back in the days of Super Friends on Saturday mornings and Lynda Carter spinning around in a giant flash of light. When DC rebooted the character the first time with artist George Perez back in 1986, I bough that very first issue and have bought every issue since then. That particular run on the book solidified her as my all time favorite super hero.  Some runs after that were great, some really sucked, but I always kept on buying, due to my intense love of the character and what she represents.  But due to what transpired in this week’s issue of Wonder Woman (Volume 4, issue #7) I’m doing what I once thought unthinkable to me. I’m dropping my monthly buying of Wonder Woman all together. Issue #7 was the last straw…I quit.

While it was the old Super Friends cartoons and the Lynda Carter television series that made me love the character, it was George Perez' reboot in the 80's that made me a hard core fan. And I've always been a loyal reader, till now.

I’ll admit, this has been coming. The revelation late last year that Wonder Woman was not the product of a mystical asexual birth but was in fact the daughter of Zeus really irked me, as I felt the subtext of that went against original Wonder Woman creator William Marston’s intent for Diana to have a purely female based power source. Whether or not the notion of giving Wonder Woman a father in the traditional sense is being non feminist or not could legitimately be debated, and although it is not a character change I could agree on, I could see the point some fans would have that this revelation didn’t fundamentally change her character. But I don’t see how anyone can see what was revealed in the latest issue of Wonder Woman as anything but blatantly misogynist. This isn’t just ugly subtext anymore, this is just ugly text, period.

So SPOILERS for the last issue of Wonder Woman, for those sensitive to such things.

In Wonder Woman issue 7, it was revealed by the god Hephaestus that the Amazons replenish their race by leaving their isolated home of Paradise Island three times a century, appearing on ships at sea as sirens in the night, and have a night of carnal fun with the men on board…after which they brutally murder said men. Then, returning home to Paradise Island, those Amazons who got pregnant keep their female children to raise as Amazons, and deliver their unwanted male children to the God Hephasteus to serve as his slaves in exchange for weapons.

In short, the Amazon race, as depicted in DC Comics for more than seventy years, meant by creator Willam Marston to represent the best of what humanity can achieve, are now a race of murderers and child slave traders. They’re monsters, plain and simple. This is akin to DC coming out now and saying that Thomas and Martha Wayne were secretly drug dealers, and their deaths were a retaliation hit, or that Pa Kent molested young Clark. Of course, DC would never dare do something like this to their two biggest cultural icons. No, only their cultural icon that happens to be a woman can have her entire heritage pissed on all over like this. Writer Brian Azzarello has stated since the begining of his run that his take on Wonder Woman is a “horror book” and not a super hero book. Judging from this latest reveal, it is only a horror book for actual fans of the character.

Images from Wonder Woman issue 7, showcasing the new brutal Amazon mating practices.

Of course, some fanboys have already risen to this loathsome development’s defense online. “Isn’t this keeping in line with the Amazons of ancient Greek mythology?” That’s one I response I keep reading.  Well yes, it is. In actual Greek myths, the Amazons mated with men once a year, kept the female children and raised them as Amazons, while the male children were outright killed at birth or left exposed in the wild to die. They also cut off one breast, as to make archery easier.  So yes, that is the actual myth the ancient Greeks had about the Amazons.

But what Wonder Woman’s creator William Marston did when he created his Amazons in 1941 was to turn that whole mythology on its head. You see, while the Ancient Greeks had a lot of virtues (they gave us democracy, the Olympics, and were pretty cool with homosexuality long before any other cultures were) they were deeply misogynist. One could interpret their myths of what the Amazons were as based in the fear that a Greek male dominated society would have had of strong women. In fact, that’s the angle Dr. Marston took when he created his Amazons in the early 40’s; what he did was take that old myth and show it as false. His Amazons were actually an advanced and peaceable people, and the old myth perpetuated by the ancient Greeks was nothing more than woman hating slander. And clearly, they kept both breasts. If the whole “one breast” thing was a lie, what else was could be a lie?

The original 1940's version of the Amazons, as created by Dr. William Marston.

And it has been that version of the Amazons that has been part of the DC Universe for all these decades. Oh, the face of it might change. Sometimes DC’s Amazons have had advanced technology; in other iterations their technology never progressed beyond the Bronze Age. Sometimes Wonder Woman’s mother Queen Hippolyta is a blonde, other times she’s a brunette. Sometimes the Amazons have been represented as being more fearful of mankind, and sometimes they’ve been shown to be more open. But they were always depicted as noble warriors, who believed in peace above all else. These are the ideals that they instilled in a young Diana, who set forth on to our world as Wonder Woman to spread those ideals to the rest of the world. And those ideals mean nothing if they come from who a race who believes in the cold blooded murder of innocents and child slavery.

In a very sad way though, what DC has done with their most recent revelations is eerily fitting for the times we live in. The timing for this reveal by DC couldn’t be more shitty, or more timely, depending on how one looks at it. Women’s rights in this country have never been more under attack then they are now, at least during my lifetime. A woman advocating reproductive rights is called a “slut” and a “prostitute” in the media, and in Arizona a bill was passed that says a doctor can’t be sued for keeping crucial information about a woman’s pregnancy from that woman if he fears she might be a candidate to get an abortion.  (so much for that whole Hippocratic Oath business) Anti-woman views are creeping back into our culture at an alarmingly rapid rate, so Azzarello’s Wonder Woman might just be the accurate Wonder Woman for our times after all, although in a truly horrible way.

If this is the Wonder Woman meant to represent our times, she has a lot to not smile about.

I actually don’t really blame current Wonder Woman writer Brian Azzarello in this instance. Simply speaking, he’s not really a Wonder Woman fan at all. He has said as much during interviews. He’s an excellent writer and storyteller, and he certainly knows his Greek mythology.  In fact, his spin on Greek myths has been one of the more fun aspects of his run on Wonder Woman so far. I gave the first issue of his Wonder Woman run a pretty glowing review here on this site in fact. But it is pretty clear since that first issue that he doesn’t care for the actual character of Wonder Woman very much, to the point where in order for him to write her, he has had to change her entire world from top to bottom.   While the whole “New 52” reboot has resulted in more or less just cosmetic changes for DC’s main icons, it is pretty clear now that everything about Wonder Woman is fundamentally different.  The Wonder Woman I have known and loved my whole life effectively doesn’t exist at DC Comics anymore…it just took this particular issue to hammer the point home for me.

No, I don’t blame Azzarello. He might have had the idea, but his bosses had to approve it. No, I blame DC Comics. More to the point, I blame Dan Didio, Geoff Johns and Jim Lee, or whoever it was that gave the OK for this decision. They clearly have no respect for the character, or her position as a cultural icon. Wonder Woman has, since day one, been a representation in our popular culture for ideals of peace, fairness and equality. But now we know that that her heritage is tainted, because it represents not equality for women, but an all out hatred of men. Because, isn’t that what strong women really all feel? Hatred of men? Because that’s what this is telling me: The empowerment of women MUST equal the disempowerment of men.  Wonder Woman now represents a culture that is Rush Limbaugh’s idea of what feminism is. Whoever it was at DC that gave their stamp of approval to this should be ashamed of themselves. I  really don’t mean that lightly. DC SHOULD BE DEEPLY ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES.

It is hard for me to be angry about this anymore. No, I’m just bummed. Bummed that the only version of the Amazons for any new reader to read about (especially any new female reader) right now are these. This being comics of course, I realize that all hope is not lost forever. After all, in 1968 DC gave us the “All New Wonder Woman,” where they got rid of her powers, her ties to Paradise Island, her costume, and gave her a male mentor figure. Oh, and a new job, not working for the military, but owning a boutique of all things. Even the writer who came up with this idea, Denny O’Neil, realizes now what a horrible idea that was and how far back it set the character. Four years later, the real Wonder Woman returned, so maybe one day I’ll get my Wonder Woman back. But I’m not holding my breath.  Until then, I have my back issues and my memories, and that’ll have to be good enough.

Madonna’s MDNA: The Geekscape Review

by Eric Diaz

Divorce might be a bad thing for Madonna, the human being…but it turns out to almost always be a great thing for Madonna, the artist. When Madonna first emerged in the early 80’s, she was instantly capable of making infectious pop tunes that rightfully earned their place on the charts. Her albums, however, well…. that was another story. Aside from the hit singles everyone knows and loves, the first few Madonna albums were filled with capital F Filler material. There’s a reason her first greatest hits compilation The Immaculate Collection is the biggest selling “best of” from any solo artist; no casual fans wants those early, amateurish Madonna albums like Like A Virgin just for the hit singles.

That all changed after her 1989 divorce from her first husband actor Sean Penn, when she unleashed her first great album Like A Prayer on the world. It was the first entirely listenable from start to finish Madonna album, and showed that she was more than just another generic Top 40 hit maker.  Maybe it took an abusive marriage and a painful divorce to bring that out of her, but after that, there was no turning back.

