Behind My Byline

More Superman news this week. The cover of the latest edition of Action Comics has stirred up a minor controversy on the DC Forums. Looks like the issue has been recalled because of its depiction of Clark Kent having a cold one with his old man.

Evidently copies of the issue with the offending image were recalled as DC was afraid of the adverse effects it would have for kids to see big blue knocking back a cold one.

Personally, I think it would be out of character for a character who frowned on Lois Lane smoking in the first Christopher Reeve movie to be shown drinking beer. Dc has countered with an alternate cover (seen here) which has been redrawn with a generic soda pop label. Maybe Supes was driking root beer all along??

I was more disturbed by the annoying way in which the artist is going out of his way to make it a photo realistic style and portraying Superman to look more like Christopher Reeve. I understand this is his way of honoring his memory, but it really takes me out of the issue. I read comic mostly for escapism and I don’t want to be reminded of real life people, living or otherwise. I wish Action Comics would stop this practice.

With the rising popularity of movies based on iconic comic book characters these days, I decided to do some research on the casting of the next possible Superman movie and have come to this conclusion: Everything’s up in the air and results are inconclusive.

It would seem like a no-brainer for DC and Warner Brothers to want to place their most iconic character on the big screen again, especially given Batman’s recent success in the record breaking The Dark Knight, and given Marvel’s success with virtually every film franchise they launch, but making a sequel to 2006’s mostly disappointing (in terms of box office receipts) Superman Returns seems as perioulous as wading through a kryptonite landscape.

It can’t be that hard can it? I have read all kinds of rumors online, everything from Bryan Singer being replaced as director of any future Superman sequels to Brendan Fraser being considered for the role.

I cannot speculate on wheter Brandon Routh who played Superman in the last film is out of the picture. A heavy contingency of the public support seems in favor of Tom Welling, the actor who has portrayed Clark Kent on Smallville for eight seasons. It would seem like a logical transition from the small screen to film.

The jury is still out. Rumors are that the studio is intent on a JLA film and the actor who portrays Supes in the JLA film (if it ever gets made) would also play the role in any Superman movies. There seems to be discussion about what the plot of a new Superman movie would be. Are you kidding me? Supes has some of the most interesting villains and adversary in comics next to Batman’s rogue gallery, not to mention an interesting back story and supporting cast. Darkseid, Parasite, Braniac, Mongul, General Zod, Doomsday, Bizarro, Metallo, the list goes on and on, you’re going to tell me they have no ideas for a movie?

It seems like there have been a gazillion Batman movies and it seems to me, it should not be this hard to make another movie about the world’s most recognizable superhero.

Trash metal pioneers Metallica have returned with a new album. It used to be that a new Metallica album was received by metal fans with as much fanfare as one crossing the street, in other words, it was a fairly mundane exercise.

Even though they have broken sales records and are credited with advancing the public’s interest in heavy metal, Metallica abandoned their trash riffs and thunderous approach shortly after releasing their infamous 1991 black album. While many of their older fans felt they sold out, I still liked the black album but it undoubtedly signaled the breakup of the band with many of their devotees and sent a lot of them scurrying to rivals Megadeth or seeking out Slayer or heavier sounding bands.

Now, Metallica has parted way with producer Bob Rock and Rick Rubin takes control of an outfit that is still tight and capable of churning out some killer metal tracks. I am not saying that “Death Magnetic,” the band’s 9th studio album which is being helmed by Rubin will be a return to glory, but it is being billed as briding the gap between “And Justice For All” and the band’s current incarnation.

Whatever, all I have to say is I listened to the first track and it sounds pretty good. Nothing that will blow you away like “Master of Puppets” or “Fade to Black” but still pretty good. But don’t take my word for it, listen to it yourself. in the end for me at least, the true test of wheter this album lives up to the band’s legacy is not who the producer is, or even if it includes songs that sound like “Enter Sandman” but whether my neck is hurting after listening to the entire album. Like the old heavy metal dudes and dudettes used to say, “Bang that head which doesn’t bang.”

Not sure if I shared this with you guys last year. My thoughts on that day as I wrote them on my web journal:

