You know when you first sign up for Facebook, before you upload any pictures you have that plain male or female blue and white faceless form? Well if you don’t feel like plastering your face across the internet, might I suggest instead going the less-generic, geek-centric route? Check out these creative Facebook avatars created by graphic designer Ashley Hay.

Very close to the original design, you’ll definitely make a statement placing Frank Castle, the Punisher as your profile picture.

Wolverine showing off his claws in this classic pose.

The Joker’s main squeeze, Harley Quinn, is definitely a stand-0ut avatar (I’m currently using this one.).

Koobecaf sevol annataz!

It’s a’me, MARIO!

For the bounty hunter in you, Boba Fett.

And last but not least, you can still be one of the nameless, faceless masses by choosing this Stormtrooper as your avatar.

Check out these and lots more at Hay’s website.

“Carol Ferris Barbie”: The LA Times‘ Hero Complex column looks at plans for Green Lantern movie tie-in merchandise, while The Beat enters “The Toyetic world of Green Lantern.” In the comics at the moment, there are 7,200 different Green Lanterns, two for each and every “sector” of outer space. I wish someone with the proper licensing rights would do a M.U.S.C.L.E.-like collection of cheap, green, little figures you could collect—imagine, 7,200 individual weirdo space-alien Green Lanterns! In the mean time, I see they have an action figure or sculpture or whatever of Blue Lantern Ganesh, and I have a birthday coming up soon…

“My reaction is about one thing, and one thing only: reading about the planning of wedding”: Nina Stone kinda sorta reviews Adrian Tomine’s Scenes From an Impending Marriage, and has a somewhat unusual reaction—it stresses her out.

Here’s a little something to make you sad: Yikes, check out how high the numbers are in this sales data Kevin Mellon found for certain titles from the late ’70s. (Via either Comics Reporter or Comics Alliance, I forget which).

Diamond’s secret shopper program finds stores are being pretty good about respecting street dates so far: According to this article, anyway.

“Most of them, these days, have art that falls within a specific, limited stylistic range”: Douglas Wolk uses Emma Rios’  artwork in Osborn as a springboard for a discussion of “What Superhero Comics Look Like.” If you ask me, he’s far too kind in his assessment of the “specific, limited stylistic range” of modern superhero comics, staking it out by using some particularly talented artists’ names as pegs, and citing cherry-picked examples of exemplaries of that style (like, it’s not like Frazier Irving, Frank Quitely or even J.H. Williams III have superhero comics showing up in comic shops every month or two or six or 12). But then, nobody asked me. (I’m just volunteering!) Anyway, intersting piece nonetheless, and I a good takeaway seems to be that weshould probably all be reading Osborn.

A month ago, Marion Cotillard announced her pregnancy, so in many fans eyes, that took her off the short list of potential femme fatales when it was announced back in November that The Dark Knight Rises (aka Batman 3) would have two female main characters. Well according to French news site, Le Figaro, that doesn’t seem to be stopping her at all.

In case you don’t speak French, I had Google Chrome help me out with that: “Marion Cotillard in “Batman 3″. The actress, who is expecting a child in the spring with Guillaume Canet, will be scarce this year. She’ll do a single film and her choice fell on Batman 3.”

Now, it’s already speculated that she’ll portray Talia al Ghul, Ra’s al Ghul’s (Liam Neeson from Batman Begins) daughter, but nothing is confirmed so far, especially even if she has a role. Personally, Talia makes the most sense here as Nolan’s trilogy comes full circle. Sure, Catwoman/Selina Kyle, played by Anne Hathaway, is more of a lover, but Talia has always come across as a genuine threat. Could a cameo by Liam Neeson be in the works, too? What do you think, readers?

The Dark Knight Rises opens in theaters July 20th, 2012.