Flash forward to Madonna’s last album, 2008’s Hard Candy. Although an overall fun, fluffy album, in hindsight the whole endeavor reeked of desperation. Instead of working with little known European electronic music producers (as she had done since her critically acclaimed album Ray of Light) she made a desperate attempt at getting airplay on American radio by teaming up with an assorted collection of the top hit makers of the moment. Justin Timberlake, Kanye West, Pharell Williams and Timbaland all contributed to that album, and while it was fine for what it was…it just didn’t sound like Madonna. Madonna always follows the beat of her own drummer, and for once, she didn’t.  Yeah, she got a fairly big hit out of it (4 Minutes) but the album was one of her lowest selling to date.

Madonna's pop legacy at this point is indisputable, but can the 53 year old icon keep up with the new crop of pop divas?

And then there is the elephant in the room;  in the four years since Hard Candy, Madonna’s slot in pop culture has been filled by Lady Gaga, who has done a better job at being Madonna than Madonna herself has these past few years. So with her latest album MDNA, Madonna has a lot to prove. Can she compete with the pop ingenues that are single handedly keeping the music business afloat? Does she even need to compete with them at this point? After all, with nearly thirty years of top ten hits behind her, she can rest on her laurels and just tour with her greatest hits forever and rake in the cash.

But it seems its as if she viewed the arrivals of the Gagas and the Rhiannas and the Katy Perries over the past few years since her last album as a throwing down of the gauntlet, and with MDNA she has truly responded in kind with one of her best albums yet. Never quite reaching the creative heights of Ray of Light and Confessions on a Dance Floor, MDNA is still up there with the best of them, and sounds more creatively fresh and new than someone who has been this long in the business really has any right to.

With MDNA, Madonna has re-united with William Orbit, the producer for her seminal 1998 album Ray of Light on six tracks, and teamed for the first time with hot French electronic artist Martin Solveig on another six tracks, and rounded it all out with Italian Ministry of Sound producer Benny Benassi.  Instead of a giant mish-mash, instead MDNA coheres into something wonderful, if not always perfect. Both old and new Madonna fans will be eating this one up upon release.

So, without any further ado, is my track by track assessment of MDNA (standard version)

1. Girl Gone Wild  (3 *** out of 5 *****)

-The second single off this album should have absolutely been the first. It is far from my favorite on this album, but it sets the tone for what follows well enough.  MDNA is mostly up tempo club beats, and GGW lets you know what you’re gonna be in for in suitable fashion. The album version of the track opens with the Catholic prayer the Act of Contrition (how very Like A Prayer of you Madge) and then descends into total Britney Spears land. In fact, GGW could have easily been a track on Britney’s last album Femme Fatale. But that’s not really a bad thing. Plus, we got a really homolicious video out of it. So I’m ok overall with GGW.

Choice Lyrics: The room is spinning/It must be the Tanqueray/I’m about to go astray/My inhibition’s gone away  (I sure hope Tanqueray  gin gets a cut of the profits)

You’ll Like This Song If You Like: Britney Spears music from the past five years, Madonna’s 2009 single Celebration.

Madge, you really need to lay off the Photoshop filters; you didn't even look like a 22 year old Victoria Secret model when you debuted, and that was thirty years ago.

2. Gang Bang (4 1/2 **** out of 5*****)

-Despite the title, this song is not about group sex (she covered that subject pretty well back during the Erotica/Sex Book era) But like the song Thief of Hearts on Erotica, where she threatened to kick ex hubby Sean Penn’s new wife Robin Wright’s ass, this song is Madonna at her bitter and angriest. (Believe me, compared to Guy Ritchie in this song, Robin Wright got off easy) Essentially, this song is a fantasy of an angry woman  shooting her lover in the head, going to Hell for it, and shooting her lover in the head all over again once they both get there. This is the first of many songs that are so clearly about her ex husband as to almost be uncomfortable. But Madonna’s bitterness results in one of the hottest, grittiest tracks on the album.

Choice Lyrics: 

And I’m going straight to hell/And I’ve got a lot of friends there/And if I see that bitch in hell/I’m gonna shoot him in the head again/Cause I wanna see him die/Over and Over and Over and Over and Over and Over and Over and Over

You’ll Like This Song If You Like: Thief of Hearts from Erotica, 90’s Old Skool techno music, the Kill Bill movies.

3. I’m Addicted (5 ***** out of 5 *****)

-Easily my favorite track on the album. Some artists are their most emotionally compelling and real when they are singing heartfelt ballads and love songs. A few songs like that aside (Live to Tell, Take A Bow) that sure ain’t Madonna’s strong suit. Madonna is most resonant when singing about the joys of losing yourself to the beat on the dance floor, and letting the groove carry you into euphoric oblivion. Whether it is Into the Groove or Vogue or Ray of Light or Music, killer dance music is what Madonna does best. And I’m Addicted is right up there with the best of ‘em.

Choice Lyrics: Now that your name /pumps like the blood in my veins /Pulse through  my body /igniting my mind /it’s like MDMA /And that’s ok 

You’ll Like This Song If You Like: Dancing. Plain and simple. Also, if you like Daft Punk’s TRON: Legacy score. (and ecstasy)

4. Turn Up The Radio (4 **** out of 5*****)

– Not sure why on Earth Madonna didn’t choose this as her first single, as it is a perfectly wonderful little radio friendly dance tune. French electro artist Martin Solveig’s hand is heavily felt throughout this track. A fun song about getting in your car, turning up your speakers really loud and driving fast as you sing along. A simple song about simple pleasures, but done well. If this were ten years or so back, this song would be a Summer radio anthem, but at Madonna’s age it will be difficult to get enough signigicant radio play in the States for that to happen. Oh well, our loss.

Choice Lyrics: Turn down the noise and turn up the volume /Don’t have a choice cause the temperatures pounding /If leaving this place is the last thing I do /Then I want to escape with a person just like you  (I never said this was a complex ditty folks. Just a fun one)

You’ll Like This If You Like: Martin Solveig’s current hit song Hello

5. Give Me All Your Luvin’ (feat. MIA and Nicki Minaj) (2 1/2 ** out of 5 *****)

-This first single landed with a giant meh, and while it isn’t offensive by any means…it sounds way too much like most modern pop hits today for my taste, as it is the same first minute or so just repeated for the duration of the rest of the four minute song. I’ll say it is less offensive as album filler than as a single. And at least we got a cute video out of it, and that whole awesome cheerleader section she did during the Superbowl. But this is one of the weaker tracks on the album, and when some of the fan made remixes are better than the final product, you know you’re in trouble. I think the only reason it became a single is she realized she was doing the Super Bowl and saw a cheerleader tie in and saw a marketing opportunity. Madonna the business woman won out over Madonna the artist.

Choice Lyrics: L-U-V-Madonna! (I know, I’m reaching here)

You’ll Like This Song If You Like: Mickey by Tony Basil?

6. Some Girls (4**** out of 5*****)

– And now we’re back to form again. Some Girls is a killer dance track, where M reminds everyone that unlike “some girls” she’s never gonna become a hot mess, have a public nervous breakdown, or any of that nonsense that seems to plague so many of these pop princesses these days. If Madonna wants to show you her vajayjay, it will be because she wants to, not because she was a sloppy drunk mess coming out of a limo. And she’s never gonna pull a Whitney and drown in hotel bathtub (too soon?) Bitch has got way too much shit to do, like making sure everyone gets down on the damn dance floor.

Choice Lyrics: Some girls got an attitude/Fake tits and a nasty mood

You’ll Like This If You Like: Ladytron, Lady Gaga’s Heavy Metal Lover. 

7. Superstar (2 1/2 ** out of 5 *****)

In my opinion, Madonna doesn’t really do cutesy and cuddly very well (I’ve never much liked her attempts at doing so with songs like Cherish) And this song is a little too cutesy for my taste. The song doesn’t really go anywhere, and is just M comparing her latest love (presumably her thirty years younger boyfriend Brahim Zabat) to the likes of Marlon Brando, John Travolta and Abe Lincoln (for reals) by the time the song is over, I’m eager for her to go back to talking smack on her ex husband and being slutty on the dance floor. I imagine a lot of fans will think this song is cute, and frankly it could be worse. But to me, this one is pretty much filler material.

Choice Lyrics: You’re Bruce Lee with the way you move/you’re Travolta getting into your groove

You Might Like This Song If You Like: Cherish, Little Star

8. I Don’t Give A…

– This is probably my second least favorite song on the album. This is also the second song on the album where Madge works with current  “it girl”  Nicki Minaj. Madonna “rapping” brings back too many bad memories of her awful song American Life. (note to Madonna- you can’t be good at everything. Rapping is one of those things…kinda like acting.) Around the halfway mark though, the Nicki Minaj totally takes over and the song becomes more fun and interesting, with Nicki standing in for M and rapping much better than she ever could, saying cheeky things like “I’m not a business woman, I’m A BUSINESS, Woman!”  Minaj’s second half of the song kind of saves it in my opinion.

