Author: GeekscapeStaff

Here we are, Week 3 of the DCnU! If the last two weeks have been about bold declarations about the direction of the universe, this week felt about fleshing out some of the corners.  We get some cosmic action with Lantern Corps Green and Red (although Hal Jordan is sadly, and hilariously, earthbound).  We get five brand-spanking new covert organizations and three new multinational techno-conglomerates.  And, most surprisingly, we find out that DC’s most refreshing, flat-out fun team book is in fact a crazy Dark Ages genre mashup featuring Etrigan, Madame Xanadu, Shining Knight, and Vandal Savage getting into a drunken bar brawl with Baron Mordru!  But before we go forward, let’s take a quick look back at…

What’s Old in the DCNU This Week:

Anything written by Geoff Johns or Grant Morrison pre-Flashpoint (Green Lantern, Red Lanterns, Batman and Robin)
Karen Starr- but not Power Girl (Mister Terrific)
Deathstroke’s Daughter, Rose Wilson (Superboy)
Tactile Telekinesis (Superboy)
Jason Blood, Vandal Savage, and awesome Sir Ystin from Grant Morrion’s Seven Soldiers- MORRISON! (Demon Knights)
Amanda Waller…120 lbs. of her, anyway (Suicide Squad)
The Creature Commandos! (Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E.)
Flashpoint, I guess? (Legion Lost)

Batman and Robin

Steve Robles – Geekscape’s Consummate Hater

When something dumb happens early on in a book, it’s hard to get over it right away. Question: Batman exists because Bruce Wayne lost his parents. This violent act shaped the Batman. Scarred Bruce for life. It’s part of Bat-lore that Bruce honors his parents on the anniversary of their deaths in some way at the site of their deaths in some fashion. It’s the most sacred site in the Batman mythos: Crime Alley.

So why does Batman need a GPS to tell him where to go? The World’s Greatest Detective can’t remember basically where his essential birthplace is?

Getting past that, this book is more “meh” than I’d hoped it would be. I am actually a big fan of the Damian Wayne version of Robin. He is, of course, a bit too precocious for a 10 year old, but it’s easily overlooked, especially in some of the later storylines in the pre-boot Bm&R. This particular issue is the start of a new storyline (violent, which I like, but seems to be a thread running through the two existing Bat-books) and forces a lot of the Batman/Robin conflict down our throats.

We get crashed-coursed that Batman thinks Robin is impulsive and reactionary. Got it. Robin is Batman’s son. Got it. Robin is stronger and more powerful than your average 10 year-old. Check. He might even be smarter, since he could probably find Crime Alley before Batman could.

It could go on and on, but this #1 is only so-so. If I wasn’t a fan, I wouldn’t be interested in this Frank Miller-lite version of Batman and Robin. I am going to continue, but only through this first arc. If things don’t improve, we’re done.

Batwoman

Eric Diaz – Geekscape’s DC Expert

Of all the titles coming out this week, I was maybe the most excited about Batwoman. When Batwoman made her big debut in the mini-series 52 a few years ago (not to be confused with the New 52…I know, it is confusing) I was on the fence about the character, who was seemingly just created to bring in some much needed diversity to the DC Universe. See this Batwoman, Kate Kane, was a lesbian. Or more to the point “a lipstick lesbian” as her press release put it back in the day. Not sure why they felt they needed to include that… I guess so fanboys would still read it. The original Batwoman from the 50’s was created to squash rumors that Batman and Robin were gay, so it was a bit of delicious irony that this new one would herself be a lesbian. Sadly, the initial 52 series didn’t do much with her character, and many wondered if DC had dropped the ball with her.
 
But then a year or so back, DC gave Batwoman the lead in Detective Comics, with writer Greg Rucka and artist JH Williams, and everyone changed their tune. Batwoman was given a solid backstory, as a military brat who was the best in her class, till being discharged due to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Like all good Bat family characters, she has tragedy in her past (her twin sister was murdered) a solid supporting cast (her father Jake, who serves as her Alfred, and her niece Bette, who is her Robin) and a love interest (Maggie Sawyer, a cop on the GCPD). Rucka’s writing on Detective was great, but the real star of the book was the stunningly beautiful art of JH Williams. The level of detail was astounding, and the idea of having the bright red of Batwoman’s costume stand out against the washed out almost sepia toned world of Gotham City was a stroke of visual genius. Every page was a thing of beauty.
 
But now for the new Batwoman #1, Kate Kane has lost half her creative team, as Greg Rucka is gone. Wisely realizing that JH Williams’ art is key to the success of the character, DC has given Williams the art AND writing duties. Usually an artist turned writer spells disaster, but if someone had told me that Rucka was still writing this book, I would have believed it after reading Batwoman #1. Williams took notes while working with Rucka it seems, and this book feels very much like their run on Detective. Like Batgirl, I’m thankful this first issue gave Batwoman a new villain to fight, in the form of “La Llorona” (Spanish for the weeping woman) who seems to be a wailing spirit who kidnaps and sometimes drowns children. It is based on an actual Mexican urban legend, which adds to the fucked up-ness of it.
 
Sadly, while I really enjoyed this, the problem is that this book fails as a FIRST issue. There is no explanation for who this character is if you didn’t already know, or hadn’t read Detective last year. Later in the issue there is a kind of messy re-cap (once again, with very,very pretty art) but no #1 issue should be this confusing to new readers. A quick trip to Wikipedia should help anyone who doesn’t know, but you shouldn’t have to do that when reading a first issue of any character. Look at Animal Man #1 for example…they did it right. I will be back next month because I like the character and I love the art, but I can’t help but wonder whether or not curious readers will be along for the ride. As a follow up to Batwoman’s run in Detective, this book is an A, but as a first issue, I can only give it a C.

Heidi Hilliker – Could Pull Off the Batwoman Outfit
 
After a long wait since the Detective Comics’ mini series and seven months after its original release date, Batwoman #1 has finally arrived. I have to say that this is the superhero book that I have been the most excited about in a long time. As I finished this inaugural issue my instant reaction was… Wow… Absolutely amazing to say the least.
Not only am I a fan of Kate Kane as an empowering and mysterious heroine, I am a real fan of this title’s powerful new direction for mainstream tights and capes comics. Batwoman stands tall and vibrant in a sea of cliché and stale storytelling somehow managing to unify reality and the supernatural. A huge part of its appeal is that its mind bending prismatic art work, by the insanely talented and Hilliker favorite J. H. Williams III, is the primary bard of the tale.  I could frame and hang almost every page of this book on my walls. Every image in this tale is creative, tantalizing, and unique to its world. I would kill to live in the wonderfully imaginative tree house apartment of the Kane’s. It has hands down got to be the coolest secret hideout ever. Structurally, this first issue does an excellent job of picking up where we last left Kate while still managing to gracefully summarizing and tapping on all of the back-story that one would need to know as a new reader. Part of me hates that DC has made me wait this long for this book but as soon as I turned the last page they were instantly forgiven. Long live the Batwoman!

Green Lantern

Daniel Campozano – AKA Big Yanks

First off, I haven’t read a Green Lantern book since Blackest Night, so I decided to use this book as a jumping back-on point.  Unfortunately, for a #1 book, this isn’t a jumping-on point.  I know enough of the Green Lantern mythos to keep reading through. So Sinestro is now forced to be a Green Lantern and Hal has become a nobody. He’s such a bum now that he has to ask Carol to co sign for a car loan; she’s less than happy with that proposal. Hal’s also hating on Sinestro for being a Green Lantern.  Sinestro’s having his own problems: he’s now forced to fight the Yellow Lanterns, as they’ve decided to enslave his home planet.  Sinestro’s forced to enlist the help of Hal to help him free his people. Sinestro gives him and offer he can’t refuse  or a “come with me if you want to live” or something like that. The art was ok, nothing to brag about. Story wise I’m digging the book so I’m going to have to go diving into the back issue bins to see what lead us to this point.  Quick question, though: aren’t these new 52 suppose to be reboots?

Red Lanterns

Daniel Campozano – Actually Reads

Are you down with OPP? Them sadistic aliens were and they got all kinds of fucked up by it’s owner. Apart from the beginning, I found this book to be kind of a snoozer. It was more of Atrocitous complaining about the Guardians killing his planet with Manhunters and Hal stealing his vengeance from him. Someone call Atrocitous a waaa-mbulance already!  There is some unrest in the ranks of the Red Lanterns starting with Bleez.  This has Atrocitous wondering if he’s ready to be their leader or not, not that anyone cares. There was a back story of some old army dude getting jumped by a “punk” and his grandkids getting angry about it. Art-wise the book was very pretty to look at except for the gross blood parts, just yucky. Story-wise I have no clue if this book is gonna serve any real purpose or not to the DCnU, I’ll keep following it to see if anything materializes in the book to make it worth picking up.

(Editor’s Note: If the only purpose of this book is to provide me with more pin-ups of Dex-Starr, then SO BE IT!)

Superboy

Stephen Prescott – Dresses as Doctor Who… a lot

You know I just really wish that DC would tell us what books take place in the past and what books take place in the present. It’s so confusing! Anyway…

I’m assuming that this book takes place in the present and we are seeing a retelling of the creation of Kon-El storyline in the new 52 universe. The book opens with Superboy in a holding tank at a secret laboratory and by the end he still isn’t technically freed. The only reason I assume it is in the present and not a flashback is because of the foreshadowing of the new Teen Titans team at the end of the book. Foreshadowing is probably too soft of a word, the entire team is actually shown behind Superboy in his new uniform in a full page panel  on the last page.

But was it any good you ask?

The simple answer is yes. It wasn’t great, but it was definitely good.  As a first issue goes, we get a lot of exposition and set up, but it doesn’t ever feel like the reader is being force fed. It all comes about pretty naturally through Superboy’s inner monologue and there are shades of classic Conner Kent.  Not to mention I think the rest of the dialogue was great and the art was simply fantastic.

I have to admit, though It pains me quite a bit, that Conner some of us have come to love over the past years is gone and is being reborn. So I truly hope that the story planned out for this Superboy and Tim and Cassie (if that even is Cassie) is strong enough that erasing all those years of character development won’t be for naught.

I have to add that I love the cameos that were in the book and it will be interesting to see where those lead. I’ll definitely be keeping up with this one to see how it pans out.

Deathstroke

Frank Angones – Geekscape Managing Editor (Should Be Treated With Respect)

I’m of two minds on this book.  On the one mind, this was a damn fun, balls-to-the-wall super-mercenary book. Big concepts (soldiers modified with Clayface DNA!), impossible missions (mid-air assassinations!), and witty banter (“Harm Armory” will be the name of my new speed metal band).  Plus it’s got some slick, focused action artwork by Joe Bennet. Kyle Higgins presents us with a no-nonsense Slade Wilson, a killer who lives for a challenge and is utterly unphased by whatever crazy-ass obstacle the writer can throw at him.  That’s how you get me excited about yet another superhero wetworks title; you taking notes, Suicide Squad #1?  He even sets up a dynamic and fun premise, pairing the consummate professional with a bunch of cocky newbies who treat the whole thing as a game.  I am 100% on board with this book.  Then Higgins has Wilson getting rid of the supporting cast he just spent the entire issue setting up to prove what a “badass” Deathstroke is.  I get that he’s a badass! He has one eye, a sword, and his name is DEATHSTROKE.  I totally get what he’s going for, but it comes off as cheap.  In order to be really shocking and impactful, a death this early in the run has to involve a character that we fully understand and have come to feel for- think of the first ten minutes of Up.  The Alpha Dawgs/Harm Armory aren’t fully realized characters, but certainly hold the promise of becoming such.  I may like them, but I sure as hell don’t know them, so their deaths feel more like wasted potential than loss.  Why the hell did I just spend 22 pages reading about the beginnings of these characters if I’m not gonna learn a damn thing more about them?   A mystery item set up for Slade to find is pretty much the only thing that leads us into issue 2, with no other sense of what that issue is going to be like.  Higgins took a big risk that this gimmick would get me invested in Deathstroke #1, but ultimately ended up feeling like an introduction that introduced nothing of consequence.

Demon Knights

Heidi Hilliker – Probably Never Coming Back to California

Magic and Demons and Exploding Babies… Oh my! I never read any books involving Etrigan, Madame Xanadu or Vandal Savage before but believe me that is all about to change. This book was just so darn fun from cover to cover! I’ve been really pumped for this title ever since I went to a 52 panel at Comic Con San Diego. It makes so much sense to put all of DC’s magic and mythical characters in the Middle Ages to see what happens. This story reads like Conan with a heavy side of humor. A bloodthirsty army is tearing across the land and conveniently collides with a bar that just so happens to be full of mystical heroes due to cosmic timing. Ha! With credits such as Doctor Who, Robin Hood, and Primeval, its no surprise that British sci-fi writer Paul Cornell has done a smashing job introducing us to what I hope will turn out to be an epic journey of ridiculous proportions. The artwork is mythic, the characters are delightfully appalling and the story is exciting. I’m two for two this week and couldn’t be happier about it!

Frankenstein Agent of S.H.A.D.E.

Marc Bovenzi – Once Played Rock Band With Big Yanks

Where to begin with Frankenstein Agent of S.H.A.D.E., When the character first appeared in the pages of Seven Soldiers by Grant Morrison, i had every intention of checking it out, but alas i did not. So i thought it was an interesting move to give the character his own series when DC announced their new 52 launch after the semi-successful Flashpoint tie-in book Lemire did for Frankenstein. To anyone who doesn’t know anything about the character its actually pretty simple. It’s Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein in the DC Universe, simply put. Frankenstein works for a corporation called S.H.A.D.E. (Super Human Advanced Defense Executives), from what i gather is a peace keeping / battle supernatural baddies task force.

The book begins with a grandfather and son fishing when a group of monsters come out of the woods and gruesomely skin the grandfathers dog. Which sets the tone for the book very early which i liked, when you have Jeff Lemire attached, you can expect this kind of tone, especially after his phenomenal first issue of Animal Man. Lemire used the Creature Commando’s as help for Frankenstein to assist with battling the monsters in the small town, which felt like a Universal Monsters movie come to life with a Dracula, Werewolf, Mummy and Creature from the Black Lagoon-esque characters. It felt very reminiscent of a B.P.R.D. book at this point and there is nothing wrong with that. Ponticelli’s art was something left to be desired, excellent storytelling transitions if you ask me with some beautiful splash pages and the art does fit very well for the book, but it just didn’t grab me like it probably should have. Overall, I’m going to stick with it, i think it’s going to be interesting to see where this book goes and what direction Jeff and Alberto are going to take it in, plus with a O.M.A.C. cross-over in the second arc, how can you go wrong?

Legion Lost

Stephen Prescott – Loves Apple Products More Than Most People

Of all the books in the New 52 so far this one feels the most like it isn’t in the new 52 at all.

Seven legionnaires have jumped back in time to present day earth to apprehend a criminal who is infected with a virus that threatens to wipe out the whole planet. They of course arrive too late and the virus is unleashed amongst some mass destruction in a small town. Unless this virus starts getting mentioned in other books soon I don’t see how this book is going to work in the overall big picture of the new 52.

In general though this book didn’t really work for me. The artwork was ok, but it felt inconsistent and the every story beat felt just too convenient. They’re conveniently too late to stop the bad guy. Their technology conveniently stops functioning so they get stranded. They conveniently catch the bad guy who they lose containment of at the worst possible moment. I never felt any tension or anticipation while reading and the ending just fell flat for me. I know that they have this task now to stop this virus and that the team might already be infected, but the story didn’t suck me in enough to make me care.

With all the other great books on the cards in this new lineup, I’m not sure that this title is worth my $2.99 every month until I see how it actually plays into the bigger picture.

Mister Terrific

Frank Angones – Still Geekscape’s Managing Editor

One of the nice things about 52 new #1s is that DC pretty much had to dedicate some of those titles to characters who weren’t related to Batman (not that they didn’t try).  Hence we have Michael Holt aka Mr. Terrific starring in his own book.  One of the few- only?- remnants of the Justice Society of America in the DCnU, Mr. Terrific is yet another techno-industrialist who’s a man of pure science.  Aren’t they all?  The self-billed “third smartest man in the world,” Terrific’s always been an interesting character who turned his back on religion when his wife and son were killed in a car crash and embraced pure reason and science.  Even though he’s one of those pinko liberals, he still supports a Republican because said candidate supports science in the schools.  Science science science.  In case you couldn’t tell, Michael Holt is going to be the “scientist superhero” in this new universe, the DCU’s answer to Tony Stark (unless that’s Oliver Queen…or Bruce Wayne…or…)

This book looks like it’s going to trade in super-pseudo-science, as is evidenced by an opening battle through the streets of London.  Writer Eric Wallace even namechecks Doctor Who. Unfortunately, in a week where an actual Doctor Who writer assembles an immortal team of Dark Ages heroes,  Deathstroke fights Clayface soldiers in a flying armory, and Frankenstein’s Monster flies around Manhattan in a miniaturized, Ray Palmer-powered superstation piloted by Father Time reincarnated as a Japanese schoolgirl, your going to have to try a little harder than “magnetize the London Eye” to win the super-pseudo-science crown.  All in all, though, I liked the vibe of this book, and it was certainly more fun than Green Arrow’s generic adventures last week.  I have some major qualms with the Gianluca Gugliotta’s art, though.  He has a weird bottom-heavy style while stretching out the upper body that recalls some of Humberto Ramos’ worst traits.  It’s most prevalent in his depiction of Karen Starr (aka Power Girl), who’s already ample assets cause Gugliotta to draw her like some kind of funhouse Kardashian.  Oh yeah!  And Power Girl’s back!  Only now she’s not the blowzy, rough and tumble Amanda Conner knockaround girl.  Now she’s (yet another!) techno-industrialist who’s hopelessly devoted to Michael, much to the envy of all the other gorgeous women who also want Michael.  That seems to sum up my overall attitude to this book: man, it’s great to see some of these lesser characters getting play, even if I don’t particularly like their new directions.

Resurrection Man

Scott Alminiana – Eric Diaz Vouched For Him

And unto the living he shall be resurrected, he is the man of resurrection… he is the Resurrection Man!!!

See, now that just sounds cool, a little biblical-sounding gibberish that I whipped up. DC, I think you should use that intro for the book… just saying…

Going into this book I knew nothing about the character at all; zip, zilch, nada. But, thanks to a visit to good old Wikipedia, I discovered that Abnett & Lanning created Resurrection Man back in 1997. I’m familiar with Abnett & Lanning from their work on Marvel’s “cosmic” characters over the last few years: Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy were amazing! (*sniff sniff* I miss you guys!) So, I decided to give this book a gander. How was it? It was awesome!

This book felt fresh and new, but at the same time it was creepy and bathed in shadows. I loved every second of it. The story so far breaks down as such: Mitch Shelley is Resurrection Man and every time he comes back to life he gains a new power. There are supernatural forces at work that want Mitch’s soul and they will do whatever it takes to find him and his “overdue” soul. Abnett & Lanning’s story works nicely and had me wanting more. For having never read this series, I felt like Mitch Shelley had a clear and distinct character voice. I especially like the characters of Bonnie and Carmen, whom in a brief two-page scene, manage to come off as sexy, crazy and creepy all at once. Talk about some strange femme fatales! Fernando Dagnino’s art was a perfect fit for this book and its supernatural vibe. His page breakdowns made it easy to follow the story’s flow from panel to panel. His character designs are simple, yet effective, and it’s easy to tell characters apart. He uses a lot of shadows in his drawings which work nicely for the tone of the book.

For having never heard of this character and being somewhat of a new comer to the DC universe, I am glad to say that this particular new #1 did a phenomenal job of grabbing and keeping my attention. This is the kind of book that DC’s New 52 needs. It’s not your typical superhero comic book; it’s not even a superhero “book”. Does he have superpowers? Well, sure, but he’s not flying around in a cape and underwear… but then again, no one is wearing underwear anymore in the New DCU. This is pure, supernatural pulp at its finest and I think people should definitely give it a try.

Grifter

Steve Robles – Probably Carries a Gun

I don’t know much about this character pre-boot. In this issue, we actually see him pull off a grift and someone gets to call him a grifter, so there’s that. I can’t tell if the thought bubbles in the red tatters are another entity or Grifter thinking to himself. There are blue thought bubbles that indicate an alien intelligence intruding on his own mind – or minds. I’m not sure.

There’s an incident on a plane that serves as a bookending sequence that’s eerily uncomfortable considering the book was released around the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Then we get some spy/thriller type elements that tell a story about Grifter being kidnapped by a tentacle monster in a tube. He gets away and dons what I assume to be his signature mask (he’s wearing it on the cover). He sort of looks like Jack of Fables.

I have no idea what this is or where it’s going. Grifter must be loved by someone. It isn’t me. Sorry, Grifter.

Martin Scherer – Still Canadian

I wanted to like this book.

The story starts off with Cole “Grifter” Cash on an airplane, and he’s not all there—he’s hearing voices and someone is chasing him. By the end of the issue, Grifter still isn’t sure what exactly has happened to him, and neither is the reader.

The only sure things to both Grifter and the reader is that he has lost a significant amount of time, and the quick decisions he made to escape the threats presented in this issue show that character actions will have consequences in this series, which I find a refreshing change from most action stories.
I think I understand what Edmonson is going for in the writing of this book—a very slow burn, that will lead to a series of satisfying “a-ha!” moments as the layers of mystery and confusion are slowly lifted. In some ways this reminds me of the technique the TV show Lost used. At the end of the Lost pilot, we had a lot of mysteries presented, but also some answers, or at least sure things about the characters and their world.  Unlike the Lost pilot, the first issue of Grifter raises too many questions and the characters are not nearly developed enough to be satisfying.

We don’t fully understand the threats, we don’t know much about the main character or his relations, and in turn there is little to care about here. I have no doubt as a complete story this will probably read great, but as a first issue this, simply, isn’t that great. The hooks presented to keep me interested to buy the second issue are not enough.

I loved the Wildstorm Grifter as presented in Sleeper, Point Blank and Wildcats 3.0, and was really excited to see a return of the character to prominence in the new 52. I know his origin would have to change in order to fit the DCU, but the hopes of seeing this familiar friend again was enough to get my very excited for the book. This different version of Grifter, the above mentioned problems, and in general my high expectations for the book resulted with me not feeling indifferent to what I just read, but something worse– disappointment.  

I really want to like this book.  You only have one chance to make a first impression. I won’t be checking out the rest of the series unless there is a lot of a good buzz about the later issues.

 

Suicide Squad

Molly Mahan – Doesn’t Get “Deadlines”

For those of you unfamiliar with the DCU, Suicide Squad is essentially the Dirty Dozen. However many villain and anti-hero characters are imprisoned at Belle Reve Penitentiary, a super surveillance prison, with 23 hour a day lock down. The only way to get out, is to become an agent of Task Force X aka The Suicide Squad.

True to form, this #1 issue of Suicide Squad starts out in the same way. You meet the players, learn why they’re part of the team and why they were imprisoned, and then we set out on their first major adventure. It’s mostly a throw away issue that could have been done as a special “origins” issue, except you get to see the new El Diablo in action. This rendition of the Squad consists of Harley Quinn, Deadshot, King Shark, El Diablo, Black Spider and Voltaic, lead by a superhot Amanda Waller.

The issue ends, with the teaser “Next issue: Suicide Squad’s First Casualty!” And if I had to wager a guess as to who that might be, I’d bet money that it’s Black Spider since he gives a whole of one line of dialogue and it’s not even valuable to the story. As to the other characters, I’m going to state for the record that El Diablo is in the lead as my character to watch out for in the future. He’s everything I enjoy in a fictional anti-hero: Catholic. He reminds me of the pre-Simone Huntress, only more volatile, aggressive and repentant. He’s the character who turned himself in when he realized what he had done. Seeing him interact with the more ruthless Deadshot, instinctual/animalistic King Shark and the insanity of Harley Quinn will be fun.

As for the other characters: Deadshot seems about the same, the soldier of fortune with a secret soft spot. Nothing is learned about Voltaic or Black Spider. All we get about King Shark is that he will eat you and he can’t stand heat (which, if your missions are likely going to be on dry land, probably not a good idea to have an anthropomorphic shark on the payroll). Lastly, as predicted when the book’s cover was released, I am not at all impressed with this rendition of Harley Quinn.

Her new costume, while not as bad in the book as it is on the cover, is still pretty horrendous. All the other characters (sans-King Shark) have full coverage and storage space for items that may prove useful on a mission. Harley looks like she just came back from an Insane Clown Posse concert and lost her cellphone because she didn’t have any pockets to place it in. She does not look practical by any stretch of the word, and practicality is key when you’re on a covert black ops mission. Her characterization has changed a bit, as well. She’s still in love with the Joker, only now she’s willing to kill for his love. Previously, Harley had never been a killer. While she had killed in the past, but it was always temporal insanity (in fact, the art was always “cartoon” styled, so she didn’t even think she was really killing them, just putting them in a temporal time out). It was part of her charm. This time, she kills and without remorse or her sweet insanity to make you forgive her. She’s also using knives and a sledgehammer, rather than a toy gun and a comical mallet. We basically have all the worse attributes of Harley (i.e., obsessive lover to an abusive boyfriend), without the endearing attributes. As a former Harley fangirl, I am not pleased.

Story-wise, the book leads me to believe the writer (Adam Glass) might be one of those people who believes 9/11 was an inside government job and that’s always a little nerve racking. I say this because the first mission of the Squad is to kill 60,000 citizens at a sports arena and so far we have no idea why. I guess we’ll have to wait until the next issue to find out.

The book has three separate artists working on it, which is always annoying. Although the styles aren’t so drastically different that it hurt my head to read and the art on the individual pages is lovely independently, it is still frustrating on the whole. I don’t like it when an artist changes mid-arc, let alone mid-book and I don’t imagine many of you enjoy that, either. Hopefully they’ll settle on one artist or team of artists for the rest of the storyline.

Final thoughts: although I am desperately disappointed with our first look at the “new” Harley Quinn, I am, at the very least, the slightest bit intrigued to see where the next issue is headed. So, for that, I will give it a passing grade. It gives me no indicator that this is a “must read” title of the new 52, but if you have some spare change, it looks like it’ll be fun.

If you live in a vacation destination like me, then I am sure you’ve experienced the situation of having to stop dead in your tracks due to overweight, fanny pack wearing tourists obstructing the sidewalk so that they can snap a photo of a dirty beach pigeon.  Living in Waikiki, the most overly saturated vacation spot in the state of Hawaii, I have to deal with this on a daily basis.  I must admit that after the 1000th time this happens, it becomes frustrating.  From time to time I fantasize about how great it would be to plow through these sloppy herds with an electrified pickaxe.  However, the law frowns upon activities of this nature and I had no outlet for my pent up aggression.  That is, until I discovered the newly undead beachgoers of Moresby Resort and Hotel in Dead Island.

Would Double Tap That?

This game brings survival horror out of the darkness of dreary, rundown mansions or ravaged shopping malls and gives the genre a one way ticket to paradise.   The “sun & fun” aspect is a much needed facelift to the zombie extermination games of recent years that have become increasingly dull and predictable.  Now you might be saying to yourself, “But Resident Evil 5 was set in the blazing African daylight.”  This is true but, there is a huge difference between the two games.  RE5 sucks a big bag of misshapen dildos and Dead Island rocks harder than Slayer playing at your graduation party, and here’s why.

The narrative takes a backseat to the on-screen mayhem and your main focus as a player is to scrounge up whatever you can in order to survive.  But in all fairness, after the first time you blow the fake tits off of a bikini clad zombie with a pipe bomb made out of deodorant, the story becomes kind of irrelevant.  The weapon modification system is every wannabe outbreak survivalists dream and it is much more involved than games with similar systems such as Dead Rising.  You want a flaming baseball bat?  No problem.  Need a machete covered in toxic waste?  You got it pal!  And for the firearm enthusiasts, there are shotguns and AK-47s that turn up later in the game.

Just point and click.

There are 4 different character options that range from an ex-pro quarterback that has a knack for long range weapons, to a failed rap artist whose primary attribute is smashing skulls in with a rusty pipe.  Depending on your preference, whomever you choose will have an upper hand in his/her own specialty.

Scenery on the resort and in the jungle is gorgeous and the dilapidated slums are realistically portrayed.  For anyone who has been on vacation and actually managed to explore outside the premises of the resort, they are aware that these poverty stricken local towns are all too common and I applaud the games creators for not shying away from this aspect.  There is however, an actual place named Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea.  Knowing how easily people try to crucify violent videogames these days, it’s only a matter of time before some disgruntled homemaker from that region files a bullshit lawsuit.  But I digress.

The sound design takes from the notion that a little can go a long way.  It is refreshing to know that someone figured out that you do not need gut-busting stripper metal polluting your ears in order to add to the carnage which, if done right, can support itself.  Often while exploring different areas you will find that the lack of constant music is necessary so that you are better able to hear the heavy breathing of an unseen ghoul that is hauling ass at you with a meat cleaver.  But for the most part the sound presents itself in a more ambient fashion that adds to the tension between confrontations.

Now let’s get down to the things that go bump in the light.  Of course you have your standard “walking dead” that every survival horror game would be stupid NOT to include.  And then you have your Left 4 Dead inspired rabid baddies with a little more pep in their step.  As the game progresses and your character levels up, so does the opposition, and they do this in more ways than one.  Soon you will be facing “Thugs” who throw Mike Tyson-esque haymakers that will surely knock you face first into the white sand beach. I picture thugs being the bonehead muscle apes who wore Ed Hardy t-shirts when they were alive and it makes me laugh.  Further down the line you will encounter exploding baddies where keeping your distance is crucial, to another type of creature that I can only describe as a rhinoceros strapped into a reinforced straightjacket.  Luckily, each enemy has its own weakness that can be figured out and exploited to your liking.  Or you can just set them on fire because apparently the zombies in DI are made of newspaper. 

He has no idea how to get down from there.

For as much praise that I embellish upon DI, I have to admit there are some monotonous side missions and riDONKulous glitches that can take you right out of the zone and make you punt a leg off of your coffee table.  For instance, on a few occasions I was entering a vehicle to drive to my next destination and then suddenly I was on the exterior of the truck with my ass glued to the roof.  Sometimes this was remedied by a bout of maniacal button mashing, but other times I was forced to reload the game from my last checkpoint.  As far as the bunk side missions, there are two that come to mind.  The first type of mission is a request from one person to check on a loved one of theirs and make sure they are alright.  Even though you have seen the person they are speaking of and you KNOW they are safe, you have to slog 10 miles roundtrip so that the program recognizes the quest objective.  The second unnecessary mission is where you must locate a teddy bear for a woman in her twenties so that she can take a nap.  Seriously?

Sometimes the interaction with the scenery is a little TOO involved and can become tedious as you can sometimes spend countless minutes rummaging through deserted luggage.  Partaking in this action certainly has its rewards, but mostly you will find superfluous objects or small amounts of cash that only add up over time. If you are the type of gamer who enjoys grinding it out little by little, then finding a bottle of water and selling it for 3 dollars on numerous occasions will be right up your alley.

“This one’s for breaking my favorite chair!”

Even with some dumb quests and frustrating glitches, DI is an incredibly fun game that you can play solo of with 4 player co-op that works well, but still may need an update patch and allow more level diversity to be considered optimal.  This game is by no means a spark of innovation nor is it a story driven masterpiece.  However, what DI lacks in the aforementioned areas, it makes up for in the impressive art design and of course the multitude of ways to unleash fury on the infected population.

In closing, I have to give Dead Island the coveted “Islander Stamp of Approval” for everything it does right and especially due to the fact that all of the annoying tourists are featured as fair game because 5 minutes after the breakout, they became zombie room service.  Which is exactly how it would go down on this beach, Brah.

Here we are at another week of Geek Releases and I’m so glad you’re still with us. See? This article IS doing some good! Or maybe not. We haven’t exactly heard a lot from you. Maybe this week you should leave some comments and tell us what you’re looking forward to. It’d make us sleep better to know that you’re still there. In the meantime, here are the things we’re looking forward to to get us through the week:

 

Monday

Frank Angones – Geekscape Managing Editor

Thrilling Adventure Hour Podcast (Download HERE) – Mondays generally mean a return to the grind with very little in the way of releases.  But for me, Monday’s the day when some of my favorite podcasts drop. And frequently The Thrilling Adventure Hour Podcast is the cream of the crop.  Billed as “America’s favorite new-time podcast in the style of old-time radio,” Supernatural writers Ben Acker and Ben Blacker bring you a collection of 1930s-ish sci-fi and adventure serials with a decidedly modern sense of humor.  The show features such comedy nerd friendly names as Paul F. Tompkins (Mr. Show), Nathan Fillion (Firefly), John DiMaggio (Futurama), James Urbaniak (The Venture Bros.), along with a deep bench of impossibly hilarious regulars.  Marc Evan Jackson’s smarmy, self-involved Sparks Nevada, Marshall on Mars, is one of my favorite comic creations of the past ten years and makes me proud to be “from Earth.”  Delightfully off-the-wall recurring serials include “Beyond Belief” (Tompkins and Paget Brewster as a supernatural Nick and Nora Charles), The Cross-Time Adventures of Colonel Tick-Tock (following a Colonel from “Her Majesty’s Royal Chrono Patrol”), and Captain Laserbeam (think Batman ’66, if it was even more hilarious).  

