I just saw the trailer for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Take a look:

Now I DESPISE Nicolas Cage, so there’s no chance I’ll be watching this movie, but hot damn, that kind of looks good. The action scenes with GR in full-on flaming skull mode look really cool. Seeing Ghost Rider out during the day is an interesting visual I never associate with the character.

Of course, the dialogue was terrible. “He’s the only good thing I’ve ever done” is so cliched it hurts. And when the woman said “I’m not afraid of you,” I said the line “You should be” along with Nic. The addition of Idris Elba in the cast is a nice surprise, but whenever he’s on-screen I just wish it was Stringer Bell (even when he was on The Office).

I’m generally trying to renew my enthusiasm about the whole “reading comic books” thing, but these recent news items made me groan and groan and groan some more!

• One of these names just doesn’t belong here.

  Rich Johnston reported that Cup O’ Joe at NYCC included news on “a major project from Marvel would feature the five architects of Marvel – Hickman, Brubaker, Aaron, Bendis and Fraction.”

  Seriously, Jason Aaron?

  Also … Jason Aaron?!

• I absolutely cannot believe that Jeph Loeb and Simone Bianchi are reuniting to resurrect the Wolverine vs. Sabertooth decaptitation feud.

  That run on Wolverine was one of the worst things I have ever written read. It started off terrible. Then it got worse. And then it managed to get even more awful. So of course, Marvel is bringing it back.

  After Wolverine, Ultimates 3 and Ultimatum, Jeph Loeb went from being one of my absolute favorites to someone I will completely avoid. I’d drop a book if Jeph Loeb took over writing duties.

  Is Marvel just completely out of ideas?

• Age of Apocalypse is coming back.

Check it out.

Doomkopf will have some representation. The discussion will apparently be recorded and released as a podcast. I’ll try to get a transcript up once that happens.

JIM DOOM: Well, Doom DeLuise, welcome back. It’s been a while since our last podcast.

[silence]

I actually didn’t even test out these microphones to see if they still work.

Is mine working?

I said is mine working?

Is mine working?

Doom DeLuise?

Is my microphone working?

Hey.

Hey?

Is my microphone working?

It’s been in a box.

DOOM DeLUISE: Oh hey, sorry, I was spacing off.

[audience laughter]

JIM DOOM: Hello?

Is it working?

Hello?

DOOM DeLUISE: Yes, it’s working.

JIM DOOM: Is my microphone working?

DOOM DeLUISE: [BLEEP], is mine?

[audience laughter]

JIM DOOM: Oh oops, my headphones were unplugged.

DOOM DeLUISE: Is my microphone working?

JIM DOOM: Yours is working.

Is mine?

DOOM DeLUISE: Yes.

JIM DOOM: Are your headphones plugged in?

TESTING
(more…)

Yesterday, Warner Brothers has released an official sneak peak of Henry Cavill in the Superman costume from the upcoming Superman: Man of Steel movie:

While Cavill himself certainly looks more like Superman than the last few people I can remember in the role, I’ve got to wonder…

Why does Superman need to wear rubber?

It makes sense for Batman, Spider-Man, the X-Men and the like. Those guys aren’t indestructible. But last time I checked, Superman is. If your skin can stop bullets on it’s own, wouldn’t you want a costume with a little bit more mobility than molded rubber?

Comic Con is fast approaching, and news is already starting to leak out a bit early. One of the things that has happened in the past couple days is that the teaser trailers for both “The Amazing Spider-Man” and “The Avengers” have leaked online. The Internet Police are on top of it, though, so it’s really hard to find working links to either of them that last longer than five minutes. Luckily, I have nothing better to do, so I found them, and now I’m going to share with you a recap of both!

First, let’s start with The Amazing Spider-Man, starring Andrew Garfield and some other people.

The teaser I saw was really blurry and shaky, filmed by some guy in a theatre, so the quality was pretty poor, in other words. It starts by showing Peter Parker doing some things and talking to some people. There’s a cute blonde girl that I’m guessing is Gwen Stacy, and she says some stuff, too, but I couldn’t really understand it, since the audio is so poor. About midway through the teaser, it shows Peter get bit by a spider, and then we get the standard “now he’s a geek with muscles” shot, followed by a closeup of the back of his neck, where we can clearly see the spider bite.

