Greetings all,

I was cruising around the information super highway, looking for inspiration for today’s list, when I came across this:

A screen shot from the upcoming THE GOON movie! Huzzah!  This awesome picture of The Goon and his sidekick, Frankie got me thinking about the greatest sidekicks of all time. So, today I present to you my list of the ten greatest comic book sidekicks of all time (in no particular order):

1) FRANKIE: The guy who started the list gets the first spot. Despite his small size, Frankie is famous for his “knife to the Eye” attack. This attack is usually used in tandem with the greatest catchphrase in all of comics: “Knife to the Eye!”

2) ROBIN: No matter who is Robin (there has been four of them, I believe), Batman’s sidekick gets to be on the list for sheer sake of longevity. 70 years of speedos and domino masks earns anyone a spot on this list.

3) ARTHUR: If you were tired of your life as a boring old CPA, what would you do? Go back to school? Buy a new car and have a nifty midlife crisis? Well, Arthur had the best idea ever, he found a moth costume and became the sidekick for The Tick. SPOON!

4) BUCKY: Bucky is the man. He sacrifices himself to save Captain America, and then comes back to life 60 years later, as a cyborg no less, and becomes Captain America. Top that super-assistants! (Yes, I know there was more than one Bucky, but only the first one really counts, the rest were posers.)

5) THE GOAT: Neither Quantum nor Woody were good superheroes, but their sidekick was awesome. That’s right, it’s THE GOAT! With all the powers of… A GOAT! This just goes to show, if you don’t have the cache to get a real sidekick, dress up an animal.

6) OBERON: Striking a blow for little people everywhere! Every character from Giffen and DeMatteis’ JLI run was great, but Oberon stood head and shoulders (not literally of course) above them all. The dude was a valet for gods, and went to bed with Fire (who is hot, pun intended). Way to go little guy!

7) CASSIDY: Every time Cassidy graced the pages of PREACHER, you knew something crazy was going to happen. The man is a drug-addicted Irish Vampire, how could shenanigans not be afoot when he enters?

RICK JONES: The ultimate utility sidekick. This man has been an assistant to Captain America, Captain Marvel (the first and the third), The Hulk, and even the Supreme Intelligence (well, kinda). This guy is the village doorknob of sidekicks, everyone gets a turn.

9) KID MIRACLEMAN (Young Marvelman): What separates Kid Miracleman from the dozens of other sidekicks out there? What makes him better than Toro, or Superboy, or Wondergirl? Well, he went crazy and killed the whole city of London. Top that Aqualad!

10) MIDNIGHT: If you have never heard of Midnight, you are probably wondering why he is on this list. If you HAVE heard of Midnight, you are definitely wondering how he made this list. Well, Moon Knight’s sidekick sucks. He sucked as an actual sidekick (he died), he sucked when he was brought back to life as an evil cyborg (he whined a lot), and he sucks just as much now as a crazy rusted cyborg (still whiny.) I felt the guy needs something good to happen to him. Pity vote right here.

Thanks all for stopping in, check back here tomorrow for the latest from THE UNDERGROUNDS! And if you are going to be in SF this weekend for Wondercon, keep an eye out for the Semantink crew as we will be repping up there all weekend!

Strap in.  This is a long one.

Hollywood is on a comic book movie roll.  The Spider-Man movies didn’t jump the shark until Parker got his emo-boogie on in 3.  The Batman franchise was reinvigorated when Nolan helmed Batman Begins and broke records with The Dark Knight.  X-Men 1 and 2 were both fantastic and Iron Man was a success, throwing Marvel’s hat into the ring again after a brief moment in suck after X-Men 3.  Ed Norton and Louis Leterrier gave us a kick-ass Hulk movie (finally) with the Abomination looking beautiful as well.  Over the last decade countless other films have been making the crossover from page to screen as well (some you may not recognize as graphic novels): American Splendor, Road to Perdition, 30 Days of Night, and Kick Ass to name a few.

But it hasn’t always been great…  For years the translation was murky, at best.  After Burton, Suckmaker blew his ass all over comic fans with Forever and & Robin, proving that he’d never actually read a comic in his life.  Singer’s Superman has mixed reviews, but at best it’s an “I’ll watch it if I’m bored” film.  And if you go back further you can find more examples of translation-de-shit: Ang Lee’s Hulk, Nick Cage in Ghost Rider, and who can forget Halle Berry’s Catwoman (a film unsurvivable, even by Halle’s twin pair of Monster Balls).

Making a comic film is still a gamble.  And while things seem to be getting better, fans everywhere still get nervous with each announcement that one of there favorite characters is getting the big screen treatment.  Thus my dilemma with Captain America: The First Avenger.