Choice Lyrics: Madonna’s still the only queen…bitch. I can’t wait for Gaga’s little monsters to have aneurisms over that line.

You Like This Song If You Like: Nicki Minaj.

9. I’m A Sinner (4**** out of 5*****)

– If Madonna fused her 1999 hit William Orbit produced song Beautiful Stranger with say, some of her more blasphemous sentiments from Like A Prayer, then you’d get I’m A Sinner.  Channeling some of her “fuck you” attitude she displayed towards her critics from her song Human Nature, Madonna cheerfully sings “I’m a sinner/And I like that way/All the boys and girls/Wanna be like us tonight”  Madonna is always political even when it isn’t obvious, and I can’t help but think this is her way of giving her finger to all the Santorums and Rushes of the world, who thrive on their hate of gays and “loose” girls. At the end of the day, they’re just jealous, cause they wanna be like us, but don’t have the balls to be “sinners who like it that way.”

Choice Lyrics: Jesus Christ hanging on the cross/died for our sins/it’s such a loss

You’ll Like This If You Like: Beautiful Stranger, Madonna’s song Amazing from Music

10. Love Spent (5 ***** out of 5*****)

– My second favorite song on the album. Just the kind of pure pop magic that can happen when Madonna gets in the studio with William Orbit. The song starts with some country banjo of all things, then some disco-esque violins. This is another pointed song at ex hubby Guy Ritchie, where she pretty much accuses him of marrying her for her massive bank account. (oh, who didn’t think that?)  More than anything, I love this song for the fact that at the halfway point, it just becomes another song entirely. With most pop songs, you know what the entire three to four minutes is gonna sound like by the time you hit that one minute mark; repetitiveness is the key to selling. Hell, Give Me All Your Luvin’ is a perfect example of this, and one of the reasons I hate most modern Top 40. I love that this song does not do that. I just adore this one.

Choice Lyrics: I want you to hold me /Like you hold your money /Hold on to it /Till there’s nothing left 

You Will Like This Song If You Like: Don’t Tell Me, another Madonna hit William Orbit produced. Actually, if you loved either of the albums Ray of Light or Music, you’ll likely fall for Love Spent.

 11. Masterpiece (2 1/2 ** out of 5*****)

– the song that won Madonna her Golden Globe for Best Song and made frenemy Elton John so very irritated. It’s a pretty song, but Madonna and William Orbit have done much better together, on this album and others.  It’s vibe doesn’t match the rest of the album really, and it shouldn’t, as it was written for her movie no one saw W.E. It was a last minute decision to include it on MDNA, and actually, the whole song feels last minute. It’s not bad, its just…there. There are at least two tracks on the “Bonus Songs” that should have been included instead of Masterpiece. Ultimately, this is my least liked song on MDNA.

You’ll Like This Song If You Like: Sappy Madonna ballads like This Used to be My Playground. 

The song Masterpiece was ultimately worth it, if only for the look on Sir Elton John's face when it beat out his song at the Golden Globes.

12. Falling Free (3 1/2 *** out of 5 *****)

A much better, more interesting ballad than Masterpiece. Kind of a downer way to end the album proper, but its really quite beautiful, very melancholy without being cheesy. William Orbit’s fingerprints are all over this one, in fact it sounds like it is a missing track from Ray of Light. But again, that’s not really a bad thing. As far as break up songs go, this one’s a classic.

Choice Lyrics: When I loose a certain claim/That tries to know and needs to blame/Whatever ever runs the ground/It turns my hate and washes down

You Might Like This Song If You Like: The Power of Goodbye & To Have And Not To Hold from the album Ray of Light.

 But Wait! There’s More!

The digital “Deluxe” version of MDNA has the option of having five extra bonus tracks. Some of these are great and deserve to be on the album proper, and some I totally get why they were left off. Since these are just bonus tracks, I’ll keep these reviews more brief:

13. Beautiful Killer

-Very 80’s inspired, this could have almost been a hit Madonna song in 1985. Well, except maybe for the part where she seems turned on by a gun being put in her mouth.  That probably wouldn’t have flown on Casey Kasem’s America’s Top 40  radio show back in the day. I would have replaced Masterpiece with this.

14. I Fucked Up

-Not really a great song, but an interesting coda to a whole album where she spends so much time blaming her ex-husband for all her marriage’s problems. Here she admits, that despite it all, it was she who fucked up royally. But as an actual  song, its not that great. Has its moments.

15. B-Day Song

-Her other collaboration with MIA. Rumor has it after the whole Super Bowl “flipping the bird” incident with MIA, Madonna pushed this off the main album. (She’s vindictive like that, so I believe it) Or, it could be that’s it’s just filler at best and never had a chance. This song is pretty much just about how Madonna loves to celebrate her birthday (yeah right. Maybe when she was a teenager.)

16. Best Friend

-Another song where she cops to missing her ex, you know…the one she tried to kill and called a bitch several times at the top of the album. With lyrics like your pictures off my wall/but I’m still waiting for your call/because every man that walks through my door/will be compared to you forever more. It shows M is more than a little conflicted when it comes to her feelings about one Mr. Ritchie. 

17. The LMFAO Remix of Give Me All Your Luvin’

-I really hate to say this, but it is way better than the regular version.

And there you have it. If you’re a Madonna fan, there’s no way you won’t get this one, but if you’re a lapsed Madonna fan or even a new Madonna fan, get on iTunes and order this puppy already. MDNA officially comes out on Monday, March 26th from Interscope.

First TRON 3 Tidbits Leaked At WonderCon

by Eric Diaz

The first real tidbits of information concerning TRON 3 were inadvertently leaked this weekend at WonderCon; Speaking with io9  at the convention this weekend while promoting their ABC show Once Upon A Time, Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis (who co-wrote TRON: Legacy and are producers on the third installment)  ended up giving an update on a potential third movie. Due to their schedule on Once Upon A Time, they are not the screenwriters for TRON 3, but had this to say “We are working on a sequel….we’ve moved to be co-producers on it. But there’s a script being written right now. Dave DiGilio is writing it,  (TRON Legacy director) Joseph Kosinski is right now shooting Oblivion, but we’ve had a lot of meetings and conversations and we’ve seen the first draft of the TRON sequel.”

The writing duo were asked about the possible return of Jeff Bridges’ Kevin Flynn, who (SPOILERS for the last movie) seemingly died at the end of TRON: Legacy. “I would say the definition of life and death in the digital realm —Will be explored in the sequel.” Also making comments lately about a third installment is TRON himself,  as Bruce Boxleitner has said the current plan is to shoot the movie around 2014.

I know TRON: Legacy has its fair share of haters out there, but despite the crappy acting by lead actor Garrett Hedlund and a generic script, I pretty much dug it. I adored the updated world of the grid, and I think the Daft Punk soundtrack is one of the best soundtracks in years (in other words, I’m shallow, and to impress me you just need to have pretty lights and cool sounds and I’m sold) And for those who maintain that TRON: Legacy was some kind of bomb for not making Avatar level money…I remind you that the movie made $400 million on a $170 million budget. Believe me, right now Disney wishes John Carter was “bombing” like TRON: Legacy did.

First Look At Green Arrow From The New CW Series

by Eric Diaz

The CW has released their first pic of Green Arrow actor Stephen Amell in costume from the pilot for Arrow via Deadline.com. And, unlike this time last year when Wonder Woman’s look from her doomed pilot was released, I don’t think anyone will be complaining this time about the costume. It looks pretty spot on, even if it is only from an angle. The suit was designed by Oscar-winning costume designer and frequent Tim Burton collaborator Colleen Atwood, so I’d hope it would look decent, as opposed to Wonder Woman’s outfit, which was designed at Party City.

The official synopsis for the series goes like this: “Billionaire playboy Oliver Queen (Amell) who, after being marooned for five years on a remote island, returns with a mysterious agenda and a lethal set of new skills that he uses in a war on crime.” That too, sounds about right. Maybe this series won’t suck? Or is that hoping for too much?

Now, lets hope they don’t screw up Black Canary when she shows up.

The WonderCon 2012 Marvel/DC Comic Book News Round Up

by Eric Diaz

Despite Hollywood and the video game industry trying to steal the spotlight as per usual at one of these large comic book conventions, WonderCon, much more so than Comic Con in San Diego, is still very much comic book centric. And thus, there was a nice amount of comic book announcements this weekend that might have gotten lost in the flurry of excitement over other media if this were San Diego, with Marvel taking adavantage of the Con more than any other publisher to make a few big announcements this time. So let’s get to Marvel’s news first:

Girl Power Returns To Marvel!

