Summer Glau takes "The Cape"

Greetings, all!

While we were out last week, we did keep track of the news with a series of posts on the ‘Rama mothership’s front page.  In case you missed those, find the day-by-day links below.

Tuesday: Iron Man 2, etc.

Wednesday: Sgt. Slaughter, Cap Movie, etc.

Thursday: Spidey Musical Woes, etc.

Friday: Summer Glau, etc.

Hey folks, your friendly neighborhood Editor here.

You may have noticed, things are going much faster around here. We’re on some brand-new shiny servers, and we have a host of improvements on the way.

One of those improvements is in the Blog. We’re upgrading wordpress, getting in some new extensions, and generally doing a lot of maintenance that is a long time coming. We originally noted that we would do this last week, but we pushed it up until today.

So please be patient with us, keep up-to-date via the homepage, and Blog@ will be back and better than ever before you know it. Thanks!

Olivia Munn might be in Iron Man 2 — but as who?

Techland and FanboyWEB are saying that Munn will be joining Tony Stark as the Scarlet Witch — although because she’s a mutant (and because of mutants’ ties to the X-Men franchise, currently controlled by Fox), I have to throw a challenge flag.

AceShowbiz also has a little bit of the same skepticism, saying that IMDB has reported Munn will be playing Melina Vostokoff, who was better known in the Marvel-616 universe at the Iron Maiden.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls is a perfectly readable, albeit unnecessary and underwhelming, prequel to the surprise mega-hit Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith and Jane Austen. They’re running a contest at Quirk’s website where you can win a Pride and Prejudice and Zombies gift-pack, but my day job, which slowed down the review hitting Blog@Newsarama and Comic Related, may have cost you readers your opportunity to win it. Still, click through and try it out here.

After years of imitators spurred by the success of 28 Days Later and Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake re-popularized the zombie genre in film, and an onslaught of comics and novels both well-done and not, Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies added a clever twist: rather than trying to capture the horror and graphic violence of a zombie invasion in prose—a difficult task to master—he took a bizarre and hilarious idea—adding “…And Zombies” to the end of the title of Austen’s beloved Regency romance, and rather than rewriting the characters and the comic drama of the story, he just interspersed additional prose with the existing work. It was a fresh and self-aware take on the concept that might not have been brilliant, but was cleverly subversive and which retained much of the character work and clever plotting and pacing of Austen’s original.

Unfortunately, Steve Hockensmith, author of the successful “Holmes on the Range” series of genre-mashup novels, doesn’t have Austen to co-write with him. The self-awareness and self-parodic elements of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (themselves no longer particularly unique in an ocean of “Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim” and “Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”-style ripoffs) are largely lost in this fairly generic prequel, which takes a fairly standard batch of characters and builds them to the point where, by the time the novel ends, they’re fairly recognizable as the characters at the start of the previous novel. It’s a fairly thoughtful and organic character development process; while that’s good from a writing standpoint, it makes the story far less gripping because Elizabeth Bennett is basically unrecognizable at the start of the story. She’s no longer Austen’s character, with a pinch of badass thrown in; here, Lizzie’s badassery grows as her personality becomes stronger, building to the point where she’s recognizable as the character who made the book so memorable and giving birth to the franchise. Unfortunately, that means the character we read about for a good chunk of this book is nobody we recognize or care about.

Furthermore, the story feels a little less-than-necessary. The training alluded to in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was enough information for this reviewer; I didn’t need to see it up-close and personal. The ninjas and the fight scenes in the first novel were bits that I skimmed over as I read it, feeling it a little too indulgent and pointless—emphasizing that part of the story has little appeal, even if it’s done pretty well.

The romantic subplot is handled capably, but doesn’t feels utterly without consequence, given that readers will know from the word “go” that not only are the Bennett girls are all single at the start of the original novel—but several of the characters who figure prominently into it were never mentioned in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, indicating that their importance in the grand scheme of things isn’t great.

Ultimately Hockensmith’s writing isn’t at fault here; the book’s simply unnecessary. It suffers from many of the same difficulties as fan fiction—the ones that comic book publishers often encounter when bringing characters and concepts from “What If?” and “Elseworlds” stories into the central canon: It loses all the elements of the original that made it different and clever, opting instead for the furtherance of franchise at the expense of quality and originality.

