X-Ray Vision

Well that was unexpected. A press release announced that Disney is going to be the newest owner of Marvel. The deal will set Disney back somewhere around $4 billion. I am undecided on how I feel about this.

Part of me does not want Mickey Mouse involved in my Marvel adventures, except maybe as a cameo in a Deadpool issue. That could be entertaining. On the other hand, Disney has definitely put out movies that aren’t for the kiddies. I’m nervous about this just because I don’t really know what it means for some of my favorite heroes yet, but I seriously doubt it will lead to anything disastrous.

Disney does have experience with some edgier content, with Pirates of the Caribbean and Pulp Fiction. So I don’t expect to see Wolverine passing out hugs anytime soon. I guess this deal will give Marvel better financing to make bigger and better movies and hopefully some more good animated movies. We will just have to wait and see what happens with this.

Michael Jackson news has been on the upswing since it was announced that his death has been ruled a homicide, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon. This being a comic blog I will obviously talk about Michael Jackson’s comic related activities. Get it? Got it? Good.

A while back MJ came very close to buying Marvel comics along with Stan Lee. According to Lee, Jackson wanted to be involved in a Spider-Man movie, but it was unclear whether he wanted to produce, direct, or even play Spider-Man himself. I think Michael Jackson would have brought some interesting moves to the wall crawler. It is interesting to think where Marvel would be now with Jackson behind the reins. Personally I think Marvel is doing fine so I don’t have much remorse about the deal falling through.

In some more recent news, a 5 page preview of Tribute: Michael Jackson, King of Pop has been released. This comic will be a biography of MJ and is being written by Wey-Yuih Loh and illustrated by Giovanni Timpano. I don’t know too much about biographical comics, but word is these are two of the best in the business. This is sure to become one of those highly collected items amongst Michael Jackson fans. Well that’s all the MJ news I have for now, until tomorrow comic fans.

I am really looking forward to seeing this Green Lantern movie, but it is off to an inauspicious start. It seems that 2 weeks before filming is supposed to start is the best time to bring up budget concerns, and now people think it might be to expensive to film the movie in Australia. It seems to me like they should have figured this out a little earlier than 2 weeks before scheduled filming. Anyways, it sounds like delays and I don’t like those.

Green Lantern has a chance to be a great superhero movie. I love the character, he has a great story, and Ryan Reynolds is awesome. DC also needs Green Lantern to be good to keep their name around in movie circles during the plethora of Marvel movies that are going to be released. Hopefully the Green Lantern crew can figure out where the hell they are going to film this movie and get to it.

Well the title pretty much says it all. Todd McFarlane has announced he has begun work on a new script for a new Spawn movie to bring in a new audience. There is a lot of emphasis on new because the last Spawn movie was a giant piece of crap. McFarlane says the script he is working on now is a standalone story, which is nice because I don’t need to see any more origin movies. I just hope McFarlane doesn’t let his ego lead to another crappy Spawn movie.

I don’t know what the odds are that a big studio picks up McFarlane’s new Spawn script, but I do know that if a small studio picks it up then the movie is gonna be bad. Spawn needs good special effects and a good director, and in all honesty Spawn needs a real writer to fix up McFarlane’s script and make it movie material. That is why I hope McFarlane has decided that it really would not be best if he directed the movie. I can see a Spawn movie being supremely kick ass, but there are just so many things that could wrong here that I don’t have high hopes.

I got this game right at midnight and as you could probably guess got very little sleep. This is because Batman: Arkham Asylum is an awesome game. I don’t want to give too much of the story away, but Paul Dini has crafted a dark Batman tale that draws you in, making it next to impossible to put down the controller.

Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill bring back fond memories of Batman the Animated Series with their superb voice acting, and a majority of the villains Batman has faced are in Arkham Asylum to take down again. Some of my favorite features include Riddler’s Challenge and the detective mode. Riddler’s Challenge goes on throughout the game, with Riddler leaving clues for objects Batman can find. Detective mode allows Batman to see enemies through walls, see their heart rates, analyze clues at crime scenes, and identify areas he can swing to. It is by far the most helpful feature in the game.