Why, it just seems like yesterday I was bitching about the fact that Marvel has been neglecting their female heroes and letting them languish without titles of their own. It appears that they are aware of this little fact themselves, and made a few announcements of upcoming projects that are attempting to please Marvel’s female hero fans.

Ms. Marvel No More; Say Hello To The New Captain Marvel

Carol Danvers is ditching the bathing suit and thigh high boots and getting a haircut, as she becomes the official bearer of the title Captain Marvel, in a new ongoing series debuting this July. Not only that, but the writer of said title will actually be a woman for a change. Writer Kelly Sue DeConnick (Osborn) and artist Dexter Soy (Army of Two) are the creative team, with initial covers being done Ed McGuinness. The new ongoing series is said to at least in part spin out of Carol Danvers’s role in the upcoming Avengers vs. X-Men. The new Captain Marvel series is said to focus on Carol’s “Chuck Yeager” like civilian life as a pilot, and her other life as an A-List Marvel super hero. Writer DeConnick also dropped the hint that we’d be seeing Mystique in the book as well (Mystique made her first appearance in a 70’s issue of Ms. Marvel, not Uncanny X-Men as most might assume) As for me, I’m just happy she’s keeping the sash.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the new Captain Marvel.

And Carol Danvers isn’t the only neglected female hero at Marvel getting a chance to hog the spotlight once more; At WonderCon Marvel released the first official info for X-Treme X-Men, a new ongoing series coming this July from writer Greg Pak, spinning out of a recent storyline in Astonishing X-Men. Although the series will focus on a motley crew of alternate universe versions of popular X-Men characters, like a fifty year old cowboy Wolverine or a ten year old Nightcrawler, the main focus will be on “our” world’s version of Allison Blaire, the former disco dancing mutant known as Dazzler.

What do you mean, "dead as Disco?" F**k you. I'm BACK bitches.

Writer Greg Pak had this to say about his new leading lady – “DAZZLER! It’s kind of hard for me to contain how much I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS CHARACTER. As soon as I started writing her, all the lights went on (pun intended). She’s wry and funny and tough and vulnerable and the Marvel Universe’s greatest showbiz surviver turned superhero and SHE WILL SAVE THE WORLD WITH ROCK AND ROLL.”

Hmm. I think the last part of that sentence should be “save the world with Disco” not Rock and Roll, but the fact that he’s giving Miss Blaire a spotlight after so long means I’m giving the man a pass. Don’t let me down Pak.

A steampunk Emma Frost, a cowboy Wolverine and a ten year old Nightcrawler are among the stars of X-Treme X-Men, which is set to center on the regular Marvel Universe's Dazzler as the lead.

Marvel’s Thunderbolts Becomes The Dark Avengers

The long running title Thunderbolts is getting a title change, and this summer officially becomes Dark Avengers. Strangely enough, Marvel has decided to keep the numbering of the old Thunderbolts comics, so instead of Dark Avengers #1, we are getting issue #175 instead. Since first appearing in 1997, the Thunderbolts have been a team of former villains working towards redemption, with the most recent iteration being led by Luke Cage. Luke Cage will be staying on when the title becomes Dark Avengers, but it looks like he’ll be joined by Skaar (Son of Hulk), Ragnarok (the clone Thor) and Dark Spider-Man and Dark Scarlet Witch (they really need to find new names for those last two) Conveniently, all are counterparts to more famous Marvel heroes; it seems this change in title and line up has to do more with marketing and branding than anything else. On the plus side, the creative team of writer Jeff Parker and artists Kev Walker and Declan Shalvey are all remaining, so that should keep at least some of the purist Thunderbolts fans happy.

The Thunderbolts fall prey to the gods of corporate branding, and become the Dark Avengers.

Brian Wood Becomes Writer for X-Men AND Ultimate X-Men

X-Men, The book most often referred to as “adjective-less X-Men,” will be getting a new writer in June with issue #30, when DMZ creator Brian Wood joins the book. Aside from a few cast changes (Warpath is being replaced by Pixie, and Jubilee is out) what makes this X-Men line up most interesting is that for once, instead of a token female on the team, there is but one token male instead in the form of Colossus. The rest of the team will be made up of Storm, Psylocke, Pixie, and Domino. The notion of this book being Utopia’s “security team” will remain, although writer Wood said the shift will be to more grounded threats than before, including a proto-race of mutants never seen before in the Marvel universe.

The cover to the newly revamped X-Wom--uh, X-Men #30.

Also in June, Brian Wood takes over Ultimate X-Men as well. The Ultimate universe version of mutuant plight is significantly worse than the regular Marvel Universe at the moment, with mutants being rounded up and imprisoned and sometimes killed. Front and center to all of this drama will be Kitty Pryde, although which other mutants will remain on the book is still being kept under wraps at the moment. Most interestingly, Wood becoming the writer of Ultimate X-Men and regular X-Men makes him the first writer to tackle both universe’s versions of the team at the same time since Ultimate Marvel began back in 2000.

Ultimate Kitty Pryde longs for the days when her main problems were whether Peter Parker liked her or Mary Jane better, and not trying to evade government capture and experimentation.

DC Takes A Back Seat To Marvel At This Year’s Con, But Still Manages A Few Surprises

Despite having several panels at the convention, there wasn’t any huge news coming out of WonderCon from DC this year. A Before Watchmen panel was had, but it was mostly DC editorial regurgitating information we already knew and trying to defend the whole project to skeptical fans. Jim Lee’s take on Nite Owl was shown (he’s just doing a cover, not interiors) and while very pretty, just feels wrong to the whole Watchmen aesthetic. I dunno, I don’t think I’m ever gonna get behind this one, no matter what line DC tries to sell me on this. But I’m aware a lot of you out there feel differently, so for all of you guys out there who want this, I sure hope it doesn’t disappoint.

DC Nation on Cartoon Network however was a whole different story from DC Comics, at least  in terms of showcasing new stuff for the fanbase at their panel. A trailer for season two of Young Justice was shown, and confirmed by producers as joining the team were Blue Beetle (the teen Jaimie Reyes version) and Lagoon Boy. Don’t know Lagoon Boy? Neither did half the audience, so don’t feel bad. Season two will carry the subtitle “Invasion,” and producers Greg Weisman said we’d be seeing a lot more outer space action this year, as well as visits from classic DC characters like Lobo and Adam Strange.

Also previewed was the first season of Green Lantern: The Animated Series. Clips were shown showcasing the Thanagarians, Star Sapphires and even Saint Walker, the Blue Lantern, all of whom are showing up in season one. Not shown yet, but heavily hinted at in the panel, was the eventual appearance of Sinestro and his Corps. Producers didn’t rule out an adaptation of Blackest Night somewhere down the road either. Also all but confirmed as appearing are Green Lanterns Kyle Rayner and Guy Gardner, which made many fans pretty happy.

The highlight of the DC Nation panel though had to be the premiere of several shorts  focusing on various oddball characters of the DC Universe. Included among these shorts was The Doom Patrol, Animal Man, and confirmed as coming soon would be forgotten 80’s gems like Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld, Sword of the Atom, and even the much loathed Puerto Rican breakdancer character from the JLA known as Vibe is getting his own short. Most of these shorts were played for laughs, so I wouldn’t worry about a new “serious take” on Vibe coming from DC Comics any time soon. If proven successful, season two would include an all pet version of the Justice League, and even Starro the Conqueror. Yeah, you read right…the giant alien starfish.

But the highlight was the premier of the first on several 75 second shorts from producer Lauren Faust’s Super Best Friends Forever, a series featuring hyper stylized Powerpuff-esque versions of Supergirl, Batgirl and Wonder Girl.  Faust, creator of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic explained her take on these DC Icons; “I really wanted to put a super-spin on being a teenage girl; Supergirl has all the same powers as Superman, and Superman gets all the credit, Batgirl is a superhero fan who has action figures of supervillains in her bedroom, and Wonder Girl as an isolated Amazon who doesn’t understand the world of men.”  All I know is I want Super BFF products like…now. Please get on that Warner Brothers…do it just for me.

Attention "Bronies"- My Little Pony creator Lauren Faust has all new creepy masturbation material for you in the form of Super Best Friends Forever.

Wonder Con Review: Superman Vs. The Elite

by Eric Diaz

A tradition these past few years at Comic Con International, be it at San Diego or at Wonder Con, has been the world premiere of the latest DC Universe original animated straight to DVD movie. I’ve had the privilege of seeing the world premiers of Batman: Under the Red Hood and Batman:  Year One at San Diego Cons in years prior, and at last year’s Wonder Con I saw the debut of Green Lantern: Emerald Knights. This year I was lucky enough to be in the crowd for the debut of DC’s latest, Superman Vs. The Elite.