Saturday Night Live has taken note of the various foibles facing the much-maligned Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark before, and this weekend the late-night comedy institution presented the fake law firm of Gublin and Green (right?) focused solely on representing victims of the show, whether you thought it insulted the legacy of Spider-Man or accidentally saw the Green Goblin’s package. Video is below:

Oh hey, never mind all those reports from this morning about Michael Rosenbaum not reprising his Smallville role of Lex Luthor at all during the homestretch of the show’s final season. Word came late Friday via TV Line that Rosenbaum is not as heartless as his fictional alter ego, and will indeed be showing up in the May 13 two-hour season finale. Says Rosenbaum: ““I’m simply doing it for all of the fans out there who made Smallville the great success.” Smart move, since those fans would surely never forgive him if he did not return for the finale. (I’ve been to the Smallville panels at Comic-Con, those fans are intense.)

TV Line also quoted show executive producers Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson, saying, “It feels like the stars are aligning, literally” (though hopefully not in the way some have posited will happen in 2012 at the end of the Mayan calendar). Rosenbaum, who will soon surely be breaking out the clippers, left the series after season seven.

The Marvel broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark can’t seem to catch a break but that doesn’t mean the creators are just going to give up on the $65 million production. They’re now searching for “focus groups” to improve the show.

According to Entertainment Weekly, “In an e-mail sent on Feb. 8 and obtained by EW, people were invited to see either the first or second act separately and then fill out a survey and take part in a 15-minute discussion. In exchange, participants were promised a ‘Spider-Man goodie bag worth over $60.’ A source close to the production verified the email but declined to elaborate on specific issues being addressed by the groups.”

Besides lengthy delays on the show, Turn Off The Dark has received almost all negative reviews from it’s initial performances for eager fans to it’s preview performances for critics just this week. And let’s not forget the terrible injuries that have plagued the cast.

Turn Off The Dark’s official spokesperson, Rick Miramontez, gave EW this statement, “In an effort to gather as much audience feedback as possible the production is continuing to hold focus groups and surveys, just as it has throughout most of its preview period.”

Have any of you seen the show? Do you think it can be fixed by audience feedback or should it be shutdown for good?

…and we don’t know yet what it’s about, or who it’s with. What Marvel has given us thus far, is this:

So, yeah. 2:30 p.m. eastern time on Tuesday, Feb. 15, and Newsarama will be there to bring you all the latest, live. Yesterday, their Next Big Thing call on Moon Knight with Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev and Tom Brevoort revealed the central premise of that May-debuting series — that the title character’s moving to LA, and his multiple personalities will expand to include Captain America, Spider-Man and Wolverine.

“Drawing is generally like digging a ditch…I basically know how far I’ll get each day”: That’s Joe Sacco, talking about how much work and labor is involved in cartooning in this See Magazine article. Adrian Tomine is interviewed for the same piece.

Wait, The Dark Knight and Batman Inc are both off schedule already?: Marc-Oliver Frisch has put together his monthly look at DC Comics’ sales charts for December of last year, which you can read at The Beat. Apparently the company’s top book was the David Finch written and drawn Batman: The Dark Knight #1, the very first issue of which was late, and the second issue of which is still over a month away, three months after the debut of the first issue. I hope this doesn’t date me too much, but when I first started reading Batman comics, they used to be monthly (Actually, I don’t think this matters all that much, as the series seems to really be more of a Finch fan-only title, and there are plenty of other Bat-books with more regular schedules to engage fans and keep the story going; flagship Batman Inc being off-schedule is a bigger concern).

Dwayne McDuffie is awesome: In lieu of linking to almost every one of these, I suppose it would be more efficient to simply say that this year for Black History Month, 4thletter! is highlighting great and influential black comics creators and suggesting bits of their bibliographies to read, so you may want to start visiting it daily (if you don’t already). Today Dwayne McDuffie gets the spotlight. I really like McDuffie; he’s never written anything that made me cry or broke my heart or changed my life or anything, but he’s one of those writers who consistently delivers superior product, and one of the first comics writers that Teenage Caleb finished a book and though, “Wow, that was pretty good,” and then looked at the credits to see who was responsible for making it so good.

