I have no idea how a Superman trivia contest became a discussion over the much-beloved Marx Brothers, but yet it did.

Thanks to our friends at Warner Bros. Digital Distribution, we ran a contest to celebrate the release of Superman: Doomsday on iTunes with Extras.

The goal was to stump me, co-author of the forthcoming The Essential Superman Encyclopedia, with questions related to the Man of Steel. First up was Chuck Williams, who asked, “Clark Kent once asked Ma Kent to make him a second Superboy costume with a different color scheme. What color replaced blue as the primary color of this second costume, and why did it prove to be a mistake?”

A tricky one, but asking me questions of stories written by my pal Bob Rozakis will get you nowhere. Bob told a tale that had Ma make the costume red and yellow only to learn the yellow absorbed the solar radiation, weakening the Teen of Steel.

Mike Weber tried with, “What recent film features a visual reference/homage to the Fleischer animated version’s costume change sequences to introduce the hero?” Okay, Michael, you got me. Name the reference and if I’m convinced, you win the digital download of Superman: Doomsday with Extras.

Kyle Gnepper asked, “What is the mascot for the Smallville High football team?” I presume we’re talking about the television series and their mascot is the crow.

Miles Vorkosigan finally got us back on track with, “Since we’re Supermanning on these questions, I got one for ya, Bob. In the Crisis on Two Earths Justice League movie, what’s the last thing Supes says to Lex before they leave the police station?” My first inclination is to ask, who cares?  By being the second stumper, you get my highest regard or, if Mike’s answer doesn’t please me, you win.

Nebula and Hugo nominated author Michael A. Burstein inquired, “What did red kryptonite do to Superman in its very first appearance in the comic book? (I’m asking this question because I don’t know the answer and I’m curious.)” Well, Michael, the first appearance of Red K was in a Superboy story which saw the hero fall into a delirium,  dreaming that Jor-El, Lara, Ma Kent, and Pa Kent are all alive and well and are taken to a new world. Superboy then watched in horror as a moon crashed into the world, killing his natural and adoptive parents, along with Krypto. The shock woke him up.

With the debut of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World hitting theaters, and all you Pilgrimites having just polished off the final chapter of Brian Lee O’Malley’s Volume 6: Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour… we here at ComicMix thought we might pit the titular teenage hero against a foe with a heart just as big as his own. While Scott had to defeat the seven deadly exes in order to win the heart of his beloved Ramona, Mario has been saving the crap outta his beau, Princess Toadstool, for over 20 years. Furthermore, the pudgy plumber has gone so far to defeat children (children holding magic wands mind you…), conquer the third dimension, and then race to the death in go-karts for his girl. And come to think of it, has anyone ever seen Princess Toadstool give Mario more than a kiss and and P-Wing for his efforts? I mean, I’ve not seen the movie yet, but it seems like Ramona is willing to get Scott to at least second base for his troubles!

As we know, in the real world, Scott Pilgrim is best portrayed by Michael Cera. Once a frozen banana selling salesman on a show only 17 of us watched on Fox. Sure, later he went on to play a completely different totally similar group of sarcastic whining indie cred building everykids… but is that enough? Because, we, the oldest of the old school Gen-Xers shall never forget the classic abomination that was Super Mario Bros. And in that, ahem, film, our dearest Mario was played by none other than Bob Hoskins. And if Bob Hoskins reps ole’ Mario Mario… what chance does Cera have?

So, let’s put these two lovebirds in a cage match. Who’s the beau with the bigger heart? Who’s the dude with the softer soul? Which forlorn fighter will fend off his foe first? Will it be Scott Pilgrim, who’s fueled by teenage angst, wields a mighty 4-string bass attack, and is powered by today’s generation of hip cats? Or will Mario, Italian-by-way-of-Miyamoto, the mascot of a generation, pound poor Scott with his brick-breaking-white-gloved fists of fury? Will Scott’s Sex-Bob-Omb backup their bassman in battle, or will Mario’s cavalcade of cartoon cohorts overpower the Emo-Elite. Only you, the ComicMix nation can decide. Let us know who takes home the 1-Up in the comments below.

Ding Ding Ding!

Rob Liefeld reveals Ryan Reynolds, everybody’s favorite cinematic Deadpool, might abandon the role now that next year’s Green Lantern movie is to be the first of a trilogy.

Unless, of course, GL tanks. Then it’s every man for himself.

According to Rob, who created Deadpool for Marvel Comics, Warner Bros is determined to make Reynolds’ superhero persona exclusively restricted to the Emerald Emasculator. He points out that Harrison Ford managed to handle both Han Solo and Indiana Jones; since I’m older, I’ll note Buster Crabbe handled both Flash Gordon AND Buck Rogers… as well as Tarzan, Billy the Kid, Captain Gallant, and Red Berry. And we might not have the bandwidth to list all of Timothy Dalton’s appearances as comics and heroic fantasy characters.

