The return of Sensation Comics as DC’s newest “digital first” weekly comic is an absolute treat. Issue two of the print version collects issues four through six of the digital series, giving us two short Wonder Woman stories, are definitely worth reading. Continue reading
Filed under Comic Reviews, Comics, Saturday Reviews
Bad news for Star Wars fans. Harrison Ford was recently injured on the set of Episode VII. Ford was apparently hurt by the door to the Millenium Falcon and was rushed to an emergency room with a broken ankle and a chest injury. Studio executives have been working to rearrange the shooting schedule to account for what could be a long recovery for the 71 year old. This is also not the first time Ford has been injured on set. During Temple of Doom he required back surgery and during filming of The Fugitive he tore a ligament in his knee.
Harrison Ford having some fun at a photo shoot for Star Wars.
Therefore I Geek wishes Ford a speedy recovery and we eagerly await the coming of Episode VII.
Rumors are quickly spreading that DC is planning a massive movie announcement for San Diego Comic-Con. The supposed plan calls for three movies a year in 2016 and 2017 and included in the mix are Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, and Sandman. Unfortunately, there are already some doubts about the legitimacy of this schedule given how ambitious it is. Truthfully, the level of quality that DC can achieve in such a short time span is questionable. Additionally, fans are wondering whether the films would use the actors from the DC television universe or if actors would be recast for the movies.
Personally, I’m game for both Sandman and Wonder Woman, but we’ll see what DC actually says at SDCC.
For those of you who have been living under a rock, the Reading Rainbow Kickstarter has been nearly unstoppable. They reached their initial goal of one million dollars within the first 24 hours of the campaign and the total amount donated is now approaching the five million dollar mark. As a deal sweetener (like we really needed one at this point), if the campaign does reach five million, several live events will feature Star Trek alumni such as Brent Spiner, Johnathan Frakes, Kate Mulgrew, Gates McFadden, William Shatner and Patrick Stewart. A total of four events will be held, one featuring the men of Star Trek, one for the women and then Shatner and Stewart get their own events.
I remember watching this show as a kid, so I’m pretty excited to see this campaign doing so well.
Last but not least, fans of HBO’s Game of Thrones are getting a look at how the creative team managed to make Jaime Lannister’s severed stump look so real. Prosthetics and makeup genius Sangeet Prabhaker instagrammed this photo of the process to make his stump look incredibly real. Apparently there were multiple techniques used, depending on camera angles and activity. This one was used, among other scenes, for the infamous bath scene with Brienne of Tarth.
I personally just figured they slapped a sock on the end and called it a day.
Filed under Around the Web, Weekly
Dear Executives at DC Comics,
The second anniversary of your New 52 lineup has recently passed, and Therefore I Geek’s articles on the DC universe and the big merge of all your storylines got me thinking. I thought of all the comics I have read over the years and all the stories that are told, and I find that these books are good enough on their own. Just because it’s nice from time to time when Batman teams up with Superman or Green Arrow, doesn’t mean the DC universe needs to recognize that particular storyline as part of the timeline. Unless all the comics stem from the same original concept, I’m not a fan of merging comic universes anyway.
Take Batman for instance. Awesome! Yes, indeed, you’ve struck gold when it comes to the storylines, lore, and one hell of a line-up of villains. Now, insert Superman so that he comes to fight Bane. What? No. That’s ridiculous. How about Wonder Woman to help take out the Joker? No way. Does Bruce Wayne even believe in Greek mythology enough to warrant help from the daughter of a goddess? It just doesn’t make any sense. You know what, DC? It doesn’t have to! Superman is perfectly capable of being understood and enjoyed without The Flash coming in to…do what? Save the day? Please spare me.
A brand like DC should not feel obligated to merge all the characters it has ever released into a universe that somehow must make sense just in case they want to do a crossover or a team-up. Just make the story, make it good, and don’t worry so much about it.
You need a structure to follow? Have a core book for a character. Whatever happens in that book is part of the lore of that character. Any other books are fair game for writers and artists to explore different ideas and flesh out any funky powers, gadgets, and team-ups. There is even a name for this phenomenon. It is called a mini-series. Injustice was a great creation to serve this purpose. Turning it into a video game that puts all the DC characters together for fights we would never normally see was even better!
Every time I see Wonder Woman’s Amazonian warriors crack a spear over Doomsday’s chest in the game, am I to believe that the beast that killed the unkillable Superman is supposed to be hurt by a wooden stick? Not in the slightest, but it works because it’s scratching an itch that makes us ask What If…? Which, coincidentally, was a great comic put out by Marvel built on just this concept. We are exposed to these “what if” scenarios all the time in movies. How many times have films rebooted a comic character? How many actors have played Batman? I rest my case.
