Your Move, Creep: Robocop Statue In Detroit

The Crisis On Infinite Midlives main staff has a prior commitment today, and as such can’t spend as much time as we would like today producing the fine content enjoyed by all three of our regular readers, plus the untold thousands who find us via such scintillating Google searches as “Wonder Woman boob grope,” “Joker fucking Harley Quinn,” and “midlevel comic book Web site featuring more than the average number of dick jokes.”

However, we don’t want to leave you emptyhanded on this opening day of Labor Day weekend, so take a look that this account of Detroit’s greatest hope in the face of impending bankruptcy and the shame of being the hometown of Eminem: its own statue of hometown hero Robocop.

An idea that started as a sarcastic tweet in reply to the mayor’s request for ideas to beautify the city, two years and a Kickstarter campaign have conspired to create a giant brass statue of Robocop, which is now in Detroit and just awaiting a site to be finally placed.

So check it out, thanks for your patience, and we should return to our regularly-scheduled programming tomorrow.

Unspeakable Horror, Now In Color!: H. P. Lovecraft’s Drawings of The Elder Things

Ever wonder what the Elder Things from H. P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness really looked like? Well, you’ve come to the right place.

The Elder Things looked kinda like giant pteridophytes: about six feet tall, barrel-shaped, with a main body that was leathery and dark-grey, with four-foot long tentacles ending in greenish eight-inch fins on the posterior side, with a yellowish mouth / breathing apparatus at the anterior end, surrounded by more reddish tentacles. And when those tentacles aren’t reaching out for your sanity, they’re folded down to its body.

And I know what you’re thinking: “Rob,” you’re thinking, “How do you have such an accurate knowledge of what these horrible creatures looked like? It’s almost like you have a picture!” Well, funny story: I do. Straight from the man himself.

Lovecraft made at least seven pages of notes in preparation for the writing of At The Mountains of Madness, including one scribbled on the back of an envelope (the only thing more appropriate would be if it was scrawled on a cocktail napkin) that included Lovescraft’s original drawing of an Elder Thing, with a bunch of descriptive notes about the beast. And those notes don’t just include dimensions, but the effects that seeing the thing would have on normal Earthlings, like: “Utter mystery + horror,” “DOGS DISTURBED… DOGS FRANTIC,” and the particularly cryptic (and creepy) isolated note: “mouths & eyes.”

All these pages are currently on public display at an exhibit named The Shadow Over College Street: H. P. Lovecraft in Providence at the Providence Athenaeum in Lovecraft’s home town of Providence, Rhode Island until September 22nd, and what with Providence being less than an hour from the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, we might be taking this exhibit in sometime this month.

But if you’re not local to New England, there’s no need to book a flight to get a look at Lovecraft’s official visual version of the Elder Things; you can check it out for yourself right after the jump.

Just crate your dogs before you click the link.

Exterminate Humanity (Starting With Duckie): James Spader Cast As Ultron In Avengers 2

So the big geek news today was that James Spader has been cast to play Ultron in Joss Whedon’s upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron, to which my initial reaction was, “Huh. Whatever.”

Seriously, I didn’t have much of an initial positive reaction to the news, firstly because early this morning, I read a wild-assed rumor on Ain’t It Cool News that the plan for Ultron was to make Tony Stark’s JARVIS artificial intelligence go rogue and start tearing shit up for, I don’t know, being forced to spend four movies as part of the programming for Stark’s jockstrap or something. And while I didn’t know whether there was any truth to the rumor or not (clearly, there was not), the idea made a lot of sense to me. It utilized an existing character, it completely cut around the inclusion of Hank Pym in Ultron’s creation, and most importantly: it would have eliminated the need for probably at least 20 minutes of story setup to get Ultron off his ass, on his feet, and whimpering about his daddy issues in ways that would embarrass Lena Dunham.

But James Spader? Who really gives all that much of a damn about James Spader?

The Neverending Story: Justice League #23 Review

Editor’s Note: But evil hasn’t been imprisoned, Pandora, only spoiled!

So here we are: with Justice League #23, and the final chapter of The Trinity War. Now, let’s take a minute and look back at how we got here.