The overall tone of the teaser suggests the movie is going to be a lot darker than the originals, with Peter being more sulky and depressed before getting bit. I guess they’re taking their cues from the success of “The Dark Knight.” Either way, it’s not really a tone that fits with a Spider-Man origin story, so I’m not sure if it’ll work all that well.

At the end of the trailer, we’re given about fifteen seconds or so of Spider-Man running around on a rooftop and swinging between buildings. The twist is that it’s shown from his point-of-view. It’s like a first person shooter video game, only with Spider-Man instead of some dude carrying a gun. At the very end, he’s shown swinging toward a glass building, and we finally see his reflection in the glass before he lands on the wall and poses. The end.

I think it looks kind of okay, but I’m skeptical. I mean, what’s the point of retelling Spider-Man’s origin story? We already saw that. And by “we,” I mean every single person living in America. That movie broke all kinds of box office records. Do they really need to rehash that just because this is a reboot? I think not.

Next up, let’s talk about The Avengers teaser trailer. (more…)

I never thought I’d see the day, but there it is. This image is from the Licensing International Expo in Vegas, which means this is the promo picture they’ll be plastering all over toys, lunchboxes, etc. It may just be me, but seeing these characters all together is without a doubt the coolest thing I’ve seen in awhile. This can’t come soon enough.

I’ve been kind of back and forth on DC’s announced reboot of its entire universe in August. I can see the pros and cons, and I still haven’t been sure whether I think it’ll be the final straw that gets me to bail on comics (or at least DC comics) once and for all. But at the very least, it’s led to some interesting commentary in comicsblogland. Take this column from Michael Breakfield of Lone Star comics, for example, where he comes out in full support of the move (emphasis mine):

I think it’s a great idea.

First, I’m excited about the prospect of reading a Justice League comic written by master scribe Geoff Johns, one of the best comic artists of the last twenty years. That is All Star talent for an All Star book.
[...]
Another reason this is a great idea is that it’s been done before, and it worked. In the mid-90s, Marvel did this very thing–perhaps on a smaller scale, but nonetheless successfully. In the wake of Onslaught, the world thought that its greatest heroes sacrificed themselves to save the world. They were in fact saved by Franklin Richard’s mostly untapped cosmic powers and the universe of Heroes Reborn was created. For the first time in Marvel’s publishing history Captain America, Fantastic Four, Iron Man and the Avengers existed outside of the 616 and their comics restarted from issue #1. And like DC is doing now, Marvel turned the reigns of their flagship characters over to the best the business had to offer. Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Jim Valentino, Jeph Loeb, Walt Simonson, Chuck Dixon, Brett Booth, Ron Lim, and Whilce Portacio–this was the All Star creative team behind this endeavor. The Marvel Universe was re-imagined by a new generation of superstars for a new generation of readers. Heroes Reborn paved the way for Heroes Return, which brought Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and Marvel’s First Family back to the fold of the Marvel Universe proper for a renaissance.

Get that? This is apparently a great idea because it’s like the frequently delayed and inconsistent Heroes Reborn and the subsequent Heroes Return — where Marvel undid Heroes Reborn and brought everyone back to the regular Marvel Universe. Good grief. That’s an endorsement?

So yeah, consider me convinced. This is a terrible idea.

Captain America has become like catnip for the Tea Party, giving them fits whenever another opportunity to assert their ideological ownership arises. Last year Fox News aided the Tea Party assault on Ed Brubaker (and his much less popular letterer); now, the “Hollywood!” dog-whistle has been blown.

The Daily Caller ran an article a few weeks ago that builds its thesis around a nonexistent source who claims that “Hollywood” has renamed the Captain America movie “The First Avenger” so as not to offend the sensibilities of international moviegoers, with the implication that it’s just more of that liberal, limp-wristed international appeasement.

A few points on this:

And since I don’t have any images to pretty up this post, here’s the trailer:

Larry, owner of Trade-a-Tape Comics, on why he didn’t have Fantastic Four #587 on sale today:

“I don’t want people coming in here and buying ten or twelve copies because they think it’s going to be worth something. I want my regular customers to get their copies. Then if there’s any left over, those knuckleheads can have them.”

Awesome. Oh, and he still sold one to me.