Wotan!

Who would have thought that this guy

 would look like the gent below

and be taken more seriously?

...well, me, to be honest. I always thought he'd be a cool bad guy if people could get past the bright red outfit. It looks like the folks behind Young Justice have done a nice job on him!

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...

He'll be back... in April!!

Of course, he never really was gone. Just lost in time. But Bruce Wayne will be back in April thanks to Grant Morrison. I betcha it'll involve a couple of Lazarus Pits, and the odd result of creating the device by which Ra's al Ghul will have some semblance of immortality. It should be a fun ride!

Martian goodness

I love DC Showcase presents Martian Manhunter Vol.2.

Be warned: I found a series of articles at The Absorbascon warning about the Pure Lunacy inside.

I say this is one of the main reasons to read it.

I'm looking forward to volume 3!

Scary Dark Knight

Sometimes I wonder if Batman has become too familiar to scare people anymore.

Then I saw this:

That design just gives me the willies! Even if I were on the Justice League, that look would make me stand on the other side of the room from him!

Found on the Internet!

The Composite Man!

Surely, one of the most stunning characters of the Silver Age is the Composite Superman. The Absorbascon has an excellent article here.

Well, in poking around, much to my surprise, I've found that there were multiple composite characters. I'll be taking a look at some and posting their images as I find them. In the meantime, here's an image of the Composite Legionnaire:

Unified Superman Theory

Man, I'm just digging lots of the stories posted on io9 today...

They discuss a post that attempts to explain the Man of Steel's powerset.

In my head, I kinda subscribed to the "psychic Superman" explanation for his powers. This could fit in as well. I'll have to read it in more detail... The comments section is fun to read and even touches on the whole Clark Kent disguise thing.

Oh. And io9 links to clips of the new Superman/Batman video release. There. That should help boost their traffic.
:rolleyes:

The Power of SHAZAM!!

...once again stymies Hollywood! Topless Robot has their own take.

John August has a telling quote:

I chatted with one of the "Shazam!" producers, Michael E. Uslan, and he told me even then that any Captain Marvel movie's great challenge would be answering one question: If you were a little kid who could turn into an all-powerful, handsome adult, why on Earth would you ever change back?

Wow. It sounds like someone in Hollywood had a rotten childhood and can't imagine why they'd go through being a youngster all over again. The Howling Curmudgeons offer their own take on Mr. Uslan's reasoning.

To me, Captain Marvel is an easy concept: a young decent optimistic kid, powerless in his normal circumstances, changes into a decent, optimistic superhero (think Christoper Reeve's Superman) to have adventures and to stop bad guys adults seem powerless to stop. There could be a bit of satire (as in Jeff Smith's version) showing adults as kind of... dopey or blind or too willing to give up their power to think for themselves or living in fear to do the right thing. Plus it could be about using imagination, which seems to be a thing stamped out of "normal" adults. These are not themes foreign to Hollywood movies, it's just that trying to apply them while trying to duplicate or surpass the success of "The Dark Knight" may not produce a movie most people will want to watch.

A good Captain Marvel movie would be closer in spirit and tone to something released by Pixar, something with heart and adventure. It's tough imagining "The Incredibles" or "Up" in a "Dark Knight" mold but I think that's the weird knot that's keeping the movie from being made.

Save them from Oblivion: The Royal Flush Gang

This one's a weird one so bear with me...

The Royal Flush Gang was created during Julie Schwartz's editorship of the Justice League. As such, when fans like Len Wein and Gerry Conway started writing for the JLA, the characters seemed stuck in a strange nostalgic mode that seemed to revere the characters but didn't know exactly what to do with them. As such, they would appear in one issue to bedevil the JLA before being sent back to jail in that same issue.

No real challenge. Bizarre in appearance, with costumes George Perez was born to draw, they seemed more like a distraction than a real threat.

At least until they started appearing in Batman Beyond and other DC Animated shows.



Maybe with their bizarre appearance and modus operandi, they're tailor made for television. Maybe the current DCU is too grim to marvel at people dressed up like card characters with fantastic gadgets. I dunno.

