Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast Episode 16: Crystal Blue Mess

It’s Sunday, and even though it’s the long Memorial Day weekend here in the States, it’s still time for another episode of the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Show!

In this week’s episode we talk about:

• X-Men: Days of Future Past! We discuss how much we enjoyed the movie, some of the cooler moments in the flick, but most importantly: we try and take apart where the film fits into the X-Men movie franchise continuity, and whether or not any of the other movies can even exist with this one stuck at the end!
• The recently announced title Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice! We talk about why the title makes sense, how a desire to make The Dark Knight Returns might have led to decisions director Zack Snyder made in Man of Steel, and how this title could have come directly from the name of one of our earlier podcasts!
• Forever Evil #7, by Geoff Johns and David Finch
• MPH #1, by Mark Millar and Duncan Fegredo
• Original Sin #2, by Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato, and:
• Why if 3D movies are bad, falling asleep during an IMAX 3D showing of Godzilla is worse (spoiler alert: it involves waking up to Godzilla shrieking at you through 100 subwoofers.

And now the legalese:

• This podcast uses adult, vulgar language, and is not safe for work. This week’s hook joke is about penis tinting, and things really go downhill from there. Wear headphones. You are warned.
• This show was recorded live to tape, and may contain awkward pauses, the use of the word “f**k” as a comma, and truly vile humor that any reasonable show would edit out.
• This show is chock-full of spoilers. We try to warn you ahead of time, but there’s no getting around it: we are ruiners.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:09:02 — 63.2MB)

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Enjoy the show, suckers!

Pym Particle Fallout: Joss Whedon and James Gunn Comment on Edgar Wright’s Departure From Ant-Man

It is Saturday of the American Memorial Day long weekend. This means that, in general, there is fuck-all going on in the way of genre news other than redundant tales of heavy drinking by comic creators (and comic bloggers), and Edgar Wright’s departure from Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man movie.

There’s a dearth of actual hard news about what actually happened to lead to the split. Latino Review has a story based on a bunch of anonymous sources saying it had to do with the script, but with no names attached, I’m just gonna link to it and let you draw your own conclusions.

Wright himself hasn’t said anything, and his Twitter feed has been silent… except for a re-Tweet of a wordless picture post Avengers and Avengers 2: Age of Ultron director Joss Whedon threw up earlier today, and which you can check out after the jump.

Small Change: Edgar Wright Out As Ant-Man Director

Let’s face facts: nobody really gives a shit about Ant-Man. Despite being a founding member of The Avengers (And notice nobody at Marvel Studios bent over backwards to try and get him in the Avengers movie), the first thing Hank Pym ever did that anyone paid any attention to was tune up his wife in Avengers #213, and by then he was Yellowjacket, which was about his fourth ineffectual alter ego. And don’t even bring up Scott Lang and Eric O’Grady, who were each killed in separate team books to advance minor plot points.

Which is why it was a somewhat strange choice for Marvel Studios to go with the character as the first movie in their Phase Three of major motion pictures, but it didn’t matter. Because Marvel Studios had announced that Edgar Wright, the director of my favorite movie of 2013, The World’s End, was going to be directing the flick.

The key word in that sentence, however, is “was.” Because he ain’t gonna be doing it anymore.

It’s Always Darkest: Batman Vs. Superman Gets Proper Title, Which Could Be Worse

We’re a little late to the party with this one, what with our day jobs and commitments and congenital drinking problems, but Batman Vs. Superman has an official title and promo image. The promo image is at the top left. The title is Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.

And then the Internet blew up.

Seriously: people I have known for years and respect have taken to Twitter to complain about almost every aspect of the title. One guy complained that Superman didn’t have top billing. Another guy bitched that they were using a “v” instead of a “vs.” or a full-on “versus.” I’ve seen gags revolving around “Tony Orlando of Justice.” Chris Hardwick’s Comedy Central show @Midnight started a hashtag, #BetterBatmanSuperman, implying that Joe Blow from Falmouth could come up with a better title.

And maybe they could. Because honestly, it’s not that great a title. But it’s not the worst title in the world, either.

King of The Monstrous

Right after we finished last week’s podcast about the new Godzilla movie (and had about seven drinks), I told Amanda, “You know, back in the late 70s, Marvel had a Godzilla comic where Godzilla teamed up with S.H.I.E.L.D. He might even have fought Doctor Doom.” Amanda responded to this news by putting on her sunglasses, leaning into me like Morpheus hearing about kung-fu lessons, and saying, “Show me.”

So when I went to my local comic store, where they know me by name and remind me that the real Godzilla is larger than I’m implying and that the “nuclear fire” he spits is normally less sticky, I showed her.

But the important part of that sentence is that we were at the local comic store, which means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

And there were a lot of good books this week, like a new Hellboy in Hell, a new Saga, and a new Daredevil… but lets face it: the money shots this week are gonna be the (long-delayed) Forever Evil #7 by Geoff Johns and David Finch, the latest Original Sin by Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato, and MPH by Mark Millar (which I already know will piss me off and force me to say the phrase, “Back in Mike Baron’s run on The Flash, he introduced a drug called Velocity 9 that caused the user to run at super speed…”). But there is, in fact, a bunch of other cool stuff!

