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Nerd Lunch Episode 116: Live Action Super Hero Television

Posted in comic books, podcast, pop culture, Superman, The Flash, TV shows with tags Batman, comic books, Nerd Lunch Podcast, podcasts, Superman, The Flash, TV shows on January 28, 2014 by Paxton

This week we are joined by Elliott Serrano, a writer from the Geek To Me Blog on RedEyeChicago.com. Elliott joins us to talk about live action super hero television.

We talk about some of our favorite live action super hero TV shows, we talk about why we think our favorites worked. We talk about ones we didn’t like and why we think they didn’t work. We even discuss M.A.N.T.I.S. for some reason.

We mention all the classic super hero shows (Batman ’66, Adventures of Superman, The Flash, etc) and we end the show with a discussion of the new school shows (Agents of SHIELD, Arrow, Marvel’s Netflix shows, etc). It’s a great discussion chock full of super heroes.

Download this episode from iTunes or listen to it on Feedburner.

Or listen to it online right here.

AWESOME-tober-fest 2013: DC’s Blackest Night mini-series (2009)

Posted in comic books, monsters, Superman, The Flash, zombies with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2013, Batman, Cavalcade Comics, comic books, DC Comics, monsters, Superman, The Flash, zombies on October 8, 2013 by Paxton

Summer of 2009 began the DC event, Blackest Night. At the conclusion of the Sinestro Corps War, DC teased the coming of the Blackest Night prophecy. The Guardians of the Universe told of the coming of 5 new Lantern Corps, each backed by a different color of the emotional spectrum. This fracturing would lead to a war of light, the coming of the Black Lanterns, the dead rising and the eventual destruction of the universe.

The Blackest Night mini-series was eight issues long and first appeared in June 2009. The story starts with Black Hand walking amongst the tombstones of a cemetery. He grabs Bruce Wayne’s skull and carries it with him (this was obviously during the time just after Bruce Wayne’s fate is revealed in Final Crisis). Black Hand keeps talking about a coming war and retribution. And the coming of “him” (who we’ll discover later).

We see black rings invade the Lantern crypt on Oa and start reviving all of the formerly deceased lanterns. These “zombie” lanterns become the beginning of the Black Lantern Corps.

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Nerd Lunch Episode 52: Strategic Plan for the future of DC Comics’ movie franchises

Posted in Batman, comic books, movies, podcast, Superman, The Flash with tags Batman, DC Comics, movies, Nerd Lunch Podcast, podcast, podcasts, Superman, The Flash on September 12, 2012 by Paxton

This week on the podcast we are joined by William Bruce West, a fellow pop culture blogger. Our discussion? We finally talk about DC Comics and the current situation they are in with their movies.

DC/Warner Bros movies
(Via The Playlist)

We talk about what they’ve done right and what they’ve done wrong. We talk about why we think nearly every one of DC’s major comic character movies suck (besides Batman). We discuss weaknesses and opportunities. We discuss what we want to see out of them moving forward. Essentially we’ve come up with a strategic plan for Warner Bros/DC for moving forward with movie adaptations their comic book franchises. I think we pretty much figured it out.

See how by downloading this episode from iTunes or on Feedburner.

Or just listen to the show from within your browser by clicking here.

8 Comic covers right before/after a famous first appearance

Posted in Batman, comic books, pop culture, Superman, The Flash with tags Batman, Cavalcade Comics, comic books, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, nostalgia, pop culture, Superman, The Flash, vintage on June 4, 2012 by Paxton

First appearances of famous comic book heroes/villains are highly sought after in the comic book world. Who wouldn’t love an Action Comics #1 or a Detective Comics #27? But what about Action Comics #2? Or Detective Comics #26? Are anyone seeking these titles out?

To me, it’s fascinating to look at very famous comic titles before or after they’ve debuted a very famous character. They may not look like even the same title. It’s weird to see an issue of Detective Comics with Slam Bradley or the Crimson Avenger on the front and not Batman. You feel like you’re in the Fringe universe. Let’s check out some of these fun comic covers and you can see how strange and foreign they look to you.

