Geoff Johns Flashes Us…

…a look at the new Flash costume!

First look at #TheFlash!!! @GBerlanti @AJKreisberg @grantgust @CW_network http://t.co/9mMZHGqMw4 pic.twitter.com/pr8yzzB5Jy

— Geoff Johns (@geoffjohns) February 28, 2014

— Geoff Johns (@geoffjohns) February 28, 2014
 

That’s Grant Gustin in costume as The Flash. The actor has already debuted on CW’s Arrow this season as Barry Allen, but here he is in underwear pervert mode.

Time to save the world, Barry! Hope that fabric is breathable.

Some other thoughts after the jump.

Comin’ At Ya… Again: DC To Use 3D Covers In September

Septembers have been a big deal for DC Comics ever since they staged the New 52 reboot in September, 2011. In 2012, DC released issues numbered zero for each of their titles. Last year, they published a lot of 23 and 24 “point” issues, focused on the main villains of each title… including a few that they just made up. I mean, seriously: Relic? That guy just got beat down like six months ago and I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup of old Charlton Comics villains or creepy circus clowns.

But last year, not only did we get a ton of villain comics, but we got a bunch of actually pretty sweet 3D lenticular covers for those books. Or at least some of us did. When word started going around that the available stock of 3D covers might not cover the orders, we told the owner of our local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to stop offering to show the paying customers if they want to check out 1D, that we were willing to accept copies with standard 2D covers if he ran short. He initially said that he didn’t think it would be an issue. And then we got about three of the 3D covers, and his heartfelt thanks for being willing to compromise.

So what does DC have in store for this coming September, the third anniversary of the big reboot?

Yeah, more 3D covers.

Unexpected Reunions

My co-Editor Amanda and I have a routine that we follow when we go to our local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to remember that the Missionary Position might indeed be “routine,” but less so if it happens next to the spinner rack of new trade paperbacks.

The routine is that, after we get our pulls and make small talk with the owner and the other Wednesday regulars, we step off to the side and show each other the week’s take of subscribed books. This might sound redundant, since one would think that we’re aware of what subscriptions we have and what new titles are coming out. However, our local comic store owner has a, shall we say, broad definition of what our subscriptions actually are. For example, I told him that I was interested in Pete Milligan’s and Mike Allred’s X-Force back in the early 2000s (before it became X-Statix), and to this day, more than a decade later, I still get any comic with the letter “X” and the word “Force” in the title.

So there is always a surprise or two when I go through my pulls, and this week I found myself saying, “Holy shit! Look at this!”

“What?” Amanda said, “It’s Beware The Batman. You told the guy you wanted Batman pulled for you back in 2001. You’re lucky he’s not tossing in shitty copies of 90s Detective Comics in with your pulls.”

“No, this is really surprising!”

“What is? The fact that there’s a comic version of a cartoon that Cartoon Network cancelled months ago? Remember that DC Comics is the company that is still dumping out Batman: Arkham City comics three years after the game came out. And when are you gonna tell him that you’re sick of getting those comics?”

“It’s not the title, it’s the writer. Mike W. Barr wrote this!”

“…I know that name.”

“Damn right you do! He’s the guy who wrote the Son of The Demon graphic novel that introduced Damian Wayne back in the 80s. He wrote Batman And The Outsiders, which was the first new Batman title in years when it debuted. He wrote Batman: Year Two!”

“Batman: Year Two? I don’t remember that one.”

“DC Comics doesn’t want you to,” I said. “The point is that this guy was huge back when we were in high school! I haven’t seen his name on a DC comic in years! God help me, this makes we want to read an adaptation of a cancelled children’s cartoon that was snuck into my pulls to dump otherwise unsellable inventory!”

All of this is a long way to go to explain that it is Wednesday, and that there are many new comics, which means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

But there are plenty of other good comics in there beyond a new Mike W. Barr Batman (or at least Batman-ish) comic. We’ve got the first issue of James Robinson’s Fantastic Four, the latest Miracleman reprint, the second issue of Serenity: Leaves on The Wind, a new issue of The Walking Dead (prediction: Negan will say “fuck” and fail to die), and a bunch of other cool stuff!

