Based on the celebrated comic book arc, the July 26 release takes Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), the most iconic character of the X-Men universe, to modern day Japan. Out of his depth in an unknown world, he will face a host of unexpected and deadly opponents in a life-or-death battle that will leave him forever changed. Vulnerable for the first time and pushed to his physical and emotional limits, he confronts not only lethal samurai steel but also his inner struggle against his own immortality.
The trailer for the new Batman game Arkham Origins looks great. Love that one of my favorite villains, Deathstroke, shows up. Looking forward to getting my hands on this when it’s released.
Batman: Arkham Origins features an expanded Gotham City and introduces an original prequel storyline occurring several years before the events of Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City. Taking place before the rise of Gotham City’s most dangerous villains and assassins, the game showcases a young, raw, unrefined Batman as he faces a defining moment in his early career as a crime fighter that sets his path to becoming the Dark Knight. As the story unfolds, witness identities being formed and key relationships being forged.
I’d love to see DC Comics produce a full length feature done in the style of some of their game trailers. Between the Arkham Origins trailer and the cinematic for when DC Universe Online was released, this would make for one awesome animated feature.
A behind-the-scenes video includes a bit of new footage from the movie along with Henry Cavill, Michael Shannon, Amy Adams, Zack Snyder and more talking about the film.
Looking more and more forward to June 14th!
Warner Bros. has premiered a new trailer for Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim.
When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes — a washed up former pilot and an untested trainee — who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.
Guillermo del Toro, Ron Perlman, Idris Elba, Charlie Hunnam, giant alien sea creatures and huge fighting robots! I know I’ll be there when this opens on July 12th.
The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. trailer is here.
In news that was already announced, fan favorite Agent Coulson has survived the events of The Avengers. There are spoilers as to how on the web or you can just wait until the show premieres this fall.
it will be interesting to see how the show fares since it doesn’t appear there are any know superheroes being included. Of course with the Marvel stable of characters there are certainly plenty of C and D list characters that could be given a makeover should they make an appearance. Rumors of a Hulk appearance certainly wouldn’t hurt in giving the show an instant ratings boost.
Normally I’d say this show wouldn’t have much of a chance, but Marvel has certainly managed to get their house in order when it comes to their media efforts. Throw in that Joss Whedon is involved and he’s already shown the doubters what he can do, not to mention he certainly knows how to write compelling characters. While everyone else is hoping for their favorite Marvel character to appear, how cool would it be for someone from one of Whedon’s other universes to make a cameo?
The Avengers Assemble trailer is here. This new version of the animated Marvel team will premiere on Disney XD, Sunday, May 26th at 11 a.m. ET. The show will officially premiere on Sunday, July 7th at 11 a.m. ET as part of the “Marvel Universe” block.
An animated series parallel to the record-breaking blockbuster movie Marvel’s The Avengers, “Avengers Assemble” sees Iron Man leading the team of mightiest heroes – Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow and newcomer Falcon – who combine their powers to battle threats no single hero could overcome. When the Avengers assemble, evil doesn’t stand a chance. The voice cast includes: Adrian Pasdar (“Heroes”) as Iron Man, Fred Tatasciore (“Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness”) reprising his role as Hulk, Roger Craig Smith (Wreck-It Ralph) as Captain America, Travis Willingham (“Shelf Life”) as Thor, Troy Baker (“Ultimate Spider-Man”) as Hawkeye, Laura Bailey (“The Super Hero Squad Show”) as Black Widow and Bumper Robinson (“The Game”) as Falcon. Joe Casey, Joe Kelly, Duncan Rouleau and Steven T. Seagle of Man of Action Studios (“Ben 10,” “Generator Rex”) will serve as executive producers.
In the first part of the special preview, Captain America is apparently destroyed by Red Skull, so Iron Man re-unites the team to try and avenge his friend and stop Red Skull’s army. In the second part, Red Skull steals Tony Stark’s armor, and the Avengers must galvanize the team to stop him and M.O.D.O.K. from destroying New York City.
I understand that Marvel and Disney want there Avengers series to closely resemble last summer’s blockbuster movie, mainly so its more accessible to children. It’s just as shame that they don’t think kids could follow along with the previous version “The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes”. It was a personal favorite and had already built up quite a mythology around the team and their supporting cast. Hopefully this new version can capture some of the depth the previous incarnation had.