But before we can talk about any of them, we need time to read them. So until that happens…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

Nothing Wrong I Can’t Fix With My Hands: Kevin Smith On Zack Snyder’s Batman Suit

So recently, Batman Vs. Superman director Zack Snyder tweeted a photo of Ben Affleck in the Batman suit for the upcoming movie. And while some of us who are actual comics fans might have seen some similarities in the suit to some other earlier comics works, there were just as many people who said, “Meh; it’s just another one-color Batman suit, just like in the Christopher Nolan flicks. And the Tim Burton movies. And the ones by what’s-his-face, that nipple-obsessed pederast.”

And certainly, that single photo that most of us have seen points toward that kind of design… but most of us have only seen the one photo posted to the public Internets by Snyder, who is known to like fucking around with visuals, whether or not it’s actually a good idea.

But there is one man not involved with the actual production who has seen a photo of the costume: Kevin Smith, the director of Clerks, host of podcast Fatman on Batman, and the guy who cast Affleck in Chasing Amy, which led Hollywood producers to see him as something other than his character in Dazed And Confused, i.e.: a paddle-obsessed pederast (I’m detecting a common theme here).

Smith has been saying for months that he’s seen the Batman suit, and based on his descriptions, we weren’t expecting another one-color Batman costume. Well, Smith has made a few more comments about the costume he saw on his Hollywood Babble-On podcast (transcribed by ComicBook.com), and in doing so, confirmed some things that many long-time comic fans already suspected from the first black and white photo.

The New Guardians Of The Galaxy Trailer Because, What The Hell? You Haven’t Got That Long A Life Span Anyway

As we mentioned the other day when the teasers rained down upon us from Marvel Marketing, today is the day that a brand new full length Guardians Of The Galaxy trailer would drop. And they are true to their word.

However, as cool as the new trailer is, I can’t help but wonder how much more impact it would have had if the teasers hadn’t been released. Although, they did keep some choice bits for the trailer proper, that screen shot to the left up there being one of them. Bradley Cooper’s animated raccoon is going to fight Chris Pratt for every laugh in this movie. I say, bring it on.

Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast Episode 15: Ladies’ Footwear And Murder

It is Sunday, which means it’s time for another episode of the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Show, or as we like to call it: that thing we do as an excuse to not write for one day so we can devote more time to drinking whiskey, watching Game of Thrones, and babying the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office Mascot, Parker The Kitten.

On today’s show, we tackle:

• Godzilla! We went into it thinking it would be a movie filled with Walter White battling a giant lizard, walked out of it thinking it was a pretty enjoyable reboot of the property… and then we talked about it. And sometimes, that’s the worst thing you can do to a movie…
• Wild-assed and variant covers – Marvel announced this week that the covers of each issue of The Death of Wolverine would be something called “Weapon Etched Holo Foil,” and DC is planning to release their Futures End (Mistakenly called Five Years Later in the show) September one-shots with another series of 3D covers. As a couple of people who lived through variant covers and how they helped kill comics in the mid-90s, we don’t have a lot to add about it, but man do we like to complain about them.
• Batgirl #31, written by Gail Simone with art by Fernando Pasarin
• The United States of Murder Inc., written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Michael Avon Oeming
• The Walking Dead #127, written by Robert Kirkman with art by Charlie Adlard, and:
• Cat nutrition, or: taking care of a stray animal for only $47 a day

And one show note for the week:

• The Island of The Mushroom People is an actual movie, actually called Attack of The Mushroom People in America and Matango in its native Japan. I wish I was making that up.

And, our usual semi-legalese:

• This show was recorded live to tape, meaning that you might hear more than the normal number of “ums”, pregnant pauses, and references to Bukkake
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is not safe for work. That line just above about references to Bukkake? I didn’t pull that out of my ass. Be smart: listen with headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:19:41 — 73.0MB)

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Enjoy the show, suckers!

Teaser, Trailer, Promo, Hype – Marvel Releases Teasers To Promote GOTG Trailer

On Monday, Marvel Studios will release a new trailer for The Guardians Of The Galaxy. In order to get you excited about that, they have released not on but two (!) teasers to get you ready for it.

So, are you ready for it?

Here’s one:

And we have the other, after the jump.

Making School Spirits: Real Life Wolverine Claws

I obtained a classical liberal arts education from the late 80s to the early 90s. That education included writing, which led me to a stint in stand-up comedy. It included broadcasting, which led me to a short career as a rock and roll disc jockey. And it included a computer science minor, which has led me to a long and lucrative career in software engineering. It was four years that led me to an eclectic mix of jobs and experiences, and to a long-term gig on the cutting edge of computer security.

I have wasted my fucking life.