If you thought you dug Eric Canete’s work on the Spidey vs. Deadpool issue of Amazing Spider-Man, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Canete has a smattering of art up on his blog, and it all looks amazing. Today is Eric’s last post for March, apparently, but you can see all of last month’s stuff on his blog. Good stuff!

For those of you who have been checking out the Mothership, you’ll see that J. Michael Straczynski has been announced as the new writer for — wait for it — Superman AND Wonder Woman. My reaction:

In all seriousness, this gets me excited about Supes and Wondy in a big way — JMS is one of my favorite writers, and the reason for that is because he knows how to get the characterization just right, while also really establishing a focus for his narrative that allows for some really dramatic moments. It worked (epically) with Thor — to see Superman and Wonder Woman get that sort of treatment, well, it might give Batman a little something to worry about, as he sits at the top of the DC Comics food chain.

“It’s never too late to fly.” I already can’t wait.

But that said… JMS isn’t doing this alone. A great writer deserves a great artist — and while DC hasn’t made any announcements yet, let’s speculate as to a “dream team” artist who they could bring aboard!

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With the news of Gail Simone stepping down from writing “Wonder Woman” still fresh on my mind, I got to thinking about Marvel’s attempt to celebrate women in comics with its new limited series, “Girl Comics.” I have to give Marvel credit for trying this with all the potential for it to be a flop. Aside from the inherent mixed bag quality of any anthology, it’s got a lot going for it. The best thing of all, I discovered the writing talent of Valerie D’Orazio and I’ll discuss her own one-shot, “Punisher Max: Butterfly” a little later in the column.

Back to “Girl Comics.” At first, I thought about what could be wrong with it. For instance, there are two profiles of women trail blazers at Marvel back when Stan Lee’s hair was jet black. That seemed like a creaky “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby” sort of salute. But, even if it is, I’m really glad they did it because the two individuals, Flo Steinberg and Marie Severin, are definitely worthy of recognition. It’s been a “man’s world” like forever and we’re still evolving as a society. Whenever you have something like Marvel attempting to show its human side, that’s cool.

Another problem seems to be that weird pin-up of She-Hulk by Sana Takeda. It goes to show what happens when you depict a character but you stray away from the quality of the character and turn it into a mere sex object. Even the anatomy is off. You’ll notice that She-Hulk has two left feet. Apparently, the drawing has caught She-Hulk just as she’s had a mishap while skipping rope and has fallen and the rope, moving at hyperspeed, has bound her legs together.

Is it possible that Takeda is commenting on the awkward state of today’s woman? Does she see She-Hulk, as a woman, cursed instead of blessed with formidable strength and sexuality? Instead of being in a position of authority, does Takeda see She-Hulk as doomed with having the classic impediment of “two left feet”? Or is it just a playfully sexy scene? And where does fit alongside her other controversial work? It would be interesting to hear from her.

More than likely, Takeda just fell into the same old patterns that began when it was only men drawing unhealthy depictions of women. These type of drawings are obviously alive and well today. Some publishers seem to focus on the cheesecake with less thought given to the writing. Hopefully, that will improve. The subject of sex is not the problem but how one works it. At least DC and Marvel tend to have solid narratives and standards, right? Of course, the top publishers are working towards the highest levels of excellence. That said, this makes this sort of drawing stand out even more, like a big green sore thumb. I don’t think it was meant to open up discussion but was ill-conceived. Maybe, in a proper context, it could work but not in this case.

And then there’s the question of whether these comics are supposed to have a unique female sensibility or whether they just happen to all be created by women. The introduction by Colleen Coover implies a special female viewpoint with its panels of various superheroines. The stories that follow veer off into unexpected directions and seem to defy easy categorization that keeps things more lively and less obvious.

