GOTHAM Trailer: Fox Wants To Make Me (And Other Bat-Fans) Nuts In A Few Ways (Good & Bad)…

Posted on May 6, 2014 by geelw

Hmmm… this extended trailer for Fox’s upcoming GOTHAM looks REALLY good, but has me concerned about a few things. I dislike the whole concept of these “origin” reworkings because all these writers seem to LOVE throwing together every character they can write in who they think need to be in these shows with an intent to show how they came to be from nearly every angle. Sure, the fact that young Bruce Wayne is probably going to be VERY important to this series is a selling point, but do we REALLY need to see a young Catwoman as a fence-hopping Hot Topic outfit shopping (or shoplifting) kid, what looks like a too-tall Penguin and other characters who really don’t need full-on “Hey, we were in Gotham City, too!” stories? Granted, like the other DC shows, none of this will be seen as “canon” by many, but the show WILL be seen that way to younger fans growing out of the cartoons and into the Nolan films (like them or not, they’re important for a few reasons).

Eh, we’ll see, as always. I probably just don’t trust Fox for other things entertainment-wise, so my bias is showing here. Or the show will stink despite the good looks. Eh, we’ll see. I’ll at least catch the first season and see if it stands upright. The casting seems solid here, so it’s up to the writing and directing to make or break this one…

July 23 Is Batman Day. You May Want To Stay Indoors Reading Comics…

Posted on April 30, 2014 by geelw

Now, I’m NOT saying it’ll be dangerous out on this officially DC Comics-sanctioned day, nope, not at all. In fact, it may be too SAFE out there, what with all the people dressed up as Batman stopping crimes only they can see before they occur, helping old ladies and kitties and puppies cross streets, attempting to swing or drop from light poles, building and other fixtures only to find out how actual physics works (and how long capes are REALLY a bad idea) and so forth and so on. Anyway, it will indeed be a BASH! at local comic shops and online – go take a peek here and see for yourself what’s coming…

Me, I’ll stick to reading in bed wearing some Batman pajamas or something. Unless it’s REALLY nice out. Then, I’ll go shopping and get a Bat-escort back home form some nice kid all dressed up. Or maybe luck out and get a Batgirl escort! Woo-hoo! Of course, there’s a 99.98% possibility of me just getting Bat-Mite trying to bite me, but so it goes…

IDW Wants Some Of You To Go Broke: Silver Surfer, Manhunter, Lawnmower Man Artist Editions On The Way…

Posted on April 21, 2014 by geelw

Well, wow. According to the fine folks at Comic Book Resources, IDW’s pricey and VERY desirable Artist’s Edition series is getting at least three more amazing tomes this year in a limited print run form only a select few will be able to get their hands on. To the press release, Robin!:

At the Artist’s Edition panel, Special Projects Editor Scott Dunbier showed off some of the amazing art included in the Marvel Cover’s Artist’s Edition and announced that John Buscema’s Silver Surfer (in cooperation with Marvel Comics), and two more projects with Walter Simonson, Walter Simonson’s Manhunter & Other Stories (in cooperation with DC Entertainment), and Walter Simonson’s Lawnmower Man Artist’s Edition portfolio, collecting the entire Stephen King-penned story into a deluxe portfolio, will soon join the IDW Artist’s Edition catalog!

I’ve seen a few of the previous Artist’s Editions in person thanks to a friend who can afford to shell out for them and all I’ll say is they’re the closest thing to owning the original art you can get (at a far more reasonable price, of course). Expect superior quality reproduction from the originals, warts and all (hey, comic art SUED to be all hand-drawn and lettered!) and something you’ll not want to loan out or have the kids use as snack table reading after that finger painting session, that’s for darn sure.

Prices and release dates TBA. I’ll also see if I can dig up pics from that Lawnmower Man book, as it’s one of Walt Simonson’s quirkiest-looking stories in terms of the artist cutting loose and having a blast with his pens and brushes.

