This is one of those times when the most appropriate comment is, indeed, HOLY SHIT! Read more here. I’m sure that we’ll all have more to say soon.
On Friday, July 10 (10 am – 7 pm) and Saturday, July 11 (10am – 4 pm) at Mandalay Bay Convention Center, top UFC fighters and MMA fans will get the first look at the official Ultimate Fighting Championship® (UFC) action figures from leading U.S. toy maker JAKKS Pacific, Inc at UFC Fan Expo for UFC 100 in Las Vegas. The first two series of the line, Wave 0 and Wave 1 include some of the best and well known UFC fighters such as Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar, Chuck Liddell, Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva, Forrest Griffin, “Rampage” Jackson and Royce Gracie. Several of the fighters will be in attendance to view their new figures before they hit retail shelves this Fall, and are expected to meet and greet with fans at the JAKKS UFC Fan Expo booth (#427).
UFC Fan Expo is the world’s premier MMA event where millions of fans of the fastest-growing sport will have the opportunity to celebrate their passion through the experience of exhibitions, training and development, fan-inspired special events and competitions, meet and greets with the elite fighters, and demos of various fighting techniques – all held in conjunction with the UFC fighter weigh-ins and the 100th Pay-Per-View Fight Card.
…. and we’re still here!
While I’ve only been with Shotgun for about three years now, I have been well educated on the site’s long, rich history. I even have one of the original Free Beer* tee-shirts! I wear it out occasionally, although it has yet to get me any free beer.
So here’s a little taste of what things were like when the site launched in ‘99. Just wait’ll you see what’s coming up. It’s going to kick ass.
Five years ago, our own Li Rapkin boldly declared that a new film would be a cult classic? Was she right? The original review follows . . .
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
“My law partner told me the only job with a higher mortality rate than Gotham D.A. is a “red shirt” on “Star Trek”.” Kate Spencer, Batman: Streets Of Gotham #1.
Here we are again, with the column for comics released on 06/17! No one cracked the DT! last time; the problem was that Nightwing’s gloves weren’t right; the blue portion of his costume continues down his wrist and middle and index finger.
Let’s go with The Dissector’s Picks Of The Week, now. Best Book Of The Week was Batman: Streets Of Gotham #1… solid, and while I liked Batman & Robin, this was more down to earth, and I enjoyed the Manhunter backup feature too. Worst Book Of The Week? Well, Superman/Batman #61 came out last week, and… “Penguello”? “The Ventrilomaker”? Please… Read the rest of this post »
Do you remember seeing this in theaters? Wow, it’s strange to see how time flies like this. 20 years ago today, Tim Burton’s “Batman” opened in theaters and blasted into the record books and became more than just a pop culture phenomenon, it reactived Bat-mania.
I was 6 at the time, and I remember seeing this movie at LEAST 3 times. Though, the first time I never saw the whole thing since I ran out of the theater screaming when the Joker fried Antoine to a skeleton. I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen it since. For the longest time THIS was the Batman staple. It was dark, brooding, and won an Oscar for Best Art Direction. Jack Nicholson was nominated for a Golden Globe that year for Best Actor portraying the Joker (who was, again, the staple for that character for years to come). It was also nominated for two Grammys.
It was EVERYWHERE. Nintendo games, t-shirts, hats, posters, you name it, Batman was on it ( I still have my Batman dinner tray with Batman and the Batmobile on it). It became the biggest and highest-grossing movie of 1989 as well as the 1980’s in general. Though it’s strange to watch this movie now, especially with scenes like Alfred letting Vicky Vale into the Batcave. He would have been SO fired!
It’s hard to deny the summer of ‘89 rocked.
Introduced to hip-hop at an early age and subsequently christened into the game by the legendary Kool G Rap, Dr. Butcher’s twenty-plus years in 
hip-hop has found him not only rubbing elbows with fan favorites, but also wearing a variety of hats behind the scenes. Be it as an executive producer, a deejay or even spittin’ his best 16-bar salvo, Dr. Butcher not only has an envious hip-hop resume–he’s got longevity in his back pocket!
How’d you come by being called Dr. Butcher? I know hip-hop tends to take a no-prisoners attitude., but “Butcher” almost seems too graphic.
I inherited the name from Kool G Rap who took the name from an old 70’s horror flick. G-Rap was looking for a turntablist to offset DJ Polo and initially chose a well respected deejay from our neighborhood but the dude backed out of the situation for personal reasons. When he received word that I was pretty nice on the turns he stopped by to audition me. I showed him some stuff and he jokingly told me to hang up the microphone and to pick up the headphones because my new name would be Dr. Butcher…ha!l. Yeah, I was a rapper at the time.
So its safe to assume you’re certainly not a vegetarian (right?)
Never assume…ha! ha!. Seriously, I’m not a strict vegetarian but my meat intake is limited to fish, turkey and chicken.
Deejaying and producing records. How do the two talents/disciplines differ? How do they complement one another.
