Check it out: June 2009 will see the release of the sequel to 2007’s Transformers, a movie about cute and cuddly giant robots. Apparently, its full title will be Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The Fallen? That’s a relatively recent addition to the Transformers mythology from 2003 Transformers: The War Within comic book from Dreamwave Productions, which takes place during the Cybertronian War a long, long time before their arrival on Earth. According to his wikipedia entry: One of the original thirteen Transformers created by Primus, the robot who would become the Fallen betrayed his creator by siding with Primus’s dark twin, the malevolent planet-eater, Unicron. In the final battle between Primus and Unicron, the Fallen fell victim to the same fate as his master, sucked through a black hole into another dimension. However, while Unicron emerged into another universe, the Fallen was not so fortunate, finding himself trapped in […]
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They Come From The 31st Century
Every year since season 4 of Smallville, I used to check out the first few episodes to see if it grabbed me. But the novelty was gone, and even the inclusion of Kara Zor-El in season 7 wasn’t enough to sustain my attention. Season 8 however is a whole new ball game. I’ve not missed a single episode. Inclusion of new character Davis Bloom that eventually turns out to be Doomsday – which reads terribly as a concept on paper, but is pulled off adequately. A new job at the Daily Planet and a burgeoning romance with Lois – including humorous lively banter instead of the unbearable melodrama with Lana. More DC Comics characters as guest stars like Plastique and Maxima. And after the mid-season break, for the first time ever: the live action appearance of none other than the founding members of the Legion of Super-Heroes, flight rings and […]
Continue readingAn Array of Questions Concerning Youth
Is this young Remy LeBeau, the Ragin’ Cajun? [[image:weaponx01.jpg:Gambit:center:0]] Is this a young Victor Creed? [[image:weaponx02.jpg:Sabretooth:center:0]] Is this a young Fred Dukes? [[image:weaponx03.jpg:Blob:center:0]] Is this a young pre-cancer scarred Wade Wilson? [[image:weaponx04.jpg:Deadpool:center:0]] Is this a teenaged diamond-skinned Emma Frost? [[image:weaponx05.jpg:White Queen:center:0]] Is this a very young Ororo Munroe? [[image:weaponx06.jpg:Storm:center:0]] and finally, bringing it all together in his new movie out next May, is this a young, pre-Logan, pre-adamantium skeleton James Howlett himself? [[image:weaponx07.jpg:Weapon X:center:0]] Snikt.
Continue readingDiedrich Bader Takes Over The Cowl
There is a new Batman animated series in town, and since I’m still not back from lunch and I agree with every word written by Shane about it, I’ll just hand over the microphone to him: [[image:braveandthebold01.jpg:Ollie and Bruce:right:0]]Sherman, set the wayback machine to circa 1985, and a 4 year old Shane is taken to a local department store. Now, it’s lost to the ages, but he must have been aware of Batman via The Superfriends, or the deal Shell had with giving away DC Superhero figures with a fill up (I think I had 2 of everyone). But this fateful day, Shane got his very first Batman comic. It was complimentary that day, and involved 2 stories I can barely remember. One had him facing a fake Wayne Manor, full of androids created by Hugo Strange. The other was the one that sticks more in my mind. Simple grunt […]
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Oh, Snap!
My old Boba Fett figure and Irfan’s new Hulk figure act out the final fate of the galaxy’s most feared bounty hunter.
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I Want To Play In This Campaign
PVP Online‘s latest comic regales us with a description of one of the greatest ideas for an RPG campaign. I believe I’d very much like to play Jesse Mach of Street Hawk in that campaign. Anyone else willing to be Stringfellow Hawke, B.J McKay, Sheriff Lobo and Colt Seavers travelling the country to thwart the evil plans of an evil Mr. Belvedere? We’d have the Street Hawk, Airwolf and Sheriff Lobo’s police cruiser positioned inside B.J. McKay’s 18-wheeler, ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice, like The Highwayman series. We’ll be fighting wave after wave of Melmackian troops led by Gordon “ALF” Shumway, under the direct command of Mr. Belvedere’s lieutenant Arnold of Diff’rent Strokes. “Whatchoo talkin’ about, ALF?” You know you want to play this.