But you know how these things work; before we can talk about any of them, we need time to read them. So while we do that (and dig through longboxes for my Batman: Year Two issues so Amanda knows that I’m not hallucinating)…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

The One Who Knocks: Godzilla Trailer Released

I honestly haven’t given too much of a damn about the upcoming Godzilla reboot coming out this summer, despite a misspent youth spending Saturday afternoons watching Creature Double Feature on Boston’s channel 56. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against giant monsters, but as a child of the 80s who saw The Day After, I knew full well that nuclear radiation wasn’t gonna create a giant lizard, unless you counted the throbbing tumor growing off its neck.

My enthusiasm didn’t grow for Godzilla even as I grew older. By the time I was a teenager, if I wanted to see Tokyo take it in the shitter, I had my VHS dub of Akira. And by the time I hit my 20s in the early 90s, well, the less said about Godzilla in the 90s, the better off we’re all gonna be.

So even when I saw the big off-site Godzilla exhibit with roars coming out of it that you could hear on 4th Avenue outside last year’s San Diego Comic-Con, I didn’t have enough interest to stand in line to see what the fuss was about. So yeah: long story short, I’ve paid so little attention to this movie that I didn’t even know who was in it. Until I saw the trailer that Warner Bros. released today to hype the movie.

And saw that Bryan Cranston is in the movie.

You can check the trailer out after the jump.

New Amazing Spider-Man 2 Trailer – More Previously Unseen Footage

This new trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is called “The Rise Of Electro”. It clocks in at just over three minutes long and seems to contain some previously unseen footage. Almost certainly it contains more shots of Jamie Foxx’s Electro in action. However, there are also some great dialogue teasers between Peter and Aunt May about what secrets the family may be keeping regarding the death of his parents. The new incarnation of Harry Osborn comes off as suitably emo and creepy, very much Peter’s opposite. My only concern with this movie is that they’re trying to shoehorn in three villains: Electro, The Rhino, and The Green Goblin. Split focus was a major downfall of Sam Raimi’s final Spider-Man effort, Spider-Man 3. Part of what made the reboot work so well was allowing the story to focus on the battle with one enemy, while the characters were given room in the story to flesh themselves out. I hope this new movie doesn’t give the characters short shrift by trying to stuff too many of them in for the sake of spectacle.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens in US theaters on May 2, 2014.

Via Bleeding Cool.

My Name Is Hiro Nakamura. I Am From The Future. I Have A Message For You: Heroes To Return To NBC

So. Heroes is coming back. Yes, that Heroes. On NBC. Network television. That is a thing that is happening. A thing that is strange and unexpected enough that I don’t even have any jokes about it. Yet.

No, I am absolutely not kidding. Stop looking at me like that. What would I possibly have to gain by lying about such a thing? Jesus, we have little enough of a reputation for journalistic integrity as things are now.

No, fuck you. Go ahead and ask NBC:

NBC is bringing back its conquering “Heroes.”

An iconic series that still commands a rabid fan base, “Heroes” will return to the network in 2015 as an event miniseries with original creator and executive producer Tim Kring at the helm, it was announced today by NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke.

NBC has ordered 13 episodes for a new stand-alone story arc entitled “Heroes Reborn,” with all details of storylines and characters being kept under wraps.

What could possibly be your motivation, NBC?

I’ll Be Back: Dark Horse Reprinting Miller’s And Simonson’s Robocop Vs. Terminator

We’ve talked a lot about Robocop in the past week or so thanks to the rebooted movie version and the associated kinda crappy comics. However, Robocop has long been a subject here; literally in our first week of publication, I wrote a short review of Dynamite Comics’s Terminator / Robocop: Kill Human #2, where I bemoaned writer Rob Williams’s decision to have Robocop scream, “You motherfuckers!” (Shut your mouth! I’m just talking ’bout Robocop…), and pined for the 1992 Dark Horse Comics miniseries Robocop Vs. Terminator, which was written by Frank Miller, drawn by Walt Simonson, and never, ever reprinted.

Well, it seems that all this current excitement about the Robocop reboot (likely to be followed by disappointment, ambivalence, and eventually denial) has lit a fire under Dark Horse, because they have announced that they are finally reprinting the series. And not just in a quickie cash-grab trade paperback version (although as I recall, the story was good enough that even that would be worth your time and money), but in a recolored hardcover edition.

And if that isn’t enough to make you want to shout, “Shut up and take my money!” (which is still closer to authentic Robocop dialogue than Williams wrote in Terminator / Robocop: Kill Human, but that’s not the point), Dark Horse will also be releasing a “gallery edition” of the book, featuring Simonson’s original, uncolored line art.