I don’t think there is a difference. They both require disciplined ears. Producers hear melodies and deejays hear scratches/mixes. Basically, they are one in the same.
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
“(…) Would it kill them to wear the same uniforms?” Cyclops, about the All-New, All-Different X-Men, Uncanny X-Men: First Class Giant-Size Special #1.
Alright, here we are with the column for comics released on 06/10. The Dissector’s Picks For The Week are as follow: Best Book Of The Week is X-Factor V3 #44. Peter David delivers a solid book month after month. Worst Book Of The Week was Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape #2… horrible art, and a wannabe “The Prisoner” plot. Off you go! Read the rest of this post »
Mitsuharu Misawa, the Japanese star who was one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, died unexpectedly today from a heart attack during a match in Hiroshima. More details are available at Wrestling Observer/Figure Four Online.
If you’ve never had the pleasure of seeing Misawa in the ring, it is well worth going out of your way to seek out his matches. Youtube is full of them; here’s a video with clips from a match with one of his greatest opponents, Kenta Kobashi. (Misawa is wearing his trademark green and white tights; Kobashi is in the orange trunks.)
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
“(…) My years with Mr. Tesla have taught me that there’s one underlying scientific principle to ALL existence. (…) EVERYTHING explodes.” Atomic Robo, as he cranks up the dial of a lightning gun to ten, Atomic Robo And The Shadow From Beyond Time #2.
Greetings, and welcome to the column covering the dissections in comics released on 06/03. Straight into the fray; last week’s DT! was not solved, I’m very disappointed. Namor, in the panel I show, is wearing his trademark green speedos… with white lines on the side; when he’s never had those before.
Read the rest of this post »
Everyone knows what happens next.
With the aggressive ad campaign that Image has mounted over the course of the past month or more, every reader with an even passing interest in Erik Larsen’s long-running, creator-owned series Savage Dragon knows that his most feared, powerful and long-dead villain, Overlord, will return in some form in Savage Dragon #150. Recent interviews by Larsen have suggested that the new Overlord will be much more powerful, unstable and generally dangerous than the old one was, and that there were no guarantees that Savage Dragon himself will walk out alive by the time the story arc was finished. So what do you, as a creator, do to set yourself up for the most highly-anticipated issue in some time (with the possible exception of the Obama issue, of course, but that was its own special circumstance)?
Well, it helps that in last month’s issue, the Free Comic Book Day special Savage Dragon #148, it was revealed that Dragon’s kidnapped children had been abducted by their former babysitter, and the granddaughter of Sgt. Marvel, Alison “Dart II” Summers. This issue, “Dart Attack,” puts her craziness in perspective and gives a long and disturbing backstory to how this seemingly-innocuous young girl has distinguished herself as one of Dragon’s more formidable recent villains. By the end of the issue, the threat of this new Dart is somewhat neutralized, but it’s certainly clear that she won’t stay down for long.
Larsen’s art in this issue is all over the place; most of the fight sequences are masterfully blocked and beautifully rendered, but the sequence with Daredevil and the Little Wise Guys didn’t do too much for me. Still, my biggest gripe with that is that it was a cartoony and over-the-top style compared to the rest of the issue–which might have been an intentional choice by Larsen given that he was drawing Golden Age characters.
As far as fill-in-type, middle-relief stories go? This one was pretty stellar. It feels like it’s building toward an important moment, even if that moment won’t pay off anytime soon.
After a lackluster Batman issue and a flat-out frustrating turn as the douchey adult to a modern-day Legionnaire in the first issue of Red Robin, Dick Grayson’s second week as Batman is off to a somewhat shaky start.
Swinging in to the rescue (and being mistaken for Green Lantern and Superman in the act of doing it) is Booster Gold, the greatest hero the world will never know, as Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund return to Booster Gold and a new story arc—“Day of Death”—that kicks off with Rip and Booster deciding to hide the truth of Booster’s time-saving mission from whoever might find their way into the Batcave and ends with Booster saving Dick Grayson’s life in the present, only to inadvertently cause his death in the past.
Dick’s characterization in the episode, though, was spot-on. He dives in all full of piss and vinegar when he finds out that Booster is messing with his dad’s stuff, but he’s reasonable and listens when Booster explains to him that there’s more to his actions than meet the eye.
Unfortunately for the both of them, Booster isn’t the only intruder in the cave. One of Booster’s nemeses, the Time Stealer known as the Black Beetle (last seen in Booster Gold #12, but with a quick cameo/tease in the “Origins and Omens” backup that Jurgens drew a few months ago), is off to the side, taking potshots at both heroes but seeming to suggest that, not only does he know Nightwing is the new Batman, but that a Batman-less DC Universe is what he was shooting for when he arrived, and Booster was simply in the right (wrong) place at the right (wrong) time.