Continue readingTwo Mediums: A Visual Comparison
Last year I wrote about the upcoming Watchmen movie to be directed by Zack Snyder. Today, I finally saw a trailer. I’ve been had by trailers before, so there’s still a chance that the actual movie might still suck. But still I’m an optimist. When I first saw the trailer in High-definition Quicktime, I knew I had to make a comparison of the shots in the trailer and panels in the actual Watchmen comics. Then I thought, why not do it here in this weblog. Enough gab. Enjoy the images, starting with Mister Blake here: [[image:watchmen_comp01a.jpg:The Comedian’s last laugh:center:0]] [[image:watchmen_comp01b.jpg:John Winchester himself:center:0]] Here’s the Comedian during the Vietnam War. [[image:watchmen_comp02a.jpg:Superheroes in a war:center:0]] [[image:watchmen_comp02b1.jpg:Burning the Viet Cong:center:0]] [[image:watchmen_comp02b2.jpg:Sam and Dean says, ‘Dad?’:center:0]] Jon returns, after a fashion: [[image:watchmen_comp03a.jpg:Yes. It’s a blue peener. What of it?:center:0]] [[image:watchmen_comp03b.jpg:No blue peener here, though:center:0]] Doctor Manhattan takes Vietnam: [[image:watchmen_comp04a.jpg:I still remember this powerful image […]
Continue readingNot So Jolly Green Giant – An Incredible Hulk Review
[[image:hulk01.jpg:Holy crap! It’s Bill Bixby’s Zombie!:left:0]]The new movie from Marvel Studios entitled The Incredible Hulk has been released. The movie is about a man who has been altered by an overdose of gamma radiation causing him to transform into the nine feet tall, green-skinned monstrous creature known as the Hulk. The movie is directed by Louis Leterrier and stars Academy Award winning actor Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, Liv Tyler as Betty Ross, William Hurt as General “Thunderbolt” Ross, Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky and Tim Blake Nelson as Samuel Sterns. Ty Burrell also makes an appearance as psychiatrist Dr. Leonard Samson. Oh, who am I kidding. This isn’t really a review for the unwashed masses. This is me hulking out comic book geek style over an awesome comic book-turned-movie, which is in my opinion, a hundred times better than the 2003 Ang Lee movie only entitled Hulk which I […]
Continue readingOf Romance, Sarcasm, Math and Language
Once upon a time I mentioned about a comic strip in this entry. Since then I’ve found out (for quite some time now) that the webcomic in question is xkcd – a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language. Usually the strip has only from one to four panels per comic. But once in a while they do epic storylines like the following one. [[image:xkcd-manwhofellsideways.gif:Strip originally conceived in conversation with Jeph Jacques. Soon to be a major motion picture.:center:0]] To learn what happens in the end, click here for the full strip. Here are a couple more favourites: The Words that End in GRY Tesla Coil Bass Network Ninja Turtles And the prophetic classic: Action Movies, which we finally got after a fashion in the form of this TV show which I wrote about earlier.
