Quick Links - February 10th

This has been making the rounds for a bit, as Olly Moss tries to bake you see things.

A few more images are out for "X-Men: First Class". I have always dug the Xavier Institute logo.

The Joes and Cobra are both gearing up to fight zombies. I read "Infestation #1" last week, mostly on a lark, and I am gearing up to call this the worst cross-over of the year. Yes, I am aware it's February. IDW really jumps on the zombie-bandwagon 4 years too late, and while zombie vs Ghostbusters is mildly interesting, It goes downhill from there. Vs Joes? Eh, okay. Vs Star Trek? Just beam them into space. Vs Transformers?!? Really IDW? Really?

Moving on...
The Cool Kids Table has a look at April's coolest comic covers. Art Adams? Travis Charest? Darick Robertson draws Conan? Eric Powell and Mike Mignola? April is a good month for comic covers.

Todd Klein talks about typography and lettering in regards to iconic Comic logos over at CBR.
Neil Gaiman celebrates 10 years of his blog. Yay for creators and their interaction with fans.

Thank you Superdickery for this gem:

That's very...Wow, Superman. You get rid of that cross.

Lastly, Peter David threw up a few hours ago.

Turn Off The Dark

The first reviews are in for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.

They are just brutal.

Some choice cuts from the BBC News Article:

• In the New York Times, Brantley admitted he was breaking a traditional embargo but said he had decided to see the show around the time it was supposed to have opened prior to the most recent postponement. "From what I saw on Saturday night, Spider-Man is so grievously broken in every respect that it is beyond repair," he wrote.
• The Washington Post's Peter Marks, who called it "a shrill, insipid mess" with a "convoluted" story. The score, he continued, was "devoid of personality" in a show whose "optimal audience might be non-English-speaking".
• The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney called it "an ungainly mess of a show that smacks of out-of-control auteurial arrogance".

Ouch. The only way these critics could feel worse about the show is if they had to play Spidey himself, leaving the theater with broken wrists, backs, ribs and skulls.

No mention of how much they liked "Swiss Miss". None. Can you imagine how bad a show has to be to see that character on stage, dolled up like a Japanese horror film mixed with every villain the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers ever fought, and still have bigger fish to fry in your critique? Wow.

They've already pre-sold out a large number of shows, but I have to assume that this is only because everyone likes to think they like a train-wreck. I can't imagine anyone who's heard any news about the show getting a ticket expecting to be awed by how amazingly fun, inspired and entertaining it will be. I really think that most people want to go because they want to be there when something horrible happens. They want to have their own little outrage that they paid money for something truly awful. The fact that the production hasn't started to market directly to this audiance is sad, but I suppose it's too much to expect an ad reading "Come See Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark! You'll hate the show, but love telling your friends how bad it was!"

Tickets range from 275$ in the orchestra to 95$ on the balcony. That is a lot of money for the privilege to complain.

Of course, the producers of the show have a different take. From Movieline, here are their comments:

• Following on the heels of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark spokesman Rick Miramontez saying the onslaught of negative reviews was "Uncool," producer Michael Cohl has taken things one step further. “Any of the people who review the show and say it has no redeeming value are just not legitimate reviewers, period.”

Don't like the show, Mr. Critic? Then you are not only uncool, but we no longer consider you a critic. So there!

The show is slated to open in March.

Thor and Captain America Trailers

Ah the Superbowl. The best commercials that you can't see in Canada because you only get the CTV feed.

But, as they say, the internet heals all wounds.

So check out the trailer for Captain America:

And in case you haven't seen it yet, here's the Thor trailer:

Terra - DC Comics

It has been a little while since I've posted about, you know, comics. Sorry about that.

I realize I have a tendency to to post about the comics I have on my pull list, and this usually means that there are a good amount of reviews of Avengers, G.I.Joe and X-Men, and I wanted to expand my scope a little bit.

So I picked up the trade paperback collecting 2007's "Terra" from DC Comics, created by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, and Amanda Conner.

I wanted to like this book. It was a fresh new character with a decidedly female influence in Conner that did add a different element and made it feel, I guess, a little more authentic. As well, the book was a good light adventure comic, with appearances by Supergirl, Power Girl, and Geo Force.

But that's also where the book fails completely.

I can see this book being discussed as a good story that could act as a gateway to new readers or female readers, (or even new female readers) into the DCU. A new character with a clean slate that has no idea about the world she has arrived in, trying to do the right thing and save the day, well, that's a good place to start any series. You would, as a new reader, then be able to be introduced to this world as it is introduced to the protagonist, and you would learn things on the way, and, ideally for DC, you would like this world and want to explore more of it.

Then why would the creative team on this book insist on having this character tied to plot points from books over 25 years old? I read Wolfman and Perez's "New Teen Titans". I quite liked "The Judas Contract" and I think the book holds up pretty well in the decades since it's publication.

But, even as a comic book fanboy, I had a hard time pulling to the surface all of the Tara Markov/Terra I and Terra II history that was needed for this new series to make sense. I cannot imagine giving this book to someone who was not literate in 30 years of DC comics and expecting them to understand why Geo Force appearing is important, and why everyone is a little freaked out that a new Terra appeared out of nowhere.

It confused me. I was hoping to read a book, set in the DCU, about a super hero that I could use as a good "lender" to people, a book I could say "Here, take a look at this, it's a good place to start." And this book was not that.

It wasn't a bad book. I really liked the art. I thought it was fun and bright. I liked the action, which reminded me a little bit of Marvel's "Arana" in the way that it was a new comic about a girl with superpowers, but not about the fact that she was a girl, per se. I do not however, understand who the intended audience for this book would have been, as I do not know too many folk looking for girl comics rooted in Teen Titans history but that are also totally new to the DC Universe. So while I liked the book, I'm disappointed I don't think I can pass this one over to my fiance to read without having to suggest she slug her way through four or five years of old comics from the 80's.

Quick Links - February 1st

• CBR has a good piece on Bane, so you can get to know the character before he appears in the next Chris Nolan Bat-film.

• Chris Ward rails on Gareb Shamus, talks appropriately about Wizard. Here's a nice excerpt about the Shamus brothers:

"...they spent so much time in their youth launching the magazine, that they didn’t get to develop the correct range of inter-personal skills and emotions necessary to make people not hate you."

• Comics Alliance talks about who was cast as Superman for the next movie. I don't watch "The Tudors", so I have no opinion yet.
  

• And finally, Panels on Pages has a contest to win copies of "Superman: a XXX Porn Parody". The cover art seems to say the porn version follows pretty closely to the old Richard Donner films.