Personally, I hope the Royal Flush Gang show up in the DCUO MMO.

I confess...

This cover image makes me want to read the story. However...

1) An "Electronic Date-Matcher"? What, is Superman behind eHarmony.com?

2) Why does Supergirl look like Lauren Bacall?

Via DC Comics, 40 Years Ago...

UPDATE:
You know, looking at that face on Superman, maybe he's just being jerk again.

Seriously, I wonder if someone like Grant Morrison should write a story that exorcises this aspect of Superman into a separate entity. Kind of like the Commie-bashing Captain America of the 1950's was made into a separate and unique character who was different from the "real" Steve Rogers.

The new Superman Red?

Over at Newsarama, J. Caleb Mozzocco speculates with tongue in cheek whether Mon-El is Superman Red. At first glance it seems geeky funny. Now he's got me wondering...

Will Mon-El run off with Lana Lang? Stay tuned!

For those of you who need a refresher on SupermanRed and SupermanBlue, here you go.

Characters worth saving from oblivion: Nebiros

Full bio in the Rogues Section at Justin's Honest to Goodness Blue Devil Page.

My brother was so moved by Nebiros and Blue Devil that he developed sprites for a Blue Devil video game. A project he never finished. I still remind him of that once in a while.

Characters worth saving from oblivion: Ringmaster

Yes, the Ringmaster. Not to be confused with the Ringer, even though their gadgets seem similar.

Character worth saving from oblivion: Major Disaster

I'm not sure about the "new reformed Major Disaster". I liked the old classic bad guy who could cause earthquakes, shoot lightning from his hands, and stuff like that. That's the one I'd like to see.

UPDATE:
I thought about Major Disaster overnight and I realized that what Major Disaster's major flaw was that he was a Marvel character in a DC universe.

Lemme 'splain.

With his powersets of earthquake generation and lightning control (and possibly other powers like storm control and fireball generation, the Wiki entries seem to be a bit vague on the subject and only discuss his current incarnation), he sounds like someone who (with proper training) could go toe-to-toe in a proper slobberknocker with someone like Thor or Iron Man. Yet he was created in the DC universe where Julie Schwartz and his writers probably didn't watch too much wrestling and so involved him in clever puzzlers with the Flash and Green Lantern. Going up against Flash and Green Lantern (two of the cleverest super-heroes around, especially as handled by Julie Schwartz, Gardner Fox and John Broome) would make any villain look like a putz. Thus his mortyrdom in later years to be regarded as a candidate for the the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League stories.

What he needed was some serious Stan Lee monologues, declaring how great and powerful he was and how he could completely destroy Green Lantern and the Flash and whoever stepped in his way, blah blah blah. Add some potent displays of power and he could've been an Amazo-level villain capable of taking on the entire Justice League (in a non-Giffen/DeMatteis manner).

Turning him into a megalomaniacal Marvel character might've made more sense than turning, say, Despero into one (truly, a brainy villain if there was one, dumbed down in later years to be an evil smart Hulk) or even Starro, especially in his recently-previewed new incarnation.

Just because...

Alex Ross read the same comics I did as a kid!!

...and they affected his brain!

Mine too, I guess.

DC showed off some preview artwork for their Absolute Justice volume and that cover pic reminded me of something.

Image from the amazing Treasury Comics website.

Sshhhhhhh!! It's a secret...

FHV GSRH KLDVI LMOB ULI TLLW, YLBH ZMW TRIOH!

Holy Moley!

One of my favorite fansites is The Marvel Family Website. Just lots of pure Captain Marvel and friends love and goodness.

Recently they ran an article about a unique power Captain Marvel used to exhibit: the ability to walk through walls! I added my two cents towards the end to show that good ol' Cap ought to have displayed way more unique powers to help differentiate him from the Man of Steel.

This subject deserves a long and lengthy dissertation, but I wanted to just mention it for now so I have the links handy.

To be continued...

Character worth saving from oblivion

Amethyst.

From Cliff Chiang's sketchbook.

Wow...

...maybe they're from New England?