“It seems so…redundant now anyway”: That’s Johnny Bacardi on why he’s lost interest in the Ultimate Marvel Universe, give that the Regular Old Marvel Universe has come to resemble it so closely. It’s part of a review of Ultimate Avengers Vs. New Ultimates #1 (which he bravely read despite not having checked in on the UU since Ultimates 2), which itself is part of his regular Confessions of a Comics Shop Junkie review column.

“It just wouldn’t be a holiday at ComicsAlliance without The KGBeast”: Chris Sims presents his annual crop of comic book-themed valentines in the style of the sort elementary school kids pass out during their Valentine’s Day parties. Included are regular Sims targets/topics, and some of the more laughed at characters and events of the last year or so (Yes, Arsenal clutching a dead cat is there).

I woulda guessed 12 issues tops, but Doom Patrol and The Outsiders are still being published: DC has the details of their previously announced Static series, which will be written by Felicia Henderson and drawn by Scott McDaniel and Jonathan Glapion. I was pretty disappointed to see McDaniel’s name in there. I really enjoyed his Nightwing and Batman work way back when, and I still like a lot of what he does, but I think the sorts of assignments he’s been doing the last few years that DC has given him have unfortunately made him seem like The Guy DC Calls When They Don’t Have Much Turnaround Time. Now if cover artist Keron Grant were doing interiors as well, I think we’d really have something here…

“It really is a pity that the appearance of Bane in the wrestler mask has led to many forgetting the mind behind the mask”: Paul Hicks’s latest Uncollected Editions feature at Collected Editions spotlights the first appearance of Bane, from Vengeance of Bane #1 by Chuck Dixon, Graham Nolan and Eduardo Barretto. With an art team like that, of course the book looked great, and I remember liking that issue quite a bit—Bane was certainly a much more interesting character before and during Knightfall than he was after.

I prefer it to the final one, but I’m no editor: Ty Templeton shares an unused, refjected cover from his time on The Batman Adventures. Batman learning to read by reading a book entitled “How To Read” kills me, but then, I’m seeing it now as an old in 2011, not a kid in in 1991 or whenever.

King of the Flies v. 2: The Origin of the World
Written by Pirus
Illustrated by Mezzo
Colored by Ruby
Translated by Helge Dascher
Published by Fantagraphics

Pirus and Mezzo continue their brutal dissection of suburbia in the second of three King of the Flies albums. The creative team, Frenchmen both, craft a tale so universal that a single reference to a Euro is the only element that prevents the story from taking place in any American suburb.

In King of the Flies, Pirus and Mezzo move through their suburban nightmare in ten chapters, seven-page each. Switching narrators, the creators plumb deeper into the disaffected malaise possessing the listless community with each sequence. Prospectless teenagers pursue their own short-sighted desires, while mingling uncomfortably with adults whose limited ambitions and selfish yens provide an ugly mirror to the kids’ futures.

Artist Mezzo fills each panel with moody, sagging, worn-in details, and the book’s flat color palette enforces the rundown quality of the line art. Anger simmers below the surface of each panel, balanced by a resigned ennui. The beauty of King of the Flies: The Origin of the World lies in seeing which way that tenuous tension will fall for each character.

If you’re of a mind for the ugly side of humanity, the despondence of hopeless lives, you won’t find a better comic that Pirus and Mezzo’s King of the Flies. The dialogue crackles, the artwork’s astonishing, and every character’s swirling the drain of life – like a car crash, you won’t be able to look away.

OK, that title might not be official. But word on Latino Review is that Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus, the screenwriters of Captain America: The First Avenger, have already been hired to write a sequel — more than five months before the first Steve Rogers adventure hits the big screen. Of course, this is an unconfirmed report, and as any coffee shop full of disenchanted writers can tell you, just because you’re hired to write a script doesn’t mean it’s going to get made. But, if true, this is definitely a sign of confidence from Marvel Studios on the strength of The First Avenger, implying that they were just as excited over the Super Bowl spot as everyone else was — and, well, a sequel to any comic book movie should obviously be considered at least “probable” at this point.