The only thing I am kind of disappointed with is that the batarang I got with the Collector’s Edition is plastic and attached to the stand. That makes it difficult to fight crime with. The Collector’s Edition did come with a nifty journal with Dr. Penelope Young’s diagnoses on various Arkham patients. That was a very nice touch and made for a good read. Well I have been away from the game too long so it’s time to wrap this up. Buy Batman: Arkham Asylum, it is amazing.

Today is the day! Well technically tomorrow is the day but the festivities start tonight. Yesterday I received the call that Batman Arkham Asylum will be ready to pick up at midnight tonight. Not only that, but there will be a pre-release party at GameStop starting around 10:00 to celebrate all things Batman.

The trailers have made this game look amazing, and after months of the agonizing wait I cannot tell you how great it is to be so close. I will be picking up my copy at midnight and spend the next possibly 72 hours exploring the gameplay. Don’t worry, I will find time to take a break and let you all know how amazing the game is at some point tomorrow.

Another thing you can look forward to is a picture. A picture of me with a Batman mask riding the Bat-Chappy and getting ready to throw a batarang. That’s right, tomorrow at midnight I will have a batarang thanks to the Collector’s Edition of Arkham Asylum. Today will be a glorious day.

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, but I have been swamped with work. Just wanted to let you all know there will be new posts again soon, Monday at the latest. I hope you all survive the week without X-Ray Vision, it will be rough.

It is common knowledge that Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster created Superman. It is also widely known that DC took all ownership away from both men, leaving them in poor financial situations that had Schuster drawing porn with Clark Kent and Lois Lane . Well the Siegel family has finally put DC in its place and has acquired the rights to the first two weeks of Superman newspaper strips and other early issues of Action Comics and Superman.

Now I am not all into the legal mumbo jumbo, so I am not sure what the exact ramifications of this are. I believe it means that we will not see DC or Warner do anything involving the origin of Superman or the planet Krypton without permission from the Siegels. I honestly don’t care much who owns the rights as long as a good Superman movie gets made. Speaking of a Superman movie, if Warner doesn’t get one into production by 2011 they will have to pay the Schuster and Siegel families.

Oh twitter, you are such a very useful social networking site. Letting us regular schmucks get glimpses into the lives of others, 140 characters at a time. Case in point, Todd McFarlane just announced over twitter that he spent several hours working on a TV pitch with an A+ producer. Since there is that pesky 140 word limit on twitter, there was not much more information than that given by McFarlane, he simply said he would provide more detail when contracts were finalized. Allow me to step in with some wild speculation.

McFarlane is bringing Spawn back to TV. At least I hope that is what he’s doing. I loved the Spawn show on HBO. They did a great job capturing the feel of the comic, dark, dirty and dangerous. The voice acting was great as well, David Keith was excellent as Spawn. I would love to see the show brought back and follow some more recent story lines, bring in more conflict with Heaven, all that good stuff. Of course I could be completely wrong and McFarlane might be pitching an entirely new series. Guess we will just have to wait for his next twitter update.

You may remember Ray Park as Toad from the X-Men movie, Snake Eyes from recently released G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, but most likely you remember him as Darth Maul from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Ray Park almost added another character to that list when he was cast as Danny Rand, better known as Iron Fist, in an Iron Fist movie. Unfortunately the Iron Fist project got scrapped, but Park still wants to play the Immortal Iron Fist on the big screen.

Park was asked about it at Chicago Comic-Con and had this reply:

“I actually want to be Danny Rand – I want to be Iron Fist, I want to do it, I want to have an excuse to take my top off and show off my abs. Or, take my top off and work to get my abs back that I used to have when I was 19.”

Personally I think an Iron Fist movie would be awesome, and Park has established himself as a badass already so it would work. I would like to see Luke Cage introduced too so it can lead up to a full Heroes for Hire movie. I really hope the Iron Fist movie gets picked up again, he is one of Marvel’s most underrated heroes.