Superman Vs. The Elite is based on a story by Joe Kelly and Doug Mahnke that ran in Action Comcs #775 back in 2001, originally titled “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?” Writer Kelly was brought in to do a re-do of his own original comic book script for the movie, which works for and against the film in various ways, but I’ll get to that later.

The cover to Action Comics #775, where the original story for this movie was based on first appeared.

Like the original comic book story, the animated film centers around the debut of The Elite, a team of super-powered “heroes” led by Manchester Black, a British telekenitic/telepath who is seemingly all of the members of the Sex Pistols wrapped into one person. Along with his team of equally super powerful sociopaths (all of whom are all thinly veiled analogs for the Wildstorm comics super team “The Authority”)  he gains nationwide popularity for playing judge, jury and executioner to his enemies, usually on national television.

Although appearing to be friendly towards Superman at first, the Elite show their true colors as they go out of their way to show the world how they are willing to kill their foes, instead of merely apprehending them and turning them over to the authorities. Superman’s methods seem even more quaint and old fashioned in this new world, as everyone relishes their newer, hipper “protectors.” Although this story was written and published in a pre-9-11/War on Terror world, ten years later it feels like a giant indictment of the fascist “ends justify the means” attitude that prevailed (and still does) over this country for the past decade.

The Elite, from Left to Right-Coldcast, Manchester Black, Hat and Menagerie

The Good

There’s a lot to admire about this movie; for starters, the original comic book story it is based on is easily one of the best Superman stories of the past decade,  so the producers had a lot of good material to draw from. More than any other story I can think of, this story reminds the audience why the principals Superman stands for will never go out of fashion, and are things we should all aspire to in our everyday lives. There is a scene in the movie, where the smug and sarcastic Manchester Black accuses Superman of living in an unrealistic dream world, while he and his team live in “reality.” Superman responds with this- “Dreams save us. Dreams lift us up and transform us. And on my soul, I swear… until my dream of a world where dignity, honor and justice becomes the reality we all share — I’ll never stop fighting.” Many in the audience applauded, and I even got a little bit teary eyed. When it came to representing just what it is that Superman stands for, I have to say that writer Joe Kelly and director Michael Chang really nailed that aspect of this story.

The voice acting was  also uniformly good throughout, with George Newbern (who played Superman in the Justice League animated series) reprising the role. Newbern is great at giving the Super speeches without sounding cheesy or stilted, which isn’t always easy to pull off. I have to say though, I found it odd that the producers of these animated movies chose this particular project for Newbern to reprise the role in; the recently released Justice League: Doom was a virtual reunion of voice actors from the Justice League animated series reprising their roles, except for Tim Daly, who used to do Superman for the 90’s animated series but wasn’t available when the JLU show was being done. In my opinion, they should have switched out projects for these voice actors. Daly is just a little bit stronger as a solo focused Superman than Newbern, while Newbern works better in an ensemble. But this is a minor quibble. NCIS actress Pauley Perrette was also great as Lois, and veteran voice actor Robin Atkin Downes stole the show as Manchester Black…even if his Manchester accent was a bit hard to understand at times.

Robin Atkin Downes' version of Manchester Black often stole the show.

Another thing I found myself loving was all the aspects of Superman lore featured in this movie that have been retconned out by DC Comics in their “new 52” relaunch. In this movie, Superman is happily married to Lois Lane, and their relationship is delightfully written and one of the best aspects of the movie. I didn’t realize how much I missed “Mr. and Mrs. Superman” until I saw it so well done again in this story. Also, unlike the New 52, both Ma and Pa Kent are still alive and residing in Smallville, another aspect of Super lore that has been removed. And the red super underwear is still there, right on the outside where it should be. Is it too soon to be this nostalgic for the old pre-2011 DCU? The excellent portrayal of so many aspects of Superman mythology that has recently been jettisoned made me appreciate this movie even more than I would have had it been released just a year earlier.

And the animation, especially during the many action sequences, if fairly top notch as well, although suffers a bit when compared to some of the DCU animated films of the past few years. Most of it is very fluid, and I only found it look a little choppy in certain portions of the movie.

The Bad

Unfortunately, not everything in this movie is great. As awesome as the original Action Comics story was, it was just a single issue one-shot story, and padding it out to movie length you can feel that it was meant to be brief. It would have been better and a lot more effective if it were kept shorter. If the old animated series was still on the air, this would have been an ideal two part episode, but at just 80 minutes it really felt a bit long-and that’s not a good sign when an 80 minute movie feels long. By being so faithful to the original structure of his comic book story, Joe Kelly might have been doing it a bit of a disservice.

Another fatal flaw, at least for me, was the character designs. I understand that Warner Animation wants every animated movie to have their own look, but sometimes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Superman’s design was way too cartoony and ridiculous, and not cartoony in a cool sleek way like how Bruce Timm designed him for his original animated series. And since much of the point of the movie is that Superman is seen by many (wrongly so) as an outdated relic of another era, why go out of your way to make him look even more silly? He looks more like a MAD Magazine parody of Superman than the way he is drawn in his own comics.  It just made no sense, and was distracting throughout the whole movie. The character designs for Lois Lane also suffered in my opinion. So much of these designs suffered from being “different for different’s sake” and were distracting throughout.

Superman, or Joe from Family Guy?

Final Verdict: B-

Overall though, this movie is still quite enjoyable, and most importantly, really illustrated why Superman is such a treasured cultural icon, and one whose values will never be dated. Although never quite reaching the heights of some of the best of the DC Universe animated movies like Under the Red Hood, Crisis on 2 Earths or Wonder Woman, it is still one that is worth your time to watch when it gets released on June 12th.

I should also not that at the end of the panel, a good minute or so of footage from the upcoming animated version of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns was screened, and it looks to be a VERY faithful adaptation. DC Comics fans will have a lot to look forward to this year it seems.

Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows Finally Gets A Trailer

by Eric Diaz

With only two months till release, people were begining to wonder if Warner Brother’s Dark Shadows was so embarrassing that they were not going to promote the film at all, and merely unleash the movie on audiences and sit back and hope for the best. But alas, that is not the case, as we finally have our first trailer for Tim Burton’s update of the classic show, starring Johnny Depp (who else?) as vampire Barnabas Collins.

The original Dark Shadows was a cheestastic gothic soap opera that ran weekday afternoons and was a huge sensation in its heyday of the 60’s/early 70’s. The acting was awful, the plotlines were wonky, but it does get credit for being the first portrayal of a sympathetic vampire lead in a major mainstream property, years before Lestat, Angel or Edward Cullen. The show’s convoluted supernatural plots and “takes itself way too seriously” approach lives on today in the form of the CW’s The Vampire Diaries.

Judging from this trailer, it appears that Burton has decided to go the route of making a straight up spoof of the old show, which is probably wise. I still count Burton as one of my all time favorite directors, despite the fact that his last decade or so of output has felt a bit on the soulless side (Sweeney Todd being the exception, in my opinion) Let’s see if this is another meh movie from Burton for the Hot Topic crowd, or a return to the days when his black little goth heart was still in it.

Johnny Depp as vampire Barnabas Collins

Jurassic Park Gets 3D Re-Release For Summer 2013

by Eric Diaz

Get ready to return to Jurassic Park, just in time for the film’s 20th Anniversary in next year. Universal has just announced (via Deadline.com) that they are re-releasing their classic Spielberg blockbuster in 3D on July 19th, 2013, right smack dab in the middle of Summer. While re-releases of classic movies in 3D is not a new trend, usually they are released in the Winter or Spring, as to not compete with the big, shiny new movies of Summer. At the same time, Universal  has moved up the release of their Tom Cruise sci fi flick Oblivion to April 26, 2013. This seems a bit odd, as April seems a better date for an older movie, but what do I know?

While I am sick to death of 3D, I don’t mind older films getting the 3D re-release treatment, because that seems to be the only way to get those classic films on the big screen for a whole new generation of ignorant teenagers  fresh, new moviegoers. If the only way for that to happen is to release them in 3D, then so be it. Besides, what would you rather have….this or a lame Jurassic Park IV?

Soon to be "Comin' At Ya!" in 3D, scaring the pants of impressionable children brought to the theaters by irresponsible parents.

New Line Pulls Y: The Last Man Movie Out Of Development Hell; Hires New Writers

by Eric Diaz

Last week, we gave your our ideal casting for the movie. Now, it looks like the movie adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra’s  Y: The Last M isn’t as dead as everyone thought. The Hollywood Reporter just announced that New Line Cinema has hired the duo of Matthew Federman and Stephen Scaia  to write an adaptation of the acclaimed Vertigo comic book series. Both Federman and Scaia were writer/producers on genre shows like Human Target, Warehouse 13 and Jericho. New Line has been trying to get this made for awhile now; Director DJ Caruso was attached a few years back, with Shia LaBeouf  attached to star, but nothing ever came of it. Also attached at one point was The Incredible Hulk and Clash of the Titans director Louis Letterier, but that went nowhere twice as fast as Caruso’s take.

