Another year has passed us by, and, while 2008 was a pretty stellar year for the superhero genre of movies, 2009 proved to be a different beast entirely. If there’s one thing that we can all agree on, right up front here, it’s that movies featuring superheroes this past year were pretty terrible across the board.

Not only did Watchmen get skewered by a barrage of quite negative reviews (it received a 64% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes), but it ended up performing terribly at the box office, too (its domestic total topped out just north of $100 million, more than half of which was made in the opening weekend, a total that was a few dozen million short of the production budget).

On the other hand, we were given a couple movies that performed exceptionally at the box office yet were complete disasters when you look at the critical reception. X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen both found their way onto my list of the worst five movies of the year, for example. Then there’s the stuff that I don’t even feel like talking about (G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra and Dragonball: Evolution, I’m looking at you).

Luckily, it’s a new year, and Hollywood is still churning out superhero movies, thanks to the successes of so many past movies with men in tights. And that’s what we’re here to discuss. Just like every single year, it’s once again time to set our attention to the year to come and toss back enough bottles of beer to wash the year that just passed fully from our collective memory.

First up, we have the big screen adaptation of Mark Millar’s Kick-Ass, a series that, as far as I know, still hasn’t completed its first story-arc. I talked about it briefly in my movie preview last year, as its release was still TBA, but I’ve changed my tune in the 365 since.

I’m looking forward to this movie immensely. Yeah, I dropped the comic after two issues, and the casting initially kind of pissed me off (a superhero movie with Nic Cage and McLovin?), but something about the trailers has made me rethink the whole thing. It looks like a lot of fun, and Nic Cage has completely redeemed himself in my eyes after his performance in “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call: New Orleans” (seriously, that movie is absolutely amazing). So I’m going to give this one a chance. If it sucks, I’ll only be down nine bucks anyway, so what’s the big deal?

And, come on, it can’t be any worse than “Mystery Men.” Wait. Can it? (more…)

I pick up Previews every month. I have probably only ordered a half dozen things from Previews in the past few years (and by ordering something from Previews, I mean telling my shop owner “Hey, I saw this is coming out. Can you order one for me?”) but I still read through the thing and look for something to catch my eye. I think that’s how it’s supposed to work.

So anyway, my friend and former co-blogger Van Jensen wrote Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer. As soon as the thing appeared in Previews, I told my comic shop owner “Hey, I saw this is coming out. Can you order one for me?” He did.

I was very excited for it to arrive on October 28. I had never purchased a comic book written by a friend of mine. But when I got to the shop, I was greeted with the bad news that Diamond simply did not ship it. The owner was unable to get an answer why.

I was disappointed, but I bought a lot of other comics last week and so I was at least stocked with other reading options. But then I stopped in yesterday. They still hadn’t delivered it. No explanation why.

At this point, I’m very frustrated. I WANT TO BUY THIS COMIC BOOK. I would like for my money to leave my hand and spread to the pockets of my shop, my friend, his publisher, and DIAMOND. But they won’t deliver the thing.

So I canceled the order. I’m going to order it straight from the publisher. Screw Diamond, man. You guys had a chance to take your cut and you blew it. From now on, when I see a graphic novel that’s coming out that I want to buy, I’m going through the publisher.

It’s impressive how hard some people will work to lose your business.

Epilogue: The unfortunate victim in this story is the comic shop owner. Perhaps from now on, every time I order a book from the publisher and cut him out, I’ll buy some pop from him.

Marvel has (debatably) always striven for inclusiveness in their universe. Just look at the international X-Men squad that was debuted in Giant Size X-Men. Then look in that very same issue at Thunderbird. Yeah, Marvel tends to miss the mark. Sometimes it all comes out OK, as Luke Cage went from blaxploitation caricature to Avenger. But some heroes never quite make the recovery. Here are some of the most stereotypical heroes, villains and otherwise, with all the fun criteria of discrimination … race, sex, religion, sexual orientation …

1. El Aguila

You’re a Spanish mutant who can generate electricity. Logically, you’d want to live up to your cultural heritage. Being from Spain, the one that’s in Europe and not in imaginary land, you decide that your course is to imitate Spain’s greatest hero: Mexican-American swordfighter Zorro. Your tiny, donkey filled village of Madrid (population 3 million) can barely contain your zest for adventure, so you go abroad for your superheroic adventures. Sadly, his days drew to a close in the post-House of M period, losing his mutant powers. But he retained that zest for life, incorrectly applied non-Castilian Spanish and (assumedly, at least) awful mustache.

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Up front, I’ll admit that I’m not as much of a comic nerd as I probably seem. Considering the fact that I write for a blog about comic books, you’d think I’d know a lot about the history of all the characters, their big bad villains, etc, etc, but, yet, truth be told, I know surprisingly little about these stories I love so much.

So when I saw this week’s cover of Previews, with the spoiler of who the main villain behind “Blackest Night” is, it should come as no surprise that I had no clue who this dude is. I mean, seriously, Nekron? That’s all you’ve got, DC? I’ve been following comics fairly seriously my entire life, and I honestly don’t have the slightest idea who this nefarious fellow is.

And, really, I don’t think I’m alone on this. Jim Doom and I buy comics together every week, and he was as confused as I was about who this character is. Our local comic shop, Capes Comic Book Lounge, is run by a fella named Sean, who informed us that Nekron is apparently in charge of some afterlife realm between limbo and hell, but I wasn’t really paying attention, and I don’t care enough to try to recall his words verbatim, but, good Lord, that’s a let down.