Touch it and it will grow. Yeah. Slowly now…

The seeds for this one were planted a couple years back when Marvel announced plans to make Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Captain America before releasing an Avengers film — fans everywhere went gag.  Then Iron Man came out and we all wet our pants.  For the first time ever we realized that it was possilbe for the Avengers film to really, truly happen (and for that God Bless you Mr. Favreau).  But we got a bit more…  In one clip of the film, Tony Stark is in his lab and we get a glimpse at Cap’s shield itself.  Geeks rejoiced.  But the goodness still wasn’t over.  At the end of the film, for those patient enough to sit through credits, an even bigger surprise: Sam, Motha-Fuckin’ Jackson strolled in yappin Fury styles.  It was, without a doubt, one of the greatest moments in the history of the geek community’s relationship with Hollywood.  And for that moment, we will always be grateful.

Things got even more real when The Incredible Hulk came out.  Now this film didn’t see the same level of love that Iron Man did, which is a shame because it was perfect.  Much Like the latest Castle romp, Punisher: War Zone, the film stayed true to the comic book and wasn’t received well by the crowds (PS: I will fight any of you bitches that says differently about Punisher because you are wrong and stupid).  Despite it’s lackadaisical numbers, we got another moment of Marvel madness at the end of The Incredible Hulk when, Tony Stark shows up blabbering about the Avenger initiative after the credits! Shit got really real…  But in a DVD-only exclusive, we got to see a frozen Captain America in the ice!

So, where are we now?  Well Brannaugh’s shooting Thor and managed to pull in quite the cast (Portman, Hines, Hopkins, Russo, Skarsgaard and Jackson to name a few).  But to be honest, I’m kind of “whatever with that one.  It’s Thor.  He’s great, but he’s no Captain America.  Disagree?  That’s fine.  You’re a moron.  Besides, Brannaugh is a fantastic Director so I’m not much worried about that project.  Now, Captain America: The First Avenger, or, The First Avenger: Captain America, or whatever the hell they’re calling it starts shooting in June, and this one has me all twitterpated.  Here’s  a couple reasons why (and if you don’t know anything about Captain America, I suggest you get familiar at this, his Wikipedia page):

The Director.  Joe Johnston is in the hot seat, fresh off of the Wolfman.  Yeah.  That Wolfman.  Now Wolfman wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t mind-blowingly good either.  Perhaps we should look at Mr. Johnston complete body of work to get a better grasp on the situation.  So, in complete fairness, here are the last seven movies directed by Johnston (before Wolfman): Hidalgo, Jurassic Park III, October Sky, Jumanji, The Page Master, The Rocketeer, and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.  If you’re like me (and you probably aren’t) you’re thinking, wow, I really wish I had a picture of that girl from The Rocketeer staring into a mirror all nakey (see right).  Or, if you’re a more normal human being (which sucks for you), you may have noticed a theme in Johnston’s line of work.  Keyword: mediocrity.  None of his film are terrible, but none of them are edge-your-seat, smack-a-hooker, lick-a-midget awesome either.  It is with that in mind that I wonder, is this the man to bring Captain America to the big screen?

The next anxiety-inducing cluster involves all of the rumored actors to be filling Cap’s boots.  Aintitcool.com broke the news in February that there was a particular list of potentials for the role — all of them scared the hell out of me.  If they choose one of these kids, I hope I’m wrong and that they knock it out of the park, but for the record, I’m voting for nay on each of ‘em.  The list includes (Click for a pic): Chace Crawford (Gossip Girl), John Krasinski (The Office), Scott Porter (Friday Night Lights), Mike Vogel (Cloverfield), Michael Cassidy (Privelaged), Patrick Flueger (Brothers), and Garrett Hedlund (Tron Legacy).  As a reminder, this is what Cap it supposed to look like:

“Your ‘list’ can suck my Patriotic nuts.”

On Tuesday it broke that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel.  Yahoo is reporting that Channing Tatum may be up for the role.  Yes, the guy from Step Up.  So why do I see this as good news?  Well, for starters the guy is agile — he’s a fucking dancer!  In the agility department, the next best choice for Cap is Jason Statham!  Second, he looks the part.  Seriously.  And finally, he’s got some acting chops, not big ones, but they’re there!  I know I’m going to take some heat for this, but I think this is the man.  I’d say Chris Evans, but he blew his load on those flaming pieces of shit called Fantastic Four.  I know there are a ton of actors out there, but if we end up with Tatum, things could be a lot worse — just look at the list we mentioned!  Please don’t misunderstand me, I can think of a list of actors that are both better qualified and better suited to don Cap’s costume, but I’m being realistic — the studios won’t let that happen.  Does Tatum have issues?  Yes.  But if I have to choose between him and the guy from The Office, it’s not even a choice.

Now I don’t want to leave you all scared, so let me throw out this little tid-bit of gloriousness: The Red Skull casting is spot-the-fuck-on.  Agent Smith himself, Hugo Weaving.  I couldn’t be happier about this choice.  I know a few people that have said, “as long as he changes his voice he’ll be fine.”  Really?  I think this guy’s voice was made for this role.  Let him take it and run with it.  As a matter of fact, let Weaving play all the roles and direct the film — I’d be happier with that than the Johnston/Tatum team up I’m getting now…

I am very scared about this film.