As described in the original article, Y: The Last Man centers on Yorick, an “escape artist who is the last survivor of a mysterious plague that has killed every male mammal in the world. With his pet monkey, he sets out to find what might have wiped out the world’s male chromosomes.”  The series of graphic novels are widely considered some of the best of the past decade, but are also very dense and hard to condense into a two hour narrative, or even a trilogy. Anyone else think this is better suited to be adapted Walking Dead style, on cable television? Just throwing it out there

Warner Bros. Options Mandrake the Magician For Potential Movie Franchise

by Eric Diaz

It looks like another old geek property will possibly be making its way to the big screen soon; Mandrake the Magician just got optioned by Warner Brothers, with the hopes to begin a new movie franchise for them. For those of you unaware, Mandrake was an old comic strip character created in 1934 by Lee Falk, the same man who created The Phantom. Mandrake was a magician who used his powers of hypnosis to fight crime, wearing the classical magician get up of top hat and cape. He even had an high tech lair called Xanadu. (Think Fortress of Solitude meets the Batcave) Though not technically super heroes, both Mandrake and the Phantom were predecessors to Superman and Batman by several years, and many consider them to be the first super heroes.

The last several years has seen the property go through several stages of development, with Disney involved at one point, and people like Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Hayden Christiansen attached to star. Director Chuck Russell (The Mask) was attached to direct as well a few years back, but all of these attempts fell through. Now that Warners is involved, they are hoping they can re-invent Mandrake in much the same way they re-invented Sherlock Holmes with great success. Nice to see that the box office failure of John Carter hasn’t scared all the studios away from things that happen to be old.

Maybe one day they can do a team up movie with Mandrake, The Phantom and Flash Gordon like the old 80’s cartoon Defenders of the Earth. Anyone else remember this cheesy show with the awesomely bad theme song, or am I the only one?

One thing you can be sure of...even if this movie is set in 1935, Mandrake will NOT be smoking.

Stephen King’s The Dark Tower Finds A New Home At Warner Brothers

by Eric Diaz

The saga of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series’ many efforts in coming to cinematic life continues; after Universal passed on Ron Howard’s ambitious plan to do a set of movies as well as a series of television episodes on HBO, many King fans gave up hope that something as ambitious as this would ever see the light of day. But there is light at the end of this tunnel.

 Deadline.com reports that Warner Brothers is now this close to making a deal that will have Ron Howard directing at least the first movie in the planned trilogy, potentially with Javier Bardem starring as Roland Deschain, the last living member of a knightly order of gunslingers. Fans might remember that Bardem was the frontrunner while this project was still at Universal. Akiva Goldsman (who wrote the script-yes, the same man who unleashed Batman & Robin on the world) is producing with Brian Grazer and Stephen King himself.

Production is likely to start in first-quarter 2013. With three movies and two planned television entries, his would be the most ambitious genre project since The Lord of the Rings was done. It is nice to see Warner Brothers take a chance on a high risk genre project like this, especially after Disney fell hard on their face with the box office reception to John Carter this past weekend.  At least Warners understands that books still make better source material than board games.

Why Can’t Marvel’s Female Superheroes Keep An Ongoing Title?

by Eric Diaz

As an enormous comics fan of both the Marvel and DC Universes, ever since I was a child I always gravitated to the DC universe more. Even during the periods where Marvel’s output was clearly superior, I was still a DC boy at heart. And it all probably has to do with my love of female super heroes. DC has, without a doubt, the most iconic female heroes in comics. Wonder Woman is the first and longest running of course, and along with her, characters like Supergirl, Batgirl and Catwoman are all household names. Even your grandma could pick them out of a line up. Supergirl and Catwoman have carried their own series for nearly twenty years, and Batgirl, either in the wheelchair or out if it, has been a monthly feature at DC for the better part of fifteen years straight.

At least four of the female characters are household names even to non comic book fans.

Not to say that Marvel’s heroines are anything to scoff at; In fact Marvel, without question, has some of the best female heroes in comics. The X-Men titles alone have given us possibly the most well rounded and iconic heroines in comic book history with  Storm, Kitty Pryde, Rogue, Phoenix, Psylocke, Emma Frost and several more. And yet Marvel has yet to yield one single female hero to headline her own comic for any considerable length of time, while DC continues to have success with female led books. Why is there a difference? Is editorial at Marvel more sexist, or do Marvel fanboys just not want to read stories from a female perspective?

Without a doubt, the women of the X-Men titles are the most well rounded and interesting in all of mainstream comics.

 

Marvel Women: The Early Years

When Stan Lee began the Marvel universe in 1961, the only prominent female hero regularly published was DC’s Wonder Woman. Supergirl had just been created, and Batwoman was less a hero and more just a character who would pop up occasionally in Batman’s comics and try to get him to marry her. Stan Lee was the first to change all this. While not showcasing a major female super hero character in a book of her own yet, all three of the major team books of the early Marvel Universe (The Fantastic Four, The X-Men and The Avengers) had at least one prominent female character. And not just as a love interest like Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane were for Spider-Man, but as a fully fledged super heroine in their own right. In fact, the Invisible Girl, Marvel Girl and Scarlet Witch were in fact the most powerful members of their respective teams.  So right there, that’s what Stan Lee did right.

The original female Marvel mainstays mostly did a lot of frowning and fussing, despite being way more powerful than the boys, at least in theory.

But here’s Stan Lee did wrong; the women heroes, despite their power pedigree, spent much of the Silver Age fretting over the male heroes on the team. Sue Storm was usually being kidnapped by Doctor Doom or being chewed out by her boyfriend (and later hubbie) Reed Richards, or worst of all, trying to impress him with a sexy new outfit. Scarlet Witch was pretty much a harpy or a victim, complaining about how much she hated working for Magneto, or fending off the lascivious Mastermind’s marriage proposals. And Marvel Girl, despite being telekinetic and telepathic, was mostly just portrayed as the girl next door who all the boys had a crush on. She almost never was the team’s MVP, despite the fact that her power was the easily the greatest.

It is hard to fault Stan Lee here though; he wasn’t a young man when he created the Marvel Universe, and was merely a product of his sexist times. The fact that he made as many new women superheroes as he did is to totally be commended. He created the blueprint others would later improve on in a post sexual revolution world. But maybe that sexist outlook, where women characters were just there to support the men folk, seeped into the editorial culture at Marvel and has maybe never left. Although for a few years in the late 70’s, they really did try to make up for it.

The 1970’s: Women’s Lib Catches Up With Marvel

It wasn’t until the next decade, when creators other than Lee took over the writing on most Marvel titles, that the women started to emerge as strong as their power sets would imply. Under the guiding hand of people like Chris Claremont and John Byrne,  Marvel Girl became the Goddess like Phoenix. Susan Richards dropped the “girl” from her name and became the Invisible Woman, and eventually even became the team leader. Scarlet Witch’s powers were revealed to be more than just random hexes, but the ability to alter reality itself. The Wasp…well, the Wasp got lots of new costumes and got slapped around by her husband Hank Pym.  But she did get to become leader of the Avengers for awhile, so I guess that counts for something. Uhh..right?

The slap heard round the world, as Hank Pym smacks his wife Janet, AKA The Wasp. One single comic book panel neither character would ever really recover from.

But Marvel still lacked a solid marquee female character that could carry her own ongoing title. As  the 70’s continued to roll on, and  the phrase “women’s liberation” was on everyone’s lips, just where were the Marvel solo books for women heroes? DC had Wonder Woman on television, both in live action and animated form,  not to mention non comic related female heroes like The Bionic Woman and Charlie’s Angels kicking ass on the small screen. No doubt feeling the pressure, Marvel fired back with several books to counter Wonder Woman in the late 70’s, starting with an unexpected female take on their most famous hero and corporate mascot, Spider-Man.

Taking a page out of DC's playbook, Marvel unleashed three solo series for women characters, all female analogs for popular male heroes.

In 1977, Spider-Woman was unleashed onto comic book fans everywhere. She very quickly got her own ongoing comic book, and by 1979 even had her very own cartoon series on Saturday mornings. She instantly became a staple of Marvel marketing; I was a young child during this era and remember Spider-Woman being marketed on lunchboxes and toys along with Spider-Man and Captain America as if she were “one of the guys,” and always had been.  I even remember one of those “take a pic with Spidey” events at a local mall when I was four years old, where I took an awkward Sears portrait style photo along with some poor schmo dressed up as Spider-Man…and  there was a Spider-Woman there too.  What made Spider-Woman so cool was that unlike her DC counterparts Batgirl and Supergirl, she wasn’t a Xerox copy of her more famous male namesake. Her powers, her costume, her origins were all different. Aside from living in the same universe, she had no real ties to Peter Parker at all.

