This week in Best Shots @ Newsarama.com, the crew covers the following . . .

Feature Reviews:
Wonder Woman #18 (review by Brian Andersen)
Last Defenders #1 (by Corey Henson)
Spider-Man Family Untold Team-Ups (by J. Caleb Mozzocco)
Three Shadows (by Michael C. Lorah)
Daddy’s Girl (by Michael C. Lorah)
The Lone Ranger & Tonto #1 (by Richard Renteria)
Dead of Night #2 (Richard Renteria)
Atomic Robo #6 (by Tim Janson)
Sequential Suicide 2008 TPB Slop (by Jeff Marsick)

Pellet Reviews:
Superman #674 (Review by THE Rev. O.J. Flow)
The Mighty Avengers #10 (by Caleb )
Avengers The Initiative #10 (by Caleb)
Fantastic Four #555 (by Andersen)
Tiny Titans #2 (by Andersen)
The Walking Dead #47 (by Troy Brownfield)
Green Arrow and Black Canary #6 (by Troy)
Booster Gold (and Blue Beetle) #7 (by Troy)
Suicide Squad #7 (by Troy)
Serenity Better Days #1 (by Troy)
Red Sonja #31 (by Troy)
Thunderbolts #119 (by Richard)

In Case You Missed It . . .
Army@Love vol. 1 The Hot Zone Club (by Michael)

Enjoy!

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]

“Stuck in that suit for eternity. Wolfram & Hart’s cruelest act yet.” Lorne, about Wesley, Angel: After The Fall #4.

Welcome to the column on comics published on 02/20; we’re that much closer to catching up! That quote up there is another proof of Joss Whedon’s ability to (along with his co-writer, Brian Lynch), to make comics read like an episode of one of his TV shows. The DT! from last column was spotted by the Guvnor, who correctly said that Pied Piper’s sunglasses were the wrong shape… badge for him!
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It looks like Terry Dodson will quit not-drawing Wonder Woman for DC to start drawing Uncanny X-Men for Marvel. Why the move? “I get paid more,” he explained, jokingly. (God, I hope he was joking). Like a lot of “exclusives” though, this one just excludes him from working with DC, not other publishers who aren’t Marvel, which seems to be a major reason why he took it.

Apparently he’ll be doing every other arc, switching back and forth with another artists. I’ve long thought
that getting two or more artists with similar styles to take turns on arcs was a great way to deal with the potential delays. However, Marvel found an artists whose style looks absolutely nothing like Dodson’s for him to work with—Greg Land.

I think FunnyBook Babylon summed up my own reaction quite well:
http://www.funnybookbabylon.com/2008/03/15/an-impassioned-plea-to-marvel-comics/

I’m not usually one to “mark out” over solicitations. But . . .

FINAL CRISIS #2
Written by Grant Morrison
Art and covers by J.G. Jones
Meet Japan’s number one pop culture heroes, the Super Young Team and their languid leader, Most Excellent Superbat! Join legendary wrestler Sonny Sumo and super escape artist Mister Miracle as they team to face the offspring of the Anti-Life Equation! See Earth’s superheroes mourn one of their oldest allies! Witness costumed criminals sinking to new depths of cowardice and depravity as Libra takes things too far! Uncover the doomsday secrets of the poisoned city of Blüdhaven! Learn the shocking identity of the prime suspect in the murder of a god! And read on if you dare as Batman becomes the first of Earth’s champions to face the Fallen of Apokolips. All this and a spectacular return from the dead…

THAT.
SOUNDS.
AWESOME.

Friend of the site Robert Kurtzman posted a rather interesting bulletin via MySpace. For those who don’t know, Robert Kurtzman is the legendary filmmaker known for creating From Dusk Til Dawn (check that story credit) and knocking out the FX for fan-favorites like Evil Dead 2. His film The Rage was the subject of the Beneath the Valley of the Rage comic book that I was the Associate Editor for via Fangoria Comics.

And The Rage is what he decided to talk about today . . .

“The RAGE has been on the Top New Horror releases on Amazon. com for the past several weeks. Available at the great price of 9.99, The RAGE has 3 hours of entertainment value packed into one special addition DVD.

Available in rated and unrated versions.

If you’re a horror fan or drive-in movie freak like me, then make sure you check out the THE RAGE with friends and have a great time hooting and hollering at the screen.

Support Indipendent Filmmaking!”

The Rage is 100% ShotgunReviews approved. Enjoy.

Updated with added Caleb . . .

I’m glad that James Robinson is coming back to the DC fold in a big way. I loved Starman and Golden Age, and he did a great job helping to bring back the JSA. But his new Justice League title, covered at Newsarama . . . I’m not so sure.

The main hang-up I have with it is the constant failure of books that strive to do the whole “proactive” thing. It works for an arc or two, but it never carries onward in any constructive capacity. Perhaps Robinson is the guy to do it, but I’m not sure.

It’s like this: the super-hero, almost by nature, is a reactive beast. Kind of like your local fire department. Sure, the FD can educate people about fire prevention, but they do their BIG WORK when something is burning. Same with super-heroes. They can patrol the hell out of their respective cities, but they do their main thing when the aliens arrive, the volcano erupts, etc.

Therefore, proactive is hard to write. If the world’s greatest detective (Batman) still finds himself showing up after crimes, then, no offense, how are Hal and Ollie going to get there first?

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Secret Invasion roars into comic shops soon. And it comes without a whole lotta extra books to buy.

Here’s the panel report at Newsarama. As you can see, there are going to be a number of tie-ins and crossovers. In fact, it’s indicated in the conversation that Secret Invasion almost tacitly requires that you read New Avengers and Mighty Avengers to keep up.

