The Mothership reported on the possibility of Samuel L. Jackson not reprising his cameo role as Nick Fury from Iron Man in further Marvel films.  While more than a few think that this is simply a clever negotiating ploy, the Howard-Cheadle switch has demostrated that Paramount and Marvel aren’t against an actor swap.  So let’s get the ball rolling: if it’s not Sam, then whom?

A few thoughts, then add your own:

Laurence Fishburne:  Though Morpheus is doing time on CSI:Original these days, Fish could fill the roll easily.  He’s done military roles, he’s done badass, and he’s done bald.  An easy call.

Chris Cooper:  Okay, so you don’t have Sam.  Perhaps you elect to go with the traditional appearance of Nick Fury.  Cooper has attitude and acting chops to spare.

David Hasslehoff:  Just kidding.  He is, however, the one only guy that can claim he headlined a Nick Fury movie.

Laurence Mason: Best known to comic fans as Tin Tin in The Crow, Mason recently had an arc as Sammy on Prison Break.  He’s got the look and the resume.  Plus, he starred in one of the great recurring under-the-radar comedy bits of all time: “Rastapiece Theatre”, from HBO’s ’90s blink-and-you-missed-it (but if you saw it, you never forgot it) sketch show Hardcore TV.

Over to you, reader.

This is definitely a coup — Pádraig Ó Méalóid over at Forbidden Planet will be doing an interview in March with Alan Moore to coincide with the release of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1910. However, you can get in on the fun by sending your own questions by commenting here!

As always, make sure you use common sense, since Pádraig will only be asking the questions that he can actually get away with asking. Meanwhile, you can read part one of the interviews here, and part two here.

So I opened up my e-mail today and got an interesting e-mail — Drew, the New Guy, was following me on Twitter.

After Googling the Newsarama boards as well as all of my past jobs to try to figure out if there was some “new guy” at the office, I realized the joke was on me, as the team behind Zuda Comics’ We Make Clouds has come up with a low-intensive, yet fairly amusing form of web marketing: the Twitter feed.

By joining here, you can see the exploits of Drew, a recent college grad working at the fictional marketing company Vantacor, as he deals with the stresses of the working world.

Some amusing highlights thus far:

So Ted tells me this is some sort of “work diary” that I can use to track my progress. Nobody can see this, right? 7:51 PM Jan 6th from web

I’m beginning to suspect that this isn’t a work tool. And why does the number keep going down when I type? I need more room to track my prog 11:01 AM Jan 7th from web

I’ll miss Ann Telnaes’ version of Dick Cheney, too: The Washington Post‘s Michael Cavna quizzes various political cartoonists what they’ll miss most about President George W. Bush. Answers range from Ruben Bolling’s “Nothing” to Telnaes’ “his vice president.”

So, would calling ASM #583 the commemorative plate of comics actually be a compliment?: This Telegraph story about the impulse to celebrate and/or capitalize on Barack Obama’s inauguration mentions Marvel’s variant cover scheme. I liked this line:

The most coveted item on news-stands will be the special edition of Marvel’s Spider-Man comic, which features Mr. Obama (a fan of the superhero) on the cover and a storyline in which he is saved from an inauguration day attack.

Oh, Telegraph reporter, since when do comic books appear on newsstands?

Also of note is the mention that, “More than 700,000 copies of a plate bearing Obama’s image have already been sold and the shopping channel QVC, which has sold all 100,000 copies of a commemorative coin, is relocating to Washington for the week.”

The chances of that issue of Amazing Spider-Man hitting 100,000 seem slim to unlikely—unless Marvel did some sort of crazy 40K plus overprint of the variant cover—but let’s be crazy generous and say ASM hits Secret Invasion level sales in the direct market. That would still mean there are still seven times more people who collect plates that QVC sells than read the flagship Spider-Man comics.

Really puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?

Sick of reading about Reals yet?: If not, this NPR story “reviewing” some of them is kinda funny.

