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Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire turns 15 years old

Posted in books, comic books, movies, pop culture, Star Wars with tags anniversary, books, comic books, movies, pop culture, Star Wars on April 26, 2011 by Paxton

This month is the 15th anniversary of the release of the Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire multimedia event.

Shadows of the Empire was a huge undertaking by LucasFilm and LucasArts in the Summer 1996. It was essentially the release of a new Star Wars movie, but without the actual movie. The events of Shadows of the Empire take place in the years between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Up to this point, no other expanded universe material had ever taken place within the timeline of the original movies. This event would also serve as a springboard into the release of the Special Edition trilogy in theaters the following February. To give the whole event a more “theatrical” feel, LucasFilm released a trailer featuring footage from the movies and a voiceover. It was played in front of audiences at comic conventions across the US. LucasFilm decided to pull the trailer, however, fearing that people would think there was an actual movie being released.

The trailer was added to the official Star Wars website for the Shadows of the Empire 10th anniversary. Click here to watch the trailer on StarWars.com.

The Shadows event consisted of the release of a novel, a comic book, a video game and a symphonic soundtrack. You could get one or more of these things and get a complete story, but you had to get everything to get the full Shadows of the Empire story.

Released first and foremost was the Shadows of the Empire novel by Steve Perry. You would get most of the story from this book. All other media in the Shadows event was based in some way off this book. The events take place several months after The Empire Strikes Back. I bought and read this book when it was released in 1996. I then bought the paperback and read it again a few years after that. I think I even read it a third time after that. The book is good. REALLY good. I read it again last summer and it still holds up. The story is solid, the characters are written fantastically and it’s just a lot of fun. Prince Xizor is a fun villain and great foil for Vader. It’s really fun to see Vader being vexed by Xizor in their constant tug-of-war for Palpatine’s approval. It’s also fun to read the budding Jedi Luke before he becomes the supremely confident Jedi. Han is out, obviously, because he’s in carbonite on Boba’s ship, but we get a new character, Dash Rendar, to supposedly take the smuggler role. However, I hate Rendar as a character. He serves little to no purpose. First of all, he isn’t in Return of the Jedi so you know he can’t stick around. Second, he’s ridiculously immature and and a braggart. Thirdly, the novel also includes Lando Calrissian. Rather effectively, I might add. There was no need whatsoever to even have Dash. I think Perry was forced to use Dash because they needed a new character for the video game. That one gripe aside, I love this book and really wish Perry could have expanded the story a little bit more in a prequel or sequel novel.

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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.

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DC Comics going retro with summer one-shots

Posted in 80s, comic books, pop culture, Superman, The Flash with tags comic books, DC Comics, Superman, The Flash on April 8, 2011 by Paxton

I’m a big DC Comics fan. I love Superman and the Flash. I even wrote a post about their many races. So I was perusing the DC comic blog The Source the other day and they announced a fun little event called DC Retroactive. It takes place this summer and is a throwback to the DC of the last three decades (70s, 80s and 90s).

The event will consist of 18 one-shot comics. The 18 one-shots will be split up into three groups representing the aforementioned specific decade in DC’s history. Here are the Retroactive logos for each decade starting with the ’70s.

I love these logos. They look exactly like the logos/typeface DC used in the respective decade. Like I said, the 18 one-shots will be split up into the three groups of six. Each group will utilize different writers/artists that are known for their output in that decade. DC just announced the writers for each decade and what comics they’ll be writing. They haven’t released the artists for each issue, but you can click the images above to read the full list of writers. Expect DC luminaries like Cary Bates, Marv Wolfman, Louise Simonson, Alan Grant, and Dennis O’Neill.

My favorite hero, The Flash, will be written by Cary Bates (70s), William Messner-Loebs (80s) and Brian Augustyn (90s). I’m very excited by these writers. Bates is a very popular writer from DC. He did a lot of his work in the ’60s – ’70s. He wrote a bunch of Silver Age Flash comics throughout the ’70s and early ’80s. Bates will also write the ’70s JLA issue. William Messner-Loebs wrote a slew of issues of the awesome Wally West Flash series starting around issue #15 in 1988. I still have the majority of his issues in my collection. Brian Augstyn was the editor on the aforementioned Wally West Flash series. He was the one that brought in Mark Waid in the early ’90s to help him plan a revamping of the series (Waid would’ve been another good choice to write the 90s issue). So, from the writing standpoint, these are all solid choices for the Flash books, which are the ones I’m mostly concerned about. However I am looking forward to the Superman books, too.

As for the other heroes, DC got Marv Wolfman to do the 80s Superman book. Great choice as he helped John Byrne plan out the Superman reboot of 1986, but I would have preferred to see John Byrne also included. They haven’t announced the artists, so they could have got John Byrne to draw the issue, which would be awesome. I think Byrne has to be involved in this event because he was such a large presence at DC in the 80s when he wrote and drew both Superman and Action Comics for nearly two years.

