Author: Glenn Hauman

It’s official: the man who wrote and directed “Marvel’s The Avengers” and grossed $1.5 billion and counting at the box office is coming back to do it all over again. Slashfilm seems to have caught it first:

It was just announced on the Walt Disney Investors Conference Call that Joss Whedon will return for The Avengers sequel. Whedon is signed to both write and direct the upcoming sequel. Disney confirmed that Whedon is also involved in the development of the previously-rumored long-lead ABC live-action television series which will be set inside the Marvel cinematic universe.

Whedon had previously said that he was “very torn” about coming back: “It’s an enormous amount of work telling what is ultimately somebody else’s story, even though I feel like I did get to put myself into it. But at the same time, I have a bunch of ideas, and they all seem really cool.”

Marvel is notoriously cheap when it comes to contracts, so some fans were worried that a deal wouldn’t be made. I think everyone will be excited that Whedon is back for the next one. If I were Kevin Feige I would secure Whedon to a long term contract as an executive producer, overseeing the marvel universe on a Pixar braintrust-level. The Avengers is being tentatively planned for a Summer 2015 release, although Disney and Marvel have not formally announced a date.

via Joss Whedon Signed for ‘The Avengers 2′ and Marvel Live-Action TV Series.

Let’s see how he pulls all of it together… again.

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Don’t give us any more of “The Dark Knight Rises”… if you’ve been reading comics for a while, you know what the original stuff was, from Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, and Lynn Varley. And now, DC Animation (via MTV) is giving us our first glimpse at what looks to be a very faithful adaptation of “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, pt. 1″.

You know the story…

…it’s been a decade since Bruce Wayne hung up his cape, following most of the other superheroes who had been forced into retirement. Facing the downside of middle age, a restless Bruce Wayne pacifies his frustration with race cars and liquor – but the bat still beckons as he watches his city fall prey to gangs of barbaric criminals known as The Mutants.

The return of Harvey Dent as Two-Face finally prompts Wayne to once again don the Dark Knight’s cowl, and his dramatic capture of the villain returns him to crime-fighting – simultaneously making him the target of law enforcement and the new hope for a desolate Gotham City. Particularly inspired is a teenage girl named Carrie, who adopts the persona of Robin and ultimately saves Batman from a brutal attack by the Mutant leader. Armed with a new sidekick, and re-energized with a definitive purpose, the Dark Knight returns to protect Gotham from foes new…and old.

The film stars Peter Weller as Batman, is David Selby as Commissioner Gordon, Ariel Winter as Robin, Wade Williams as Two-Face, and Michael McKean as Dr. Bartholomew Wolper. The film is directed by Jay Oliva, written by Bob Goodman and executive produced by Sam Register and the legendary Bruce Timm.

“Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1” hits Blu-ray Combo Pack & DVD and download on September 25, 2012 from Warner Home Video. “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2” is due in early 2013.

via MTV Geek – Exclusive Premiere: ‘Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1′ Trailer.

A Westboro Baptist Church protest was overshadowed Friday when demonstrators dressed as zombies gathered at a DuPont, Wash. military base to counter the radical group’s efforts.After members of the controversial Kansas-based church announced plans to picket Joint Base Lewis-McChord, a military base south of Seattle, 27-year-old Melissa Neace decided to organize a counter-protest, launching a Facebook group titled “Zombie’ing Westboro Baptist Church AWAY from Fort Lewis!”

“We wanted to turn something negative around, into something people could laugh at and poke fun at,” Neace told the News Tribune. “It was the easiest way to divert attention from something so hateful.”

About 300 counter-protesters showed up in varying degrees of zombie garb, far outnumbering the picketers from Westboro. According to KIRO in Seattle, just eight protesters from the controversial group showed up.

“I think that their message is very hateful, and Jesus was not a hateful person. He loved everybody,” one of the counter-protesters told KIRO.

via Westboro Baptist Church Military Protest Countered By Zombie Demonstrators.

And hey, Jesus came back from the dead too, so not only does he love zombies, he qualifies as one. Doesn’t it say, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”? God makes zombies all the time!

We can only hope for such creativity when the Westboro Baptist Church goes to Aurora, Colorado.

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These may be my favorite costumes from San Diego Comic-Con. I think they really nailed the look of Superman and Supergirl, don’t you?

Hat tip: Cory Doctorow.

From Teen Boat creator Dave Roman:

Raina Telgemeier’s SMILE is officially a #1 New York Times Bestseller! It even outsold the Batman book most responsible for inspiring The Dark Knight Rises, arguably the most hyped/marketed movie of the year. Think about that…an autobio comic for kids sold more paperback copies (for this week, at least) than well-known franchises like [[[The Walking Dead]]] and [[[Avatar: the Last Airbender]]]! Of course, I couldn’t be more proud! :D

So what makes this a mix up? This image:

Boy, this would have made it a different movie, wouldn’t it?

Noted comic book junkie (and occasional comic creator) Patton Oswalt delivered the third annual keynote speech at the Just For Laughs Comedy Conference in Montreal last week. He presented his address in the form of two open letters, one to creators and one to gatekeepers, and everything he said to those audiences can and should also be said to every comic book professional, be they creator, publisher, or retailer. Here’s a large snippet:

When I say everything I know about succeeding a comedian is worthless, I know what I’m talking about because everything I know became worthless twice in my lifetime. […] All the comedians I remember starting out with in D.C., all the older ones, told me over and over again ‘you gotta work clean, you gotta get your five minutes, and you gotta get on Carson.’ And it all comes down to that.

And in one night, all of them were wrong. And not just wrong, they were unmoored. They were drifting. A lot of these bulletproof comics I’d opened for, whose careers seemed pre-destined, a lot of them never recovered from that night. You’ll never hear their names. They had been sharks in a man-made pond and had been drained. They decided their time had passed.

Keep that in mind for later. They had decided their time had passed.

The second time everything I knew about comedy became worthless has been pretty much every day for the last three years.

I know that’s not an exact date. Some other younger, not yet famous name in this room – you are going to pinpoint that date 20 years from now. But for now, every day for about the last few years will have to suffice.

I just want to give you a brief timeline of my career up to this point, when I knew it was all changing again. Listen to my words very carefully. Two words will come up again and again and they’re going to come back later along with that phrase “they decided” and people are going to carry me around the room.

[Huge ego-stroking credit dump omitted.]

I know that sounds like a huge ego-stroking credit dump. But if you listened very carefully, you would have heard two words over and over again: “lucky” and “given.” Those are two very very dangerous words for a comedian. Those two words can put you to sleep, especially once you get a taste of both being “lucky” and being “given.” The days about luck and being given are about to end. They’re about to go away. […] What I mean is: Not being lucky and not being given are no longer going to define your career as a comedian and as an artist.

Remember what I said earlier about those bulletproof headliners who focused on their 5 minutes on the Tonight Show and when it ended they decided their opportunity was gone? They decided. Nobody decided that for them. They decided.

Now, look at my career up to this point. Luck, being given. Other people deciding for me. […] I need to decide more career stuff for myself and make it happen for myself, and I need to stop waiting to luck out and be given. I need to unlearn those muscles.

And that’s just from what he says to creative folks. As they say, read the whole thing. Twice.

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