Doomed To Repeat It, Or: Lobdell On Teen Titans

Teen Titans writer Scott Lobdell, who made a splash in the DC New 52 last week by portraying pre-reboot Titan Starfire as an amoral, cock-hungry nymphomanic, gave an exclusive interview with USA Today yesterday where he described what other… brilliant… plans he had for the rest of the new Teen Titans… wait – old Teen Titans? old New Teen Titans? New new old New… I’ve had a lot of cold medicine, I’d better lie down and let Scott take this:

“It’s designed specifically so that as you’re sitting down to read this book, you’re learning about Kid Flash, Red Robin and Wonder Girl,” [Lobdell] says. “Pretty much what you see on the paper is what we know about them and what they know about each other.”

But… but… wait… so there’s never been a Teen Titans? Right, Scott? Um…

From Red Hood and The Outlaws. Written by Scott Lobdell. LAST. FUCKING. WEEK.

Castles Over Kings

So now the both of us have caught this wretched head ebola, which means that posting may slow while we lie around looking for mindless entertainment to feed our middle brains while we slowly undergo the process of turning cold medicine into snot… but don’t worry about us, we have a tool for dealing with this. It’s called a screwdriver.

And a likely candidate for tonight’s distraction from our various aches, pains and uncomfortable viscous bubblings is Castle, starring Nathan Fillion, on ABC at 10 p.m. eastern time. It’s not a regular view for us, but ABC is owned by Disney, as is Marvel, and since, purely by coincidence, Marvel’s releasing a Castle graphic novel Wednesday, it seems that tonight’s episode has a distinctly Marvel Comics feel to it, which you can see in the preview after the jump:

Exclusive Pictures of Pussy!

Some celebrity gossip site called Just Jared got their hands on some more pictures of Anne Hathaway in the Catwoman costume she’s wearing for The Dark Knight Rises.

Here’s one; you can go here for the rest if you don’t mind that their second top story is about Justin Bieber going to Chik-Fil-A… and if you do mind (Please God, if you’re reading this Web site, tell me you fucking mind), Bleeding Cool has all the pictures plus a few more exclusives you can check out.

There seems to be a lot of negative buzz in the comics world about the new costume ever since the first official photo of Hathaway in the suit came out about a month and a half ago – not enough cat ear, too much cat ear but the mask is stupid, no tail, the high heels are dumb for a cat suit – all of which make comics people look less like they’re interested in a good Batman movie and more like petulant, disappointed furries losing their boners.

Flying Man is Flying

Next week is the final 13-issue drop of first issues in DC Comics’ New 52, and they’re ending it in the last week in exactly the way they started it the first week: firmly in second place behind Marvel Comics, with women everywhere screaming that they’re nothing but a gaggle of adolescent, sexist pigs. They will also be releasing a Superman comic.

Whereas week one’s Action Comics #1 focused on Grant Morrison’s take on Superman’s first year as a superhero, the main Superman title, written by legendary penciller George Perez with breakdowns by Perez and finished pencils by Jesus Merino (Who did some issues of Justice Society of America a couple years ago), is gonna focus on Superman in the current DC continuity, including his new, underpantsless costume. By which I mean it has no underpants on the outside. I assume he wears underpants underneath his spandex pants, otherwise we will be learning the disturbing way whether or not Kryptonians are Jewish. But I digress.

Comic Book Resources has a five-page preview of Superman #1; go check it out then swing back…

Wow. Those pages sure are pretty, and I want to withhold final judgment until I read the entire book, but based on that sample, I’m guessing that in the new DC continuity, Superman’s fatal weakness is exposition.

Batman Year One: So Good Your Bladder Will Spasm

With all the controversy about the greater Batman reboot storyline going on after this week’s release of Catwoman, and all the cries of “sexist!” and “misogynist!” and “Draw more panels of Bat Doinking or I can’t come!”, you might be longing for a simpler time when a Batman reboot included about 90 percent fewer twitching boners.

Not to worry: Warner Home Video has you covered with a clip from the upcoming Batman: Year One DVD that you can check out after the jump:

Steve Niles Wants To Show You His Thing. For Free!

You might have heard that there’s a prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing, coming out in theaters next month, that takes place in Norway about three days before the events of the classic original flick. But you might not know that Steve Niles has written a comic book that’s a prequel to the prequel that takes place about 1,000 years before the events of the prequel.

Sound interesting to you? Well, you can check out the first issue here with pencils by Patric Reynolds (Who did the art on the Serenity one-shot by Patton Oswalt), for free, in its entirety, courtesy of Dark Horse Comics.