ABC has officially picked up Joss Whedon‘s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for a full season, and it is expected to premiere this fall!
This Sunday they will air a special sneak peek at the show that will air before the season finale of Once Upon a Time.
Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) returns to the worldwide law enforcement organization S.H.I.E.L.D. He puts together a small, highly trained, team of Agents to tackle the cases that haven’t been classified yet, the new, the strange and the unknown. That team consists of straight arrow Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), an expert in combat and espionage; pilot and martial artist Agent Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen); and brilliant if socially awkward scientists Agent Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) and Agent Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge). They’ll be joined by civilian new recruit and computer hacker Skye (Chloe Bennet). Prepare for an epic adventure that showcases the hope and wonder of the human spirit. This is a world of Super Heroes, aliens and the unusual – of action, spectacle and world spanning stories. The show will speak to the human condition through the lens of our very human, non-powered S.H.I.E.L.D agents – that together we are greater than we are apart, and that we can make a difference in the world.
So I had posted this some time ago on a forum and decided to go back and revisit it.
I was listening to a podcast with a discussion about creating your “ultimate” team of heroes. You could use any characters from any comic universe. I had started debating this with a friend in trying to come up with what I would feel would be an interesting book. We were trying to look at it from a publisher’s standpoint of what would be interesting with the team dynamics that a writer could work with. One of the caveats was while the team interaction was key, they couldn’t be too over-powered where you couldn’t come up with a good mix of villains for them to fight. The idea is for a continuous monthly book, not just a mini-series or story arc so with that I tried to stay away from the all-star type lineup just full of heavy hitters. When one side is too heavily favored I lose interest in reading.
Anyway, here are the seven I came up with and the reasoning behind them. I forget the reason I was limiting to seven. I think that according to the podcast that was considered a standard number at one time for a team book. since the podcast was the inspiration behind all this, lets stick with their rules and not let this team grow to Legion of Super-Hero proportions. Besides, it’s just too easy to not have to make a decision between two characters and then just adding both of them to the team.
The other part I wanted to make sure of was the right mix of character traits. so for a team book my thoughts were it needs: Leadership, Fighting Ability, Strength, Speed, Intellect, Versatility and either Magic or Spiritualism.
Since this is a new book I’m going to need a few big names to help sell the book, so the two I went with are Batman and Wolverine. While a lot of fans will start screaming they are over-exposed, there is a reason for that as they tend be favorites to a lot of fans, myself included. I’d love to see how a writer would get them to co-exist considering Wolverine’s casual attitude towards killing and Batman adamant stance against it. You know at some point they would have to have some sort of throw down and seeing as how Batman would have teamed with Wolverine for some time, we’d get to test the Batman theory of given the time and resources, Batman can think of a way to take down anyone.
I had also thought about the possibility of maybe Captain America and/or the Winter Soldier here.
There would be a lot of history to build off of and it would make for some great interaction, but as with most of the choices it comes down to a personal preference and its hard to top Wolverine and Batman in my book.
So we have Leadership and Fighting Ability covered.
After getting the two core members in place I wanted to get whoever would be the one cracking jokes while in battle. I was leaning towards Spider-Man (maybe even Ultimate Spidey), but then I’m getting into a team full of all-stars and we already have two characters that appear in multiple books. No reason to screw up continuity any more than necessary.
So now I’m still looking for a relatively young character here so I settled on Invincible. He’s written as being fairly confident in his powers, but is definitely still learning all about responsibility and consequences.
I think his personality also fits what I’d want here as his attitude early on in the book would play off great against Batman and Wolverine. He’s also never been a team player so it would be great to see how a good writer could help evolve his character even further with the team dynamic.
We now have Strength and Speed covered.
For the next member I started thinking maybe a telepath, but I’m just so bored with all of them. Yes it’s always cool to have one around, but they really usually aren’t all the visually appealing. well except for Emma Frost, but I don’t care how long she’s been a member of the X-Men, I still prefer her as a villain. Instead I went with a character that would be immune to a telepathic attacks, The Vision. I think you could go with either the classic Avengers version or the newer model that is on the Young Avengers. Adding him (it?) in gives you some more strength, density control (was also thinking Shadowcat to go with the youth to play that off with Invincible, but I have another character that would play well off of him) and another analytical mind to go with Batman. Again, another character that I think would make for some solid interaction with Batman’s attitude of always being right.