Action Comics #1
Action Comics #2 – Action Comics is probably one of the most iconic titles of all time. Who doesn’t know that Superman debuted in issue #1 of Action Comics (left) in 1938? Well, interestingly enough, Action Comics was originally meant to be an anthology adventure comic with several other adventure characters. So even though Action Comics is now strictly a Superman title, back then, Supes was just one of the featured characters. Therefore, issue #2 (right) didn’t feature Superman on the cover at all. Issue #3 didn’t feature Superman either. As a matter of fact, Superman wouldn’t make another Action Comics cover appearance until issue #7 (SIX MONTHS later).

Detective Comics #27 Detective Comics #28
Detective Comics #26 and #28 – Detective Comics is as intimately associated with Batman as Action Comics is with Superman. However, Batman didn’t debut until issue #27 (middle), so there were 26 issues of Detective without Batman on the cover or in the book. As you can see, in the issues before (#26, left) and after (#28, right) Batman you get standard covers of police officers and gangsters that you would normally appear on crime comics of this time. While Batman would return to the cover for issue #29, he would be absent again for issue #30.

All-Star Comics #3 and #8 – All-Star Comics is a very famous Golden Age title. It features the first appearance of The Justice Society of America in issue #3 (middle) which is the first team-up of super-heroes into a single team in history. In issue #2 (left), you can see they still feature the heroes on the cover, but not collected together as one team as designated by issue #3’s giant round table with the team name embossed on the top. All-Star Comics #8 (right) is an interesting issue also. You wouldn’t know it by the cover, but that issue is the first appearance of Wonder Woman in an 8 page insert that was used to test the interest of Wonder Woman as a hero. Wonder Woman would join the Justice Society in issue #11…as their secretary (but she would make the cover!). She would prove popular enough to headline her own book, Sensation Comics, a year later.

Showcase #5
Showcase #3 and #5 – The debut of The Flash in Showcase #4 (middle) was one of the defining moments of the Silver Age. Showcase was a tryout book by DC to determine who would get their own series. As you can see, the issue before The Flash debuted (#4, middle) featured a story about deep sea divers called The Frogmen (#3, left). And even though The Flash was a huge hit, he wouldn’t appear in Showcase #5 which featured Manhunters (#5, right). The Flash would reappear on the cover for Showcase #8. The Hal Jordan Green Lantern would debut in Showcase #22.

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Of Holy Grails and white whales….Call me Ishmael

Posted in comic books, movies, pop culture, soda, Star Wars, The Flash with tags Cavalcade Comics, comic books, LEB, movies, pop culture, soda, Star Wars, The Flash on April 13, 2012 by Paxton

Brian has released this week’s assignment for The League. This week he wants us to talk about, as collectors, our Holy Grail items. He also mentions our white whales. I see these two concepts as different. Our Holy Grails are something we’d love to own, but we realize that, for whatever reason, we will never own it. “If I had all the money in the world I’d……”

White whales are something we are always on the lookout for. Something that, if we found it, we would be able to bring it home. There is hope with a white whale, but with Holy Grails, there usually is very little.

I’ve been a collector for many years. I don’t really do it as much as I used to, but I still manage to “collect stuff” without meaning to. Action figures, books, DVDs, soda cans, etc.

So, let’s start with my Holy Grail. What do I think would be awesome to own, but I’m 99% confident that I’ll never own? I’d have to say the Holiest of my Holy Grails would be:

Showcase #4 – Published by DC in 1955. Features the first appearance of the Barry Allen Flash. Also considered the beginning of the Silver Age of comics. I’ve been a huge fan of The Flash since I started collecting comics. I have several reprints of this issue, I just think it would be cool to own the actual issue. However, unless I win the lottery, I just can’t fathom ever owning an actual copy of this. And since we are dreaming that I won the lottery, I would also like the other three Showcase issues that feature The Flash as well as the entire run of the Barry Allen Flash series (#105 – 350). However, I have a lot of the Barry Allen series, so I’d just need to complete it.

Now, let’s take a look at my white whales.

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Solicits for the DC reboot madness

Posted in Batman, comic books, Superman, The Flash with tags Batman, comic books, DC Comics, Superman, The Flash on June 14, 2011 by Paxton

Well, the whole DC relaunch thing has the comic fanboys losing their damn minds. In case you don’t know, it seems comics fans are up in arms because DC decided to reboot all their titles back to #1. Comic blogs everywhere are kvetching about it. CT from Nerd Lunch even deemed it necessary to talk about the relaunch. CT mentions that he hates some of the costume redesigns, but I like them. Especially Flash. They just look more modern.