I had to at least note my feelings, as if casting my pebble in this huge pond of public opinion and unending forums would assuage my spirits. So as downtown L.A. has been virtually closed down,
The truth is, I went about my work day like everyone else, doing my job and robotically and methodically doing the things I do, and when it was winding down, I tried to live a normal day in a specific point in time, going on about my routines, until it was obvious we could do none of the sort.
And it’s at times like this, when Wendy was emailing her friends in New York to see if they were ok, and the earthlink servers were overloaded, bumping us off several times, (man we were still using dial up back then!) and when she left to go to her regularly scheduled church service that I feel the need for others, and I feel insignificant and small.
The same way I felt during other tragedies, like the 1994 Northridge earthquake, being a part of it, and at the same time being concurrently overwhelmed by events, and being removed from them unlike the service people and newspeople and firemen who become critical to others at this time. I have been entertaining reading PSALM 23, even though I don’t believe in the Bible, I at least believe in the spirit of what it tries to do, the way Scully is catholic and devout to her faith, shouldn’t that be enough?
But I turned off in disguist the sensationalism and the over bearance of the Sam Donaldsons and Tom Brokaws of the world instead looking for some sort of equanimity in the brotherhood of men by reading “Unholy Sonnets” by Mark Jarman which are only called that by aiming to avoid piety and testing the limits and conventions of the sonnet form without assumptions about faith or shared beliefs.
But I will pray tonight for all those people. Maybe I’ll take a day off from work tomorrow- Sept 11 2001

The groundwork has been laid out for the current story arc in which Buffy meets future slayer Meleka Fray, but that doesn’t mean this issue isn’t still ripe with action, Whedon’s customary snappy dialogue and damned good characterization.

The good:

• The covers by Jo Chen and Georges Jeanty. One is a glimpse into Dawn’s latest transformation and the other is a fun snapshot of Buffy behind the wheel in a universe that is completely foreign to her.
• Xander’s and Dawn’s interactions with Lorelahn in the forest is reminiscent of some of the strange creatures encountered by the Scoobies in season seven of the TV series.
• SPOILER ALERT: Evil Willow. Perhaps it’s not such a spoiler to mention that the mad woman who has been hinted at is none other than Willow in her Evil persona. Don’t worry though, Joss excels at those jaw dropping moments, and Willow’s machinations in this timeline are positively intriguing.
• Moline’s artwork. I wasn’t very familiar with it because I wasn’t reading Fray regularly when it came out, but it’s very fluid and adds a lot to the sense of motion throughout this arc, especially the wide panoramic panels depicting a futuristic Manhattan in Fray’s timeline.
• Willow’s tryst with powerful magical beings. It seems that Willow is always getting in over her head when it comes to her use of magic, and it may be happening again, but considering the consequences, you’d think she would learn. Being infallible has never been a quality of any Buffyverse character though.

The bad:

• The only bad thing I can find about this comic is that it isn’t a very new reader
  friendly issue. I imagine a newbie picking it up for the first time and being completely lost since time travel stories aren’t particularly easy to follow in the first place.

Final word: This was a typical Whedon penned comic that’s par for the course for this series. This comic knows how a story should be paced, and it’s organically being developed. It’s a refreshing pace from a lot of the books that are being written for the trade or decompressed to death.

It’s early September and that can only mean one thing: A big chunk of my life is dominated by football.
Normally I’d be presenting my thurs-fri quaterbacking with impressions of the comics which came out this week, but if you would like to read those I have moved them to the comicvine.com site where I blog under Hunter killer. The reason for the change is to take advantage of that site’s excellent resources and its devoted following of comic book readers and creators.

Back to the gridiron, in addition to shooting a soccer game earlier today,  I went to cover West Covina versus El Rancho tonight. The Bulldogs are coming off a 6-6 season and were trying to improve on that in a week zero contest which featured plenty of offensive firepower, but a pretty one sided affair. WC won 36-15. The SGV Tribune has ranked the Bulldos in their top 10, they come in as the #7 ranked team.

In the college front, it’s all about UCLA and Ohio State for me. I am a long time fan of the Buckeyes, simply because they have such a solid program year in and year out but this season I am also going to follow the Bruins with their new coach and especially since Kevin Craft is the quarterback. Craft put up spectacular passing stats while with Mt.SAC last season, so I have to support a fellow Mt. SAC alumnus. Don’t be surprised if I make it out to the Rose Bowl this season at least once to see Craft and the Bruins play.

Of course, the Chargers play their home opener against Carolina on Sunday. Sports Illustrated and many other magazines have made SD a preseason favorite to go to the Super Bowl. It’s a great time to be a football fan!

Happy Labor day everyone. I cannot say how much I have enjoyed the time off this long holiday weekend. Even though I didn’t go anywhere special, it was fun resting and relaxing since saturday. I have had a chance to have dinner with a friend, catch up on my comics and play some wow but with the upcoming release of the Warhammer Online beta next week, it seems as though more people are going to be on their servers tyring out WAR. I am really interested in seeing if WAR will overtake WOW as the top subscription based MMORPG especially since there has been little fanfare or advertising outside of gaming circles about the game.

I was checking out some video footage of the game on Youtube and it looks really cool. Here’s a good walkthrough of the Marauder class I found recently:

I am not sure if it is too late to pre-order the game which you could do for about $10 and then play throughout the duration of the beta. However, with a hefty $49 price tag, and seeing as I will be busy covering football, working and doing other things, the soonest I forsee myself playing it will be xmas break. By then it is highly possible that I will have scored a Best Buy gift card and can buy the game for next to nothing. Until then, there’s always Wow, Diablo II and other diversions! If you are lucky enough to try out the WAR beta, let me know how you like it!

