Category: News

And then one day you find ten years (and two weeks) have got behind you…

Since everybody thinks it’s the end of the decade, we’ll do a recap of the decade to go along with our recaps of 2009. This is
by no means a definitive list of “the best of the decade”, just our disparate takes
on what stuck out in the minds of everybody here at the Mix as to what happened in the last ten years. Backwards ho!

Best Ethnic Replacement for Milquetoast Hero of the Decade: Jaime Reyes, Blue BeetleTed Kord fans (yes, all 28 of you…) slow your roll! I am one of you! Need proof? I totally own the original Ted Kord action figure from back in the mid 90s! But let’s face it guys, Ted wasn’t doing much since his Justice League Extreme days now, was he? So, leave it to DC Architects Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, and Judd Winick (ok, one architect, one great noir writer, and that guy from MTV) to give Ted a swansong, and smear his boring white-guy-noggin all over a castle wall. A short time later, yet-another-space-bound-artifact came crashing down into the DCU, at the feet of second generation Mexican immigrant Jaime Reyes. Poof! The DCU has this generation’s Vibe! Jaime is the perfect addition to DC’s general melange of milquetoast major leaugers. Jamie’s got “Benetton Ad” written all over him, as he lives in the southwest (El Paso, Texas, I tell ya whut.), is best friends with a slacker named Pedro, and all but spews Spanglish in between beetle battles. Jaime’s Blue Beetle is a far more marketable sort, trading Kord’s wits and a powerfully dorky light/air gun for slick alien techno-armor with a disposition for deadly demolition by way of any number of fun action-figure accessories. Jaime enjoyed an ongoing series for a few years, but has seen his stock rise with recent appearances on Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon series. And just to kick sand in our collective Ted-loving-faces? They gave Jaime Ted’s old ride. Ay, dios mio. –Marc Alan Fishman

Favorite Idea Wasted of the Decade: The Illinois Spaceknights, Civil War

We know the story well enough, don’t we? Nitro done blowed up Stamford, and Tony Stark done led ole’ congress to pass the Superhuman Registration Act. What with a plethora of newly discovered super-powered people… something had to be done with the excess. Welcome to The Initiative! Marvel opted to train every Tom, Dick, and Butterball with powers in a military style bootcamp. After graduation came placement into any one of 50+ super teams, each to be covered under the Fifty State Initiative. Now, it’s no secret I’m a loyal native son of the Chicagoland area… So, imagine my surprise that the state housing the nation’s third largest city would be protected by… The Spaceknights?

Now, color me confused here folks. Illinois has no connection to NASA, where one might THINK a connection to “Spaceknights” might be relevant. Since the Civil War ended in 2007, nothing else has come of the aforementioned Illinois superteam. But I guess they’re not alone. Wikipedia lists no less than 25 other states not only in the dark… but without totally horrible team names like “the Spaceknights”… Hell, at this point, I’d sooner hope they are disbanded, and redubbed “the Windbags”. Epic Fail anyone? –Marc Alan Fishman

Most Forgotten Book of the Decade: 1602

Remember this book? Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert, gorgeous colors by Richard Isanove, did gangbuster sales? Now, alomst completely forgotten. Didn’t make many people’s best of decade lists, wasn’t mentioned in sales material for Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader (okay, competing publishers, but still, that doesn’t matter to booksellers) and it seems to have dropped off the radar. Which is a shame, because it seemed more like the Marvel Universe I knew and loved than anything else Marvel published in 2007. —Glenn Hauman

Most overlooked of the decade: Street Fighter (UDON/Image)

Yeah, we know. A comic based on a fighting game series? But here’s the thing: UDON’s team borrows the best elements of a kung fu movie, layers on the manga-esque melodrama and soap operatic intertwining ensemble cast storylines, glues it together with a heaping dose of love for the source material, and then polishes it until it shines with stylish and flashy artwork. I can’t speak to how well it works if you don’t know the game, having known how to pull a Hadoken my entire life, but if you like Street Fighter even a little bit, it’s a heck of a ride. —Matthew Weinberger

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The plight of Haiti in the wake of the recent earthquake has
captured the attention of the world. Whether you are following the latest news
online, through your TV or newspaper, or via your smartphone, it is
heartwarming to see the way so many people are reaching out and trying to do
whatever they can to help.

While a great many people immediately began researching ways
to help on their own right away, some people weren’t sure what to do, and it is
wonderful to see influential people stepping up to inspire and inform. Some of
the shining examples of how people have been making a difference are Scott
Hertzog (@hertzog on Twitter) of the SciFiDiner Podcast, who, in addition to
keeping the best Twitter tabs on the crisis, also had a live broadcast on
January 13^th to discuss what is happening; Alyssa Milano
(@Alyssa_Milano), who has donated $50,000 to UNICEF and is challenging
corporations to match her donation; Blink 182 has put out a special shirt for
which they will donate 100% of the proceeds to the Red Cross; celebrity
humanitarian couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who donated an impressive one
million dollars to Doctors Without Borders while George Clooney organized a telethon on MTV; and President Barack Obama, who
continues to be far more tech-savvy than his predecessors in reaching the
public about important issues.

You can also donate art or collectibles to Heroes 4 Haiti,
a collective effort of comics creators who are pooling their resources
and talent to auction off items to benefit the people of Haiti.