The other choice for this spot could go to the Martian Manhunter as he does give you telepathy and so many other powers. He was a very tempting choice, but in the end I see him as just a notch below Superman in terms of power and that’s going overboard in that category when I want to leave that open to give me options later.
The last few slots had a lot of options. I originally thought I wanted some sort of elemental based character here. The Human Torch seemed like an ideal fit. Is a great team player and there is a lot you could explore with him outside of the family setting of the Fantastic Four, but I see him as another character that would be butting heads with Wolverine and Batman.
The other obvious choice if I want to go with an elemental character would be go the opposite and add Iceman to the mix. While he’s been around forever, he just seems to be a character that is always just that extra member on the team and has never really had those huge moments or gripping story. In the end, while i love his look I find him a little boring.
So with trying to stick with some sort of elemental based character I decided to go with someone that would be a blank slate for a writer to go with. I decided to add Aqualad, but I am looking at the version from the Young Justice cartoon. I’ve never been a fan of Garth from the Teen Titans and I know nothing of the other Aqualad that was introduced a few years ago before the New 52. Since there is a Young Justice book (and this is my team) I think he fits the criteria. He would definitely add some versatility to the team and since he’s basically a rookie, there is a lot of directions his character can go.
The next slot was going to go to another brute type character. I had a few characters I liked to fill this roster spot. Ultra Boy would be interesting seeing as how he’s close to being a Superman type character but with the limitation of only being able to use one power at a time. but even with that limitation he seemed a little too powerful and didn’t add anything else to the mix
The character I had originally felt would fit in great here when I had this discussion years ago was Freddy Freeman. He had just become the new Captain Marvel He’d be in that same age range as Invincible, but comes with a lot more experience. I think he’d make a solid mentor for Invincible while also dealing with all of the new responsibilities of taking over the mantle of his mentor. It also doesn’t hurt to have a magic-based character on the team. The only reason I’d look to exclude him now is with the New 52, the character is not what he once was. Sure I could go with Shazam, but this new version hasn’t grown on me yet.
Ms. Marvel also seemed like a solid choice here. She’s a team player, has a history with Wolverine, adds in a lot of elements that stories could be built around and at this point there are no female members of the team. While it was very tempting, I decide to go in a different direction.
Instead of going with brute strength, you can always go with power. Looking at he current roster and trying to decide who I can add that would cause the most turmoil, it seemed pretty obvious. The Scarlet Witch would be perfect from the persepctive of being able to build a great story. Between the past history with The Vision, Wolverine’s feelings towards her role in the House of M mutant genocide, Batman’s general distrust of just about everyone (and his trying to figure out a way to neutralize her should she lose control again). Throw in that the team needs a female character and she fills the necessary magic component that was missing and adds versatility.
Since the team seems to have all of the necessary components covered, this last spot allows for some flexibility and was left up to who I thought would be the best to mix in. This spot came down to which favorite character of mine either isn’t currently in a book or being used to their potential. I always loved Taboo from the Backlash series, but in looking at her history and power set, it just didn’t feel like the right mix.
Another favorite that I strongly considered was Raven. She would definitely make for some great story-telling as I had always loved her interaction with wolverine from the Teen Titans/X-Men crossover years ago. she would also bring another element to the book with her family tree, but I ended up passing on her as there is another character that I’d love to see again in a team book.
One of my favorite books was Marvel’s Exiles. The whole idea behind that book of pulling variations of characters from different realities fits right in with this entire exercise of building a team book. So why not take my favorite from that series. While Invincible fills the role of a wise-cracker in battle, Morph would be the comedy center for this book. Forcing the ever serious Batman and Wolverine to deal with Morph would make for some great moments. I would also love to see a writer trying to deal with the banter between Morph and Invincible in a battle. His powerset allows for a ton of creativity and while his demeanor was always that of the joker, he was an integral part of the Exiles lineup.