Two years ago next week, DC Comic released the final issue of Flashpoint, which closed out the DC Universe as it had been since Crisis On Infinite Earths back in 1986, and ushering in the New 52 era. And in both books – and in every new first issue that DC released in September, 2011 – DC Editorial made sure that we were shown the mysterious hooded woman (who was eventually identified as Pandora), with the implication being that she had some major part in the implosion of the pre-rebooted (Pre-booted? The Old 52? Pre-52? Post-Crisis Trapped In The Body Of A – ah, fuck it) DC Universe, and that her story would give us the real skinny behind the whole shakeup.

Over the intervening two years, we learned that Pandora was part of a troika of supernatural beings, including The Question and The Phantom Stranger, and that she was trying to dispose of her box (this is the space where I deleted seven different childish jokes) to eliminate evil. Which led us to The Trinity War, where all the members of the various Justice Leagues (which means basically every hero in the DC Universe minus O.M.A.C.) came together with Pandora as a major player, and the hopes that we might finally get an answer about Pandora’s role in the reboot, once the story ended.

So did we? Nah! Turns out Geoff Johns had a surprise up his sleeve for the ending of The Trinity War! He didn’t write one!

Somewhere, Joss Whedon is thanking God he cast his lot with Marvel Comics.

Alternate Realities: Unused Animatics From Iron Man 3, The Avengers Released

Here’s the thing about making movies: there isn’t a screenplay out there that doesn’t go through a half a dozen revisions and rewrites before they get locked down. Sometimes they’re not locked until after principal photography begins.

Which is all well and good for some indie flick made on a Flip Cam, but when it comes to big special effects extravaganzas, the visual effects guys can’t wait for the Suits in Corporate to get tired of giving notes like, “More edgy,” and “Can we get anyone on the planet other than Edward Norton?” They need to start planning stuff out quick, usual with animatics: little flipbook animations of the SFX sequences, done in varying degrees of detail, to give a movie storyboard of what the finished effects shots are gonna look like. And if they do an animatic for a sequence that winds up getting cut or altered? Well, that’s tough luck, Charlie; go to whatever bar Edward Norton’s drinking his sorrows away in so you can whimper to someone who gives a fuck.

But those animatics don’t just disappear… and sometimes, they make their way onto the Internet. Case in point: animator Federico D’Alessandro, who has done work on more than a dozen movies – including, most pertinent to readers of this site, every Marvel Studios movie since Thor, did a bunch of animatics of scenes from Iron Man 3 and The Avengers that didn’t make the final movie… and some of those animatics have made their way to the Web.

Now, I’ve seen plenty of animatics that are, at best, mild curiosities showing only some raw visuals. But these, however, are a little different. All of them include background music and sound effects, some of them have dialogue subtitles laid in, and all of them are just damn cool to watch, to get a sense of what we might have gotten from those two movies… including if The Wasp were part of The Avengers. And you can check them out after the jump.

New Sneak Peek Of AMC’s The Walking Dead

If you are as irritated as I am that Robert Kirkman’s comic book, The Walking Dead, has been moving at a snail’s pace over the Big Bad Negan arc and long for Rick to man up and finally put that fucker down and let the characters and the readers get on with their lives then, well, I can’t help you. However, you may rejoice in a couple of things:

1. In the last issue, Andrea stepped up and reminded readers why the version of her in the comic book is a far more superior, kick ass lady than viewers that have been only watching the TV show will ever know. I really wish this version is the one that folks watching the show could have gotten to know and I’m hoping she does something awful to Negan in the next issue or so.

2. In the TV version of The Walking Dead, Andrea died. So, we won’t have to put up with her mewling, weak ass, suck-up-to-anyone-who-looks-like-they-might-have-an-iota-of-power shit anymore.

3. The TV version did keep Michonne, introduced this past season, just as bad ass as she is in the comic book and she’s back next season. And next season starts soon. Very soon. Yay!

Check out a sneak peek of Michonne in action, after the jump.

Equitable Man Ass: Tony Daniel Sells Superman / Wonder Woman Badly At Toronto Fan Fest

Jesus Yammering Christ, is this what were reduced to now? Not just chasing that screeching tween Twilight dollar, but doing it hamfistedly and just fucking wrong?

All right, hold on; let me explain.

