Today’s the big finish for WonderCon, and the upcoming animated DVDs from DC were the highlight of the day. Read on, OR ELSE…

DC:

• Superman/Doomsday is due to release on September 18th, 2007. Superman will be voiced by Adam Baldwin, Lois Lane gets Anne Heche, and Lex Luthor is James Marsters.
• The next film to be released will be DC: New Frontier.
• The third animated feature they’re working on – Teen Titans: The Judas Contract – is in pre-production, and will have a different animation style from the recent Teen Titans cartoon. They’ll also stick more tightly to the comic, to differentiate themselves from the similar arc on the series.
• Each movie will have its own ‘pocket’ continuity, where they’re not beholden to each other, or to the previous cartoons. Also, the movies will have more freedom in what they can do (read: they’re going to corrupt our youth with violence), as they aren’t made specifically for TV.
• The DVDs should have a decent amount of special features, like behind-the-scenes featurettes and other extras and games.
• After these three, they’re looking to do films for Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Catwoman in the future. (The OTHER Big 3 of DC, right?) Bruce Timm’s wishlist for the future includes: The Question, Jonah Hex, New Gods, Kamandi, and Challengers of the Unknown.

IDW:

• For Transformers books, we have an upcoming Spotlight on Kup and one for Galvatron, a Megatron Origin mini, and two “Best Of” books – one for Don Figueroa and one for Simon Furman.
• There will be a Star Trek: Original Series mini which will have two versions of each issue – one in English, one in Klingon. And I was just wondering what could be nerdier than merely mating Star Trek and comics…

GROO THE WANDERER:

• Like we said yesterday, the prognosis on the Groo/Conan crossover looking good.
• Also, Mark Evanier has completed a script for the “Groo the Wanderer” movie, and Sergio Aragonés has completed some art, but at the moment it’s still tied up in negotiations.

JJ Abrams, mastermind of the WB classic “Felicity,” is officially on board for the next Star Trek movie as director, and Paramount has announced that it will shoot this fall for a Christmas Day 2008 release. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Alias, The Island, Transformers) will write the screenplay. You can see the full press release here.

So thats the official line. What of the rumor mill? Cinematical has some reports on casting that sound kind of… suspect. When the word first went around of a series reboot, we heard stuff like Kirk & Spock in the Academy and young Star Trek. A prequel, like Muppet Babies. Now some names are flying around and depending on who you ask, they’re close to signing or already cast. But some of these actors are a bit older, so maybe the prequel thing is out the window. So who is who?

• Matt Damon as James T Kirk. I just watched The Departed last night looking for Kirk and I think he can do it. Damon is one of the best, and the only thing he’ll do that Shatner didn’t is give a performance without camp.
• Adrien Brody as Mister Spock. Another great actor, an Academy Award winner at that. The hardest part about Vulcans is taking them seriously with those ears, especially for someone so well known already.
• Danel Dae Kim as Hikaru Sulu. He’s best known as Jin Kwon on LOST, but also has some experience on Trek. He played Corporal Chang in 3 episodes of Enterprise!
• Gary Sinise as Dr Leonard McCoy. I can think of few others more suited toward the role as the incredulous ship’s doctor. He comes on board much older than the rest of the crew, and certainly older than Deforest Kelly in the original series.

It remains to be seen how this will pan out, but Star Trek definitely needs some help now or this franchise will die.

Yesterday, at a panel at Wondercon Greg Weisman announced that a new Gargoyles spinoff comic “The Bad Guys” would be released. The name seems to indicate this comic would have something to do with some villains of some kind. This book would, like the current Gargoyles comic, also be released on a bi-monthly schedule so that between the two books one would be released every month.

This will be a nice change of pace from the 5 to 6 month delay between issues that fans have become used to with the last 2 issues that were released in the better part of the last year.

This article goes on to explain some interesting tidbits about the show’s early creation and discusses reasons for the delays to the comic we’re supposed to be ignoring with a smile. Oh sorry I know I’m bringing on God’s fury by saying things like that. Where’s issue 3 again? Even Civil War’s had time to wrap up.

