Bloomberg is a busy news organization, and perhaps that explains why they were both late and short-handed against the DC Bullets on Thursday afternoon. The game wound up only going five and a half innings, and three Bullets had to play for Bloomberg to give the opposition a full line-up. Rookies Travis Hastback and John Choi, lacking seniority on the DC team, were optioned to Bloomberg, as was good-sport Jeff Boison. The trio proved very effective at run-stopping for the Bloomberg squad, but the Bullets eked out a 6-4 win.

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Has it been ten years already? My God, how time moves. Tonight is the final episode of Smallville, a series that began with the idea that it would show a young Clark Kent years before he would operate as a superhero, when he was just a teenager in Smallville, Kansas. Initially, the show went by a rule of “no capes, no tights.” Some familiar faces would show up, but in normal clothing rather than colorful costumes.

As the years went on, that rule began to weaken and then got thrown out the window. For the past few seasons, Smallville has taken place primarily in the city of Metropolis and has featured a large host of super-villains and superheroes. Let’s see how some of these comic book characters translated to live action, shall we?

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A bid has been made and accepted to create two more Terminator films with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Deadline says producer Megan Ellison was one of two finalists in the auction this week. “The auction at the time was for a guarantee for at least half of the $29.5 million paid by hedge fund Pacificor to pull the franchise out of bankruptcy,” they said, though it was unclear exactly how much it actually went for.

The films previous rights owner Halcyon Group had gone bankrupt in 2010 leading to the hedge fund Pacificor purchasing the rights for $29.5 million plus the condition that Halcyon would receive $5 million for each sequel that is produced. The current deal apparently came down to Ellison’s Annapurna Films and Lionsgate.

Director Justin Lin (Fast Five) is attached to the two films which will star the Governator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger. As far as plotlines go, Deadline wrote, “the expectation is the Skynet storyline will be wrapped up in two features.” The last film in the franchise, Terminator Salvation, did not star Schwarzenegger although it used his likeness.

Ellison was a producer on True Grit and is currently shopping around Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s search for Osama Bin Laden film.

It seems like Marvel has been trying to put out more than twelve issues of their “monthly” series a year for awhile now; I have fond memories of particular books going bi-weekly during the summer as a kid (Even if, I admit, the original Genosha story did nothing for me in Uncanny X-Men at the time), and more recently we’ve seen the Brian Michael Bendis/Mark Bagley Ultimate Spider-Man and Greg Pak Incredible Hulks – amongst others – step up their releases. Well, expect to see more and more Marvel books follow suit. Last week’s Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man conference call had Bendis say that the new title would ship more than 12 times a year, with editor Mark Paniccia adding “It’s the same thing across the [Ultimate] line,” and now Tom Brevoort is saying similar things about the Marvel Universe books on his Formspring. In response to a question about whether any other Marvel flagship titles could follow Amazing Spider-Man to a twice-monthly format, he said “You will see us striving to put out more than 12 issues of our core series in a given year, but not necessarily anywhere near to 24,” and later clarified Incredible Hulks‘ frequency by explaining, “It didn’t really go twice-monthly, we just started publishing it more aggressively in general, as we’re going to try to do with more of our core titles in the future.”

I wonder if Bendis can handle writing more than 24 Avengers books (Admittedly, split between regular and New) a year…?

Tonight’s television highlights feature the end of Smallville, after ten long years as television’s premiere dose of superheroics. It’s outlasted Heroes and No Ordinary Family (Actually, is No Ordinary Family still on? I have developed a protective amnesia about the show, I admit) and set the bar impressively high for superpowered shows wanting to set themselves up as long-running in the future. While never a ratings powerhouse, it’s definitely a established a faithful fanbase over the last decade, which leads me to wonder: How long until we see DC Comics spin off a “Season 11″ series?

Unless tonight’s finale definitively ends Clark’s story – and I think we can all agree that’s not going to happen as much as it’s fun to think otherwise – the idea of continuing the show’s continuity must have occurred to DC at some point over the last year: We’ve seen DC successfully launch a Batman Beyond series (successful enough that we’re also getting a Superman Beyond spin-off, even though it won’t be connected to Grant Morrison and Doug Mahnke’s Final Crisis series of the same name) recently, and “official” comic book follow-ups to Buffy, Angel and Jericho, amongst others (DC is even getting in on the action, albeit slowly, with the long-promised Pushing Daisies continuation, if it ever appears).

Not only that, it’s not as if DC doesn’t know the characters involved, or that Smallville doesn’t offer up the possibility of an entirely new line if the series is successful (Think of all the guest stars the show has had). We’ve even had Smallville comics before, and if they weren’t exactly sales smashes, any continuation would probably be more likely to entice the fanbase into the stores this time around. So… what’s to stand in the way, exactly? Come on, DC: Won’t somebody saaaaaaaaaave Smallville?

