Find your local comic store if you don’t know where it is already, and LOAD UP!

This is one of the best days of the year to get into comics and certainly the best day for comics fans to try something new.  Don’t miss out!  They’re FREE!

Club Skill has uncovered a few of the songs to be included on the sequels to what is arguably the best music game ever.

Guitar Hero 2 has nailed down several artists missing from the first game and grabbing some more cult favorites as well.

“Psychobilly Freakout” by Reverend Horton Heat, “Strutter” by KISS,  “Who Was in My Room Last Night” by Butthole Surfers, “You Really Got Me” by Van Halen “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath, “YYZ” by Rush, and “Arterial Black” by Drist.

All of these will be playable at E3.

on a personal note:  Dude, “War Pigs” by Sabbath is one of the most awesome songs ever. 

In a turn of events that frankly shocks me, Lucasfilm has decided to release a completely unmolested DVD release of the original Star Wars Trilogy: episodes IV, V, and VI.

You’ll recall slight edits being made to the THX remaster released on VHS in the 90s, and massive CG insertion to the 1997 theatrical re-release in the special editions.  The most recent release in 2004 on dvd added even more CG work, and even went to far as to replace some performances with prequel actors.

Needless to say not a lot of fans were happy, but since George Lucas had complete control, we had to wait until he changed his mind.

NOW HE HAS.

Celebrate, my friends.  Let us put our overplayed Bootlegs of CBS/FOX VHS tapes and LaserDiscs to rest and enjoy not what was intended by the creator, but what was delivered, and what we fell in love with.

Scott Kurtz is best known for PvP, but I’ve quite enjoyed his new side project, co written with Aaron Williams..

“Truth, Justin, and the American Way” is a new hero comic with deep, deep roots in classics like Spider-Man and TV shows like Family Ties. Sound weird? It kind of is.

Justin is the ‘average guy’ who skips out of work early to help plan his wedding with his fiance and then go on to his bachelor party.  It gets kinda messed up when some weirdo Russian switches Justin’s change of clothes with an alien supersuit.  Suddenly he can lift an entire keg of beer with one hand!
The entire concept front to back seems to be molded toward being an 80s sitcom more than anything else. And since thats where his roots are, thats just fine. The book has jokes, and its pretty funny. Its actually really refreshing if you’re like me and rarely pick up a comic that doesn’t feature one epic ‘serious’ struggle after another. I gotta browse the indie-rack more often.

The real star of this book is the pen of Guiseppe Ferrario, who turns in honestly some of the most impressive comic art I’ve seen in years.  Every character is oozing with life and personality, and though the images are as static as any comic page, its not too hard to imagine the entire affair being animated.  I’ll likely be buying every book this guy pencils from now on.
The books been out for 2 weeks, but I read on Kurtz blog that the first printing has sold out, so if your comic shop doesn’t have any left, you’re out of luck until they do a second run. Luckily, you can read the entire book cover to cover online for free!  I can’t wait to see more, myself.

“NO… HUMANS… IN… STORMBRINGER…”

So says writer Simon Furman.  The Dream Team that brough us “War Within” “Worlds Collide” and now “Beast Wars” will check out what the heck is happening on Cybertron while “Infiltration” is progressing on Earth.

Newsarama has 5 pages of the book,  which sees Jetfire and the Technobots returning to Cybertron after it apparently was abandoned a long, long time ago.  Furman also confirms Thunderwing (pictured) is in fact the ‘big bad’ for this story, and that he’s been slightly re-imagined so his Pretender origins aren’t so hokey.  Frankly, I was amazed Simon Furman made a lot of the hokier G1, Armada, and Energon concepts so interesting with his writing, so if he’s going to re-write the rules here, I’ll trust him.

No sooner do I make mention of a tiny, tiny snippet of footage getting into a Coke commercial, a real new Superman Returns trailer is online.
Fire up your Quicktime, theres high-definition, streaming, and iPod download versions.
Image Gallery after the jump [Read the rest of this entry…]

The one time GameCube exclusive is being sent to another platform.
Resident Evil 4 will be released to Windows PCs in May courtesy of Ubisoft. The game appears to be a port of the generously expanded PS2 version, with the “Seperate Ways” campaign, extra costumes, and more weapons.
While its easy to make the arguement that the PS2 port of RE4 didn’t look quite as good as the GameCube original, I look forward to seeing what the game looks like on a high-end PC. Ubisoft has done some really graphically amazing games the last couple years, so I hope there are some enhancements and this isn’t just a straight port.
But if it is a straight port and this is your first chance to play this game: get off your butt and do it. Its as good as everyone says it is.

In what might qualify as the worst idea in the long sad history of bad ideas, the not-yet-launched CW network has announced its intent to produce a Legion Of Super Heroes series for broadcast later this year. Thanks to Superman Homepage for the scoop.
While “The Batman” has steadily increased in quality from a rather dismal first batch of episodes, they still have a long way to go before coming close to the legendary Batman The Animated Series. LSH intends to jump off that new “The Batman” continuity, as you can plainly see by the character designs. Justice League Unlimited touched on the Legion in Far From Home, but as you can see Brainiac 5 is way different looking and we’ve traded SuperGirl for a rather slender Superboy. Without seeing any actual animation, hearing any voices, or knowing plot details, its hard to say if this will be good or bad. But its easier to be pessimistic, so I’m running with that. Here’s the word direct from WB animation:

One thousand years from now, a group of teenage super heroes travel back in time to recruit the greatest hero of all, Superman, and enlist him their fight against evil in the 31st Century. While their intentions were good, their time travel skills were not, and Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, Brainiac 5, Phantom Girl, Bouncing Boy and Timber Wolf end up going too far back into the past, accidentally retrieving the young Superboy instead. Together, this unlikely Legion of Super Heroes bands together to defend the rights of all free worlds and uphold the laws of the newly formed United Planets. That is, if they don’t kill each other first.

LEGION OF SUPER HEROES combines humor with high-stakes, grand-scale super heroics to create the ultimate sci-fi, super hero fantasy for kids of all ages. Each episode of this fast-paced, character-driven action comedy will pit Superboy and the Legion against otherworldly threats and adversaries who challenge the team on both super heroic and emotional levels. The series is executive produced by Sander Schwartz, and produced by Linda Steiner and James Tucker for Warner Bros. Animation.

On somewhat related news, some really exciting Superman Returns footage has been released from an odd source: Coca-Cola. They’re featuring a few seconds of Supes flying through Metropolis and the much talked about Airplane sequence in a new ad campaign. You can see the relevant parts of this commercial from a download on Aint-It-Cool or just stop fast forwarding your TiVo and watch a commercial break sometime.