Brain Bleach – Quis Custodiet Ipsos Spongemen?

Yeah, so this is a thing that happened.

You wanna see it? Really?

Ok. You were warned. Hit the jump.

I’m Gonna Blow Up The Ark, Rene: Daredevil #36 Review

Editor’s Note: No one on the white hat side has ever hidden his or her spoilers with less than noble intent.

About 20 years ago, I worked in a job that put me in close proximity with many lawyers. And not the kind of lawyers who champion the powerless and regularly make the short lists for major federal benches, but the kind that advertise during the times of day and kinds of shows likely to be shown in hospital waiting rooms. The kind would chase an ambulance, fake a slip-and-fall, and then sue the ambulance. Real lowlives with cut-rate law school diplomas and Rolodexes full of the kinds of doctors who will certify, from their second floor walk-up offices, that their patients have no legs.

One time I saw one of these guy’s clients get busted for insurance fraud after claiming he had permanent debilitating neck pain, and then being caught fronting a thrash headbanger band for a two-hour bar set. I remember another lawyer for whom our standard operating procedure was to immediately counter-sue for frivolous litigation the instant he sent us a letter, not just because he represented the lowest form of Lawrence Brake-Stander, but because he’d lost frivolous litigation lawsuits repeatedly over the years.

Those weasels never got disbarred. In my (admittedly limited) experience, the only way a lawyer gets disbarred is if he wears a mask, but rather than going out to defend the innocent, he uses it to expose himself to the elderly. And even then, they might get a pass for psychological reasons. You know, if they just can find some doctor who will swear before God that, despite all evidence to the contrary, they have a medical condition.

So, while reading Daredevil #36, I had a little difficulty completely believing that Matt Murdock would be disbarred, even considering the extreme circumstances under which he became embroiled in ethics charges. But that’s my problem and not writer Mark Waid’s, who put together a hell of an issue to close out the third volume of Daredevil. This comic doesn’t just shake up the status quo, it puts two into the back of its head… while still remaining somewhat believable and, if you think about it, not being so outlandish that it will completely blow up the character as he has stood for the past half decade or so.

Except yeah: the real New York Bar would just put a strongly-worded letter in his file if he showed up for his hearing sober, speaking English and without the blood of innocents dripping from his Cthuhlu fangs.

Fantastic Four Movie Cast Confirmed; Internet Fanboys Predictably Freak Out Unfavorably

According to Variety, the main cast of the Fantastic Four reboot have been confirmed. Miles Teller has accepted an offer to play Reed Richards. Kate Mara will be Sue Storm. Michael B. Jordan is Johnny Storm. Finally, Jamie Bell is expected to be picking up the role of Ben Grimm. The reboot will be based on the Ultimate Fantastic Four run, which means we can expect that Reed won’t necessarily be the team leader, a role that initially fell to Sue and Johnny’s father in the Ultimate series, who is a professor at a project housed in the Baxter Building for gifted students. If that is the route this story will take, that role has not been cast yet. It would also mean that Reed’s digestive system would be replaced by a bacterial stack that allows him the ability to get nourishment without eating. Just throwing that out there.

Predictably, rabid fan boys have taken to social media to decry the casting of Jordan as Johnny Storm. Johnny is a blond haired white boy in the comics and Jordan is an African American. Jordan previously worked with new FF director, Josh Trank, on the superhero pic, Chronicle.

Further stirring the pot is this little nugget, dropped by the Hollywood Reporter a couple weeks back:

Dr. Doom is said to be the villain of the reboot (the character appeared in Fox’s two previous movies and was played by Julian McMahon). The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision is hearing that the studio is likely to go for a big name and isn’t ruling out switching genders for the role.

So, fan boys are freaking out. I think it’s much ado about nothing. I think the larger gain here is a script that will draw on some of the better comics writing work from Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar, and Warren Ellis. Not sure why fan boys aren’t focusing on that instead of whinging because some of the casting doesn’t meet their imagined platonic ideals. Oh wait, yes I do. Because that’s what fan boys do. Get it out of your systems now, kids. You know you’re just going to go see it anyway when it hits the theaters. And you’ll buy and play whatever video game comes out for consoles to accompany it. Just own it and move on with your lives.

The Fantastic Four hits theaters June 19, 2015.