Now, I’ve read comics since the early 80s. I started with Flash and then ventured into Superman, Batman, X-Men and The Fantastic Four. I still read comics, but I tend toward the trade paperback collections and don’t really care about single issues anymore. I don’t care what number is on the cover, I just want good stories. But I look forward to this relaunch as a “wipe the slate clean” and start fresh with cool ideas. Almost buried in the announcement of the reboot is the fact that DC will also start distributing comics digitally the same day they release them in print. That’s huge. Reading comics digitally is growing quickly in practice, much to the consternation of comic book fans everywhere. With the iPad and other tablet computers, we finally have the perfect way to read a digital comic. I am looking forward to doing just that. I have been reading digital comics for the last few years now and while I prefer print, digital isn’t bad (especially when I get a tablet computer).

Anyway, I was reading The Source, the DC Universe blog, and they gathered together all the solicitations for the new reboot titles. There are lots of cool and interesting titles that have been announced. Let’s take a look at them.

Here are the Superman reboots. The two images above are for Action Comics #1 (left) and Superman #1 (right). In the solicit you can also see covers for Superboy #1 and Supergirl #1. Like I said I don’t care they are rebooting Superman, because, technically, they already did it once back in 1987 with John Byrne. This Superman #1 is interesting because it’ll be written and drawn by George Perez who took over from John Byrne back in 1989. I’m actually a bit surprised they are rebooting Action Comics due to it’s history. I mean, it was about to hit #1000. But they got Grant Morrison to write it, which is awesome. He did the spectacular All-Star Superman series with Frank Quitely. I’ll definitely want to check these out.

Here are the solicits for the Batman reboots. Detective Comics #1 is on the left and Batman #1 is on the right. I like Batman, I’m just not a huge Batman fan. Rebooting Detective Comics back to 1 is interesting to me because of the history (like Action Comics). It also nearly hit 1000. However, also interesting is the fact that this will be the first time that Batman has EVER appeared in a Detective Comics #1 (or #2-26). I’m surprised they didn’t reboot Detective Comics back to #27.

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12 comic book covers featuring super heroes and their secret identities

Posted in comic books, pop culture, Superman, The Flash with tags Batman, comic books, nostalgia, pop culture, Superman, The Flash on April 22, 2011 by Paxton

I was perusing one of my favorite sites, Cover Browser, the other day. It’s great. It has hundreds of galleries of comic book covers. Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age as well as more modern comics, you can see it all. Some of the images are of great quality and some are blurry scans that look like they threw the comic book into the air and tried to take a picture with a cell phone from 2001. But it’s great fun to look at old issues of Superman, Batman, Hulk and Iron Man. You can find some real gems.

Looking through you can see all types of trends and gimmicks companies used when creating their covers. Anything to capture the public’s eye. One of the more prevalent gimmicks is to have the superhero appear on the cover alongside their secret identity. I’ve gathered 12 such examples of superhero and secret identity co-existing harmoniously on a comic book cover. Not only that, I’ve split the list into two sections. In the first section are 5 comic book covers featuring super heroes fighting their secret identities. The second section will feature the superhero interacting with their secret identity.

So here are the first 5 covers featuring superheroes fighting their secret identities. Thanks to Cover Browser for the majority of these images.

Action Comics #341 – Battle of the Alter Egos. Turns out the “extra” Clark Kent is another survivor of Krypton that DC loved to throw out in the ’60s and ’70s. He took over Clark’s identity and Supes had to straighten things out.

Flash vol 2 #15 – Wally West trashed by The Flash. This is the second Flash series. Wally West had taken over the Flash costume. There was a drug called Velocity-9 that gave the users temporary super speed. A junkie got a fake suit and totally sucker punched the living sh*t out of Wally.

Web of Spider-man #117 – Spider-man vs Peter Parker. This is the beginning of one of the most controversial Spidey storylines ever – the Clone Saga. A clone of Peter reveals himself. He’s this homeless vagrant who then names himself Ben Reilly. Arguments develop over who is the clone and who is the real Peter. Peter is discovered to be the actual clone and Ben the “true” Peter. Clone Peter becomes so outraged he “accidentally” hits Mary Jane in the face. It’s pretty much insanity incarnate and due to high sales Marvel’s upper management kept the creative teams churning out the story for much longer than was originally planned.