Loki Walks Into A Bar And Throws Three Nails On The Desk: Tom Hiddleston Up To Play The Crow

It was a long night in Boston last night; between the cops putting the arm on the surviving Boston Massacre bomber right around the time they lifted the lockdown, and the cancellation of the Boston Comic Con (meaning we suddenly didn’t need to get up early this morning), well, much liquor was consumed.

So our energy levels are low today – and I swear, this will be the last time that we use the weirdness of the past six days to plead for anemic levels of content here (although we might come up with something else) – but we found this interesting item that is either really promising news for the movie, or a wretched and ill-advised portent of doom for the actor: apparently Tom Hiddleston, the guy who played Loki in Thor and The Avengers, is going out for a role in another superhero movie.

Problem is, that role is of The Crow, in the remake of the 1994 Brandon Lee movie of the same name.

Hoo, boy.

Return of The Dzhokhar

Update, 4:10 p.m.: Boston Comic Con just announced that this weekend’s convention has been cancelled:

ATTENTION: Boston Comic Con has been cancelled. We will try to reschedule for a later date. Thank you for your support & understanding.

— Boston Comic Con (@BostonComicCon) April 19, 2013

The full message from Boston Comic Con, including details on rescheduling and refunds:

Due to the unfortunate events that have transpired here in Boston, a city wide lock down has been put into effect until further notice causing The Hynes Convention Center to suspend all events until further notice. As such, The Boston Comic Con has been posponed [sic] and will be rescheduled to a date sometime in 2013.

All people who purchased advanced tickets on line will have their tickets honored at the rescheduled show. We will notify you of that date. If for some reason, you can not come to the show on that date, we will refund your ticket.

Please, we ask for your patience, understanding, and cooperation.

We appreciate your loyalty, and continued support for The Boston Comic Con. Unfortunately, this situation is beyond our control.

We stand with all Bostonians and hope that current events are resolved quickly and a degree of normalcy can be returned to our city.

Thanks a lot, you cowardly, mad-bombing, cop-killing douchecanoe.

————-

Yes, the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office is in the lockdown area because of the manhunt for the missing Boston Marathon bomber, roughly walking distance from where last night’s shootout with the prick occurred. As such, we are a bit distracted from normal comics news today (but not so distracted that we didn’t notice that “Dzhokhar” is uncomfortably close to being pronounced, “Joker”).

However, we are still anticipating that a single 19-year-old untrained dipshit will either be found dead or rounded up by the cops in time to allow tomorrow’s Boston Comic Con to proceed as scheduled – and as of this writing, it is still scheduled.

We are still continuing with this weekend’s convention under the assumption today’s situation is temporary. Apologies for any inconvenience.

— Boston Comic Con (@BostonComicCon) April 19, 2013

We are still preparing to attend and cover both days of the convention, so watch this space for that coverage… or for news of whether the status of the convention changes. 

Thursday Night At The Movies: Patton Oswalt on Star Wars and Kick-Ass 2

It is yet another eventful evening in the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office – tonight, we have a plumber in replacing the sink garbage disposal. You know, that thing mounted under your sink that is designed, meant and sold to grind small bits of kitchen detritus so it can be washed down the sink, thus leaving more room in the trash for beer cans? The device that has a big warning on it to keep your damn hands away from it unless you want to sharpen your wrist like a #2 pencil? Yeah, that shit the bed. On an egg shell. A bit of garbage so known for toughness and resiliency that they are sold in padded specialty containers, and if the bag kid at the grocery store puts them at the bottom of the bag, you’re allowed by Massachusetts law to bust him in the mouth with a sack full of canned goods.

So posting must be quick tonight, what with my needing to keep an eye on this guy in case he asks for assistance… and if he does, considering all I know about plumbing is its spelling, I will be forced to respond, “Sure… hows about I staple the back of your BVDs to your spine so I can stop seeing that stereotypical man-ass cleavage there, champ?”

So in the spirit of quick improvisation, we have a couple of videos for you, starting with Patton Oswalt on the set of Parks & Recreation, filibustering the city council by spending almost ten minutes explaining what the plot of Star Wars: Episode VII should be – including Marvel superheroes, the X-Men (yes, I know they are Marvel heroes, but tell movie rights holder 20th Century Fox that) and the homoerotic cast of Clash of The Titans. It’s some good, impressive and funny stuff – as you can tell by the poster Entertainment Weekly made based on selfsame improvised rant.

And if that’s not enough, well, someone leaked an extended, bloody battle scene from the climax of Kick-Ass 2. Both of which you can find after the jump.

The Heroes We Deserve

It has been an… eventful week so far here in Boston. We had the awful events at the finish line at the Boston Marathon on Monday, followed by an outpouring of support from around the country on Tuesday – the New York Yankees, a baseball team that, on a normal day, no Bostonian would admit is staffed by a single legitimate human being, played the Red Sox’s victory song, Sweet Caroline, during the third inning at Yankee Stadium last night – and all the late night comics were extremely supportive, despite carrying humiliating memories of being eaten alive at Nick’s Comedy Stop on Warrenton Street back in the 90s (and as someone who was a comedian back in the 90s, trust me: they were all eaten alive at Nick’s).

But now it is Wednesday, and as you might have read, Boston is not your normal American city. We’ve been here longer than almost any other city in this country, we were the first ones to chuck a hearty “fuck you” to out British overlords in the 1770s, and we were the setting of America’s greatest sitcom, where every single character drank in a bar all day and then went to work because even the most incredulous TV viewer had no doubt that not even hours of drinking could prevent a Bostonian from getting up and going about his fucking business.