What’s with Canadians appraising the sexual attractiveness of super-men?: This National Post blog entry rates the top five sexiest superheroes. The writer focuses on movie heroes only though; the world’s number one source for rating the sexiness of superheroes remains Rachelle Goguen’s Rating The Super Hunks project (As for her top five, it’s Batman, Superman, Midnighter, Winter Soldier and Magnus, Robot Fighter. I think it’s the dress).

I just want to take a moment to point and laugh: Check out the first two lines of this review (?):

Over break, I went to go see the new Marvel comic superhero movie, The Spirit. Given the generally (and I mean generally) decent quality of the Marvel superhero movies, I was expecting a little romance, a lot of action and a little bit of a tie back to the Marvel superhero movies.

So when Sam Jackson and Robert Downey Jr. finally gather up enough heroes to get their Avengers movie off the ground, sadly, The Spirit won’t be on the team…

Variety got the list of nominees for the Writers Guild’s Best Writing in a Videogame 2008 award, and well, I’ll get right to it:

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 (EA). Writer: Haris Orkin. Story Producer: Mical Pedriana.

Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble! (Mousechief). Writing: Keith Nemitz. Additional Writing: Adrianne Ambrose.

Fallout 3 (Bethesda). Lead Writer: Emil Pagliarulo. Quest Writing: Erik J. Caponi, Brian Chapin, Jon Paul Duvall, Kurt Kuhlmann, Alan Nanes, Bruce Nesmith, and Fred Zeleny. Additional Quest Writing: Nate Ellis, William Killeen, Mark Nelson, and Justin McSweeney.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (LucasArts). Writers: Haden Blackman, Shawn Pitman, John Stafford and Cameron Suey.

Tomb Raider: Underworld (Eidos). Story: Eric Lindstrom and Toby Guard. Screenplay: Eric Lindstrom.

It’s an…interesting list to say the least. There are some things to bear in mind here, though. First, far from every game is written under WGA guidelines by WGA writers. It’s a relatively new medium for the WGA (last year was the first time this award was offered), as story has only recently become a dominating factor in games. While there have been games using deep detailed stories for a couple generations of games now, with the current generation even racing games like Need for Speed have been heavily driven (no pun intended) by their stories. Also, for WGA awards, the first nomination needs to come from the writers, developers, or producers of the game. So, of the few that were WGA based, even fewer moved into the nomination pool.

Digressing, of the nominees I’d say the competition is likely between Fallout 3 and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Fallout 3‘s sheer scope, offering multiple dialogue paths and personal choices is intimidating. The Force Unleashed, though, told the best acted out Star Wars story since the original trilogy, and did so with an important, in-cannon tale.

[Via]

Want to see some great behind-the-scenes photos from Iron Man? Then you’re in luck, because Obadiah Stane himself, better known as Oscar-nominated actor Jeff Bridges, has an extensive portfolio of black and white photos taken during the production of the hit film on his official website. Check out on-set pics of director Jon Favreau and stars Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, the late Stan Winston’s workshop, and Bridges getting his head shaved, which was apparently a traumatic experience for the actor. (Just remember Jeff, bald is beautiful.)

Todd Leopold, CNN.com’s Entertainment Producer, took up the tale of woe that is modern newspaper comic strips in today’s Marquee Blog.  Our own J. Caleb Mozzocoo has been tracking this, as have other bloggers and news venues without number.  Leopold points to the fact that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution actually slashed their comic strip output from two full pages to one.   Leopold’s overall insights are pretty familiar by this point (the impact of the internet, the diminishing role of the print news in general, etc.). It is, however, significant to see CNN take notice. 

