#TheFourth – New Tom Baker-centric Doctor Who Promo Clip

Bleeding Cool has posted about a new video from BBC Worldwide. It features camera panning over illustrations of the fourth Doctor’s companions, with audio clips from selected companions and Tom Baker. While it could be that the video is a promo for an upcoming Doctor Who DVD box set Doctor Who: the Doctors Revisited 1-4, which will be released on July 16, it could also be as simple as BBC Worldwide being a bit tongue in cheek – it was released on July 4th. Probably not directed at us Americans for our nation’s birthday, but who knows? The series’ massive popularity of late here in the United States is why Stephen Moffat remains still employed, to the eternal bafflement of many fans of the classic series and the earlier Russell T. Davies reboot episodes.

Decisions, Decisions: Thursday and Friday San Diego Comic-Con Panel Schedules Released

We are in the middle of a heat wave here in Boston; temperatures have been above 90 degrees outside with extremely high humidity… and until about 90 minutes ago, temperatures inside the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office were roughly the same. However, a nice man came out and said he needed to work with something called  “blower motor,” which, after ascertaining that he wasn’t using code to seek a favor other than money to Make Cool Air Engine Go, has begin to cut through the disgusting humid stew in which we have been living for almost 48 hours.

All in all, it has been enough to make a man seek out a different climate: one with cool breezes, next-to-no humidity, and where air conditioning is a nice bonus as opposed to being the only piece of technology separating humanity from regular frustrated stabbings.

Which is a long way to go to say that we are beginning to develop a powerful anticipation for this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, and that it has been good timing that they have begun to release their programming schedule over the past couple of days. Specifically, they have publicised the panels for Thursday an Friday, which you can find here for Thursday and here for Friday… although I’ll be commenting on some specific panels that look promising – or ridiculous – after the jump.

Solitary Gratification: Deadpool Kills Deadpool #1 Review

I just realized that Deadpool is the Ambush Bug of the Marvel Universe. This is a good thing, and not just a minor call to DC Comics to bring Ambush Bug the hell back in something a little meatier than their Channel 52 thing at the back of every issue.

Here’s what I mean: Deadpool knows he is a comic book character, and what’s more, because of that, he knows that a lot of the time he is there to be comic relief. And in a comic universe – or better yet, a multiverse, and if you show me a comic publisher that isn’t servicing a multiverse, I’ll show you a comic publisher who will be servicing one once a high-powered writer wants to do a crossover with one of their characters – a character who knows the score can be used to throw together any number of weird, goofy scenarios that no self-respecting reader would believe in a million years without the liberal application of mescaline… and we can still play along with it.

And Marvel has known this for quite a while. And as such, we have gotten cool little miniseries like Deadpool Killustrated and Deadpool Kills The Marvel Universe, which make no sense at all but were fun as hell to read. And now we have Deadpool Kills Deadpool, probably either because it gives writer Cullen Bunn a chance to dig out every variation on Deadpool that has ever bee created in the Marvel Universe, or perhaps because there is no one else left in the Marvel Universe for Deadpool to kill.

And, as with those other miniseries, this one is also shaping up to be as fun as hell.

End Of Broadcast Day – Sweat For It

So, today was the day the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office’s air conditioning shit the bed. No biggie – just the afternoon before July 4th. The likelihood that our HVAC guy (yes, we have an HVAC guy) will get back to us before Monday is somewhere in the range of “Poor” to “Aw, hell no!”. Thusly, we hied ourselves off to the local comic book store, where not only was our weekly take ready, but there was air conditioning. Yes, also, they know us by name and spent much of today asking Rob to stop calling their AC unit Killer Frost…and to stop asking Killer Frost if she would “blow on it…just a little…goddamn it it hurts…at least point at it and laugh…” Eventually, with only the lightest threat of police involvement, we acquired our books and found our way back to the Home Office. Here we have a giant box fan and a 30 pack of poor man’s air conditioning. Rob has availed himself of at least 5 since we got home. This leaves me to marvel over the week’s haul. It’s not too bad for a holiday week: Dexter #1 has finally dropped, there’s a new Garth Ennis Red Team, and something called Superior Foes Of Spider-Man by Nick Spencer, because, why the hell not? Nice to finally see the Dexter book though. I think at least 2 Powers Bureau books have come out since that was originally sollicited, and that’s fucking saying something.

But, you all know how this goes. First we need to read the books before we can pass our collective review-y wisdom unto you, so that means this…

…is the end of our broadcast day. Tune in tomorrow to see if we survive a night full of beer and no air conditioning. And, by “survive” I mean “Rob avoids a drunk and disorderly after walking into the local Tedeschi’s buck nude and looking for Lunchables attention ice.” Wish us luck!