Anyway, to see the full list of writers, head over to DC’s The Source. They should be announcing the artists and other creative teams for these books in the near future. I, for one, think this is shaping up to be an awesome and wonderfully nostalgic event. DC didn’t say, but I’m hoping the stories for each decade actually take place in that decade. I want Barry Allen in the ’70s issue and Wally West in the ’90s. I don’t want it to just be nostalgic, I want the events to be taking place in that time period.

Should be a lot of fun.

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Awesome comic book movie trailers for X-men, Thor and Capt America

Posted in comic books, movies, Star Wars with tags comic books, Marvel Comics, movie trailers, movies, Star Wars on February 17, 2011 by Paxton

There have been several awesome trailers released recently for Marvel comic book properties. I feel like I would be remiss if I didn’t post them.

Along with some comments, if you please.

X-Men: First Class – I loved the first two X-Men movies by Bryan Singer in 2000 and 2003 (Wow, it took 3 years to get X2? I didn’t remember that). I was underwhelmed by X3. It wasn’t awful, it just wasn’t GREAT, either. And the more I watch X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the less I like it as a whole. So, to be perfectly honest, I was not on board with this movie. This trailer changes that. It looks BAD ASS. I know you can cut a trailer to hide a sh*tty movie (looking at you, Legion), but this looks AWESOME. I’m confused though, I thought I saw Nightcrawler in this trailer and if this movie is following the chronology of the existing movies, we shouldn’t see him until X2. Whatever, I’m officially interested and a bit excited for this movie.

Captain America: The First Avenger – I was all in on this movie when Chris Evans was announced. I even stayed on board when they said it was going to be a period piece during WWII (I don’t traditionally like war movies). And this trailer alleviates all my concerns. It looks fantastic. I can’t wait to see more footage of Hugo Weaving as Red Skull. At the very least, this has to be better than the 1990 Capt America movie with Matt Salinger. Right?

Thor – I felt about this movie the way I felt about X-Men: First Class…underwhelmed. I just didn’t think Thor translated very well to a movie. I thought it may look silly with the costumes and Asgard. I mean, you all did see Thor show up in the Hulk TV movie, right? SILLY. However, based on this trailer, I was wrong. Chris Hemsworth totally looks the part of Thor and I now can’t wait to see this.

I have to admit, I doubted Marvel Studios for a second there. Despite the fact that their track record since Iron Man has been better than average, I was worried they were straying from their formula. I need not have worried.

Okay, this isn’t a Marvel trailer, but someone took the audio from the above X-Men: First Class trailer and cut a spectacular Star Wars saga trailer to go with it. I mean, it’s fantastic. Check it out.

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11 Kool-Aid products you probably didn’t know existed

Posted in Atari, comic books, ice cream, Kool Aid, pop culture, video games with tags Atari, comic books, Kool Aid, pop culture, video games on November 23, 2010 by Paxton

Kool-Aid Man animated gif

Everyone knows the famous Kool-Aid drink packets. Purplesaurus Rex, Cherry, Berry Blue, etc, etc. But drink packets aren’t the only thing Kool-Aid made. There is a plethora of items made under the Kool-Aid banner trying to capitalize on the popularity of one Mr Man (Kool-Aid Man).

Here are 11 items made under the Kool-Aid brand that you may not have known existed.

Kool-Aid Man comic books – Kool-Aid and Marvel Comics collaborated on issues #1, #2 and #3 of The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man comic book. Archie Comics then published issues #4 and #5. Several of these issues were given out free in a mail away premium, and several issues were also available in stores. You might think it would be difficult to come up with engaging stories involving a talking pitcher of Kool-Aid quenching the thirsts of little children, and you would be mostly right. However, the stories were zany and mostly entertaining, considering the entire comic is an advertisement for drink mix.

Kool-Aid Man video game – Yes, there was a video game based on Kool-Aid Man. It was released for the Atari 2600, Intellivision and Sears video game systems. The ad and box above are for the Intellivision version. Here is the box for the Atari 2600 version. If you really want to understand the meaning of the word tedious, then download a ROM of this game and play it.

Kool-Aid bottled drinks – For a while back in the 50s and 60s, Kool-Aid offered their flavors pre-mixed in glass bottles. I’m not sure if they were carbonated or not, but I don’t believe so.

Kool-Aid Kool Pumps – This was a fast food promotion with Burger King. The “push-up” style sherbert bars were flavored with the elusive Sharkleberry Fin. Matt talked about them on X-Entertainment a while back.

Kool-Aid Kid’s Trivia Game – From 1985. This actually existed. It played like Trivial Pursuit, but I would hope the questions dealt with more than just Kool-Aid. How many questions can there be about Kool-Aid?