Wolverine. Weapon X. Logan. Sexiest Man Alive. Oscar host?

The big news out of Hollywood the past couple days has been about the Golden Globe nominations, so, today, not to be upstaged, the Academy Awards made a little bit of news of their own.

It was announced a few hours ago that the Oscars are going to be hosted this year by none other than Wolverine, Hugh Jackman.

The news has come as a bit of a surprise, since the host is usually a stand-up comedian or television host, and Jackman has no experience in either field. Instead, he acts, sings, dances, looks dreamy, and probably lifts weights. I mean, he’d have to. He’s downright chiseled.

So we’ll see how this pans out. It might not be as good as Billy Crystal, but I doubt it could be as bad as David Letterman.

Now, if only they would nominate Batman for Best Actor. Wolverine could give him the award, and we could finally settle that whole Wolverine vs. Batman debate.

Source: Newsarama.

“Well Marvel, I see your ‘douchebag’ and raise you a ‘Goddamn’ (Final Crisis #5) and a ‘Tits’ (Final Crisis: Revelations #4).”

I noticed fairly early on as a child that DC comics always had harsher language than Marvel, particularly in Batman, with its occasional “hell” and “damn.” To a kid, it simultaneously made Batman seem grittier and DC comics seem more forbidden, and thus more awesome. However, had I read the words “Goddamn” and “tits” at that age in a comic I could pick up at the drugstore, I probably would’ve felt compelled to go to Confession.

This morning, the nominees for the Golden Globes were announced, and, as I’m sure many of you were, I found myself shocked that The Dark Knight was only nominated for one award. Now, I’m not saying that nomination isn’t well deserved (honestly, if Heath Ledger doesn’t win, I’ll be quite surprised), but what about the rest of the awards? Best Picture? Best Actor? Best Director? It just isn’t right!

How can these people make an awards show and not nominate the best movie ever created by humankind in every single category for which it’s eligible?

And don’t even get me started on the major, first-class snub of Iron Man.

I’m so incensed that I can barely type. Here are some video complaints about your stupid “award” show, courtesy of “Mr. Show with Bob and David:” (WARNING: NSFW due to the use of the f-word)

Sorry for the tardiness on this — I was waffling on what to choose for this week’s Book of Doom and leaning toward Detective #851 but apprehensive about choosing a third Batman book in three weeks. Once I got to the shop, I realized that Secret Invasion: Dark Reign #1 came out. Apparently I looked right past it on the solicitations, because I wasn’t expecting it at all.

The ending to Secret Invasion gave us a hint as to what Dark Reign would be, but it definitely created a list of new questions, not the least of which being “What are Namor and Emma Frost doing there?” Hopefully this issue addresses that. I’ve been worried it will be something like Brave New World or DC Universe #0 — just some collection of 3 or 4 page previews of books to come. I don’t want to pay $3.99 for advertising. If nothing else, Daredevil fans might enjoy the reunion of Bendis and Maleev.

As always, we invite readers to submit a review for our weekend roundtable — just email us at doomkopf at doomkopf dot com by Friday night.

WRITER: BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS
PENCILS: ALEX MALEEV

The Invasion is over!! There are winners and there are losers and in this major one-shot from the Eisner award-winning team of Bendis and Maleev, (New Avengers: Illuminati, Civil War: The Confession) the stage is set for the next major era in Marvel Comics. Hold onto your beenies, boys, because you have NEVER seen your universe turned upside down like this!!
One-Shot/Rated T+ …$3.99

In the lead: Alfred’s group of six heads to Happy Harbor, Rhode Island to the cave that would have been the first JLA HQ if the Trinity existed. After some mystic hoodoo, the group is transported to a different world and starts acting more like their “true” selves. Society in this world is run by the Nightlord, the Sunlord, and the Truthlord, obvious stand-ins for the Trinity. And those giant statues of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman from the flash forward in issue #1 are here too.

In the back-up: Hawkman assembles a group of scientists (Will Magnus, T.O. Morrow, Lex Luthor, Dr. Sivana and John Henry Irons) to sort out this whole “reality coming down around us” thing. Luthor realizes that the power is being harnessed by TVM, presumably at the behest of Morgaine Le Fey. Tomorrow Woman confronts TVM and gets all sliced up into bits.

My take: The lead this issue was pretty good. It seems that Alfred’s six and Tarot are probably going to play a much larger role in reversing the spell and defeating the bad Trinity than the JSI is, so all the stuff with the JSI just seems like a waste of time. So I didn’t like the back-up, naturally.

It looks like I may have been wrong about Alfred getting another three people to fill a trinity of trinities. It seems odd that Maria Kapatelis would have been introduced several issues ago if she wasn’t going to come back into play, though. As it stands, we’ve got a set of three protégés of the Trinity, but I’m not sure how Alfred, Lois and Nemesis relate to one another. Alfred doesn’t fit the role of a love interest, and Nemesis doesn’t fit the role of long-standing close confidante.