I love the fact that we basically get from this comic a little concert made up of all sorts of awesome talent. You’ve got G. Willow Wilson opening up the show, all her “Air” fans especially thrilled, as she and Ming Doyle riff on Nightcrawler with a most surreal story. And so on the down the line. Trina Robbins and Stephanie Buscema give us a less than perfect Venus who lets herself get caught up in the glitz of the fashion world. There’s Valerie D’Orazio and Nikki Cook’s excellent Punisher story. Lucy Knisley provides a nice comedic Doc Oc tale. Robin Furth and Agnes Garbowska give us a neat Fantastic Four fairy tale. And Devin Grayson and Emma Rios give us a nuanced story about the love triangle between Cyclops, Phoenix and Wolverine.

So, true believers, go get yourself some “Girl Comics” and, while you are at it, get a copy of “Punisher Max: Butterfly,” also published by Marvel, a most excellent read both in the writing and the art. Valerie D’Orazio pulls you in right away with her quirky narrative and the art of Laurence Campbell is just as inventive, does not miss a beat. This is like the magic that Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips keep conjuring up but all its own. Turn to any page and you’ll find something refreshing in crime fiction.

The story revolves around a professional assassin known only as, Butterfly. We get deep inside her head to discover her motivations as she’s willing to put her life on the line to reveal a greater truth. We see as Butterfly struggles to write and then finally bring out into the world a book that reveals the inner workings of organized crime. The world of hired guns is played up for all it’s worth but we can see that this story aims for more than just one note.

D’Orazio and Campbell work together to really move the reader, especially on the theme of what happens when someone is negated as a human being. With impeccable timing, we see characters go from being alive to suddenly having blank slits for eyes. This device works extremely well since Butterfly is a character we can connect to.

It’s that human factor. If you don’t have that, you’ve got nothing. Honestly, why would anyone, creator or reader, want to aim lower? Given the opportunity, most people want high quality work. Things can stand in the way of this, of course, like ignorance. The truth is that, no matter what the content, it is the quality stuff that will be the most stimulating. It seems like an easy enough concept but one that, just as easily, gets overlooked. The appropriate attention to detail will always be appreciated in the long run whether the character is Madame Bovary, She-Hulk or Wonder Woman.

“The 10 Weirdest ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Adaptations”: It would have been easy enough to fill all ten of those slots on the list with comics, but this tonic.com article only uses two, looking to film, television and prose for the rest of them. Can you guess which two writer John R. Platt chose before clicking the link? The answer may surprise you.

“I was actually considering just dropping out and trying to go get a job at the Jim Henson Creature Shop making puppets”: So says Mouse Guard creator David Petersen, in this feature story about him, his signature series and the fact that he’ll be contributing to Archaia’s Fraggle-featuring Free Comic Book Day offering

“The Anthrax of Comic Books”: I’ve read a lot of reviews and reactions to the seventh and final issue of Justice League: Cry For Justice this weekend (And I do mean a lot. When Fangirls Attack alone has at least  30 of ‘em up). All of the reviews I’ve read have been extremely negative. Many of them involved a lot of swearing. I think the most damning one was offered by blogger Scott of Polite Dissent, who titled his post on the subject “The Anthrax of Comics” and called it the worst comic he’d ever read (Not sure if he’s read Ultimates 3 or not; that’s the worst one I’ve found so far). Johanna Draper Carlson only wrote two paragraphs about the issue, but I think she did a great job of distilling why killing the character they killed is so incredibly depressing in that relatively short space (Essentially, DC took something with unique potential and many idiosyncratic story choices and cashed it in for something that was cliched 25 years ago).

Is DC listening to reader reaction to Cry?: Superman is. And what does he have to say about it? Cheryl Lynn has the answer.

“One of the strange characteristics of contemporary bourgeois life is the sheer pleasure we take in inverting it”: Check out this New York Times review of Museum of the City of New York exhibit Charles Addams’s New York (Did I just break a rule for how many times you can say “New York” in a single sentence?) There’s plenty of great art there, and, I would imagine, in the exhibit itself.

“Amongst all of this blurring and borrowing, however, the one television concept that simply does not work for comic books is ‘the season’”: I really enjoyed this piece on some of the differences between television and comics by Avi Santo, which focuses on Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 (the comic book) in relation to Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the television show.