Trend Setters Morphing Dark Knight Mugs: You’ll Go Batty For Your Favorite Hot Beverage…

Posted on April 17, 2014 by geelw

Let’s see now, eight different Bat-mugs mean you can buy one for each day and have one left over for when company drops by or as a gift. Or you might know seven other people who need an extra licensed lift with that morning mug of hot steaming whatever. Each heat transforming mug is black until 11 ounces of something hot enough lands inside of it and each retails for $18.99 over at the Film Cells website. There’s a ton of other cool licensed goodies there from other pop culture classics from then and now, but you’re probably already poring over that site as we speak with your wallet whining away…

Batman Arkham Knight Reveal Trailer: Rocksteady Is Back With A Killer Finale…

Posted on March 4, 2014 by geelw

Yeah, yeah… it’s JUST a CG trailer and not gameplay, but this year’s E3 will probably feature a bigger reveal of that which everyone wants to see. Only two things bugged me about this otherwise drool-worthy teaser. One: A voice mail message from Thomas Wayne? Hmmm… TOO convenient and somewhat corny in a way, but I’ll forgive the team if they twist that up into a villain being behind that ruse or something like that. Two: Catwoman. Where is she? I think she NEEDS her own game to play around in just to wash the residue of that gawdawful Halle Berry flick and even worse video game from about a decade ago or so. I still cringe when I think of how lousy both were (sorry, Halle!).

Anyway, I do hope we see Cats in her own game at some point, as she could be a more empowering character (and not a cara-cat-ure, ha!) than even Lara Croft is if done right. Other than that, a Batmobile we can drive in this one is fantastic and makes me thing Knight will have a more GTA-like open map to get around in, something the series has been needing since Arkham City. Given that Lego Batman 2 did the open world thing quite well (albeit in a campier manner), Rocksteady is on the right track with what’s looking like a game with even more replay value. Back with more on this biggie soon…

BAM! SOCK! FINALLY! Batman Coming to Home Video!

Posted on January 15, 2014 by geelw

(Thanks, hitmanhalley!)

Well, that took way too long. Anyway, according to DC Comics and that news item/tweet they ran from Conan O’Brien here, it looks like someone’s long national nightmare is over while others are going to be starting. Anyway, Warner Bros. Home Video will be dropping some sort of set on you Bat-fans sometime in 2014, so you may (or may not) want to haunt your favorite retailer online or off so you can run over someone to grab that day one release. That is all. I’m a little bit thrilled about this because I’ve seen all those episodes but not for some time now and can only imagine the transfer work and all those crazy colors I’m going to see pop off the screen. “POW!” Indeed.

Double Dungeons Day! Adventure Time, Young Justice Head to “Last-Gen” Systems

Posted on November 19, 2013 by geelw

Hey! Stop that whining that you don’t own one of those fancy new online tethered “Maybe she no-a work out of the box! for a few reasons” new consoles, kids! You can play BOTH of these new titles on what you already own and be happy (and definitely happier if you kept that PS3 around if your PS4 is blue-light bricking itself up the living room), so I say GET HAPPY!

Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON’T KNOW! is out NOW on the “old” Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. Wayforward Technologies (the current KINGS of modern retro gaming on many fronts. RESPECT!). Old-school top-down action RPG action. Kinda like Gauntlet, but kinda NOT like Gauntlet (there’s no coin drop on you TV and the game isn’t like Gauntlet once you play it). One to four players. Sort of has drop in-drop out co-op play (so your friends can faint at the sight of a boss and you can keep going, darn them!). Rated E10+ (but most of you AT fans are much older than 10+, I bet). Yeah, you need this one yesterday, I say.

Young Justice Legacy is also out NOW for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo 3DS and PC (via Steam). New developer Freedom Factory takes a page from the still hugely popular Marvel Ultimate Alliance games with this fun one to three player action RPG that takes place between Seasons 1 and 2 of the seemingly now defunct cartoon series. Sure, the stylized visuals aren’t screaming 2013 at you, but this is one of those games that works if you love the fast-paced super-heroic stuff and aren’t overly judgmental about every game being a showpiece of visual techniques. From my playtime with a demo, solo play can be tough in some spots if you’re careless and rush into fights, so grab a friend or two and a couple of extra controllers (have your friends bring theirs, I say) and get the fist to face action going.

