Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Hector Hammond outed as GL movie villain

io9 reports that Tim Robbins has been added to the cast of the Green Lantern movie as the disapproving father of Hector Hammond. Details in the link as to how Hammond Senior and Junior figure into the plot. Let's just say it doesn't involve strange meteors with mutagenic powers.

Normally, I'd be glad to see Hammond get the big screen treatment. He has a classic sci-fi psionic villain look with his giant head and atrophied body. He's kind of like DC's MODOK, but less freakish and without the cool chair; Hammond also predates MODOK by about a decade or so. Hammond seemed to be severely under-utilized at DC for years, which always struck me as bizarre. Here was a natural diamond in the rough character, a character who could have been a serious threat but was instead stuck in a chair in prison for most of the 70s and 80s. Not the most visually dynamic character, I suppose. Still, I recall when the Superman animated series was in full swing, one of the writers (I think) said it was tough to get a decent rogues gallery for the Man of Steel. My first thought was that they should've borrowed Hector Hammond, and introduced him as a competitor of Lex Luthor who seemed to have a knack for developing tech which Luthor only had on his drawing boards. It would've been revealed later that he had a mutagenic meteor which gave him psychic powers which gave him an edge over Lex and Superman. Ah well. Maybe I'll use the idea as a story for some of my own characters...

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Comics commentary by way of Jazz commentary...

If you read this article but substitute the word "comics" when she writes the word "jazz" or "jazz music", that's the kind of malaise I feel about the current superhero comic medium. I just ain't feelin' the love. I don't feel the commitment I used to feel about going to the shop every week to see what's come out. I have stacks and stacks of longboxes down in the basement and I'm this close to just chucking it all in the recycle truck.

How'd I get this way?

Maybe I should write it out, like the author of the above article. Maybe I'd be able to puzzle it out somehow...