In a Q&A posted to The Hollywood Reporter‘s “The Live Feed” blog by James Hibberd, Fox Entertainment President Kevin Reilly spoke on a broad variety of topics, including but not limited to a number of projects that Blog@ readers hold dear.  Some highlights:

• Calling the show “a keeper,” Reilly strongly implied but stopped short of actually confirming the network’s plans to renew Fringe next season.  He added about ratings, “I would not expect it to take off after ‘Idol,’ but I do think it will tick up another level.”
• Whedon’s Dollhouse also rated a few comments, with Reilly telling The Hollywood Reporter “Joss Whedon does a certain kind of show. He’s right in the zone again on that. It’s the kind of show that we know has a core passionate audience.”  He said that the show will, at minimum, be given 13 episodes to “play out” and a compatible lead-in, as it’ll go on the air right after Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
• Reilly did concede, though, that both Fringe and Dollhouse remain “tough sells” to advertisers.
• Regarding Cleveland, the new animated comedy centering around Family Guy‘s Cleveland Brown, which was referred to internally and by the press as a spinoff (including by Cleveland himself during a recent episode of Family Guy), Reilly issued a tweak of the language, saying, “It’s not a spinoff. It’s really become its own show … with, frankly, a sweeter tone than Family Guy.” (No word on whether he would frequently find his house damaged and himself sliding down the side of the broken building in a bathtub in the show.)
• Reilly also revealed the the Virtuality pilot from Battlestar Galactica mastermind Ronald D. Moore, has been cut from two hours back to one.

Hello, True Believers! Your friendly neighborhood Newsarama here!

So we’re live in New York City at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, liveblogging Marc Tyler Nobleman’s presentation on “Boys of Steel,” the lives of Jerome Siegel and Joe Shuster.

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Last week, at the advice of almost everybody, I picked up Blue Monday: Thieves Like Us. I think perhaps I should start at the beginning with Bleu and the gang, since I was a bit confused as to what was going on, but was certainly capable of cackling at the naughty humor. Naughty is the right word for it, I think. Though the sex jokes are obvious, the book has an innocent feel that almost seems quaint, looking back. Dirty would imply that they knew what they were talking about.

Anyway, this week, I’ll be reading DMZ #38 (seems so appropriate, the week before the inauguration)…and that’s it. Been tradewaiting Fables, so no need to recommend that, but all other suggestions are welcome.

Someone tell me about Young Liars, in particular. Probably not a great time to pick it up in the middle of things, but I’m intrigued.

And no, I will not be buying Obama Spider-Man.

more awesome than this.

That is all.

Amazing Spider-Man #583: Because President-Elect Barack Obama once mentioned collecting Spider-Man comics, Marvel is putting him on a variant cover of this book, and including him in a five-page story by Zeb Wells and Todd Nauck. They say. I’m sure the fact that doing so garners crazy media attention and, because of the peculiarities of variant cover schemes, will inflate sales and set off buying frenzies, had something to do with it. Obama also mentioned collecting Conan comics. I hope Dark Horse is working on a series where he travels back in time to team-up with the Cimmerian barbarian.

Amazing Spider-Girl #28: Tom Defalco and Ronald Frenz pit Mayday Parker against an all-new, all-different Green Goblin. His secret identity? Peter Parker. Look for a special back-up and a variant cover featuring Sasha and Malia Obama. No, wait, the back-up is actually about “Li’l Benjy, The Spectacular Spider-Baby” (with art by Colleen Coover), and there is no variant cover. My mistake.

BPRD: The Black Goddess #1: The first of a five-issue miniseries by co-writers Mike Mignola and John Arcudi and artist Guy Davis. It features a nice-looking cover by Kevin Nowlan, and a Michelle Obama variant cover. (Sorry, I’ll stop now, I swear). Three-page preview here.