Yeah, you’ll need to invite them over as this (and Adventure Time) don’t have any online modes (not sure about the Steam version, but it’s good that I DON’T KNOW! – yet). Good, I say – people need to play MORE together in the same room because it makes them be MORE social. How so? Hey, if you have to bathe for company and maybe clean up a little… THAT’S making yourself MORE social. Get it? Got it? GOOD. Now go hit the pavement for some exercise and retail therapy. Class dismissed!

Holy Christmas, Batman! I Know Where You Live! Maybe.

Posted on October 31, 2013 by geelw

So, yeah… you (yes, YOU) thought he left the country for good after The Dark Knight Rises, huh? Well, apparently Batman is alive and well and… living in the Bronx? OK, then… Woo-hoo! Or I at least HOPE that’s Batman in that apartment simply because I’m seeing Xmas lights in the shape of a bat, that holiday is about two months away and I have my fingers AND toes crossed that the person behind that window is re-purposing last year’s lights into assorted shapes for every holiday. This is the first time I’ve seen these lights around here, so I could be wrong and someone is actually selling Bat-Lights out there. I could just hang around outside that apartment building one day and ask people coming out if they know who lives in that apartment, but that’s kind of stalky and awkward, last time I checked. That and if there IS a Caped Crusader up there, he’d probably think I was some arch-nemesis asking for his apartment number and I’d be the one being stalked… eek.

Wonder Woman May Never Get Her Own Movie, But This Fan Trailer Is Pretty OK…

Posted on October 2, 2013 by geelw

I’d have preferred the actress put more “oomph” into the shot where she throws that spear and it’s a bit odd in that part where she deflects the bullet because of the scene shifting going on, but otherwise, this is a pretty cool (and VERY professional looking) trailer from Rainfall Films. TO those of you WW fans who were screaming that she’s not busting out of that costume like in some comics that feature the Amazon in all sorts of action scenes, I say go ask any lady with the size boobs you’d think are right for that outfit if SHE’D jump around and do all those kicks without popping out and maybe knocking herself unconscious in the process. Lynda Carter’s outfit was probably a bit painful to wear for long periods on that 70’s TV show, I’d bet. Anyway, I hear that good cosplayers use tape and other methods (not bending over too far and learning how to pose correctly for photos in and out of conventions) to keep their homemade tops up – actual super heroes have no such “luxuries”. Although, hell… if Diana’s got an invisible plane, how come it’s not plausible for her to be wearing an invisible sports bra? Get on it, Bali or whomever- millions of women would love you even more if that were to become a reality…

Gallery: Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure

Posted on September 27, 2013 by geelw

5th Cell’s latest game features the return of Maxwell and plenty of fun user-created content… but with a nice twist as you’ll see in that rather fun-looking trailer above. But wait, there’s MORE! Act now and every single Wii U, 3DS and PC copy of Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure also features a rather robust character edit function that allows you to create and play as any character you can come up with (with a DC Comics focus, obviously). I’m planning to scour that selection of classic to current heroes just to see if 5th Cell has stuck some of DC’s more oddball heroes and anti-heroes into the mix, so I’m hoping to see a Swamp Thing, Deadman and maybe Etrigan in there somewhere but mot likely there will be no Ally Babble or Madame Xanadu unless I can cobble them together myself. We’ll see. I do love little surprises like a smart development team that sticks in some really obscure characters into a game this flexible. Having a Bat-Mite to play around with would be quite cool, that’s for sure.

It also has (or at least HAD until I shrunk them down with Picture Resizer) some HUGE honkin’ screenshots in its press kit, which is quite amusing for a game that relies on a simple and effective art style. I had to shrink them to a more manageable size just so they’d upload faster (OK, well that and no one needs an 8000 x 4500 screen cap to scroll around like it’s a map to some lost Inca gold! Anyway, enjoy!