COMICS OF THE WEEK 9/4/08

MY PICK OF THE WEEK

SECRET SIX #1

I was looking forward to this book, but it exceeded even my lofty terms of awesome. Gail Simone has literally taken the idea of a villain “team” and elevated it. Now I am a bit partial to villain team books (The All New Exiles with Juggernaut is a old favorite of mine). This book takes that old idea of villains taking odd jobs and makes it super hard core. I mean when you have CATMAN(I know the name sounds like BATMAN, that’s the point) seemingly kill a group of skin heads in a convenice store I’m down. Also dead shot stealing smokes was freaking hilarious. Just so good, oh and Bane is on the team. Not dumb as rocks Bane, but the awesome smart Bane from Checkmate…so good.

CHARLES’ GRADE:A

Pick of the week Runner-Up

DETECTIVE COMICS #848

This seems to be deja vu, my pick and runner up are both DC books again. This book was P.O.W before I read Secret Six. I’ve always really liked HUSH and loved the fact that HUSH can get to Batman in ways no one else can.

Honorable Mention

TRINITY #14

I’ve been pretty into this weekly series since the beginning, although some of it made no sense.This new story with SUPERMAN acting like BATMAN, WONDER WOMAN acting like SUPERMAN, and BATMAN acting like WONDER WOMAN is pretty intriguing stuff. Plus SUPERMAN going all hardcore is nice to see, being that he keeps himself on a short leash so he doesn’t kill anyone.

The ‘WHY AM I STILL READING THIS?’ of the week

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #570

Deja Vu strikes again, I hope I’m not blasting Spider-man every week…but this story is so dumb. As a life long Spidey man, I’m actually disappointed that after the turn around Amazing was starting to experience that we’ve slid so far back. This is just awful stuff, this story wouldn’t even be good back in the 90’s. The way peter looks in that variant cover is how I feel when I’m reading this story. But the John Romita Jr art is simply heavenly. Most of my old runs of Spidey have Romita on the art, so it is nice to see him back..but it’s sad he’s back for this story.

CHARLE’S GRADE: D- (hopefully next issue doesn’t get even worse…but I think it will)

‘WHY DO I STILL READ THIS’ RUNNER UP

SUPERGIRL #33

Deja Vu seems to be the word of the day. At least this time it’s not the same comic, it’s just a comic in the family. I’ll always say how much I love Superman and his “family” of characters, but Supergirls a bit of a joke around the comic community. She’s been through more ups and downs than anyone. Her book can go from great to awful in the span of one issue, but that hasn’t been the case in a while. Now I think the last issue I loved or even liked was about issue #25 or 26…so that should let you know.  This book has totally gone off the tracks. The last storyline was awful. I love Supergirl, hell I love all of DC’s teen books because they’re the only big company that seems to be able to do it well…but this proves that sentiment wrong. Please bring SUPERBOY back so we can stop focusing on SUPERGIRL…ugh. I hate to say that there’s two SUPERMAN family books that I’m hating right now, this is new territory for me…at least I have ACTION COMICS.

COVER OF THE WEEK

90210:THE NEXT COMING?

Back in 1990 I was 8 years old and a show named 90210 came out. At the time the only idea of high school I had was from SAVED BY THE BELL and a canadian soap called 15. So 90210 was pretty boring compared to those two shows, to me. I only stayed around until the 3rd season as I bored of the same stories being told and even then I didn’t care for the acting from the shows stars. Now later I would come back when Tiffany Amber Theissen went to the show, but I didn’t stick around long after. Then when I got older I watched Buffy and Dawson’s Creek, but this time I was in High School and I could get into the dramatic stories. In College I started to watch DEGRASSI(on dvd) and DEGRASSI:THE NEXT GENERATION and was reminded of High School all over again. Now I have to say that when they announced the New 90210, I didn’t really care. What brought me in was the casting choices, because I actually knew who a few of the kids were before hand. So now with a somewhat peaked interested I waited for the premiere, with the mindset that I was going to give this show about four to five episodes to ‘hook’ me. Well call me hooked in the first two episodes. I’m quoted by friends in saying that I tried to watch GOSSIP GIRL, but the kids were so dis ingenious that I couldn’t take it after the fourth episode…well it’s the exact opposite for the New 90210. With the the familiar brother and sister characters being moved from the mid west to Beverly Hills I latched onto them as representitives of the viewers thoughts on this new environment. But with the fact that I’ve watched the an amount of the first series, I’m really being represented by the Dad. He’s a character that used to live there, but left when he got the chance and is now coming back to a slightly more decadent 90210. Now having seen the Canadian version of 90210, in DEGRASSI, I feel that this new 90210 has been watching those shows to get revitialized. I’m not saying this just because the main female character(Shenae Grimes) is/was a former/current character in DEGRASSI:THE NEXT GENERATION(we still don’t know how Shenae was written off of Degrassi yet). It’s because they used the same idea that Degrassi:TNG used, have a child or two from the first series regulars show up and put them in the same school as the parents…and bring some of the old school characters around for cameos or recurring roles. The New 90210 doesn’t stop there with the cribbing from THE N shows. They also borrow the big plot device(the adopted black brother) that SOUTH OF NOWHERE used when it premiered on THE N about 2 years ago. I know it seems like I’m talking crap, but it’s true wiki Degrassi:The Next Generation and South Of Nowhere and you’ll see what I’m talking about. It’s kinda serendipitous that the new 90210 took an idea from SOUTH OF NOWHERE, because it could be said that S.O.N took the idea of a family from the mid west to California from the original 90210…it’s all good, there’s no new ideas in Hollywood after all. The shows good, so far. After two episodes I’m in, now I can just sit back and wait for them to turn me off…but the outlook looks good for that not happening. I have to say that the reason I feel that this show will be better than the original in that this cast is more attractive(I’m speaking for the female characters…lol) and the young cast is made up of much better actors this time around…it also doesn’t hurt to have the mother from a fav of mine ‘ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT’ take that character and make her a Grandmother. Also I don’t remember Shannon Doherty or Jennie Garth being this attractive when I watched 90210 the first go around, if they were I might have sat through more of that awful acting.