Here’s a sample:

Seasons imply definite temporal boundaries. There is always an end in sight and part of the pleasure as well as the pain of viewing a season’s worth of TV is knowing that it will wrap itself up, well or poorly, within a finite number of episodes. Yes, serialized TV may leave viewers sweating through a season-ending cliffhanger or eight, but viewers still know that at a certain point the season will end, whether things are resolved or not, and that anticipatory foreknowledge is essential to the TV viewing experience.

It’s a smart piece, and given that comics folks sometimes talk about comics that have nothing to do with TV in terms of “seasons” (Marvel’s Runaways, Young Avengers and Agents of Atlas spring to mind), probably well worth a read, whether you care about Buffy at all or not.

You know who should draw Wonder Woman?: Jaime Hernandez.

Behold, true believers and rama readers! Next weekend is the Emerald City Comic Con, and here we have a sneak peek at one of the exclusive items available.

Drawn by Jeremy Dale and inked by his wife, Kelly, this print re-envisions the cover to Amazing Fantasy #15, the first appearance of Spider-Man, but this time starring Stan Lee and Brian Michael Bendis. Blog@ spoke to Dale about this piece and his experience making it.

“Tim Daniel at Hidden Robot approached me through the Bendisboards recently, wanting to do something special for the appearance of both Stan Lee and Brian Michael Bendis at this year’s Emerald City Comic Con. He had a general idea in mind of what he wanted, the whole ‘homage to Amazing Fantasy with the two leads replaced with Lee & Bendis’, but really wanted us to make it our own.”

Dale added “From there, Joe Eisma and I took off and did our own thing (both versions can be seen at here ). I really love how both turned out, and thrilled to be part of the experience– it was a great change of pace from the typical daily work I have, drawing comics in the studio.”

How long was this piece in the works, now? “The initial prompt for the idea came about a month ago– we started and finished work on it a couple days ago. My piece was inked by Kelly Dale and colored by Nate Lovett. Couldn’t ask for an easier team to work with.”

Dale was ecstatic when he learned Bendis loved it. “Yeah, Bendis saw it when it was posted on the Bendisboards (or through Twitter– it happened all at the same time, so I’m not entirely sure) and was really surprised, saying ‘Well done! Totally flattered’ through his Twitter.”

He continued with “This project was really appealing to me in that it captures the fun in comics. I’m really honored to have been a part of it. I’m sure it’ll go over extremely well at the show. It’s definitely one of my favorite projects I’ve worked on so far in my career in comics… mmmmaybe even over G.I. Joe? We’ll see in time, I suppose.”

There is a bit of irony with this print though. “Coincedentally, I won’t even BE at Emerald City– I had originally planned to set up there this year, but when I realized Megacon was the same weekend (a show I’ve been a guest at for years now), I had to back out of ECCC. So swing by MegaCon if you wanna see me at a con that weekend. I’ll be in Artist’s Alley, drawing as fast as I can for the fans.”

You can see more of Jeremy’s art, projects, and even the step-by-step on this print at his site.

Funny or Die presents this hilarious video featuring none other than Stan Lee who wants some changes to the Oscars.

While I don’t think the AMPAS are going to abide to Lee’s “wishes”, there’s a chance with the Emmys since they have “Outstanding Guest Star” category.

Though I think the Oscars do need a bit of “excelsior” added.

Find out more about Global Freezing here on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays or at ComicsByEgg.com.

[source: gotfuturama.com]

We all knew this was coming. At the very least, hoped it would someday come true. At least for me.

Thursday, June 24th 2010 at 10pm on Comedy Central, “Futurama” returns with brand-new episodes! I’m doing my best to hide my excitement here because where “Family Guy” gets cancelled (twice) and then brought back, I don’t think this show ever really took off in the eyes at the people of Fox, and that’s just a disappointment.

In a world where Animation Domination (aka MacFarlane Domination) is getting somewhat stale, I’m glad somebody somewhere thought bringing back “Futurama” was a good idea and ran with it.

Welcome back, everyone.

Barry Allen has had his Rebirth — and now, the Secret Origin of the Fastest Man Alive will be revealed!

