Wolverine: The Musical!
You knew that, sooner or later, Hugh Jackman was going to do this:
The Mix : What are people talking about today?
John Ostrander: WWGJD?
Warning: spoilers below.
“Look at the flowers.”
A seemingly innocuous line that should set shivers through regular fans of the TV series, The Walking Dead. (more…)
Marc Alan Fishman: Turtles the Size of Buicks!
No doubt you’ve watched it. If you’re of my generation? You’ve likely re-watched it several times over. And after each subsequent viewing… you ask yourself: Is Michael Bay destroying my childhood one license at a time? In response, I think we’ve all come to relatively the same conclusion– maybe a little bit. But the <a href=”
target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>trailer in question reveals to us a Michael Bay at his Bay-ie-est.
Let’s start with the good. There’s plenty of hints that the film makers know the lore from which they are drawing. From April O’Boobs’ yellow jacket, the TCRI building, to the relatively recognizable Shredder armor… it’s clear that someone in the production watched a few cartoons in their pre-production meeting. (more…)
The Point Radio: The Twists And Turns On CRISIS
The new NBC thriller CRISIS is filled with twists and turns. So how does the cast keep up? We asked series regulars RACHEL TAYLOR and LANCE GROSS to fill us in, plus 24 gets a comic prequel and who is talking TV on Twitter?
THE POINT covers it 24/7! Take us ANYWHERE on ANY mobile device (Apple or Android). Just get the free app, iNet Radio in The iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! The Point Radio – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.
The Law Is A Ass # 312: The Superior Spider-Manslaughterer
[[[Fifty shades of grey]]] isn’t just a runaway best-seller of debatable literary merit soon to be a major motion picture of, probably, even more debatable merit. It’s also the world we live in.
No, I don’t mean it’s a world of erotic fantasies, BDSM role-playing games, and dominance. Although if it were, can you imagine how that would change the popular Disney attraction “It’s a Small World?” (And I apologize for having put that now unwashable image into your minds.)
What I mean is that the world isn’t just “white hats” and “black hats,” good or evil. It’s a world of grey tones where everyone has some good and some evil, where everyone is grey. Some people are more good than evil, while others are more evil than good, which is why there are shades of grey; at least fifty of them if bad literature can be believed.
Otto Octavius, the former Doctor Octopus and now the controlling mentality in the body of Peter Parker, who is trying to prove he’s a “white hat” by being a superior Spider-Man is proving instead that, like Batman in [[[The Lego Movie]]], he “only work[s] in black. And sometimes, very, very dark grey.” And the world around him is trending darker too, like it’s got some sort of Goth hashtag.
Which brings us to The Superior Spider-Man #15 and the world’s reaction to the events of The Superior Spider-Man #14. (more…)
Martha Thomases: Frontieres Sans Comics
Please forgive me. I’m hideously jet-lagged.
Also, I haven’t read a comic book nor any of the news sites for more than ten days. Whatever the scandal du jour is, I don’t have an opinion.
Although I was in Israel for more than a week, I didn’t see a single comic book. I saw some newspaper cartoons at the Holocaust Museum, and the international edition of The New York Times in Jerusalem had strips, but that was it.
There were no comic book stores in any of the areas I walked through. I would think this might be some kind of kink in tourist destinations, but the Arab market in the Old City had three yarn shops. They were clearly designed for the local market (meaning they had no high-ticket tourist bait), so why were there no comics?
Certainly, the kids new about American superheroes. On Purim, not only did I see various Supergirls but Iron Men, Hulks, Spider-Men and more. It’s funny to see a kid with side-curls and a Thing t-shirt. I hope Jack Kirby would be pleased.
One of the most amazing people I met was in Akko, a city in the Western Gallilee. He had been in the Army, like many Israelis, but he and also been a junkie and had been in prison for a spell. He got himself together and was working with teens at risk. One of his projects was to organize a chess club. Chess is the hip thing to do in Akko. Arab kids play it. Jews play it. They play in tournaments together.
He told the story of a tourist couple, walking in the old section of town late at night, who saw a group of teen boys standing around a dark corner. The tourists were frightened, but had to walk that way. When they got close to the boys, they saw that two of them were playing chess, and the rest were watching.
It’s what the cool kids do.
It seems to me that a kid that can learn how to play chess can learn how to plot a story, or at least appreciate a story with a good plot. If there isn’t a comic book shop in Akko (and, like I said, I didn’t see one), maybe that’s a business opportunity.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to catch up on The Walking Dead.
It’s the Mix March Madness 2014 Webcomics Tournament Sweet 16! Vote now!
UPDATE 3/31: Round 4 is over. Vote in the Elite 8 round now!
UPDATE 3/28 Midnight: We swear, we don’t know how it happened. But we screwed up the totals from Round 3 on a few of the contests, and reported the wrong winners in some contests.
First, our apologies to Grrl Power and Awkward Zombie for misreporting their results, and our apologies to Order Of The Stick and Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal for getting their hopes up. Sorry, folks.