We’ve given it a quick skim (And might review it later this week), and it looks like it’s basically The Thing Vs. Vikings. And if the comic and the movie are hits, I’m guessing we can look forward to all kinds of battles, like The Thing Vs. Pirates! Or The Thing Vs. Ninjas! Or if they can get Greg Horn on art, they can do the groundbreaking The Thing Vs. Porn Stars!

Actually, The Thing Vs. Porn Stars isn’t all that groundbreaking… it’s basically the plot to every porn movie ever made.

The Thing movie comes out October 14th.

No “Holy Sh*t” Jokes Until The Book Drops, Please

Newsarama has an exclusive, three-page preview of Frank Miller’s upcoming Legendary Comics graphic novel Holy Terror, where an “original” superhero named The Fixer hunts and kills Al Qaeda terrorists. Check it out here and come on back.

I put the word “original” in quotes because the book was originally announced as Holy Terror, Batman! at WonderCon more than five years ago. Apparently somewhere between then and now either Miller or DC Comics decided that they didn’t like the idea of a story where Batman might stomp the testicles off of gentlemen of Middle Eastern descent before showing them to him. Or maybe people just started questioning where the phrase “Don’t forget to dip the batarangs in pig’s blood, Robin,” might fit into continuity even after the New 52 reboot.

Either way, somewhere along the line Miller took the white-out to Batman’s ears and finally put the finishing touches on the book. And checking out the preview, all I can say is, MAN… I am REALLY looking forward to Sin City 2.

Holy Terror comes out next Wednesday, September 28th.

The Walking Dead (Not That One)

When it comes to creative teams, DC’s New 52 is turning into Thunderdome: 52 teams enter… one team leaves… and if recent DC history’s any guide, that team will be Grant Morrison, an A-list artist to be named later, and a terrifyingly large pile of mescaline.

Last week it was John Rozum walking away from Static Shock, which was a shame because I had some hope for it; sure, the first issue didn’t grab either Amanda or I enough to review it, but Rozum’s responsible for writing 2002’s terrific and woefully underrated Midnight, Mass. from Vertigo, so I was hoping things would improve.

Instead, he chose to leave the title, absolving pretty much all parties involved of any blame by name, then saying with one breath that he was looking forward to doing more books with DC Comics and with the NEXT saying, “…if you are in the position to give me work, please let me know.” Which only tells me that if you want to know what REALLY happened there, you should attend next month’s New York ComicCon and fill that man with bourbon. And then send us an email. And then fill US with bourbon. But I digress.

Yesterday afternoon brought us another man down: Green Arrow writer J. T. Krul announced that he was leaving the book after the third issue:

Bunker: The Fist of Justice

Over the weekend, the artist on the upcoming DC New 52-renumbered Teen Titans announced that the team will be introducing its first openly gay member in the third issue.

Penciller Brett Booth let the news about new character Bunker, a new character with the power to create brick-shaped force fields that he can form into apparently any shape, slip via the following Twitter exchange with Batgirl writer Gail Simone:

Gail Simone: Tomorrow I am on a panel not listed on the schedule, WHERE ARE THE GAY SUPERHEROES, at 11:00 am, in Mezzanine 1. It’ll be great!

Brett Booth: We got at least one in Teen Titans:)

Gail Simone: Really? Who is the gay superhero in TT? Can you say?

Brett Booth: Bunker is gay (the purple guy, I know, not my first color choice!)

Booth followed up with some more information on his blog, including a character description by Titans writer Scott Lobdell:

His real name is Miguel Jose Barragan.   He was raised in a very small Mexican village called El Chilar.  He was very loved by his family and the village as well — and they were as accepting of his homosexuality as they were to his super powers when they first manifested.   To that end he grew up in an angst-free environment.   He was born out of the closet and so he has a very refreshing outlook on life.

Twin On Conjoined Twin Action! – Will You Read Amanda Palmer’s “Evelyn, Evelyn”?

On September 21st, Evelyn, Evelyn, a joint comic book/dark fantasy/music project conceived of by Amanda Palmer (Dresden Dolls) and Jason Webly (um…him) with art by Cynthia von Buhler (an illustrator for childrens’ books) will drop into comic stores. In an interview with Comics Alliance, the book is described:

Evelyn, Evelyn is a violent fairy-tale of the kind no longer told to modern children. Blame it on a more politically correct culture or just the simple, thankful fact that death is less often a part of everyday life, but the type of grim fables told to kids a hundred-plus years ago just aren’t around anymore.

The story open on the titular twins, who lose both parents only to be raised as caged chickens, until later being housed by child-pornographers at a camping ground and ultimately ending up in a low-rent traveling circus. And in a tongue-in-cheek reference to a modern tragedy, the twins are born on September 11th, 1985.

Ok. Conjoined twins. Traveling circuses. Lack of political correctness. Sounds promising.

However, there’s been some controversy.