Things to keep an eye on: Why are there giant statues of the Trinity in a society full of purple aliens with Bronze Age technology? The group didn’t change physical positions during the spell, so did they travel through time or across dimensions? I realize I’m grasping at straws here. That will probably be resolved next issue and really isn’t any reason to stick around for another issue. But really, if you’ve made it this far, you’re probably not going to stop now.

We’ve been talking about Punisher War Zone for a while here at Doomkopf, starting back in February when script problems surfaced and then again in June when the trailer was released.

Doom DeLuise and I caught a showing today and we were literally the only people in the theater! Shucks, how is Marvel going to get word of mouth praise if no one is there to see it? Maybe they thought “make a terrible movie!” was the answer to that koan.

JIM DOOM: DeLuise — you are one of the few fans of the previous Punisher movie. I didn’t see it. Overall, without getting into too many specifics yet, how would you compare this take against that one? Was there anything about this movie in a big-picture sense that struck you as Marvel’s rationale for rebooting the Punisher film franchise?

DOOM DELUISE: Yes. While the last one featured a brooding Tom Jane as the title character, the rest of the movie was, tonally, pretty brightly colored. It featured a cast of mostly comic relief supporting characters, and it seemed a lot more like they were making a movie based on a comic book. This one seemed to want to distance itself by taking the setting to NYC (instead of Miami) and making everything darker and grittier and more violent. It seemed to be an attempt to take the franchise more seriously.

Which, I know, sounds ridiculous, considering the amount of over-the-top gore and absurdity in the movie.
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This was a big week for comics. The conclusion of Secret Invasion, the beginning of Batman: Last Rites … I’m sure there were other things.

Secret Invasion #8 was the anticlimactic finale to the mega-event that wouldn’t end. I’ll get to how I feel about the conclusion in a minute, but I can’t believe it took eight issues to crank out this story. I remember seeing the cover to #8 in Previews a while back and being all excited that the new Captain America was rising up as a prominent Marvel U hero, and seeing Thor there made me think a new take on the classic Avengers would rise up as a result of all of this. Now though, I’m guessing they probably just gave the cover artist a list of people he could paint.

The way in which Bendis told the final chapter of this story is almost like a punchline to a joke no one would be predictable enough to tell. A Bendis strength? Writing people talking. A major weakness? Writing action. So how does he present the finale to this story, carrying us through the heat of the final battle and tying up all the loose ends? Through a conversation that flashes back on what never happened before the readers’ eyes. Ugh.
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• ComicMix assembles The Stories that Informed Batman RIP. It amazes me that the same Grant Morrison who drew from and referred to all of these stories could be the same person that was dismissive of internet nerds with awareness of continuity issues.

• Great Caesar’s Post asks the question, “Which subversive group bent on world domination is better, A.I.M. or HYDRA?”

• Brian Cronin at Comics Should Be Good develops a 10 point scale for the finality of a comic book death in a superhero comic.

• Graig Kent discusses the wave of $3.99 comics at secondprinting. This week’s Lying in the Gutters reveals that New Avengers will be one of the ongoing titles to remain at $3.99. Not missing from the increased price will be the “special event $1 markup” — New Avengers #50 is listed at $4.99 because it’s the anniversary issue.

• Meanwhile, CNN reports Marvel’s comic book print line is operating at a 40% profit margin. (h/t LITG)

• Gavok at 4thletter explains Santa Claus in superhero terms and reviews Punisher War Zone in one efficient post.

for Nate Winchester:

Having just read Batman #682 for a second time, I’m still not quite sure if I liked it or not. But I guess considering my usual reaction to Grant Morrison’s work, that’s an above-average result.

I like the trip through memory lane that Morrison wrote out here. You don’t see Batman’s Golden Age roots mentioned very often in today’s comics. I guess that might have something to do with the fact that post-Crisis, Batman didn’t exist in the Golden Age, but who knows?

Something that stood out to me is that Batman doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of milestones in his career. There’s the night he decided to become Batman, the debut of Robin, Robin turning into Nightwing…is that it? I guess we’re only halfway through the life and times of Batman, so we’ve still got The Killing Joke, Bane and several more Robins to go through, but this issue just made Batman seem a little unremarkable.

One thing that this issue didn’t even begin to clear up though: how did Batman go from “dying” in a mysterious helicopter crash to being strapped to a weird chair in Final Crisis? That’s kind of what I was expecting this to be about, but I guess that’s what’ll happen next issue.

Doom DeLuise: Well, that was…something.

After last week’s finale to RIP, this week’s issue of Batman seeks to bridge the gap between Batman being blown up in a helicopter crash in the harbor and the first issue of Final Crisis, where we’ll eventually learn the “ultimate fate of the Dark Knight.”

Did it succeed in that? Hell no. I have no idea how Batman got from being blown up and finding himself captured in the EVIL FACTORY by Darkseid’s minions. This issue doesn’t even try to explain it. Instead, we’re given a bunch of flashbacks of bullcrap. It’s not until the last couple of pages that we realize where Batman even is. And, really, I’m sorry, but I can’t get past that stupid F*%#ING name. THE EVIL FACTORY? For crying out loud, that might be the dumbest name for anything ever. (more…)