DAMN Good Comics -- BATMAN ANNUAL #1

All of the sudden, Arnold Schwarzenegger's ice puns from Batman and Robin seem even more pointless and stupid.

The classic Special Guest Villain known as Mr. Freeze makes his major debut to "The New 52" era with an extra-length annual that ties in with the Batman event "Night of the Owls."  The good thing is, you don't have to read the other twenty or so issues of "Night of the Owls" to appreciate this story, but don't be surprised if you find yourself wanting to read them afterward.

With "First Snow," regular Batman writer Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV give Mr. Freeze more depth and characterization than he's had since the 1992 Batman: The Animated Series episode "Heart of Ice."  While I won't give too much away for those who haven't read this issue, there are some fundamental changes and additions to Victor Fries' origin and background that make the character more than just a tragic lovesick victim.

Even better, Freeze appears to be considerably cleverer, and far more dangerous, than shown in years past.  His methodical breakout of Arkham Asylum is impressive indeed, using his freezing abilities to their deadly potential toward his initial goal of escape.  Ultimately though, Freeze is fixated upon two things -- his desire for vengeance against Bruce Wayne and the recovery of Nora, the woman he loves...or thinks he does.

The art by Jason Fabok is very crisp and clean, enhanced by some effective coloring by Peter Steigerwald.  Fabok and Steigerwald arm Freeze with a new helmet dotted on the inside with small, reflecting ice crystals, causing the character's head to resemble an odd snowglobe.  Their Batman, meanwhile, resembles David Finch at his finest with just a dash of Brian Bolland mixed in for good measure, which certainly doesn't hurt.

For too long, both DC and Marvel Comics have had an annoying habit of turning annuals that were once special and meaningful into little more than throwaway product with poor creative effort and an inflated price point.  However, by tying into a well-received epic storyline using the title's regular writer, DC appears to be trying to reverse the trend as shown here and with this week's Animal Man Annual #1.  Annuals, it seems, are going to matter again and here's hoping they stay that way for many more years to come.

New TRUE BLOOD Season 5 Trailer Debuts

"A 3,000-year-old vampire wants to suck my blood...Must be Thursday!"

Yes, vampire snack treat Sookie Stackhouse is back with her fellow residents of Bon Temps, Louisiana in Season 5 of HBO's supernatural series True Blood.  In a new trailer that aired last night before Game of Thrones, it looks like Sookie's traditionally insane life isn't going to get easier any time soon.

Picking up from the events of the Season 4 finale, we see Sookie and Lafayette Reynolds burying a body in what appears to be Sookie's backyard.  "Oh yeah, baby, you survived," remarks Lafayette bitterly.  "You always do.  But goddamn do you leave a trail of bodies behind.  You know what?  You the angel of death."

We also see newly-turned vampire Steve Newlin threatening Sookie's brother Jason, Eric Northman being captured in a net made from silver, but the season's real threat comes from the long-awaited return of Russell Edgington. 

"It will take him a few days to recuperate and he will be straight out after us," explains Bill Compton, who helped imprison Russell in cement at the end of Season 3.  However, there's the lingering question of who actually freed Russell from his cement tomb.  Eric's progeny Pamela "Pam" Swynford De Beaufort hurtfully denies her involvement, causing Eric to reply that he trusts no one.

Other trailer goodness includes Bill's progeny Jessica Hamby looming menacingly behind Steve, Terry Bellefleur being threatened, Hoyt Fortenberry all blood-spattered and ready to fight, and of course, Russell in full view looking as defiant and vengeful as ever.  "I want to gorge on human blood because I like it!"

True Blood returns for Season 5 on June 10, 2012.  If you'd like to see the full trailer, you can check it out below...

DAMN Good Comics -- JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #9

After some creative musical chairs across various titles, writer Jeff Lemire ended up on the supernatural team book Justice League Dark and I couldn't be more pleased about it.

Lemire first caught my attention with his recent Atom feature in Adventure Comics prior to Flashpoint and afterwards, has been absolutely killing it on Animal Man.  So when he was selected to replace outgoing Justice League Dark writer Peter Milligan, I was more than intrigued by the potential result.  After starting off so well, Milligan appeared at a loss of where to take the series and its diverse cast of supernatural DC Universe characters.  Fortunately, Lemire comes out of the gate strong with a much clearer sense of direction.