Captain America: The First Avenger is out July 22.

Nearly a month ago, Conan O’Brien’s superhero alter ego “The Flaming C” was inserted into an episode of Young Justice in the place of Superman — so why not do it again? This time he helps Superboy save a school bus, and then brushes him off. Heat vision, cold shoulder.

The Flaming C, of course, originated from a bit in December when O’Brien visited Bruce Timm at Warner Bros. Animation, since their studio neighbors where Conan is taped. Is a Flaming C action figure from DC Direct far behind?

Whether you’re looking to celebrate with a special someone or commemorate a new phone plan, Archie Comics has you in mind with this deal: the increasingly progressive publisher is running a sale on their digital comics where every individual issue — that’s right, all of ‘em — available through their iPhone app will be 99 cents from now until midnight eastern time on Valentine’s Day (for lonely hearts and/or the calendar-challenged, that’s this coming Monday). More details over here on their official blog.

The sale is not only in honor of Valentine’s Day, but also the iPhone now being available through Verizon Wireless. Last month, Archie Comics announced that all of their titles would be available digitally the same day as their print release as of April.

…and here it is, the first trailer to this summer’s X-Men: First Class. Sure, it’s got clips from the original movies and an audio clip of former president John F. Kennedy, but there’s plenty of new stuff too, including lots of mutant powers on display, what appears to be an early version of the X-Men’s Blackbird jet, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique and Nightcrawler’s dad Azazel teleporting around. Yet the focus is definitely on the relationship between James McAvoy’s Xavier and Michael Fassbender’s Magneto — hey, why are we talking? Watch the trailer:

The movie, directed by Matthew Vaughn and also starring Kevin Bacon and January Jones, is out on June 3. Based on early response, it looks to be swaying some folks who have previously expressed concerns over the film — though, of course, the true test comes in, y’know, actually watching the movie.

Hold onto your hats fanboys and girls, this is a doozy. Apparently “there can be only one” doesn’t apply to screenwriters. Melissa Rosenberg, adapter of the Twilight Saga for the big screen, has taken over writing duties on the new Highlander reboot.

The reboot itself was news to me. I had no idea they were plannning on an updated version of the 1986 Highlander film starring Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Summit, the studio behind the Twilight films, acquired the Highlander rights back in 2008 from Panzer/Davis Productions.

“Art Marcum and Matt Holloway wrote the initial draft while Cormac Wibberley and Marianne Sellek Wibberley also worked on the script,” says THR. Besides the Twilight Saga, Rosenberg has written episodes of the failed Birds of Prey television series as well as Dexter.

Neal Moritz (I Am Legend, The Green Hornet) and Peter Davis are producing the project and Justin Lin (Fast & Furious) is set to direct. Davis was the producer on the original Highlander as well as the subsequent television show and sequels.

So Highlander fans, what do you think of the Twilight screenwriter taking a crack at Connor MacLeod? I’m more than a little concerned. Then again, the last few Highlander movies have been pretty awful, maybe this will breathe some new life into the franchise. At least she’s familiar with immortals, albeit sparkly ones.

Hey, here’s some more news from DC’s trip to Dallas for the ComicsPRO retailer conference, courtesy of their official blog The Source: artist Lee Bermejo is making his writing debut with Batman: Noel, an original graphic novel with a, wait for it, Christmas theme. Yep, he’s illustrating it as well. No release date has been set, but we’re guessing — and this is just a guess — around Christimas-time.

Bermejo is probably best known for his two high-profile collaborations with Brian Azzarello, 2005′s Lex Luthor: Man of Steel and 2008′s Joker. Says DC’s VP of art direction and design Mark Chiarello in DC’s blog post, “I knew Lee could deliver the goods artistically, but I never knew he was also this great of a writer!”

A full look at the cover (image is kind of small, but the best we have right now) is after the jump.

