CNN reports the Senior Senator from Vermont has been cast in a cameo in The Dark Knight, the next Batman movie.

Patrick Leahy is professed comic book fan, and this will be his third appearance with Batman. He was an extra in the movie Batman & Robin and was the voice of the Arizona Governor in the Batman: The Animated Series episode “Showdown”

Like the rest of the cast, he isn’t talking about his role, except to say that he did share the scene with Christian Bale and Heath Ledger(Batman and The Joker, respectively).

BillyVsSteve.com is the official site for “The King Of Kong: A Fistfull Of Quarters” a documentary film about Billy Mitchell, the worlds greatest Donkey Kong player; and Steve Wiebe, the man who set out to beat him.
The movie opens this weekend in select cities and will be expanding in the weeks that follow. You can see the schedule here, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask your local indie movie house if they’ll get a print soon.

OK, this is the messy part I didn’t want to talk about in my GI Joe update from yesterday. The GI Joe movie has to appeal to an international audience, so it can’t be all US Military. If Mark Wahlberg is Duke, then they need his British counter part, Action Man. Not the most creative name in the world, but its historically correct. The Crank, The Snatch, and The Transporter Jason Statham could be that Action Man according to IESB.

But wait, we’re talking about an adaptation of the old Real American Hero line, right? That was Action Force, and those comics and cartoons were just rebranded by title; Duke, Flint, General Hawk and the rest were still the same guys. Maybe Statham can play Big Ben?

I’ll follow this story to the bloody end, but I’m just going say now that this movie needs fans to speak up and save it like Transformers did. Tom Desanto and Don Murphy understood the rabid fanbase and tried to find some middle ground in Transformers and whether you loved the movie or hated it, they did balance the classic with the new pretty well. GI Joe needs fans to start writing studios and start making ridiculous message board proclaimations now if they want this movie to even remotely resemble the Real American Hero series or comics.

Now that we’ve opened up the casting call, who would you like to to see? Michael Clarke Duncan as Roadblock? Scarlett Johansson as Scarlett? Shia Labeouf as Duke Jr? Leave a comment!

                                                     Picture courtesy of Draw!

Earlier today Newsarama broke the news that industry legend Mike Wieringo had passed away from a heart attack. Wieringo was probably best known for his runs on The Flash (where he co-created the character Impulse) and Fantastic Four, both with writer Mark Waid. Most recently he had just finished up a run on Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man with Peter David and the miniseries Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four with Jeff Parker. Mike was regarded as one of the nicest, most humble guys in the business. He was only 44. Our thoughts and condolences go out to his friends and family.

For more details, please read the original Newsarama article here.
UPDATE: Newsarama has also added a few words from Mike’s friends and colleagues Mark Waid and Tom Dezago here.

Can lightening strike twice? And by asking that I don’t mean can another toy become successful movie, I mean can a director of critically panned fair win over legions of fans by balancing a mainstream and hardcore audience?

Stephen Sommers, the man behind the Brendan Fraser “Mummy” movies and the absolutely dreadful Van Helsing is now rumored to be the pick for directing Hasbro’s GI Joe.

Now Transformers essentially had its hardest work ahead of the effects team: making convincing characters came easy once you were convinced they could be real. GI Joe has some great characters too, but they are merely human, and it’ll take more than a guy dressed like Snake Eyes who doesn’t talk to get audiences to show up. Theres also that huge problem of this being a military movie and keeping it safe for kids. Transformers got away with all the violence and gunplay because it never showed a drop of blood and most of it was between non-human performers. Lets not kid ourselves, the villains need to be Cobra Commander, Destro, and The Baroness leading thousands of disposable soldiers.

Is Sommers up to the job? I honestly don’t think so, but I’ve been surprised before when Bryan Singer dropped the ball on Superman and Michael Bay surpassed expectations on Transformers. Getting Mark Wahlberg would help, but this needs to be handled very carefully.

From IESB

This game stands alongside Chrono Trigger as one of Squaresoft/Square Enix’s best role playing games not named Final Fantasy. Although it had a few significant flaws, it’s battle system, music (which was composed by Chrono Trigger soundtrack composer Yasunori Mitsuda), and storyline more than made up for them. The game contained references to Freudian psychology, and it was heavy on religious overtones (in fact Square stated in a press release that it may be hard to bring the game over here due to it’s adaptation of Christian themes, but thankfully it was released, with minimal controversy, and only a few changes being made to the characters and story to boot). Oh, and there was another thing that made it different for it’s time: GIANT ROBOTS!
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Among some unexpected news from Wizard World Chicago, it appears DST has put on display the previously unannounced wave 8 of the DC Minimate line. The line appears to include Cyborg, Raven, The Question, Salakk, Batwoman, Sinestro, Red Son Superman and Red Son Wonder Woman.

News came from MinimateHQ, while the image came from Fwooshnet.com.

It’s been a big week for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console. Between all the price drops, new models, and updates it may be difficult to keep track of all that’s happening in the world of Xbox. That’s why we at Powet have put together this Xbox 360 Week in Review to keep you guys up-to-date on everybody’s favorite concave & rectangular next-generation gaming device.

Read on for more.
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