Tagged: Justice League

GraphicAudio Adapts Three ‘Justice League’ Novels

  • News
  • April 5, 2008

We’ve opined previously on GraphicAudio’s full-cast adaptations of DC Comics’ Infinite Crisis and 52. Well, actually, of Greg Cox’s novelizations adapting DC Comics’ Infinite Crisis and 52. They must have sold pretty well, as they’re expanding their offerings to include at least three more projects.

They’ll be adapting a trio of Justice League paperback novels from a couple years ago: Christopher Golden’s JLA: Exterminators, Alan Grant’s Batman: The Stone King and Roger Stern’s Superman: The Never-Ending Battle. These adaptations feature a full case with music and sound effects, not quite like Big Finish’s original Doctor Who offerings in the sense that the stories are driven by each book’s narrative voice. While they fall slightly short of being full-blown audio dramas, I’ve enjoyed their work on Infinite Crisis and 52 and I hope they are able to maintain the same cast members for these CD presentations.

JLA: Exterminators comes out in May; the others follow in two-month intervals. They are released on CD and mp3 discs and are readily available at Interstate truck stops. Previous DC adaptations were distributed by Diamond to knowing comics shops, so you might want to do a pre-order. Of course, they’ll also be available at GraphicAudio’s website, where you have the option of buying them as downloads.

ComicMix Six: Worst Moments in Skrull ‘Invasion’ History

  • Uncategorized
  • April 2, 2008

Yes, we’ve all heard the big news: Skrulls have invaded the world. They’re everywhere, hidden from magic and telepathy, ready to do their worst. They’ve infiltrated the highest levels of government and they’ve replaced all of our planet’s best and brightest with sleeper agents, ready to bring down all that we hold dear.

But that doesn’t mean you should be worried.

Here at ComicMix, we know that the Skrull Empire doesn’t exactly have the best track record. Heck, they once replaced Alicia Masters, one of the best friends of the Fantastic Four, with a Skrull agent, then seemed to forget she was even there until years later when she was found out — which led to the FF blowing up the biggest space station in the aliens’ Empire.

And that’s not even the tip of the Skrull Empire’s iceberg of ineptitude. For the first in our new series of ComicMix Six features, we present some of the Secret Invasion villains’ least-impressive diabolical schemes through the years.

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DC Direct Teams With My Little Pony

  • News
  • April 1, 2008

Thanks to a spy carefully cultivated at this year’s Toy Fair, we have this image from a new toy franchise/joint venture from DC Direct and Hasbro in anticipation of the Justice League film release.

Apparently, they think there will be a market for this Martian Little Pony. Ooookay…

Which Comic is Getting a New 4-Player Arcade Game?

  • News
  • March 27, 2008

Who says comic book fans are antisocial? I grew up hanging out at pizza parlors and movie theaters with my friends, playing arcade games like <a href=”

America and the Avengers, Spider-Man, TMNT and X-Men.

Well, cue a flashback to the ’90s, because arcade developer Signature Devices announced in a press release that they’ve finished work on a four-player arcade game that featuring "several well known comic book and television superheroes."

The game will feature a four-player arcade style co-operative play. Players can play solo or as a team against the plot, which takes place in three separate locations on earth and other planets. Signature Devices has developed the game to allow players to control the powers and abilities of
earth’s mightiest heroes [Ed. Note: emphasis ours] in an action packed fight for justice against some of the greatest comic book villains. The Company has developed the game to truly come to life using the co-operative methods best utilized with two to four players at a time.

But they didn’t say which comic book heroes, probably because that’s the responsibility of the arcade game publisher. Meanwhile we’re left to speculate which superheroes it could be. It helps that they say they’ve been on television. Candidates include Justice League, X-Men, Spider-Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or maybe even NBC’s Heroes, among others. One interesting phrase we highlighted in the quote is "earth’s mightiest heroes," a term commonly used by The Avengers, who had a brief cartoon run.

We’ll admit we’d be excited to grab a few beers and play this with friends at Dave & Buster’s. ComicMix readers, any ideas what you think this might be… or, of course, which characters you want this to be?

‘Star Trek: Year Four’ Review

  • News
  • March 26, 2008

When I was a wee lad of, oh, let’s say 13, to hear the words "untold tales" was a thrill in itself.

"What’s that, you say? In this story, I will discover that Wolverine met Spider-Man’s parents for about an hour several months before the web-spinning super-hero was even born? And it turns out Green Lantern’s landlord was once involved with the Russian mob? Awesome! How did I live before now?"

But now, I am in my mid-20s, long past the prime of life, and my standards are a mite higher. A story that fills in gaps of the past for its own sake just isn’t enough. It must also be a good story by itself. It must be able to entertain me and interest me and, if at all possible, elicit emotional reactions from me that would make even a positronic android react with a cry of "Neat!"