Man Of Steel Official Trailer Hits Internet

Zack Snyder may have hit a home run with this movie. There is a moment in this trailer where you will believe that a man can fly – roughly at 1:55 in where Superman places his fist against the Arctic crust and leaves behind a crater as he shoots off from the Earth. And, Kevin Costner telling a distraught young Clark, “You are my son” after showing him the ship that brought him here may as well already have “For your consideration” captioned underneath it for Oscar voters. Seriously.

Enjoy!

Man Of Steel comes to US theaters on June 14, 2013.

Remain Calm And Carry Comics: Boston Comic Con Taking Place As Scheduled

After the wretched and depressing events at yesterday’s Boston Marathon in Boston’s Copley Square, there was some speculation about whether or not this weekend’s scheduled Boston Comic Con would still be held, what with the fact that it is being held at the Hynes Convention Center – roughly three blocks from the, as of this writing, still-active crime scene.

The question was up in the air until a few hours ago, when the convention emailed attendees with advance passes to tell us that not only is the convention still on, but that all scheduled guests are apparently confirmed to still be there.

You can check out the full release from Boston Comic Con, including the names of all the confirmed guests, after the jump.

We Will Soon Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

If ever Boston needed a Batman, it was today.

— The Batman (@TheBatman) April 15, 2013

The Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office is based in Boston – miles away from the site of yesterday’s Boston Marathon bombings, but still, we’re here – so suffice it to say that we have been a little distracted for the past eighteen hours or so.

We, and everyone we know, including all our contributors, are all fine, although a bit shaken up as we had idly kicked around the idea of venturing downtown yesterday to try to score Red Sox tickets for the morning game, and the idea of getting hammered at the Cask And Flagon bar on Lansdowne Street and wandering toward Copley to drunkenly heckle the workaday, “This is my first marathon!” runners had been floated. Marking April 15th, 2013 as the first day we have ever been grateful for having made the decision to not day drink… although after the news started to come out, you can be damn sure that we made the decision to night drink in fairly short order.

So please bear with us as we shake this off and soon return to our regularly-scheduled comic book programming, probably later today… with that programming to include coverage from the Boston Comic Con, currently scheduled to take place this coming Saturday and Sunday.

Currently we expect #BostonCon to continue as planned. We will have more information in the days ahead. Thank you for your patience.

— Boston Comic Con (@BostonComicCon) April 15, 2013

The Voice Of Zod – Man Of Steel Official Site Posts Intriguing Teaser

The official Web site for Man Of Steel posted this garbled transmission from Superman nemesis, Zod. Beware, clicking on the video may expose you to a plot spoiler: seems Zod is in a snit that we have his stuff Kal-El.

Could be an interesting twist on the Superman story to have Kal-El as a Kryptonian fugitive…or the good general may just be getting his crazy on. Either way, the movie is beginning to sound more interesting the closer we get to the opening.

Man Of Steel hits theaters in the US on June 14, 2013.

Via Comics Alliance

Shane! Come Back! – Jon Bernthal Cancels Boston Comic Con Appearance

Say, were you excited about meeting Maggie and Shane from AMC’s The Walking Dead next weekend at the Boston Comic Con? Yeah? Well, temper your enthusiasm a bit. Lauren Cohen will still make an appearance, but Jon Bernthal will not. According to an email sent by the convention to ticket holders last Friday:

A Message from the Host:

Unfortunately, Jon Bernthal (Shane Walsh) of The Walking Dead must CANCEL his appearance at The Boston Comic Con due to a sudden change in his filiming schedule.

All attendees who purchased a VIP Photo Op ticket will be refunded in full.

Any other person who wishes a refund of their admission ticket to the Boston Comic Con due to Jon Bernthal’s cancellation must submit a refund request by no later than Friday April 19th. Once the show has started no refunds will be issued whatsoever.

We apologize for this unfortunate inconvenience which is out of our control.

The Boston Comic Con

Beyond their control, perhaps, but certainly a possibility that they were aware of. A source connected to the group that produced the 2013 commercial for Boston Comic Con tells me that they were told to downplay Bernthal’s appearance at the con because of the likelihood that he might pull out. You can check out their commercial after the jump.

Always A Bridesmaid: Batman #19 Review

Editor’s Note: Your have eaten Gotham’s wealth. Its spoilers. From now on, none of you are safe.

Is there anyone who saw the teaser for the WTF cover of Batman #19 and didn’t know pretty much automatically that it was probably Clayface impersonating Bruce Wayne? And more importantly, is there anyone in the comics reading world who really gives a tin shit about Clayface?

I mean, the concept of Clayface has been around 1940, and even after all that time, it’s not like Clayface is anybody’s idea of a classic character. Because even though there is clearly enough behind the concept of a shapeshifting supervillain to keep Clayface popping up now and again for the past 63 years, let’s face reality: there have been eight different Clayfaces since Detective Comics #40. The only reason to revamp a “classic” villain on an average of every eight years is if there is something fundamentally wrong with it.

The fact of the matter is “Clayface” is nothing but a set of powers behind a grotesque body, with next to no personality behind it. Hell, I’ve been reading Batman comics for 37 years, and I couldn’t tell you any of the Clayface’ origin stories, or what motivates them to crime as opposed to, say, looking at my dripping, earthy face and attempting suicide. Or maybe shifting into Brad Pitt and trying to impersonate myself into a better life (although if you’re old enough to remember Angelina Jolie back when she drank blood and was married to Billy Bob Thornton, you might think she’d be more into the whole monster thing).

My point is, I don’t think anyone really cares about Clayface. And Clayface is the antagonist of Batman #19. So the question is: does writer Scott Snyder finally do anything interesting with the character?

Short answer: nah. Not really.