The Toronto Fan Expo was held this weekend. We did not attend this convention because we are still paying off our visits to the San Diego and Boston comic conventions (and are getting ready to pay our deposit for our emergency backup room for next year’s SDCC which, yes, we have already made reservations for), and because the nation of Canada has, based on a 1991 visit I made to Montreal, decided that my presence is so detrimental to their culture that even my American dollars don’t make up for it.

However, DC Comics was there, and as they do in most bigger conventions, they held a DC All Access panel to discuss upcoming books, such as Superman / Wonder Woman, written by Charles Soule with art by Tony Daniel and scheduled for a first issue release on October 9th. And Daniel was on that panel, and he addressed the impetus behind building a title around these two characters, who are two-thirds of a trinity of legendary characters created by DC.

And yeah: it turns out that that impetus wasn’t to tell legendary action stories. It apparently was to attract 11-year-old screechy girls and their sweet, sweet fistfuls of daddy’s cash.

Old Gods In The Machine, or: Because, MAGIC!: Justice League Dark #23 Review

Comic crossover events are built on a tight timeline. Because of all the various comic titles that are involved in any big event, everything needs to go off like clockwork. Because when it doesn’t, it throws all the other titles involved into a scheduling nightmare, and that could really fuck up their ability to tell a coherent story… not to mention fuck up their ability to get their shit together in time for the next event story that is inevitably hammering down the pike.

So sometimes an issue needs to move a lot of plot and characters around quickly, to make sure everything is in place for the next issue in the story pipeline. And Justice League Dark #23, the penultimate chapter of DC’s Trinity War crossover, is one of those books. Writer Jeff Lemire and artist Mikel Janin have just 24 pages to get characters from the House of Mystery, Washington D. C., New York City and other parts unknown all together to deal with Pandora’s Box and face down whoever the dapper gentleman running the Secret Society happens to be, all so the players and pieces are in place for the finale in next week’s Justice League.

The good news is that they do it with a fair amount of action, pitting heavy hitters against lower-level heroes, with everyone in sight being affected by the corrupting influence of Pandora’s Box. The bad news is that they make a lot of these moves based on forced coincidences, characters popping up from out of nowhere at just the right time, and a serious over-reliance on Zatanna and her backwards Pig Latin magic.

The result is an exciting story, but as befitting a story with magic at its core, one where you can see The Man Behind The Curtain. Characters don’t move in this comic. They are pushed.

Brain Bleach: Kenneth Rocafort Ruins Lobo

Take a good long look at the picture of the Main Man, Lobo, over there to the left. Drink it in, because the artist who teamed up with Scott Lobdell to help ruin the launch of Red Hood And The Outlaws in DC’s new 52 is at it again. Cheesecake master extraordinaire Kenneth Rocafort has redesigned indestructible space antihero Lobo for Marguerite Bennett’s take on the character in upcoming Justice League #23.2: Lobo. Gone will be the over muscled, heavy metal biker look that has been the character’s hallmark for decades. Instead, Rocafort will be giving us an athletic-looking, sanitized Lobo with the vapid features of a plastic surgery victim. Indeed, Lobo seems to be getting the full PG-13 makeover, as was similarly inflicted on John Constantine with the demise of Hellblazer. Huzzah for mediocrity! Check it out, after the jump.

Since Then, I’ve Spent Most Of My Time Chasing Superman. So To Speak: Ben Affleck Cast As Batman In Zack Snyder’s Batman Vs. Superman Movie

Christ, you go out to dinner late on a single, solitary Thursday evening, and what do you miss…

Ending weeks of speculation, Ben Affleck has been set to star as Batman, a.k.a. Bruce Wayne. Affleck and filmmaker Zack Snyder will create an entirely new incarnation of the character in Snyder’s as-yet-untitled project—bringing Batman and Superman together for the first time on the big screen and continuing the director’s vision of their universe, which he established in “Man of Steel.” The announcement was made today by Greg Silverman, President, Creative Development and Worldwide Production, and Sue Kroll, President, Worldwide Marketing and International Distribution, Warner Bros. Pictures.

The studio has slated the film to open worldwide on July 17, 2015.

Okay, let’s all get our, “Oh Jesus, Affleck was in Gigli / Saving Christmas / Sum of All Fears / Jennifer Lopez!” panic out of our system. Feel better? Now settle down, huddle up, fetch your old Uncle Rob some more bourbon, and listen up: this is not bad news.