Okay, so this is interesting. From The Source’s solicit information for the final two issues of Flashpoint:

IMPORTANT NOTE: Because of its impact on the DC Universe, FLASHPOINT #5 is the only title that DC Comics is currently soliciting to arrive in stores on August 31.

First thought: Well, that’s one way to get around those five-week months. Second, less snarky thought: What, exactly, does the final issue of Flashpoint do that means it deserves to be the only DC book in an entire week (presuming that solicit isn’t poorly written and actually just means “DC Universe title”)? We’ve been promised massive impact from the event before, and just yesterday, Vaneta’s interview with Geoff Johns on the main site had this exchange:

Nrama: So much has changed in the Flashpoint universe, and most people think there’s no way this will stick. But I saw a comment online that said, “People saying it won’t matter because it’s just an Elseworlds tale clearly do not know Geoff Johns very well.” Would you agree with that statement?

Johns: Yes.

Or DC. I’ve said this before, but the first rule about Flashpoint is, don’t talk about what comes after Flashpoint.

Nrama: They’re certainly sticking to the rule, because I can’t get any DC creators to tell me what they’re writing or drawing in September.

Johns: Good.

So… clearly, the DCU we know won’t be entirely restored as a result of the event, but have we seen anything in Flashpoint‘s first issue to suggest what the post-Flashpoint DCU is going to look like? Because of Morrison’s ongoing Batman plans, I think we can cross off the alt-Batman replacing the one we know and love, and I’m guessing that Brightest Day wouldn’t spend a year rebuilding Aquaman just swap him with his Flashpoint version, but is everyone else up for grabs? Personally, I wouldn’t be too opposed to seeing S!H!A!Z!A!M! crossover into regular continuity, based on their first appearance, I admit…

They made a Scott Pilgrim videogame, so maybe a Prison Pit one’s not out of the question: Fantagraphics’ Flog blog shares a link to a piece of fan art presenting the 8-bit videogame opening screen to a videogame that doesn’t exist…but should.

I don’t know how to pronounce it, but I like it: Down The Tubes has details on a new edition of  work featuring Sláine, Pat Mills and Simon Bisley’s Celtic Conan-type, coming to the U.S. Also on Down The Tubes, there are some details about a biography of a Terry Nation, a screenwriter for the old Dr. Who series, entitled The Man Who Invented Daleks. I barely even know what a Dalek is—Dr. Who is one of several large blind-spots in my nerd-culture knowledge—but that looks like a pretty neat book.

Personally, I would have picked a series with far fewer issues: At Chasing Amazing, Mark Ginocchio chronicles his quest to collect every single issue of Amazing Spider-Man.

Wonder Woman’s costumes on real women: As Jill already  mentioned, NBC has apparently passed on the much-discussed Wonder Woman series. I’m kind of disappointed; whether it would have been great, awful or somewhere in between, I was at least very curious about it, and I can’t imagine it being any worse than all those other terrible live-action TV superhero shows of the last few years. Anyway,  Noah Berlatsky has an interesting piece over at Comixology regarding Wonder Woman’s costuming, and how what works fine for a drawing doesn’t always work well for a real woman. The TV Wondy was the launching point of the article, but H.G. Peter’s original costume design and art is the focus.

And finally, speaking of comics and television…: The LA Times asks, “Will comic book hero Stan Lee turn into a zombie for ‘Walking Dead’?” and The Courier and Mail is among the venues reporting that Dynamite, Kevin Smith and Jonathan Lau are making a Bionic Man comic book (as you no doubt already saw on the main site).

The Nobody
Written & Illustrated by Jeff Lemire
Lettered by Sean Konot
Published by DC/Vertigo

In Jeff Lemire’s first book from Vertigo The Nobody, he appropriates the protagonist of H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man to explore a theme obviously dear to Lemire, the interconnectedness and occasional small-mindedness of small towns. John Griffen, bandaged head to toe, arrives in Large Mouth, where everyone knows everyone, checks into the local hotel and stays to himself.

Lemire explores Griffen’s tenuous friendships and the community’s complicated sense of acceptance and respect for privacy against a simultaneous and conflicted urge to question this stranger in their midst. Like his Essex County books and his Vertigo serial Sweet Tooth, Lemire’s The Nobody moves slowly, contemplatively, focusing on the small moments in ordinary lives.

With his rough-hewn artwork, Lemire captures the worn-in quality of Large Mouth and its residents, and his natural dialogue draws readers into their lives quickly. The characters aren’t the deepest you’ll meet, but Lemire provides a range of personalities, and the major players have a few wrinkles to keep them interesting. The haunting plot pulls readers in, and everything builds to a tragic, and effective climax.  The Nobody‘s another worthwhile offering from a cartoonist with a talent for mood and small-town exploring.