 

Tuesday

Scott Alminiana – Eric Diaz Vouches For Him And So Far So Good

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop on DVD & Blu-Ray – Like many people, I was caught up in the whole Tonight Show fiasco that saw O’Brien leave NBC and like many I am a supporter and fan of Coco. This documentary is something I’ve been looking forward to since I first heard about it, I’ve always wanted a peek inside the mind of a comedian.  Not only do I get to take a look behind the actual curtain but I get as well as the proverbial curtain at a big moment in Conan’s career and life. Deep stuff. That is all. (Ed. Note: “Proverbial Curtain” was the name of my avant garde improv troop in college.)

Molly Mahan – Trapped in a World of Her Own Creation

Thor on DVD and Blu-Ray – Because nothing gets me more excited than the God of Thunder eating pancakes and eggs at the local Denny’s in some small town in New Mexico.

Alexander Raymond – Geekscape’s Resident Monstar (Not a Typo!)

Citizen Kane on Blu-Ray – Arguably the best American film of all time. Directed by and starring Orson Welles, Citizen Kane is the tale of newspaper mogul Charles Foster Kane. Kane comes into wealth from poverty and the self-destructive life he lead trying to find the happiness he once had as a boy. This new Blu-Ray celebrates the 70th anniversary of Welles’ film with an all new digital transfer. One downside to this set is that a lot of the bonus features are holdovers from the last DVD release, but that’s why they are called “bonus”; the meat of the bone here is Welles’ movie. This box set does look like it does justice to the film with a nice package that includes a book of photos, lobby card reproductions and more. Even if you do have that previous DVD release, an upgrade on this movie is something to get excited about.

Dave Biscella – Geekscape’s Very Own Juggalo

Hesher on DVD & Blu-Ray – This movie had me interested and expecting a good time just by having Joseph Gordon-Levitt play a shirtless, stoner metal-head. Then they managed to make that character so much more than just that, mixed in great performances from Rainn Wilson and Natalie Portman, and  built it all around a great story about life, survival and moving on and ended up making it one of my favorite films of the year so far.  Definitely one I can watch over and over again.

Russell Sherman – Also Canadian

Ringer – Series Premiere (9 PM EST, The CW) – If I cared in the least bit about Sarah Michelle Geller, I’d be pretty stoked for to see Buffy’s triumphant return to TV. But she does nothing for me and I really don’t care about the premise for the show, a thriller in which Geller plays a young woman hiding from the mob who poses as her wealthy twin sister only to find herself involved in a deeper conspiracy.  Will I watch it?  Of course I will, just to see if she can escape her image of always being Buffy in my mind.

 

Joshua Jackson – Geekscape Games Expert

bit.Trip Complete for Wii/ bit.Trip Saga for 3DS – There’s this crazy misconception that WiiWare doesn’t have anything worth playing on it. Luckily for those who might have missed out, the bit.Trip series from the download service are being sold in one neat retail package. For starving Wii and 3DS owners, (I know you’re out there) Wii gets bit.Trip Complete while 3DS gets bit.Trip saga, which includes the entire series of retro themed games. Now there’s no reason to miss out.

Shane O’Hare – Resident Bronie

Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad for PC – The sequel to the intense military simulator, Red Orchestra 2 brings everything up to fucking 11. The new engine and graphics are pristine. They made the simulation aspect of the game way more intense and realistic; if you’re in a tank and decide to change positions you actually have to move your head and crawl around the inside of the tank. Crew members inside can die, and you’ll have to replace them as commander. With a single player centering around the German Nazis attack on Russian soil, it will be AMAZING to see how the game plays out while playing as the bad guys.

Dave Biscella – Still a Juggalo A Few Paragraphs Later
 

Polar Bear Club – “Clash Battle Guilt Pride” – Polar Bear Club is a band that sounds like what it would be like if Hot Water Music and Alkaline Trio had a kid that was still able to create their own sound. This is the third full-length album from a band that keeps getting better and better with every release.

 

Matt Kelly – Purveyor Of All That Is Shit

Primus- “Green Naugahyde” – I remember being in Elementary school when I saw the music video for Primus’ “Wyonna’s Big Brown Beaver” on MTV. A bizarre blend of metal and country (not to mention an eye catching video) lead to them becoming one of my all time favorite bands. After their underrated 1999 album Anti-Pop, Primus broke up. In recent years they released an EP (2003’s Animals Should Not Try to Act Like People) and played a few reunion shows. But Tuesday’s release of Green Naugahyde is their first full length album in over decade.  This fanboy couldn’t be more excited!

Noel Nocciolo – Geekscape Music Writer

Nick Lowe- “The Old Magic” – I am stoked.  I’ve been listening to the re-issue of “Labour Of Lust” pretty heavily since it’s re-release in March (I drooled over its sexiness here) His contribution of “Changing All Those Changes” to the (mostly beautiful, as a whole) “Rave On” tribute to Buddy Holly was A+.  New material from a consummate artist and instinctive producer is a treat. Nick Lowe will be joining Wilco on their North American tour and I’m heading to Nashville for both shows at the Ryman Auditorium in October.  Instant-Christmas for sure…and you’ll be hearing much more about Nick Lowe (and Wilco!) as this column continues.

Witney Seibold – Resident Old Man

Robert Altman’s “3 Women” – The Criterion Collection is, as we all know, a byword for consistently great home video releases, and, what with their relatively recent foray into the Blu-Ray market, we wiggly, snotty cineastes have had the wonderful chance to revisit, and in some cases, upgrade our collections. On Tuesday, one of the best American films of the 1970s (and that’s saying a lot) gets the Blu-Ray treatment, as “3 Women” hits stores in its deluxe two-disc edition. It’s Altman at his dreamiest, as he depicts a purgatory-like life for a pair of women (Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek) in a remote California spa, as they gossip, subtly berate one another, and, as in Bergman’s “Persona,” slowly begin to merge personalities. It’s sinister, cold, weird and awesome in an arthouse sort of way. It’ll be a good holdover from Criterion until their Halloween release of “Island of Lost Souls.” 

 

Wednesday

Mark Bovenzi – Lived With BigYanks Once

Daredevil #3

Why aren’t you reading this book? Seriously? Why not? Don’t you give me that excuse, your mother and I taught you better than that. I don’t care if you hate Daredevil or Matt Murdock or Foggy Nelson. You NEED to be reading this comic. YES! YOU! This is some of Mark Waid’s best work to date. And Paolo Rivera is completely re-inventing how comic panels and storytelling are done in a comic. I have never seen an artist channel Steve Ditko anymore then he has. Absolutely gorgeous storytelling and a riveting story as well. This isn’t the Daredevil book you think it is. This isn’t a dark, gritty crime book, No. It feels more like a 80’s throwback book to when Daredevil use to be fun and not depressed all the damn time. Not the campy 80’s comics that a lot of people hate, but a fun summer romp through a field of poppy’s. So put down the gun, get your ass to your local comic book store and instead of picking up 13 new DC relaunch books, try something that’s not your normal Marvel comic book.

 

Molly Mahan – Used To Draw Superheroes In Highschool

Batwoman #1! (no,that’s not a factorial, thank you) (DC Comics) – I’ve been waiting with bated breath for this since it was mentioned with Greg Rucka attached. Although I’m bummed that Rucka dropped out, I’m still extremely excited since I love JH Williams III’s art and am assuming his characterization of Batwoman/Kate Kane will be in the same vein as Rucka’s.

Eric Diaz – Geekscape Writer/DC Expert

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 9 #1 (Dark Horse Comics) – Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 9 #1 comes out this week, and promises to take Buffy and her Scooby gang, now living in San Francisco, a bit more back to basics. After Slayer armies living in Scottish castles, trips to the future, and Buffy and vampire boyfriend Angel having cosmic marathon sex resulting in the birth of a new universe (which I kinda dug) let’s just say things got a bit outta hand in Season 8, story-wise. Now Joss Whedon promises to take things back a bit more to how things were when the series was it its peak, and I couldn’t be more happy to re-unite with old friends. Especially Spike. The creative team behind season 8, Joss Whedon and Georges Jeanty, return along with new co-writer Andrew Chambliss.

Shane O’Hare – Possible Tea Party Member

Jurassic Park: Dangerous Games #1 (IDW Comics) – IDW has been putting out some great mini series lately, their PERFECT Rocketeer run being one of them. I’m not too sure how I feel about this. Guess I’ll know for sure when I pick it up. Their last one was about dinosaurs in Texas and it was a “meh” affair. Let’s see what this one turns up. It’s the most exciting book to come out this week.

Russell Sherman – The Person Still Watching Big Brother

Big Brother Finale (9:30, CBS) – First off, I’d like to offer an apology to the readers of Geekscape because I’m one of the people who keep watching these crappy reality programs so the studios keep making them.  I feel like I’m trapped in a circle of violence with these shows, I keep bending over and getting screwed by crappy shows just to watch the train wreck that is Rachel.  I doubt she’ll take it well when she doesn’t make it into the final two.  If she does make it, it’s likely she’ll win.  Now let the flaming begin (I guess I kind of got that covered though).

Thursday

Frank Angones – Geekscape Managing Editor Who Will Soon Have a Funnier Title Written For Him

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia/ Archer Season Premieres (FX, 10 pm EST) – Some shows jump the shark.  After gaining 50 lbs. for the new season of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” co-creator Rob McElhenney can barely jump the curb.  Taking method acting to hilarious new depths, McElhenney, who also plays muscle-headed karate enthusiast Mac on the show, and crew have reenergized my excitement for the always solid show by opening up a whole new areas to explore through the now dangerously overweight “Fat Mac”.  Even more exciting is the premiere of the big three-part Archer event, “Heart of Archness,” which pairs H. Jon Benjamin’s narcissistic superspy with Patrick Warburton as a Nick Fury-ish pastiche in a pairing that I’ve dubbed “The Monsters of Bemused Understatement 2011.”

 

Tanya Tate – Puts Up With Alexander Raymond

Retro Action DC Super Heroes Green Lantern Kyle Rayer Matty Exclusive Figure – This is what I am excited about…finishing my Retro Action DC Super Heroes collection!  Kyle is the last figure to be released of the recently discontinued series. These are similar to the Mego figures of the 70’s, joyfully blurring the line between action figure and doll with their cloth outfits and (on Wonder Woman) rooted hair.  The line which consisted of Superfriend-ly versions of Superman, Aquaman, Batman, and Legion of Doom-ish Lex Luther, Captain Cold and Cheetah, ran five waves. I’ve been collecting these for a awhile and this Green Lantern will complete my collection. Kyle Rayner, the final figure, is a Matty Collector exclusive and is available via their website; http://www.mattycollector.com

Friday

Dave Biscella – Appears To Be Looking Forward To The Whole Week

Drive – It’s exciting enough that we get to see a badass Ryan Gosling for the first time since The Believer a decade ago, but when you also throw in Bryan Cranston, the eye candy of Carey Mulligan and Christina Hendricks and a badass Ron Perlman wanting to kill everybody, how could any dude not be excited for the badassness this will be? It also doesn’t hurt that it’s from the director of Bronson, which epitomizes a badass movie. (Ed. Note: Albert Brooks plays the main villain in this. WHO ARE YOU TO RESIST IT?)

Dev Ashby – Geekscape’s Cult Movie Expert

The Weird World of Blowfly – Its limited run actually doesn’t start in Los Angeles until next week (Sept. 23), but I’m nonetheless happy to hear that the bizarro music industry documentary The Weird World of Blowfly will be enjoying its Grande Premiere this week in New York on September 16.  The film chronicles the life and career of former funk/soul/R&B writer and producer Clarence Reid, cataloguing his heartbreaking and ongoing underappreciation (financial and otherwise) in the music industry, and more importantly, his weird Dolemite-esque stage persona “Blowfly,” a flamboyant, trash-talking performance artist who dresses like a gay Mexican wrestler and is credited by Ice-T and several other hip-hop notables interviewed for the project as “the original X-rated rapper.”  I love the ’70s, I love hip-hop, and I love weird people with extreme and outlandish creative visions to promote, so I anticipate a unique and memorable experience with this film.

Molly Mahan – We Knew It Was A Remake

Straw Dogs – I don’t know what it’s about, but Alexander Skarsgard and James Marsden star and I was lucky enough to be born with two X chromosomes. Actually, it’s a remake of the 1971 film of the same name and I’m a sucker for films about writers who find their breaking point and fight back. Writers with guns, yeaaah!

 

Saturday

Joshua Jackson – Is Really About to Suggest This

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Season Premiere (9 AM EST, The Hub) – Seriously, any other answer besides the mother f-in season premiere My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is the wrong one. So get ready to step away from the ledge, put the gun down and hide the pills you were planning on overdosing with, because after today, you’ll not only be 20% cooler, but you’ll be guarenteed to keep on smiling… FOREVER!

Stephen Prescott – Resident Doctor Who Expert

Doctor Who, “The God Complex” (9 PM EST, BBC America) – It goes without saying that I am excited every week that there is a new episode of “Doctor Who” and the next 3 weeks are the last episodes we’ll be getting until Christmas. This Saturday’s episode (9 pm est/pst on BBC America) is particularly exciting because it is the Toby Whithouse episode that I discussed with him at San Diego Comic-Con this year. Most fans think Whithouse is hit or miss with his episodes, but I’ve found him to be hit every time and that includes “Vampires in Venice.” This coming episode is called “The God Complex” and it is kind of “The Shining with a minotaur,” with the heroes trapped in a hotel where their worst nightmares are coming true. A little bit of speculation on my part but this is probably the episode where the bits from the fall trailer featuring the Weeping Angels and River Song with the eyepatch take place. I think we can expect an appearance from the Daleks as well.

Witney Seibold – Resident Old Man

John Carpenter Triple Bill – I, like you, remember when horror films used to be spookier. I also, probably like you, have a weakness for the films of John Carpenter. What better way to spend a Saturday night, then, than to trek on down to the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, plop down the reasonable ticket price, and marvel through a triple feature of the master’s grandest works (and one of his lesser films)? They’ll start with “The Thing,” move onto “In the Mouth of Madness” (still one of my favorites), and finish with the maligned by strangely loved “Prince of Darkness.” The show starts at 7:30 PM, and John Carpenter will be there in person. 

Sunday

Russell Sherman – Filled With Canadian Pride

Terry Fox Run – On a bit of a serious note *climbs onto a soap box* anybody who knows me on the forums knows this guy is one of my heroes if not my number 1 hero!  I truly believe he is the greatest Canadian, and he brought attention to cancer while it was still a taboo topic.  With a goal of raising $1 or every Canadian in 1980 he was going to run a marathon every day across Canada and started the Marathon of Hope.  If your city is participating in this event I highly recommend taking part, he was an amazing man and this year we honor his mum who died earlier this year.

Here we are at the beginning of the DCnU proper!  You will believe a man can…jump really far or something!  This week introduces us to the much anticipated, Grant Morrison Superman (with an emphasis on the man), a cocky radical combatting big business and shady practices.  It also confirms that Batman’s gonna stay pretty much the same, with the exception of a magic vertebrae on one Barbra Gordon; after all, the elements of his backstory and rogue’s gallery are pretty widely recognized.  We got some truly badass darker books from Jeff Lemire (Animal Man) and Scott Snyder (Swamp Thing) that incorporate a Vertigo sensibility into the DC proper.  And for those of you like me who complained that Justice League #1 didn’t contain enough of a full team story, check out Justice League International, a team book that introduces the whole team, their dynamics, and pits them against a major force, all in one issue!  Bwa-ha-ha indeed.

We’ve got reviews of every single DC #1 here this week and every week as we figure out what to keep, what to trash, and who actually gives a damn about Hawk and Dove anyway.  Before we get into that, with everybody going into a tizzy about what crazy new changes DC is making, I thought it might be helpful/therapeutic to list the elements of the old DCU that are still in play.

What’s Old in the DCnU this Week:

– The Red (Animal Man) and The Green (Swamp Thing)
– The Hall of Justice (JLI)
– S.T.A.R. Labs (Static Shock) and Cadmus (OMAC)
– At least the very first part of “The Killing Joke” (Batgirl)
– World War II – look, I’m taking nothing for granted here- and Sgt. Rock (Men of War)
– Cliff Baker’s ridiculously anachronistic mullet (Animal Man)
– Pretty much everything Batman, except for Jim Gordon’s fiery red locks! (Detective Comics)
– Slashfiction (Stormwatch)
– Ridiculously pointless amputation (I won’t spoil that one here)

On an unrelated note, we here at Geekscape are working furiously to come up with an appropriate nickname for the purple hooded lady that has shown up in literally every new #1 so far (the same woman who showed up in Flashpoint #5 and is partially responsible for the status quo shakeups).  Clearly this woman is pulling double duty as a failsafe in case this whole New 52 gambit fails and they need a way to return to the DCU of Old.  My current favorite nicknames: “Lady Reset,” “Madame Waldo,” and “Superboy Punching a Hole in Reality.”
And now, without further ado, COMICS:

Action Comics

Eric Diaz

Try as they might, DC has not been able to really make a Superman book click for the past decade. The only real glimmer of greatness came when Geoff Johns did his all too brief run a few years back. They’ve tried bringing back Krypton, giving him an adopted son, and worst of all, have him “walk the Earth” for a whole year. Meanwhile, sales continued to be meh , while Batman, Green Lantern and even the Flash sold well. What would it take to make the world’s first super hero click for modern readers? Apparently, by taking him back to square one.
Action Comics #1 from 2011 bears a great deal in common with Action Comics #1 from 1938; both versions of Superman weren’t  fighting giant robots or super villains, they’re taking on corrupt elected officials and throwing wife beaters out the window.  In 1938 we were in the midst of the Great Depression, and today we have the “Great Recession.”  Everyone is pissed off, the economy sucks, and just like then, the rich are getting richer while the poorer continue to get screwed.  Having Superman use his immense powers against social injustices and “beating up the bullies” as it were might seem like killing a fly by using a jackhammer, but it is wish fulfillment at its finest. And just plain fun to read.
At his core, Superman represents the power fantasies of the disenfranchised, and writer Grant Morrison understands this better than anyone. Artist Rags Morales’ pencils have grown leaps and bounds since his Identity Crisis days-the book looks beautiful.  They’ve given us all a Superman we can get behind, if only to see him do all the things we wish we could in real life.  Action Comics #1 worked like gangbusters in 1938, and amazingly works just as well today.

Tim Powers

I love Golden Age Superman.  There’s something that remains fresh, exciting, fun about those old Siegel & Shuster stories.  They’re charming, simple, graceful.

Such was not always the case with the Man of Steel.  In the 50’s, all the way through the modern era, there was story after story where Superman uses his great abilities simply to stop a snoopy dame from exposing his biggest secret… and those stories always made him look like a dick.  Don’t believe me?  Visit superdickery.com.

My expectations were low for Action #1.  Superman has been re-introduced three or four times in my lifetime (in the 70’s when he became immune to Kryptonite, in the 80’s with John Byrne, in the 90’s when he came back from the dead as Joe Staton’s E-Man, and when he stopped being the energy being that was split into red and blue).  I think I had a reasonable expectation that THIS Superman would be just as shitty as the recent movie Superman.

God love ya, Grant Morrison.  If I was going to pick up a comic book, hand it to a new, virgin comics reader and say, “This is a fine example of a superhero comic book,” Action #1 (2011) is a good book to start with.  Don’t get me wrong– it’s not an exceptional comic book– but it IS everything a good comic book should be.

Rags Morales does a fine job on the artwork.  It’s action-packed, it’s fluid, the story flows from panel-to-panel and page-to-page really well.  And Morrison included everything a Superman story should have (including many Easter Egg homages to Superman history).  I thought it was cool that in ONE STORY, Superman actually proves himself faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Familiar faces return:  Lois, Jimmy, Luthor.  Metropolis, however, is different than before.  Traditionally, Metropolis has been the bright-and-shiny “City of Tomorrow” with monorails and art deco skyscrapers.  Based on Morales’ illustration, Metropolis’s economy is as bad as the rest of ours’.  Metropolis has litter, it’s dirty, there are slums and street crime.  Hard to find that kind of stuff in a 50’s or 60’s Superman story.

I’m looking forward to seeing what DC does with this “Superman” guy.  I hear once you get to know him and he gets comfortable, he starts wearing his underwear on the outside of his pants.

Detective Comics

Frank Angones

So here we have the Batman of the DCnU.  Who seems exactly like the Batman of the DCU.  Who is sadly nothing like the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh.  But I digress.  In some ways this makes sense.  The mass audience is most familiar with the key aspects of Batman than of any other DC hero: billionaire playboy, butler, cave, Joker, Bat-signal.  Granted, it seems incredibly strange that in this DCU, Batman is constantly hunted by the police, yet they’re totally cool with the Commissioner having a giant, taxpayer-funded flashlight to summon said vigilante.

I tell you, of all the new 52s I read, I did not expect this to be the most old fashioned.  Tony S. Daniel’s staid cat and mouse story of Batman tracking down the Joker, who killed nineteen people last year (that seems like kind of a step down, no?)  Honestly, this book reads like a slightly grittier version of Batman ’66.  For a book called “Detective Comics,” there’s surprisingly little detecting going on here.  Not many twists and turns, and the “clues” that are discovered feel a tad lazy.  Seriously? You know where Joker’s hideout is because a witness heard him talking about it?  Come on.  The whole issue culminates with Batman finding the Joker in a crowd because he’s the only bystander not watching a building burn.  Also he’s the guy in the purple trenchcoat and clown make-up.  One moment of the story did stand out: when a little girl spots Joker hiding on the subway, she’s tells her mother “That man looks like a monster.”  Then she reveals she was actually talking about the giant bat that’s right behind him.  It’s a nice reveal, a good twist on a familiar scene, and it says some interesting things about the dynamic between the Batman and his archenemesis.

Daniels’ art (with an assist from Ryan Winn) actually works well and is in keeping with the cleaner, blockbuster action style Batman that we saw in Justice League #1.  It’s dynamic and keeps the action flowing.  Unfortunately, in a relaunch where some creators are exploring new, fresh elements of their characters, it’s a bit of a bummer to see one of their flagship characters revert to a story we’ve all seen before.  I will say, this refusal to change paired with the more cocky, jerky interpretations of several other characters actually makes Batman seem like the most decent guy in the DCnU.  Getting the job done, letting the Joker get away in order to save a girl he almost missed, and considering it a “lucky day”.  I like this slightly friendlier version of the character; I just wish the plot of the story around him wasn’t so damn milquetoast.  If it weren’t for the crazy, apeshit, off-the-wall cliffhanger, I probably wouldn’t be coming back for a second issue of this book.  I’ll hold out hope for Snyder’s Batman #1 instead.

Molly Mahan

As a Batman lover and DC fangirl, I must admit that I always wanted to read Detective Comics #1, but I never quite expected it’d be like this. With the DCU’s All New 52, Detective Comics was relaunched at number 1 for the first time in its history, ending an over 70 year run at issue 881. It was the longest continuously running comic book in American history (and it probably always will be given how often DC likes to pull the cancellation-relaunch switch every couple of years) and the title from which DC Comics gets its name. But enough about history, let’s get into this month’s issue.

Let me go right off the bat and say I wasn’t impressed. Although the art is an improvement on anything I have seen Tony S. Daniel do in a long time (he actually manages to draw feet!), the story was weak and the characters uninteresting. If this is supposed to get me in as a reader of Detective, after years of saying, “No, I haven’t read the previous 800 issues, why start now?” it doesn’t do the trick.

The title of the book is “Detective”, however Batman does very little, if any, detecting. We open the book in medias res, with Batman already knowing and having proof that the Joker has killed over 100 Gothamites in the course of the past six years. Despite this atrocity, people still live in Gotham City and Commissioner Gordon still wants his boys to bring the Joker in alive. The problem I have with this, is the problem I have always had with the people of Gotham and their treatment of the Joker. I don’t care how sick you are mentally, nor if you believe in the ideas of good versus evil, to allow someone who consistently kills civilians and cops to remain alive and get off at a mental institution blows my mind. How can no lawyer argue for that? The fact that they openly fire on Batman, who has never killed anyone, just drives me bonkers.

As far as the characters go, we are only introduced to Batman, the Joker and Commissioner Gordon. Assumedly, this is to set the Joker up as his arch-nemesis (as if you didn’t already know) and to show the friendship between Gordon. However, Daniel doesn’t do anything interesting or new with any of the characters in this issue. It’s the same old song and dance, which is fine, doesn’t do much in terms of a reboot, no matter how soft it may be.

The trend continues when we briefly see Alfred, who informs us that Bruce has (once again) stood up some woman that he is interested in. Bruce asks Alfred for advice on how to handle the situation, but ignores it and gives Alfred a few directions as to what he believes will fix things. Typical Modern Age Batman.

I understand that it’s a first issue, and therefore requires a lot of set up, but it doesn’t exactly get me—a reader of over a decade—to excitedly want to pick up the next issue. Considering this is DC’s flagship title, this is exceedingly disappointing. This is the title I should want to pick up regularly, is it not? Apparently not.

The art, like I said before, is more visually appealing than anything I have seen Tony S. Daniel do in a long time, but the story it tells from panel-to-panel is choppy and confusing. In the opening scene, we have the Joker fighting an unnamed masked man. His hands are around the Joker’s neck and then the next panel, the guy’s throat is ripped out and there’s a sound effect “SHHUCK”. Based on the blood spray, I assume the Joker bit him, but I have no idea how he managed to pull that off based on the angle in the previous panel. The book is riddled with these kind of jumps, which made the visual aspect of the comic hard to read at points.

The one good thing I thought I was going to be able to say was that this was a one-shot issue (something I really miss in comics), but it looks like I was being too hopeful as the last two pages revealed where the next part of the arc was going.

I’ll admit it: I am not a Tony S. Daniel fan at all. I haven’t been since before Battle for the Cowl (which certainly didn’t earn him any points), and his work on this month’s Detective isn’t do the trick to sway me, either. It’s possible I’m biased, but to stop 70 years of publishing for this? I really want to know what it was DC was thinking. Since I bought the hardcopy, rather than the digital, the only thing I can really hope for with this thing is that it might go up in value someday. Let me know if you disagree.

Batgirl

Eric Diaz

The most controversial title of the New 52 has got to be Batgirl by Gail Simone. After twenty years as disabled hero Oracle, news of the return of Barbara Gordon to cape, cowl, and full mobility was not met with a lot of love from fans, myself included. But despite my reservations, I really enjoyed issue #1 of Batgirl.

Seeing Barbara Gordon in the costume again, and on her bat-cycle to boot, just felt right. Gail Simone defined the modern Barbara Gordon in the pages of Birds of Prey, and she knows her “voice” better than anyone. And instead of just giving her another Batman villain to fight, she created a creepy new villain named The Mirror, one whose mask in a literal mirror, so the last thing you see is your terrified face before he kills you. It is a simple, creepy hook that makes for a good Bat villain, and in only his first appearance, Simone has maybe created Batgirl’s best bad guy ever. (sorry, Killer Moth) I had never heard of artist Ardian Syaf before this, but he does a more than adequate job here, and his big splash page of Batgirl happily swinging along the Gotham skyline put a big smile on my face.

If I have one major gripe with this issue, it is how they dealt with the end of Barbara’s paralysis; in flashbacks we see her getting shot in The Killing Joke, then it is mentioned she was in a wheelchair for three years. And then, “a miracle happened.”  Umm…what? That’s our explanation?  I would much rather they retconned the whole paralysis rather than just gloss over it this way, as if Babs just got over a bad cold. I have a feeling there is more to this recovery than just that, so I’m giving Gail Simone the benefit of the doubt…for now.  That aside, I really enjoyed this issue and look forward to more. Issue #2 can’t get here fast enough for me.

Green Arrow

Stephen Prescott

Green Arrow is by far my favorite book of the New 52 so far. This is what I expected these books to me. Meet the new Queen, same as the old Queen, but re-imagined and modernized. The book clearly establishes the character and his world, but there is enough here that is recognizable that I don’t feel alienated. I can’t say that about Action Comics or Justice League.

Oddly enough this is a Green Arrow clearly influenced by “Smallville.” And personally I don’t think that needs to be apologized for in any way. Most of the high points of the last few seasons of the show completely had to do with Justin Hartley and his version of Oliver Queen. So I say, bring it.

Essentially J.T. Krul has given us a what if Steve Jobs where a costumed adventurer and crack archer. No longer the CEO of Queen Industries, Oliver heads up his own division Q-Core that is creating things like Q-Pads and Q-Phones all to funnel money to his other pursuit, taking down bad guys around the globe. And I do mean globe, as this first adventure takes place somewhere in France.

The action is great, well drawn, well done and the bad guys are brought down using all of the skills one expects the emerald archer to have. And after we get a little more backstory on the Q-Core team, including a Chloe Sullivan/Watchtower carbon copy, we’re left with a pretty good segue into the next issue via the introduction of what look like some brand new villains to face off against.

Really, I can’t say enough good things about this book. It’s fresh and entertaining. If anyone needed a reboot and to be de-aged after all of the events of the last year, it was definitely Green Arrow and I’m glad to see that, so far, it’s being done right.

Justice League International

Heidi Hilliker

Justice League International #1 has way surpassed Justice League #1 in my opinion.  Let me just start by saying that I’ve never read a JLI book before. That being said I am familiar with the majority of the characters that are involved. I’m a huge Booster Gold and Dan Jurgens fan and have read these stories for a while. I love Dan’s style of writing. He is a master of wit and awkward interactions and that definitely translates well to this motley crew. Aaron Lopresti’s easygoing pencils and Hi-Fi’s lighthearted coloring only enhance his storytelling style.
 
The story starts somewhat predictably by setting up the group’s origins and introducing the zany but loveable cast of characters. I really appreciate the fact that although they may be light, all the characters seem to have their own voice and point of view. Really digging on Rocket Red, Godiva and, of course, Booster right from the start. Already looking forward to seeing some of the briefly mentioned characters, such as Plastic Man, get some play.
 
The whole issue read like the pilot episode of a TV series, and I believe it would be really easy for a first time DC reader to pick it up and get into the story. Guess that’s the whole point and so far I have to say this book accomplished not only that goal but entertaining long time fans as well.
 
Off subject but still on subject…. I need to give a shout out to the digital releases. I’ve read both JL and JLI on my iPad and have, surprisingly enough, really enjoyed the whole experience. I never would have thought that I could in any way move away from paper. Don’t worry…. I’m not completely converted. I still have hard copies of both. The ease of carrying around all of your entertainment on one device will never replace the joy of opening a page, looking at the whole spread at once, feeling the texture of the paper or smelling the scent of printed ink.

Stormwatch

Eugene Ramos

When I read that “Stormwatch” was going to be one of the relaunched titles in DC’s new 52 initiative, I was intrigued. How would series writer Paul Cornell transplant members of The Authority – known for their by-any-means-necessary approach to super-heroics – into the new DC universe without having the team lose any of its energy and vitality? How would Apollo and Midnighter, WildStorm’s analogues for Superman and Batman, fit into a world where Superman and Batman actually exist? And what role would Martian Manhunter play on the team?

The series seems more inspired by Jonathan Hickman’s “SHIELD” than Warren Ellis’ “The Authority,” recasting Stormwatch as a group of soldiers who have worked in secret to keep the Earth safe from global threats throughout the centuries. It circumvents the idea that superheroes are a recent development in the new DC universe.

“Stormwatch” #1 starts off a bit awkwardly with events taking place after “Superman” #1 – as noted by an asterisk – which doesn’t even hit the shelves for another three weeks. We soon learn that half the team – Hawksmoor, Martian Manhunter, and Projectionist (in her first appearance) – is trying to recruit Apollo for Stormwatch. As dictated by comic-book tradition, it proves more difficult than anticipated. Meanwhile, in a plot that feels more like a parody than an homage to Ellis and Mark Millar’s run on “The Authority,” the other half of the team discovers that the Moon – which appears to be a powerful, ancient alien intelligence – is threatening to devastate the Earth. Sounds like a job for Superman! Or maybe Apollo, if Stormwatch can somehow manage to convince him to join.

After DC tried to be bury “The Authority” in the wake of 9/11 for the title’s depiction of violence, every attempt to relaunch the series has proven unsuccessful. It seems that without the big ideas from the brains of Ellis or Millar and the widescreen visuals of Bryan Hitch or Frank Quitely, “The Authority” just doesn’t work. It’s like trying to squeeze a big summer, R-rated action movie into an 8-inch CRT television tuned to the Disney Channel. The new “Stormwatch” just feels like another tired attempt to repurpose “The Authority” and recapture its old magic. I honestly can’t see “Stormwatch” surviving past the first wave of DC 52 cancellations.

Despite my reservations, I will stick around for the first arc to see if Cornell and artist Miguel Sepulveda can pull off the seemingly impossible task of integrating these former WildStorm characters into a universe in which they don’t belong.

Swamp Thing

Scott Alminiana

I picked up Swamp Thing to see what Scott Snyder (the brain behind American Vampire) could do with a character that I generally associate with a cheesy 80’s movie starring Adrienne Barbeau’s breasts and a dude in a rubber suit. I’ve just finished reading issue #1, and I’ve sort of got mixed feelings about it.
 
Let me just say that I am interested to see how this new series plays out but this debut issue isn’t without its flaws. First off, Yanick Paquette’s art is awesome on this book. From the cover to the last panel I truly dug his style throughout. I’m not familiar with his stuff but I like what I’m seeing so far. Scott Snyder, who was the main draw to this title, does a fine job with the script but I do have a few complaints. For starters, the story just seems a tad too slow paced and that could certainly be an issue for keeping the attention of today’s new ADD riddled readers. The story breaks downs pretty simply: something strange and startling happens across the globe and when strange and startling happens who do you turn to? That’s right, Alec Holland! Wait, who? Isn’t he Swamp Thing? I wasn’t exactly sure of that before and after issue #1 I’m still not sure.  Hopefully this will be cleared up in the next few issues.
 