Until next time,

Mr. Wolff

Back to Semantink

Hello again peoples and welcome to another Geek of the week. If you are here for the Gimp Line Art Tutorial well that will be here next week.

Heroes in History is what were talking about today. I thought it has been a while since I found a cool artist to talk about and just as I thought about it I find this guy. I know the internets are magic!

This guy were talking about is named Agan Harahap. Whats so cool about his recent art is that he has taken superheros and put them into old historic photos. I could not find much info about this guy so I cannot give you any back story about him or the pictures. He does however have Deviant art page and a Flickr stream. So until more info is found on this guy we can at least enjoy his art. Click the one you want. Deviant art Profile or Flickr Stream

I think these photos are pretty cool. I hope you liked them as much as I did. I kind of want to do one of my own now. Well that’s it for this weeks Geek. I’m Street Fece and I’m OUT!!!

The image is too big for you scanner? Thats what she said. Now what? Well don’t worry. Gimp can help you. We can scan your drawing in multiple pieces and then stitch them together to make them whole again.

Photoshop has an automated feature that will do this for you automatically. We don’t have Photoshop so we must do it manually. Oh well it jus give you more practice.

Happy Friday folks!

This past week Marvel’s SIEGE event began, and the week before DC gave us the latest issue of BLACKEST NIGHT. Now, as good as these books might be, I’m a bit event-ed out. There is only so much my poor comic reading brain can take before I just want a few years of status quo. Luckily, I have a great number of alternatives; I can go find some hidden gem of a new small press book, or if I really need my super hero fix, I can always turn to my long boxes for comfort. Now I know that you are thinking, “Ben, I’m event-ed out too, but I love Iron Man! How am I supposed to read I.M. without dealing with this SIEGE nonsense?” I understand your plight, but there are plenty of great single hero stories out there for you to read until the events pass. Let Uncle Ben learn ya:

IRON MAN:

“The Iron Man in the Mask” — Joe Quesada actually took over the writing chores on IRON MAN for a little while (it was only 7 issues), but his run was a lot of fun, with the Iron Man suit becoming sentient and deciding Tony wasn’t doing a good enough job. Beautiful art by Sean Chen also helped to make this a fun little run.

“Extremis” — Warren Ellis and Adi Granov rebooted Iron Man a few year ago, and the story was pretty awesome, basically turning Tony into a cyborg. Granov also showed why all other IRON MAN artists should bow before him.

CAPTAIN AMERICA:

Ed Brubaker’s current run– Go back and re-read Cap since Bru has taken over. Cap was never a must read until Ed took over, now it’s so good, I don’t even care that it’s Bucky’s book. Steve Epting’s photo-realistic art is beautiful and enthralling. I know that this run directly leads to SIEGE, but it’s a big run, so if you go all the way back to the begining, the event should be over by the time you are current again.

THE ULTIMATES V1– The best Cap ever.

THOR:

- Walt Simonson’s Thor: No one has ever captured the greatness of Thor like Walt Simonson. Even the norse people who came up with Thor wish they could tell stories as well as Walt did. You could be happy with any of the Simonson drawn/written arcs, but my favorite is the Surtur saga.

- JRJR/ Jurgens Thor: Thor gets rebooted every few years, and it’s usually pretty good. The JRJR drawn Thor is a thing of beauty, and Dan Jurgens did a fine job of finding plenty of things for the Thunder god to smash up.

Fear not DC fans, I have solo hero stories for you as well:

GREEN LANTERN:

“Emerald Dawn”- This story gets extra points because it was the first comic that I ever spent money on when I was just a burgeoning nerd. It’s basically just a retelling of GL’s origin but its great. MD Bright lends some very dynamic bencils to the story as well, juggling a large cast of humans and aliens.

“Rebirth”- The story that brought Hal Jordan back from death and suckiness is a great little mini to read. Ethan Van Sciver can do no wrong in my mind as an artist, and Geoff Johns undefrstands Hal (and the other lanterns) as well as anyone.

FLASH:

“Iron Heights”- Another Johns/ Van Sciver team up. This one has the flash in a prison against a bunch of super crazies, one of whom cut out his own tongue. Wonderfully creepy.

The  Waid/ Wieringo run: Some of the most fun that THE FLASH has ever been was when Mark Waid was doing the writing. Waid inserted all sorts of neat ideas like the speed force into the speedster’s lexicon.  Mike Wieringo’s hyper kinetic art was a perfect match with the writing, and some of the best FLASH work ever (and yes, I know the cover I am using doesn’t feature Wieringo’s interior art).

Well folks, hopefully that gets you through until this latest bout of events ends. Thanks for stopping in, see you tomorrow!