Other titles are . . .

A Secret Invasion Front Line, where hopefully we’ll spared comparisons of the Skrulls to Al-Qaeda (but I’m not holding my breath).

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Marvel’s WWLA X-Men Panel

Greg Land becomes the new co-artist on Uncanny X-Men. In a completely unrelated topic, stock prices for the Xerox Corporation jumped 15%.

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Welcome to the first edition of CON JOB, a new rotating feature in which we take the latest news from conventions with a bucket of salt. Let’s start with . . .

The first big news that struck me was that Jeph Loeb will be re-teaming with his long-time collaborator Tim Sale for a fourth “color” book for Marvel, entitled Captain America: White.

I’m not entirely sure, but I think it’s the never-before-revealed story of how Captain America and Bucky Barnes were secretly married the night before their final mission near the end of World War II.

Loeb’s always seemed to do his best work (that is, his least-awful work) when paired with Sale, so perhaps this will yield some good results. I’m not holding my breath though; some of their more recent work—including their Catwoman series and Spider-Man: Blue—has been pretty bad. But, in both cases, Loeb did afford Sale plenty of opportunities to draw plenty of characters. At the very least, the art should be nice and, if Loeb sticks true to recent form, he’ll take a “greatest hits” approach to the cast, and we’ll get to see Sale’s take on every Captain America character ever.

Here’s hoping Batroc the Leaper and The Falcon make it in somehow…

Brought to you by me browsing around facebook.

Today I want to run through a few quick-hit reviews of some recent releases that I’ve quite enjoyed.

Aspen Showcase:  Grace #1 (Aspen MLT) Written by Vince Hernandez; Art by Sana Takeda.The Aspen Showcase titles will feature one particular character from Aspen’s various regular titles including Soulfire, Fathom, Shrugged, and their new properties to come. Think of it sort of like those old anthology titles from Marvel Comics like Marvel Spotlight or Marvel Premiere. This first issue feature’s Soulfire’s heroine Grace as she journeys throughout time from the period of the Crusades to the year 2200, looking for a return of the age of magic. Highlighting the issue is simply gorgeous artwork by Sana Takeda with a moderate Manga look. Grade B+

Halloween: Nightdance #2 (Devils Due) Written by Stefan Hutchinson; Art by Tim Seeley. I really love Tim Seeley’s art and have been a fan for some time now. His rendering of Michael Myers is very well done. Michael is cold and almost mythological in this series. Hutchinson is doing a nice job presenting Michael’s driving madness, particularly in the way be painted one victims face like a clown before cutting her throat. But I’m having trouble wrapping myself around the convoluted storyline. The running first-person narrative from multiple characters makes the storyline difficult to follow. This series has enormous potential but needs to pickup up the juice a little bit moving forward. It was a boon for Devil’s Due to nail down the rights and it would be a shame to toss it away. Grade C

Urban Monsters #1 (Image Comics) Written by Will Wilson and Joanne Moore; Art by Tone Rodriguez and Rick Ross. Combine monsters with a good ol’ fashioned buddies on a road trip, and you’ve got Urban Monsters. Monsters are real and live in our world but they are strictly second-class citizens, doing the kind of drudgery work that no one else wants to do. Randy is a fishman, Eddie is a zombie, Arnaud is half man half goat beast, and Bet is a Sasquatch-like creature. When Randy and Arnaud read about an open casting call for monsters in Variety, the four friends hit the road from New York, heading to L.A. for what they hope will be fame and fortune. The buddy road trip plot is usually always fun and toss in monsters and you’ve got yourself an enjoyable first issue. I was surprised by the art as I thought they might go for a more minimal, cartoony look, given the subject matter, but the art was a real strength. I’m definitely looking forward to the rest of the series. Grade A-

Over the past couple of years Hollywood has come out with some decent movies, but there’s one thing that really “grinds my gears,” Virus movies.  I was a huge fan of 28 days later and even 28 weeks later, even though it had a different director, but recently it seems as if everyone has got the virus.  I went to see Doomsday on its opening night, anticipating it’d end up being a knock off of the Mad Max series, but somewhere along the say it got taken over by the virus.  Movies such as I am Legend and Doomsday would have been so much better without a man killing virus infecting the bloodstream of thousands of people.  Hollywood has got a virus, and it’s called lack of creativity. 

I am Legend, in my opinion, was a movie that had great intentions, but the director just did not put any effort into it.  From the lack of quality animated “infected”, to a pitiful ending, I really think I am Legend could have turned out way better then it had. My ending to I am Legend would have been: Will Smith goes into a breakdown and it shows that everything he had been envisioning was an illusion, and to find out Will Smith was really a homeless guy living on the streets. 

Doomsday, on the other hand, I feel had a really cool idea of touching base with an uncivilized colony, but of course they had to ruin it with the same cliche virus scheme.  If Doomsday had been based around ANYTHING besides a virus, it would have been awesome. 

My plans are to see 28 months later, if it ever comes out, and never see a virus movie again.  Come on Hollywood….can’t we be a little bit more original?  

Best-selling author Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in December of last year. Recently, it was announced that Pratchett donated 500,000 pounds to Alzheimer’s research.

Enterprising internet activists have decided to attempt to “match” Pratchett’s donation by having 500,000 users donate just one pound - or about two bucks, US - each.

Go here for more info.

I’m making my donation now!

Welcome one and all to the inaugural edition of the weekly Shotgun Reviews: Bullet Points, your one-stop shop for all the latest and greatest work from across the web by the mighty Shotgun Reviews team. (more…)