The whole point of “The New 52” initiative is to get new readers and keep the current ones. Getting new readers is something that Swamp Thing may have a tough time doing. Will I pick up issue #2? Absolutely! But will new readers A) pick this book up and B) stick around for more? I can only hope.

Mark Bovenzi

I never much cared for the character of Swamp Thing, so when i heard DC was relaunching this book as apart of their new DC initiative it didn’t pop out at me saying “BUY ME!” That all changed once i heard the creative team attached to this book. I’ve been a huge Scott Snyder fan since his Marvel work with Iron Man Noir, and his run on Detective Comics is up there with legendary arcs like Year One, and The Dark Knight Returns. So i figured, why not give Swamp Thing another shot, and i was not disappointed. What a strong first issue out the gate from Snyder and Paquette. What turned me off originally from the character was the association with botany, to be honest. It bored me. But the way Snyder took it to the level he did in this book when he had Alec Holland (Swamp Thing) explain his work actually intrigued me. For those not in the know, the book so far is revolving around a botanist named Alec Holland who does not remember becoming Swamp Thing and has run away from his job not wanting to be found by anyone or anything. Until all the birds start falling from the sky in Metropolis. Ditto bats in Gotham and Fish are floating belly-up in Atlantis. Superman seeks out Alec for an explanation.  Yanick completely knocks it out of the park with these absolutely gorgeous splash pages full of plant life lining the borders of his interior work depicting the rise of the villain of the book (once again, not in the know on the continuity of the book). And how horrifying was the scene with the scientists towards the end? Gave me chills.  That is Scott Snyder working his horror magic once again on us. They sold me on this book, they sold me on this character, an absolute buy for me every month.

Animal Man

Steve Robles

My biggest gripe right off the bat: The art by Travel Foreman and Dan Green simply looks unfinished. It reminds me of the worst fill-in art on the early runs of Hellblazer with their limited palettes and almost impressionist artwork. My second gripe is the opening wall of text that greets the reader on the first page. I have never liked this technique in comics. It’s like peeling a strawberry.

Once the labor is done, we are finally re-introduced to Buddy Baker/Animal Man as a sort of celebrity superhero who is having a hard time separating family from his dwindling role as a hero. We get an exciting sequence that cleanly explains Buddy’s abilities and the story ends with a disturbance in “The Red”. Since Swamp Thing is playing a big role post-“Brightest Day”, it seems natural that one of the new 52 should have a nature ability. I invoked Hellblazer before and this really feels like a Vertigo book. By the end, that feeling is solidified by a rather horrific image.

Definitely want to continue reading this one, at least through these initial chapters of the story. I’m not sure where Animal Man will fit in with the dynamic and exciting Action Comics or the Dark Knight Returns-esque Detective Comics style of re-booted books, but let’s see what DC has in store.

Mark Bovenzi

Let me start off by saying that i have never read an Animal Man book in my life. I have been told on multiple occasions that I need to check out Grant Morrison’s run on the Vertigo incarnation of the book. I brushed it off thinking, “Eh, just probably one of Morrison’s weird anti-climactic runs on C level DC Characters.” And here comes Animal Man #1 during DC’s New 52.  All i can say to you readers is WOW. This absolutely blew me away as hands down one of the best first issues of a comic book that I have read in years. Now Jeff Lemire, known for his Essex County indie work and Sweet Tooth for Vertigo, has established himself quite a name at DC. You can tell that he absolutely loves the character of Buddy Baker and wants to explore him to greatest heights. Without giving too much away of the book, Buddy Baker aka Animal Man has the ability to “borrow” characteristics from any animal on the planet. The book starts off with centering around Buddy as he has hung up his tights temporarily to become an indie actor with Oscar Buzz (ed. note: in the world’s most thinly veiled reference to The Wrestler. “Ryan Darnovsky,” indeed!)  Buddy then receives a heads up from his son about a hostage situation at a local hospital and Buddy decides to put the tights back on to help resolve the issue at the hospital. From there the book took its turn into what the arc will be about and it is nothing short of gripping in my mind. Now, lets not discredit the phenomenal art by Travel Foreman- if you haven’t checked out his work on Cla$$war, I’d highly recommend that as well. Absolutely stunning storytelling with his out of the box use of panel grids and clean line work with still a dirty cross-stitch to them. This does not look like your normal DC superhero book, that’s for sure. And the use of black and white with the blood red color during the dream sequence really fit the mood. Overall? This is a book i plan on sticking with and will be at the top of my stack for months to come. Now who is going to make these EVOLVE OR DIE t-shirts and where do i buy one?

Men of War

Martin Scherer

DC has a strong history with war books. Starting in the late 1950s through to the end of the 1980s, DC always had at least one book based on WWII on the stands. These books focused on characters such like the Haunted Tank, the Unknown Soldier, and Enemy Ace, and most importantly perhaps the one character who become synonymous with the WWII genre, Sgt. Rock.  Until I saw Band of Brothers, I thought Easy Company was a purely fictional band of soldiers. That fact alone should tell you how often I seek out war stories.Since the last days of Sgt. Rock, war comics have become a specialty book. Only a few creators at the big two are committed to keeping the genre alive. Garth Ennis, Joe Kubert and a few others have spearheaded the most notable war books in the past twenty years. The majority of these books used WWII as their main focus; a few stories have been set in Vietnam.

Sure, there has been plenty of wars since, but writers focus on these eras due to how we have romanticized these battles, and that they offer a clear right (the Allies) and wrong (the Nazis). I’ve taken the long way to make this point, but with the changing face of war, there just hasn’t been a place for ‘current’ war comics. The new Men of War comic by DC tries to give us a contemporary war comic, and also pay homage to its past.  To do this, they tie the main character directly to the famous Sgt. Rock.

The new Rock isn’t a sergeant…  yet. It is explained clearly at that start that Joseph Rock doesn’t want to have the role. He wants to be like his Nazi-busting grandpa—on the front line with his men, protecting each other’s back and making a real difference, not pushing papers. This whole scene was probably my least favorite as it felt like something that would have been in Top Gun, or some television cop show.  Joseph is Maverick, living in the shadow of a military family.

Next to this introduction scene, the writing of the book is smooth—it flows quickly and this not a bad thing. You feel like you are in the room, on the plane, or on the front with the soldiers. This book is very much like the a Modern Warfare video game come to life, and that is exactly how a modern war comic should be written; not necessarily set in a real war, but referencing real world gear, weapons and technology. The stakes are real, people die, and it’s clear not everyone will come home at the end of every mission. This is, in a word, intense.  The art by Tom Derenick reminded me a lot of Neal Adams in terms of layout. Angled panels to create a sense of movement, and a lot of wide panels to make you feel the wide screen action that is being portrayed.  I really can’t say enough about how much I liked the lay out of this book. It’s smartly done and perfectly helps create the emotion that the writer Ivan Brandon is trying to invoke.

The one element of this world that didn’t sit well with me was that the story is clearly taking place in a situation where men can fly. The main threat of this book is not an opposing army of bad asses, but instead a superhuman causing massive destruction. I was really hoping for this book to be more closely aligned with the ‘real world’ and focus on a man versus man conflict. Have a book called Men of War give us some old-school-super-action-Commando-like-thriller material.  But instead it looks like we will ultimately be seeing a series more about man versus superman. It does make sense to see super powered threats in this book—it would be impossible to imagine some war on a world where men can leap tall buildings in a single bound to be devoid of any metahuman involvement. The fact that this book will not be pure war may turn of a lot of the people expecting a more traditionally minded war book.

Men of War also featured the first part of a three part backup feature, focusing on a group of Navy SEALs. It’s not clear if this story will be set in the DCU proper, or instead just be a good war comic. The story by Jonathan Vankin is in a modern setting, focusing on more current US military zones (Middle East, or Afghanistan). The dialogue, like the main story, uses plenty of exposition and military terminology to help compliment the realism that the artist Phil Windslade beautifully details.  This story is what I was expecting from the main feature, a war comic set in the year 2011.  If the book continues to have back ups of this quality, than at DC will be successfully creating a book for both the video game war buffs, and the real world war buffs.

So who should pick this up? If you like the current crop of war video games, this is worth a read. If you like traditional war comics, at least you’ll get something out of the back up. I do think the book is worth a look, but I’d place it firmly in the middle of the pack of the New 52. I am glad DC tried to do something different here, and I going to read the next two issues because I want to get a better idea of what this comic will be and see if it lives up to the potential that this issue showed.

Static Shock

Stephen Prescott

Static is back! It would appear that either Cadmus or Flashpoint have restored Virgil’s powers. He’s in a new city and has a new lair and costume provided to him by a new sort-of mentor, Hardware.

The book is pretty great. The action kicks right off on page one with Static on a rescue/takedown mission. Someone he is calling Sunspot, not the New Mutant, has stolen a plasma protection suit from S.T.A.R. Labs and is joyriding around the city. Through his internal dialogue, we learn a fairly good amount about Static’s power and how he uses them. It’s pretty well thought out and comes to a great conclusion on a bridge where static shorts out all the cars and electronics that happen to be crossing it.  The angry innocent bystanders seems to be a running theme in the New 52 and I’m definitely going to be keeping an eye on how that progresses.

The issue sets everything up, from what Virgil’s home life is like now, to what his relationship with Hardware is going to be like. We are also introduced to some kind of super powered crime syndicate who were behind the S.T.A.R. Labs theft. We don’t learn much about them, but one panel has a Joker-like character standing amongst them. No idea what that is about. The group of course goes right after Static since he already foiled one of their plans and the culmination of the efforts results in a pretty badass cliffhanger.

All in all I enjoyed the book and I’ll be sticking with it for a while. Static’s teenage dialogue may get on my nerves after a while as it already started to, but I think that this young hero deserves a bigger place in this new DC Universe and I’d like to see if and how that’s going to happen.

Batwing

Frank Angones

Huh.  What to say about Judd Winick and Ben Oliver’s “Batwing,” the so-called Batman of Africa?  It’s a decently written book; I actually generally like Winick’s writing, and “Justice League: Generation Lost” was one of my favorite books last year until the messy ending, which I chalk up more to JMS’s crazy Wonder Woman minireboot and OMAC fatigue than anything else.  And Oliver’s art is certainly a stand-out: dynamic, jarring in the best possible way, and beautifully colored.  But, and I don’t want to get off on a rant here, but what’s the point?  Sure, this is a curious story of an African cop dealing with grizzly murders and the disappearance and subsequent murder of Africa’s first superhero team, but nothing really leaped off the page and grabbed me as shockingly unique here.  Sure, there’s some nice elements here regarding the importance of myth and story in African culture.  But the whole thing feels kind of slight (it definitely felt like the shortest book I read this week), and without knowing what the hook of the premise is- other than the obvious- I’m not sure how this can end up as an ongoing.  It feels more like it’s setting up a just okay miniseries.

I guess my problem with this book is that it does little to justify its own existence.  Of all the new members of Batman, Inc., why does Batwing get his own series?  Why not Knight and Squire, or Man of Bats, or Nightrunner? Okay, I know why they’re not giving Nightrunner his own series, sad as that is.  My problem with Batwing so far is that he’s a prime example of diversity for diversity’s sake.  Like DC patting itself on the back and saying, “Hey, everybody! One of our Batmen is black!”  Problem is, there’s nothing really engaging about the character beyond that in this #1.  He seems like a decent guy, but not a fully realized three dimensional character, which is a real shame.  It reads like a phony kind of pandering to get credit for being “progressive” without actually writing the character a story worth having.  This is particularly noticeable in a week that also premiered an excellent new #1 for Static Shock, which introduced a well-realized, engaging, and wholly unique black character to the DCU without having him be a blank avatar for social relevance.  I know this may sound harsh, and there’s nothing really wrong with the Batwing story so far, but there’s nothing particularly right with it either.  It just reads like an exercise in wasted potential.

Hawk and Dove

Stephen Prescott

To be honest, Hawk and Dove are a team I never really understood. Add to that the fact that Leifeld is my least favorite artist, we’re not starting out on good ground here. Still, being an old school Titans fan, I thought I would give this book a shot.
As I expected, Liefeld, who actually was the artist on the first series that brought Dawn Granger and Hank Hall together, does not impress with his art. To me his style looks as though it was drawn in pen on the back of a high school notebook. It’s all extraneous lines. It lacks any sort of subtlety in my eyes.

As for the story, the book seems to pick up right where Brightest Day left off. I’m assuming that Hawk and Dove are one of the teams not yet (or at all) affected by the events of “Flashpoint”.  We start out with the duo on a plane that is carrying some sort of zombie/bio weapon. Hawk is beating up some para-military type guys while yelling at Dove that “she’s doing it wrong” or at least “not doing it as well as Don would have” as she tries to land the plane and not destroy the Washington Monument.  They get the plane safely on the ground, beating down the zombies who of course rose up to fight and only take a little knick out of the monument. That’s where we meet Agent Exposition who asks them to come work for the government and try and take down Alexander Quirk (I feel like I had my own character named that in 8th grade), the man responsible for the bio weapon. The heroes decline and they’re off.

There’s a scene with Hank and his father where Hank gets angry. There’s a scene with Dove and Deadman where they discuss Don. And then there’s a final scene with a new character dressed in a brown version of Hawk’s costume calling out the two avatars of the gods for some fightin’.

Overall, the book wasn’t horrible. It held my attention and I’m all for the introduction of a baddie who is a mirror opposite of one of the main characters. I’m not sure though that I can deal with Hank Hall on a monthly basis. Hank has been crying over his dead brother for over 20 years now and I know his character is supposed to be hot tempered and the avatar of war, but give it a rest. Of course Dove is still holding on to the secret of how she got her powers from Don and that certainly isn’t going to help improve their relationship, but I’m just bored by the angry hank angle. It’s like reading Jonah Hill’s character from “Superbad” and it makes me kind of agro.
I’ll give it two more issues to suck me in.

OMAC

Steve Robles

What the what? This book is quite baffling to me. It has the fun, kinetic feel of a Golden-Age book with it’s bold colors, over-the-top action and dialogue and weird third-person narration. There is no shortage of action in this book and fights o’plenty to engage fans of panelized pugilism. The punny title sort of turned me off ( I HAD just read Detective Comics #1, so my mind was in a darker mood), but I was sort of charmed by the old-schooliness of the action that took place.

On the plus side, the art by “Crackling” Keith Giffen harkens back to the early Image days with its shiny metallic armors and big faces. I do have to give credit to the story for going all the way into weird without compromise (gobble?). Even the end tag promises that things will “get really weird” in the next issue.

I don’t think, however, that I am going to continue with OMAC, even though the end promises weird, it’s just too silly for me. I also suspect that the retro feel of the series will make it one of the least likely to make it through first attrition, unless it develops
some sort of cult following or pairs up quickly with Frankenstein (which I also suspect it will).

Life can be a struggle… especially as a geek. We’re rarely popular. We’re rarely good looking. We usually don’t do the right things. So why keep going in this miserable existence?

Well, before you slip that noose over your head, Geekscape is here to let you know that you’re not alone. This is Geekscape after all, and we’re all in this together! So we’ve put the team together and assembled the first in our weekly feature of Reasons Not to Kill Yourself This Week! From X-Men: First Class on Blu-Ray to Dead Island to new music, Geekscape is here to give you reasons to keep you going!

 

Monday

Noel Nocciolo – Geekscape Music Writer

My reason for getting through the week are the Moog Sound Lab videos on www.moogmusic.com.  Phantogram’s previously unreleased tune “16 Years” is especially making my week; ethereal and dreamy.  Past Moog Sound Labs are pretty amazing as well; Tegan & Sara, OK Go, The Dandy Warhols among others. Watch and love!

MOOG SOUND LAB: Phantogram “16 Years” from Moog Music on Vimeo.

 

Tuesday

Shane O’Hare – Geekscape Writer / Bronie

Dead Island and Warhammer 40K Space Marine get released THE SAME DAY! So I will be spending my day chopping up space Orkz with a chainsword in Space Marine and that night playing Dead Island with my friends coop. On September 6…There Will Be Blood.

 

Matt Kelly – Purveyor of All That Is Shit

I’m a huge horror movie buff. Admittedly, I’ve yet to move into the world of blu-ray and even if I did, there’s very few films I’d be willing to purchase on blu-ray that I didn’t already own on DVD. But September 6th is giving me one of my exceptions to the rule. The Scream Trilogy comes out on blu-ray. Scream is my third favorite horror movie ever (it’s below the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Jaws so it’s in good fucking company), and the sequels (which people tended to have mixed feelings on) are all guilty pleasures of mine. The one thing I don’t like about this, is that it’s coming out a month before Scream 4 hits DVD/Blu-ray… which basically means that YOU KNOW they will release a four pack in a year or two.

 

Wednesday

Frank Angones – Geekscape Managing Editor

Joe the Barbarian Trade Paperback – You ever stop reading a book in floppies because it’s coming out so sporadically and you just know, man, this is going to be such an amazing trade.  That’s how I feel about Grant Morrison’s Joe the Barbarian (and, to be fair, almost all of Grant Morrison’s non-cape books…lookin’ at you, Seaguy).  An innocent but dense almost fairy tale about a kid whose toys come to life to save him from a falling into a diabetic coma- I think- the book reads like Grant Morrison’s warrior Winnie the Pooh and is chock-full of Morrisonian twists on genre conventions without going to that crazy, abstract theoretical place where I get terribly lost.  This is definitely a book in the same category as We-3, and that is a very good thing.

Thursday

Frank Angones – Geekscape Managing Editor

Futurama Season Finale, “Reincarnation” (10 pm Comedy Central) – Man, do I love a good Futurama anthology episode (“YOU WATCHED IT, YOU CAN’T UNWATCH IT!”), and Comedy Central has been pimping this one since Comic-con.  And with good reason.  After Professor Farnsworth discovers a rare diamondium comet, we get three versions of Futurama that might have been: 8-bit Arcade, old-timey Steamboat Willie-esque cartoon, and anime.  Two words: Gundam Bender.  Sounds like fun on the poorly-dubbed bun!

Friday

 

Jonathan London – Guy Who Started This Mess

If you’ve watched Geekscape this year then you know that I’ve watched a LOT of movies in 2011. So far, I’ve got two tied for the top spot as Best Movie of the Year and they are BOTH sports movies! And one is a documentary (Senna). How did that happen? Well, the best fictional film that I’ve seen this year releases in theaters today, the MMA fighting movie Warrior starring Tom Hardy and Joel Edgarton. I don’t care if you’re a fan of MMA or not (I’ve never watched a full match), but this movie is incredible on a lot of levels. People will compare it to last year’s The Fighter… but it’s better than The Fighter. The script is better, the performances are better and the fights are better. Really. Don’t let the sports or MMA aspect of the movie scare you away. Just tell yourself “this Tom Hardy guy is playing Bane in Dark Knight Rises and this Joel Edgarton guy is in The Thing prequel” and watch the two guys rip up the scenes and each other. I can’t wait to go see it again.

Brian Gilmore – Disgrace to Humanity

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star – From the director of The Hot Chick comes Buck Larson: Born to Be a Star — the first Happy Madison movie in over a year with a trailer that doesn’t make me want to casually walk off a cliff (their 2010 roster being Zookeeper, Just Go with It, Grown Ups, Jack & Jill). Starring the lovable and “totally grows on you” Nick Swardson (whose hilarious comedy special is on Netflix instant play if you click here) as a guy who inadvertently sees his parents in a porn and doesn’t wash his eyes out with bleach, but rather decides to become a porn star himself… with hilarious consequences.

This movie looks like a throwback to the Billy Madison/Happy Gilmore style of the production company. And few people are better at random, irreverent humor that throws you some curveballs of honesty here and there than these guys. This movie is definitely a reason to put the pill buffet on hold.

Contagion – Another reason to get through this week without challenging the structural integrity of your closet’s hanger rod is the upcoming “really, a bird flu movie in 2011?” vehicle from Steven Soderbergh, Contagion. It’s about a virus that almost wipes out humanity, kind of like Outbreak, only not starring a monkey. The movie touts a cast that includes Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow, who, when she’s made up to look like she’s dying, looks like a normal, healthy Tilda Swinton.

Right!?!

The movie looks like it’ll have all of the fun, post-apocalyptic wonder of a zombie movie paired with the OCD-inducing fear of touching anyone. This’ll probably be a good one for a first date. Let’s just hope that neither credits sequence takes place “at the microscopic, cellular level”.

Ivan Kander – Filmmaker/Geekscapist

Contagion – Call me old fashioned but I’m just a sucker for a rollicking tale of death and worldwide devastation caused by a rapidly evolving, unclassifiable virus. It’s like Outbreak, except they replaced Cuba Gooding Jr. with–you know.–good actors. Throw in Steven Soderbergh going all mainstream on us again for good measure, and you’ve got more fun with disease than a Craigslist casual encounter on a Saturday night.  Plus, if the trailer is accurate, I get to watch Gwyenth Paltrow die while convulsing on a gurney. Sometimes it’s like Hollywood is just stealing my dreams!

 

 

Brian Gilmore – Resident Geekscape Pest

X-Men: First Class on DVD/Blu-Ray! I know this refers to the fact that this is Charles Xavier’s first class of “X-Men”, but with the amount of time they spend in the jet at the end of the movie, the title just really seems like a plane pun. If you’re on Geekscape, chances are you’ve seen this, but if there’s any reason to either rent or buy it on DVD (or Blu-Ray) it’s to play the X-Men First Class Drinking Game. 

When do you drink? 

1. Whenever January Jones, the actress with the emotional acting range of a Teddy Ruxpin, ruins a scene or makes a face that lets us all know that she clearly has no idea how she should be reacting at that moment. 

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

2. Whenever someone says their “mutant name” awkwardly, almost shoe-horning it into a scene. 

3. Whenever a girl you’re watching it with shifts slightly or makes a pleasure noise due to James McAvoy or Michael Fassbender being on screen. 

4. Whenever someone uses a power of theirs (you’re welcome).

 

 

Saturday

Frank Angones – Geekscape Managing Editor

Doctor Who, “The Girl Who Waited” (BBC America, 9 PM EST) – I’ll be the first to admit, while I really dug last week’s terrifying “Night Terrors”, it was definitely a little wibbly-wobbly on the continuity front.  Apparently, that episode was supposed to air in the first half of the season, and as such makes absolutely no mention of the devastating loss Rory and Amy should be feeling after “A Good Man Goes to War” and “Let’s Kill Hitler”.  This Amy-centric episode should rectify that, an episode that also looks to feature not one but two Amelia Ponds kicking robot ass with samurai swords.  The Who cast and creative have been talking up this episode as the true highlight of the season and a break-out episode for the already phenomenal Karen Gillan.

Sunday

Josh Jackson -Video Game Writer

I could easily say that Star Fox 3D (Sunday) is a good enough reason to put up with living for another week, but then I remembered that I already played this game almost 15  years ago. Then I was thinking Resistance 3 (Tuesday) being that Insomniac is an awesome developer, but considering the best parts of the first two Resistance games were when they were over, I wouldn’t think that was a good fit either. No, when it comes down to it, my reason for living this week would have to be Disgaea 4 (Tuesday). The previews have shown that the game will actually use the PS3’s power, unlike the third one. The strategy seems to be deeper than ever, with the ability to turn monsters into weapons, and I’d expect the trademark humor to be in tact. Plus, it’s the only game this week that’s manly fancy!

 

Welcome to the DCnU.  So what can you do?

That’s not just the first question our new Man of Steel poses to our new Caped Crusader, but also the question that fans (and major media) will be asking of DC Comics as they roll out their controversial New 52 relaunch this September.  And as Justice League #1 hits this week, it’s a fitting question: can the Distinguished Competition hook a whole new audience with a month full of new number ones?  Will they be able to reboot an entire universe of continuity to make it accessible without alienating existing readers?  And, more basically, as we meet these new iterations of familiar concepts, what the hell will they be doing anyway?

Here at Geekscape, we’ll be covering ALL 52 new books, letting you know which are essential, which you can skip, providing commentary on how they differ from previous incarnations, and how they fit into this new DCU as a whole.  Look for our New 52 Pickup every Friday in the month of September. We’ll help you piece together a whole new Earth One and decide which books you should follow to issue #2.

With just one new issue hitting this week, we decided to start things off by polling the Geekscape staff as to their thoughts on Geoff Johns and Jim Lee’s much anticipated and controversial JUSTICE LEAGUE #1. Here’s what they had to say:

WARNING IF YOU HAVEN’T READ JUSTICE LEAGUE #1: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

Frank Angones – Geekscape Managing Editor

I’ve expressed my feelings about reboots before, but Gail Simone made a comment on Twitter that actually got me really excited for the relaunch: The thrilling part of this reboot is the joy of discovery, the fact that we’re just figuring out details of this universe that we usually take for granted.  And it looks like the plan (at least in Justice League and Action Comics) is to have the biggest heroes of the DCU discover these things along with us.  I got a bit of a thrill when Green Lantern said “Batman? You’re REAL?”  It’s actually a smart and engaging way to provide new readers with viewpoint characters that they’re actually familiar with (it’s no surprise that the book features the three heroes with the highest film profile to date).  

Beyond that, I really dug the buddy cop relationship between Batman and Hal, who’s far more brash here than he ever was in the post-Rebirth era.  And I love the fact that Batman manages a smirk here and there, letting us know that this is a mildly brighter Bruce than the “Hh”-spouting grim avenger of old.  One’s a gruff, by-the-book, cautious man/bat. The other’s a ring-slinging maverick with nothing to lose.  They’re the Murtaugh and Riggs of the DCU! Visually, it’s striking to have GL’s (seemingly brighter) light constructs pierce the darkness of Gotham City.  Both the art and the characterization let us know that this is the book where the different corners of the DCU are going to collide.

The question is: is this enough? Does this book rope in a newbie audience?  Sadly, I think the answer might be no.  Sure, the book has a fun, fast-paced feel to it and a bunch of big blockbuster moments reminiscent of Mark Millar’s first Ultimates arc.  Unfortunately, that book only revealed one new hero an issue, and that’s a luxury I don’t think this relaunch has.  What about the little girl who bought this book because it has Wonder Woman on the cover, only to find out she’s not in it?  I understand that this is part of the modern “writing for trade” aesthetic where the first issue doesn’t have to serve as anything but a teaser.  But the focus of the relaunch was supposed to be getting new readers into stores and buying floppies.  

I firmly believe that the best serialized comics take a cue from the best serialized television shows.  Each episode/issue should have a self-contained story, a solid beginning, middle, and end, while also serving to advance an overarching plot.   This way, anybody can pick up an individual issue, be satisfied, and possibly check out the next issue to fill in the little bits that they’ve missed.  Take a look at Buffy or Battlestar.  Hell, even The Good Wife does it. You want to check out a comic book example? Maybe even a team book example?  Featuring this very team?  Read Mark Waid’s excellent JLA: Year One.  The Justice League getting together and being the Justice League in one issue.  DC had one shot to hook a mainstream audience.  Time will tell if they pulled it off, but I’m not sure they did.

Quick sidebar: the release of this book has pretty much overshadowed the last issue of Johns’ own Flashpoint, which explains that the DCnU was partially created by the guiding hand of a mysterious space lady merging the DC, Vertigo, and Wildstorm universes to prepare for “their arrival”.  Could the entire relaunch be a cover for a massive event, thus turning the new series into 52 event tie-in books?  Stay tuned!

Heidi Hilliker – Geekscape’s Own Wonder Woman (but cooler)

Reaching the last page of the new JLA #1, I was left a little torn. On one hand, I believe Johns and Lee accomplished their goal of making it accessible to new readers. On the other hand, I felt like the story and dialogue were pretty simple, flat and juvenile. I guess this might be a good thing since comics are supposed to be for children… right? I always thought that these relaunches had the potential to entertain in the way that the animated movies and series do. All of them have their own contained universes, which make them easy to follow for novices as well as experts. This issue read more like animated series The Batman and less like Justice League Unlimited. With any luck, this will only serve as the groundwork for a greater, more developed story with three-dimensional characters. I also hope that the rest of the team’s intros won’t be as cheesy as Supes’ was or I might have to abandon this title all together. All and all, as a fan of Geoff Johns’ run on Green Lantern and 52, I have faith that the series will pick up.

 

Ian Kerner – Geekscape Comic Book Super Computer

Justice League #1 is a good solid start.  It’s definitely introducing a new universe.  The characters here are nascent, and it’s an interesting idea, to be repeated in Action comics, to have the first arc be a flashback.  We’re finding out where the differences began.  The book is set five years in the past; in my opinion, that’s just not enough time.  Yes, the point is to make the characters younger, and would be fine if it were a true reboot.  Since DC is so adamant that it isn’t, and there are so many elements being carried over, it just doesn’t make sense.  This is particularly true with Batman and Green Lantern, who don’t seem to be changing much.  So all their years of history in just over 5 years? How does young Damien Wayne fit into that timeline?

Batman, GL, and Superman have already been around for a bit, but have not encountered each other yet.   We’re introduced to a world where “superheroes” are unknown, and vigilantes are hunted as criminals.  Batman and GL’s meeting is actually fun.  Hal Jordan as GL is cocky as can be, and looks down on Batman as being powerless.  He’s quickly taught his mistake.  This issue sets up Apokolips and Darkseid as the initial villain, and I think this is a brilliant move.  Darkseid is a worthy opponent, and one that bears bringing a Justice League together over.  There are cosmetic changes in what must be the new version of Parademon.  It’s both reptilian and much more sci-fi. Definitely winning me over there.  The “alien” aspect leads them to go confront Superman, since he’s rumored to be an alien.  GL is a member of the GL corps and responsible for the whole sector but he just jumps to an alien existing on Earth automatically being connected to another rumored alien?  Really??? A difficult leap to make, but it takes Batman and GL to find Superman, who very quickly demonstrates his power set. Seems like it’s a prerequisite to ask what Batman’s powers are.  I find myself asking, if Bruce Wayne did have powers, would he volunteer that information to anyone?

There’s a subplot/introduction to a pre-Cyborg Vic Stone.  Apparently, his origin and the League’s will go hand in hand.  Rumor has it that the past versions of the Teen Titans are supposed to have existed.  Cyborg’s inclusion in the original League has been a big issue for me because it negates his very important existence from those past versions of the Titans.  If they wanted him in the League, why not just have him in the modern League?  A nice fix for me would be that his origin is with the League, he was then in the Titans, and then joined the League later.  I can hope, though I think it unlikely.   We won’t know until after the first arc. Overall, a good first issue.  

 

Tim Powers – Fandom Planet Co-Host / Sex God

Oh, DC.  In the Golden Age, you’d publish covers with Green Lantern, Flash and Wonder Woman playing football– and that never actually happened in the book.  In the Silver Age, you’d publish covers with Batman marrying a gorilla– and that never happened in the book.  But in your reboot, where you are free to try new stuff, experiment, break new ground, you give us a cool, dynamic, powerful cover of the League in action– and the League never appears in its own book.

Justice League #1 is a fine issue of “Brave & Bold.”  Essentially Green Lantern (emphasis on Green– Hal is a rookie if there ever was one) teams up with The Batman (do they call him “The” Batman in this universe?)  From this team up, we learn 2 things:  (1) Green Lantern is an arrogant, disrespectful prick.  (2) Batman is an arrogant, disrespectful prick.  

No Aquaman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Red Tornado, Zatanna, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Martian Manhunter, Atom, Hawkman, Enlongated Man, Hawkwoman, or Firestorm.  For a “Justice League” story, this is really just Act I of an origin story; a lovely set up.  What if in Fantastic Four #1, Stan Lee had stopped when Ben Grimm pounded his fist on the table and said, “Nobody calls me a coward.”  There really ought to be more, don’t you think?  

Now, let’s talk about Cyborg.  If nobody else says it, I will:  His membership in the team is strictly Affirmative Action.  (Affirmative Action Comics #1?)  While it’s true that DC has a shortage of compelling black heroes, Cyborg being arguably the most visible (and historically the best selling) of them all, I’m interested to see how the writers make him a vital part of the team since he’s an also-ran among powerhouses.  Oh, and he doesn’t really appear in the book as Cyborg– his origin is in future issues (but he does appear on the cover; that athlete kid in the story is DOOMED, I tell ya!)

If DC is truly attracting not only new readers to DC books, but NEW READERS TO COMIC BOOKS, perhaps they would do better by providing the promised contents of the cover:  A team book featuring all of DC’s iconic heroes (and Cyborg) united against a common threat– because THAT, I would read every month (and have since the 70’s).  This has the PROMISE, the POTENTIAL to be a really great book and the flagship book of the DCU, but it ain’t done yet.  

Plus, will someone take Green Lantern down a peg?  I really don’t care for his attitude.  Perhaps Batman could take him down with…. ONE PUNCH!  ONE PUNCH!

 

Stephen Prescott – Geekscape’s Doctor Who Specialist

So that’s it? I get it, this is a first issue, but it seems to be getting off to a slow start. Not slow as in action, but slow as in story. Without a doubt I’m going to keep reading, but I hoped there would be a bigger bang and we’d get the team together a bit quicker. Jim Lee’s artwork is fantastic as always and I’m finding the characterizations so far so good. It’s just that I don’t feel like it lived up to all the hype yet.

 

Joe Starr – Geekscape 616 Loyalist

DC sux marvel pwns.