Faces Of Evil: Prometheus: Grant Morrison’s evil, anti-Batman debuted in 1998’s January villain spotlight event “New Year’s Evil,” so it’s perhaps fitting that he gets a one-shot in this year’s January villain spotlight event. He once had the entire JLA on their knees, but the villain has had his rep badly tarnished by his inclusion in some pretty bad stories since, including a long-ish stint as Hush’s henchman. Will writer Sterling Gates and artist Federico Dalbochio be able to restore him to his former glory? This one-shot, billed as a prelude to the upcoming Justice League series, is only one of this week’s many Faces Of Evil branded books. Action Comics #873 wraps-up the “New Krypton” crossover with Lex Luthor and his kryptonite collection on the cover, Booster Gold #16 features the not-technically evil WWI killing machine Baron Hans von Hammer, the Enemy Ace, Green Arrow/Black Canary #16 features evil archer Merlyn, Green Lantern Corps #32 features the ultra-creepy Sinestro Corps member with the goofy name of Kryb (the one who’s hunchback is full of babies), Nightwing #152 finds Dick Grayson borrowing his old boss’ villain Ra’s al Ghul, and, finally, Titans #9 has one-time good guy Jericho as the cover villain. Whew!
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Welcome to a new column I’m going to be doing on occasion here called Watch This Now. With things like Netflix streaming on Xbox 360, Boxee on Apple TV (or on Linux on your PS3), and even the mere existence of Hulu.com, there are several ways to get exposed to Television, Movies, and Webisodes that you may have otherwise missed. I’ll take a moment to review these as I stumble across them, and let you know what to check out.

Jekyll was a 6 episode series that ran on the BBC in 2007. I had heard of it in cursory conversation, but never really looked into it. I’m fascinated by the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story, so it’s not exactly a hard sell to get me to watch an updated version (that has ties to the original story). I actually came to watch it in a roundabout way, though. With the aforementioned Netflix-on-360, I’ve found it much easier to check out movies and tv shows I wouldn’t normally go out of my way to view. So, if I find an actor or actress I like, I’ll IMDB them, then look at the “Watch Now” list and see what else I can check out.

I’m a huge fan of the absolutely stellar Leverage currently running on TNT. One of the actresses in the show is a Brit called Gina Bellman. I recognized her instantly from her turn as goofy-to-the-point-of-ridiculous Jane on the British sitcom Coupling, and decided it was time to look for more of her work. Low and behold, she was also a regular on Jekyll. I queued it up, and today watched the first episode.

Quite simply, the show is brilliant. If it can maintain even a quarter of the intelligence, tension, and suspense that it showed off in the first episode throughout the series, I have no doubt this will hold a spot in my list of all time favorites. The story follows Dr. Tom Jackman (James Nesbit) as a man who for some unspecified time has been dealing with an alter ego. This is no normal case of multiple personality disorder, as the other person typically comes out at set times, and seems to gain heightened strength and speed compared to his counterpart. They also look slightly different, with discolored eyes and a different hairline, marking more than just a mental change.

The first episode picks up with all of this pre-established as Jackman’s status quo. We meet him at the same time as a new assistant/caretaker, played by Michelle Ryan. I should note, if they had let her look as incredible as she does on this show on Bionic Woman (and hell, just let her be British), it may have lasted longer. We’re teased with the change for a little more than half the episode before we actually meet the man who comes to be known as Mr. Hyde, and that build up made him much more intriguing and ultimately more terrifying. Other characters introduced are a mysterious organization who may know more about Hyde than Jackman does, and a Private Investigator hired to look into him by his wife (Bellman).

Establishing tones of humor, horror, tension, love, conflict, betrayal, and scheming all in one hour of television is a difficult proposition. Pulling it off so well that it looks natural and easy is nothing short of amazing. Genre fans have just enough of the supernatural here, and those who usually cringe from genre entertainment won’t find enough to steer them away. Fans of characters like The Hulk will obviously find something to like here, but really this is just good drama. I highly recommend checking out Jekyll, available now on DVD or streaming via Netflix. I’ll be sure to follow up when I finish the series (which will likely only be a couple days).

Koldcast TV has announced that it will be distributing two genre series online.

The first series will involve a team-up with the producer Generate for distributing the third season (as well as the previous two seasons) of the series Pink. Pink examines the life of Natalie “Nate” Cross (played by V.I.P.‘s Natalie Raitano), part-time college student and part-time mercenary assassin, as she kills for the highest bidder and struggles to navigate the dating scene.