Over the course of the past few weeks, I had convinced myself that there was going to be some huge, all-powerful entity from the Black Power Source, ala Parallax and Ion, that would take Bruce Wayne as its host and lay waste to the entire DCU. Imagine if Bruce Wayne was given the powers of the Anti-Monitor or something. That’d be flippin’ sweet.

Instead, we get Nekron. Whoever that is. He sounds like a cheap battery.

If I were to ask you what the absolute worst comic book “events” of the 1990s were, I’m guessing that the Spider-Man Clone Saga would probably end up somewhere between that Onslaught mess and Heroes Reborn.

According to Marvel, it’s the, “most controversial event of all time. . .” and later this year, it “. . .returns with a vengeance, presenting the Clone Saga as it was originally intended to be told!” At another point in their press release, you can find this quote: “The Story: You’ve been asking for it…and now it’s here: THE CLONE SAGA!!!”

Oddly out-of-place enthusiasm aside, I have a simple question. You say that people have been asking for it, so my question is simply, “Who?” That thing was a mess the first time; who the hell wants to see it come back?

In an age where every failed movie franchise or crappy 70’s TV show is getting a reboot and a multi-million dollar budget, from Starsky & Hutch to Robocop, I always hoped that comic books wouldn’t ever stoop to the same level. It’s different to have a new launch for a series, giving it a new first issue and having a different creative team attached to it, but straight-up retelling old story-arcs (that are still within continuity) seems very strange. Ten years from now, is DC going to release the REAL Final Crisis, the way it was originally meant to be told? God, let’s all hope not.

I mean, think about it. Here’s a brief synopsis of the original Clone Saga, as written by our very own Doominator a few months ago:

Peter’s creepy genetics professor made a clone of him that both thought were dead in 1974, but then they weren’t dead and instead there were more clones, enough clones that there had to be a whole fucking saga that made no sense as Spider-Cide, Kaine, Ben Reilly / Scarlet Spider, the really stupid looking one that dressed as the Jackyl and Peter had a bunch of intertwining shit because Kaine killed someone and they thought it was Peter and blah blah blah other confusion happened and it got so convolotued to the point where Peter thought he was the clone and quit being Spider-Man but it ended up he was the real Peter when Norman Osborne came back and killed Ben Reilly, who then turned to pixie dust, proving he was the clone.

What idiot sat back in his chair during a creative session and decided that it would be a good idea to revisit this mess? Seems to me like the House of Ideas is foreclosing.

I was at Burger King the other day and noticed on their G.I. Joe promotional materials that Snake Eyes has a mouth. Why on earth would you give Snake Eyes a mouth?

It was a sad week. I apologized to my shop owner.

I did, however, read the last issue of Ultimatum. What a terrible mess. It’s like somebody made a bet on how many exploding heads they could fit into a mainstream comic book. Remember when the Ultimate line was for kids?

And “exploding” was the most realistic thing that any of those characters did in that issue. Magneto’s immediate 180 upon learning the truth of his origins (trying to write vaguely enough that any of you who are dumb enough to buy this won’t have it spoiled) was almost insultingly unbelievable. “Aw shoot, I got that one wrong? Ok … so how can I help?” What a redemption!

I loved that it ended with a shout-out to the gang that started the Ultimate line. It’s like “Oh, hey, thanks for leaving your doors unlocked while you went on vacation. I took all your valuables and pooped on your couch.”

…will not be found here.

Over the course of the past week, Fox has had its hands full trying to deal with a leaked copy of the new X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie. It’s an unfinished version of the film that’s set to be released the first week of May, and it’s floating all over the Internet. If you want to find a copy, go ahead and start looking. You won’t have any problem doing so.

My question, though, is this: Why would you want to do that? Normally, I don’t really care about piracy (at all), and I wouldn’t hesitate to watch the latest blockbusters without paying for them; but the line should be drawn somewhere, right? I’ve seen pirated movies a few weeks after they’ve hit the theatres, when I’ve made up my mind that the only way I’ll ever watch the movies is if I illegally download them, but I’ve never actually skipped out on watching a movie in theatres in favor of watching it on my computer. The quality’s usually crap, and it’s a pain in the ass sitting on my computer and watching something that’s meant to be viewed on a screen the size of a broad side of a barn.

Furthermore, this is an incomplete cut of the film. Lots of special effects are missing from it, the sound isn’t complete, and yet, it’s being downloaded in droves by spoiler-sport nerds across the world. (more…)

Sorry I dropped the ball last week, folks. Things have been confusing in Doominator land, between work, allergies and night classes, last Sunday ended up a catch-up day - and not, unfortunately, a Doomkopf one.

So let’s start. Remember. You give me something to sum up in a sentence, to varying degrees of success and seriousness.

This week’s questions come from the ever-hungover Doom DeLuise

1. Who is Xorn? Not Magneto, either. The actual Xorn.

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Andy Diggle just confirmed on twitter what had been rumored since Joe Quesada accidentally slipped last week — Diggle will take over Daredevil with the renumbered issue #501.

I have mixed feelings on this. The only Diggle work I’ve ever read was Green Arrow: Year One, and while it started strong, I ended up hating it. Throughout the course of my reviews, “GAYO” became the refrain for Diggle’s campy writing and comedically common use of ridiculous coincidences to drive the plot. But the guy is clearly doing something right, as Marvel has signed him to an exclusive deal and his work on Thunderbolts seems pretty highly regarded. So I’m willing to give it a chance.

In his latest Cup O’ Joe column today, Joe Quesada got a little nostalgic about the book: (more…)