His first story, "The Black Room," is structured like an episode of the J.J. Abrams TV series Alias, with events already in motion filled in with flashback scenes that explain how we got to this point.  Deep in the Amazon jungle, the reformed team "Justice League Dark" has been asked to retrieve the South African mystic known as Doctor Mist and stop classic Justice League nemesis Felix Faust from his usual supernatural shenanigans.  That's a pretty straightforward story premise, a refreshing change from issues up until now.

The team itself has changed as well, with John Constantine taking over as the unlikely "leader" from the interminably vague Madame Xanadu.  As we learn throughout the issue, Constantine was recruited by A.R.G.U.S. agent Steve Trevor to "get the band back together" under the offer of being allowed ten unsupervised minutes in The Black Room, a top-secret storage facility for various DCU mystical artifacts.  He's assigned the mysterious woman known as Black Orchid to keep tabs on him for A.R.G.U.S. and there's even an explanation for why this team is called "Justice League Dark," a name that Constantine (echoing many fans in the process) remarks is "the stupidest" he's ever heard.

Wisely, artist Mikel Janin was kept on the series and he produces another solid effort here.  Janin, together with colorist Ulises Arreola, breathes considerable life into the story, from Felix Faust's decayed face with glowing blue eyes to considerable detail like the large theater banner advertising Zatanna's performances.  He seems to enjoy Constantine's smirking facial expressions and the textured plant vein design of Black Orchid's new costume.

All in all, this issue was a very promising relaunch of Justice League Dark and one that already sets up a number of potential story ideas to be developed down the road.  If you gave up on this book a few months ago, I definitely recommend giving it another shot.  Lemire proved that he has just the right take on VERTIGO characters like Animal Man that were brought back to the DC Universe, so I won't be surprised if he does just as well here.

Animated BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS Cast Announced

Warner Bros. has announced the cast for the animated home video adaptation of Frank Miller's classic four-issue mini-series Batman: The Dark Knight Returns from 1986, which will star someone very familiar to old-school sci-fi movie fans.

The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that RoboCop and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai star Peter Weller will voice the role of the older Batman/Bruce Wayne while Modern Family TV actress Ariel Winter will voice Robin/Carrie Kelley.

The Dark Knight Returns tells the story of a 55-year-old Bruce Wayne who comes out of retirement to fight crime once again as Batman, only to face opposition from the Gotham City Police Department and the United States government.  The adaptation will be split up into two releases titled Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1 and Part 2.  The first part, released under a new DC Comics Premiere Movie brand, will arrive in the fall while Part 2 is slated for early 2013. 

"Dark Knight Returns is the granddaddy of beloved comics properties that we’ve ever attempted (to adapt)," said Bruce Timm, executive producer of all of DC’s animated movies.  "There is definitely the imperative to get it right."  Timm described Peter Weller as having "the proper weight to his voice.  He definitely brings all of the world-weariness of the character and inner core of optimist covered in a cynical shell."

Also announced for the cast are David Selby, who starred in the original Dark Shadows soap opera and Falcon Crest, Wade Williams from Prison Break as Two-Face/Harvey Dent, and Michael McKean as Dr. Wolper, the psychiatrist who arranges for the Joker's release from Arkham Asylum.

The director is Jay Oliva, who storyboarded Zack Snyder’s upcoming Superman movie Man of Steel and directed sequences of Green Lantern: Emerald Knights.  Bob Goodman, writer on Syfy’s Warehouse 13 and other DC animated projects, adapted Miller's mini-series.

SKYFALL Teaser Trailer Debuts

The teaser trailer for the 23rd official James Bond film Skyfall was released online a few hours ago and it seems there's going to be some word association going on.

In what appears to be some sort of psychiatric evaluation watched by his superior M (played by Dame Judi Dench) and Ralph Fiennes' character Gareth Mallory, Bond (Daniel Craig) provides respones to specific words to presumably gain insight into his subconscious mind.  The exchange goes like this:

"Country."
"England."
"Gun."
"Shot."
"Agent."
"Provocateur."
"Murder."
(A slight hestiation) "Employment."
"Skyfall."
(No response)
"Skyfall."
(A dramatic pause) "Done."

From there we see rows of coffins draped with British flags, the city of Shanghai, Bond plunging into a large body of water, Bond standing solemnly with M besides his silver Aston Martin DB5 overlooking a misty ravine, an underground subway car crashing through the roof of whatever lies below, and of course, the usual shots of Bond shooting things, cars flipping, explosions and whatnot.

"Some men are coming to kill us," Bond says omniously.  "I'm gonna kill them first."

Skyfall arrives in US theaters on November 9, 2012.  In the meantime, you can watch the teaser trailer below about twenty times...