While many other celebrities were donating funds
and lending their tweets to help in Haiti, one TV actor was experiencing the
tragedy on a very personal level. Heroes star Jimmy Jean-Louis, who was born in
Haiti, lost several family members when his childhood home collapsed during the
quake. He was able to confirm on Thursday, however, that his parents had
survived, and has stated that he is planning to return to Haiti to assist in
humanitarian aid.

In addition to individuals who are making a difference, many
corporations have stepped forward to assist. Google has taken over the person
location database, and many cell phone and credit card companies have decided
to waive fees on donations made to the efforts. (more…)

While everyone is getting excited at the prospect of Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths in just a few weeks, little has been revealed about the bonus feature.

Today, Warner Premiere revealed the first glimpse into the new line of DC Showcase shorts. Debuting with the Spectre, DC Showcase puts the spotlight on favorite characters from throughout the DC archives in short-form tales.

For those, just tuning in, the Spectre focuses on a detective story with an ethereal twist, featuring the otherworldly character originally introduced by DC Comics in 1940. The short is written by Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) and directed by Joaquim Dos Santos (G.I Joe: Resolute). The voice cast is led by Gary Cole (Entourage) as the title character and Alyssa Milano (Charmed) as Aimee Brenner. The Spectre was a creation Jerry Siegel and Bernard Baily and remains a major player throughout the DC Universe.

Future DC Showcase titles include, no surprise here, Jonah Hex (written by Joe Lansdale).

Special effects wizard Drew Flynn gets spooked inside his own personal house of horrors.

A bit of romantic history flows between Detective Corrigan and Aimee Brenner in The Spectre. Gary Cole and Alyssa Milano provide the voices of Detective Corrigan and Aimee Brenner, respectively.

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Why just read The Anchor, when you can be in the actual comic?

Westfield Comics and BOOM! Studios have announced a contest where one lucky fan will be drawn into an issue of The Anchor, the new series by Phil Hester and Brian Churilla published by BOOM! Studios.

To enter the contest, send an email to anchor.me@westfieldcomics.com saying why you should be drawn into The Anchor. Entries should be no more than two sentences and 100 words or less. The contest begins Monday, January 11 and ends on Monday, January 18.

Each entry will be judged by both BOOM!’s editor-in-chief Mark Waid and Westfield’s Content Editor, Roger Ash. The winner of the contest will be announced on Sunday, January 31 with the winner to be drawn into a forthcoming issue of BOOM!’s The Anchor. For a complete list of rules, go here.

TNT’s Leverage returns to the schedule on Wednesday with six new episodes running weekly through February 17. The series, co-created by former Blue Beetle writer John Rogers, was one of the network’s bright spots when it debuted in December 2008.

As the second season opened this past summer, the Leverage team reunited in Boston to settle more scores against those who use power and wealth to victimize others.  The gang is led by former insurance investigator Nate Ford (Timothy Hutton), who first got into the racket after his former employer refused to pay for treatment that could have saved his son’s life.  His highly skilled team includes Sophie Devereaux (Gina Bellman), a grifter who uses her acting skills to corner her marks; Eliot Spencer (Christian Kane), a “retrieval specialist” with bone-crunching fighting skills; Alec Hardison (Aldis Hodge), a gadget and technology wizard who keeps the team informed; and Parker (Beth Riesgraf), a slightly off-center thief adept at rappelling off buildings or squeezing into tight places.

SPOILERS AHEAD if you haven’t seen the second season so far and don’t want to watch the marathon before Wednesday’s premiere…

By the end of summer, the Leverage team had scammed a hedge-fund manager who happened to be in the custody of U.S. Marshals; used Eliot’s martial arts skills to corner a corrupt fight promoter; and took over a private school to recover millions of dollars lost in a Ponzi scheme.  They also went head-to-head with an almost identical team of grifters to recover a painting that had been stolen by Nazis during World War II.

But for Sophie, something just wasn’t feeling right.  Her conflicted relationship with Nate left her questioning if she wanted to continue working with the team.  She decided to take some much-needed time away, but not before she arranged for a friend and fellow grifter, Tara Cole (Jeri Ryan), to fill in for her.  Tara immediately proved her worth by not only helping the team save a client’s estate from a corrupt lawyer, but also fooling everyone into thinking she was the client’s attorney. (Of course, Bellman is merely taking a maternity leave but they have written her out in a nicely dramatic fashion.)

Here’s a look at the upcoming episodes (SPOILER: with brief plot synopses) and we’ll have a review of the first two on Tuesday.

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What is it with Stuart Townsend and characters with swords? First, he leaves the role of Aragorn early in the shooting of  the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and now we hear that he’s out of the role of Fandral in the adaptation of Marvel’s Thor. AP cites that old standby, “creative differences”. Fandral will now be played by Joshua Dallas, who was in the Doctor Who episode “Silence in the Library”.

I can think of a few possibilities:

His swordsmanship isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

Director Kenneth Branagh thinks having Townsend leave the production early is some sort of a good luck charm (see LOTR).

From the Los Angeles Times:

A magnitude 6.5 earthquake rocked the Northern California city of
Eureka on Saturday, snapping power lines, toppling chimneys, knocking
down traffic signals, shattering windows and prompting the evacuation
of at least one apartment building.

All right, which of you geniuses ignored the “Do Not Touch” sign?