With some of the strongest characterization we’ve seen in Booster Gold yet, this issue explored a number of dangling issues from the series’ first year—including Booster’s hesitation to be Rip’s “time monkey” (a subplot that had vanished out of necessity as developments in the main plot needed constant attention), a return to his more glory-seeking and commercial roots and a genuine, human need for someone who understands him. It seems that all of this story really flowed from the second consecutive hard-luck experience with having a “best friend” in the superhero community for Booster. Bruce Wayne, after all, had told him just a little while ago that while he “might not be Ted Kord,” he’d always be there when Booster needed him.
Oops.
The art, though, is just fantastic; seeing Rapmund and Hi-Fi backing up Jurgens this issue is really a noticeable step up from the awkward relationship he had with Rod Ramos last month, and the result is some of Jurgens’ best work.
On the flipside of the issue is the first installment of the Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes) co-feature, and I’ll admit that I was a little lost on this one. Having given up on Blue Beetle after #25, I didn’t catch the last six or so issues before it was canceled. While I’ve heard some of the plot developments (particularly those that might or might not pertain to the Black Beetle), new readers may be a little lost trying to figure out why Paco and Brenda are bickering. Still, the story—which literally revolved around Blue Beetle fighting giant robots—was a fun diversion; Mike Norton’s art is not only capable, but fits better as a complement to Dan Jurgens’ Booster Gold work than the more popular Raphael Albuquerque’s Blue Beetle pencils would have done and, as I’ve said before, if I have to pay another buck, I’d just as soon get something out of it…so I’ll read Blue Beetle as long as it’s there.
When I realized that they were giving Bruce Wayne a sabbatical, I truly hoped that Dick Grayson would be the new Batman. So you would think that I’d be pretty happy with what’s coming out of Gotham City these days.
Unfortunately, today was not a great day for the Batbooks. This month’s issue of Batman was mediocre, oddly-timed and poorly rendered…and the first issue of Tim Drake’s new ongoing Red Robin series simply made me angry.
The look of the book isn’t bad—it certainly isn’t what I expected from Red Robin, but it’s kind of what Todd Nauck’s Robin might look like if it were being published by Vertigo. The problem, really, was with Chris Yost’s script.
By way of separating Tim from the pack, apparently it was decided that “He’s still alive—I know he is” wasn’t divisive enough to keep Dick from being there for his old friend and adopted brother. Probably a fair assessment of the situation, given that Dinah Lance recently had to go through the same thing in the first several issues of Green Arrow/Black Canary, when it appeared that her husband, Oliver Queen, had died (again) on their wedding night and nobody believed he had survived except for Ollie’s son Connor Hawke. When she was vindicated, it turned out that Bruce Wayne had known all along, or something.
But Tim and Dick—who have historically had a very close relationship—have a wedge driven between them so abruptly and in such a poorly-thought-out fashion that one has to wonder at what level these decisions are being made. Tim—who had long maintained that he didn’t want to become the next Bruce Wayne when he grew up—sits in a corner and gets all morose and moody over the death of his father—going so far as to forget all about the death of his ACTUAL father and start demanding that everyone call him by Bruce’s last name.
While Damian has become a little less irritating in Batman & Robin #1, his personality in this issue really firms up for me an initial impression that the little twerp shouldn’t be in a Robin costume—all that can happen from it is to have another Jason Todd-type mess in another ten or twenty years.
With Dick-Batman making an appearance in Booster Gold this week and the first issue of Paul Dini’s Streets of Gotham (with a Manhunter backup by Marc Andreyko) set to hit the streets next week, there’s hope for Gotham yet…but I’m substantially less excited for the future now than I was a week ago.
The final pages of Green Lantern #41 feature one of those status changes so on-the-face preposterous that it almost discredits the whole book. Anyone who genuinely believes that DC is going to let one of their most popular, powerful and profitable heroes be disfigured in an obvious and irreversible way…well, let me just say I’ve got a bridge in Coast City to sell them.
Still, the issue itself wasn’t half bad. Told mostly in flashback, it features a conversation between Larfleeze and Hal Jordan. Larfleeze (I refuse to call him “Agent Orange,” as I think it’s the kind of silly, simplistic storytelling that relegates comics to the literary ghetto–add to that statement the silliness about Sector 666, to boot), of course, simply wants the blue ring that has attached itself to Hal Jordan. Why does he want it, even though Hal doesn’t and even though nobody has any idea what it does? Well, the great thing about Larfleeze is that he just WANTS stuff, so he doesn’t have to worry about silly things like motivation.
The much-discussed pact between Larfleeze and the Guardians is explained some in this issue, but it amounts to very little, except in that it ties the Orange Lanterns and the Sinestro Corps together somewhat via a connection to Parallax. Still, it’s ultimately just a reiteration of what we already knew or a confirmation of what we suspected. There have been a lot of these sort of issues since the end of the Sinestro Corps War and one has to wonder whether maybe as the scope of The Blackest Night has expanded and the DC Universe has become more and more a part of the whole thing, if it’s spun a little out of Geoff Johns’ creative control and a lot of the recent Green Lantern issues are in fact filler.