Eric Diaz – Geekscape Writer and D.C. Specialist

The whole notion of this new DCU is to get new and lapsed readers back into comic books. In most of the press for the new 52, DC Comics EIC Dan Didio has been hammering the point home that DC is no longer going to be “writing for the trade”. But JL #1 is totally “written for the trade.” Not only is there no Justice League formed yet, but Flash, Wonder Woman and Aquaman don’t appear at all, despite their being on the cover.  As a long time reader of comics, I’m used to this, but how is this supposed to entice newer, younger readers who are expecting the Justice League to show up in a Justice League comic? As an entry point for new readers this is a flop, but as just an issue of a comic book it’s pretty decent…sometimes more than just decent.

As far as the art, Jim Lee is a comic book God. He was born to draw super heroes, and the larger than life DC heroes in particular. Every page is a thing of beauty, and the detail is astonishing. That alone makes the book worth buying, in my opinion. If Geoff Johns knows how to write anybody, it is Hal Jordan. He can write Hal Jordan in his sleep at this point. He also has GL making interesting constructs with his ring in this issue, which is something he hasn’t had Hal do in his own book in ages. His Batman is very much in the mold of Grant Morrison’s “ultimate bad ass Batman”, the one human among Gods who is in fact smarter, better and more capable than all of the “Gods” put together. To me, this is the only way Bats works in a JL scenario, and Johns continues that interpretation here. There is a moment when Batman manages to do something to GL that few have ever done, and it is kind of a sweet moment. Still, DC is not Marvel, so I wish they’d stop trying to be. In this rebooted DCU, the heroes seem to be all hated and feared, much like the X-Men or Spider-Man. That’s just not who the DC heroes are, with the exception of Batman. I hope they drop this aspect, and fast.

In the end, this is more an issue of Brave and the Bold, showcasing how Bruce met Hal, than a Justice League book. As a Brave and the Bold issue, it is pretty solid, but if you’re  trying to sell newbies on continuing to buy the Justice League, then I think they’ve failed. This book should have done the Iron Man/Thor movie opening; start the book out with the entire League in battle in glorious Jim Lee detail, then halfway through the first issue, flashback to how we got there. Yes, it’s become a cliché, but this is Justice League, not Alan Moore’s latest…a little cliché is fine. A Justice League first issue should showcase the damn League. And don’t tell me that modern comic storytelling doesn’t allow for that, because Morrison’s JLA#1 back in ’97 did it just fine, and that wasn’t that long ago.

 

Martin Scherer – Canadian

When the reboot was announced I was excited. As each new creative team, title and cover was teased out over the month of June I grew more and more impressed and anxious for the titles to come. I wanted my Animal Man now. I wanted my Snyder Swamp Thing now. I wanted my Batwoman five months ago…

Then a funny thing happened. About three weeks ago I was still anxious, but not out of excitement for the new, but out of fear. I didn’t want to let go of the DCU I learned to love over the past 15 years.  But you can’t stop change so here I am with my new digital copy of JLA.

The new status quo of the DCU is more realistic in some ways than the past. The fantastic is still here—Green Lantern still makes constructs out of thin air, but the world isn’t exactly welcoming of the metahumans. They fear what is different, which is likely how it would play out today.  And it makes sense—many of these beings are super powerful, and as Green Lantern shows, they aren’t scared to flaunt it.
The story is pretty typical—quick introduction, fight, subplot, cliffhanger. The art by Jim Lee is not his best (see his Flinch story, or his B&W work), but it’s better than it has been in a long time.  With the DCU being set five years in the past, this book is a tease of the new DCU. The real premier will be over the next weeks when the rest of the titles come out.

Did I like this? I want to, but I’m not sure if I did.  It felt light, but as a taste of the new DCU and what to expect it was merely just all right. I feel that this, and the whole relaunch is going to be unfairly (as the stakes are a lot bigger for DC) compared to the Ultimate line. Ultimate Spider-man started slow and now its one of the consistently best books on the market, so I am optimistic that this might become something special.

I’m also not sure if I’m the attended audience for this book. If I was 13 and given this, I’d be all over it. If the new DC goal is to get new, younger, readers than this book coupled with some other key books new DCU may do just that. If the goal is to make the old guard excited and happy, then they need to seriously look at the price of this book ($3.99 for 24 pages?) and in general be prepared for a backlash.

My final thought on the book is this— this issue while important, isn’t what we should be judging. We should be judging the first complete story. It’s just a shame they gave us less than a taste of what is to come, when instead (for this price) they should have given a complete over-sized done-in-one story with sub-plots to keep us interested for issue 2.

You can’t stop change, but they can make it easier to embrace it.

 

William Bibbiani – Criminal Mastermind (and Writer)

Comic books are for geeks.

 

Jonathan London – The Nobody In Charge

It has been over 24 hours since I finished reading the new Justice League reboot and sadly, and I know it’s the last thing DC wants to hear, I’m left feeling like I did after reading the first issues in the Ultimate Universe comics ten years ago. Sure, the art and writing are great, but having one of the best stables in comics will get you that. What I thought was missing here was an opportunity for DC to really do something fresh, rather than appearing to play service to stories we’ve heard before.

Like the beginnings of the Ultimate books, the issue is paced like the current storyline could take the first six issues to assemble the team and the first twelve before anything resembling a full arch is completed… and even then, it’ll just be a fresher version of a story we’ve already heard. The JLA vs Darkseid? How many times have we been there? I know that these new characters haven’t… but let’s be honest: these aren’t really new characters. And they definitely don’t feel that way to us just because they’re meeting for the first time.

It’s a shame too, because I kind of really enjoyed the ending of Flashpoint. Reverse Flash was all kinds of evil, Barry had only his own impulsiveness (and vulnerability) to blame for allowing things to come to this… and Thomas Wayne kicked ass. Hell, we even got to see Batman cry. Fast forward to Justice League (and flash back to “5 years prior” story-wise) and I feel like I’ve hit the breaks and will be reading reheated “classic” stories for the next 5 years of DC Comics. Please, everyone at DC, learn from the quagmire of cover songs that the Ultimate Universe became before having to be given an Ultimatum. If we want those old stories and relationships, we’ll find them in the back issues bin. Let’s do something new for a new generation. This doesn’t feel like real change at all. It feels like a repeat viewing.

 

Are you interested in the realm of PC gaming, but are too afraid to enter it because of the price tag? Do you think that your only solution is to purchase a pre-built PC directly from a manufacturer? Well fear no more because it is not as expensive as you may think! It IS possible to produce a competitive gaming system for around a $1,000.00 price tag that will play resource intensive games like Crysis, Battlefield or any of the Call of Duty games at smooth framerates. All it WILL require is a basic knowledge on how to assemble a PC and knowledge of your components. But don’t worry, we’ll help guide you as well.

But before we delve deeper into the assembly of your fancy new PC, ready to be built from the ground up, we are going to need to understand what the basic components are that you should be looking for.

 

Components

  

 You may be wondering, “What are the base components of a computer?” Well, to enlighten the unaware, the base of a PC contains key components that will get the PC booted up. This consists of these following components:

 

1) Motherboard

2) Processor

3) RAM

4) Video Card

5) PSU (Power Supply Unit)

6) Hard Drive

7) Optical Drive

8) OS (Operating System)

The first thing that a person should always purchase when building a PC is the motherboard. That will serve as your base. Everything else can come in any other order. Now, it isn’t as easy as just browsing the internet and choosing random parts. Certain components require different inputs.

 

***NOTICE***

 

The following is presented to you as a source of information to help you better understand how a computer works. I will also teach you what to look for when looking at certain components. You can either read all of this information to educate yourself on the basics, or you can bypass all of this mumble jumble if you already know how things work. Pre-Built configurations will be located after everything has been explained.  Now let’s get reading!

 

Motherboard

 When a person is looking at the option to build a PC from the ground up, the first thing they are going to need to look out for is the motherboard, which will serve as the base. From there you begin to add the other components to this base. Think of the motherboard as being the canvas for the painting, and the other components being the different colors available for you to utilize. Now you can’t just go and say “I want that motherboard.” There are different types of motherboards for different types of sockets. For example, an X58 chipset motherboard is only compatible with a socket 1366 processor, which in this case, would be Intel’s I7 900 series. So keep in mind that when you choose a motherboard, you are basically choosing what series of processor is available to you. Now some of you are wondering “what companies manufacture motherboards?” Well luckily for you, you have a wide arrange of companies to look for. There are many other different types of manufacturers, but these are some of the more popular ones that come to mind.

Asus

eVGA

Gigabyte

MSI

Intel

Sapphire

ASRock

 If you build your computer with the intention of overclocking, companies such as Asus or eVGA will serve you well. Now that you know your motherboard is going to be your base, you are going to need to figure out what you want to add to that base. As I said before, once you choose your motherboard, you are only limited to what socket that motherboards supports when it comes to processors. For example:

 

Motherboard (Chipset)	Supported Socket
H55, H57, P55, and Q57	LGA 1156 (Socket H)   (You would look for processors under their codename, which is Lynnfield or Clarkdale in this socket’s case.)
x58	LGA 1366 (Socket B)   (You would look for processors under their codename, which is Gulftown or Bloomfield in this socket’s case.)

As you can see, if you choose an x58 motherboard, you are only able use LGA socket 1366 processors. You are probably wondering “How the heck am I going to differentiate between all of these numbers?!? Damn you, Geekscape!” Our answer is: simple, when you pick your motherboard, it’ll tell you what socket it is compatible with on the box. From there, you go on to choose your processor. So when choosing a motherboard, your processor route is predetermined. You can also look for the processors codename, which will present the series under that codename, and its supported socket. If you want the brand new Sandy Bridge processor’s released by Intel, you are going to need to choose a motherboard that supports its socket, which is LGA 1155 (Socket H2) in this case.

 

NOTE: When purchasing your motherboard, please verify its form factor so you can know that it supports whatever case you may have, or plan on purchasing. Example would be a EATX Motherboard would require a EATX case.  

Processors

 Now that you have chosen your motherboard, you obviously must now know what processor you are going to be purchasing. The processor is the PC’s brain. It will help you with multi-tasking, gaming, and media programs such as Handbrake, which is used for video encoding/decoding. The processor does many more tasks then just these three, but we’re going to focus on building your PC. The processor does a lot of things when you play a game. It is responsible for the artificial intelligence, the calculations for damages, audio ques, physics (such as you tipping over a can in COD or bringing a building down to rubble in Battlefield), generating/loading the maps, generating the in-game text, and your inputs from the keyboard or controller. The processor literally does just about everything you see happening on the screen. You may not see it, but it ranges from enemies spawning to the cars crashing. That’s all processor. Let’s say you play shooting games; the processor controls the enemies communication. All of their ques to speak, and whatever actions they choose to do is controlled by the processor. Amazing, ain’t it?

 You may now be wondering, “Damn, I must need one hell of a processor then.” Believe it or not, you really don’t need the fanciest processor in the world to do all of that, unless you are a person who likes to play RTS (Real Time Strategy) type of games. But when playing games such as Battlefield or COD, you can really be fine with a $200 quadcore CPU. For example an Intel i5 will get you through Battlefield Bad Company 2 fine with a decent video card. Those literally cost around the $100-$200 price range.

 

RAM

 RAM, this stands for random access memory. Since we are speaking about building a gaming PC, I’ll talk about its use in video games. Some people fail to recognize the importance of RAM in video games. I’ll tell you right now, RAM is essential to your gaming PC! You guys know that the processor does its fair share of calculations when running programs on the computer. These calculations can be defined as data. This data is what is stored on RAM. The more RAM you have, the more temporary data can be stored on it.

From there, the RAM offloads this data to the video cards RAM, which is known as VRAM (Virtual RAM). So if you have a lot of RAM, then that means the processor can get its data to the video card far more faster. In video games, there are these things called textures and geometry. This is all calculated by the processor, which then is stored as data onto the RAM. The CPU then transfers this data that was stored in RAM to the video cards RAM. The VRAM then generates what you see. For example, let’s say you play a game such as Counter Strike. The scenery you see, and character models is all calculated by the CPU as data, and is stored onto the RAM real briefly. This data is then transferred from the RAM onto the video cards memory. The video card then renders what you see. Pretty cool ehh? So the  more RAM you have means the faster the CPU can get information to the video card. 

Some of you are probably thinking, “Uhh is RAM expensive?” Well fortunately for everyone, RAM is not as expensive as it once was. You can find a pair of 1600Mhz 2x4GB worth of DDR3 RAM for around $70. Now some of you are thinking, “Wait! You didn’t mention this 1600Mhz numbers and stuff!!” Well don’t worry because that is the RAM’s clock speed. 1600Mhz is the standard of today. Anything above that will provide you minimal difference, to my knowledge of course. The difference between 1333Mhz, and 1600Mhz is substantial, and it will help in video games. Most motherboards/processors support DDR3 1600Mhz+, and I would recommend purchasing RAM clocked at that speed. In case those wonder about DDR3, the DDR means double data rate, with the number “3” it means double data rate type three. Is it faster than DDR2? Yes, DDR3 is definitely more faster, and power efficient than type 2.

VIDEO CARDS

 

 Easily one of the most expensive components behind the processor when it comes to building a PC, or just the PC in general. When looking for a video card, you are looking at dedicated graphics cards. When building a PC, you will NEVER EVER want an integrated graphics (aka on-board graphics) card. To be frank, they suck. You want a dedicated graphics card, which is what we will be looking for. Now you are probably thinking, “What should I look for when looking at video cards?” Some people will say look at the on-board memory of the card, which can be known as the cards VRAM. Well I’m going to tell you right now, VRAM is the last thing you want to look at.

The video card is only as good as its chip. I really don’t want to get too technical with you guys/gals, since some of you people will have a hard time deciphering this mumble jumble. But if there are some of you that want to know what to look for yourself.. In brief, I suggest looking at the cards specifications. The specifications being the number of streamed processors, bandwidth, core and memory clock amongst other things.

I know that there is some of you that don’t really want to start looking for all of that technical mumble jumble.So my best solution(s) for you is to either PM me, comment, or email me about your budget price for the video card. Then I’ll respond with a recommendation for whatever price you have listed. To help you people in your search, I’ll say AMD is good for their money because they are cheap. Nvidia in the other hand is a bit more expensive, but their cards are also more powerful. This is in my opinion of course. I don’t only speak in terms of gaming either.

 

 Let’s move onto the video cards memory, which is known as VRAM. I already elaborated its contributions to video games, and its importance with RAM. But for those that skimmed through this article. Here is its importance of RAM in short:

1. CPU calculates data, the data is known as textures and geometry (think buildings, character models, etc.)

2. Data is then stored on RAM

3. CPU then transfers data from RAM to VRAM.

4. VRAM then renders what has been calculated.

 

 The more the VRAM, the more the video card can render. All of the nice little visuals you see in your video game is being loaded onto the video card for rendering. This could be the nice little enviroments you see, to the landscape that is being generated. Having a lot of VRAM does not mean you can run whatever games you want at max settings. That solely depends on the power of the GPU. Anyhow, what would I recommend for video card memory? When looking for a card, I suggest looking at the bare minimum of 1GB for video card memory. Also you need to keep in mind that if you want to game at a high resolution, your going to need more VRAM. If that is the case, your going to need to shell out some cash for a pretty nice GPU, but we are discussing about budget PC’s here. So I am I not going to delve any deeper into that.

 

NOTE: When looking at video cards, please check their PSU minimum wattage requirement. Some cards are more power hungry than others. 

PSU’s

 Ahh, the PSU! Without it, you won’t have a PC to boot. What does word “PSU” mean? PSU stands for Power Supply Unit, and all of your system power is offloaded onto it. I am going to be straight forward with you guys/gals right now. Don’t cheap out when buying a PSU! Don’t EVER cheap out! Why? Because you get what you pay for. Cheap PSU’s will either fail, or not even last under the system load. A 500 watt PSU might not even handle a system load under 500 watts. Also a cheap PSU can damage your system if it were to catch fire, or worse, explode! If you plan on being cheap. Do it underneath good brands, such as Corsair, OCZ, or CoolerMaster. There are more other good brands out there, but these are some that come to mind.

 Now when looking at PSU’s, it would be preferred to look for ones underneath a 80 plus certification. Why? To be frank, energy efficiency, and it will waste 20% or less electric energy as heat at any specific load levels. What does this mean for you? It means your energy bill won’t be as expensive because your PSU is energy efficient. For example:

 

700 watt PSU with 50% efficiency at a full system load will draw 1400 watts from the main power. This means you would have wasted 700 watts of heat.

 

700 watt PSU divided by 50% = Remaining power converted into heat

 

Now if you have a 700 watt PSU with 80% efficiency at a full system load, it will draw 875 watts from the main power. This means you would have wasted 175 watts of heat.

 

700 watts PSU divided by 80% = 175 watts of heat wasted

 

 Looks nice doesn’t it? Why does the PSU have to be at 80 plus? In brief, it is a certification. As stated before, it means your PSU will be 80% efficient under three specific loads. These specific loads being at 20%, 50% and 100%. Now if it 80 Plus Gold for example, that means it will be an extra X amount more efficient under the three load levels. Such as being 90% more efficient underneath 50% load.

If you are interested in reading up more on it, I suggest visiting this website for a better understanding, (look here).

 

Hard Drives

 What do they contribute to video games? Loading the games data along with the map silly! In other words, loading time. The faster the RPM, the faster the hard drive will load the games data and the map. The standard is 5400 RPM, which is too slow. You want to look for a hard drive that goes at 7200 RPM. Is it more expensive? Barely, you can find some hard hard drives that hold more than 500GB worth of storage around the $100 or lower price tag. Are there hard drives faster than 7200? Yes, they are known as Velociraptors, and they are rated at 10,000 RPM. Would I recommend a 10,000 RPM hard drive? Hell no.Consider hard drives at those speeds to be over priced, and they really aren’t that much faster for the price you would be paying.

If someone would be shelling out money for those types of hard drives, I would recommend purchasing a solid state drive instead. Not only are they significantly faster, but your computer would boot up stupidly fast. Unfortunately we are looking at budget PC’s here, so there is no point in discussing about expensive equipment. If you are interested, comment down below or email me with your questions.

 

Optical Drives

 You know these as CD/DVD drives. Faster they write, the faster the game will install. Are they expensive? No. Can they be expensive? Yes, but that is if you are looking into some that support Blu-Ray movies. They do come in different flavors. The flavors being CD-R, DVD-R, DVD+R,  BD-R, CD-RW, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, or BD-RE. Some of you are probably thinking, “What do the letters mean after the words CD, DVD and BD?” Well for those that don’t know, the letter “R” means recordable. The letters “RW” mean re-writeable. It is pretty self explanatory, but for those that seek more information, (look here).

 

 What should you look for? Well, you want a drive that can read and write on CD’s/DVD’s since games come in those flavors for the computer. There are many manufacturers who produce these drives. Some of the manufactures are:

Sony

Lg

Samsung

Hitachi

Phillips

Pioneer

Asus

Hitachi is good, but others prefer Sony, Samsung, or Asus. Does it matter? Not really, unless you plan on getting some cheap brand, which could break down on you or have very low read/write speeds. It’s all about preference.

OS

OS stands for Operating of System. We are building a gaming PC here, so you are probably going to want Windows, particularly Windows 7. Now do you go and just grab a copy? Nope because there are two different versions of Windows 7. No I am not talking about the Ultimate, Office or whatever edition. I am talking about 32, and 64-bit (or x86-64) editions. Which one should you get? If your processor supports it, 64-bit, but everything almost supports 64-bit so don’t worry about that. Just check to be safe. Now why should you choose 64-Bit? Because 64-Bit in Windows means that you can use more RAM amongst other things. A 32-bit system is limited to 4GB of RAM. Wanna learn more? (Look here).

 Keep in mind when you have a 64-bit operating system, it would be advised for you to have a minimal of 4GB worth of RAM. Now RAM is not the only thing that separate the two from each other. The are far more factors that should be considered when operating on a 64-bit operating system. This factor being gaming. Having a 64-bit operating system will future proof for video games that operate on 64-bit OS’s. We are here about building a budget gaming PC, which really is a gaming PC in general. So it would be best if you head in the 64-bit route. The other factors I will not discuss since we are here about building budget gaming PC. If you would like to know more, you can either ask down in the comment section or email me.

 

WARNING: This is assuming you already have the mouse, keyboard, monitor, and case. 

NOTE: All configurations will be generated from TigerDirect, there are other sites available, but this is preferential. If you wish to use other sites such as Newegg, please go ahead and do so.

Configurations

 

Oh my goodness! If you manage to read all of this, then I bow down for your patience. If you didn’t, then pity. Time to show some pre-built configurations so you can get an idea on how inexpensive a PC can be.

 

Base (1)                                                                                                                                    Price

 

Motherboard: MSI A75MA-G55 AMD A Series                                                                        $100

CPU: AMD A6 Series Quad-Core A6-3650 APU (Clocked @ 2.6Ghz)                                    $120

Video Card: Diamond Radeon HD 6870 1GB GDDR5                                                            $200

RAM: PNY XLR8 8GB (2x 4GB) 1600Mhz                                                                               $55

PSU: Thermaltake 750W 80+ Bronze                                                                                       $90

Hard Drive: WD Caviar Black 500GB, 7200 RPM                                                                     $55

Optical Drive: ASUS 22x Internal CD/DVD Drive                                                                      $20

OS: MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit                                                                               $100

 

This system (Base 1) would amount to $740. This is not including S&H

***Note: This is an AMD build 

 

Base (2)                                                                                                                                    Price

 

Motherboard: EVGA Intel P67 FTW SLi Micro                                                                        $160

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500 3.30Ghz Quad Core                                                                         $210

Video Card: GeForce GTX 560 Superclocked                                                                        $210

RAM: PNY XLR8 8GB (2x 4GB) 1600Mhz                                                                              $55

PSU: Corsair TX750W 80+ Bronze                                                                                          $115

Hard Drive: WD Caviar Black 500GB, 7200 RPM                                                                    $55

Optical Drive: ASUS 22x Internal CD/DVD Drive                                                                     $20

OS: MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit                                                                               $100

 

This system (Base 2) would amount to $925. This is not including S&H

***Note: This is an Intel build 

 

Base (3)                                                                                                                                    Price

 

Motherboard: Biostar A880G+ AMD A3                                                                                    $70

CPU: Athlon II x4 645 Quad Core 3.10Ghz                                                                               $100

Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 6790                                                                                   $145

RAM: Crucial 8GB (2x 4GB) 1333Mhz                                                                                      $45

PSU: PC Power 650W 80+ Silver                                                                                              $100

Hard Drive: Seagate 1TB, 7200 RPM                                                                                        $55

Optical Drive: ASUS 22x Internal CD/DVD                                                                                 $20

OS: MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit                                                                                 $100

 

This system (Base 3) would amount to $635. This is not including S&H

***Note: This is an AMD build 

 

So did you get all that? Are you ready to build? I hope you are. Building a nice gaming PC from scratch can be intimidating for someone who’s never put a PC together but with some patience and research it can be achieved, and for a price you can afford!

 

Written By:

Dom Diaz – ddiaz591@gmail.com

Edited by:

Jacob Lopez

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please leave a comment below or email Dom at the email address above. Thanks!

 

Benaroya Publishing is the latest imprint to join Image Comics. Founded Michael Benaroya, the company currently has three titles released so far, Marksmen, Red Spike, and Samurai’s Blood. We got to sit down with Mike and talk comics, how the line formed, and where he sees it going.

Walton: You’ve got Benaroya publishing, It’s your company. Your name on the imprint. Your deal is with Image, how’d that come about?

Benaroya: Our deal is with Image and they were kind enough to do a deal for six comic series with us. Each of them have five or six issues. We’re really excited to be working with them because they are the artist centric brand and they really support the creators. They don’t sacrifice the creative integrity of their product.

W: When you knew you wanted to for, did you have books in mind?

B: Yes, we did. We had all six of the books laid out by the time we went to Image and we brought them complete plans.The way I like to think of our company is we finance our own development, produce all the art and all that, but we like to think of ourselves as just a place where ideas happen. A place where people can come up with cool stuff and bring it all the way from the spark of an idea to fruition.

W: You’re line doesn’t have anything that would be considered a traditional comic book. Was that the genesis of the line? Did you look around and see that people weren’t making these books?

B: I think that’s part of it. We definitely want to do things that are a little bit cutting edge and a little different than what everyone else is doing. But I think we also approached it from a different angle, instead of thinking within the box of the normal comic book style stories, what are some other very cool stories and would be presented well in the form of a comic and that was how we cam up with the stuff.

w: In your line, from Marksmen, Samurai’s Blood, Red Spike, do you have a babie in there? Which one do you love?

B: I’m probably not supposed to say, I really do love them all. If I had to pick one it’s probably Samurai’s Blood. Because it’s been in the works for a while. Owen and I have been talking about this story and this world for a few years now.He first started writing it I think 3 years ago, seeing this one through to it’s current form and actually getting this one published has been the most fun.

w: How far do you see the line growing?

B: The most important thing to us is to keep producing high quality maerial. That’s how we’ll define our limit. As we grow and keep increasing the amount of comics that we’re doing, whenever we feel we can’t add another one without losing some of our integrity and without putting our best effort into every comic, that’s when we’ll know that we have enough. I think we can definitely handle more than six, but probably not more than 15.

w: What other projects are gestating? Is there anything not being done you want to see?

B: That’s a good question. What I like the most and what I relate to the most in the world of comics is grounded superheroes. There’s one specific talent or skill, but everything else is pretty much the same. So that’s, to me, it makes it feel so much more real, because once you buy into the one change everything else remains the same and it’s nice to know what the limitations are of these superhero characters. What I don’t like is feeling like it’s arbitrary and down the road the writers decide this is the limitation, when it wasn’t presented that way at the beginning.

w: As people come in, what are you looking for in the people you want to work with?

B: I think the most important thing is someone who is collaborative. We have a really team [based] philosophy that has served us really well. I think that we love the team we’re working with and we always like working with new people and there is an attraction to working with some of the more established names. If we’re lucky enough down the road to be given an opportunity to work with really great comic people, I’m sure we’d jump at it.

w: What can people look forward to from Benaroya?

B: We have three more books that are coming out, Blood Merchant, The Fires of Avalon, and the Redeemer. One I want to highlight is Blood Merchant. Rob Pryor is hand painting every single panel. It’s six issues, he’s hand painting the entire thing and it’s taken him over a year already. He said he’s never done it before and he guarantees he’ll never do it again. But he’s finishing it and I think it’s going to be a real cult classic.

 

Benaroy Publishing books are available at your local comic shop. Red Spike, Marksmen, and Samurai’s Blood are currently on shelves. For more information go to http://www.benaroyapublishing.com/.

 

Griff the Invisible is a an Australian film coming to US screens this month. The movie is about a young professional who is anti-social and borderline ocd, who fancies himself a superhero when he returns home at night. His world is turned upside down when his brother’s girlfriend enters his world and understands him better than anyone ever has. The film is fine balance of superhero movie, fantasy, idiosynchratic comedy and drama. At Comic Con I got the opportunity to sit down with the film’s director Leon Ford about the movie, the films stars, and his native country’s cinema.

Brian Walton: Griff the Invisible, It’s an Australian film, and you’re australian right?

Leon Ford: Yes, yeah yeah, I’m Australian.

BW: It stars Ryan Kwanten.

LF: Who’s also Australian.

BW: Which surprises so many people in the states who know him mostly through True Blood. Where did the idea for Griff the Invisible come from?

LF: The character came to me about five years ago I saw this kid playing by himself, his parents were having dinner at a restaurant. He was having a great time, I don’t know what he was or who he was, a judo master or something. He was having a great time and I thought “That looks like a great world to be in.” You know if I do that I’d probably be arrested or lose my friends. I just thought it was interesting as a grown up you can’t keep living out other realities and those are other realities are just as real in a child’s mind as to almost compete with what we call the real world. I wanted to tell a story about a guy who doesn’t care about being judged or growing up and just wanted to keep living that reality, so much so, that reality takes over and becomes real. So to me, he is a superhero and to the girl he falls in love with he is a superhero and always will be.

BW: How long from starting the script to finishing the movie, how long did it take?

LF: First draft?

BW: Sure.

LF: First draft was five years before turn over on set and then the film took six weeks to shoot and then we were editing for months. So shooting to release in toronto was a year and now it’s coming to the America a few months after that.

BW: We know Ryan Kwanten mostly from True Blood and he’s very brash, and very outgoing. You got a very intense, personal, almost introspective and even claustrophobic performance from him. What is his personality like and how much guidance did he need to find the character?

LF: He’s the first to say he’s very close to the character of Griff.He does have a very sociophobic kind of side, Ryan. He’s very out there when he wants to be and needs to be. I would say Jason Stackhouse is more of a stretch for him from his own self than Griff is.I didn’t have to do anything he just is brilliant.He’s an incredible technical and emotional actor. His balance of everything you need as an actor is better than anyone I’ve ever seen. He didn’t have to prove anything because I actually hadn’t seen True blood before his tests came through. For me it was quite a surprise, though my friends had [seen True Blood] when I said, “Oh this guy Ryan Kwanten is amazing and he’s perfect.” My friends who knew the script couldn’t believe I was thinking about Jason Stackhouse for the role because he is so different, but for me he was just this amazing actor on my screen testing for the film.

BW: Here in the States when we get an Australian film that does well over here, generally it’s something in the Outback or it’s something like Priscilla Queen of the Desert. But you’ve made a very Urban and inner city view of Australia alot of Americans don’t ever really get. Was that something you did intentionally to provide a different perspective?

LF: First, it’s my area of Sydney, where I live, Surry Hills. It’s strange that most films are set in the outback, because as far as i know Australia is one of the most urbanized countries in the world. There is this massive, empty desert, but the cities are where almost 99% of people live in Australia along the fringes of the country. So it is very much for me, my version of Australia.I absolutely felt like there’s a little bit too much of the outback and farms and that sort of stuff in what we present to the world.I really wanted to show something refreshing.

BW: So you saw Australia, the movie that has your county’s name on it and thought, “Fuck that!”?

LF: Yeah Yeah exactly. I love Baz Lurhman but who would call their film by an entire country? Would you see a film called “The United States of America?”

BW: No, we named that one “Far and Away”

LF: Yeah that’s right. Yeah Yeah. Or “CANADA!”

BW: I don’t think anyone thought to call that “The United States”

LF: Yeah, exactly. No one would dare to.

BW: Did that get released in Australia as Australia?

LF: It Did! It Did! so as it was coming up to the release I was expecting it to be very confusing for people to know whether it was actually a film or just a concept, it’s a country for god’s sake. But it did extremely well. The home grown audiences love Nicole and Hugh.

BW: It starred Nicole and she is Australian, but she played a Brit, in a movie called Australia?

LF: I know! It’s incredible isn’t it.

BW: With what we get here it’s almost shocking to find Australia has cities. And when we do get it, it’s like Mission Impossible..

LF: Most people wouldn’t notice that’s Australia anyway.It could’ve been Toronto or New york or anywhere.

BW: I love to hear Australian accents.

LF: Are you kidding? Every time I hear our accent I cringe.It’s fun isn’t it.

BW: How did you bring Maeve [Dermody] come on bored? Was Ryan already in place when you found Maeve?

LF: They have amazing chemistry. We had Ryan first because I wanted to find Griff and cast the rest of the film around him. Maeve was already at the top of the list when we secured Ryan. I really wanted their chemistry to be… Funny how it ended, they didn’t meet either until rehearsal. When I set out on casting the film my number one goal was to make sure their chemistry was right. You can have two brilliant actors who are perfect for the roles but if they don’t “zing” on screen then it’s not going to work. I went with my gut on that one and I just thought these two look good together, I cut their tests together and thought, hopefully it will work in the room. And it did.

Thanks to Leon for the fun interview and definitely check out the film in it’s limited release when it comes to your city.

August 19th – LA, Berkley, San Francisco and New York

August 26th – Boston, Seattle, San Diego, and Denver

Sept 2nd – Washington DC and Philadelphia

Sept 9th – Atlanta and Minneapolis

Sept 16th – St. Louis

 

GOOD NEIGHBORS, GREAT ACTING.

Whether it’s just where you stay until you can afford a home with your spouse, your first place in the big city after graduating high school or college, or the home you reside in for the rest of your days, practically everyone spends at least some of their life in living in an apartment building. There’s absolutely nothing odd about this in our modern society. We accept it. It’s the norm.

But why? It’s actually a rather weird way to live when you think about it. Apartment buildings are places filled with people that surround each other completely and at all times of the day and night, yet are all too often complete strangers.

Do you keep to yourself and try to ignore the people you live next to, but not with? Do you get angry if one of them throws a blaring party they didn’t even invite you to? Do you actually try to get to know them, to change them from simply being “3B” or “The Cute Blonde – I don’t know her name” to Steve or Susan?

Even if you are friendly and personable, how well CAN you know the people who live behind your bedroom wall? They could be lying when you exchange stories as you check the mail and take out the garbage. They could have come from anywhere. Isn’t that a bit scary?

Good Neighbors, the latest release from Magnolia Pictures ( and which releases today), is a little film that’s playing on this common aspect of our daily lives. In fact the setup sort of feels as simple and mundane as it is unlikely: it’s about three neighbors in a Montreal apartment complex who actually make an effort to get to know one another.Whaaa? Canadians . . . being friendly?

Jay Baruchel at both his acting, and openly Canadian, best.

Victor (Jay Baruchel – She’s Out of My League) is the new guy, just moving in after an extended absence abroad. Louise (Emily Hampshire – Command and Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight) is the young woman living with her lovable cats, but otherwise alone. Spencer (Scott Speedman – xXx: State of the Union) is the curmudgeonly one, still recovering from a tragic accident that cost him the use of his legs. They help each other, dine together; they bond over a long Canadian winter. Love blossoms, hijinks ensue, the landlady gossips about what’s going on between them along the odd, ambling journey they’re embarking upon together.