Surviving a DC Universe Still Without Wally West

Nine months into DC Comics' Post-Flashpoint universe reboot, commonly known as "The New 52," and there's still no sign of former Flash Wally West or his wife, Linda Park.

From a streamlined DC Universe standpoint, it makes sense to bench Wally in order to focus attention on his predecessor Barry Allen.  Ever since Barry was brought back from the dead in 2008, Wally was gradually relegated to the sidelines and ultimately lost his monthly title to Barry for a 12-issue Flash series and the 5-issue Flashpoint event that relaunched the entire DC Universe.

Barry continues to be the Flash and with his current series charting in the top twenty in terms of sales, that probably won't be changing any time soon.  However, there's an entire generation of Wally West fans since 1986 that read comics and watched Justice League cartoons where Wally was the Flash -- their Flash.  They watched Wally grow into the legacy of his dead uncle, becoming his own Flash in the process.  They saw the character fall in and out of love, until he became involved with Keystone City news reporter Linda Park in what became one of comics' greatest romances.  And they were there when Wally and Linda finally married and had two children, Jai and Iris, who were named in tribute to original Flash Jay Garrick and Wally's aunt, Iris West Allen.

So it's no wonder that Wally's fans continue to ask about his possible return at conventions or in interviews to Flash creators.  A recent Comic Book Resources interview with current Flash creative team Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato, Manapul was asked about previous comments made about his desire to introduce Wally into The New 52 and why that wasn't going to happen.  Manapul replied:

"The thing is, it's coming from a pure fan perspective. I grew up with Wally West, but it's one those things that, within the context of the story and the world we're building, he doesn't really fit.  Really, just focusing on Barry Allen has allowed us to do a more streamlined story and give a very good character study on Barry.  Especially since, when you think about it, a lot of people of this generation don't know Barry Allen that well.  I sort of feel it really ties everything together.  Here are Brian and I on this journey, writing our first ongoing comic book, and we're reintroducing Barry Allen and his journey in terms of self-discovery -- and it's the same things the readers are going through.  They're on a journey of discovering who Barry Allen is.  Introducing Wally West might murky up the water.  It's not our decision, but I think it's better that we just focus on Barry Allen.  At the end of the day, our mission statement is to make Barry Allen as cool as possible.  So we're putting all our effort into doing that."

So the wait for Wally's return continues, even though Jay Garrick was brought back this past month in a completely rebooted version for DC's Earth 2 series by James Robinson and Nicola Scott.  However, Wally does live on in animated form as part of the Cartoon Network series Young Justice.  After appearing in the first season as Kid Flash, Wally apparently gave up superheroics at some point during the five-year gap before Season 2 and has settled into a relationship with former team member Artemis.  He does, however, show signs of wanting to come back and help his friends, so it shouldn't be too long before we see him back in action.

The big question still remains, when will the character return to comics?  Until we get some more definitive news from DC Comics, at least we have plenty of stories to keep the memory of Wally West, The Flash That Was, still alive...

CRIMINAL MINDS Indulges in DOCTOR WHO Cosplay

At this rate, we're going to need a network TV crossover between Criminal Minds' Dr. Spencer Reid and Community's Abed Nadir.

Last night's season finale of CBS' crime drama series Criminal Minds gave more love to BBC TV series Doctor Who with a trip to a local science-fiction convention called Sci-Fi-Gate.  During the opening teaser of the two-hour episode "Hit/Run," Reid (played by Matthew Gray Gubler) and fellow profiler Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) are shown walking outside the convention, with Reid costumed as none other than Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor and Garcia wearing a fez and a bow tie in tribute to Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor era.  After being thanked by Garcia for accompanying her to the convention, Reid replies, "Of course, I've been knitting this scarf for weeks."

The pair then bump into Garcia's former boyfriend Kevin Lynch (Nicholas Brendon) and CSU Technician Sharp (Gina Garcia) who are cosplaying the Eleventh Doctor and his companion Amy Pond in her sexy police uniform from the episode "The Eleventh Hour."  After the awkward encounter, Garcia confides to Reid that she can't believe that Lynch brought someone else to the convention.  When Reid points out that she brought someone else, Garcia replies that she brought someone she couldn't possibly be sexually attracted to.

This wasn't the first time Reid has shown his love for Doctor Who.  Back in February of 2011, he was involved in a discussion comparing Doctor Who with the 1989 time-travel comedy movie BIll & Ted's Excellent Adventure. 

If you'd like to see the scene for yourself, you can check it out HERE thanks to YouTube user ssalexblake.