Meanwhile, Koldcast also has made a deal for Michael Davies’ After Judgment, which deals with a group of ragtag survivors of an apocalyptic event. Koldcast’s acquisition will stretch through the second half of the series’ first season, and will be released tonight. This series will also be available for download through TiVo, the company said in a press release.

You can view the most recent episode of Pink here, while you can see After Judgement here.

After a brief respite, Legion Blogpost is back and shall continue to go strong!  For installment number three, I’m talking about one of my all-time favorite single issues, #300 of the original Legion of Super-Heroes run.  We will acknowledge at the outset that it is indeed a bit of a cheat; indeed, the book was Superboy and then Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes until issue #259.  Nevertheless, it was a landmark issue celebrated in grand style.

For one thing, the 1983 issue boasted 55 pages of story, a spine, and a jam cover with a variety of artists composing a shot of the entire then-current roster.  Some readers have occasionally had difficulty with the book’s frequently enormous cast.  Honestly, that’s never troubled me.  I think that one of the appeals of the book is the fact that there is a literal legion.  In part, this issue functions so well because of the team’s size and rich history.

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A weird story comes out of today’s Variety — after last year’s $1 (you read it right, $1) buyout of TV Guide by OpenGate, some strange changes have been made in the name of cost-cutting.

In this case, eliminating the listings for MTV and the CW in the magazine.

Scott Crystal has apparently explained the cutoff to the Philadelphia Inquirer by saying, “there are now hundreds of channels on television and we can only accommodate approximately 70 in our primetime grids.” But considering small channels like Planet Green and QVC are still on the books, it seems weird that a Viacom staple like MTV would get cut.

Perhaps the strangest part of all this? TV Guide, despite not running a listing for the CW, still has a big story on Smallville in this week’s issue. Despite genre offerings like Smallville and Supernatural, it may be that TV Guide thinks that the CW’s days are numbered…

In my other life (well, one of them) I write commentary on political and social issues for GlobalComment.com. This week, inspired by discussions with some friends, I wrote about the commodification of Barack Obama–the creation of a whole cottage industry selling Obama image gear.

We’ve all seen this in action in the comics world, with Savage Dragon, Spider-Man and IDW’s bio-comics. I enjoyed IDW’s choice of graphic biographies for the presidential candidates, and I generally embrace comics that deal with political issues, but somewhere along the line it seems like it’s become much more about cashing in on the moment than actually creating art inspired by Obama.

Anyway, my article is here for those interested. I quote artist Ron Wimberly (Sentences) and Brian Johnson of my local comic shop, Brave New Worlds, on the phenomenon.

If, like me, you are unabashedly unapologetic over your happiness at the return of Lost, then I direct you to one of my favorite online columns: Doc Jensen at Entertainment Weekly (EW.com).  Jensen, who has penned a comic or two in his time, in addition to his fine pop culture reportage for that magazine and website, composes entertaining odes to Lost on (frequently more than a) weekly basis when the show is running.  Though a number of sites and blogs do the same thing, Jensen clearly has a ball with it.  He digs into the literary, film, and mythological relish with high-octane geekdom.  It’s a joy to behold.  And if you like the show, you should dig.  Besides, when I start writing up the Post-Games for this season on the Newsarama Mothership, it will give everyone another thing against which to compare me negatively.  See?  I’m full-service.

Barack Obama meets Love and Rockets star Maggie Chascarillo!

Image taken from the awesome Los Bros. Hernandez gallery on Comicartfans.com.

A big week for events, people — now residents of the Windy City have something to look forward to!

On Thursday, Lilli Carré, author of Fantagraphics’ The Lagoon, will be signing her work at Quimby’s in Chicago. Prints and handmade books will also be sold, and refreshments will be served.

The Lagoon deals with a family’s reaction to a siren’s song, emanating from a nearby lagoon. With contentment, curiosity, frustration, and danger, this experimental work comes hot on the heels of Carré’s Eisner and Harvey nominated story, The Adventures of Woodsman Pete.