Existential, Non-Euclidian Horror, or: Locke & Key In Movie Development

Yeah, we fixed it (sort of; give us some more time)… and just in time. Because after a week of writer Joe Hill hinting coyly about it on his Twitter feed, it has just become official: Universal Pictures has optioned Hill’s and artist Gabriel Rodriguez’s Locke & Key comic for development as a movie.

The comic was developed as a television pilot a year or so ago for Fox, who decided not to pick up a series order (although if I recall correctly, the pilot, starring Nick Stahl from Carnivale and Terminator 3: Rise of The Machines was screened to good reaction at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con… which I missed, due to a prior commitment to an alcoholic blackout). It is now under development by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who wrote the 2009 Star Trek reboot (Yay!), as well as the first Michael Bay Transformers movie (Boo!), with an eye toward turning it into a possible trilogy.

Please Stand By…

We are experiencing some unexpected technical difficulties this evening; I suppose this is what one gets when he drunkenly tries to write about a new superhero he invented on the toilet named “DROP TABLE”.

So please bear with us while we try to fix the issue. In the meantime, you can take this opportunity to start digging through couch cushions and in the lint trap for nickels and dimes. You’ll need them to start your complete collection of the upcoming Justice League of America. Because if you want to be able to tell the regulars at the comic store that you have the whole run, you’ll need to get the variant covers for the upcoming first issue.

All 52 of them.

Yup, it’s one issue for every state in America, plus an extra couple for the territories that we keep kicking around. Which means that if you want them all, it would cost you around, oh, $200 or $300 bucks. Assuming you can get them at face value.

Yeah, we’re gonna pass. We can use that money to hire a database guy.

Thanks for your patience.

Mark Hamill Teases Star Wars Episode IX… in 1983

Busy day here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office… much if it involved with trying to figure out what the hell time it is (we don’t handle time changes well here, particularly not on a day coming after a day we started drinking at about 1:30 p.m.). 

But the big news of the week continues to be the acquisition of Lucasfilm by Disney, and the ramification of that purchase, including the announced new movie for 2015. It was actually the topic of conversation amongst the regulars at the bar yesterday (here’s a hint: if you’re looking for a new local bar to talk comics and genre stuff, find one where the head bartender has a Rebel Alliance logo tattoo), and whether or not the movie would follow any of the comics or novels that have come up since the early 90s.

Well, the announcement has been made that, whatever the movie is gonna be, it won’t be based on any existing released stories… but whatever it is, it might have been percolating for a while. And here’s some evidence: an interview between Mark Hamill and Maria Shriver from 1983, before the release of Return of The Jedi, where Hamill freely talks about a third trilogy… and that he might be back for the final, at-the-time theoretical ninth movie, “sometime in 2004.” Proving that Mark Hamill has no better sense of time than we do.

Then again, he might have just been addled and contact-intoxicated by the volume of mousse in Maria Shriver’s hair.

Quiet, Boy! You Wanna Get Sued? Lot 13 #1 Review

If you have any questions about the kind of story you’re about to read when you open up the first issue of Lot 13, written by Steve Niles and drawn by Glenn Fabry (in a rare turn on interior art), you’ll get an inkling once you see the first panel after the prologue, which features a helicopter shot of a vehicle being used by a family in the process of moving. And you’ll damn well know what kind of story it is when you see that family enter a mysterious, empty hotel. Cue ominous synth music. Press the button to summon the blood elevator. All work and no play make Jack yell here’s Johnny! Slow zoom to an old-timey television showing oh God that’s Steve Niles walking with Nicholson through the hedge maze – smash cut to black. Fin.

So yes: this comic book is – shall we say an homage – to Kubrick’s The Shining. If it wore its influences any more obviously on its sleeve, it would come packed in a “REDRUM” polybag. But that isn’t inherently a bad thing; after all, The Shining itself is an homage to The Haunting of Hill House and that turned out okay except for Danny Lloyd’s career. What matters in any haunted house story – and to be fair, it’s too early to tell if the hotel will be the primary setting, or if things will move sometime in the next four issues – is whether or not you care about the characters and their predicament. After all, what made The Shining so effective was watching Jack struggle against the power of the hotel, while if, say, Justin Bieber walked into the Overlook Hotel, I’d roll a Molotov Cocktail in after him, bar the door and pop some corn.