Comic-Con Magazine has an in-depth interview with Geoff Johns for the trajectory of his career, and when asked about a Flash: Secret Origin book, Johns seemed only too happy to answer in the affirmative:

I will be doing the Flash Secret Origin. He’s never had a secret origin book. You forget as a fan who’s read comics for years and years and you say they just did Green Lantern Secret Origin. Well, Emerald Dawn was like back in the mid ’80s, I think 25 years ago now. This is obviously for people today. I think sometimes people forget that there is a new generation coming in and this stuff has to be for a new generation. To a lot of people Hal Jordan is the new Green Lantern, and Barry Allen will be the new Flash. But with Green Lantern Secret Origin, it’s a book now and that book actually outsells the other GL trades because you look at it if you’re in a bookstore or whatever and that’s the first one you’ll pick up because it looks like that’s the first volume. That’s why I want to do a Flash Secret Origin because I like those origin stories. I think they’re timeless and I also think that the Flash Secret Origin will be one of those books that you can hand to anybody.

There’s no word on the artist or the timeline for this book — but let me put it like this: Ivan Reis did the art on Green Lantern: Secret Origin, and now he’s working on a little book you may have heard about called Blackest Night. (Y’know, the highest selling book every month it’s come out.) But even outside of an artistic proving ground, this is really his big chance to distill all the main qualities of Barry Allen and give the character an emotional through-line to run along. What say you, ‘Rama readers? Who is Barry Allen? And how do you feel about this potentially character-shaping story?

[Hat tip to SpeedForce.org]

This seems like a good excuse to renew my call for a Hostess ad trade paperback collection: Check out “Crisis on Earth-Twinkie!”

Soon to be followed by “Cat Week” and “Matt Week”: The fine folks at Living Between Wednesdays follow last week’s zany Fat Week with Hat Week. First up? A recounting of that one time that Ben Grimm wore a shape-shifting alien as a top hat all night, and a look at some of the terrible hats that a superhero fan can buy and wear to prove that they like a particular superhero and that they have no taste.

“We’ve been pouring through the library of 7,000 Marvel characters looking for the next ‘Spider-Man’”: That’s Gary Marsh, entertainment president and chief creative officer of Disney Channels Worldwide, as quoted by The Hollywood Reporter in this story about upcoming Disney Channel projects. You’ve gotta admire Marsh’s enthusiasm, but I’m pretty sure Marvel’s been pouring through that same catalog looking for the next Spider-Man themselves for about 30 years now, and haven’t found him yet. (Also, shouldn’t that be “poring” instead of “pouring?”)

So, the old New Avengers are the new New Avengers?: Marvel keeps dribbling out Avengers line-up news, and so far the New Avengers team looks like it consists of Wolverine, Spider-Man, shirtless, nipple-less Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. All of whom have been in New Avengers for…ever?

No, no there is not: “Is there gold in Golden Age comic books?”

The Flash…?: “What Will The Flash Movie Be About?”

Is the Marvel Universe the Jewish Narnia?: Spencer Ackerman says it is.

If you like what you’ve read so far (c’mon, how can you not?) totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

According to UGO.com, HBO is in the works of producing a pilot as well as nine episodes for one of modern fantasy’s most cherished stories, A Game of Thrones, which is part one of the seven books in “A Song of Fire and Ice” series. Whenever I would have had to wait for the next Wheel of Time book, I would pick up a book from this series. It’s not so much sword and sorcery (especially in the first books) as it is, say, the Sopranos.

The plot is thick and sometimes hard to describe to non-readers. The best way I can summarize is that there are two continents and accounts a war among competing families for control of those as well as what are called the Seven Kingdoms. Some plots are intertwined and makes for some good story-telling.

Notable names attached include Sean Bean cast as Lord Eddard Stark (who has plenty of nerd credentials) and Lena Headey (Sarah Connor, from TV’s Sarah Connor Chronicles) as Cersei, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

No word yet on when the series will air. I’ll be sure to stay tuned.

You’ve probably already seen the above image, which is apparently the cover of Marvel’s April-shipping Fallen (although Previews helpfully points out that that’s not actually the final title), by the red-hot creative team of artist Tom Raney and writer To Be Announced. The image, which will presumably have the black portion filled in before publication, is by Leinil Yu.