Now, how we’re going to solve the problem: we’re going to replace the strips in the contests, and ComicMix is buying votes to match the current votes for Widdershins (72) and Monsterkind (143), effectively setting the contests at dead even. This allows us to start a new poll right now, which makes the contest even again.
[socialpoll id=”2194504″]
Because of the late start, we’ll extend the voting time for this contest to Sunday at midnight.
Again, our apologies to all concerned.
Round 3 is over, and we’ve raised another $153 for the Hero Initiative. Now we’re down to the webcomics Sweet 16! Round 4 of the Mix March Madness 2014 Webcomics Tournament starts now!
People are now beginning to buy the winning votes, making the difference for Dick Ruby and Widdershins— so get your votes in early and get your friends in too.
In deference to the folks at Emerald City Comic Con voting lasts until Midnight Pacific Time on Saturday, March 29! Here are the latest standings…
Box Office Democracy: Muppets Most Wanted
I feel bad for The Muppets in the same way I feel bad for aging rock bands. They used to be cutting edge but now they’re content to be a nostalgia act making money by playing the hits. I don’t begrudge them the work and frankly I might be a little jealous of how much money they’re making doing the same old thing but I wish they doing new and exciting things rather than just jamming out on “Sympathy for the Devil” one more time. Muppets Most Wanted is a fun movie but it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.
The plot of Muppets Most Wanted centers around an international jewel thief frog who is identical to Kermit with the exception of a mole on his lip. Using his underling Dominic Badguy (Ricky Gervais), Constantine switches place with Kermit, taking over running the Muppet world tour while Kermit rots away in a Siberian Gulag. The movie then breaks in to three threads with Gervais, Constantine, and the duped Muppets going on a world tour that corresponds to where robberies need to be made leading to a heist of the crown jewels while Kermit tries to escape his captors at the Gulag (led by Tina Fey) and a pair of mismatched cops (Sam Eagle and a Clouseau-esque Ty Burrell) try to solve the crime. It doesn’t break any new ground in any of the three threads but the live-action actors are giving it everything they have even when they seem a little over their heads in the musical numbers. Muppet purists might be a little upset that Walter is still front and center in this movie instead of some of the more established characters. Muppet purists might also find this film too similar to The Great Muppet Caper to really warrant a whole new film. Are Muppet purists a real thing? Is this a demographic that moves tickets? Wouldn’t they have given up when Jim Henson died, Frank Oz retired and Disney bought the company?
There are two lengthy sequences where you can see all of Constantine’s body and he moves around on his legs and Disney needs to promise they won’t try this with any other Muppets until the effect gets much better. Everyone knows these are puppets and is willing to accept the limitations that come with that. I don’t know if it was a marionette or a CGI effect or some combination of the two but it looks atrocious. There’s a classic look to the Muppets and it all looks fine introducing new for the sake of new (you cannot convince me a dance number was essential to the plot) is a dicey proposition even when it doesn’t look like you’ve hastily inserted a frog puppet via green screen.
I’d like to close by briefly scolding whoever had the idea to have Usher do a cameo as an usher. I groaned over the next two lines. You almost pissed away all the good will you generated by having Salma Hayek appear exclusively in a red spandex bodysuit. Almost.
Peter David & Will Sliney unite for SPIDER-MAN 2099
Via Marvel:
Get ready to party like it’s 2099, bitheads! Because YOU demanded it – Spider-Man 2099 is back and he’s here to stay in SPIDER-MAN 2099 #1! From the splintered fringes of time comes an all-new ongoing series from legendary Spider-Man 2099 creator Peter David (All-New X-Factor, Amazing Spider-Man) and fan-favorite artist Will Sliney (Fearless Defenders, Superior Spider-Man Team-Up)!
Stranded in the present day after the events of the New York Times best-selling Superior Spider-Man series, Miguel O’Hara must come to terms with living in the year 2014. Undercover in the employ of mega-corporation Alchemax, he’ll attempt to change the course of his future and prevent the rise of one of his greatest villains!
“Miguel becomes determined to try and transform his grandfather, Tiberius Stone into a decent guy in the hopes that it will wind up informing the raising of Tyler Stone, and perhaps make him a better person,” says writer Peter David in an interview with Marvel.com. “In short, he’s hoping that he can influence the development of both the present and future of Alchemax.”
“He’s going to find that’s not as easy as he’d hoped,” David continued.
“It’s going to be a huge year for all things Spider!” added series editor Ellie Pyle “This is your chance to get to know Spider-Man 2099 before the Spider-Man universe gets more crowded, and Peter and Will have prepared quite the introduction!”
Can one man change the future? When the dust settles – will there still be a future worth fighting for? The battle for tomorrow begins this July in SPIDER-MAN 2099 #1!
SPIDER-MAN 2099
Written by PETER DAVID
Art by WILL SLINEY
Cover by SIMONE BIANCHI
On-Sale This July!
The Tweeks review “Divergent”
They’ve been waiting for months, and now the twin geeks have finally seen Divergent. So what did they think?