I understand that you are trying to compete with Marvel for sales and crossovers and team-ups help sell books. Marvel has done a wonderful job of making all of its heroes and villains mutants of some sort, who aren’t uber powerful on their own. Their most popular books are based on teams, not individuals. This allows for an easier suspension of belief when it comes to characters sharing story arcs.
I guess all I’m saying is: quit trying so hard to make pieces fit where they don’t. If there are characters that just don’t have a world in common, there should be no obligation to make that happen. Cut it out, DC. We love you and the characters you’ve come up with over the years. I don’t need to see supernatural characters fighting with more human ones. Oh, and I don’t need to see a Superman/Batman film to this effect either. I’d much rather have a fourth Dark Knight movie with Heath Ledger as the Joker. Now THAT would be an impressive alternate universe.
Sincerely,
Cheefbast
Filed under Comics, Guest Blog, Kurt Klein
Welcome, my friends, to week four of our look back at the New 52. All in all, this turned out to be a week of survivors. Most of the books stuck around, and those that were cancelled hung on for at least the first year, and most well beyond that. What this week wasn’t short on, though, was controversy. More than one of this week’s books had some serious bad buzz at the time of launch. So enjoy today’s post and judge for yourself.
Batman
If there is one title from the New 52 that stands head and shoulders above all the rest, it’s Batman. Written by Scott Snyder with art by Greg Capullo, this has been an insane and amazing ride. Starting off with “The Court of Owls” and “Night of the Owls” story lines Snyder and Capullo show that maybe Batman doesn’t know Gotham quite as well as he thinks. “Death of the Family” marked the return of Joker, more twisted and insane than ever before (and with his face strapped on after it was cut off). The end result of all of this has been a slow breakdown of Batman and his relationships. Currently Snyder is exploring Bruce’s pre-Batman life and I can’t wait to see what else is coming.
Birds of Prey
An all-female team, Birds of Prey has always been a solid second-tier book, and this iteration is no different. Unfortunately, due to her return as Batgirl, this team is missing Barbara Gordon as Oracle. Filling in for Batgirl is Katana, who later would spin-off into her own series (again with the minor characters…). For the first twelve issues the team faced off against classic Batman villain, Poison Ivy. I love Ivy, but it did seem a little cliché to have an all-female team fighting a female villain. The team line up got a shake up with a new creative team at issue eighteen.
Blue Beetle CANCELLED
I’m just not a fan of this particular Blue Beetle. I really tried to read the last volume of Blue Beetle and just didn’t enjoy it. Since the New 52 title uses the same character and basic story, I decided to take a pass on this title. Now if they had done a new Ted Kord story, maybe with some Booster Gold stories, I’d have signed on to this book in a heartbeat, but that’s just me. This Blue Beetle follows Jaime Reyes, a high school kid who gets powers from an ancient scarab beetle. It takes something special for me to get interested in high school-aged characters and this didn’t do it.
Captain Atom CANCELLED
I’m going to be really honest here, I didn’t realize there was a difference between Atom and Captain Atom. I kind of wish I had known this sooner because Captain Atom might have been fun for me. I enjoy science based superheroes and Captain Atom certainly fits the bill. He’s the basis for Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen and you can see that in his stories. This volume of Captain Atom changes up the origin story a little and then follows Nathaniel Adam as he figures out how his powers work. There are fears that he might be giving off radiation or be otherwise dangerous (ala Dr. Manhattan) and is denied membership in the Justice League because of it. The series only lasted twelve issues.
Catwoman
Catwoman started off the New 52 with bang. Issue #1 ended with a fairly racy sex scene between Batman and Catwoman. Aside from the general outcry over the sexual content, there was also considerable discontent with the overall hyper-sexualized nature of Catwoman. The lack of strong female characters has been a complaint with a number of New 52 titles, and to be honest, DC’s detractors have a pretty valid point. The next several issues after #1 were pretty good, but the series has been going downhill since the end of the first story arc. I love the character, but I won’t be surprised if this book disappears in the near future.
DC Universe Presents CANCELLED
If you’ve read my reviews the last couple weeks, you’ll notice a pattern emerging regarding second (or third) tier characters getting their own books and those books not doing well and getting cancelled. In my mind DC Universe Presents was the ideal location for these characters to have their stories told. Unfortunately, anthology books like this don’t tend to sell well, seeing as people may only buy them for a few issues based upon what character is being featured. I didn’t realize how awesome anthology books could be until after DC Universe Presents was cancelled. The series started off with several multi-issue stories about characters like Deadman and Vandal Savage, by the end they were reduced to doing a series of one-shot issues about characters. I’m disappointed that I missed some of the issues and will be looking for them in trades.