We heard it might be the case yesterday but now it’s official, Wonder Woman will not be a series on NBC.

NBC held more upfronts today and Entertainment Weekly has learned the network passed on David E. Kelley’s Wonder Woman pilot. A relief to some for sure but for a bummer for others who were looking forward to seeing a live-action Amazon Princess again. The pilot starred Adrianne Palicki as Diana, Elizabeth Hurley and Cary Elwes.

EW says there’s no official reason why the show was passed over but that “scuttlebutt reveals the pilot earned mixed reviews at test screenings. And then there was all the online blow back about the costume – which seemed to de-emphasize the patriotism and play up the comic’s Greek mythology. Ultimately, the wardrobe department went back to the drawing board but that didn’t seem to save the project.”

In lieu of the superhero adaptation, NBC has picked up The Playboy Club, Awake, Grimm, Whitney, Up All Night, Smash and Prime Suspect.

Are you upset or happy the show did not get picked up for a series? Would you still like to see Wonder Woman in live action? Perhaps a movie is in the cards after all.

The X-Men: First Class promotion train keeps right on chugging, this time showing a full scene from the movie. In the scene, Charles Xavier and Raven Darkholme have a sit-down meeting with the CIA to reveal their powers. The CIA agents are nonplussed by the demonstration, until, that is, Raven stands up and becomes… well, why not watch the clip and find out?

Is this marketing blitz of new clips making you more excited for the film? Sound off below!

Bleeding Cool catches up with Bill Sienkiewicz about the leaked concept art for Wonder Woman: Bondage, a maybe-possibly pitch for DC Comics with Frank Miller writing from the middle of last decade:

The image was done by me to visually test the water, so to speak and my own comfort level,  if not everyone else’s, about how far it could be pushed. I did some others that were far more extreme, no one has seen those, this one was relatively tame by comparison… The piece was never intended to be seen by anyone else, but of course, someone bought the original, and despite assurances from everyone who had seen the piece that they would not pass it along (I should have known better, it was too provocative NOT to make the rounds)… ah well, so it goes. But as for actually doing the series – who knows?

Hey, Bill: I know. It will never happen. It was a series called Wonder Woman: Bondage. That should’ve been your clue that it would never happen right there. Admittedly, DC has at times seemed as if it would do anything to try and make Wonder Woman sell better – Hi, JMS! – and also whatever it took to get new Frank Miller superhero work – Looking good there, All-Star Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder – but there is almost no way in the world that DC would have ever greenlit what would’ve been so controversial a series as this promised to be. If Superman renouncing his citizenship is so controversial that DC goes into shock, imagine what Fetish Wonder Woman would’ve done to the Concerned Citizens Of America…

A listing has shown up on Amazon for Castle: Dark Storm, a 112-page Marvel hardcover coming in September from the rather notable team of Brian Michael Bendis, Kelly Sue DeConnick and Lan Medina. No further details are listed, but it doesn’t take a Kate Beckett-level detective to figure out that this is probably exactly what it looks like, a graphic novel based on the ABC series Castle. Bendis has been mentioning the Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic-starred series a lot on his Twitter account in recent months, and it’s produced by ABC Studios — who, of course, share a Disney-shaped common corporate owner with Marvel.

Of course, sometimes weird things — or deliberately misleading things, like the image of a post-Civil War Captain America-ized Iron Man armor — have a habit of showing up on Amazon, so until there’s an official announcement of the project, file this one under “probably.”

(Hat tip to the Bendis board.)

Just as Marvel’s superheroes all initially shared a common thread of scientific exploration (even if it was “scientific exploration gone wrong,” as in the Hulk and Spider-Man’s cases. And, yes, I know that Thor doesn’t count – Let’s call him the exception that proves the rule), one thing that Flashpoint #1 pushed home to me as I read it yesterday was the importance of the role – or, more appropriately, absence – of parents to the core DC superheroes.

Admittedly, the death of Barry Allen’s mother was a Geoff Johns-created retcon in The Flash: Rebirth (Isn’t she alive in “The Trial of The Flash” storyline that ended Barry’s original run, or am I entirely misremembering?), but it got me thinking: These days, we have seen that Hal Jordan is in large part motivated by seeing his father’s death at an early age (Is that another Johns retcon?). Both Batman and Superman are not only orphans, but have origins distinctly related to the events that killed their parents. Wonder Woman, famously, only has one parent unless you count the gods that brought the magic clay to life (Also, poor Diana has to continually suffer through “My Mother is dead!” stories whenever writers want cheap emotional impact, it seems), and Aquaman’s parentage informs the character’s status quo of belonging to both the ocean and the land at the same time.