So my team would come down to:
Batman
Wolverine
Invincible
Vision
Aqualad
Scarlet Witch
Morph
Now all I need to do is put together a creative teams and plan out the first few years of the book. For as much fun as it was thinking of the team of heroes, I’d have even more fun coming up with their adversaries!
Empire Magazine posted this fun Infographic of how Marvel Comics has pulled together it’s cinematic universe.
Can’t wait to see how Groot comes out on the big screen (and while I doubt it’s happening, I’d love to see Bug make a cameo) in next summer’s Guardians of the Galaxy movie.
Two other things I’m looking forward to: The Scarlet Witch’s big screen debut in Avengers 2 and what Marvel does now that the rights to Daredevil, The Punisher and Blade have all reverted back to the House of Ideas.
Kotobukiya DC Comics Justice League ARTFX Statues
So the Kotobukiya Justice League ARTFX statues have started coming out and I’m in agreement with all of the positive feedback I’ve heard about them. I was on the fence if I was going to start collecting another line of statues, but this one is very hard to resist.
I love Jim Lee’s artwork, which these are based off of, but at times his costume designs leaves a little bit to be desired. It’s taken me a little bit of time to get used to Superman not sporting his classic red underwear, but I think seeing the suit in the upcoming Man of Steel movie has me getting a lot more used to the new version.
Green Lantern and Flash don’t look all that different to me, so there isn’t a huge difference to get used to. Aquaman is now back to his more classic orange shirt look and i think Koto’s version is only behind the DC Direct Dynamics version of the King of Atlantis. That one does have the water element to it which adds to the overall appeal, but the Kotobukiya version is still very impressive.
The next team member due to be released should be Wonder Woman. While it certainly would have been nice to have her in her classic outfit, so long as it’s not that black leather out that was debuted in issue #600, I’ll take the New52 version.
Besides the overall look of the characters there is a lot to look forward to with this line. First, the price point makes them very appealing. Being able to pick these up at about $35 makes it very easy on the wallet to collect the entire team. The other big selling point is that you don’t have to stop with just the Justice League. When speaking with one of Kotobukiya’s production team members at this February’s Toy Fair in New York City, he explained that Koto’s plan is to extend this line to take advantage of the huge stable of DC characters. The indication was that the line would start with a few characters belonging to the Bat-Family (which makes the most sense financially) and now we’ve seen the first become available for pre-order…Catwoman.
The removable goggles are a great touch with this piece.
While I personally would love to see a Tim Drake version of robin to be the next piece, I’m thinking that since these are all based on the New52 artwork, the Damian Wayne version of Robin would make a great choice for the next release. Put my vote in now for it to come with the removable hood option.
If we are going to be exploring the entirety of the DC Universe, there is sheer excitement at what this line could yield. I’ve been very hopeful before, especially with the thoughts of what could have been done with the Batman Black & White line and then later with the very short-lived DC Universe Online statues. Both have some pieces I couldn’t resist, such as the DCUO Solomon Grundy and the upcoming Greg Capullo version of The Joker.
Even though there have been plenty of nice pieces produced in the Batman Black & White line, there have definitely been some missed opportunities between certain artist’s rendition of the Dark Knight and then just some characters that have been missing altogether . What starts to get me excited again is this is Kotobukiya at helm now and just looking at the variation of the Bishoujo line and then from our Toy Fair discussion, it sounds like there might be quite a selection coming.
Choosing between the Justice League:
The Justice Society:
The Legion of Super-Heroes:
Not to mention the overwhelming amount of villains to choose from:
I can rattle off so many characters I’d snap right up just off the top of my head, but that’s not even the final reason I wanted to start collecting this line. What’s in production now is Kotobukiya’s Marvel Comics Avengers ARTFX statues. The Marvel line is due to start with renditions of the team that appeared n last summer’s Avengers movie and then expand out to the rest of the Marvel Universe the same as with the DC line. As with the Justice League line being based off of Jim Lee’s artwork, Koto has partnered with artist Adi Granov to design the Avengers team. Below is his early sketch work for the line.
Quality statues at a very affordable price point and just thinking ahead of being able to mix and match in scale statues from both the DC and Marvel universes has me very excited about what’s to come.