And so, let’s talk about the first comic book miniseries entitled Star Trek: Year Four (IDW Publishing), which was written by David Tischman and penciled by Steve Conley, and which has recently been collected as a trade paperback. In the original Star Trek TV series, Kirk informed audiences every week that the Enterprise was engaging in a "five-year mission" of exploration. Sadly, the show was cancelled after its third season. Tischman and Conley’s series attempts to inform us all about just what happened next, long before the time that the Star Trek films picked up. (more…)

Interview: Brandon Jerwa on ‘Battlestar Galactica: Season Zero’

  • News
  • March 26, 2008

Writer Brandon Jerwa has had a varied and interesting career since beginning in comics early in 2001. Not letting rejection deter him, he persevered and eventually landed a job as a writer for the G.I. Joe comic book series. Later, Jerwa took on other television tie-in comics such as Highlander from Dynamite Entertainment — which he co-wrote with Michael Oeming.

During that time, he also wrote a backstory series about the Battlestar Galactica television character Tom Zarek. Due in part to his success with Zarek, Jerwa next took on a new comic for Dynamite titled Battlestar Galactica: Season Zero — a prequel of sorts to the Sci-Fi Channel TV series.

Now, with Season Zero rocketing towards a thriling conclusion in issue twelve, ComicMix caught up with Jerwa to talk about how he became the "go-to" guy for Battlestar Galactica at Dynamite, what we can expect from Season Zero as it finishes up and what other plans Jerwa has up his sleeve.

COMICMIX: Brandon, for people who might not know, can you give us a bit of info on your background? Did you read comics as a kid?

BRANDON JERWA: My first comic was an early issue of Star Wars when I was 4 or 5. I had all those early issues and they were definitely a huge thing to me, but I think Spider-Man and Batman made their way into the house pretty quickly after that! I don’t really remember a time when I didn’t have comic books.

My parents were supportive of the habit, so I’d always get at least one new book every time we’d go the grocery store or Kwik-E-Mart (ah, those were the days) and a long road trip was a surefire guarantee of a big pile of comics.

CMix: What were your favorites?

BJ: My favorites as a kid were Star Wars, Avengers, all the Spider-titles, including the most awesome  one, Marvel Team-Up; along with Marvel Two-In One, Detective Comics, Power Man and Iron Fist, Justice League of America and Teen Titans. G.I. Joe obviously made a huge impression on me.

I also have an undying love for Rom: Spaceknight.

CMix: How did you get started writing comics?

BJ: Well, I’m told that I’m the exception to the rule. I was living with my wife and infant son in Portland, Oregon when I started. It was 2001 and I was unemployed, so I thought I’d use my time playing stay-at-home dad to shoot for the Big Dream.

I wrote two scripts – one a G.I. Joe pitch for Devil’s Due and an original superhero piece for Dark Horse. A few months later, Dark Horse had given me my first rejection letter, but Devil’s Due apparently thought I was the man for the job.

My two-part script was extended to four parts and became my G.I. Joe: Frontline arc "History Repeating." Just a few months after those issues hit stands, I was the new regular writer of G.I. Joe.

CMix: How much did you know about Battlestar Galactica before you started writing any of the comics? Are you a fan of the Sci-Fi Channel show or the original ’80s version? (more…)

ComicMix Exclusive Interview: Joe Lansdale on ‘Pigeons from Hell’

  • News
  • March 25, 2008

Joe Lansdale is a prolific author of horror stories, both short and novel-length, including Drive In and Bubba Ho-Tep.  He’s also no stranger to comics, having partnered with Timothy Truman for projects featuring  such characters as Jonah Hex and The Lone Ranger, and has even written for Batman: The Animated Series and other television series.

This spring, Dark Horse Comics is releasing his four-part miniseries, Pigeons from Hell, adapting a story by Robert E. Howard.  It’s Lansdale’s first time working with artist Nathan Fox, and he recently sat down for a brief chat with ComicMix and a preview of the first issue.

COMICMIX: Thanks for agreeing to chat, Joe.  This is not your first work with Robert E. Howard.  You previously wrote a Conan miniseries. So tell me, what is it about Howard that you like?

JOE LANSDALE: Howard has always appealed to me because there is a raw storytelling talent at work, and he has a Texas background, and like me, he lived in a small town where the sort of profession he pursued was not entirely understood. I always thought he appealed to the little boy in all of us, and by that, I mean that part of us that loves a good raw story. He appeals to that aspect in all of us. Like Jack London, The Call of the Wild is eternal. I don’t think Howard had the same depth that some of London‘s work had, but it has the same primal element, if not the social element. Thing is, I don’t consider that bad or lesser, just different.

CMix: Did you ask to write Pigeons from Hell, or was it an assignment?

JL: I think it was mentioned to me by the film company that has Howard’s work, because I had written the Conan miniseries. It had been well-received, and I mentioned Pigeons From Hell, and it was thought an update might be fun, since Dark Horse had already done a literal adaptation, so, it just sort of snowballed from there and Dark Horse was for it. [It was] kind of an accident.

CMix: How did you approach expanding and adapting a prose work into a four-issue miniseries?

JL: I tried to use the original story as the frame, and I tried to bring younger contemporary characters into it. Howard’s work was of its time, and it could be casually racist, so I wanted to avoid that. I also added more mystical elements. Again, a perfect adaptation had already been done for the comics before, and there was a really good Thriller episode of the story years ago, though now it seems a little dated, so I wanted to approach it in a different manner. I think the story is still true to the original in most ways.