So that’s the overriding question: does Niles do a good enough job making characters that inspire enough emotion to do the heavy lifting to make readers forget that they’re a pair of twins and a phantom bartender away from conversing with their finger? Well, kinda… in the sense that while I found I really didn’t give much of a fuck one way or the other about four of the characters, at least one of them engaged me enough to make me want to kill them with an axe.

Bafflingly Fearless: Another One-Word Marvel Now Teaser

Hey, everyone! Marvel knows some more mysterious single words! And so do I: “Overload!”

Marvel is back to releasing one-word teaser images to hype upcoming books in the Marvel Now initiative to release a ton of new first issues over the next several months (but it’s not a reboot! Marvel doesn’t reboot! A reboot is something that happens all at once! Whereas Marvel will boot you repeatedly over the course of weeks!), and this one is just as baffling as some of the other, more recent ones…

What. The. Hell.

Man Of Steel, Supporting Characters Of Kleenex: Superman: Earth One, Volume Two Review

Superman: Earth One, Volume One, when it was released in October, 2010, was a damn exciting development in Superman’s history, albeit alternative history. It was the first modern reimagining of Superman’s origin since John Byrne’s The Man of Steel in post-Crisis 1986, and it was the first version to posit Clark Kent as a somewhat modern 20-something – a modern 20-something circa about 1996, but still, better than a young man fresh out of college in a pristine blue suit, dress fedora and no stench of alcohol. Sure, it had some story issues – for example, if I could somehow finagle an interview for a job for which I was, on paper, grossly unqualified, and I then said I wanted to fuck around with their infrastructure, I would be less likely to be offered six figures than 60,000 volts from a stun gun – but I generally found it to be a refreshing take on Superman’s origin, especially considering that the alternate universe conceit allowed writer J. Michael Straczynski to be bold with things without needing to come up with some outlandish, what-if-Superman-landed-on-a-cocaine-farm Elseworlds scenario to tell it. It was a recognizable Superman story, non-beholden to continuity, and thus it felt fresh.

That, however, was two years ago. Superman: Earth One, Volume Two was released yesterday, and between the two volumes was a small event in the DC Universe called the New 52 Reboot. Which means that, for good or ill, Straczynski’s alternate universe early Superman stories are no longer going to be automatically compared to a miniseries written when newspapers were viable, homeland security involved a deadbolt and a shotgun, and “blog” was a regional reference to a particular consistency of bowel movement.

So the question here not only is whether or not Superman: Earth One, Volume Two is a good story and worth the 23-buck cover price, but how well it holds up now that it’s presenting itself as an alternative to an in-continuity Superman with an origin that’s more modern than the one presented in Volume One. And the answer? Well, like the first volume, it presents a pretty entertaining and generally emotionally engaging story, with a bunch of logical problems and character choices that seem to be made more based on convenience than realism… but it is definitely affected not only by comparison with the recent DC reboot of Superman, but with some older, near-classic comics that tackle similar themes.

However, Straczynski clearly knows that he is writing a comic for the Internet age, because there is also a cute kitty and underboob shots. So it’s got that going for it.

I’m Normally Not A Praying Man, But If You’re Up There, Please Save Me Superman

Today has been a strange day. First of all, it’s Halloween, which means I’ve spent a large part of the day resisting the urge to go door-to-door in a clown costume and pretend that the courts have ordered me to introduce myself as a sex offender, if only to make the exchange of candy all the more awkward and horrific. Second, with yesterday’s announcement of the Disney purchase of Lucasfilm and a new Star Wars movie in the works, it’s decidedly difficult to put aside the excitement and trepidation behind that announcement and focus on comics. And finally, it’s a couple of days after Hurricane Sandy hit the Boston area, and while we have our Internet service restored here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office and are therefore, for all intents and purposes, back to pre-storm normal, the heart of the comics industry in New York is certainly not, which gives our personal triumph of speedy electronic pornography delivery a decidedly bittersweet tang.