Green Lantern Corps
Green Lantern Corps is one of the first four comic series I started reading monthly and I’m sad to say I’m seriously behind on this book. Overall Green Lantern books are starting to wear very thin. They seem to have gotten away from the outer space adventure stuff that made them great and are too wrapped up in crossover after crossover trying to support a universe full of multi-colored ring corps. I’ve lost a lot of my interest in this title, but I’m still getting it in hopes that it will turn itself around. All the elements are there, if only they can be put together. Outside of the non-stop crossovers, Green Lantern Corps did have an interesting story revolving around John Stewart being tried and convicted of murder. The story line also finally got rid of the Alpha Lanterns, who I felt never really quite fit in the series.
Legion of Super-Heroes CANCELLED
Legion of Super-Heroes is a title I’ve never had much interest in, though it does have a long standing history in DC Comics. Instead of being rebooted with the rest of the DCU, Legion carried on, and instead the writers introduced the idea that the Legion had lost contact with the past, presumably due to the events of Flashpoint. Why DC would make this particular choice beats the hell out of me, but in conjunction with Legion Lost they ran with it. When the series was cancelled after issue twenty-three, it was revealed that the Legion in fact inhabited Earth-2 and therefore all of the previous twenty-three issues had no bearing on the standard DCU of Earth-1. That’s a lame way to end things, just saying.
Nightwing
I have previously lamented how Dick Grayson was only allowed to be Batman for a short time and that his time in the cowl was cut short by the arrival of the New 52. Dick has now returned to his old, post-Robin persona in Nightwing. Regularly linked with the storylines going on in Batman, Nightwing has gone through some pretty crazy thing. Starting when Dick inherits the circus his family performed in, he soon discovers that the circus was a recruiting ground for The Court of Owls’ Talons and that he was slated to be the next Talon. While not on my weekly pull list, this is one book that has certainly kept the New 52 interesting.
Red Hood and the Outlaws
Only tangentially related to the Batman books, Red Hood and the Outlaws features two former sidekicks, Red Hood (Jason Todd, formerly Robin) and Arsenal (Roy Harper, formerly Green Arrow’s sidekick) and Starfire. If Catwoman caught some heat for being overly sexualized, then Red Hood and the Outlaws is a five alarm inferno. This book caught nothing but grief when it first came out for how Starfire was over sexualized and lacking in personality. Wonder Woman proved that strong women can be sexy, but this falls short of a strong and sexy heroine. Combined with rough writing, this book has just had a tough time. Thankfully for the sake of the book, Jason Todd has a pretty good cult following, and unfortunately, some comic fans like vapid, sex kittens for female leads.
Supergirl
A traditional fan favorite, Supergirl is back in her own title, kicking off with a brand new origin story. Certainly not an uncommon occurrence in the New 52, but this was one of the better ones. It was clean, simple, and well done. Supergirl is very much the outsider in this book. She finds herself on an alien world (Earth) and is immediately attacked. When her younger cousin, Superman, shows up and tries to get her to stand down she attacks him, believing him to be in imposter. Eventually Supergirl decides she wants to leave Earth, not believing that Krypton has been destroyed, but ends up the victim of scientific experiments involving Kryptonite. This is a book I’ve checked out digitally, and I’m intrigued enough to pick up a few more issues.
Wonder Woman
In the grand scheme of things, I haven’t been reading comics all that long, around seven years. In that time however I’ve seen at least two volumes of Wonder Woman get cancelled as well as a disastrous TV pilot. Until the New 52, it was not a good time to be a Wonder Woman fan. But that has all changed. With writing by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang on art, Wonder Woman has been blowing people away. I’ve heard such great stuff about the series that I’ve gone out and picked up the trades, which is something I would never have expected. So far Wonder Woman has been a great mix of Greek mythology (the Old Gods) and Jack Kirby’s Fourth World New Gods (at least one Kirby creation is coming out on top). This is one of the few DC books that truly has a strong, female character. Definitely worth checking out, if for nothing more than the interactions between Wonder Woman and Orion.
Filed under Andrew Hales, Comic Reviews, Comics
 | Walter on Editorial | Six Reasons Supern… |
 | Rosie M. on Editorial | Editing 101:… |
 | Ariane on Editorial | Editing 101:… |
 | drew on Editorial | Six Reasons Supern… |
 | Richard H. Randall on Gene Roddenberry’s Visio… |
Therefore I Geek 