CMix: What is it about Howard’s work that you think still makes it relevant today?

JL: I think it’s the pure storytelling. You can learn to be a better writer with effort and time, but that is something that seems almost inborn, though I’m not sure how to explain it. But he has it, and the work is recyclable and constant. (more…)

11 Batman Stories to Read Before Watching ‘The Dark Knight’

  • News
  • March 24, 2008

Batman Begins and its upcoming sequel, The Dark Knight, are both feature films that deal with Bruce Wayne at the beginning of his career as a crime-fighting detective. But some in the movie audience may be curious about how these rookie years unfolded in the continuity of the comics.

So, here at ComicMix, we’ve put together a timeline of the stories you should read (and the order in which to read them) to learn about Batman’s early days. This list is focused on collected storylines from the single issues and one-shot stories rather than individual issues, and includes what is deemed to be currently in continuity within the mainstream DC Universe (so certain stories such as BATMAN: Year Two are not included). If a story’s place in the greater Batman continuity is uncertain, but hasn’t been directly contradicted by other stories, we’re including it.

Please note that this is focusing on Batman’s early solo years and is, as stated above, a timeline. Therefore stories such as Arkham Asylum and The Killing Joke, while famous, aren’t being included here since they take place much later in Batman’s career.

ADDED NOTE: If you like this, be sure to check out our related article, the Top Six Greatest Joker Victories.

Now let’s begin …

batman-yearone-9930894Batman: Year One – It all starts here in this story by Frank Miller (Sin City) and David Mazuchelli (DAREDEVIL: Born Again). After years of learning how to be a detective and training in the martial arts and ninjitsu in the Far East, Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham City to begin his war on crime. Learn how he first met a young Lt. James Gordon (who would later become the famous commissioner of the GCPD) and hot-shot District Attorney Harvey Dent, as they all try to free their city from a corrupt police department and fight against the mobster known as Carmine “The Roman” Falcone.

This comic also features the reason Bruce Wayne chose a bat as his symbol and his first encounter with Catwoman. The end of this story leads directly into another item on our reading list, BATMAN: The Man Who Laughs.

Batman and the Monster Men – In Year One, you might notice a large gap of time that passes between November and December. This story, written and drawn by Grendel’s Matt Wagner, takes place during that gap and reimagines one of Batman’s earliest stories from the Golden Age of Comics. Meet Bruce Wayne’s early girlfriend, Julie Madison, and watch his first encounter with the sociopathic Professor Hugo Strange. This story also introduces the proto-version of the Batmobile.

Batman and the Mad Monk – Another Golden Age story is brought into the modern day by Matt Wagner with this follow-up to Batman and the Monster Men. Following his encounter with the monsters of Hugo Strange, Batman now faces a potentially supernatural enemy and a deadly cult. Batman’s car truly becomes the Batmobile in this story and we also see the developing partnership between him and Jim Gordon. And see just what happened to make the Dark Knight lose the first serious love in his life.

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‘Doom Patrol: Planet Love’ Review

  • News
  • March 24, 2008

doom-5735315

And so we come to the end. It’s taken DC Comics sixteen years to collect all of Grant Morrison’s classic run on Doom Patrol, but it’s complete now. I don’t know if new readers coming to Morrison’s Doom Patrol in 2008 can understand how different that series was in the early ‘90s – the era of million-copy runs, of the Image founders becoming Marvel superstars and then packing up to become “Image,” the biggest boom that superhero comics have ever seen.

There was bombast in the air, then, on all sides. Superheroes were long past their days of stopping bank robberies and foiling minor criminals. The era of cosmic threats all the time had been inspired by Secret Wars II and the first Crisis, and had grown through Marvel’s summer crossovers and everyone’s monthly gimmicks. You couldn’t swing a cat without hitting a would-be world conqueror, or a megalomaniac with an anti-life formula, or some other unlikely threat to everything.

You have to remember that background when you read Morrison’s Doom Patrol, just as you have to remember the stolid seriousness of ‘80s superheroism when you read his Animal Man of the same era. Morrison wasn’t parodying what everyone else was doing – he’s only very rarely been one to specifically poke fun at other creators – but he was pushing it further, in the direction of his own obsessions and ideas, than anyone else was willing to do. (Take a look at his Arkham Asylum for another example; it’s the epitome of the “crazy Batman” idea that percolated all through that time — the concept that Batman attracted so many damaged and insane villains because he was inherently damaged himself.)

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ComicMix Radio: Catchin’ Up With Darwyn Cooke

Basking in his well-deserved glory for Justice League: New Frontier, Darwyn Cooke teases us a bit on his next turn at DC’s core heroes, plus:

— Transformers’ bad guys get a turn

— Jericho peters out

— Comic Fans take center stage next season on the SciFi Channel

—  We solve one trivia question and toss out another that is worth an  exclusive Graham Crackers Comics variant — and you win by e-mailing us at: podcast [at] comicmix.com

Spring is here, so relax and Press The Button!

 

 

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via badgeitunes61x15dark-1598352 or RSS!

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