The Wheel of Karma: Gerry Conway’s Comics Equity Project

There’s been a lot of talk recently, in these days where The Avengers makes a billion and a half dollars at the box office and Robert Downey Jr. can make something like 20 million bucks for acting like an erratic drunk for a few hours – something he did for years for nothing, mind you – about how the actual comic creators who came up with these characters are often getting bupkis in exchange for their creations. Just a couple of weeks ago, Mark Waid made it clear that, despite having elements from his Superman: Birthright story used in Man of Steel, he will not be receiving, nor even expecting, any money:

So, no, I get no financial compensation for Man of Steel, nor does Grant Morrison whose words in ALL-STAR SUPERMAN were given voice by Russell Crowe, nor does John Byrne (maybe something for having created the robot Kelex, since that’s a character, not a concept like “Room full of Kryptonian embryos”), nor do the other writers and artists (other than creators Siegel and Shuster) whose contributions to the Superman myth were used in the film. And that’s okay. It’s not optimal, but we knew the rules going in. Hell, for me, honestly, the smile I got on my face the first time I heard lines from BIRTHRIGHT in the MoS trailer–the confirmation that I really did give something lasting back to the character who’s given me so much–is worth more to me than any dollar amount. (Your mileage may vary.)

And I have taken the sometimes unpopular stance that, while on a karmic basis, guys like Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Joe Shuster, and Alan Moore might deserve more substantial financial consideration for their creations, the fact of the matter is that for the most part, that wasn’t the deal they signed. They signed work-for-hire deals, which meant that they got paid for the scripts, and whatever was actually, you know, in those scripts belonged to the guys writing the checks. And that is a harsh stance to take about an industry that produces some of the stories I love most in the world, and which despite billions in intellectual property value still requires things like The Hero Initiative to provide a safety net for creators, but the law is the law and the contract is the contract. I might have a more jaundiced view of such things than most, as my day job is with a technology company who required me to sign an agreement that any program I noodle out to solve a personal problem technically belongs to them, but regardless, the facts don’t change: if the contract doesn’t say you get any money, you don’t get any money.

Sometimes, however, the contract does say that you get some money… provided you can prove that someone is using your creation. Enter Gerry Conway, his (and many other creators’) deal with DC Comics, and the Comics Equity Project.

Mad In Gotham – Review Of All-Star Western #21

Writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti have put Jonah Hex through a lot in All-Star Western in the last 20 issues. He’s dealt with everything from early Crime Bible disciples to Vandal Savage to Mr. Hyde (yes, as in “Dr. Jekyll and…”. Really.). At the same time, Gray and Palmiotti have created an intricate backdrop that has unfolded from an early Gotham City and spiraled out across post-Civil War America. They’ve populated it with a menagerie of colorful characters, ranging from the familiar, like Amadeus Arkham, to new ones, like The Barbary Ghost. However, starting with issue #19, the writing team has begun to focus on a character with definite ties to the DCnU present, if not the future, time traveling hero: Booster Gold. Does this signal an end to Gray and Palmiotti’s exploration of historical Gotham and its characters?

A closer look at the events of All-Star Western #21, rife with spoilers, after the jump.

My Dead Canadian Girlfriend: Batman: The Dark Knight #21 Review

We haven’t spent a lot of time talking about Batman: The Dark Knight since its relaunch in September 2011 – honestly, we haven’t reviewed even a single issue. And part of the reason has been that the title has always existed on the fringes of the Batman universe – the main plots have been in Batman and, to a lesser extent, Batman Incorporated, but Batman: The Dark Knight has always kinda done its own mostly self-contained stories. And being a comics Web site, we’ve tended to pay more attention to the big, money shot stories while Batman: The Dark Knight has sorta chugged happily along on its own, telling smaller, more simple and self-contained Batman stories.

And in its own way, Batman: The Dark Knight #21 is no different. The conflict happening here isn’t one that I’ve seen referenced in any of the other Batman books. The conflict is based on a relationship that hasn’t been mentioned anywhere else. It features a B-List villain in The Mad Hatter, who is the kind of villain you normally dig up when you have a story requiring a nutjob and you realize that it’s only been three months since the other Batman books have used The Joker, The Riddler, or The Scarecrow… and frankly, The Mad Hatter only gets picked once the writer sobers up enough to realize that resurrecting Chandell continues to be a shitty idea.