During the late 70's and early 80's, Marvel marketed Spider-Woman as if she were equal to her fellow male icons. And then just like that, Marvel all but erased her out of existence.

And then, almost overnight, she was gone. In 1983 her comic book series was cancelled, and worse, she lost her powers and became just Jessica Drew, Private Investigator. X-Men writer Chris Claremont liked her well enough, so she’d show up occasionally in a panel with Wolverine or something, but that was it. No one really knows why, but rumors are that then Marvel Editor in Chief at the time Jim Shooter just plain hated Spider-Woman, as he thought a female version of a male hero emasculated him. (I guess that makes Batman and Superman giant sissies then? And what about the Hulk??) There have been rumors of sexism swirling around the Shooter years at Marvel for decades now, and their treatment of Spider-Woman merely adds fuel to that fire.

A new Spider-Woman was eventually created, but she wore a costume identical to Spider-Man’s black costume and was kept around mostly as just side character in West Coast Avengers, probably just as a way for Marvel to keep the copyright. (a blink-and-you’ll-miss-her third Spider-Woman was also created in the 90’s.)  It was over twenty years later when writer Brian Michael Bendis revived the classic Spider-Woman for New Avengers and did his best to make her a Marvel mainstay again. And so far, it has worked. But despite being announced years ago now, there is still no ongoing Spider-Woman series from Marvel on the horizon.

Julia Carpenter, the replacement Spider-Woman

Another major female character to get her own title during the period was Ms. Marvel. Originally, Carol Danvers was just a female knock off of the alien warrior Captain Marvel, even wearing a sexier version of his costume (eventually as her series progressed, she got her own costume, one which she still wears to this day)  Although her own series was cancelled in 1979, she went on to join the Avengers, where she was a mainstay for quite some time.

Avengers #200 was a very controversial turning point for the character, which essentially had her brainwashed by a villain who was obsessed with her and had her impregnated, only to have her take off with him at the end, with all the other members of the team giving their blessing. This storyline has long been referred to as “The Rape of Ms. Marvel.” This story, along with the editorially mandated death of Jean Grey, gave Marvel of the early 80’s their first accusations of misogynist undertones.  Writer Chris Claremont did his best to undo the damage done to her in his X-Men title,  and made Carol Danvers a cosmically powerful character named Binary. (essentially, he pulled a Phoenix on her)  Today, Ms. Marvel is arguably more important to the Marvel Universe and more high profile than her male counterpart, so that’s gotta count for something. But despite her high profile, her own attempts at carrying a series keep getting ignored by fanboys.

The last major new female character of the era was the She-Hulk. She Hulk has the distinction of being the last major character to be created by Stan Lee for the company, and  the reasons for creating her were similar to the reasons for creating Spider-Woman; copyright. In 1979 The Incredible Hulk was a very popular tv show, and the guys at Marvel feared that the producers would create a female Hulk much like The Six Million Dollar Man gave way to The Bionic Woman. If that was the case, they wanted to make sure THEY created her first, and therefore owned the copyright free and clear.  And so at the end of 1979, She Hulk was bornLike Spider-Woman, She-Hulk’s series only lasted until 1982. But unlike Spider-Woman, after her series ended she continued to be used in comics like The Avengers, and even joined the Fantastic Four title for a while. All this added exposure in popular team titles increased her popularity with the Marvel fanbase, and when she was given a title again in 1989. (with then popular writer/artist John Byrne at the helm) The series was far more popular this time, and lasted five years. Marvel did right this time, but then after the cancellation made no attempts at giving her another ongoing for nearly a decade.

The Present (And Future) of Marvel’s Heroic Women

For the past twenty years or so though, Marvel’s commitment to ongoing series with female protagonists has been spotty at best.  Oh, there have been numerous attempts to do so…characters like Elektra and Mystique have all been given ongoing series, sometimes with big name quality creators, only to flame out quickly after a couple of years. Even highly regarded series like Brian Bendis’ Alias never got incredible sales to go with their rave reviews. Similarly, Spider-Girl, an alternate universe version of Peter Parker and Mary Jane’s teenage daughter, has much critical acclaim but never could generate significant sales, and was ultimately cancelled. In a way, Marvel has had to resort to trickery to get fanboys to buy a series with a female protagonist; X-Men Legacy has essentially been a Rogue series now for years, and It probably would sell half as well were it simply just called “Rogue”.

A disturbing trend from Marvel has been taking their powered-up female heroes and having them become unhinged, as if too much power+ estrogen =disaster. While the Dark Phoenix Saga had a natural build up, by the time Marvel had "Dark Scarlet Witch" the undertones became creepy. I don't remember stuff like this happening to The Silver Surfer or Thor.

In fairness,  the past five or so years have seen Marvel give ongoing solo series to Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk again, but very rarely with their top tier creators, or given much fanfare in an effort to create buzz.  The teen girl version of Wolverine called X-23 was the most recent ongoing super heroine book to get the ax, leaving Marvel with no female lead books yet again. Marvel is pretty much in the exact same spot they were forty years ago, before their late 70’s “Girl Power” moment.

So is Marvel to blame? If you build it, and no one comes, can Marvel really even be at fault? Or have all their recent attempts been anemic and deserving of failure? Or is the ugly truth that most Marvel Fanboys are really just that sexist? The massive popularity of the X-Men titles, with their huge amount of strong female characters suggest otherwise. And the success of Wonder Woman, Batwoman, Batgirl and Catwoman as part of the “New 52” relaunch at DC shows that fanboys WILL buy female heroes if done right. Sooner or later, Marvel will hopefully launch a female centric property and it will stick, but only if they keep trying and don’t give up entirely, as they seem to have done lately.

WTF News Of The Week: Garbage Pail Kids Movie Being Remade

by Eric Diaz

If there was any further proof needed that the world was indeed ending in December of this year, this news might seal the deal. The Garbage Pail Kids movie is being remade. And before you check your calendar, April 1st is still a few weeks away.

For those of you too young to remember, Garbage Pail Kids were a series of trading cards produced by Topps, with gross out versions of the then popular Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. When I was in the fifth and sixth grade, these cards were the shit. Everyone traded them, it was a minor obsession among kids at the time (think pogs, you children of the 90’s) Schools banned the cards, making us want to trade them and collect them even more. Debuting in 1985, the cards were all the rage for about two years, and then everyone stopped caring about them, right around the time the target demographic discovered masturbation.

I just might have had this sticker on my binder, circa 1986.

So in 1987, right as the fad was about to die, the Garbage Pail Kids live action movie was released on an unsuspecting and undeserving world. It was an huge critical and commercial flop, barely making $1 million dollars at the box office. Box office aside, it is also one of the worst movies ever made. Like…really, really bad. So of course it is about to be remade.

The man behind this genius idea is Michael Eisner. Yes, the same Eisner who once saved the Walt Disney company from irrelevancy in the 80’s, and then was ousted for staying way past his expiration date. Eisner bought the TOPPS trading card company a few years back, and is now trying to ring anything he can out of it. Someone named PES (yes, that’s their name) known for making youtube videos and whatnot, is set to direct. Sure, why not.

Who is the market for this movie supposed to be? People my age realized this shit was stupid around the time we got pubes, and younger folk pretty much have no idea what Garbage Pail Kids are. I’m not even sure the target demo knows what Cabbage Patch Kids even are. More and more I think those ancient Mayans were on to something.

 

 

Chronicle Director In Talks For Big Screen Version of Marvel’s Venom

by Eric Diaz

Arguably the best super hero movie on the year so far has been first time director Josh Trank’s Chronicle, which wasn’t even based on any actual comic books and was an original property. Even before Chronicle came out to rave reviews and good box office, there was talk that Fox wanted Trank to helm their upcoming Fantastic Four reboot. Tranks denied all of these rumors, but it looks like there might be another comic book style movie he is doing instead: Venom

According to the Los Angeles Times, it appears Josh Trank is being eyed to do a big screen version of the classic Spider-Man villan for Sony. Sony own the movie rights to Spider-Man and all related characters, including Venom. A Venom film has been simmering at the back burner at the studios, dating back at least to 2008 and going back before plans for this years’s newly rebooted Spidey franchise. Gary Ross negotiated to direct a Venom film back in 2009 but moved on to other projects, including the upcoming “Hunger Games.”Screenwiter Jacob Estes wrote a draft of a “Venom” script several years ago, but producers are seeking a new writer for the project. Apparently, the Ross version had Venom as less a villain and more an antihero, much as he was in the late 90’s Marvel comics. You know, the ones everyone hated.

