I am currently in preparation mode to enter the state of Texas and venture through the SXSW Festival of Film this coming weekend, but in the meantime I’ll try to entertain you with some recent movie new as it relates to comic book stories and adaptations.

First on my list is Y: The Last Man. Last we heard a thing about the adaptation, Shia Labeouf was being considered for the role of Yorick, with DJ Caruso directing the adaptation. Now that Caruso is taking on the Preacher adaptation scripted by John August, will this open the door for another A-List director to take over Y: The Last Man? Who knows. In the meantime, you can head over to scriptshadow where Carson Reeves has reviewed Brian K. Vaughan’s screenplay version of his story with…mixed results. The story has been truncated for the big screen, chopping out characters and scenes that are already classics in their own rights. Judge for yourselves.…

My thing about Y: The Last Man is that the smaller factions of people Yorick meets along his journey are almost better than the overall concept itself. Much like The Walking Dead, the story takes place in an alternate future that we can’t even imagine. We should explore this “future” and the ramifications as a better reflection on our current selves. Can women survive without men? Why are men so important, or unimportant, in the overall scheme and plan for the human race? Is science taking us too far? Answer these questions for yourselves, and then ask why we should only have one movie that asks and answers complicated questions.

The Marvel Universe is expanding throughout the galaxy on the big screen, according to this article at Badassdigest.com. The Inhumans is the next big foray into the Marvelverse, and will be shot and released well after The Avengers in 2012. Will this relate directly to the world already created for us, or will it be an offshoot so distant as to not crossover into the Universe already before us?

My worry with this film is that Marvel may be aiming way too high too soon to expand its’ universe on the big screen. There’s a danger in shooting expensive movies over and over very quickly. They’ll become repetitious, or full of scenes that don’t make sense (Iron Man 2) and will fall victim to the almighty dollar. I can’t stand how many times a studio or company will tell us that they care so much about storytelling, then blow it all to try and make a bigger movie for a few extra bucks. Don’t insult the audience with the false claims that you care about the storytelling so much only to screw us in the end. Literally.

Our own Ben Glibert thinks says that “if they use the Skrulls in the Avengers movie, this could tie in nicely. But it’s pretty isolated property on its own. There was a Paul Jenkins / Jae Lee story from 2001 that was pretty solid. Hopefully they stick to that, or even some of the old Kirby work. It could be really good or terrible, depending on the writer and director.”

Below is a fan-made Thor poster, but fun nonetheless:

Andrew Garfield of The Amazing Spiderman knows how to raise his hands to the ceiling.

Channing Tatum has sold a pitch to Sony Pictures that is a “dark re-imagining” of the origin of Peter Pan. Word on the street is that it poses that Pan and Captain Hook are … brothers…I’m all for reimaginings of origins of famous characters, but you have to be careful how dark you take it. Peter Pan is not a dark story, and if we start to reinvent the wheel of this classic character, you may end up hurting and confusing the vision. Then again, Disney was able to take the tale of a thief in the Dark Ages and make it exhilarating for kids (Robin Hood with foxes!).

In other movie news that’s fallen by the wayside recently, the lovely Emma Watson has announced that she’ll be starring in the adaptation (finally) of Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower. This is a stirring portrayal of a naive teen “outsider” attempting to navigate friendship and love in high school. Chbosky wrote the book 12 years ago, well before he created the somewhat hit TV series Jericho. Summit Entertainment (Twilight) is producing.

That’s all the news that I feel is fit to print this week. Next time I’ll try to entertain you with stories of SXSW, as long as I am awake to tell the tales…

You are dismissed!

Sgt. Angle

So, for anyone that hasn’t heard yet, MYTHOI #1 has been released and is on sale now! If you are looking for a copy in your local comic store, but can’t find a copy, it is because MYTHOI isn’t in stores… yet. Have faith though, because you can buy it here.

In honor of the release of MYTHOI’s first issue, I am going to be doing a special top 10 list today. This is actually two top 10 lists, a best and worst. The category? The best AND worst first comic book issue #1s that I have ever read. Let’s get started:

THE BEST: Some comics just suck you in. They exceed your expectations, or come out of nowhere to surprise you. These comics make you wish it was next month already so you can grab issue two. These are my 10 favorite premiere issues of all time.