Sounds like a great lighthearted comedy. Except there’s been a rash of murders going on about town, and there’s a distinct possibility that the killer lives in their building. Oh, and then there’s the distinct possibility that one of these three may not have too much longer to live.

Sooo, it’s a thriller then? Or a mystery? Horror?

Certainly, something horrific MUST be happening out of frame here. Or maybe it’s mouth-holdingly mysterious?

In fact, Good Neighbors is quite the odd little film to classify, as it subverts most of the common elements found in the genres mentioned above. It has elements of mystery, but quickly resolves the common question of “Who is the killer?” by its halfway point. It definitely contains horror, but these moments are as sparse as they are jarring (and they are very jarring). There is a touch of the cat and mouse game that thrillers contain, but for the most part it’s actually a rather dry and ambling movie that paces itself as coldly as the snowy city it centers upon. It’s also quite funny at times, albeit in the darkest forms of some of the blackest comedies.

No, if it’s anything, Good Neighbors is more akin to a stage play. Partly because of the setting, as aside from maybe one or two other locations, the entire film resides within the trio’s apartments or the building itself. Mostly though, it’s because this film presents a fairly intimate portrait of its characters and relies on the excellence of the actors portraying them.

Seriously, if you’ve only seen these three in comedies or cheesy vampire action movies you’ll be ill prepared for the performances they turn in here. Baruchel takes the geeky, awkward persona that served his skinny frame well in previous comedic efforts, and transforms it into a picture of a horribly lonely, pathetic man with Victor, while never dipping into caricature or losing his charm entirely. Speedman too, does an upstanding job, ironic for a man bound to a chair. Spencer encapsulates barely bound frustration and egotism in a person who now just barely fits into society; a man trying to remember what it was like to behave normally.

Yes, my name is Speedman. No, I’m not a Mega Man boss. Defeating me will not grant you my patented “Speed Smirk”.

But the real wonder is Emily Hampshire. She’s got the toughest job, as Louise is the most understated character of the three; a detached woman who doesn’t want to make an effort with other people, far preferring her felines to human companionship. Often, such characters end up dull, but Hampshire gets plenty of mileage out her eyes alone, delivering cold glares that betray a cunning mind beneath. If you see this movie, you’re never going to look at your own local cat lady the same way again, that’s for sure.

These impeccable performances are especially important because the cast of characters (including most of the secondary ones) may be one of the least likable I’ve seen on screen in while. I mean, sure, we’re all kind of used to aloof dickheads in film or on television. Heck, that’s what the show House relies on. But here, we’re given a cringing sycophant, a mean spirited shut-in, and a girl so frigid it borders onto the territory of the White Witch of Narnia. This isn’t even mentioning their neighbor, who’s as much a bitch as she is French.

Oh and apparently this film is set in 1995, so no, this newspaper is not an anachronism.

Having such an off putting group of characters is precisely what the plot revolves around though. This ends up a story of, if not bad people doing bad things to each other, at least a bunch of genuinely awkward loners barely getting along. Oh, and eventually doing bad things to each other as their own suspicions and grudges get the better of them.  

Such stories can often end up nearly unwatchable if not handled properly, no matter (heck, maybe even because of) how well the characters are portrayed. But writer/director (and fellow Are You Afraid of the Dark alumnus along with Baruchel) Jacob Teirney keeps everything together. His script grants these folks with realistic, though still interesting dialogue and his direction creates a film that while slow, never drags. Especially considering the range of genres the film straddles; it’s quite the neat feat.

Writer/Director Teirney seen here. Not trying to look cool, just very, very, cold.

Still, Good Neighbors may be something of a tough sell in a movie market that just got double punched by the end of a magical war, AND the superheroic end to a real one. It’s undoubtedly an excellent character piece, and certainly fascinating, but also the complete opposite of what you may be looking for as the summer moves towards its end.

 Of course, that’s also its appeal. If you’re like me, and want to ingest something a bit more provocative, a bit cynical, and definitely a bit colder, then Good Neighbors and its group of unfriendly friends may be your perfect cup of iced coffee.

 I certainly enjoyed the wry look at these folks who barely getting to know each other learning that maybe they would have been better off if they hadn’t. If you’re willing to take a walk on the darker side of Canadian life, you will too. Certainly, it’s given me something to think about in regards to my apartment complex. I’m not sure if I want to get to know the lady in apartment 201 or the Caribbean immigrants next to me that well, but after this flick, it might not be a bad idea to try and get on their good side.

 

Maybe I’ll bring them some cookies.

 

 

 

For Bison, It was City Tuesday

 

For the unaware, it might be surprising to discover that there is an underground movement brewing in the gaming community. A movement focused on the amateur, the hobbyist, and independence. This movement has led to an explosion that’s slowly evolving the medium of gaming, and is only sure to grow as we move forward. I’m talking of course, about Indie games.

Indie games have steadily gained popularity and notice over the last half a dozen years or so. Whereas in 2004, an independent game developer had few resources other than shopping around to find a mainstream publisher (as with The Behemoth’s Alien Hominid), nowadays there are many different venues an independent development team, or a single individual acting as one, can turn to in order to release their games to the public.

The downloadable gaming scene is the haven of self-reliant digital dilettantes trying to break into the industry and prove their worth.  Whether through a creator’s personal website or a digital delivery platform like Steam or OnLive, the vast majority of these games are found on PC, and geared towards PC gamers. One needs to look no further than the enormous success of Minecraft to see just how far reaching an Indie game can get on the PC.

But what about consoles? Well, thankfully many console users can also get to experience this swiftly growing, rambunctious community via the Xbox 360 sitting in their living room, on the Xbox LIVE Arcade menu. Thanks to an initiative started by Microsoft in 2008, you can peruse over a thousand Xbox LIVE Indie Games (or XBLIG for short) available.

Don’t know where to start? Don’t worry, I have a five recommendations at only a buck each over here.

“But wait!” you say, “Those games are all old! What if I want to play something new? Something exciting? Something that truly shows off what Indie Games are all about?”

Well to that I can only say: look no further than City Tuesday. Seriously, check out that link. It’s worth the minute it takes to watch.

City Tuesday is a very intriguing new game coming out later this summer. In City Tuesday, you’ll take control of a man (via a delightful art style inspired by subway safety signage) and live out the last five minutes of his life. But why? To try your hand at stopping a terrorist attack of course!

As in the seminal 1993 Bill Murray vehicle Groundhog Day, these five minute periods repeat endlessly until you get it right and prevent disaster from striking. As in that film, you’ll spend just as much time observing and learning about the residents of the city as actually trying to prevent your eternally repeating fate.

It’s an interesting concept, one worthy of a closer look. To that end I, your ever faithful reporter Adam R. Thomas, sat down to discuss City Tuesday in depth with the game’s creator Chris Zukowski. If you want to learn more about his game, and the philosophy behind it, just keep reading!

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Adam Robert Thomas (For Geekscape.net): First and foremost, how are you doing? Need anything? Coffee? Tea?

Chris Zukowski:  Coffee please. Thank you. (sips coffee) What is this, it’s delicious! Wait, let me guess. An Italian roast with a hint of . . . a Kona blend?

ART: err . . . Folger’s Instant actually.

CZ: Oh. Well. It’s still pretty good.

ART: Also, to get this out of the way . . . .A/S/L?

CZ: I’m 31. Male, obviously. Tucson, Arizona.

 

Obviously a man, patently American.

ART: So why five minutes? Was this something you figured out from the start?

CZ: My goal with City Tuesday is to get players to really learn a crosscut of a moment in time. After playing the game for a while players would know what was going to happen because they remembered it from a previous play through.

ART: But why five minutes? Why not three, or ten?

CZ: Five minutes allows the player to see the curve of the earth so to say. If it was just one minute for example, the world is over before you can get acclimated. You don’t have time to sit and just watch the world go by or for any of the games characters to do anything. If it was longer, a player’s short term memory would get confused and you couldn’t remember what happened earlier in the cycle. Plus, it’s a good hook. You can always say “Just one more try, it’s only five minutes.”

ART: So if I had stupidly good reflexes, is City Tuesday a game I could finish in my second five minute cycle?

CZ: No. A player like that won’t finish it any faster than someone who is trying to paying attention. I actually hate those parts in games with a “ticking time bomb” and you shoot your way to the end in time. City Tuesday is not that.

ART: So it’s more like Majora’s Mask, where your ability to learn over each individual cycle is what gates your progress?

CZ: Exactly. Observing the city and watching where people go is the path to victory. Players will go through many cycles that won’t yield any bombs, but in each they will gain knowledge for the next play through.

ART: I’m a big fan of the overall concept by the way.

CZ: Well, thanks.

 

In their off-hours the residents of City Tuesday hang outside of Restrooms.

ART: So what was your inspiration?

CZ: I love it when a game allows you to play with the impossible. I don’t just mean some fantasy like being a knight or shooting someone and getting away with it. Cosplayers are essentially pretending to be knights. You can play paintball if you want to shoot someone.

I am talking about games that aren’t possible due to the laws of physics or technology. Think of Portal. There is no way I’ll ever be able to approximate that in the real world. City Tuesday allows you to play in a world where you know exactly what will happen. I think we all have fantasies about what we would do differently if we could relive high school knowing what we do now.

ART: So what happens when time runs out?

CZ (with a devilish grin): The end of the world is an awesome thing to behold. Even if it happens every five minutes.

ART: Will the skips be tracked like lives? Can I compete with other players to see who can complete the game in the fewest skips?

CZ: They are tracked, but I don’t want to make it a competitive thing. If there’s a reward for solving the game in fewer cycles it implies that it’s bad to just to hang around and watch the world go by. The world in Groundhog Day was both a heaven and a hell. I want the same feeling in City Tuesday.

ART: The map design and theme remind me a lot of the old Activision Atari game Keystone Kapers; a 2D playing field divided into segments and rooms connected like corridors, with a theme of stopping a crime. Is this an intentional decision or a coincidence?

CZ: I never played Keystone Kapers actually.

ART: Oh? Well let’s see if we can’t fix that a bit.

(We watch a clip of the game on YouTube)

CZ: Hmm. Funny enough, my biggest inspiration for level design was another Atari game made by Activision from the same timeframe:  Pitfall. I really like static screens that reveal themselves when you get to the screen edge. You anticipate what’s going to be in the next screen. Sometimes it even surprises you. Old Sierra adventure games, Pitfall, Metroid and the first Zelda are excellent examples of this. We lost that in most contemporary 2D games since the world scrolls with you, and in 3D games you can always see into the distance. It’s less surprising when small bits of the world drip into view.

ART: You’ve mentioned on your blog for the game that the art style was inspired by subway warning signs on the way to GDC; care to elaborate any further?

CZ: The BART signs were the initial spark, because those signs in particular create such a story! Several little stick figures escaping from a disabled train!

 

One of the signs that led to the art style.

It’s always morbidly funny to see warning signs. Such horrible things are happening to these stick figures but they remain calm, expressionless and almost  . . . noble. I wanted to expand on this tension between horror and humor, and that’s why I used that visual style.

ART: So did you just choose the BART signs and go with it, or did you “audition” other styles from around the world? What makes San Francisco’s warning signs stand out from say, a United Airline’s pamphlet?

CZ: Actually, I did quite a bit of research into signage. One book that was really key was Helvetica and the New York City Subway System: The True (Maybe) Story by Paul Shaw. It’s all about how hard it was to get standard signs implemented across all of New York City. I was also influenced by all the infographics that have become popular in the last half decade. There are a bunch of signage styles all mixed in.

ART:  Do you know when exactly the game is releasing on XBLIG? What are you charging?

CZ: No. It will be this summer though. It’s in the running to become part of the “Summer Uprising” promotion, but the votes aren’t in just yet.

ART: Well, here’s hoping you get in.

CZ: Thanks.

ART: I’m sure you’re more than aware that very few XBLIG reach huge sales numbers, even some of the better ones. Why do you think that is?

CZ: I don’t know why XBLIG have such poor sales. I mean, it is right there on the dashboard along with the arcade games. Maybe it’s because it feels like the public access channel of gaming? There’s also a lot to sift through.

ART: True.

CZ: This might be controversial to say with the XBLIG community –

ART: It’s OK, we like controversy here.

CZ:  . . . but what if it’s fine that a good XBLIG game sells poorly? Despite a game being a quality product that also gets good press?

ART: Well, the obvious reason would be that it means people are missing out on some great games.

CZ: True, but hear me out. XBLIG is a great platform for new developers. There is no piracy, and it is a standardized platform that has all of the same hardware. There are no complicated contracts, and no complicated online store to set up. All of this means that primarily, it’s a great wading pool to get started.

ART: I can see that . . .

CZ: If you fail, there’s little risk.  If your game is well received by reviewers it might be a sign that it’s time to move up to a bigger platform, like XBLA or Steam. The baseball farm system is a good metaphor. In the minor leagues you don’t earn a lot, but you want to play harder so that you can eventually move into the big leagues. There are a number of really great games, such as Miner Dig Deep and all the radiangames  . . .

ART: I was a big fan of Fluid actually.

 

Radiangames Fluid – it’s kind of like Pac-Man but in your bloodstream.

CZ: Exactly! If no one’s picking it on XBLIG, it should be on Steam where it can sell better. Hopefully getting poor sales but positive reviews can encourage them to pursue a bigger league that appreciates them more. But, that will mean more complexity, such as negotiating contracts and hiring artists. I think XBLIG should maintain it’s almost zero cost point of entry in order to serve as an incubator for future game developers.

ART: That’s a fair point of view. So, maybe I misread this, but on your site you mentioned something about being in some form of gaming journalism?

CZ: No, I was NOT in game journalism. I wrote game walkthroughs on a site called gameintestine.com. It’s still live, but mothballed. The idea was to provide a game walkthrough on how to solve the game’s puzzles but coupled with commentary. Kind of like a director’s commentary track, but by someone who had nothing to do with the game.

ART: So why give it up?

CZ: It was super time consuming. Also, although it was fun, I felt like I was just describing something I wanted to do rather than doing it. Rather than just talk about games, I wanted to make one. So up comes City Tuesday. Plus, more people want to play games than read about them.

 ART: Hey!

CZ: Well it’s true.

ART: Yeah, well we commentators at least provide a service, when we’re promoting you developers.

CZ: Heh. Fair enough.

ART: So how are you endeavoring to keep the game intuitive for the new gamer?

CZ: One of the leitmotifs that City Tuesday plays off of are the overly specific tooltips accompanying many info graphics. They help describe the basics and fit into the theme. For a more seasoned gamer these tips will be humorous and just part of the game’s world.

ART: Speaking of the seasoned gamer, how are you trying to appeal to the hardcore crowd?

CZ: Lord help me if I try to make a game for the hardcore. I don’t know who those guys are. I always picture the guys who rant on forums. They are an intimidating bunch and they don’t seem to enjoy things.

ART: Hmm. Considering City Tuesday is fundamentally asking the player to see what they would do if they knew a terrorist attack was forthcoming – what would you do yourself in that situation?

CZ: I’ve thought about that, definitely. I’d probably do something very passive aggressive to stop it. Like, extra locks on the gates they’d go through, or stand next to a security guard and say “doesn’t he look suspicious, sure would like to see what he is hiding.”

 

 

ART: Yeah, I don’t think I’d try to be an action hero myself.

CZ: Realistically I mean . . .

ART: No, definitely. So what’re you playing these days? Or have you found that making a game has drained you of your desire to play other games?

CZ: Not my desire, just my time.  I have several games on backlog to reward myself with when I finish City Tuesday. I did play through all of Portal 2 and loved it. Also I sneak in sessions of that puzzle game Chime. I love how it feels like a really hip bar that is cooler than you but you go anyway because everything and everyone in there is pretty to look at.

ART: While we’re on it: Favorite game of all time?

CZ: It shifts but my favorite games are the ones that help me think about what I’m making. Right now it’s games that have a real persistence to them. I loved Animal Crossing because you were stuck in a town with a structure that you could modify. Similarly I really like the X-COM games because you play within a globe that you had to really invest in and slowly build up your bases.

ART: Who’s your gaming hero? I suppose that could be open to interpretation actually, so who’s your game MAKING hero?

CZ:  I think Will Wright. More than I like his games actually. I just love how he uses everything to influence what he puts in them and man can he talk about them.

ART: What’s your philosophy on designing a game?

CZ: Well that’s a pretty broad question . . .

ART: Fair enough. How about, say, specifically in regards to challenge?

CZ: I like to play games that you have to master to enjoy. I love Starcraft 2, Ninja Gaiden, and N+. But when I’m making a game I want people to hear what I am trying to say and see everything that I made. Working on City Tuesday sometimes I feel like I’m creating this awesome model train set so that I can someday have everyone over to take a look at it.

ART: So this isn’t going to be Super Meat Boy’s Dark World then?

CZ: Oh, definitely not.

ART: You’re doing this all yourself. How long has this project taken?

CZ: It’s taken me about six months now. I probably have two more months to go.

ART: By the way I was wondering: did you do the theme from the trailer? If so, nice job. If not, what is that and where can I buy it?

CZ: No, I’m no musician. Zero rhythm. The trailer music is by Isolée and the song is named Schrapnell. It was used as the intro music to the New Yorker fiction podcast and I kept listening to the podcast just for the intro.

ART: Big, loaded question time: Do you think the gaming industry is entering an “Age of the Auteur” as I’m beginning to suspect? It seems more notice is being given to individual executive producers/directors etc. Even in the big budget AAA games market. Personally I’m seeing this as a reaction to the success of indie games as an outlet, but time will tell on that one. What’s your take on gaming auteurs in an industry that’s so team and studio oriented?

CZ: I don’t want to get too deep into a discussion about auteurship –

ART: Yeah, we could be here all day.

CZ: Exactly. But I do wish all XBLIG devs would just put their names up front instead of some silly studio name they made up with their friends like “dancing squirrel games” or some random crap like that. I mean, i know their game studio is just a couch in their living room. Why hide that? Try and sell your game on the personalities of the group of guys making the game. If I learned who the person was making it I would be more likely to buy their next game even if I didn’t like the genre.

ART: Own up to the fact that you’re an individual, in essence?

CZ: Yeah, just put your names on it and try to make it personal to you. Don’t try and pretend that you’re some professional game studio. I think game developers revealing more about themselves can help make their game stand out.

 

This definitely stands out.

ART: So have you found the Indie Games community helpful? What don’t you like?

CZ: I’m still pretty new to the scene; this is my first game. But so far everyone is nice.

ART: On the other end of that question: Is this it for you? I mean, if you could never make another game again (I dunno, you lose your hands and tongue in a freaky glue mishap), would you be happy with just City Tuesday?

CZ: Hmm. Well right now I feel like I want to make 1000 games before I die. So I sure hope it isn’t the only game I can make.

ART: Well, what if it does well? What would you do with more of a budget? Or an unlimited one?

CZ: I’m not entirely sure, but I know what I don’t want to do. I don’t want to make games that take me 2 years to create and are “epic tales” with cut scenes and dual wielding and karma systems, water physics and procedurally generated worlds. I prefer short novellas.

My game may be a little rough around the edges, but at least it’s interesting. Besides, I can try something new in another 6 months.

ART: Sort of like a short story. Actually, that’s pretty admirable.

CZ: Thanks.

ART: That reminds me of something, I think it was Stephen King maybe? “A Short story is like a kiss in the dark from a stranger”. Sometimes that’s all you really need at the moment.

CZ: Sometimes it is.

ART: Alright, let’s wrap it up. So why should the folks reading this first check out, then immediately buy City Tuesday?

CZ: City Tuesday is a really different game and nothing in your education or experience can prepare you for it. Too many games are based in a fantasy world that doesn’t have the slightest resemblance to your life (unless you are a warrior prince living in a far off land). I want to change that with City Tuesday. I’m not sure you will like it, but I am sure that it will be a very strange game that will make you wish more games should try something like it.

ART: Well, I know I’m sold at least.

CZ: Heh. Thanks. I just hope others are too.

ART: And thanks again Chris for your time.

CZ: It’s been a pleasure.

 

 

____________________________________________________________________

There you have it folks! An upcoming little indie game from a guy trying his best to try something new, innovative and utterly strange. If you’re out there dreading the next FPS that has you only holding two guns, regenerating health and checkpoints every five seconds, be sure to check it out when it hits a little later this summer!

Heck, even if you do want to play that FPS, what could it hurt to take a gander at a game that has you battling terrorists, but through TIME?

For more on City Tuesday, you can also check out Chris’ website about the game: Return to Adventure Mountain!

If you want to read some of Adam’s rambling thoughts about the gaming industry, check them out here, at the Metro City Reform Committee!

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you, next Tuesday!

Dear Michael Bay,

Apology accepted.

While I had my issues with Bay’s first Transformers movie adaptation, I thought it was an OK film. In the end, I was just happy to see my all time favorite heroes from my child-hood on the big screen and back at the forefront of toy sales. The sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, on the other hand was like a backhand to the face. Partially hindered by the 2007-2008 writer’s strike, RotF was a bad movie all around and threatened to destroy the rejuvenated franchise. When Dark of the Moon was announced, I did not have high hopes and neither did most of my friends but as more info leaked about the movie, I could not help but get excited to see it. Lucky for the children of the 80’s, Bay delivered.

There was a lot of pressure on this movie to be good; Shia LaBeouf and Michael Bay both came out and said RotF was a bad movie and that they would do better with the next one. Megan Fox was released after (depending on who you believe) comments she made about Bay and her antics on the set. When Ain’t It Cool News posted that the horribly racist pair from RotF, Skids and Mudflap, were scene in the DotM, Bay went so far as to offer a $10,000 reward for proof. Bay was putting his best foot forward in an attempt to salvage his Transformers trilogy.

The movie is doing wonderful in the box office, $162 million in US returns alone, and almost all of my friends agree it is an awesome movie. But there are those who are panning it; lumping it in with the atrocious RotF. Everyone is inclined to his or her opinion and as long as you can back it up with something deeper than “it’s gay” or “that sucked” I can still respect you. That is as long as your expectations are in check but about that later.

So why should you care about my opinion of this movie? Because unlike most of the professional critics who saw this as just another film, sorry, movie because nothing Michael Bay could ever do could be considered a film, I am a die-hard fan of Transformers. When they broke onto the scene in the US in 1984, my brother, my friends and I were instantly hooked. To this day I still have most of my original toys in a large container in my attic. In my office or “man cave” as most people commonly refer to it, the walls are lined with shelves holding sealed boxes from the Hasbro re-issue figures. My two small shelves behind me have the resent Universe and Generations lines; waiting to be played with by my children one day. I also have several of the Masterpiece Transformers to include importing Megatron, who could never be sold here again because of his alternate gun mode. My computer is named Teletran-1; I have two, large Decepticon emblems on the side of my dark blue 2011 Mustang named Thundercracker, my name on Twitter, Facebook, Xbox Live, everything is Optimusgene! Hell I still tear up when Optimus Prime dies in the 1986 animated movie, which I own, as well as the entire Generation series cartoons on DVD.

A small sample of my collection.

The point is I was invested in this movie and this series. While many people may have felt bad after RotF I was down right hurt; the same way many people I’m sure felt after watching G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra if they had played with the toys as a kid and maybe even influenced their decision to join one of the branches of the military. This was not just another movie series to me.

Dark of the Moon takes place several years after Revenge of the Fallen. After defeating the Decepticons, the Autobots are now working with NEST to help with human issues like political squabbles and skirmishes. During an investigation at Chernobyl, they discover part of an Autobot spacecraft. Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) is infuriated and demands to know why the information was held back from the Autobots from Secretary of Defense Mearing (Frances McDonmand).

The spacecraft known as the Ark crash-landed on the dark side of the moon in 1961. The US and Russia were in a race to get to the moon first and explore the wreckage. The Autobots travel to the moon and recover Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy) the former leader of the Autobots and five pillars that are part of a spacebridge that can transport anything from one side of the galaxy to another.

In the mean time Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) is living with his new girlfriend Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) in her posh Washington D.C. apartment. Sam has graduated college but cannot seem to get a job; even though he helped the Autobots save the planet twice but is not allowed to talk about it. The pressure mounts as he becomes extremely suspicious of Carly’s wealthy boss Dylan (Patrick Dempsey) who seems to have ulterior motives and his parents; Ron (Kevin Dunn) and Judy (Julie White) come to visit. Add to the fact he is stuck with two small, eccentric Autobots named Wheelie (Tom Kenny) and Brains (Reno Wilson) while Bumblebee is off saving the world.

In order to share my thoughts on why I loved the movie, I will unfortunately have to spoil parts of the movie. In fact some of the major plot points are why I enjoyed it so much. So with that…

Warning: Spoiler Alert! If you do not wish to have major plot points spoiled in this movie, please skip down to the rest of the review.

In RotF, we got some loose, mangled BS story about the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, the Primes and then had some spiritual after-life moment with Sam. They received 1 point for bringing in the Matrix and lost 1,000 points for its use. But this time, someone did his or her homework. There are three major ideas or themes from the original cartoon series and the Dreamwave comic they incorporated into this movie that I loved.

The first is the reason why the Decepticons are at it again. In the first movie, they came to Earth in search of “The Cube” that could be used to rebuild their planet. In RotF, the Fallen wants revenge and plans to destroy the sun. Even as a cartoon that would have still been stupid. I have said all along why don’t they just use the original premise from the cartoons; they are here for our resources to rebuild their dead planet. Makes sense right? Well someone was listening, at least mostly.

The Decepticons plan to use humans to rebuild Cybertron. Makes some sense I guess. Six billion easily controlled cheap laborers would make it a bit less difficult to rebuild a civilization. OK so it’s not quite harnessing our oil, natural gas, solar and wind power but it’s close and I’ll take it. In retrospect, it kind of retcon’s the whole Transformer movie, which I don’t think anyone really has an issue with.

The second item of nostalgic goodness comes from the spacebridge. Originally introduced to the Transformers universe in season one of the cartoon series, the spacebridge allowed the Autobots and Decepticons to travel from Earth to Cybertron. In the three part series, The Ultimate Doom, the Decepticons use human workers (sound familiar) and build a giant spacebridge to transport the entire planet of Cybertron to Earth. And what happens in DotM? Plus 1,000 points.

Finally, in an attempt to make sure the Autobots don’t ruin their plan, the Decepticons threaten the humans with extinction if they don’t force the Autobots to leave earth. So they pile them into a modified space shuttle and send them into space. But before the shuttle gets too far it is destroyed and the Autobots are presumed dead. This has actually been done twice already in Transformers lore. The first was in the second season of the carton series; Megatron works with a human to convince the public the Autobots are evil and they are forced to leave in a shuttle and eventually die when their shuttle flies into the sun. It was also done in the Dreamwave comics in 2002; after the Autobots defeat the Decepticons, they load up in a shuttle and head for Cybertron promising to return with new technology. But the shuttle is destroyed just out of earth’s atmosphere and the Transformers are thought to be dead.

No matter how you slice it someone did some research before going ahead with this movie. Are these new and innovative story ideas? No, but the fact all three appear in the Transformers history and now show up in the new movie is pretty solid evidence. For anyone who might think the storyline is flimsy or didn’t make sense; number one it’s based on a children’s cartoon, give it a break and number two now you must feel like “average” people do when they watched The Lord of the Rings or any comic book movie and did not get all of the references.

End spoilers.

As for the rest of the movie it was a visual assault, which is exactly what you should expect from a summer blockbuster. The explosions are loud, the sound design makes it feel like you are experiencing raw metal on metal fighting and even though it wasn’t used enough for my taste, the classic transforming sound makes a return. You know what sound I’m talking about, the one from the cartoon you and your friends used to make when you were playing with the toys.

I saw the movie in 3D and while it did not suffer from the murkiness that so many other live-action 3D movies do, the 3D just didn’t really bring anything special to the movie. Perhaps it’s just me, but after about 45 minutes of watching 3D it looses it’s effect on me and I stop noticing things popping out of the screen. I think I have decided I will reserve 3D movie watching for animated movies, where it truly pops and takes advantage of the medium, like How to Train Your Dragon did.

As for the rest of the visuals it was a little of a mixed bag. The first movie suffered from a problem where it was difficult to tell the robots apart when they were fighting. RotF cleared that up and I’m happy to say DotM also does a good job of making each robot easy to pick out. On the other hand there were a few effects that just seemed a little off. Watching the pillars float up around the world just had this cheesy, unreal look to them. The other time I was drawn out of the movie is a scene where Sam is riding in Bumblebee. There is an explosion or something, Bumblebee flies into the air, transforms with Sam flying in space then transforms back into a car around him. Perhaps my brain just couldn’t handle the idea of this or the 3D was a little off but it just didn’t look right. I might have blamed it on the 3D but since the giant robots look completely believable the rest of the time when standing next to the humans I don’t think so.

Then there are the performances. To their credit, Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel and John Turturro all stay true to their original characters and perform as expected. Watching John Malkovich was a pleasure as always but the real question was about Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and how she would perform. Considering she was hired to fill the role of “hot piece of ass” that Megan Fox vacated and the fact she is not an actress and just a Victoria’s Secret model, I didn’t have high hopes. Hell she doesn’t even have a line in any of the trailers. In the end she was OK. Not good, but certainly not as bad as I had feared. It does beg the question as to why a hot actress wasn’t hired for the role instead? I’m sure if you asked any red-blooded American male he could ramble off a long list of attractive actresses that could have filled the role.

Like I mentioned before, Bay was adamant about correcting the errors that were made in RotF, which meant cutting back on the sexuality and lowbrow humor. For the most part he succeeded. Our first shot of Carly is a slow pan up of her ass in panties as she walks towards the bed with Sam and there is a scene later on where the camera pans around her in a slick, white dress as Patrick Dempsey compares the lines of a car to a woman but at least we weren’t subjected to a female Decepticon trying to seduce Sam and getting the money shot of Devestator’s balls.

Of all of the things this movie did right, the main one would have to be the fact it did not seem like it was focused on the humans. Sure, the humans still eat up the majority of the time on screen but as soon as the shit starts to hit the fan the entire side story BS falls away. You really start to feel a connection with the robots and in fact, my wife found herself shouting out loud several times during the movie in response to the fate of the Autobots and Decepticons. Needless to say, I could not have loved her more at that time.

In the end, like all movies, whether you like Transformers: Dark of the Moon is going to depend on your expectations. As long as you know what to expect, you will enjoy the movie. It’s based on a cartoon and toy series from the 80’s where giant robots from outer space come to Earth and turn into vehicles and electronics for crying out loud. If you are expecting an artfully crafted film that will one day grace the stage on Oscar night, go elsewhere. But if you want a fun, over-the-top, action and special effects packed summer block-buster, Transformers fits the bill. To put it another way, if you didn’t like Green Lantern because you were expecting The Dark Knight, then you won’t enjoy this movie either. Oh and by the way, for those who question why Michael Bay is still allowed to make movies keep this in mind; Christopher Nolan has said he enjoys Michael Bay movies because Bay knows how to do what he does better than anyone else.

As always, I invite you to watch the movie yourself before forming any opinions. If you have seen the movie, please leave your comments in the section below. While I hope this is the final Transformers movie (at least for a long while) I would not be opposed to seeing another if it were held to this standard. Oh and to everyone who cried fowl because of the famous Star Trek line Leonard Nimoy recites in the movie; Star Trek was not the first movie to use that line and you can’t tell me if you had access to Leonard Nimoy you wouldn’t have him reciting old lines constantly as well!

Optimusgene is the chief editor of OneManAsylum.com and co-host of the Group Therapy podcast.

Anime Expo is generally the celebration of all things Japanese, whether it be manga, anime, bad karaoke, or that awesome past time cosplay. The great thing about cosplay at AX is it’s never limited to anime, so prepare yourself for comics, anime, video game, and movie costume goodness.

Geekscapist April O’Neil tries on the sad panda hat.

 

 

This is where Jake needed a change of shorts.

Splicers and me without my wrench.

“I will pistol whip you if you don’t pull up your pants.”

The Mandalorian people have a much richer culture than I realized.

Much like Jamie Kennedy this man is kicking it old school

Did someone order a keyblade?

Hipster Mario and Luigi are soooooooooooo cute, I just puked a kitten.

So happy to see Final Fantasy X Rikku as opposed to Final Fantasy X-2 slutty Rikku… 

Not only is this an awesome Starscream, it’s battle damage Starscream. Subtlety is key.

They then retired that carpet.

Walton and Megan go Blue Steel on us

 

The Green Lantern Movie: Why All The Hate? 

“A joyless amalgamation of expository dialogue and special effects that aren’t especially special.” –Christy Lemire, Associated Press

“Even in the brainless world of cinematic comic books gone bad, it’s as bad as it gets—a dumb, pointless, ugly, moronic and incomprehensible jumble of botched effects, technical blunders, and cluttered chaos.” –Rex Reed, New York Observer 

“Green, we’re told at some point in ‘Green Lantern,’’ is the color of will. Based on the movie surrounding that line, it’s also the color of won’t. Won’t make sense. Won’t satisfy a soul. Possibly won’t make a dime.” –Wesley Morris, Boston Globe

“With blood and rage of crimson red,  Ripped from a corpse so freshly dead,  Together with our hellish hate,  We’ll burn you all–that is your fate!”  –The Red Lantern Oath. 

By reading the “mainstream” reviews of the Green Lantern movie, one would think that Green Lantern was not only the worst movie in the history of cinema, but that it also punched your grandmother in the face and set your house on fire.

Virtually every entertainment review site on the net fired off their best attempt to nuke this film with a mixture of disdain and glee. Actually reviewing the movie? Screw that! That was a distant second as far as most were concerned. 