Whatever the book is called, whoever’s writing it and whoever’s on the cover, it’s a follow-up to Siege. The main site already posted this, but I’ll re-post the only partially “classified” solicit here:

The SIEGE has ended and taken its toll on both sides of the battle field. The event seven years in the making has claimed many lives, and in this, its final chapter, a universe comes together to mourn (CLASSIFIED). The shocking death that ended the fight and gave birth to a new Heroic Age is remembered as a writer (CLASSIFIED) returns to lead the farewells.

So who is the “shocking death” of this latest superhero event? I don’t know. Probably not Spider-Man, Thor, Mr. Fantastic, Doctor Doom or Black Widow (I think), as they’re handling the body.

I’m going to go ahead and guess Hank Pym because a) I don’t remember seeing him in any of the 500 teasers for the 14 Avengers titles that are coming up and, more importantly, b) no one anywhere likes him—not in our universe, and not in the Marvel Universe.

Oh, I know the solicit says the universe is mourning him, but the universe is probably just being polite. And yeah, all those hands do seem to be somehat lovingly handling the body on that cover, but context is everything—perhaps Spider-Man, Thor and the gang just got done throttling Hank Pym on the cover…?

Anyway, that’s my guess.

Meanwhile, the House of Ideas’ Distinguished Competition recently had a very serious, very dramatic shocking death scene demonstrating that—Bam! Biff! Pow!—comics aren’t just for kids anymore.

(Spoiler for Justice League: Cry for Justice, after the jump.)

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Little Nothings: Uneasy Happiness
Written & Illustrated by Lewis Trondheim
Translated Joe Johnson
Published by NBM

Trondheim’s comic diary remains a true comic treat. Each page acts as a stand-alone observation on life, as seen through the mildly sardonic, self-deprecating prism of one of the world’s best cartoonists.

In the third collection of Little Nothings, Trondheim continues his world traveling, hitting Angoulême, Fiji and Italy (Florence and Venice, specifically) and wry observations on life. Exhibiting the same hypochondria and view of the world through geek-tinged glasses that marked previous strips, Trondheim continues to find small pleasures in a world of sharks, poverty and other problems bigger than him.

A handful of strips seem to suffer slightly from culture divide, but Trondheim’s brilliance lies in his ability to uncover the undeniable humanity in himself. He remarks how old friends are getting on, only to reflect that he must be getting on as well. He obsessively sets his luggage locks to zeroes; he’s astonished by his own optimism and theorizes over the evolution of suppositories. Every success is offset by a self-loathing criticism, and every failure is countered by a sense that tomorrow offers more opportunities.

Watercolor adds an element of soft and human reflection to each strip, a lightness suited to Trondheim’s easy-going observations. His anthropomorphic figures are well designed, easy to recognize, and subtly expressive. Trondheim erases divides such as nationality or race, leaving us with the interactions and observations of a duck-man. His panels, lacking borders, spill out into the world, enforcing the reality of his observances. It’s just great art, perfectly suited for his deadpan delivery, yet sufficiently emotive to carry the most subtle emotion.

Lewis Trondheim is one of the world’s most respected and acclaimed cartoonists.  Little Nothings remains his most personal work, a collection of observations and personal outlooks, self-effacingly and ironically (litter is better when it’s biodegradable!) hilarious. So long as Trondheim continues creating work as strong as Uneasy Happiness, the comics world will be a bright place.

Find out more about Global Freezing here on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays or at ComicsByEgg.com.

For those of you who have been able to pick up your copies of DC: First Wave #1, get ready to get some commentary!

Newly minted DC co-published Jim Lee and CCO Geoff Johns will be doing a read-along for the new book on Twitter starting at 3pm EST TODAY! All you have to do is follow the hashtag #DCReader. Alternately, you can follow each of the creators at GeoffJohns0 or JimLee00. Is DanDidio000 in the offing?

Additionally, The Source reports that starting on April 7th, they will host a Twitter contest on the DC Nation Twitter page, giving out signed copies of Johns and Francis Manapul’s new Flash series. All I can say is, DC upping its presence on Twitter can only help the brand, so it’s nice to see them jumping into this social networking pond a bit more.