CHARLES’ GRADE: B+(this is for the first two episodes only)

PROS: The Young Actors(who most of them I’ve been fans of for awhile)

CONS: Not too many yet, but find something for the Aunt Becky…sorry the Mom to do soon.

Rogen shows some skin in Smith’s `Zack and Miri’

By DAVID GERMAIN

TORONTO (AP) — All Seth Rogen really wanted when he came to Hollywood was to make a movie with Kevin Smith.

His dream came true, and more: Rogen got to make a dirty movie with Smith.

Rogen stars with Elizabeth Banks in Smith’s “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” a romantic comedy with a whole lot of skin showing.

The 26-year-old actor recalled a meeting nearly a decade ago with a prospective agent who asked what his career goals were. That’s when he confessed his desire to work with Smith, whose profanity-spewing raconteurs were an influence on the sort of films Rogen eventually would make himself.

The agent “said to me that’s probably easier than you think. I hadn’t realized that Kevin Smith movies didn’t make any money,” Rogen said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. “To me, he was like Steven Spielberg. I didn’t realize the difference between good movies and movies that make a lot of money.”

With the “Clerks” movies and films such as “Chasing Amy” and “Dogma,” Smith has built a huge cult fan base but has yet to break widely into the mainstream. Rogen, who has scored hits with the similarly adult-themed comedies “Pineapple Express” and “Knocked Up,” thinks “Zack and Miri” could be the one that puts Smith in front of a broader audience.

“Zack and Miri” features Rogen and Banks as lifelong best pals and roommates who discover there may be something more to their relationship when they make a porn flick to pay off their debts. The movie premieres Sunday at the Toronto International Film Festival in advance of its Oct. 31 theatrical release.

Smith wrote the script with Rogen in mind, having seen the actor in the acclaimed short-lived TV series “Freaks and Geeks” and later in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.” By the time Smith finished the script in spring 2007, Rogen was the cusp of leading-man stardom with “Knocked Up.”

“I started seeing billboards going up with his face on them and I was like, we lost this guy,” Smith said. “This dude was like a supporting actor in `40-Year-Old Virgin’ and he’s just waiting for somebody to give him his own movie.”

But Smith said that when he sent an e-mail to Rogen asking if he would read the screenplay, the actor shot back an answer within 2 minutes.

Rogen read “Zack and Miri” on the beach in Australia while doing press for “Knocked Up” and was eager to sign on from the start.

The comedic sex depicted in “Zack and Miri” is tame by hardcore pornography standards, and the subject matter never gave Rogen a moment’s pause.

“I love porn. I watch tons of porn. The Internet speeds have evolved directly with my sexual drive,” Rogen said. “I almost did it purely based on the title.”

That, and the chance to work with one of his idols.

“Without Kevin Smith movies, I don’t think I would be doing exactly what I’m doing now,” Rogen said.

My Two Cents:

Anybody who knows me well knows that since middle school one of my favorite directors has been KEVIN SMITH and that SETH ROGEN has been a fav of mine since Freaks and Geeks/Undeclared…this is a dream match up for me. Now all I need is the four guys from ‘40 Year Old Virgin’ to be involved in the new GHOSTBUSTERS movie and I will literally pass out.

Spidey 4 and 5?

Spider-Man director Sam Raimi and star Tobey Maguire have reportedly reached deals to reprise their respective duties for not only Spider-Man 4 but a fifth installment in Sony’s web-slinger franchise as well. Furthermore, the studio is mulling filming the sequels back-to-back a la Pirates of the Caribbean and Lord of the Rings in an effort to minimize the problems in reassembling the cast.

According to Deadline Hollywood Daily, Maguire’s deal was only very recently made as a source for the site claims that Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal had been spending the last few weeks looking for possible replacements. No deal has been made yet for Kirsten Dunst, but DHD insists the studio won’t recast the role of Mary Jane Watson. However, there will be a second female role included this time .

As for the villains, DHD columnist Nikki Finke reports “Sony is taking its time officially hiring the movie’s villain since principal photography doesn’t start on Spider-Man 4 until next fall because of the recently postponed May 2011 release. I am told, however, that ‘once you find out who the villain is, you’ll know who’s playing it.’ That should lead to speculation that Dylan Baker’s character of Dr. Curt Connors will ultimately turn into The Lizard as he did in the comic books.” DHD adds that Daniel Gillies, who portrayed John (the future Man-Wolf) Jameson in Spider-Man 2, might also be a contender.

The site adds that the next Spidey sequels won’t be as dark as Spider-Man 3 or The Dark Knight. “Peter Parker has no dark side himself. In Spider-Man 3 it was the black costume. Peter Parker’s struggle is about sacrifice,” DHD’s source said.

-ign.com

My two cents:

After Spidey 3 it can’t get any worse, right? Whatever I’ll see the movie but the Lizard and Man-Wolf are jokes, they can’t be the main villains they’re boring…storywise.