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, says the movie sucks but gives you nothing to back up his opinion.  “a new primer on how not to make a comicbook movie unless you want to screw shit up. Flat FX, smirky acting, clunky writing and clueless direction. WTF?” WTF, Indeed. How about you NOT try to desperately attempt to sound “hip” and try actually saying “why” you don’t like the movie. But that would mean, OMG, that you would actually have to write a review, as oppose to cut & pasting the synopsis and saying it sucked in so many words. Any douche bag with a blog and a keyboard can say “Worst.Film.Ever.” but I would expect more from a so-called “reviewer.” Call me crazy. 

In my opinion, reviewers are suppose to present their opinion and give you reasons why they feel that way. Unfortunately, now it seems the goal of the day is to say something outrageous to be ‘the one’ that leads the rallying cry, or the one that gets the most re-tweets for their punchline comments. “Look what ‘I’ wrote!” Their reviews virtually shout. “I was the one that said Green Lantern sucked loudest and more creatively! I’m a quote on Rotten Tomatoes!” 

This is part of a bigger problem, that mainstream reviewers seem to have become more interested in showcasing their “wit” than actually providing a review for a movie. “How many bad puns can I litter my review with?” How about you just let me know why the movie does or doesn’t work. Now the common denominator has been dropped lower than a broomstick at a midget limbo dance party. Allow me to give an example at the unified wit these paid geniuses have come up with:  

“Lantern proves it’s not easy being green.” –Charles Koplinski, Illinois Times

Now Playing: It’s Not Easy Being ‘Green Lantern’ by Luke Hickman, highdefdigest.com

“It’s not easy being the Green Lantern”– by Mal Vincent, The Virginian-Pilot

“Shine on, but it’s not easy being green” — Tribune Web Editor

“Critics Consensus: It’s Not Easy Being Green Lantern” — by Tim Ryan, Rottentomatoes.com

“Green Lantern: It’s Not Easy Being Green. Especially when the dialogue is this incredibly lame” — By Lori Hoffman, Atlanticcityweekly.com

“It’s Not Easy Being … You Know” — by Manohla Dargis, NyTimes.com

How ironic that these same people bitch a movie out for not being creative. It actually seems like the week the movie was to be released all the mainstream movie critics got together and said “Ok, so, we’re all in agreement? Green Lantern is this year’s movie we are all going to hate? Well all right then….don’t forget to use the ‘it’s not easy being green’ line, it always kills. I used it on Green Hornet.” 

It’s like these reviewers are desperately searching for a reason to just NOT like this movie.

The Realstylenetwork.com wrote “The biggest problem is that Warner Brothers is trying to push a superhero that a lot of people don’t know about.” 

Wait, what? That makes no sense other than an attempt to perpetrate their agenda, that they actually know what the fuck they are talking about. Because the common man’s knowledge of who Green Lantern has nothing to do whether the movie is good or not. Did the mainstream masses know who Blade was? No, but that movie was considered a success. Was Neo a household name? No, But the first Matrix movie was a smash. Green Lantern is pretty much on the same tier as Iron Man and people loved that movie. On the other side of the coin, people do know who Batman is, but that didn’t stop Batman and Robin from being a flop, did it? 

I went to see Green Lantern without any preconceived notions. And you know what? I dug it. It didn’t try to set my pad on fire nor sucker punch my gramma. It was a fun rock’em sock’em summer action movie. I knew going in that it wouldn’t be chapter and verse out of the Green Lantern comic book proper. I knew liberties were to be taken and you had to slip on your sense of disbelief along with your 3D glasses, but ok. I got in and went for the ride. Is it the best superhero movie? No, but it’s far from the worst. You’ll know that if you’ve survived Wolverine: Origins, three Punisher movies, Ghost Rider, Superman IV, Spider-man 3, Electra and whatever else. 

If you are looking for The Dark Knight with a power ring, this isn’t it. But if you are looking to have some fun watching one of the DCU’s heroes on the big screen, then get your popcorn, fuck the cynical reviews and enjoy yourself. 

Today is Captain Picard Day! I know, I’m excited too. Let’s all take a moment to remember what this day is all about.

One of my BFF’s Josh Zeller demanded I follow up my Places to Make Out in the Star Wars Universe article with a Star Trek one. Since it is Captain Picard Day I decided to stick with TNG. 

10. Ten-Forward – Hey, the view is cool and Guinan would totally be your wingman.

9. Engineering – The pulse of the engines makes a lovely background atmosphere, and if you stick to the catwalk you’re less likely to get caught. Plus the view is amazing from up there.

8. Observation Lounge – It’s the equivalent to your office board room, but I’ve seen enough movies to know that that’s supposed to be hot, especially if there are some computer pads to push off the table beforehand.  Bonus if it’s during a red alert!

7. Jeffries Tubes – It totally worked for Picard, I’m breaking my rule because someone obviously made out there already, but that scene was pretty hot for TNG, so I feel it’s legit. As Zeller says, if the jeffries tubes are a rockin’, don’t come a knockin’ (when really, if the Jeffries tubes are rocking, you have more on your hands than getting caught smooching).

6. Klingon Bird of Prey – It’s dark, dank, smells kinda funny, they eat weird things.  It’s the equivalent of the back seat in a teenager’s car, right?

5. Run About – Whenever you need to get away from it all, or heck, if you don’t want any spectacular views to distract you just leave it in the cargo bay.

4. Captain’s Ready Room – You can have a philosophical discussion over how he feeds his fish, one of you mention beaming the food directly into the bowl, your eyes catch, the soft music of a flute drifts in from somewhere (probably the jeffries tubes). Magic

3. Data’s Quarters – Talk about art, ignore the cat.

2. Transporter Room – There is added danger here, because at any moment there might be a transporter malfunction.

1. The Holodeck – Make it cool, like the one where they’re all dressed as Shakespeare, and not creepy, like the one where Riker falls in love with that girl in the Jazz club, or the one where Geordi fell in love with the scientist, or the one where Barclay fell in love with everybody ever.

Bow-chicka-wow-wow! And don’t forget…

I realize I listed only ships, and the majority places on the Enterprise, but Riker made out with a girl on Risa and brought back a game that nearly took control of the ship, and that’s almost worse than a space STD. The lesson, stick close to the Enterprise my friends, cause your career is going places, and I don’t care if your mother is Luxwana Troi, don’t let her pressure you. If you ever feel like you need a human connection, that’s what chocolate is for.

DC’s solicitations for all 52 Rebooted titles coming in September have been posted, and some new details are coming to light about all titles. Tim Drake was definitely a one time Robin in the pages of Teen Titans, Lois Lane’s name is mentioned in the solicitation for Superman #1, Supergirl isn’t going to have much love for humans in her title, and it turns out Superboy is most definitely a clone, not a robot the way the cover suggested.

From Bleeding Cool: 

JUSTICE LEAGUE #1

Written by GEOFF JOHNS, Art and cover by JIM LEE and SCOTT WILLIAMS, 1:25 Variant cover by DAVID FINCH

RETROSOLICITED • On sale AUGUST 31 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US RATED T • Combo pack edition: $4.99 US

Comics superstars Geoff Johns and Jim Lee make history! In a universe where super heroes are strange and new, Batman has discovered a dark evil that requires him to unite the World Greatest Heroes!

This spectacular debut issue is also offered as a special combo pack edition, polybagged with a redemption code for a digital download of the issue.

JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL #1

Written by DAN JURGENS, Art by AARON LOPRESTI and MATT RYAN, Cover by AARON LOPRESTI

On sale SEPTEMBER 7 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

With the growing presence of super beings around the world, the United Nations resolves to create a new group called Justice League International.

Batman, Booster Gold, Green Lantern Guy Gardner, August General in Iron, Fire, Ice, Vixen and Rocket Red are charged with promoting unity and trust – but can they reach that goal without killing each other first?

AQUAMAN #1

Written by GEOFF JOHNS, Art and cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

On sale SEPTEMBER 28 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

The superstar creators from BLACKEST NIGHT and BRIGHTEST DAY reunite to take AQUAMAN to amazing new depths!

Aquaman has renounced the throne of Atlantis – but the sea will not release Arthur Curry so easily. Now, from a forgotten corner of the ocean emerges… The Trench! A broken race of creatures that should not exist, an unspeakable need driving them, The Trench will be the most talked-about new characters in the DC Universe!

WONDER WOMAN #1

Written by BRIAN AZZARELLO, Art and cover by CLIFF CHIANG

On sale SEPTEMBER 21 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

The Gods walk among us. To them, our lives are playthings. Only one woman would dare to protect humanity from the wrath of such strange and powerful forces. But is she one of us – or one of them?

THE FLASH #1

Written by FRANCIS MANAPUL and BRIAN BUCCELLATO, Art and cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL, Variant cover by IVAN REIS and TIM TOWNSEND

On sale SEPTEMBER 28 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

The Fastest Man Alive returns to his own monthly series from the writer/artist team of Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato! The Flash knows he can’t be everywhere at once, but what happens when he faces an all-new villain who really can! As if that’s not bad enough, this villain is a close friend!

CAPTAIN ATOM #1

Written by J.T. KRUL, Art by FREDDIE WILLIAMS II, Cover by STANLEY “ARTGERM” LAU

On sale SEPTEMBER 21 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Charged by nuclear energy, possessing vast molecular powers, Captain Atom has the potential to be a literal god among men – a hero without limits. But the question is: Will he lose himself in the process?

THE FURY OF FIRESTORM #1

Written by ETHAN VAN SCIVER and GAIL SIMONE, Art by YILDIRAY CINAR, Cover by ETHAN VAN SCIVER

On sale SEPTEMBER 28 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Jason Rusch and Ronnie Raymond. These two high school students are worlds apart – and now they’re drawn into a conspiracy of super-science that bonds them forever in a way they can’t explain or control. The dark secrets of the murderous Dog Team and its Firestorm Protocol force them to put aside their differences to confront a threat so terrifying that it may lead to a new Cold War! Welcome to a major new vision of nuclear terror from writers Ethan Van Sciver and Gail Simone with astonishing art by Yildiray Cinar!

GREEN ARROW #1

Written by J.T. KRUL, Art by DAN JURGENS and NORM RAPMUND, Cover by BRETT BOOTH and ROB HUNTER

On sale SEPTEMBER 7 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Green Arrow is on the hunt. Driven by inner demons, Ollie Queen travels the world and brings outlaws to justice…by breaking every law.

Now, armed with cutting-edge weaponry and illegally gained intel (courtesy of his team at QCore), Green Arrow is shooting first and asking questions later.

THE SAVAGE HAWKMAN #1

Written by TONY S. DANIEL, Art and cover by PHILIP TAN

On sale SEPTEMBER 28 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Carter Hall’s skill at deciphering lost languages has led him to a job with an archaeologist who specializes in alien ruins – but will the doctor’s latest discovery spread an alien plague through New York City? No matter the personal cost, Carter Hall must don his wings and become the new, savage Hawkman to survive! Witness the start of a new action series from writer Tony S. Daniel and artist Philip Tan that will take Hawkman where no hero has flown before!

MISTER TERRIFIC #1

Written by ERIC WALLACE, Art by ROGER ROBINSON, Cover by J.G. JONES

On sale SEPTEMBER 14 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

The world’s third-smartest man – and one of its most eligible bachelors – uses his brains and fists against science gone mad in this new series from Eric Wallace (TITANS) and Roger Robinson!

Michael Holt is the head of a successful high-tech corporation and an institute that recruits and encourages the finest minds of the next generation to excel. As Mister Terrific he inhabits a world of amazement few others know exists, let alone can comprehend.

DC UNIVERSE PRESENTS #1

Written by PAUL JENKINS, Art by BERNARD CHANG, Cover by RYAN SOOK

On sale SEPTEMBER 21 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

It’s the start of a new series spotlighting some of the DC Universes’s most exciting super heroes! First up is Deadman, straight from the pages of BRIGHTEST DAY, in a five-issue epic where the body-hopping hero meets his match in a new foe who wants to make sure the souls that Deadman helps out go straight to Hell!

ACTION COMICS #1

Written by GRANT MORRISON, Art by RAGS MORALES and RICK BRYANT, Cover by RAGS MORALES, Variant cover by JIM LEE and SCOTT WILLIAMS

On sale SEPTEMBER 7 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

The one and only Grant Morrison (ALL-STAR SUPERMAN) returns to Superman, joined by sensational artist Rags Morales (IDENTITY CRISIS), to bring you tales of The Man of Steel unlike any you’ve ever read! This extra-sized debut issue is the cornerstone of the entire DC Universe!

SUPERMAN #1

Written by GEORGE PEREZ, Breakdowns and cover by GEORGE PEREZ, Art by JESUS MERINO

On sale SEPTEMBER 28 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

The new adventures of Superman begin here! What is The Man of Steel’s startling new status quo? How does it affect Lois Lane and The Daily Planet? There’s no time for answers now, because Superman must stop a monstrous threat to Metropolis – one that he somehow is the cause of!

SUPERBOY #1

Written by SCOTT LOBDELL, Art by RB SILVA and ROB LEAN, Cover by ERIC CANETE

On sale SEPTEMBER 14 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

They thought he was just an experiment – and a failed one at that! Grown from a combination of Kryptonian and human DNA, the Clone was no more than a set of data to the scientists of Project N.O.W.H.E.R.E. But when the scope of his stunning powers was revealed, he became a deadly weapon! Now the question is: Can a clone develop a conscience?

SUPERGIRL #1

Written by MICHAEL GREEN and MIKE JOHNSON, Art and cover by MAHMUD ASRAR

On sale SEPTEMBER 21 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Meet Supergirl. She’s got the unpredictable behavior of a teenager, the same powers as Superman – and none of his affection for the people of Earth. So don’t piss her off!

BATMAN #1

Written by SCOTT SNYDER, Art by GREG CAPULLO and JONATHAN GLAPION, Cover by GREG CAPULLO, Variant cover by ETHAN VAN SCIVER

On sale SEPTEMBER 21 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Be here for the start of a new era for The Dark Knight from writer Scott Snyder (AMERICAN VAMPIRE, BATMAN: GATES OF GOTHAM) and artist Greg Capullo (Spawn)! A series of brutal killings hints at an ancient conspiracy, and Batman learns that Gotham City is deadlier than he knew.

DETECTIVE COMICS #1

Written by TONY S. DANIEL, Art by TONY S. DANIEL and RYAN WINN, Cover by TONY S. DANIEL

On sale SEPTEMBER 7 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

DC’s flagship title is relaunched for the first time ever, with new Batman adventures from acclaimed writer/ artist Tony S. Daniel! A killer called The Gotham Ripper is on the loose on Batman’s home turf – leading The Dark Knight on a deadly game of cat and mouse.

BATWING #1

Written by JUDD WINICK, Art and cover by BEN OLIVER

On sale SEPTEMBER 7 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Africa, a land of beauty – and of great horror. A land of creation and conflict. It is in desperate need of a defender, and from the ranks of Batman Incorporated comes a soldier to carry on the legacy of The Dark Knight in the most tumultuous region on Earth. Meet Batwing, the Batman of Africa!

BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT #1

Written by DAVID FINCH, Art by DAVID FINCH and RICHARD FRIEND, Cover by DAVID FINCH

On sale SEPTEMBER 28 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

The Dark Knight struggles against a deadly – yet strangely familiar – foe in this phenomenal debut issue from superstar writer/artist David Finch (BRIGHTEST DAY, ACTION COMICS)! As a mysterious figure slinks through the halls of Arkham Asylum, Batman must fight his way through a gauntlet of psychos, and Bruce Wayne faces the unexpected legal ramifications of Batman Incorporated!

BATMAN AND ROBIN #1

Written by PETER J. TOMASI, Art and cover by PATRICK GLEASON and MICK GRAY

 On sale SEPTEMBER 14 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Battling evil with his son, Damian, at his side, Batman now realizes that the hardest part of the job may be trying to work together! As Batman and Robin try to adjust to their new partnership, a figure emerges from Bruce Wayne’s past: His name is NoBody, and he’s not happy that Batman Incorporated is shining a light on his own shadowy war against evil…

BATGIRL #1

Written by GAIL SIMONE, Art by ARDIAN SYAF and VICENTE CIFUENTES, Cover by ADAM HUGHES

On sale SEPTEMBER 7 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Yes, it’s really happening! Barbara Gordon is back as Batgirl – and she’s going to have to face the city’s most horrifying new villains as well as the dark secrets from her past. You won’t want to miss this stunning debut issue from fan-favorite BIRDS OF PREY writer Gail Simone!

BATWOMAN #1

Written by J.H. WILLIAMS III and W. HADEN BLACKMAN, Art and cover by J.H. WILLIAMS III

On sale SEPTEMBER 14 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

At last! Batwoman’s new series begins, from the multiple award-winning creative team of J.H. Williams III and Haden Blackman! In “Hydrology,” part 1 of 5, Batwoman faces deadly new challenges in her war against Gotham City’s underworld – and new trials in her life as Kate Kane. Who or what is stealing children from the barrio, and for what vile purpose? Will Kate train her cousin, Bette Kane (a.k.a. Flamebird), as her new sidekick? How will she handle unsettling revelations about her father, Colonel Jacob Kane? 

NIGHTWING #1

Written by KYLE HIGGINS, Art and cover by EDDY BARROWS and JP MAYER

On sale SEPTEMBER 21 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Dick Grayson flies high once more as Nightwing in a new series from hot new writer Kyle Higgins (BATMAN: GATES OF GOTHAM)! And as he embraces his destiny, Haley’s Circus, the big top where Dick once performed, returns to Gotham City – bringing with it murder, mystery and superhuman evil. Nightwing must confront his past, among former friends and enemies from his circus days, while uncovering a much greater evil!

CATWOMAN #1

Written by JUDD WINICK, Art and cover by GUILLEM MARCH

On sale SEPTEMBER 21 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+

Meet Catwoman. She’s addicted to the night. Addicted to shiny objects. Addicted to Batman. Most of all, Catwoman is addicted to danger. She can’t help herself, and the truth is – she doesn’t want to. She’s good at being bad, and very bad at being good. Find out more about what makes Catwoman tick in this new series from writer Judd Winick (BATMAN: UNDER THE HOOD) and artist Guillem March (GOTHAM CITY SIRENS)!

BIRDS OF PREY #1

Written by DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI, Art and cover by JESUS SAIZ

On sale SEPTEMBER 21 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

One is wanted for a murder she didn’t commit. The other is on the run because she knows too much. They are Dinah Laurel Lance and Ev Crawford – a.k.a. Black Canary and Starling – and together, as Gotham City’s covert ops team, they’re taking down the villains other heroes can’t touch. But now they’ve attracted the attention of a grizzled newspaper reporter who wants to expose them, as well as a creepy, chameleon-like strike team that’s out to kill them.

Don’t miss the start of this hard-hitting new series from mystery novelist/comics writer Duane Swierczynski (Expiration Date, Cable).

RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #1

Written by SCOTT LOBDELL, Art and cover by KENNETH ROCAFORT

On sale SEPTEMBER 21 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

No sooner has Batman’s former sidekick, Jason Todd, put his past as the Red Hood behind him than he finds himself cornered by a pair of modern day outlaws: Green Arrow’s rejected sidekick Arsenal, the damaged soldier of fortune, and the alien Starfire, a former prisoner of intergalactic war who won’t be chained again.

As a loner, Jason has absolutely no interest in this motley crew of outlaws. So what’s he going to do when they choose the Red Hood as their leader? Find out in this hot new series from writer Scott Lobdell (WILDC.A.T.S, Uncanny X-Men), featuring art by rising star Kenneth Rocafort (ACTION COMICS)!

GREEN LANTERN #1

Written by GEOFF JOHNS, Art by DOUG MAHNKE and CHRISTIAN ALAMY, Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO, Variant cover by GREG CAPULLO

On sale SEPTEMBER 14 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Retailers: This issue will ship with two covers. Please see the order form for more information.

The red-hot GREEN LANTERN team of writer Geoff Johns and artist Doug Mahnke introduce an unexpected new Lantern.

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #1

Written by PETER J. TOMASI, Art by FERNANDO PASARIN and SCOTT HANNA, Cover by DOUG MAHNKE and CHRISTIAN ALAMY

On sale SEPTEMBER 21 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

When deadly conflicts emerge across the universe, it’s up to Guy Gardner, John Stewart and an elite Green Lantern strike force to keep the peace – or else.

GREEN LANTERN: NEW GUARDIANS #1

Written by TONY BEDARD, Art and cover by TYLER KIRKHAM and BATT

On sale SEPTEMBER 28 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Kyle Rayner has assembled the most powerful team in all the universe, selected from the full spectrum of corps. But can he even keep this volatile group together?

RED LANTERNS #1

Written by PETER MILLIGAN, Art and cover by ED BENES and ROB HUNTER

On sale SEPTEMBER 14 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+

Atrocitus and his Red Lantern Corps return in their own series, battling against injustice in the most bloody ways imaginable!

JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #1

Written by PETER MILLIGAN, Art by MIKEL JANIN, Cover by RYAN SOOK

On sale SEPTEMBER 28 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

The witch known as The Enchantress has gone mad, unleashing forces that not even the combined powers of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Cyborg can stop. And if those heroes can’t handle the job, who will stand against this mystical madness?

Shade the Changing Man, Madame Xanadu, Deadman, Zatanna and John Constantine may be our only hope – but how can we put our trust in beings whose very presence makes ordinary people break out in a cold sweat?

SWAMP THING #1

Written by SCOTT SNYDER, Art and cover by YANICK PAQUETTE

On sale SEPTEMBER 7 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+

One of the world’s most iconic characters has returned to the heart of the DC Universe, and every step he takes will shake the foundations of the Earth!

Alec Holland has his life back…but the Green has plans for it. A monstrous evil is rising in the desert, and it’ll take a monster of another kind to defend life as we know it!

ANIMAL MAN #1

Written by JEFF LEMIRE, Art by TRAVEL FOREMAN and DAN GREEN, Cover by TRAVEL FOREMAN

On sale SEPTEMBER 7 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+

Buddy Baker has gone from “super” man to family man – but is he strong enough to hold his family together when Maxine, his young daughter, starts to manifest her own dangerous powers? Find out in this dramatic new series from writer Jeff Lemire (SWEET TOOTH) and artist Travel Foreman (The Immortal Iron Fist).

FRANKENSTEIN, AGENT OF S.H.A.D.E. #1

Written by JEFF LEMIRE, Art by ALBERTO PONTICELLI, Cover by J.G. JONES

On sale SEPTEMBER 14 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

It’s Frankenstein as you’ve never seen him before, in a dark new series from acclaimed writer Jeff Lemire (SWEET TOOTH) and artist Alberto Ponticelli (UNKNOWN SOLDIER)!

Frankenstein is part of a network of strange beings who work for an even stranger government organization: The Super Human Advanced Defense Executive! But can he protect the world from threats even more horrifying than himself? And since he’s vilified for who and what he is, will he even want to take on this mission?

I, VAMPIRE #1

Written by JOSHUA HALE FIALKOV, Art by ANDREA SORRENTINO, Cover by JENNY FRISON

On sale SEPTEMBER 28 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+

For hundreds of years, vampire Andrew Stanton kept mankind safe from the horrors of the supernatural world, thanks to a truce he made with his ex-lover Mary, the Queen of the Damned. But now that truce has reached a bloody end and Andrew must do everything in his power to stop Mary and her dark forces from going on a killing spree – and she plans to start with the heroes of the DCU!

RESURRECTION MAN #1

Written by DAN ABNETT and ANDY LANNING, Art by FERNANDO DAGNINO, Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

On sale SEPTEMBER 14 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+

It’s the return of Mitch Shelly – and he’s still dead.

Resurrection Man can’t stay dead for long, though – and with each rebirth comes new and unexpected powers. But his many returns have not gone unnoticed, and forces are gathering to learn what’s so special about him – and to see which of them will finally stop Resurrection Man dead.

DEMON KNIGHTS #1

Written by PAUL CORNELL, Art by DIOGENES NEVES and OCLAIR ALBERT, Cover by TONY S. DANIEL

On sale SEPTEMBER 14 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Set in the Dark Ages of the DC Universe, a barbarian horde is massing to crush civilization. It’s fallen to Madame Xanadu and Jason Blood, the man with a monster inside him, to stand in their way – though the demon Etrigan has no interest in protecting anyone or anything other than himself! It’ll take more than their own power to stop an army fueled by bloodlust and dark sorcery, and some very surprising heroes – and villains – will have no choice but to join the fray!

STORMWATCH #1

Written by PAUL CORNELL, Art and cover by MIGUEL SEPULVEDA

On sale SEPTEMBER 7 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+

They are Stormwatch, a dangerous super human police force whose existence is kept secret from the world Directly following the ominous events of SUPERMAN #1, Adam One leads half the Stormwatch team to recover the [INFORMATION REDACTED] from deep in the Himalayas. Meanwhile, Jack Hawksmoor and the rest of the Stormwatch crew look to recruit two of the deadliest super humans on the planet: Midnighter and Apollo! And if they say no? Perhaps the Martian Manhunter can change their minds…

VOODOO #1

Written by RON MARZ, Art and cover by SAMI BASRI

On sale SEPTEMBER 28 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+

Who is Voodoo? Is she hero, villain – or both? Learn the truth about Priscilla Kitaen as she leaves a trail of violence across America. Discover the new DCU through her eyes, because the things she sees are not always what they seem…

GRIFTER #1

Written by NATHAN EDMONDSON, Art by CAFU, Cover by CAFU and BIT

On sale SEPTEMBER 14 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

The DCU’s most wanted man stars in his own series!

Cole Cash is a charming grifter few can resist. And yet he’s about to be branded a serial killer when he begins hunting and exterminating inhuman creatures hidden in human form – creatures only he can see!

Can the biggest sweet talker of all time talk his way out of this one when even his brother thinks he’s gone over the edge?

DEATHSTROKE #1

Written by KYLE HIGGINS, Art by JOE BENNETT and ART THIBERT, Cover by SIMON BISLEY

On sale SEPTEMBER 14 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+

“Friends die, family disappoints, but a legacy… That lives forever.”

Slade Wilson is the best mercenary in the DCU, and he’s been doing this a long time. Some might say too long. But they’ll learn: Never turn your back on Deathstroke the Terminator. He won’t quit, no matter how high the stakes. Kyle Higgins (BATMAN: GATES OF GOTHAM) and Joe Bennett (TEEN TITANS) team up to bring you the finest in mayhem and gore.

SUICIDE SQUAD #1

Written by ADAM GLASS, Art by MARCO RUDY, Cover by RYAN BENJAMIN

On sale SEPTEMBER 14 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+

They’re a team of death-row super villains recruited by the government to take on missions so dangerous – they’re sheer suicide!

Harley Quinn! Deadshot! King Shark! Defeated and imprisoned, they’re being interrogated about their mission – and about who’s pulling the strings behind this illegal operation. Who will be the first to crack under the pressure?

O.M.A.C. #1

Written by DAN DIDIO and KEITH GIFFEN, Art and cover by KEITH GIFFEN and SCOTT KOBLISH

On sale SEPTEMBER 7 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

The all-seeing Brother Eye satellite has unleashed a new beast upon the DC Universe in this smashing new series! Kevin Kho has become an unwilling participant in a war between Checkmate and Brother Eye as he is transformed into the One Machine Army Corp known only as O.M.A.C.!

BLACKHAWKS #1

Written by MIKE COSTA, Art and cover by KEN LASHLEY

On sale SEPTEMBER 28 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Welcome to a world waging a new kind of war that’s faster and more brutal than ever before. It’s fought by those who would make the innocent their targets, using computers, smart weapons and laser-guided missiles. The new enemy is hard to find – and closer to home than we think.

Between us and them stand the Blackhawks, an elite force of military specialists equipped with the latest in cutting-edge hardware and vehicles. Their mission: Kill the bad guys before they kill us.

MEN OF WAR #1

Written by IVAN BRANDON, Art by TOM DERENICK, Cover by VIKTOR KALVACHEV

On sale SEPTEMBER 7 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T+

On the ground and on the front lines, a young, headstrong soldier known as Joe Rock assumes command of Easy Company – a team of ex-military men turned contractors. Will they survive the battle-scarred landscape carved by the DCU’s Super-Villains? Find out in this explosive new series from Ivan Brandon (Viking, DOC SAVAGE) and Tom Derenick (JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA)!

ALL-STAR WESTERN #1

Written by JUSTIN GRAY and JIMMY PALMIOTTI, Art and cover by MORITAT

On sale SEPTEMBER 28 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T+

Even when Gotham City was just a one-horse town, crime was rampant – and things only get worse when bounty hunter Jonah Hex comes to town. Can Amadeus Arkham, a pioneer in criminal psychology, enlist Hex’s special brand of justice to help the Gotham Police Department track down a vicious serial killer? Find out in this new series from HEX writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, with lush artwork by Moritat (THE SPIRIT)!

TEEN TITANS #1

Written by SCOTT LOBDELL, Art and cover by BRETT BOOTH and NORM RAPMUND

On sale SEPTEMBER 28 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Tim Drake, Batman’s former sidekick, is back in action when an international organization seeks to capture, kill or co-opt super-powered teenagers.

As Red Robin, he’s going to have to team up with the mysterious and belligerent powerhouse thief known as Wonder Girl and the hyperactive speedster calling himself Kid Flash to stand any chance at all against a living, breathing weapon with roots in another world! They – along with a few other tortured teen heroes – will be the Teen Titans in this new series from writer Scott Lobdell (WILDC.A.T.S, Uncanny X-Men) and artist Brett Booth (JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA)!

STATIC SHOCK #1

Written by SCOTT McDANIEL and JOHN ROZUM, Art and cover by SCOTT McDANIEL and JONATHAN GLAPION

On sale SEPTEMBER 7 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

The brilliant, slightly awkward high school student Virgil Hawkins transforms into the cocky electromagnetic hero Static!

A mysterious tragedy forces the Hawkins family to relocate from Dakota to New York City! Virgil embarks upon new adventures in a new high school and a new internship at S.T.A.R. Labs!

As Static, he dons a new uniform and establishes a new secret headquarters! But is he ready to take on the new villains who lurk in New York City’s underworld?

HAWK AND DOVE #1

Written by STERLING GATES, Art and cover by ROB LIEFELD

On sale SEPTEMBER 7 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Hank Hall is not happy. He’s not happy to have Dawn Granger as a new partner in his war on crime. He’s not happy that she’s dating the ghostly Super Hero, Deadman. He’s not happy to learn that someone is trying to plunge the United States into a new civil war! Now it’s up to Hawk and Dove to root out the forces behind this conflict and stop them before they turn the U.S. into a wasteland!

And who is the monster lurking in the shadows, watching Hawk and Dove from afar? Find out in this new series from Sterling Gates (FLASHPOINT: KID FLASH LOST) and artist Rob Liefeld (X-Force, Youngblood)!

BLUE BEETLE #1

Written by TONY BEDARD, Art by IG GUARA and RUY JOSE, Cover by TYLER KIRKHAM and SAL REGLA

On sale SEPTEMBER 21 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

It’s not easy being Jaime Reyes. He has to deal with high school, family and all the drama that comes with being a teenager. Also, he’s linked to a powerful scarab created by an alien race known as the Reach who seek to subjugate planets – or annihilate them. It’s up to one teen hero to turn this instrument of destruction into a force for good.

LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #1

Written by PAUL LEVITZ, Art by FRANCIS PORTELA, Cover by KARL KERSCHL

On sale SEPTEMBER 21 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

The Legion of Super-Heroes has been decimated by the worst disaster in its history. Now, the students of the Legion Academy must rise to the challenge of helping the team rebuild – but a threat of almost unstoppable power is rising at the edge of Dominator space, and if the new recruits fail, the Legion Espionage Squad may be the first casualties in a war that could split worlds in half!

LEGION LOST #1

Written by FABIAN NICIEZA, Art and cover by PETE WOODS

On sale SEPTEMBER 14 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Seven heroes from the 31st century have traveled back to the present day. Their mission: Save their future from annihilation. But when the future tech they brought with them fails, they find themselves trapped in a nightmarish world that, for them, is the ultimate struggle to survive!

Don’t miss the start of this all-new LEGION series illustrated by Pete Woods – fresh off his spectacular run on ACTION COMICS – who is joined by writer Fabian Nicieza (RED ROBIN)!

White Collar follows FBI Special Agent Peter Burke (Tim DeKay) and ex-con Neal caffrey (Matt Bomer) as they work to apprehend high end criminals. The crux of the show is Neal caffrey is on work release from prison, helping the FBI to stay out of jail. The show is a well balanced ensemble dramedy with a very eclectic cast of side characters, but ultimately boiling down to a buddy drama built around the charisma of Matt Bomer’s caffrey. It’s balance of crime of the week and serialized drama has created engaging storylines and engrossing situations for the characters.

The show has done a superb job of serializing a search for Neal caffrey’s girlfriend Kate and interweaving a mystery pupeteer trying to get at an item caffrey supposedly stole earlier in his criminal career. The first season ended with Neal and Peter finding what caffrey was being manioulated to get, a Russian music box. When last we saw the dynamic duo Neal caffrey’s girlfriend Kate being blown up just after Burke talked caffrey out of fleeing with her. 

Season 1 did a wonderful job of setting the tone of what kind of show White Collar was going to be and season 2 focuses more on who the characters are going to be. FBI agent Peter Burke is trying to hide that he still has the muisc box in his posession from Neal and Neal is trying to find out who killed Kate without Peter.They’re heading in the same direction, but willing to take incredibly different paths to reach the desstination. With a dynamic built on trust, the relationship is strained to the breaking point.