I cannot begin to describe how much I hate pre-season football. It’s such a tease, the games are meaningless and the chances for players getting injured are enormous. Not much has been going on with me this week but tomorrow I have a meeting to return to the SGV Tribune as a prep football correspondent. Most likely I am going to be covering at least one high school game over the holiday weekend during week zero. Goodbye Olympics, hello football.

Today I got my copy of SI with the NFL preview and LaDanaian Tomlinson on the cover. I love football and I love the fall season, the smell of autumn is in the air. The weather changes from the umbearable heat to cooler and pleasant days and halloween is guaranteed fun, not to mention thanksgiving and xmas. It almost drives me crazy to think how I wish it was already here and how it’s only a few weeks away.

My San Diego Chargers are coming off a season in which only injuries prevented them from making an appearance in the Super Bowl and expectations are  high once again for this team to contend. They might be even higher if Shawn Merriman, our all pro linebacker hadn’t torn two ligaments on his knees. Merriman says that he will play through the pain until he has to have surgery on the knees. I am not sure that is quite wise but even without him, our defense is a solid unit and the team is very deep. The talent is there, but can SD take the next step in the playoffs and contend for a super bowl title? Only time will tell

This won’t be a true TMQ post as I have not read all of this week’s offerings.  Lots of good stuff from Marvel including X-Factor #34, Captain America #41 and Incredible Hercules #120. At any rate, here’s a review of this week’s Hack Slash #15.

The title is a bit of a misnomer because Cassie and Vlad don’t ever actually meet the Re-Animator, at least not in this first part of the arc. That isn’t to say that the Dr. West character isn’t used to maximum creepy effect.

Seeley once again manages to impress with his ability to tackle multiple subplots concurrently while making them all interesting. The comic opens with West and his “assistant” Dr. Hack scrounging up road kill off a highway in New Mexico, unaware that they are being watched by Cassie and Vlad. The reader gets a very good recap of Dr. West’s scientific know-how, for those who aren’t very familiar with the events from the Re-Animator film franchise.

This is followed up by a very funny and endearing exchange between Vlad and Cassie which turns serious when Vlad realizes that Cassie is getting close to finding her dad by eliminating the prospects on her list. Having already established a rapport between these two central characters, Seeley is left free to explore the subtle nuances of their close friendship. This character moment is balanced with plenty of bizarre occurrences from Dr. West’s lab in which such creepy crawlers as a scorpion with an eyeball and a human finger on for a tail are common visual sight gags.

By employing flashbacks representing Dr. Hack’s memories, Seeley establishes the crucial back story of Cassie’s mom and how her relationship with Hack was first established. When Dr. Hack was a prominent psychologist conducting studies, he appears to have gotten too close to one of his subjects. It’s a fascinating read whose poignant retelling is the backbone in which the entire comic’s story hangs on and this is made all the more suspenseful by the fact Cassie is very close to finding out who her real father is.

Another subplot intertwined from last issue into this month’s installment is the otherworld demonic Nef which are planning to invade our dimension. This development is only given one page in the current comic and very little gets advanced from last issue.

However, the narrative style of the entire story is very good so when the final cliffhanger inevitably arrives, it is one of those rare times when it works with maximum effectiveness and leaves the reader with a tangible sense of longing for the next installment of the story arc.

This is a tribute to Seeley’s great sense of pacing and to the interesting developments currently being presented by the writer. Suddenly, Cassie’s life has been turned upside down and it will be interesting to see if she lets her guard down and becomes vulnerable as a result of making an emotional connection. Vlad was right on the money when he hinted this was one of Cassie’s biggest fears. This is something we, as readers, are not accustomed to seeing from this confident, emotionally detached character.

The artwork by artist Emily Stone and colorist Mark Englert is, once more, solid. I especially like the technique of framing the characters employed in the final page. This is another chapter in the Hack/Slash saga and another example of a consistently great comic book.

I’ve joined the Dharma Initiative recruit program! Not sure what they expect from recruits, maybe we will be expected to perform dastardly deeds or my expertise in journalism will come in handy. Or maybe they will just strap me to a table and perform weird experiments on me. Though I hope not.

At any rate,  I was quite happy to get the following email on my inbox:

ATTENTION ALL RECRUITS
RE: CONFIRMATION OF LAUNCH DATE FOR VOLUNTEER TESTING

Hans Van Eeghen
Head of Recruiting
The Dharma Initiative

You too can become a part of the program if you pass the required initial assessment. Be warned, it’s not always for the faint of heart.