Is it just strange coincidence that parents play such heavy roles in the origins and motivations of these characters, or is there something else going on here? All of them were created to be kids’ characters, after all, so that has to play into things; is Johns riffing off a parental focus that was always there?

Oh, to be in London on July 4th…

…That’s when Alan Moore will be appearing at the prestigious British Library for a (cheap!) 90 minute conversation with comedian Stewart Lee about, according to the official description, “many aspects of the real and unreal, time and space, people and places.” He may be as mad and cantankerous as a badger, but there’s no denying that he’s a remarkably smart, charismatic and compelling speaker. I wonder how cheap airfares are that time of year…

(H/T: The Forbidden Planet Blog.)

Comic Alliance’s David Uzumeri notices something interesting about Marvel’s $2.99 books:

While they haven’t commented publicly on the issue, a number of recent $2.99-priced Marvel Comics titles have had a reduced page count of 20 pages of story from the previously-standard 22 pages… A Marvel spokesman declined to comment on the issue, and I can understand why this isn’t something Marvel would want to advertise, since there’s no immediate candy coating like the price reduction DC offered from $3.99 to $2.99 when they lowered their page count. Prices on Marvel books appear to be staying at their current level, they’re just reducing the page counts on the smaller titles to cut costs.

The cynical thought would be that, seeing a lack of backlash for DC doing this linewide at the start of the year – even though certain books still feature stories over 20 pages long – Marvel has decided to quietly test the 20 page story with a number of titles before going to a larger roll-out later this year. It’ll be interesting to see if the publisher does end up making this into a new length linewide, considering some of the scorn Marvel creators and staff poured on the idea when DC announced it last year. Even more interesting would be what would happen if Marvel were to roll out a 20 page story length to its $3.99 books, as well as the $2.99 ones…

I’m just going to say this: Chris Samnee is one of the best comic artists out there right now. The daily(?) sketches he posts on his blog not only prove that, they also make you wish that someone could clone him so that every single comic could be Samnee’d. Seriously, check these out and tell me that you’re not in awe: (more…)

We’re still a few days away from the official NBC upfronts, but rumor has it that David E. Kelley’s Wonder Woman has been picked up by the network – at least, according to TV By The Numbers, which goes on to comment that there’s no information on the show’s scheduling yet. That last part is particularly important, because it leaves open the possibility that the show won’t be getting a full-season order, but instead be commissioned as a mid-season replacement or mini-series pilot. We should know more by May 16th, when NBC announces its fall schedule.

I’m not sure it makes up for no Locke & Key, but it’s something, right?

I’ll admit, I became a lot less excited about DC’s Flashpoint when the sixteen spin-off series (and four additional one-shot spin-offs) were announced. That’s a new record for spin-off titles, as far as I can tell (This year’s Marvel event, Fear Itself, isn’t even close with “just” thirteen spin-offs to date, although there’s still time for it to catch up) and, hopefully, the culmination of what’s become a ridiculous trend for events in recent years. (more…)

The many random superpowers of J’onn J’onnz: Silver Age Comics looks at The Martian Manhunter’s powers as they originally began to emerge. And a few days previous, a look at J’onn’s greatest enemy.

Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, in handsomer days: Sean Kleefeld found some images of Wheeler-Nicholson, the founder of what would become DC Comics, the guy who kinda sorta invented comics and one of the many colorful characters of the Golden Age, and shared them on his blog.

Is the Preist movie based on a “graphic novel”…?: This article about the film based on the manhwa series, published state-side by Tokyopop, refers to the source material is a graphic novel in the headline. It’s one of several I’ve noticed in the last few days to do so. I know the term is a malleable one, but even at its most malleable, I’m not sure it applies here. What do you guys think?

Two rather idiosyncratic reactions to Thor: Law and The Multiverse explores the legal issues raised by the film in a pair of posts,  and Kalinara notes the greater-than-usual female presence in the film.

Yeah, Death Note will do that: Curt Purcell thought he could spend just a few minutes on the addictively suspenseful manga series and walk away.

Neil Young’s Greendale
Based on the album by Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Written by Joshua Dysart
Illustrated by Cliff Chiang
Colored by Dave Stewart
Lettered by Todd Klein
Published by DC/Vertigo

I already reviewed this one a while back, but that was based on a black and white advance copy. I got a permanent edition, finally took time to read it during my 2011 dig-out, and wanted to give some props to Dave Stewart. Greendale‘s a beautifully colored book, soft (maybe a little too soft at times) and organic, warm and inviting. Lots of cool, natural tones.

DC did a very nice job assembling the book also, something I rarely feel they deserve credit for. It’s an attractive package. The script holds up well – Greendale‘s not exactly nuanced, but it’s engaging and fun to read, and my sympathies lie along its message. And Cliff Chiang, man, that dude makes it look fantastic.