Summer Movie Report Card 2013

No time for a preamble, here's 2013's Summer Movie Report Card! 

Iron Man 3

A huge step above the lackluster previous film in the series and a worthy follow-up to The Avengers, I still would have liked a bit more of Iron Man himself and more nods to the shared universe. Nevertheless, there's no denying this was well-crafted and tremendously fun, largely carried by Robert Downey Jr.'s phenomenal performance.  
A

The Great Gatsby

To Better Know A Hero: Superman

This week sees the release of Man of Steel, Warner Bros. attempt to rejuvenate the Superman film franchise following the snoozefest that was Superman Returns, and, presumably, finally get around to launching a cinematic superhero universe to rival Disney/Marvel's. More importantly, the release of the film finally provides me with an opportunity to do a timely post examining the history of comics' first superhero (also, be sure to check out friend-of-the-blog Blam's Adventures in Comicology blog. where, amongst other things, he is in the midst of a daily Superman cover retrospective celebrating the character's 75th anniversary.  

Real Name
Clark Kent/Kal-El 

First Appearance
Action Comics #1, June 1938
  
Nicknames and Aliases
Supes, The Last Son of Krypton, the Big Blue Boy Scout.

X-amining The Uncanny X-Men and New Teen Titans #1

"Apokolips...Now!"
1982

In a Nutshell
The X-Men and Teen Titans team-up to defeat Deathstroke, Darkseid and Dark Phoenix. 

Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciler: Walter Simonson
Finisher:Terry Austin
Letterer: Tom Orzechowski
Colorist: Glynis Wein
Editor: Louise Jones
Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter
Consulting Editor: Len Wein

Plot 
At the Source Wall, New Gods Metron and Darkseid strike a deal: Darkseid receives the Psychon-Wave device while Metron receives a Omega-Phase Helmet that will allow him to pierce the Wall. Darkseid goes to Earth, and uses the Psychon-Wave to extract from the X-Men their memories of Phoenix. The X-Men are awakened by a screaming Kitty, just as an apparition of Phoenix appears before them and begs for their help before disappearing. At Titans Tower, Raven has a prophetic dream of a fiery bird attacking her. Recognizing it as the Phoenix, Starfire summons the rest of the team. As the Titans come together, the X-Men visit Jean's parents, who received a similar visitation. Just then Professor X alerts them to reports of strange occurrences at places where Phoenix manifested her power. The X-Men depart to investigate, while Starfire tells the Titans about Phoenix, and Deathstroke the Terminator is sent by Darkseid to the "last siphon point".

To Better Know A Villain: Bane

This Friday sees the release of The Dark Knight Rises, the third film in Christopher Nolan's acclaimed Batman trilogy, featuring Christian Bale as Batman and Captain Picard's clone as Bane, that guy in the trailers with the speaker over his mouth you couldn't understand very well at first, but now can. With the film poised to make all the money, ever, and since, relative to the likes of the Joker or Penguin, Bane is a pretty unknown Batman villain, I figured he was worthy of some discussion (and also be sure check out Dr. Bitz's 100% accurate rundown of Batman himself here. Don't forget to click on the pictures).

Real Name
Bane

First Appearance
Batman: Vengeance of Bane #1 (Jan. 1993)

Powers and Abilities
Bane has trained himself to peak human physical condition, and when augmented by the drug Venom, his strength, speed, agility and durability is pushed to super-human levels. Bane also possess a genius-level intellect and is a master strategist and martial artist.

To Better Know a Hero: Green Lanterns

So Green Lantern has been in the news a lot lately, the "real" news, even, thanks to DC's recent reveal of the character as gay. However, as is usually the case, non-comic book news site don't quite know/aren't telling the whole story, so I figured now was as good a time as any to create a Green Lantern primer. Because, as is usually the case with comics, nothing is ever that simple...

To Better Know A Hero: Green Lantern

Note: this is a slightly-updated and reformatted version of a post that was original published in September of 2008. I am both lazy enough to not re-write it yet shameless enough to re-post it in order to take advantage of the buzz surrounding the release of the Green Lantern film.

Real Name
Harold "Hal" Jordan

First Appearance
Showcase Presents 22 (Oct. 1959)

Nicknames and Aliases
Highball, the Emerald Knight, Parallax, the Spectre

Powers and Abilities
Hal possesses a ring which enables him to will into existence green physical constructs of anything he can imagine, including shields, cages and giant baseball gloves; the ring also enables Hal to fly, survive in space for extended periods of time, travel great distances, and understand alien languages. Hal is also an accomplished and fearless test pilot and a detective of moderate skill.

Thoughts on DC Comics' Recent Big Announcement, Part 2

At it's core, both parts of DC's announced plans for September (the re-launching of all of its titles and the same-day availability of its comics as digital downloads) are about one thing: attracting new readers. As was discussed in the comments section of one my recent posts, the modern day comic book market is a shade of what it was once, and more disconcerting, it is a market that is increasingly shrinking, as existing buyers leave the hobby or cutback the number of titles they buy (for a variety of reasons) faster than new buyers replace them (we existing comic geeks can only churn out so many kids and turn them onto the hobby ourselves, after all). So more than anything, DC is after new readers; after all, they know there is a willing audience out there, or at least an audience open to the idea of stories involving superheroes. My last post discussed the cancellation/re-launch/re-tooling of DC's stable of comic book characters as one part of that new reader drive. Today, let's look at the other element of their strategy: the digital side.

Thoughts on DC Comics' Recent Big Announcement

For those of you that haven't heard, DC Comics (publisher of comics starring Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, amongst others) recently announced that in September, they would be canceling all of their existing comics (including, presumably, Action Comics and Detective Comics, two series which have been in continuous publication since the 1930s) and replacing them with fifty-two new comics starting with issue #1, some to be re-launches of existing titles while others will be entirely brand new. Additionally, the new comics will feature DCs existing stable of characters in new or altered costumes designed by superstar artist Jim Lee and feature "updated" origins, and Lee would be providing the regular art for the re-launched Justice League, featuring all of DC's "big guns". Also, it was announced that with the debut of the new comics, DC will launch a new digital comics policy, which will enable readers to download issues of the comics on the same day the print issues hit stands.

Geography of the DC Universe

While the Marvel Universe has always been billed as "the world outside your window" (despite the disappointing lack of radioactive Spider-Men outside my window...) and uses a reasonable facsimile of the real New York City as the backdrop for many of its stories, the DC Universe (home of Batman and Superman) has, from the earliest days of Gotham City and Metropolis, presented geography further removed from our world, one which features several major fictional cities.

Siskoid, of the excellent Siskoid's Blog of Geekery, recently asked his readers to take a list of ten of DC's most notable fictional cities and assign them a fictional state, along with the general location of where that state would be (the Earth of the DC Universe is physically larger than our world, so these new states would simply fit in and around existing ones).