1) PLANETARY: From my first meeting with Elijah Snow, to having my mind blown by the idea of a multiversal supercomputer, PLANETARY had rocked me like a hurricane. The art, the story, everything about this book was perfect.

2) POWERS: This was my first exposure to Brian Bendis and Michael Oeming, and they left a very good impression. The idea for the story was fresh (at least to me) and Oeming’s angular, shadowy work complimented Bendis’ writing perfectly.

3) NEGATION: This was the first Crossgen title that really clicked for me. Paul Pelletier’s are was expressive and easy to read. It was like THE DIRTY DOZEN in space. It was a great read, and had me hooked until the series’ end.

4) NEXTWAVE: Bar none, the funniest book I have ever read. The first issue put me right in the middle of the action, and left my robot brain craving beer.

5) WILDCATS 3.0: This one might not have made the list if I hadn’t read the previous iterations of this book. Joe Casey took previously one dimensional characters and fleshed them out immediately. Dustin Nguyen’s art was a perfect fit, and the first issue, which took superheroes and put them in a corporate setting, intrigued and excited me. A great first issue.

6)BATMAN– THE LONG HALLOWEEN: Tim Sale’s dark and moody art set the tone for this book from the first page. The (much maligned) Jeph Loeb not only did a sparkling job on dialogue, but crafted a murder mystery that had me guessing whodunit right away.

7) THE ULTIMATES: The other Ultimate universe titles hadn’t done much for me. Spider-man was a teen again. Big whoop. The X-men were teens again. Big whoop. Then came the ULTIMATES. The first issue was only about Captain America, but I knew it was special. After all, it made me think Captain America was cool (no easy feat). The action was akin to a summer blockbuster movie. This showed how great the Ultimate universe could be.

ASTONISHING X-MEN: No one has ever gotten the X-men so completely right as Joss Whedon. Having John Cassaday on art didn’t hurt either.

9) THE INHUMANS: This book caught me by surprise. I had no idea who Paul Jenkins was. I knew Jae Lee was the guy who couldn’t draw Namor a few years earlier. I knew the Inhumans only from my Marvel Universe Handbooks. I had no idea upon picking this book up that I would get such a beautiful family story, or that the art could make me flip through the book so many times that the corners of the book would fray. I love surprises.

10) TOM STRONG: How can you go wrong with Alan Moore? The constant art changes on this title caused me to drop it after a dozen issues or so, but I loved the first issue of this great pulp character.

THE WORST: So everyone knows, I grew up mainly in the 1990’s. Why do I bring that up? I just wanted to apologize ahead of time for bringing up the bad memories that are to follow.

1) FORCE WORKS: When I was young, I liked the Avengers West Coast. When the AWC disbanded, and reformed into a proactive super-team (a concept that always spells comic book disaster) I was excited. My excitement lasted until the U.S. Agent got his cool new laser shield. Sigh.

2) Urth 4: A sad sad knock off of the fantastic four. Please note that the Air elemental guy has a porn star mustache.

3) ANNEX: In the early 1990’s Marvel comics had an event where they introduced a brand new character into each of their summer annuals. This event gave us characters like Bantam, a chemically enhanced Latino boxer, and Annex, a war vet with a missing leg, who had a suit that could make legs, and weapons. When Annex got his own series, I thought he was cool, until I opened the book, and realized I couldn’t care less. The art was serviceable, but the story was so bland, at one point, I threw pepper on the book in an attempt to spice it up.

4) BLOODSHOT: The man has a target on his chest, need I say more?

5) THE COMET: Just look at the cover. Tom Lyle has done some good work over the years, but this was not one of his finer moments.

6) BRIGADE: The first time I read this, I thought I had accidentally bought a second printing of YOUNGBLOOD (eeeeep!), then I re-read it, and it was worse than YOUNGBLOOD. WORSE THAN YOUNGBLOOD! Oh, and is that Booster Gold in the bottom left corner?

7) SLUDGE: I really like a lot of the Ultraverse titles. PRIME was great. THE STRANGERS was a fun read. SLUDGE, however, was a boring, sloppy mess. The main character gets shot, blown up, and has toxic waste thrown on him. Even at 10 years old I was able to recognize overkill when I saw it.

COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS: 52 was such a great series, I was all set for the next weekly comic from DC to be equally fantastic, especially since this series had Paul Dini involved. Sadly, this first issue was everything that 52 was not, which is to say, this issue (and all the other issues in this series) was bad.

9) RAVAGE 2099: The first new Stan Lee creation in years wasn’t very good. In fact, it was downright hard to read. The art was lackluster as well. This book stood out as extra bad to me because of how good the other 2099 titles were.

10) ARMAGEDDON 2001: I was lost from page 1 and it never got better. That takes skill. Not a skill anyone wants, but it does take skill.

Well folks, two lists for you all in honor of MYTHOI. I hope you enjoyed them, and as always, let me know if you disagree (or agree for that matter).

I will be up at the Long Beach Comic Convention all Weekend with James Ninness, the man who wrote MYTHOI, helping to introduce people to our company and our comic. If you are in the area, stop by and say hello, chat us up a bit, or get your copy of MYTHOI, as we will have a few on hand. I will be putting updates on the site nightly as to our Semantink shenanigans, so feel free to tune in if you are interested.

Thanks for stopping in, See you all next time.

I hope everyone enjoyed the latest installment of “Cinegasms”. I know that I said Wednesdays are going to be the home of Mr. Wolff’s “Hump Day Review” but I am afraid I am a bit of a liar. I have a very busy Thursday schedule for a little while, so Mr. Wolff was kind enough to move to Thursdays. Today I am going to try a new segment I am calling “Remember when…”

Today I wanted to take a look back in time to the magical year of 1998. A year when you spent more time in the airplane than in the airport. The year when Windows 98 debuted (duh) and Jesse “The Body” Ventura became Governor of the state of Minnesota. This was also the year that Marvel Comics unleashed it’s MARVEL KNIGHTS imprint. I could spend all day talking about ’98, but as I don’t have all day (and neither do you, I would imagine), I am going to focus on the MARVEL KNIGHTS imprint. “Why would you do that?” you might ask, well let me tell you: MARVEL KNIGHTS was a huge step forward in Marvel Comic’s evolution.

For those that don’t remember the comic book landscape in the late nineties (or those that choose to forget), it was a bleak and sad place. Sales were don everywhere. The product that was being produced, for the most part, sucked. Comics in general were in a bad place, but Marvel was especially hurting. Marvel had gone bankrupt a few years earlier, and a lot of their smaller titles had fallen by the wayside. The “Events” that Marvel had put together, were less event and more fiasco. “Oh, it wasn’t that bad” some might say, but I retort with this: THE CLONE SAGA. Not enough? How about ONSLAUGHT, or HEROES REBORN? Yes, Marvel was in a bad place and needed something. And “something” came in the form of Marvel Knights”.

It Hurts To Remember…

This Was Supposed To Be Cool.

Now, for big comic companies to have different imprints to appeal to different audiences was not an unheard of concept. DC comics had Vertigo (and still does), and Marvel had tried a variety of imprints as well, but all the Marvel imprints seemed to flop. Imprints like RAZORLINE, MARVEL 2099, and MALIBU were just unable to sustain themselves. Between the crud Marvel was putting out, and their spotty history with imprints, the deck was stacked against the MK line before it even started.

Malibu Comics, flying towards failure.

What helped Marvel with the MK line was the way that they approached it. While Marvel didn’t go VERTIGO status and make this a mature readers line, they did decide that the imprint would be more adult, so kids could still read, but grown-ups could enjoy as well. Second, and even more important, Marvel went outside of the company for help. Marvel went to a small comic company, Event Comics, and got two guys named Joe Quesada (who is now the editor-in-chief of Marvel) and Jimmy Palmiotti to find outsiders to give the MK line a new look. And for the most part, the MK line was a great success. The start of Marvel Knights was four titles, (two ongoing, and two mini-series) Daredevil (one of the comics that had been lost to sagging numbers), The Black Panther, The Inhumans, and The Punisher (who had just died).

The Marvel Knights line was huge. It brought writers like Kevin Smith (the movie director), Christopher Priest, and Paul Jenkins from small press to big market. The same for artists like Jae Lee (who hadn’t been at Marvel in years), Bernie Wrightson, and Mark Texiera. The success of this imprint helped to put Marvel where it is today, and showed that sometimes what the big companies need is that independent flavor.

Thanks all for stopping in, see you tomorrow!