Here’s hoping this will be as good a comic as we still hope the first book will be once they start telling new stories.

GameTrailers recently had a user movie contest and this gem was the clear winner.

Lets start this off with some good news on a freebie: Game|Life reports that the first ever release of a high-definition episode of South Park will hit Xbox Live Marketplace. Starting Tuesday March 6, the Season 8 classic “Good Times With Weapons” will be available to Gold members for no cost for 2 weeks. Those without Xbox 360 or Live can still get the episode: On March 20 Best Buy is giving an HD-DVD for free with the purchase of any Xbox HD DVD player or a 360.

Personally, I grabbed Alien Hominid and Ms Pac-Man on Live Arcade this week. Alien Hominid is about the hardest game I’ve ever played on XBLA, and includes a boss event I cannot pass because I have no idea what to shoot. Ms Pac-Man I cleared all 200 Achievement points in under 2 hours. Go figure. Worms HD finally drops next week for another 800 points ($10), but I’ll pass until I actually finish Alien Hominid.

Tekken finally made it to the North American Playstation Network. Which is pretty good if you have a 1080p TV, don’t own the PS2 or the PSP versions. Nah, its budget priced and worth your dollar to get it in the prettiest format available. I understand you can buy Jin a new hat in this one. The much hyped Warhawk sequel from Sony has been downgraded from a full game to a Multiplayer-only download title. Well at least they won’t charge you an arm and a leg for it now.

The best game on the download circuit this week has to go to the best game ever made, The Legend Of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. Nearly a decade after release, its still got the highest rating of any game released before or since. $10 is a hefty sum on Wii‘s Virtual Console, but considering how vast the game is, its a bargain. Nintendo obviously knows how awesome this is, as its been released on the GameCube twice, but if you missed those or (god forbid) the N64 original, now is the time.

Well, in case today’s news updates don’t tip you off, Marvel & DC handed WonderCon the crap end of the stick when it came to breaking the news, compared to NYCC. Thank God for the smaller publishers! And hey, they’re previewing the 300 movie tonight, ain’t that’s pretty sweet too. Hey, here’s the news!

DARK HORSE COMICS:

• New books include an Abe Sapien book, reprints of Matt Wagner’s original Grendel issues (to celebrate the 25th anniversary), a new Grendel book, and, awesomest of the awesome…
• A possible GROO/CONAN crossover. SO AWESOME.

SLAVE LABOR GRAPHICS:

• They’re working on a downloadable-comic plan, and talking about a 69 cent ‘cover price.’ Not a bad pricing scheme.
• Gargoyles #3 has been done for THREE WEEKS. The holdup? Disney. Issues 4-6 will have fill-in art to catch up, which is just sad.

BOOM! STUDIOS:

• Amidst numerous new books launching, Giffen & DeMatteis’s Hero Squared will end at issue #9. My wretched eyes quiver in sorrow!

It won’t be out on this side of the ocean until June 22nd 2007 but this movie was released in Australia and many parts of Europe last year. Here’s a look at what we can expect from what will surely be this summer’s greatest blockbuster.

If you really can’t wait to check out this great movie you can go ahead and import the Dead or Alive DVD from Amazon UK. Note that this movie is region 2 and PAL encoded so it won’t work in all DVD players. If importing’s not your thing then you should just get yourself in the mood by buying a Dead or Alive video game from the normal Amazon and help support the site.

Learn about how Hitomi is technically a guy and other trivia about this movie after the jump.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Well, it’s another weekend, so I guess that means it’s time for another comic convention.
…Really? Ok, I guess so. Here’s the news –

DC:

• Based on a little anecdote (A fan asked that they keep their weekly series the same price, and Didio put 50 cents on the table, saying “I’ve got your first one covered”) it sounds like Countdown gets a 50 cent price hike. Nice.
• Green Arrow ends at issue #75, with Green Arrow proposing to Black Canary.
• There’ll be a Black Canary miniseries running at the same time as this summer’s Green Arrow: Year One.
• WWIII will be “Black Adam versus everybody.”
• A Metal Men miniseries is coming.

More news as it comes…

Source: Newsarama.com