Justice Blog of America

Via i09.com

Meet the undoing of the next movie. A founding member of The Black Eyed Peas has been cast as a non-cowboy cowboy from Texas in the X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie. In an interview with MTV Will.I.Am describes his powers explaining, “I’m a teleporter. … I’m here, I’m there, I’m everywhere. Boom, boom, boom!” Click through for Will.I.Am’s full description of this new character.

That’s Harry Knowles of Ain’t It Cool News. And he not only loved the movie he saw at a screening, he loved that this movie ties into the other recent movies:

Now, I know I’ve been talking a lot about this Cinematic Marvel Universe – but I’ll tell you. I love, love, love – that in THE INCREDIBLE HULK… there’s science fiction weaponry. The Sonic Cannons are OUT-FUCKING-STANDING! The design is goofy and awesome as though Jack Kirby drew them. It’s big and clunky and mounted on the back of an armored vehicle… and that’s AWESOME! And they send waves of power that knock the living shit out of the HULK. And this shit came from Stark Industries. YES!

I love that SHIELD is a scary Big Brother organization that’s monitoring all of our fucking emails. How great is that? Now – if only we’ll get the Helicarrier… and Dum Dum Dugan! And jet packs and skin-tight mission suits – and evil HYDRA and AIM.

These films are on a collision course. They’re building on one another – and Marvel has a supreme chance here to do something that we’ve never seen in cinema… just as they did in Comics. And that’s to create a coherent fantasy Universe across titles, releases and distribution companies.

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Some YouTube goodness to share on a Sunday.

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Emma Frost (aka “White Queen”) is to the X-Men what Power Girl is to the Justice Society. Namely, she walks around, for no apparent reason other than she’s an exhibitionist, in a costume that shows off her massive cleavage.

I am not complaining.

I tried to search for an image of the character from the, comics, but even with “safe search” set to “on” Google was spitting out images that were waaaaaaaaaay unsafe for work.

It looks like we have another Easter egg in the Iron Man movie:

Right there, below Tony Stark’s armpit, on the desk. Doesn’t that look like Captain America’s shield?

It would make sense for Stark to have a role in creating the shield, considering it’s supposed to be composed of a mix of Adamantium and Vibranium, two very high-tech substances in the Marvel Universe.

But Cap started using the shield about six decades before Stark donned his iron long-johns. That’s in the movie. In the comic’s, it was about two decades.

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I have no idea how long this will last until Marvel demands it be removed. But for now, enjoy.

For all the rave reviews, I thought the movie was at best three out of five stars. Robert Downey Jr. was superlative as Tony Stark, but then Downey is a superlative actor.

I thought it got off to a slow start, frankly. They could have cut 10 minutes off the front part of the movie easily. The James Rhodes character served no real purpose, and Terrence Howard was the wrong actor for that character anyway. And Stark didn’t spend enough time in the armor. And the anti-war message was simplistic, and laid on a little thick.

So count me among those who are disappointed.

I did stick around to the end of the very long credits to see the “Easter egg.” And a very cooooooool Easter egg it was. All I can say is that they have more than a few heroes left before than can do a movie about those cats.

Cross posted to It’s Billy’s Blog.

I picked up “DC Universe 0″ today. It’s basically giving DC Comics readers a taste of all the cross-overs planned for the coming year. Likewise, “Action Comics 864″ is a taste of the upcoming “Legion of Three Worlds” with the Time Trapper as the villain and is designed to explain why there are three different versions of the Legion of Super Heroes out there. And “Green Lantern: Secret Origins” is already re-writing “Emerald Dawn.”

Enough already. Stop rebooting, retelling and rehashing. Instead, try telling tasty-little stories in serialized art form. Every damn comic doesn’t have to be part of a Major Event.

Actually, I did like both these comics. I’m hoping that “Final Crisis” is just that.

I hate to admit this, ’cause I’ve always been more of a DC fan than a Marvel fan, but the best comics titles out there are Captain America, Thor and Daredevil. I’m lost with the other Marvel stuff, ’cause they’ve got their own problems with multi-issue crossover disease. But these three books manage to tell well-plotted stories with decent art.

Cross posted to It’s Billy’s Blog.

I have a day off. I think I’ll see the first screening.

As my loyal readers know, I’m a serious fan of Captain America. Writer Ed Brubaker is doing wonderful things with the book, not the least of which is a storyline in which the main character was killed off. I’m not buying the finality of this for one moment, especially considering the body went missing. But Brubaker has exactly the right take on the character, having portrayed him as the ultimate solider and government agent, albeit with a strong moral code.

Marvel Comics has announced that a new Captain America will return to the pages of the book in January 2008, complete with a spiffy new costume designed by hotshot artist Alex Ross. This isn’t the first time that Marvel has used a “new Captain America” storyline. But this time, it’s generating publicity because of the fact that the new Cap is going around armed with a handgun. Naturally, the Washington Post is making a big deal out of that aspect of the story.

Who who is the new Captain? Integral to the current storyline is the return of Cap’s original partner, Bucky, who was thought to have died in the closing days in World War II in an exploding that hurled Cap into the frozen waters of the North Atlantic, where he became frozen in a block of ice until he was revived decades later by the Avengers. Bucky, as it turns out, was also frozen, but suffered massive memory loss and was revived by the Soviets and turned into an agent named Winter Soldier.

Thanks to the Cosmic Cube, Captain America was able to restore Bucky’s memories and free him from the control of the former Soviet general (he was himself under the domination of the Red Skull, no less) who had been using his as a pawn. But before Cap and Buck could really renew their friendship and partnership, the events of Marvel’s Civil War (a parable of the Patriot Act) caught up with Cap and he ended up under arrest and charged with treason. Before he could have his day in court and he was assassinated.

Bucky partnered with Cap’s current partners, the Falcon and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter (Cap’s girlfriend) to capture the killer. As of the end of the most recent issue, Bucky had been captured by evil psychiatrist Dr. Faustus, who was the one who brainwashed Sharon into pulling the trigger, assassinating Cap.

There isn’t a doubt in my mind that the new Captain America is going to be the former Bucky. The character never hesitated to use firearms before. Indeed, even in the original WWII-era comics, Bucky (as well as the good Captain) never hesitated to whip out a gun and waste some Krauts or Japs (using the vernacular of the times). And having an armed Captain America fits in with Brubaker’s entertaining take on the character and the super-spy sorts of adventures he dreams up for them.

But I’m also betting that sometime within the next year — or at least before the inevitible Captain America movie hits theaters — that the original Steve Rogers will be back in uniform.

And D.C. Comics, Marvel’s major competitor, should take note. If you are going to stage a “Death of …” storyline, this is how you do it.

[/fanboy geek fest]

Hat tip: Big Head D.C.