Season 2 also saw the supporting cast grow, in both size and screen time. While Burke and caffrey are engaging as your leads, performances from Willie Garson as Mozzie and Hillarie Burton as Sara Ellis steal the show. Willie Garson is a damn pleasure to watch in this season, from the Mozzie centric episode “By the Book” to leading Peter on a scavenger hunt in “Need to Know”, Mozzie is possibly the second biggest reason to watch “White Collar.” 

This season also saw the addition of Hilarie Burton to the cast, she is best remembered as Peyton from One Tree Hill. Burton plays a tough and witty insurance investigator by the name of Sara Ellis who testified against Neal and helped put him away.  Of all the actresses that have come through White Collar, Hilarie is the first one to show any real chemistry with Matt Bomer and the only one to give her character more personality than what’s on the page. By the end of the season you kinda wish the show was about her and you can’t help but celebrate her promotion to series regular in season 3.

The guest stars this season were sublime with the highlights being John Laroquette in “In the Red”, Tim Matheson in “Withdrawal”, and Billy Dee Williams in “Countermeasures” and Andrew McCarthy does a great job coming in as big bad Vincent Adler. The calibre of the actors guest starring brings great presence to the show and they make wonderful foils for our heroes to parry against.

There isn’t a single wasted episode in this season, but some of the best are the flashback episode “Forging Bonds” that reveals how Neal and Peter first got on each other’s radar and Neal’s history with Kate. The introduction of potential love interest Sara Ellis in “Unfinished Business”. And “Burke’s Seven”, the episode where Peter is framed for a crime, suspended from the FBI and must prove his innocence with a con. The team that rallies behind him becomes “Burke’s Seven.”

The extra features on the dvd set include a commentary on a couple of episodes that isn’t particularly enlightening, though you do learn a bit about what it’s like to shoot in New York from the track. A feature on Mozzie actor Willie Garson is quite entertaining as we learn how much Willie has put himself into the character. The deleted scenes included really just prove that the editors for White Collar know where to trim the fat. At no point while watching them did I think an episode lost something of value with the cut of the footage. The blooper reel on the set is inspired as the cast is incredibly entertaining and to see them riff after a flub had me laughing hysterically. 

Perhaps the most interesting extra was a collection of interviews with the creator & writing staff of White Collar and the creator & writing staff of Burn Notice ripping on each other’s shows. The two shows are both produced by 20th Century Fox for USA, so it makes sense for the sister shows to cross promote. The feature is a fun, quick look at the very different dynamics the shows have and it shows how unfunny writers can be when they’re put on the spot to “cap” on someone else’s show.

White Collar season 2 is a fun, fresh, character driven ride that I recommend picking up if you liked projects like “Catch Me If You Can, Ocean’s Eleven, or want a procedural with a fun twist. You can pick up the dvd set in stores and catch new episodes of White Collar on USA starting June 7th.  

The USA show Burn Notice follows the exploits of spy Michael Westen (Jeffery Donovan) after he has been blacklisted and sent packing back to his hometown of Miami. In an effort to uncover who framed and burned him, Westen has been using the tactics he’s learned over the years to trace back the conspiracy to it’s source. All the while taking odd missions to help peoiple in need of his expertise in the city of Miami. Westen is joined by his former Navy SEAL friend Sam Axe (the eponymous Bruce Campbell) and arms dealer girlfriend Fiona Glenanne (Gabrielle Anwar) in his efforts as both an unlicensed private investigator and in his search to find who burned him.

At the outset of season 4 we know who has been pulling the strings of Michael’s burn notice, a black ops intelligence agency that supposedly has the nation’s defense in mind. Season 3 ended with a madman being released on Miami and season 4 launches Michael’s investigation into who freed him and why. The first stop on the case is to obtain a file held by a CIA operative named Jesse (Coby Bell). While obtaining the file, Michael inadvertently gets Jesse burned and not knowing Michael burned him, Jesse turns to Westen to help him track down who did it.

Burn Notice has the most well balanced mix of case of the week and overarching plot episode to episode than any other show on television. The missions the team takes on break up the draggy portions of the “big bad” plot Michael is trying to uncover, and the serialized aspects of the show make you feel like it is actually moving toward something.

The introduction of Jesse this season had mixed reactions from the people I know who watch Burn Notice. At first, I didn’t care for the character. There isn’t much to Jesse and his character seems redundant with Michael already serving as resident capable burnt spy. Around the halfway mark I found Jesse finally growing on me, especially when they started introducing his former handler Marv. He’ll never be Sam Axe, but it’s interesting to see Michael coaching through the same experiences he had to suffer through for three seasons.

This season had some of Burn Notice’s biggest guest stars to date, but none of them had anything on the brilliance that was Burt Reynolds in “Past and Future Tense”. Burt Reynolds as an aging spy on the run from Russians is the easiest sell I’ve ever seen. It was remarkable how smoothly he fit into the feel of the show, and seeing him act against Bruce Campbell is a nerd dream. 

Some of the best episodes of the season include “Center of the Storm”, a post hurricane episode where Michael tries to protect a witness who has multiple hitmen after him. The episode isn’t big on flash, but has some really good character stuff going on. You also can’t miss “Blind Spot”, an episode that is almost exclusively written to let Bruce Campbell shine as Sam Axe. And lastly, make sure to check out “Brotherly Love”. Michael’s brother returns to help a friend recover a stolen car and we get to see Michael break out one of my favorite cover IDs, Johnny. And we get a little face time with Michael’s mom. Downside this season seems to be just not a lot going on for Michael’s mother, she gets in on a couple missions, but I was disappointed she didn’t refer anyone to Michael for help this go ’round. 

The Season 4 dvd comes with your standard issue extras like commentary and deleted scenes. The gag reel onl has a couple gems on it, Bruce Campbell calling Coby Bell a “whore for dvd extras” being the one I laughed hardest at. There is a special feature that appeared on the White Collar DVD that shows up here two where the respective creators and writing staffs roast the others shows. The extra that the geeks will love is the Sam Axe Guide To Ladies and Libations. It’s a really good detailed look at Bruce Campbell and his character Sam Axe. It also has a couple good cocktail recipes. Burn Notice is also one of the most stunt heavy shows on television, and the presentation they filmed on the stunt work for a TV buyers event is a treat.

Burn Notice is a great combination of the A-Team and Macguyver and if you haven’t checked out yet, give it a chance. The season 4 dvd is available June 7 and the 5th season premieres on USA on Thursday June 23rd.

X-Men First Class is the best X-Men movie since X2. I want to get that out there from the outset. I say that because it should have been what we got as X3. Matthew Vaughn was originally slated to take over the X-Men franchise with X-Men 3, but before he could get out of pre-production he had to bow out. He went on to complete Stardust and Kick Ass and then got invited to direct First Class by producer Bryan Singer (returning to the franchise that he left to do Superman Returns). Say what you will about Vaughn’s style, his movies are at the competent, and going into First Class, that’s really all I was hoping for, competence.

First Class is the story of how Magneto and Professor X came to be on the opposite sides of the mutant relations coin. The movie opens with the exact same scene from the original X-men in 2000, it’s this opening nod that gets you on its side early. Little touches like this are layered throughout the film. I have no desire to ruin any of the nifty surprises, but know that there are some great easter eggs linking this to the rest of the franchise. 

The plot of the film revolves around the Hellfire Club trying to start World War 3 in 1962 by orchestrating the Cuban Missle Crisis. The Hellfire Club, consisting of Azazel, Emma Frost (never referred to as the White Queen in the film), and some other guy is being investigated by CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne). I refer to the other member of the Hellfire Club as some other guy for a couple reasons, his name is never said in the film, he has no dialogue (even though he’s in a lot of scenes through out the movie), and I have no idea what mutant he’s supposed to be in X-Men canon. His power is generateing tornados and I was left drawing a blank as to who it was supposed to be.

When MacTaggert discovers that the Club is actually a group of superpowered individuals with genetic mutations she turns to a leading academic in the field of mutation, one Charles Xavier (James McAvoy). All while Erik Lensher(Michael Fassbender) is hunting down the Nazi doctor who, in an effort to trigger Erik’s mutant powers, tortured Erik and killed his mother. The doctor responisble is Erik schmidt AKA Sebastian Shaw, leader of the hellfire Club (Played adequately by Kevin Bacon).  It is this hunt for Shaw that causes our two leads to finally meet and begin a friendship.

Because Shaw has a team assembled for the Hellfire Club, the CIA decides it is in their best interest to put together a team of mutants of their own with the assistance of CIA Suit Oliver Platt (I don’t think I ever caught his characters name or notice it even said in the film). The team of mutants they assemble include Xavier’s adopted sister Raven Darkholme aka Mystique, Sean Cassidy aka Banshee, Hank McCoy aka Beast, Darwin, Alex Summers aka Havok, and Angel. While Angel seemed like a strange choice at first, her character fits so perfectly with what transpires her inclusion feels natural.

Fassbender and McAvoy are superb in their roles of Magneto and Professor X. While late in the movie Fassbender does have trouble hiding his native Scottish accent, he does an exceptional job bringing the conflicted Erik Lensher to the screen. His Magneto is not quite regal in the way Ian Mckellan played him, but you can see him starting to get there by the end. James McAvoy is spot on the entire movie. Every scene he appears in is engaging and fun to watch, which is one of the major pluses or the movie, because he’s in 90% of the scenes. The chemistry Fassbender and McAvoy have is perfect and matches the balance Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart brought to the characters’ dynamic in the original films.

And while we’re on the subject of great acting, Jennifer Lawrence is increbile in her role of Raven(Mystique). She easily takes what was a throw away character in the original trilogy and makes her the most tragic figure of the franchise. Her performance is so good, it gives Rebecca Romjin’s Mystique in the previous X-Men film more depth and a much richer subtext. The character has so much turmoil going on under the surface, she could easily be compared to Anna Paquin’s Rogue. In this version of X-Men history, Raven was a runaway that broke into Charles house where she then stayed to be brought up as Charles’ adopted sister. She’s been hiding her true appearance for years and is made to fear what would happen if she were to slip.

The exact opposite of the acting spectrum from Ms. Lawrence is January Jones performance as Emma Frost. Every apprehensive impulse I had to Jones playing this role was validated whenever she was on screen. Lots of empty staring and bland line recitation could be found when she had screen time. Every scene she appears in during the film could have easily had a card board cut out replacing her. I think what makes this worse is that we’re left to wonder what might have been if Alice Eve had been left to star in the role. Perhaps an Emma Frost with a personality?

The film has a fewproblems but we lucked out as all of the many flaws were so tiny they are easily overlooked. None of the films problems bring the movie to a grinding halt (exception being January Jones awful acting) so we never really have to deal with them or let them get in the way of our enjoyment of the movie. A number of the movies problems clearly stem from a rushed production schedule but as they say, the devil is in the details.

First, I’ve already mentioned the fact that in the third act of the film Michael Fassbender’s Scottish accent comes bleeding to the surface but we got off lucky that they didn’t dub it with ADR, because the ADR that was used doesn’t match the tone of what’s happening in the scene at all. Bad camera choices, several times in the movie while a line of dialogue is being said, the camera cuts to the worst place you can think of at the time. Big bad talking about slavery? Don’t cut to your only black character, the African American gentleman behind me said it best, “C’mon, seriously? Why ya gotta show the black guy?!” And just a word of warning, Darwin gets no respect in this film. Almost the worst example of token black guy since Jazz in Transformers.

I think the biggest distractions come from just knowing too much X-Men history, which is why I can easily dismiss some of my qualms, but enough of these built up, it bugged me. The nationalities of the X-Men have been completely thrown out the window, remember when Banshee was Irish and Moira MacTaggert was Scottish? Well they’re not anymore. I was genuinely sad to not hear Banshee speaking in an Irish accent after reading his dialogue that way for so long.

Another distraction for X-Men fans was Havok. Alex Summers backstory isn’t given in this film, but we do see him use his powers quite a bit, and it’s in a way I have never, ever seen them displayed in the comics. Apparently someone at Fox thought that it would be cooler if Havok shot off ringlets of energy by doing the twist instead of power blasts. It’s laughably stupid when he does it the first time. Luckily the put his signature chest piece on later in the film so he can focus the ringlets into blasts. 

Speaking of dialogue, this script is lucky it had as many talented actors as it did, because the dialogue they had to work with was clucky and bland. “Cerebro, that’s spanish for brain.” So many lines in this movie include the names of characters for no reason, it gets frustrating. I was thinking to myself while watching, “Dammit, I know his name is Erik! If you say it one more time…”

X-Men First Class has an incredibly classy ending (ugh, no pun intended), and I wouldn’t mind seeing another X-Men adventure set in the still early days of Xavier’s school. Just please, Fox, don’t rush the next one, recast January Jones, and include less pointless characters. It’s fun with some minor flaws and worth seeing in the theater.

In a post World War Z literary environment, there is no shortage of zombie themed books. With everyone and their mother claiming to know how to protect you from the ever-looming zombie apocalypse, it’s hard to find quality works you can actually learn from. Enter Roger Ma’s The Zombie Combat Manual: A Guide to Fighting the Living Dead. Forget long chapters about fortifications and how-to’s on drinking your own piss Bear Grylls-style, Ma’s book cuts the fat and tells you exactly what you need to know: How to stop a zombie from calling you dinner, without the help of a shotgun, sling shot… or Bear Grylls’ piss.

The guide is absolutely worth picking up, but just in case the undead are kicking down your door before you get a chance to grab it, here are five quick things to keep you safe until you can break into your local bookstore and grab it for yourself.

 

5. These aren’t your grandma’s zombies.

Forget the standard 24-48 hours from bite to reanimation, in Roger Ma’s world, you can go from badass zombie killer to flesh-hungry corpse in as little as fifteen minutes. That’s right kids, it’ll take longer for your girlfriend to get ready for the movies than it will to watch your neighbor Sally go from nosey old lady to brain-eating flesh bag. Plus, it’s not just bites that can infect the living now. That’d be far too boring, right? Scratches are also deadly. So, make sure to avoid those zombies that just got their nails did before being turned into one of them.

4. Don’t work hard, work smart.

Look, we all know working out is important. Very little of those who successfully fend off zombies will look like Jabba the Hut, but that doesn’t mean you have to spend all your time in the gym. Ma serves up easy, effective workout techniques that’ll have you taking down creepy-crawlies in no time. My personal favorite, the “Skullpopper”, involves stomping on a tire to build those leg muscles.

3. Fist pumpers are the first course.

In Ma’s world, cocky, muscle-bound men (exhibit A: Ronnie from the Jersey Shore) are easy targets because they’re quick to being cocky and slow to use their heads. Ma’s zombies don’t react to pain, so you can forget knocking them back with a simple swing of a bat. If it doesn’t re-kill them, it won’t slow them down a bit. So avoid trying to look cool by picking up a chair and hitting a zombie with it, because it’s going to be really embarrassing when your old neighbor Sally (remember her?) eats you alive in front of your friends.

2. Less Pew Pew, more FACE SPLIT.

Drop the shotgun and pick up a Viking Ax. You see shotguns in every zombie book, movie and game. They take little skill to wield and are incredibly effective, but what if you’re fighting off the undead in a city? Firing a single round from a shotgun could give your position away to hundreds, if not thousands of zombies. This is where the real meat of the survival guide lies. Ma teaches you exactly how to take down the undead without firing a single shot with a range of easy-to-find tools. If a Viking Ax doesn’t quite cut it, that’s okay, there are nearly a hundred pages on every useful close-range weapon you could hope to encounter.

1.  When zombies attack, FIND ROGER MA.

(Then kick, scream and cry until he agrees to protect you)

I’m not sure why I think kicking, screaming, and crying would persuade anyone to let me join their zombie survival group, but it sounds a lot better than “ask in a reasonable manner”, doesn’t it? Anyway, if you take only one thing away from Ma’s book, it should be this: Roger Ma knows his shit and he ain’t nothin’ to fuck with. With how-tos in everything from hand-to-hand combat to what to wear, Ma’s got the know-how and he’s ready to pass it on to you. Of course, you can avoid that whole pathetic crying fit-thing by picking up the book today.

Earlier this month Ubisoft announced they were setting up a motion pictures department in order to bring some of their most popular games to the big and small screen. While we all waited on pins and needles for the announcement that promised to bring Just Dance to theaters, instead we received word that Assassin’s Creed, Splinter Cell and Ghost recon would be the first to make the jump. Now the question is how will they turn out?

The reason why Ubisoft created their own division to handle these game to film conversions is simple; movies based on video games suck big time. Sure, some of the movies are so bad they are good; Super Mario Bros. for example, but some are so bad we try to block them out of our memory completely like Double Dragon. I thought the first Mortal Kombat was OK but the second is on my list of the worst movies I have ever seen, right next to Dr. T & the Women (don’t ask).

Why do video game movies have to be so bad? You can’t blame the story, well most of the time. Take Resident Evil for example. What the hell is so wrong with the idea an evil company creating zombies and biological weapons in a secret lab under a mansion then calling in police Special Forces to test them out? Sounds like a good movie to me, but what we got was a mere shadow of that. What we got was this bastardized horror movie that casually made reference to the original work and characters. Just like Prince of Persia or Doom or every other video game movie out there.

The problem is Hollywood feels the need to make video game movies as vanilla as possible in order to draw the biggest crowd. I understand making movies is a business but I guess the thought of betting on a better, solid story is too radical and too risky when compared to getting a hot actor to fill the main roles.

Which brings me to the point of this article (finally right?) While I hope Ubisoft takes their time and stays true to the story, the characters and the feel of the games, our first indicator of how well they are doing will be with the casting. While Hollywood has pleasantly surprised us before (I remember thinking WTF when I heard they had cast this Broadway dude named Hugh Jackman as Wolverine) most of the time they look for the hottest piece of ass to carry the movie through the box office.

So with that said I present to you the first signs that Ubisoft has sold out and cashed in instead of sticking to their guns and making the first truly awesome video game movies (if you don’t count Scott Pilgrim). My fellow geeks, Assassin’s Creed and Ghost Recon… as cast by mainstream Hollywood.

Assassin’s Creed

While Assassin’s Creed II is the superior game, they will start from the beginning in order to make the most money out the series. So instead of beautiful canals of Venice, we’ll start in the hot and dusty lands of the Middle East. Plus, they are going to need to save some money somewhere for all the big name actors they want and building the Holy Lands during the Third Crusade has got to be cheaper than building Florence during the Renaissance.

Altaїr

Played by: Josh Duhamel or Bradley Cooper

I know what you’re thinking, how dare you cast one of these guys as Altaïr. Hey if Jake Gyllenhaal can be in Prince of Persia, why not? OK, bad example. But think about it, how else are you going to get the girlfriend or wife to go see it with you?

You: “Honey, want to go see Assassin’s Creed with me?”

Her: “What’s it about?”

You: “It’s about this master assassin who gets cocky so they bust him down to the lowest rank and he has to work his way back up all the while uncovering this plot to use a mystical sphere called a Piece of Eden to take over the world. There is also this sub plot …”

She stares at you with this “Really?” look on her face.

You: “It has Josh Duhamel in it.”

Her: “Get your coat.”

Robert de Sable

Played by: Hugo Weaving

Mr. Bad Guy has to be in there somewhere. Even though de Sable turns out not to be the ultimate evil in the game, he is your primary target for the majority of the time. Weaving is an awesome character actor and could pull off the imposing demeanor as well as the physical acting needed for the fight scenes. Let’s face it, when Hollywood needs a kick-ass villain, Weaving is the man to call.

Al Mualim

Played by: Alan Rickman

Your master and the head honcho of the assassins, we will need someone older, someone wiser, someone who can do dark and mysterious. Enter Alan Rickman. Severus Snape is the man with the plan when it comes to being aloof and harsh to his students while hiding a darker ambition. He is already pretty much playing the part in the Harry Potter series, why not let him collect another pay check?

King Richard

Played by: Patrick Stewart

Come on, there are only two people who can play King Richard, Sean Connery or Patrick Stewart and seeing as Sir Connery is retired the crown must go to Stewart. This is about as no brainer as you can get. Anyone else would be dismissed instantly, drug through the streets and set on fire.

Desmond

Played by: Shia LaBeouf

Shia LaBeouf is Hollywood’s current golden child, he has to be in here somewhere because he is in everything right now. Desmond is a run of the mill guy who gets caught up in an extraordinary plot; hello, that’s LaBeouf’s character in Eagle Eye. And Transformers. And Disturbia. Look Hollywood is going to cast him in this movie somewhere, better to put him as Desmond than Altaïr right?

Lucy

Played by: Katherine Heigl

In the game Lucy was smart, hot (as far as games pixilated characters go) and got on your nerves after five minutes (No, I don’t want to lay down on the table). Heigl played a doctor on TV, she is easy on the eyes and you want to rip your ears off after about five minutes of dialog from her in Knocked Up. It fits! Plus she generates her own buzz around the movie when she talks badly about the cast and crew behind their backs. Try to keep this movie off of E!

Dr. Vidic

Played by: Malcolm McDowell

This is the other no brainer casting in the movie. Just try to tell me you pictured anyone but Malcolm McDowell playing Dr. Vidic. Sure it’s not a huge part but McDowell turns everything he does into a memorable role. His calculating voice punctuating every line of dialog as Desmond has no choice but to comply with his demands. Shivers!

Ghost Recon

Ghost Recon doesn’t have any real characters per say, more character classes than anything else. This could allow the production staff a lot of leeway with creating characters to fill these roles. But it’s Hollywood and we will get the same stereotypical team members we always get.

Rifleman

Played by: Matt Damon

The leader of the group and all around bad-ass. Why would Damon do this role? I’m sure he will get home sick after he sees what they end up doing with his beloved Bourne series and have an itch to scratch. Plus, considering he may have a mask on most of the time he can let a stunt guy do the lion’s share of the work and finish things up in a sound booth.

Support

Played by: Tyrese Gibson

If you are going to have a special ops team in Hollywood you have to have at least one black guy. Why not Tyrese? Transformers is wrapping up and he is going to need a new source of income right? To be fair Tyrese can hold his own in an action movie and this all Ghost Recon is going to be. We’ll give him a scene where he holds a picture of his girlfriend, no better yet, his daughter, and tears up as the shit goes and he gains the strength to push on. Money.

Demolitions

Played by: Vin Diesel or The Rock

Traditionally demolitions expert is played by a scrawny guy a little off his rocker or the hulking beast of the group. I say let’s go with the latter. Vin Diesel would give the role a quieter, more disturbed feeling while The Rock would bring more energy to it. Either way it doesn’t matter, you can pretty much substitute either one in the role, they are going to be the low man on the totem pole with the least amount of screen time anyway.

Sniper

Played by: Ryan Reynolds

Once again you can go two ways with the sniper role; quiet and subdued or smart-ass hot sot with all the best one liners. Reynolds already has experience with this role playing Deadpool in Wolverine so it wouldn’t be a stretch. The only issue would be scheduling; his dance card is either about to fill up quickly after Green Lantern hits or he’ll be wide open to do anything.

Originally I was asked to cast these movies from the ultimate geek perspective but to be honest I suck at casting so like Hollywood, I went with the safe bets. So what do you think? Did I nail it or completely fail as a casting agent? Post your thoughts on who should, shouldn’t or most likely will fill these roles.

Optimusgene is the chief editor of OneManAsylum.com and host of the Group Therapy weekly podcast.

 

It’s been just about a year since one of Disneyland’s premier attractions was rocking Tomorrowland. You know I’m talking about…Star Tours. If you are one of the few that has been living in Yoda’s cave and don’t know nor never ridden the original Star Tours, I’ll give you the low-down. 

Star Tours was a collaboration between Disney and George Lucas that was opened in 1987. Like riding a flight simulator, you entered a Starspeeder piloted by RX24 (or REX) who was voiced by Mr Pee-Wee Herman himself, Paul Ruebens. A film was shown on screen while the Starspeeder was moved accordingly giving the feeling that you were rocketing through space. From dodging comets and taking part of a dogfight with Tie-fighters to getting a chance to take down a Death Star, Star Tours took you on a journey through the Star Wars galaxy.

While still a fun ride after nearly a quarter century of operation, Star Tours was starting to show it’s age. Especially with The Simpson’s ride at Universal Studios upping the ante for this type of ride. 

Kicking things up a notch is the Star Tours was rebooted becoming what would be eventually known as Star Tours: The Adventure Continues. Shown in 3D, ST:TAC keeps true to the spirit of the original but the needed facelift. 

Because I’m a Disneyland annual passholder (that’s how I roll) I was selected to ride Star Tours: The Adventure Continues before it opens to the general public on June 3rd. 

The queue is pretty much the same as before. The video shown on the main screen is updated. So that last flight to Endor looks even more enticing. R2D2 and C3PO are still there testing out the Starspeeder, robots are working throughout the line, there is a new addition with one robot scanning those in line with a “heat sensor” visual on a screen behind him. 

There is a new pre-show on the monitors as you wait to board. After getting into the Starspeeder The first time surprise I got is…gone is Captain Rex and in his place piloting the Starspeeder is C3-PO! That was kind of a cool change. 

There are 54 variations of the ride you may experience, but that is a little misleading. The ride is a combination of three parts; Beginning, Middle and End. Beginning has two different variations, Middle and End have three different. A varying combination of the parts is selected for each ride. So there are 54 possible combinations you may encounter. 

 

Here is my experience. 

Ride 1.)  Darth Vader tries to stop the Starspeeder because a rebel spy is aboard. After TIE fighters give chase we end up on Tattoine and take part in a podrace like in Phantom Menace. After that we hop over to Naboo and go under water where giant fish try to eat you up. 

Ride 2.) I was lucky enough to get the Millennium Falcon beginning where the Imperial Fleet try to capture us. Then we hopped over to Hoth to take part of a battle like the one in Empire. For our finale we ended up going to Coruscant and raced thorough the city. 

The first ride combination was more fun than the second. I really liked the Darth Vader bit and the podrace. On the second ride the Hoth part was very exciting.

The video and 3D looked amazing. The 3D wasn’t overly gimmicky (meaning characters  weren’t throwing things at your face for no particular reason other than to justify 3D) but there were a few cool bips and bops to make you jump. The Hi-Def 3D gave a nice sense of depth, giving a rich look at the different locations.  

While some of the combination of scenarios play out better than others, overall Star Tours: The Adventure Continues provides the thrills. It lives up to expectations and delivers an updated version of the classic. I only wish more of the original trilogy was incorporated into the ride. And yes, Jar-Jar does make a cameo.

 

Tanya Tate is a world famous and award winning adult film star, and a giant geek. She is a cosplayer, horror aficionado, and a big fan of comics. More of her completely safe for work geeky side can be seen at her blog Just a Lot of Tanya.  

Today is Star Wars Day. I know, you’re thinking “wasn’t that a few weeks ago?” Yes, but it is Star Wars, we’re allowed to have more than one. Today in 1977 Star Wars was released. To celebrate I’ll let you in on a game a created a few years ago. Well, more of a conversation piece than a game, really. What you do is stare off somewhere in the middle distance, then turn to the person next to you, be it co-worker or significant other and go “hey, if you could make out anywhere in the Star Wars Universe, where would it be?” Points go to creative answers. If they say a Cloud City or Naboo balcony, ridicule them for obviousness. Also, since Star Wars is PG, so are the Make Outs, at least in my head.

10. Jabba’s Palace – Dungeon Tunnels – This one was offered up by my friend “I force choke with my left hand” @ArkhamAsylumDoc. She claims she doesn’t have a thing for Gamorrean guards and wall tentacles, but I still have my suspicions. “It’s the lighting” she says “how it filters through the gratings.” uh huh.

9. Emperor’s Throne in the Death Star – you gotta admit, it’s the best view in the Galaxy, especially when those pretty flashing explosions happen whenever those pesky rebels fall into traps.

8. Darth Vader’s Meditation Chamber – for some reason I imagine if Piett were to catch people making out in the chamber he’d have the EXACT same expression on his face.

7. Millennium Falcon Smuggling Lockers – When the Falcon’s a-rockin’ don’t come inspectin’. Not that you’d be able to find anything, I betcha, even if you searched the ship twice.

6. Ewok Hunting Net – Hey, you’re stuck, you might as well pass the time pleasantly while waiting to be roasted over a fire/worshipped as a jungle god.

5. Wampa Ice Cave – In the words of Geekscape’s own Brian Walton – “Wampa Ice Caves are magical.” I imagine there would be pretty colors, and you’d practically have to make out just to stay warm.

4. Mos Eisley Cantina – Leave the droids at home, grab a booth by the band and enjoy the night (or the middle of the afternoon) life!

3. Millennium Falcon Gun Turret Inside the Space Slug – Sure the space slug seems like danger, but a gently drifting fog, a flock of mynocks flying by, these things set up quite a romantic mood.

2. Dark Side Cave on Dagabah – Brian also contributed to this one when he said “Dark side cave, that’s where the kinky stuff comes out.” What can I say, the man likes his caves.

1. Tantive IV Escape Pod – It’s safe, it’s cozy, but there’s still the hint of danger in the air as you can hear the muffled sounds of rebellion in the background.  If the laser fire gets too hot just jettison the escape pod and treat yourselves to a beautiful view.

 

 

E3 is on its way, promising to bring us everything it always does: big announcements, new info on old announcements, a bunch of weird new devices and ideas in the smaller halls, fresh pictures of cosplay great and terrible, and of course booth babes!

But for many of the major developers E3, as massive as it is, isn’t enough. They want the press to have a slightly more informed opinion of their games if they can manage it. It’s not out of an altruistic trend of giving you the truth, but rather just a practical concern.  It’s frakking hard to coalesce a single thought amid the noise of the circus and the ogling of the ladies that comes with E3 proper, it’s best to have as much stuff as possible covered beforehand.

As a result, many of these developers hold pre-E3 press junkets and reveals. One such event was held last Wednesday by Sega at the beautiful Fairmont Hotel in downtown Santa Monica. Both I and your Grand Master Geekscapist gamer Josh Jackson were on hand! We did it for you, our loyal readers. There’s no need to thank us, but if you insist, make all checks out to cash and send them our way.

Of course there’s some stuff we can’t talk about quite yet, not until during or after the big show starts anyway. Otherwise the microbombs that Sonic Team implanted into our necks will explode. So this will probably be the first in a two-parter. That being said, here are Geekscape’s first impressions on a few games coming from the house that the hedgehog built:

Sonic Generations –

 Xbox 360, Playstation 3. For Holiday Release 2011

Adam’s Impressions:

This last April, Sega’s unveiled an initial glimpse of the first serious attempt by Sonic Team to apologize for the last decade.  It’s a game that seemingly has something for everyone from the best bits of Sonic the Hedgehog. You have traditional 2D levels ripped straight out of the original Genesis era featuring the “classic” version of the character, and the 3D-esque/Camera-behind-the-blue-furred-speedster segments of the Dreamcast versions of our favorite “platforming protagonist with attitude”. But does it truly succeed at combining two great tastes that taste great together?

Visually, very much so! The levels, character models and animations are gorgeous renditions that really bring a lot of colorful life to the screen, truly popping. Plus the demo levels on display were running smoother than a well-oiled baby’s bottom (not sure why you’d want to do that though).

But there is a fatal flaw. It’s a weird thing that you wouldn’t think would impact it as much as it does, but the effect is there: Sonic is too small.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like the chili-dog lovin’ Hog needs to be gigantic or anything, but here he seems tiny compared to enemies we’ve all fought before.  At first this just seems a bit odd, but then you realize that the game is running on two different scales, and that it actually effects gameplay VERY negatively.

Basically, the camera (in the 2D levels) is positioned so that Sonic’s traditional screen ratio from the Genesis games is preserved, but the levels (and enemies) feel too large. It’s almost like in the Mario Bros 3 level where all the Goombas are gigantic, but not quite as extreme. This means that as you run through levels faster than the speed of sound, you have less reaction time to react to changing terrain or incoming enemies since they take up more screen space. Pulling back the camera a bit would fix this, but then Sonic himself would appear teeny. It’s a weird problem, and relatively easily fixed, but it leads to both a more incoherent playing through of a level and just hampers the “feel” of the game from truly capturing the classic approach they’re going for here. Hopefully it’s rectified by the time of release, but something tells me that it won’t be, and then we’re just going to have another Sonic 4, Episode 1, a solid attempt at greatness, but missing the key components to make it work the way it should.

 

Josh’s Impressions:

While the scale of the characters didn’t affect my opinion of the game as much as it did Adam, it was pretty distracting during the 2D sections. Speeding through the classic Green Hill Zone might have taken me back to a time where Sonic was… what’s that word? Oh yeah, good. Sorry, it’s been awhile since “Sonic” and “Good” went together. But something did feel off. The physics are much closer to the originals than Sonic 4, but I don’t know if it was the scale, or if it felt different to play… but it didn’t completely capture the feel of the old games like it’s trying to do. Not that it didn’t stop me from having a blast during the short time I had with it, but if they’re going for a Genesis feel, something needs to be tweaked.

My biggest concerns so far are in the 3D stages. Anyone who has played Unleashed on 360 or Sonic Colors on Wii last year knows what to expect. The newer Sonic with the long spikes and plenty of attitude sped across a 3D modeled Green Hill Zone, with the perspective switching from 3D to 2D. It played really well, so well that I almost forgot about 3D Sonic’s biggest flaw, which was trial and error game play that had you running so fast, you’d crash into hazards and run off cliffs faster than you can say Sonic 06. Colors had warning signs that gave you a hint that certain doom was upon you, but that was nowhere to be seen here. Oh, on a side note, sliding under obstacles brought the hedgehog to a slow grind which screwed up the pace, but I was assured that some of these problems would be fixed by the time the final release.