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Wait! WHO Wears Ten Rings? – An Iron Man Review
I don’t monitor Iron Man as close as say Spider-Man or the X-Men growing up. However, I do know what he’s all about. I’ve checked Armor Wars out of Perth Library (again, that’s Scotland and not Australia) and read it entirely. Two of the most iconic Iron Man cover for me is the “Demon in the Bottle” cover and the one where “Stark” in the Stark Enterprises logo is replaced with “Stane”. Earlier tonight, we went to catch Iron Man (on opening day) at Cineleisure. I’m not going to talk about the plot of the movie. It’s a basic origins movie with a battle with a bad guy. It’s not high literature, but it’s a great action movie with lots of fun moments throughout. The Iron Man origin in the movie is transplanted from the original comic book location of Vietnam to Afghanistan. So, I’m just going to list out […]
Continue readingLegion of Three Worlds
I’ve always been a Legion fanboy, having first read the Legion of Super-Heroes back in the late 70s-early 80s. Having started relatively late, all that came before was compressed and presented to me by the Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes mini-series. After writing last year’s Green Lantern Corps epic The Sinestro Corps War, Geoff Johns is back with veteran artist George Perez with something that knocked me unconscious for a minute… Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds. Here’s a tidbit from the interview at Newsarama: Newsarama: Let’s just start up front and say what people are probably thinking, Geoff. Three Legions! When someone starts reading Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, is there anything they have to read first? Maybe they should read your Action Comics story that included the Legion of Super-Heroes? Or study up on Legion history? Geoff Johns: If you want, sure, but you don’t have […]
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Green Lantern Corps – Roll Out!
You know that one of the lifeforms in the universe that most deserve the Green Lantern Corps power ring is the guy depicted on the left. He has no self-doubt. He has no quantifiable fear. The only thing he’ll pause to is to see if an upcoming battle will have unacceptable collateral damage. But if the collateral damage is acceptable, any enemies (Sinestro Corps, I’m looking at you) will have a Lantern-powered energon sword stabbed at their faces. Click on the thumbnail to see the full version. Click here to see a bigger version at deviantArt.
Continue readingBlue Underpants Goes On The Dragon
[[popup:nextwave_foom.jpg:(thumbnail)::left:1]]Since the desktop is deader than a doorknob now, I’ve been using the work laptop for both work and leisure internet use. The current desktop background that greets me every time I boot up the computer right now is… Well, just hit the thumbnail to see it. Please take note that it isn’t the dragon speaking in the picture. The lady, saying all the words in the word balloons, at the head of the fiery trail of the jetpack is Tabitha Smith of Nextwave.
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Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
Who watched and caught a glimpse of the Easter egg in the trailer for Zak Snyder’s new film 300? It’s been all over the internet now so if you’re online most of the time you’d probably have seen a screen capture of it in the last couple of days. Twenty years ago, plus change, Alan Moore wrote a 12 issue mini-series for DC Comics called Watchmen. It was one of the books (along with books such as Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman) that elevated the generally considered lightweight storytelling medium of comic books into serious literature. Twenty years ago, plus change, Alan Moore wrote and Dave Gibbons drew these panels: Last week, it was discovered that this image was slipped into the 300 trailer at 1:52 on the time stamp: Zak Snyder who directed 300 is now slated to direct Watchmen for release in 2008. The image was […]
Continue readingMarvel’s Civil War in 30 Seconds
[[image:nextwave11.jpg:Warren Ellis you sly dog you….:left:0]]Civil War was announced as the Marvel Comics crossover event for 2006-2007. Written by Mark Millar and pencilled by Steve McNiven, whose art I admired since his Sentry story arc on the New Avengers and two issues of Ultimate Secret it was going to be a total revamp of how super-powered heroes will be regarded by the government and the general public in Marvel’s Earth-616. Superhero Registration Act and whatnot. I thought I wouldn’t read too much into it and get the book once it’s been collected into a trade paperback. However, issue #7 was released and it’s difficult not to hear the online rantings of almost everyone if you’re a comic book fan. Anyway if you’re not physically, psychologically or radiologically allergic to spoilers (SPOILERS! Once again in caps for your attention) check out this Civil War in 30 Seconds post from Chris’s Invincible […]
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In the Space of Forty Odd Years
I can’t believe it’s been 43 years between the two images below. Both show the same characters. The first was illustrated by the late great Jack Kirby in 1963 ten years before I was born. The second was drawn by Yanick Paquette in 2006. The first has the members of the original class of Xavier’s school horsing around during training – still in their teens. The second shows the same group of people years later – older, wiser and scarred aplenty – just after the events of the House of M and in the thick of the current Civil War storyline in the Marvel universe.
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