But strange day or not, it is Wednesday. And even though the storm delayed the delivery of new comics until 2 p.m. today to my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to stop offering to show the paying customers my high-pressure microbursts, the new comics were delivered. Which means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

But while it might be a weird day, it’s a good day for new comics. There’s Grant Morrison and Darick Robertson’s second issue of Happy, Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s new issue of Hit-Girl, a new Ultimate Spider-Man, the first issue of Marvel’s A+X, Ed Brubaker’s and Sean Phillips’s new Fatale, and perhaps most prominently, J. Michael Straczynski’s and Shane Davis’s original graphic novel Superman: Earth One, Volume Two.

But before we have time to write about them, we need time to read them. And we have the time, since being on the northern end of the brunt of Sandy, I only had to deal with the harsh reality of about 36 hours of being forced to jack off using only my imagination. A lot of people in New York and New Jersey are being forced to jack off to the memories of when their comic collections weren’t six feet under water, seven miles away. So if you have a minute and a few bucks, please consider texting the word “redcross” to 90999; it’ll show up as an extra ten bucks on your cell phone bill next month, which is when Grandma starts sending you your Christmas money anyway.

However, considering we already done done it, it means we can focus on the new books. So until we do…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

New Star Wars Movie! Oh Yeah, And Bryan Singer To Direct X-Men: Days Of Future Past

Twenty four or so hours ago the news that Bryan Singer, the director of the first two X-Men movies that ushered in the modern age of generally excellent superhero movies made by A-List directors who give a shit about the characters as opposed to slumming and giving the thumbs-up to nipples and asscracks on the hero’s costume, had literally just signed to direct the fifth X-Men movie, Days of Future Past, would be the biggest geek movie news of the past six months. Particularly considering that the time travel nature of the story could allow Singer to liberally include cast members from later-set his X-Men movies, which appears to be a thing that is actually happening.

Yup, just yesterday morning, the word that Singer might be taking over from Matthew Vaughn, director of X-Men: First Class, while keeping Vaughn on as a producer (which, on one level, is good news, since Vaughn did a damn good job directing First Class, so I’m glad he’ll be involved… although the role of producer in movies and TV can vary widely from an active, hands-on role in development to, “Yeah, yeah; put my name wherever you want in the credits, so long as it’s on the right place on my check.”) would be the biggest news in genre film, particularly considering the change in directors so far hasn’t had an effect on the projected July 18, 2014 release date.

In A Galaxy Far, Far Away… in 2015: Disney Buys Lucasfilm, Announces New Star Wars Film

Editor’s Note, 8:45 p.m.: Updated after the jump

We are still without Internet service here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, thanks to that bitch Sandy, so all we can handle today is a brief, quick hit update, sent via my dwindling 4G plan, using my smartphone as a hotspot, hopefully before my cell provider becomes hip to my grievous violation of the terms of service of my contract.

Thankfully, that quick hit is about one of the biggest that could possibly occur in the world of genre geeks.

To wit: reportedly, Disney has bought Lucasfilm from George Lucas for 4.05 billion dollars.

Oh yeah: and Disney has announced they will be releasing a new Star Wars film in 2015.

So what the hell’s going on, George?

Joss Whedon And The Zombie Apocalypse Vote

Crisis On Infinite Midlives is a comics-based Website, and therefore we try to advance no political opinions nor particular ideological agendas.

However, even if we are unwilling to endorse any political positions, as genre geeks there are two things that we care about almost more than anything in the world: the opinion of Joss Whedon – creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and director of Avengers – and the impending and inevitable zombie apocalypse.

And, even though we would never think to tell you for whom to vote for in the impending United States Presidential election, nor would we tell you who we personally intend to vote for, when Joss and the zombie apocalypse collide in a single political endorsement video? Well, we feel we have a duty to present it to you.

So, without further ado, here is Joss Whedon, explaining the best of all possible reasons we have heard to date to vote for Mitt Romney.