The question is. will this tie in to the upcoming reboot of Spider-Man, or somehow divorce Venom from the Spider-Man mythology all together? The latter seems stupid, but unless somehow Eddie Brock is introduced in the next movie as well as the symbiote, I’m not surehow this is going to all work. Personally,  I would have much preferred Trank’s take on the Fantastic Four than Venom, as that is the one Marvel property that has never really been done justice yet. All the other Marvel Icons can at least count one to two really good movies to their names.

Chronicle director Josh Trank looks to be leaving Fox for Sony, and trading in the FF for a played out Spidey villain.

 

DC Comics Previews New Modern Versions Of Two Classic Heroes

by Eric Diaz

So today DC Entertainment has given us a sneak peek at the all new looks for two of their most well known characters that have been missing in action since the whole “New 52” reboot hit back in August. And there’s a whole lot of lightning to be had.

First is up is Captain Marvel…er, I should say Shazam. In a story that ran today in the New York Post, writer Geoff Johns revealed the look of the new Shazam, set to debut as a back up feature in Justice League starting with issue #7, with art by Gary Frank. According to Johns, “We changed his name [to Shazam from Captain Marvel] for a lot of reasons, one of them is that Shazam is the word most associated with the character, so we just felt it made sense — a lot of people already thought that was his name, anyway. His place in the world will be far more rooted in fantasy and magic than it ever was before.”

The All-New Shazam, complete with hood, probably to illicit one less comparison with Superman.

Created in 1939 for Fawcett Comics, the original Captain Marvel was kid news reporter Billy Batson, who when saying the magic word Shazam, would transform into the adult hero Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel was so popular in fact, he started to infringe on Superman’s comic book sales, and even outsold Supes for a while. DC of course, was having none of that, so they sued publisher Fawcett Comics for copyright infringement and spent the next decade in court. Captain Marvel was no more a knock off of Superman than dozens of other characters, but since he was selling so well he was seen as a threat to Superman’s popularity. Eventually Fawcett Comics gave up the fight, and stopped publishing Captain Marvel comics altogether in 1953.

Ironically, twenty years later DC Comics bought the rights to the character they once sought to destroy. Despite intermittent attempts at launching a new Captain Marvel series (which, due to rival Marvel Comics, could never actually be called Captain Marvel, hence the title Shazam! on almost every comic series featuring the character since 1973) DC has never had much luck re-launching the character on a permanent basis. He always seemed a relic of a simpler time, even more so than Superman.  It should be noted that Captain Marvel had much more success out of comics during this time than in them, as there was a live action tv series called Shazam!  That ran for three seasons in the 70’s, and an early 80’s Saturday morning cartoon as well. Due to the popularity of both of these versions, casual fans refer to Captain Marvel far more as “Shazam” than his actual name, which is what probably prompted DC to just say “fuck it” and call him that from now on. Besides, why give free publicity to #1 rival Marvel Comics?

Even more so than Superman, Captain Marvel has always seemed a relic of a bygone era.

The second DC character to get a massive overhaul is the Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick. Set to star as a member of the Justice Society of America in the upcoming comic Earth-2, this new version of the original speedster is clearly younger, and would therefore seemingly have no ties to World War II. In an interview with Newsarama today, Earth-2 writer James Robinson stated that the new Earth-2 JSA will have been active as heroes for the same amount of time as the regular DC Earth—meaning about five years or so.

Our first look at the newer, younger original Flash. Hey...at least they kept his color scheme right. More than I can say for Wonder Woman.

The JSA heroes have been Grandpas in spandex for my entire life, so I’ll admit to being curious about them presented as younger heroes for the first time since the 40’s. Still, I’ll miss a version of the DC Universe that has a history spanning more than a few short years. I like the notion of a DC Universe with a hero history spanning decades… why does everything that is old have to be negative? But I suppose a version of that could still exist out there; there are still fifty or so Earths we have yet to see. Time will tell.

I hate to admit it, but I'm going to kinda miss the dorky helmet and those stupid little booties.

 

Ralph McQuarrie, Lead Concept Artist For The Original Star Wars Trilogy, Dies At 82.

by Eric Diaz

It was announced on March 3rd, 2012 via facebook that legendary artist Ralph McQuarrie, best known for designing the look of the original Star Wars trilogy, has passed on at the age of 82.  There are no words to describe how instrumental McQuarrie was to the overall popularity of Star Wars. George Lucas may have come up with the names and places and ideas, but it was McQuarrie who gave them their unique visual signature. If Lucas was Stan Lee, then McQuarrie was Jack Kirby, bringing what were just silly words on paper to vibrant life with style.

Born in Indiana, McQuarrie moved to California in the 1960s. Originally he worked as a technical illustrator for Boeing, as well designing movie posters and animating the news coverage of the Apollo space program for CBS. Impressed with his work in all these fields, a young George Lucas approached him about creating illustrations based on his upcoming science fiction script. McQuarrie designed many of the characters, including Darth Vader, Chewbacca, and drew many concepts for the film’s sets. McQuarrie’s concept paintings, including such scenes as the droid duo R2 and 3PO arriving on Tatooine, helped convince 20th Century Fox to fund Star Wars. Ultimately, The looks for almost everything in the classic trilogy was conceived of by McQuarrie.

Besides the original Star Wars trilogy, McQuarrie also contributed to such legendary movies as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and Jurassic Park. But it is for defining the Galaxy far, far away that McQuarrie will be remembered for most.

Ralph McQuarrie 1929-2012

Zachary Quinto New Male Lead On American Horror Story

by Eric Diaz

So season two of American Horror Story on FX has just added their second returning cast member from the first year, as it is confirmed by Deadline.com that Zachary Quinto (who guest starred on a handful of episodes last season) will return to the show this year as the male lead. Instead of a haunted house in Los Angeles, the location for season two will instead by a haunted hospital on the east coast. This is the second cast member from year one coming back to the series, as it was previously confirmed that also returning to the show is Jessica Lange, who will be playing an all new part as well.

American Horror Story producer Ryan Murphy was very wise to keep Jessica Lange, the show’s most versatile actress. And they were just as smart to keep Quinto, whose star is certainly on the rise lately with the Star Trek movies. The anthology format allows these actors to show the same audience their acting range by playing different parts.

It should be noted that the double bill of openly gay Quinto and beloved-by-her-LGBT- fanbase Lange has officially made American Horror Story  THE gayest show on television. Yes, even more than Murphy’s own Glee. Hey Murphy, why not add Cher to the cast next season? And yes, I’m totally serious. You know it would be fabulous.

Indiana Jones Finally Coming To High Definition This Fall

by Eric Diaz

The last holdout of the big genre franchises to come to high definition has finally been announced, as Paramount and Lucasfilm made it official today: The Complete Indiana Jones Collection will arrive on Blu Ray in Fall 2012. Yes, they said “complete”, meaning that you’ll have to buy a copy of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as well. But who cares? Use it as a coaster or something. All that matters is Raiders of the Lost Ark in high def. Everything else is gravy.

According to the press release “The Complete Indiana Jones Blu-ray Collection will be excavated in the fall of 2012 and will include all four of Indy’s thrilling adventures, using the highest possible high definition picture and audio presentation – along with a “best of” collection of documentaries, interviews, featurettes and a few new surprises.” I imagine when they say “best of” they mean they’ll be porting over all the documentaries from the old DVD sets, and maybe like the Star Wars collection last Fall, they’ll include the original vintage “Making Of” docs as well. Sadly, extensive new special features are mostly a thing of the past in this day and age, but this being Indy, I imagine they’ll thrown in something new. I wish they’d include Jamie Benning’s wonderful filmumentary on the making of Raiders that was released this past year, but that’s a long shot.

Along with Indy, this year will also see the release of Spielberg’s Jaws, E.T., and the rest of the James Bond series on Blu Ray. If you still haven’t upgraded to high def, I’d say now would be the time.

Alan Ball To Depart True Blood After Season 5 Wraps

by Eric Diaz

Although it has been speculated for some time, Deadline.com just made the news official: after the currently filming season of True Blood wraps shooting, Alan Ball will depart for greener pastures. Ball still has an overall deal with HBO, and is in fact developing a series called Banshee for sister network Cinemax. Also, if the show goes to a sixth season (which is almost a certainty) Ball will still have supervisory role on the show, even if he is no longer the show runner.

So what does this mean for the future of the show? Well, like I said, True Blood will almost certainly get a sixth season. It remains HBO’s highest rated series after all. But HBO doesn’t keep series around just because they keep making money–they know when to leave the party with some dignity intact. Both The Sopranos and Sex and the City only went to six seasons, and ended at the peak of their ratings. And much of the True Blood cast has shot to stardom and are probably itching to do other things soon. With Ball gone, a lot of what drew the cast to the series in the first place will no longer be there, giving them more reason to want to bail. Also, how many years can these actors pull off “ageless vampire” anyway?

Final prediction: True Blood will get a sixth season minus Ball, and end it there…and just like Sex and the City, there will probably be a True Blood movie.