Hey, as long as Sonic doesn’t fall in love with a human girl again, I think we’re A-OK.

Mario & Sonic London 2012 Olympic Games – 

Nintendo Wii. Release date TBA.

Adam’s Impressions:

This entry from Sega is a perfect example of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” philosophy. We have the huge cast of characters you would expect from both the Mario and Sonic franchises preforming in a bunch of fun Olympic events. Of course you do get a few oddball characters most would rather forget about showing up here (like Silver and Shadow the Hedgehog . . . ugh) but if they have to exist, I’d rather they keep Waluigi company in party game land than ever show up in another “real” game. 

I got to try my hand at horse-riding, Badminton and canoeing, and what can I say? All of them played great, kept a cheery, casual air about them, and were just plain fun! The equestrian event was easily the most complicated of the three, requiring a good sense of timing to accomplish as your horse goes through a routine, but it worked well and I couldn’t help myself from cracking a smile or two. The paddling section was perhaps a bit too easy to accomplish (just get into a simple rhythm of sharp waggles) and didn’t have much too it, but hey what are you expecting here.

Talking to Sega PR, it seems a serious attempt was made to include as many new events as they could, and excise any previous events that could be considered boring. To this end, they’re also including a bunch of “Dream Events” that are perfectly suited to four-player couch-based partying, at the cost of shall we say . . . accuracy?  Not that there can be too much Olympic Accuracy when you’ve got anthropomorphic marsupials competing against fire breathing dragons and mushroom men, but these events decide to just go into the realm of “we don’t give a **** as long as it’s fun!”

The couple on display succeeded on this score rather well, but I have to have something for Josh to talk about, so take it away J-Man!

Josh’s Impressions :

I pretty much agree with everything you said, Adam. The effort to cut out the boring events showed, so gone are the exciting matches consisting of pressing A once every three seconds until one of the two pass out from boredom.

On the Wii, I got a chance to try out Badminton and the two dream events on display, Discus and the Long Jump. Badminton worked well, but was might as well have been renamed Wii Sports Tennis, since it played very similarly. The real excitement came from the dream events, which brought a Mario Party feel. Which is good since it was more Mario Party 4 and less Mario Party 8. Discus had the characters flying on giant discs while trying to slow down their opponents in a type of race, where as the long jump had the characters jumping off of smiling clouds while trying to sabotage the other contestants and become the last man, (or animal,) standing. I’m hoping these get a lot of attention, because lets face it. Mario and Sonic are known for power stars and robots powered by woodland creatures, not horse riding, (which still feels weird. You know… watching an animal ride another animal…)

(Editor’s Note: if you think that’s weird, I’m going to warn you away from Bibbiani’s porn collection)

Not to miss a great opportunity, the game was also playable for the 3DS. Remember all that good stuff we said about the Wii version? The 3DS took all of that and decided it wasn’t necessary. These games sell millions anyway, right? Not to say it was all bad, but some of the events like rubbing the screen in rhythm to power walk were pretty shallow. The more memorable events used the features of the 3DS quite well, like tilting the system for the balance beam events and controlling your breathing during the breaststroke event. Other features like Streetpass and Mii support aren’t finalized yet, but more details should surface during the event. At the very least, it’s the closest most of us will get to Knuckles Chaotix.

Guardian Heroes & SEGA Rally Online Arcade –

Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network, Fall Release for 2011 (for GH) and OUT NOW (for SROA)

Adam’s Impressions :

Not content with just bringing back “classic” Sonic, Sega is bringing some more hardcore nostalgia back to the fold with two originally-on-the-Saturn downloadable releases later this year: Guardian Heroes and Sega Rally.

One thing they probably won’t bring back: Guardian Heroes’ unfortunate cover art:

Yeah. About that . . .

Now both were pretty much what you would expect of them, Sega Rally Online Arcade was well, Sega Rally. It’s going to feature the standard modern updates you would expect, like updated graphics and online multiplayer and . . . oh hey. It looks like it’s already out actually! You can go and check out the demo, and know for yourself! Oh and it does have the one thing we all remember Sega Rally for:

“GAAAAMMEE OVAH YEEEEEEEAAAAAAaaaHhhh!!”

Guardian Heroes on the other hand . . . this was a bit more interesting, mostly because Treasure, the original developers themselves were in charge of this port. If the name Treasure doesn’t mean anything to you, I’m sorry, you’ve been missing out on some of the world’s best and most unique 2D gaming! Guardian Heroes is one of their better and more bizarre efforts, and this version looks to retain everything the original had with few changes, for better or worse. This adherence to the original is probably best seen in the game’s classic mode which keeps in the pixilation of the Saturn version! Of course if you’d rather have your 2D sprites smoothed out a bit, you can just turn that on thankfully.

It has an odd control scheme considering modern controllers (no button to jump, just press up on the stick) and a crazy 2D brawler with a 3D element of switching between parallax planes. It also has some simple RPG elements which were WAY ahead of its time, and in some ways still are. When was the last time you played a 2D brawler that had multiple paths and branching story decisions complete with a plethora of endings? Oh wait, that’s right. NEVER.

If you’re a fan of the original but lost the disc, or your Saturn finally breathed its last breath, well fret no further! If you’ve never heard of this game, but have enjoyed other 2D brawlers in the past, check it out when it hits this fall! If you refuse to give Guardian Heroes a shot, then at least check out some other Treasure games, like Mischief Makers or Gunstar Heroes, or Ikaruga, or Bangai-O! If you refuse to check out any of those . . . I’m revoking your right to call yourself a gamer. 

Josh’s Impressions :

Seeing both of these titles were pretty surprising to me. I thought Sega Rally had all but been abandoned, but there it was in all its updated, muddy glory. My time with it was arcade racing at its finest, with gorgeous graphics and tight controls to match the terrain effects on the cars. I was expecting to have to pay a pretty penny for a game with such high production values… until Sega PR told me it was an arcade game and was just released the day before on Xbox Live for $10. Seriously, do yourself a favor and download the demo like Adam said. Or… you can stay tuned to Geekscape for our upcoming review! /shameless plug.

Guardian Heroes was just what you would expect from a Treasure game. Simple on the outside, deep on the inside and so much going on, you’ll be like dude, can’t handle it. Outdated Sheen quotes aside, the game uses quite a bit of strategy, which showed since during my short time with the demo, I had to reallocate stats for my warrior and choose different paths that would affect the outcome of the story. The multi-tiered battlefields abilities and the variety of enemy types put some of today’s games to shame, which is impressive considering the game is over a decade old and a 2D sidescroller. But that’s Treasure for you. I’m already calling it, this will be one of the XBLA and PSN downloads of the year… assuming PSN doesn’t get hacked again.

CRUSH 3D –

Adam’s Impressions:

Actually . . . I kind of missed this one when I was there. Too busy checking out Ris– GAAAHH!

Ow! These microbombs actually shock you if you even attempt to mention one of the games I can’t talk about yet. Huh. Good to know.

Well, you got to play this some, right Josh?

Josh’s Impressions :

Wow… I was wondering why they needed to “inject” us with our “badges” when we arrived. Anyway, yes, I got quite a bit of time with it! CRUSH 3D is a puzzle platformer that is a spiritual successor to the original CRUSH on the PSP. Never heard of it? Well, don’t feel bad, neither did I.

The concept surrounds a boy who is a test subject for a mad doctor and his new device, (hmm… sounds like those microbombs.) Traversing the inner sanctum of the character’s mind, he has the simple task of collecting enough pick ups to open the exit and move on to the next stage. What’s so special about that? I’m glad you asked, because in order to move on, players need to “crush” the environment.

By manipulating the environment, the stage can be shifted from 3D to 2D. So if there’s nowhere to walk but there’s a platform in the background, switch it to 2D and everything in the foreground and background will fall into place. Never has rotating the camera been so important, because depending on the view, the platforms will fall into place differently and might even open up paths to secret items that will boost your rank.

If that explanation sucked, you try doing better! Seriously though, the game is really unique, and is one of those games that need to be seen to fully get. Sega promised to have a type of level trading feature through Streetpass, so the game’s on track to be in your 3D handheld for a long time. I even overheard some of the other people trying it say that the puzzle solving reminded them of Portal, which is a pretty high compliment in this Geekscapist’s eyes. Even the dialogue was pretty funny! I can’t wait until it spawns T-shirts and Internet catch phrases. “The CRUSH is a lie…”

Please Josh I hope not. I think I’ve pretty much had my fill of cake.

As have most. But CRUSH 3D (not going for “3DS”? I marvel at the restraint) sorta seems like the last Paper Mario or possibly the long awaited Fez. Which, by the way, it that game isn’t out soon I am officially dubbing “Fezever”. . .  Because it’s taking a long time for it to come out. Like forever. That was a joke.

Oy, this comedy is hard. Anyways, that should just about cover it for us. I really, really, really want to geek out and talk about some of the “other stuff” we saw. Things that included some sort of “American” in a position that you would normally associate with boating . . . or crunchberries, but alas, we cannot! The threat goes beyond just our heads exploding, we are could get turned into a hit series slowly ground down to our barest bits and turning less and less profit as time goes on, as nostalgic fans desperately cling to us, wanting to return to a time when we were great, but hating every subsequent attempt that keeps straying further and further from what made us great originally, until we’re forced to reboot in what some would call a desperate last gamble to return us to relevance !

Considering it’s Sega that we’re dealing with here, I ‘m taking that threat seriously. So anyway, until the big show starts:

I’m Adam.

And I’m Josh.

And we’re signing off for now Geekscapists!

I don’t get blackout drunk that often. It has been known to happen a time or two, like when I went and made sure I was “prepared” for a stage version of John Hughes’ “The Breakfast Club” at Tres Stage. (This one sentence is all the review that stage production needs, good people, bad idea to think they could adapt Hughes.) I surprisingly woke up at my desk at work the next day with very little memory of how I got there and what I had done the night before.

 A few quick calls around to the people I had been with and I discovered I got really boring, slurred my speech and got really quiet before stumbling home/back to the office. That apparently is not the case for the characters in Hangover 2. The characters in the Hangover universe would appear to manage to maintain a great deal of their faculties when truly f’d up and have amazing adventures that they can’t remember the next day. We know this isn’t the case, but somehow these guys manage to go through the same scenario twice?

When we last saw the characters from the Hangover, Dentist Stu (Ed Helms) was married to a prostitute and dumping his bitchy girlfriend. Apparently things didn’t end well with said prostitute and now Stu is preparing to marry Lauren (Jamie Chung) in her family’s native Thailand. In the lead up to the wedding he has invited Phil (Bradley Cooper), & Doug (Justin Bartha), and avoided interaction with Alan (Zach Galifiniakis).

In an effort to lift him out of a slump, Phil and Doug convince Stu to invite Alan to the wedding. There is also a future brother in law that Stu loves and a future father in law that views Stu with contempt. The films then follows the road map laid out by the first film. Two days before the wedding the guys go to have a simple drink on the beach and wake up in Bangkok. Hungover. Again.

They then begin trying to piece together the night before using clues they find and constantly referencing how this keeps happening to them. Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) returns as a catalyst for some of the trouble the guys are trying to unwind, but it never feels like there’s any real threat to the lost character, Stu’s future brother-in-law Teddy. Why? Because the film sticks so closely to the original’s structure, there is no room to be surprised. You know very early that the goose chase is well a goose chase, and it takes the gas out of the movie. 

This movie is what I would expect from a student who didn’t write a paper the night before an essay is due and began selectively copying a work. Change a name here, a location there. There is no originality in the film at all, just 2 hours of raunchier jokes and dumber connections between plot points. A good sequel is never just a simple rehash of its predecessor. There are a minor selection of memorable scenes, but they are surprisingly the quiet moments where we just see “the Wolfpack” being good friends, not the over the top attempts at comedy. Outside of the strip club and car chase scenes, it’s the characters moments in the film that are the only times I buy in and relax a little.

Hangover 2 is funny. There are parts where you can’t breathe from laughing so hard. The actors are all charming enough, and slide easily back into the roles that made them famous. The film just has no bite. The amount of raunchiness thrown in for shock value is a calculated maneuver that feels forced and unoriginal. “You were shocked by a penis in part one? How about ten penises? We’re offensive and shocking.” 

I would have loved seeing this set of characters on a road trip or dealing with fatherhood or any plethora of options , but the exact same plot? THE EXACT SAME?! Why would you waste our time?

 

If you haven’t noticed by all the Breaking In content on the site the last couple of days, we kinda dig on this show. It’s a fun, energetic and witty comedy that packs every episode full of story, character, and pop culture mastery that as a geek, you are instantly sucked in. The show focuses on Contra Security’s team of hackers, grifters, con-men, and thieves as they attempt to protect their clients by testing their clients limits. While the show gained notice for it’s casting of Christian Slater as the head of Contra Security, it’s the talented young cast make up the team that keeps you coming back.

The season finale takes the team back to Cam’s (Bret Harrison) high school to help a teenage nerd fend off a cyber bully. Through some poor planning Cam and Cash (Geekscapist Alphonso McAuley) end up making the situation worse and end up bringing in the big guns, namely Oz (Christian Slater). Also at the school is teacher Patty (the fabulous Nora Kirkpatrick), a former classmate of Cam’s that apparently had a thing for him, which helps Cam not think about his crush on Melanie (Odette Annable). A crush that is getting to the point of interfering with the operations of the office. The episode culminates with the entire team taking over a highschool prom, a fitting end to the first season.

Most definitely watch this show Tuesday night at 9:30 on Fox. After being cancelled Fox has decided to give it one last shot and has moved it to the more appropriate Tuesday night comedy block. Fox is still in need of some convincing and we have an opportunity to help save a show with a ton of potential.

This episode is worth tuning in for. While the show has a few kinks it could stand to work out, (like what is that voice Michael Rosenbaum is using & why is it never consistent from one scene to the next?) at it’s core the show is full of heart, has a great sense of controlled chaos and a really dynamic cast. Plus, I want a second season where we get more of the talented Nora Kirkpatrick (there is a throw away line referencing her accordian,which she plays in real life), more of the break out performance from Alphonso McAuley, and more of the sheer insanity this show is throwing at us. 

Watch “Breaking In” Tuesday Night at 9:30 on Fox, after Raising Hope, and watch Alphonso McAuley on this week’s Geekscape Podcast.

I’ve been waiting for this. Waiting patiently for Splash Damage to add a new entry into the halls of the FPS kingdom. Years of my life were dedicated to both Wolfenstein : ET and Quake Wars : ET. Years I would never wish to forget. The announcement of Brink  got me all worked up. Following videos, seeing pictures, conceptualizing the tech and concepts behind the gameplay mechanics. All this culminating in actually talking to a writer from Splash Damage. Truly exciting. The day of release came and at the stroke of midnight a large part of the gaming review community (the supposed upper crust) took a massive dump on it. Complaints in the form of conceptual issues taken as problems that should exist with everyone, when in reality it seems the issue lies more in the fact that the build given to reviewers wasn’t complete and therefore they weren’t pandered to enough. Who knows. For me, Brink is yet another chapter in what an FPS could be but will most likely never be again. A swell of new ideas on balance and character classing and team work that will be left to collect dust by those who would rather take the easy path of an arcade shooter. Damn you Call of Duty for ruining the advancement of a genre. But that’s an argument for another time (and possibly a person with more knowledge of company inner-workings). For now I am going to try and bring to light the many reasons you shouldn’t write Brink off and maybe think for a minute on the idea of genre definition.

Welcome to Your Playground

In the end, a game is a set of tools. These tools form a sort of ecosystem. The worlds that were set up by Splash Damage in the past have always held a sense of individuality to me. Nothing overly blatant or outright crazy. but always something in the details. Like how your character is able to move around the terrain. How character levels and advanced abilities are used. How certain classes and weapons interact in a group setting. The emphasis on trying to make the idea of working alongside others to create a sense of synergy more appealing than going lone wolf. I feel that Brink continues this bloodline well, and in a very understandable way. Splash Damage undertook a very hard concept. Taking everything they gave PC gamers, diluting it down to fit in the console gamer box and keep both sides happy. Crytek failed in this despite all the work they put in. Crysis 2 forgot its PC roots almost completely and catered near entirely towards the consoles, to the dismay of so many hoping it would continue the dynasty. Not entirely the case with Splash Damage and Brink.

Yes there were parts I didn’t entirely agree with, but on a personal level, not a holier than thou level. I feel restricting guns to classes and giving different benefits to size classes is better for balance, but I understand the decision as possibly being more a freedom thing than anything else. Freedom being a re-occurring theme in Brink of course. Freedom of movement. Freedom of faction choice. Freedom of tactics. Freedom fighters. Its all there. I feel some settings need to be there that aren’t. Skip videos automatically for instance. I know how to do it without using the game but I feel the option should still be there. No real biggy. But everything else seems fine. This, however, is an opinion not shared by too many writers.

Arcade-Shooter-Syndrome

Thanks to my visit to PAX East with the Herocast, I was able to gather more first hand knowledge on my long conceptualized blight that I feel is plaguing the gaming community as a whole. Arcade-shooter-syndrome, or ASS for short, seemed to be running rampant in the masses. Watching as people tried to get a grip on how to play Firefall, Crysis 2 and even Brink. Constantly trying as hard as they could to have the iron-sight button lock-on to their target. Sadly all games don’t hold your hand completely, and this buried a few K/D ratios right away. I almost felt saddened when I put a slew of ASS sufferers in their place in the Brink boothe by shutting down the enemy team while actively supporting my own and taking top of the scoreboard. Watching as the ASSes spammed their grenades hoping for a quick and easy kill, only to find that spam isn’t possible unless your classed and specced for it. Witnessing the droves of people declaring themselves as ASS positive as they ran headlong, one at a time, into a wall of people held together by the golden rule. Power in numbers.

I feel we need to put out a public service announcement or something. ASSes need pity, too. But they are the problem. All I saw when I read the supposedly thorough reviews on Brink were symptoms of a grander ASS-tastrophy. The grenades don’t kill whole rooms of people. The SMART system is meaningless. The bots are stupid. The timers seem arbitrary. Brink is just TF2 but not as good. Whine whine whine. Bitch bitch bitch. Splash Damage’s brain child was day one buried in ASSes. Grenades are weak, or are they just not your favorite game’s grenade? If your aiming for realism in grenades, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. beats out all with a grenade made to explode causing a slew of possibilities. Distorted vision and hearing. Overly affected movement. Bleeding. Death. The explosion fires shrapnel in all directions. The shrapnel causes the damage. Its how they work. Damage can happen to people very far away from the explosion. Not CoD or F.E.A.R. or Crysis. Those are arcade grenades, and Brink wasn’t exactly aiming to be an arcade shooter. Can’t just spam them? Go heavy soldier. Get the EZ grenade launcher and spec for nades. Trust me. I’ve seen them end game. They put the CoD nades to shame. SMART system meaningless? What are you smoking. Its the obvious evolution that all games have been kinda moving towards. Want to vault a wall in CoD or Crysis or BFBC2. Press this button, or in Brink you just hold the button and do the same thing in a seamless action. Where is the down side? Its not useful in combat? just because you’re an ASS and are fighting other ASSes who don’t know any better doesn’t make the tool any less useful. A heavy can’t follow a medium or a light everywhere. Trust me. I play one with a group of friends. They sometimes vanish from my sight and I have to make up for it by arriving for that “in the nick of time” moment. In combat you can use it to rapid slide to cover. Vault over it and move up as your team lays down some suppressing fire. Without it people would probably just say Brink is a clone of another game and write it off. Oh wait, they did anyway. Its TF2? No sir. I’ve put soooooo many hours into TF2 and it took very little time to see the obvious differences. TF2 doesn’t have level-able class abilities. I can’t give an engineer a personal gattling gun, and I can’t have a gunner sized assassin. I can’t have a sniper that feeds himself ammo and knows his way around a satchel charge. Just because the idea of “team” exists in both doesn’t mean they are the exact same thing. I’ve seen teams in TF2 go all the same class and win easily. Doing so in Brink will 9 times out of 10 end in that team’s loss.

Multi-Single-Team-Play

Damn ASSes… getting me all worked up. Moving on. Since release I’ve played this game in all its functions. PvP, Co-op, and even solo, and I’ve found things to enjoy about all of them almost right away. The AI everyone has an issue with isn’t that bad when considered in the grand scale. These aren’t set up fights. You’re not solo running through a corridor trying to kill soldiers in a bee-line towards your objective. Its a tug-0-war. A constant fight to gain another inch on the battlefield.  As far as I’ve seen, the bots actually tend to have moments where they do exactly what any good player should on their classes. Setting up satchel’s near objectives. Placing turrets in just the right place. You can almost learn from them. I understand Splash Damage’s plea to the PS3 community to play it in preparation for the network to come back online. Granted the AI isn’t peak performance all the time, nor is it to par on both sides of the fight, but that’s always been the beauty of Splash Damage. Their games don’t stay stagnant for long. Within a day of release, there was a patch on PC. Their was a patch day of release on Xbox 360. There was a patch two days later and not to long ago they announced free DLC maps and new content. I’ve had my tech based issue categorized and dealt with almost instantly on the Splash Damage forums. Their doing things. Not just sitting around.

Co-op is currently the way me and my buddies roll. Hard bots and all. We’ve had some of the most grueling and hopeless fights, both with and without other people. But this is Splash Damage. PvP is the name of the game. Right now, I feel Brink is still in its birthing phase. People are trying to break in the new shoes. I’m still learning maps, and even then I know that, being a heavy and all, is restricting me from truly getting to know the map through and through. I’m fine with this, but I’m starting to see the possibility begin to shine through.  Team blends that aren’t common. Multi-directional attacks timed flawlessly with flash bangs and grenade launcher saturation. Defense lines that involve an advanced guard unit supported by the core group. So many ideas, all valid on the new canvas Brink has brought us all. The time and effort to refine such an experience must have truly been incredible, where as most companies just rehash the same DM, TDM, CTF, KotH modes and call it a day and we all eat it up like the best new thing on the market. It still irks me that so many wrote this off without even playing it as intended: With a lot of other players.

The Price of Fun

The only point that was made that I sort of see as an issue with Brink is its price tag. 60 bucks on console. The PS3 network outage didn’t help much. PC players didn’t have it so bad with a $50 dollar tag. Less if you picked it up as a pre-purchase through Steam. But this is a thought I’m struggling with. In concept, a game is only worth as much as the amount of fun and playtime you get out of it. I can see myself putting my high tier 300 hours into this. As the bugs get ironed out and everything comes together with competitive play and stat tracking, I could see myself trying to achieve a place in a clan. Develop strats and player synergy. Create alt character built around different ideals of combat.  But I know I can achieve this. The PC platform lends itself to that possibility more instantaneously than console. Thanks to all the ASSes I don’t see this happening anywhere else. Just the same small groups of players dominating the masses of people who don’t do jack together. Truly sad. For them. Not so much for me. I’ll be over here, leaping over a ledge and railing an enemy in the skull with a heavy machine gun, and laughing the whole time.

 

“Breaking In” Season Finale Airs Tuesday Night at 9:30 after Raising Hope

This week on the podcast our guest is Alphonso McAuley, Cash from Breaking In. We like Alpohonso. He cracked us up at Wondercon and he’s a genuinely funny and cool guy. Let’s help our friend keep his job.  

As geeks, we’re a cynical bunch. We don’t trust new things easily. So when Fox comes to us and says they have a show tailor made for us, we’re skeptical. “Breaking In” debuted to some strong numbers, but hasn’t wowed the folks at Fox. They’ve tentatively canceled it, but are now doing us a solid by trying it in the Tuesday comedy block after “Raising Hope.” Even if the show isn’t your cup of tea, do those of us that like it a solid and watch the finale Tuesday night. Tell your friends to watch it. Let’s keep a funny show with a lot of wit and heart on the air. Fox is no stranger to changing their minds, and they seem open to being convinced. Let’s convince them. Most of the geeky shows we were amped for next season are cut, no Wonder Woman, No Locke and Key, Smallville is done, and it’s the last season for Chuck. Let’s help determine what kind of TV we get in the future by not giving up on the geeky shows we still have, for now. 

For those who haven’t yet seen “Breaking In” here’s every episode so far but the pilot. 

Sixx:A.M. – “This Is Gonna Hurt”

Release date – May 3, 2011

This week’s review is for  “This Is Gonna Hurt”, the sophomore release from Sixx:A.M., side band for Nikki Sixx (of Mötley Crüe fame). Like their first album, “The Heroin Diaries”, this album was released to accompany a book of the same title, written by Sixx. Both books are documentations of Sixx’s life as a veteran rockstar.

 

Now I haven’t read said book, but given the fact that the tracks are basic summaries of specific chapters and excerpts, I really don’t think I want to. The latter half of the album was, well, a bit boring, and at times very dull. There were times where lead vocalist James Michael had highlights, such as the entire span of the first 4 songs, and there were times where he expressed a boring, monotone type sound similar to that of Muse vocalist Matthew Bellamy. And those spots were simply awful. The difference maker though? Sixx:A.M. is a better band.

 

However, what the album lacks in vocal skill is made up for in instrumental skill, which comes as no surprise, seeing as all 3 members have had extensive careers in their respective styles. Sixx is a current and founding member of Mötley Crüe, Michael has worked with rock bands Papa Roach, HammerFall, and Meat Loaf, as well as with Mötley Crüe on their 2000 album, “New Tattoo”. Guitarist DJ Ashba has worked with Drowning Pool, Guns ‘N Roses, and like the others, Mötley Crüe.

 

The main thing that makes this album different than the first is the lack of spoken word sections, which were all performed by Nikki Sixx himself. This allowed the first album to have a more personal feel, and made it seem more like something that was accompanying a biography. Not doing that on this one made it feel more like a studio album, which is both good and bad at the same time (at least in this listener’s opinion). Using a little bit of narration would’ve helped out the album, but dropping it all together made it feel lackluster.

 

Highlights of the album definitely came in the form of the title track, which used it’s lyrics to inform listeners that it was indeed going to hurt, and the next 3 or 4 songs, that are all great examples of what modern rock should be.

The slower, ballad type songs, on the other hand, were too long and too ballad-y, and felt as they were drawn out, like they were intentionally trying to be painful, as if to express even more hurt.

 

Overall, not a terrific album, but it still had some highlights snuck in at the beginning. A shame it couldn’t keep it up though.

 

Rating: 2/5

 

Key tracks:

“This Is Gonna Hurt”

“Are You With Me”

“Live Forever”

 

Still recovering from the “hurt”,

-JC

 

Hello, Geekscapists! I’m Meg and I’m new around here, so promise not to stuff me in a locker and I’ll be your best friend, okay? 

I come from an incredibly geeky family. My dad was one credit shy of a computer science degree and we’ve had more than one Star Wars vs. Star Trek debate; for the record, he’s the Trekkie and I’m the one who’s right. As such, I have an appreciation for geek dads. I was honored to get a chance to speak with Ken Denmead, the king of geek dads! No, really, he runs Geekdad.com – one of Wired’s parenting blogs. His newest book, The Geek Dad’s Guide to Weekend Fun is jam-packed with fun, simple tasks that can actually – gasp – teach you a thing or two in the process. Sweet bonus? You’ll learn how to make homemade root beer and a Death Star Tamari Ball! What more could you want from a book? 

Ken shared his plans for this year’s Maker Faire, how he comes up with tasks for the book, and refuses to answer my claim that he wrote this entire book just to get people to watch Pokémon. Suspicious. 

M: Are you exhausted from the process of releasing the book or are you just ecstatic that it’s out?

K: Ya know, it’s ongoing. This is the second one, so, I’ve been through the process before. So, with that respect, I’m not quite as, “oh my god what’s gonna happen next”. There’s still stuff happening from the first one, now the second one has come out – that’s going on – and they’ve actually got me working on a third one right now. So, it’s all over the place right now, but it’s good. I’ve just been sitting here all day obsessively refreshing Amazon to see if my book rank is going up and things like that.

M: So what has been your favorite project from your new book?

K: There’s been one project that I thought up and went “Wow, that actually works! That’s so cool.” In the first book, it was the camera on the balloons. In this book, it’s what I think is the simplest project, and that’s the Nerf Dart Blowgun. It was just completely hit-or-miss – I was trying to come up with a couple projects I could scrape together here at home to get into the book. My kids have every conceivable Nerf gun and there are hundred of darts everywhere – if you pull up a chair there are going to be NERF darts sitting under it. So, it just occurred to me: “I wonder if you can do a dart blowgun?” I thought of using air pressure, but I had a lousy experience with that before, so – we’re lucky our next-door neighbors own the Ace Hardware [near us] and it’s been handy. One day I just took a couple of NERF darts and went over to their store and was just sort of looking around at what was there to try and settled upon normal, straight, plain half-inch copper pipe that you use for water lines in your house. The first time I tried it, I had an 18-inch length, was standing at the counter, chatting with the guy, and put the dart in the thing and with the good old-fashioned – HUPT – the damn dart flew 60 feet across the floor and actually hit the far wall of the store. It’s further than the darts shoot out of the guns! So, I was like, “Alright that works! Next!”

M: How many animals have been harmed with the NERF blowgun?

K: My dogs hear “It’s time for target practice,” and they say “No, daddy! No!”

M: What’s one project that’s a little too dangerous or mature for them right now that you’re excited to do in the future?

K: Hmm… that’s a good question. Nothing in the first two books… I might have something in the third book about doing a true potato gun. Usually you build something that’s got a true propellant and that has a small margin of error for possible explosion —

M: Or blindness.

K: Well, ya know, they could blow off a finger. So, we’ll see whether or I try to do that one here or work with one of my writers who is more experienced with it, so he can do the leg work and I can just write it up. 

M: My favorite task in this book (because I’m a big Pokémon fan) is the Pokémon Bingo Game, but I don’t think you put it in there so people would watch it with their kids; I think you put it in there so that geek parents would have an excuse to watch more Pokémon. Is this true?

K: Well…. no comment.

M: What are you guys doing for Maker Faire? Last year you had tons of Legos and it made for an awesome booth.

K: This year, Chris is financing the booth – which is awesome – out of Wired magazine and we’re going to have a 20×30 booth space, so 6x the size of [our] first booth. We’re going to have electronics, we’ll have gaming… we’ll have guys running D&D and Munchkin…We’ll be doing some electronics building. One of our Geek Dad writers also works for Hex Robotics that puts out the Hex Bugs and he’s going to have an 8-story nanobot environment… so we’ll have them flying all over that. We’re getting a table filled with electronics and gadgets from ThinkGeek. A bunch of the Geek Moms from the Geek Mom Blog will be there, too and we’ll be selling t-shirts, and I’ll be selling the book. 

M: So your booth is more a lounge where people can come to play.

K: Exactly – people can come play and there will be some giveaways. We’ll have LEGO kits to give away and people can build some electronics and take it with them. I can’t wait. Oh! And I made contact with the Diet Coke and Mentos guys – EebyBird. I had a good talk with them and they actually sent me a box – I have it right here – of 20 different nozzles they use for bottles. If I can make it work, I’m going to try to set up an indoor Diet Coke and Mentos display. I’m gonna go out and buy 6 or 8 inch clear plastic and make an 18 foot long tube and every hour, we’ll get a bottle of soda and release it in this tube over the booth.

M: I foresee sticky… everything! But I wish you lots of luck. I’ve read that you wrote your books to give parents something to do with their kids instead of to them.

K: Yea, that’s the big differentiator. This is a parenting book not for parents who want to do things to their kids to change them, but who want to lead by example and do things with their kids, so your kids will fall in love with what you like to do.

M: Do you think parents nowadays have lost touch with their own instincts in the sea of “do-this but oh-god-don’t-do-that” parenting advice?

K: I think you see it in every generation. Why did the Dr. Spock book get written? Becoming parents…even with all the support of your family and all the support of your community, it’s a daunting task. You can remember everything your parents did for you and remember that at least half of it you probably never wanted to repeat to your kids even though you will subconsciously fall into those patterns. Everybody wants somebody to give them ideas to help them along and to try to keep them safe from making stupid mistakes or things like that, and an industry of book writing has built up around that. 

For me, it comes down to letting our kids be who they’re going to be and the best thing we can do for them is be happy ourselves – be happy as a couple – demonstrate that when you become an adult you can still be a happy person and enjoy the things you loved when you were a kid. So, leading by example is the best way to raise healthy kids and happy kids. That’s why I have a little anecdote at the start of the book: At one point I wanted to get my kids into D&D and I told them “Alright, let’s play this game. You get to play warriors or wizards and stuff like that.” And they were like, “Ehhh, whatever dad, we’re going back to the TV.” And so one day I just left my D&D player’s handbook lying around the house somewhere and within a day or two my older son had looked at it and then brought it up to me and said “This looks awesome! Can we try this?” And it was like, “total win!” Now, they love D&D. So, that’s they way you do it. Never push them into it. Obviously, there are going to be times when you need to push your kids and you have to lay boundaries and all of that stuff. That’s common sense, but the better part of parenting is always going to be lead by example. 

M: You said earlier that you’re working on your third book. Can you let us in on one task that might be in it?

K: Let’s see…The third book is going to be much more focused toward actual science projects that can be adapted easily for science fair projects. So, less just having a little geeky weekend summer fun project, more little projects that really illustrate some aspect of science. 

A big thanks to Ken for speaking with us! You can pick up Geek Dad’s Guide to Weekend Fun or his first book Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share on Amazon ooooor, you can win it here! Just leave a comment on the story about your geekiest memory with your dad and share this story on your facebook or twitter, that simple. Make sure your current email is on your Geekscape account so we can contact you if you win.