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A mid-life crisis can strike at any time—in fact, for the semi-fictitous version of cartoonist Joe Ollmann in Mid-Life, it seems like he’s been having them fairly regularly since he was seventeen, and alludes to several of them throughout this book.

This book chronicles one of those crises. In his forties with two adult daughters from his previous marriage and a baby son with his new, much-young wife, the (hopefully very) fictitious John is having all sorts of existential problems regarding his life as a father, a husband, a cat-owner, a boss, and employee and a man, problems that eventually reach a crisis point when he becomes unhealthily focused on Sherri Smalls, a Raffi-like children’s entertainer he discovers while watching a video with his infant son.

Unlike many similar comics of the autobiographical or (seriously, hopefully quite) fictionalized autobiographical genre, the grumpy, bitter, aging protagonist shares the spotlight with the object of his misguided affection.

The Sheri character exists as a sort of co-protagonist, narrating chapters that chronicle her own mid-life crisis—which, for her, comes at age 33—and she finds the opportunity to sign with a network to do her own Saturday morning TV show a sort of crossroads in her life. Will she sell out and live comfortably, or will she chuck it all and follow her dream of being a singer/songwriter for grown-ups? And will she ever meet the older man of her dreams?
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DC is over at the ComicsPRO retailer conference in Dallas, and putting out some intriguing scoops on their Source blog, including the solicitation for May’s Flashpoint #1. And, well, here it is:

FLASHPOINT #1
Written by GEOFF JOHNS
Art and cover by ANDY KUBERT
1:25 Variant cover A by ANDY KUBERT
Variant cover B by IVAN REIS and GEORGE PEREZ

Everything You Know Will Change in a Flash!

Not a dream, not an imaginary story, not an elseworld. This is a Flash Fact: When Barry Allen wakes at his desk, he discovers the world has changed. Family is alive, loved ones are strangers, and close friends are different, gone or worse. It’s a world on the brink of a cataclysmic war – but where are Earth’s Greatest Heroes to stop it? It’s a place where America’s last hope is Cyborg, who hopes to gather the forces of the Outsider, the Secret 7, S!H!A!Z!A!M!, Citizen Cold and other new and familiar-yet-altered faces.

It’s a world that could be running out of time, if The Flash can’t find the villain who altered the time line!

Welcome to FLASHPOINT!

On sale MAY 11 = 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US = Rated T

The publisher also added that each issue of Flashpoint is 40 pages at $3.99, and all tie-ins and one-shots will continue to “draw the line at $2.99.”

Written and created by Brian Andersen, art, colors and letters by the talented Celina Hernandez. For more So Super Duper go to:www.sosuperduper.com!

Jon Favreau announced back in December that he wouldn’t be returning to direct Iron Man 3, and following a post from The Hollywood Reporter, we now have our first indication of who might be: Shane Black, the Hollywood vet who wrote late ’80s/early ’90s action flicks Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout and Last Action Hero. The report stresses that though Black has talked with Marvel Studios, he’s “far from a sure thing,” and that other, as-yet unknown, candidates are also being considered — though it is said that if Black does get the director job, he’ll likely also write a draft.

The only directorial credit thus far in Black’s career is Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a movie that happened to also star Robert Downey Jr. Black’s not without comic book movie experience — his current project is penning the adaptation of the manga series Death Note.

Though not much of anything is known definitively about Iron Man 3 at this point, we do have a targeted release date: May 3, 2013.

Looks like we’ve got a new “Most Likely to Direct NBC’s Wonder Woman Pilot” candidate, according to a report from Deadline: Jeffrey Reiner, who brings with him a good deal of TV experience, working on everything from Friday Night Lights to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (really). He’s got three pilots under his belt — Trauma, The Event and Caprica — all of which made it to series, even if they didn’t stick around too much longer after that. Sounds like it’s very nearly a done deal, but these things can and often change.

Case in point: The previous “odds-on favorite” was Charlie’s Angels director McG, who’s now unavailable due to a feature commitment (jargon translation: he’s gotta go shoot a movie). Is Reiner the right choice? Tell us why/why not.