More Greek Than Italian

So the big mainstream comic news today is that someone named Gal Godot has been cast as Wonder Woman in the upcoming Zack Snyder-directed sequel to Man of Steel, Batman Vs. Superman (or whatever it will wind up being called). Godot was an Israeli Miss Universe contestant who turned model while turning Israeli soldier before going full Fast And Furious for a few movies and finally landing the role of Princess Diana.

Which is fine and which is good, because God knows that its about time that the final remaining leg of DC Comics’s Big Trinity gets an actual movie role… except it is potential terrible news for actual comic fans. Not because of the casting – I have no idea if Godot can or cannot act – but because of Wonder Woman’s role in a movie that Snyder announced at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con with a quote from Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns.

Because if Snyder intends for his next movie to even remotely follow Miller’s Dark Knight plot, well, Diana’s first appearance is in The Dark Knight Strikes Again, and it is only pretty much to fuck Superman stupid somewhere up in the sky (“It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s… a bird. Or at least something the color and general viscosity of bird poop just hit me in the eye. Bird poop that smells like bleach.”) somewhere between superhero wanna-bes and Dick Grayson being, well, a dick. It’s not a good move for the Wonder Woman brand, is what I’m saying.

But that is movie news. Which is well and good, but it is, after all, Wednesday. Which means that there are new comics, and no matter whether the movie version of Wonder Woman is a sky-fucking skank or a Mossad secret agent, it means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

But there are some good looking books there, huh? There’s the first J. Michael Straczynski issue of Terminator: Salvation, the latest issue of The Superior Spider-Man, the latest issue of Think Tank (which really is the best comic book you’re probably not reading), another issue of Marvel’s Ultimate Universe Cataclysm event, and a bunch of other stuff.

But you know how these things go: before we can talk about any of them, we need time to read them. So while we do that…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

New Poster, Classic Bad Guy: The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Poster Teases Green Goblin

We’re still up to our elbows in wires and cables trying to replace the brokedown home theater PC – a new TiVo has been obtained, but upon approaching our cable TV company, we were told, “What is a… cable… card? Um… can you come back tomorrow when Cletus-Bob is here? He’s equally rude and dismissive, but he knows about ‘lectricity and… stuff,” – but there was something that really caught my attention.

Some big posters for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 have started showing up in certain movie theaters. The posters are split into three panels, with Spider-Man posed in the foreground with his back to the viewer, with Jamie Foxx as Electro attacking on the right, and Paul Giamatti stampeding on the left… and someone unexpected attacking from the center.

Ah hell; you can check it out for yourself after the jump.

Oh Mama, I’m In Fear For My Life From The Long Arm of The Furlong: Fan Film Star Trek: Renegades Trailer Released

We don’t pay a whole hell of a lot of attention to fan fiction here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives, because while there is some good stuff out there, in order to find it, you need to sift through a whole bunch of crap. And frankly, the only time I should be subjected to the image of Angel fucking Spike is three seconds before I wake up screaming.

With that said, sometimes the bigger, more well-produced projects do get our attention, and this is one of them. It’s a Star Trek fan film, set in the original, pre-Abrams reboot universe, called Renegades. And while you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a Trek fan film with cardboard sets that make 70s Doctor Who episodes look like Pacific Rim, it is rare to find one serious enough to being in primary actors not only from Star Trek Voyager, but from the original series as well.

And it also features Sean Young and Edward Furlong! So you know the budget isn’t that big! Or else someone lost a bet!

Tweeting From The Batcave? Some Producer Tweets “Details” About Batman Vs. Superman Plot

Not a lot of time here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office – we have a prior commitment with an alcoholic blackout – but I wanted to make a note of something quick.

There hasn’t been a lot in the way of details about the upcoming Batman Vs. Superman movie. Sure, we know that Ben Affleck is playing Batman, and we’ve been hearing that they’re already shooting second unit stuff for the movie, plus there’s talk that Wonder Woman and Nightwing might be a part of it, but there’s not a lot out there about the actual story.

Until this Tweet by a guy named Danial Alter, who is a movie producer who claims to know something about the story.

Hmm. Okay…

Fishing In Cold Waters: Possible Open Auditions For Star Wars: Episode VII

Things are a little busy here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office today, because, well, we didn’t understand the full range of capabilities inherent in a hot water heater. You see, we thought that all a hot water heater did was to, well, heat water to the state colloquially known as “hot.” We had no idea that they could also blow out an element in a way that resembles a power surge that resets all your home theater components and causes a burning wire insulation smell that makes you think your entire home office is mere minutes from burning to the ground! And even better: it turns out that hot water heaters have good enough programming to do this late on a Saturday night after you’ve had ten beers and are half convinced that the real reason you’re smelling burning insulation is because you’re having a massive stroke!

Anyway, a nice man is ripping out our old hot water heater in favor of one less multi-talented, meaning I only have a few minutes before I have to run back down to the basement and ask him if our sinks should be screaming in this fashion. This is not an activity that the rich and famous have to deal with, so perhaps I will take the opportunity to throw my hat into the ring and audition for Star Wars: Episode VII.