The directing chores on Deadpool have been offered to Robert Rodriguez with a start date sometime after production wraps on Spy Kids 4, should he take the gig. The Zombieland screenwriters have written the script. In case you missed it, Reynolds played Deadpool in the Wolverine origin movie.

Green Lantern is set to hit the theaters on June 17, 2011. It’s directed by two-time James Bond director Martin Campbell.

In case you live under a rock without basic cable, you may just have heard of the hit show Burn Notice. The love child of Miami Vice and Magnum P.I., albeit with less facial hair, is the gem on the USA network, and airs tonight and every Thursday night.

At the SDCC (as the cool kids who don’t like to type much say) Bruce Campbell (Sam Axe), Matt Nix (creator and executive producer), and Alfredo Barrios, Jr. (executive producer) hosted a panel discussion and answered questions about the creative process of evolving an embryonic idea into a finished episode of cable’s #1 show. Fans gained an intimate look inside the world of Burn Notice, complete with war stories from the writer’s room and filming on location in Miami.

What’s that you say… missed it? No, no you didn’t. You’re welcome.

As most of us know, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is coming to theaters everywhere this Friday, August 13. However, the movie isn’t the only Scott Pilgrim piece premiering this week. Universal Studios asked [adult swim] to create something promotional for the new film, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the Animation is what the network cooked up.

Titmouse, Inc., Chris Prynoski’s animation studio and long time contributor to [adult swim], produced a two-part animated Scott Pilgrim short that will premier Thursday, August 12 on [adult swim] between midnight and 12:30 AM during commercial breaks. It will also be available online at [adult swim]’s website, and at the [adult swim] and Scott Pilgrim Facebook pages the following day, August 13.

The animated short depicts scenes from Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novels that were left out of Edgar Wright’s film. The four minute short tells the story of Scott’s high school life, where he meets Lisa Miller and befriends Kim Pine, who later becomes the drummer for Scott’s band Sex Bob-Omb. The art is recognizably influenced by O’Malley’s work. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World actors Michael Cera, Allison Pill, Mae Whitman and Jason Schwartzman provided voices for the short.

Here’s a short clip from the animation:

Here’s the promo shown on television:

Fred Van Lente is the New York Times bestselling author of Incredible Hercules
(with Greg Pak) and three entries in the Marvel Zombies series, as well as the American Library Association award-winning Action Philosophers. His original graphic novel Cowboys & Aliens (co-written with Andrew Foley) is being adapted into motion picture form by Dreamworks and Universal, starring Daniel Craig. Van Lente’s other comics include Comic Book Comics, MODOK’s 11, X Men Noir and Amazing Spider-Man. Wizard magazine nominated him for 2008 Breakout Talent (Writer). Comics Should Be Good named Fred one of the 365 Reasons to Love Comics. He’s been called “one of the most idiosyncratic and insightful new voices in comics.”

With the release of the even bigger (4 superheroes added and the original heroes now arranged in chronological order), The More Than Complete Action Philosophers by Fred and his partner-in-crime, illustrator Ryan Dunlavey, from his very own imprint, Evil Twin Comics, back in November, I went back and re-read the Philosophers’ stories I’d reviewed about a year ago.  Being a Philosopher, myself, and therefore the very curious type, and always looking for new ways to connect with my undergrads, I sat down, keyboard-to-keyboard, and had a chat with Fred about this latest incarnation of his intrepid endeavor.

ComicMix: To start off with the basics and the obvious but perhaps not-so-obvious, why Philosophy in Comics?
Fred Van Lente: They used to do an anthology every year for the Small Press Expo (SPX) in Bethesda, Maryland, which Ryan Dunlavey and I go to a lot. One year the book’s theme was biographies. Ryan wanted to submit a story, and I volunteered — well, more like bullied my way into writing it, because Ryan originally asked my wife, Crystal Skillman, who’s a playwright.

I had been reading a lot of Nietzsche, just for fun (because that’s how I roll), and it occurred to me a funny, short comics bio of Nietzsche would be just in the wheelhouse for Ryan’s style. 

CM: So then that begs the question, with your inspiration being the very cerebral Nietzsche, why “Action” Philosophers?
FVL: For the past couple SPX’s, I’d been writing little mini-comics for us to sell out our table with my buddy, Harvey Award-winning artist Steve Ellis.

They were satires of different kinds of comics; for example, we did a strip called “Rightwing,” about a conservative superhero published by the Republican Party: http://www.fredvanlente.com/rightwing.html

And the following year, we made fun of Jack Chick, the famous religious tract publisher, by doing an evangelist strip for HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu (this one’s become pretty big on the Internet): http://www.fredvanlente.com/cthulhutract/

To continue the trend, I thought it’d be funny to pretend there were action figures of philosophers (interviewer’s note: there are!), and so we did the Nietzsche strip in the style of a little comic you’d get bundled in with your Nietzsche action figure. Hence the title, “Action” Philosophers.

The punch line is we got rejected from the anthology but found we enjoyed doing philosophy comics. We did a couple more for a start-up magazine that never started up, and eventually we got a grant from the Xeric Foundation to self-publish our own AP comic … and here we are today.

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