So what you wind up with is a Batman comic that almost exists in its own little bubble universe where it can just tell a simple Batman story. And that’s exactly what it does: it give us a Batman motivated only by the events of its own story, filled with rage and showing a ton of iconic visual action, with a simple message to deliver about how Batman exactly is different from the monsters that he battles. And, not being a part of the greater ongoing Batman continuity, it is kinda doomed to be midlist that probably goes out of print pretty quickly. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a damn good and simple story, and one that’s well worth checking out.

Finding Your Line: San Diego Comic-Con Releases Floor Map

The San Diego Comic-Con is coming up quick; it’s in about three weeks (which means I just had my fourteenth panic moment in a series of several hundred when I compulsively check my flight and hotel information to make sure I have the right dates), which means two things: we here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives are starting our annual trips out to research, test and collect equipment for reporting on the convention as quickly and comprehensively as a two-person operation can (particularly when the staff on the ground has a 100% incidence of problem drinking), and they information about the convention is beginning to drip out.

This means two things: we only have a few minutes today before we must head out on an appointment to irritate the shit out of some minimum wage drone at Best Buy (“How many finotles does this camera have? Two, eh? Yeah, can we speak to someone who knows that a finotle is not a thing?”), and that Comic-Con has released the map for the main convention floor.

And if you are attending the convention, you should go check the new map out; apparently they have moved some stuff around in the interest of relieving some floor traffic. The videogame exhibitors have been moved to pretty much the other side of the floor, and the art dealers have been moved even closer to Artists’ Alley. Which is probably a good move and should alleviate the horrible scrums of wretched humanity… right until the moment some top-heavy woman in a Power Girl costume strikes a pose for a photo, warping the orderly streams of timely travel more effectively than a TARDIS with a flamethrower.

You can check out the new map, and search for your target exhibitors here.

You Know, For Kids!: Justice League #21 Review

Captain Marvel occupies a strange place in the superhero comics world, in that he is a character that occupies about a thousand places in a million different fans’ hearts.

He is simultaneously the Big Red Cheese who fought talking mescal worms with his gentleman tiger Tawky Tawny, while he is also the generic 1970s superhero who rode around the desert in a Winnebago punching dudes and talking to a big nipply globe on the dashboard, and at the same time he is the horribly damaged and tragic character who beat Superman to a standstill before sacrificing himself to save the world in Kingdom Come. Hell, there are times when I can’t think of the character without remembering my early 2000s drunken tirade that Dan DiDio should give Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham a million bucks a piece to complete their Miracleman story using Captain Marvel, since Miracleman was never anything but a royalty dodge on The Big Red Cheese anyway.

My point is, each version of Captain Marvel means something to somebody, and paying service to one means that you stand a real chance of alienating fans of the others. Slap a big C. C. Beck smile on Captain Marvel’s face and the Kingdom Come fans think you’re yanking their chain. Make him tortured over the adult horrors he’s witnessed as a superhero and you piss off the fans of the childlike original. Put him in a Winnebago out in the middle of the desert with a creepy old dude and you’ll never see the outside of a jail cell again.

This was the line that writer Geoff Johns and artist Gary Frank were trying to negotiate with their Shazam backup story in Justice League for the past several months. And to be honest, when it started, I thought they botched it; Billy Batson was a petulant little bastard who I would have rather seen get scabies than superpowers. But that, however, was a while ago. This month’s Justice League #21 is devoted to the conclusion of the Shazam story… so the question is, not that it’s all said and done, who did Johns and Franks piss off?

Really, probably nobody. There’s enough elements of the classic kids’ Captain Marvel here to at least pay service to those fans, and enough modern realism so that he doesn’t stick out from the New 52 continuity. And the conclusion is, in fact, really pretty good. Not perfect, but fun enough to be worth the ride.

Although the people hoping for RVs and “Mentors” are gonna be furious… but seriously, fuck those people.

Game Of Thrones + BTVS = Awesome

In this Game Of Thrones fan trailer, posted by YouTube user zuziako, scenes from the show are set to the Buffy The Vampire Slayer theme by Nerf Herder. In the role of Buffy? Jon Snow. Because, as zuziako puts it in the comments, “Well, he battles the undead.”

He does indeed.

Best quote from the comment thread is by user Joe Coffey:

You know nothing, Buffy Summers.

Miss Buffy? Then check out this never before released footage from behind the scenes of the series over at The Mary Sue. It’ll help keep you going until you can dig out your old BTVS DVDs, or until winter comes back around again.

Via The Mary Sue.