This Will Be A Day Long Remembered: Star Wars Episode VII Gets A Release Date

Well kids, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that we finally have a hard and fast release date for Star Wars: Episode VII. The bad news is that it is about six months later than everybody originally anticipated, meaning that the guy who is inevitably already first in line at Grauman’s Chinese Theater will, by release time, only smell like an authentic Star Wars character if you take on faith that Boba Fett is really 150 pounds of rotting potted meat stuffed into a cardboard facsimile of Mandalorian armor.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Disney has announced, via StarWars.com, that they will be releasing the J. J. Abrams-directed, Abrams and Lawrence Kasden-scripted (You know, Lawrence Kasden. The guy who did the final draft of The Empire Strikes Back? The writer most fondly known these days as “Not George Lucas”?) new movie on December 18th, 2015.

Which means that there is gonna be one hell of a case of Skywalking Pneumonia going around starting Wednesdayish, December 16th 2015.

Days of Future Aging: X-Men: Days of Future Past Trailer Released

A lot of the geek excitement for movies in the next year is focused on Marvel Studios, what with Thor: The Dark World opening next weekend, Captain America: The Winter Soldier dropping in April, 2014, and Guardians of The Galaxy (and if you’re not excited for that one, go see director James Gunn’s earlier flicks Slither and Super and tell me how you feel then) coming out next summer.

And once upon a time, that slate in and of itself would be enough to blow the heart of any self-respecting comics fan right out the back of his or her underpants. But we live in a charmed time, where we have even more comic flicks on the way, like The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and X-Men: Days of Future Past, which features the return of Bryan Singer, the director of X-Men and X-Men: United, the two films that started the whole superhero movie renaissance.

Twentieth Century Fox brough some footage from the film to this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, but none of it has made it to the general public… until today, when the first official trailer from the movie was released. And you can check it out right after the jump.

Old Man And The Shield – Trailer For Captain America: The Winter Soldier

While the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office was celebrating the Red Sox and their 8-1 trouncing of the St. Louis Cardinals last night with whiskey, bottle rockets, and eventual blackouts, Marvel released the new extended trailer for Captain America: Winter Soldier into the slipstream of the internet. Prepare yourself for Nick Fury, cybernetic arms, and being uncomfortably close to other men on elevators. Also, thrill to the reveal of the rumored Robert Redford appearance as Alexander Pierce, S.H.I.E.L.D. covert über spy.

Cool to see how they’re handling Falcon, and if you didn’t get more than a little excited at the glimpse of Bucky’s cybernetic arm, well, then I question your Captain America fanhood.

Not seen in this trailer? Batroc the Leaper. Yep. He is supposed to be in the film.

Guess there’s just some things we’ll need to wait for the movie to experience.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier drops in US theaters on April 4, 2014.

Video – Harrison Ford And Benedict Cumberbatch On Star Wars Sequel Casting

Normally, I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch BBCA’s The Graham Norton Show. However, the season premiere is going to include an interview with Harrison Ford and Benedict Cumberbatch, in which their potential involvement with the Star Wars sequels is going to be discussed. Harrison Ford is…noncommittal. Hillariously noncommittal.

The Graham Norton Show season premiere will air on BBCA on October 19. Star Wars Episode VII will drop some time in 2015, precisely, as Boston comedian Rich Gustus would say, “the second Saturday after I get my shit together.”

Everyday Superpowers: Carrie Publicity Stunt Is Kinda Awesome

I haven’t paid a lot of attention to the upcoming remake of the movie Carrie, starring Chloe Grace Moretz, because the Brian DePalma original from 1976 is a Goddamned classic, and seeing a remake is just yet another sign that Hollywood is out of original ideas and they won’t champion new properties and I am getting old oh God so old get off my lawn you damned kids and turn down that rotten hippity hoppity okay who pissed in my pants?

Ahem.

Anyway, even though Carrie is, as many of Stephen King’s best works, a superhero story (Don’t believe me? Carrie is about a girl with Jean Grey’s powers. The Dead Zone, The Shining and Doctor Sleep are about guys with Franklin Richards’s powers. Firestarter is about a girl with The Human Torch’s power. Jack Sawyer in The Talisman and Black House jumps dimensions like Pariah. And if The Gunslinger from The Dark Tower isn’t Batman with a gun, I’ll shit myself), it hasn’t really been on my radar… until this little stunt.

The producers set up a publicity stunt in a New York coffee shop where they packed the place with a few actors, a fake wall and some gimmicked props, before opening the place for business to the rubes and staging a little impromptu demonstration of psychokinetic rage. And while I try to call myself immune to these made-to-go-viral video publicity stunts, this one put a smile on my face. Because if I had been there to witness it live, I would have counted it as the greatest thing I had ever seen. Right after I established exactly who pissed in my pants.

You can check it out for yourself right after the jump.