Dynamo 5
written by Jay Faerber, art by Mahmud Asrar

When Captain Dynamo died, his widow discovered he’d been unfaithful. Now, as his enemies descend on his unprotected city, Captain Dynamo’s widow rounds up his five illegitimate children, each of whom have inherited one of their father’s super-powers.

Kind of sucks to be Captain Dynamo’s widow. Not only does she find out about her husband’s infidelity, she also has to hunt down his illegitimate children, and then she has to flaunt his infidelity in her own face by sending out these children to follow and fight in his footsteps.

Honestly, it’s tough to say too much more about this book, as I’ve never read Faerber’s popular Noble Causes book, which this spins indirectly out of. All I know is that it successfully (financially as well as storywise) deals with family in the superhero context too. And honestly, the idea of these kids being asked to avenge a father who wasn’t there for them has my interest piqued all on its own. I’m definitely onboard for the first issue, and you should be too.

Yesterday we reported on a new Gargoyles Spin-off Comic, “The Bad Guys”, which was announced at Wondercon. More news on the subject has been clarified in this message from Greg Weisman.

The series will be black and white and have a 6 issue run. Following a bi-monthly schedule it is planned to start in October of this year.

Frequent readers of the Gargoyles creator’s Ask Greg may be familiar with this concept already.

Back when the Gargoyles TV series was still on the air Greg had ideas for a number of Gargoyles spin-off shows including “The Bad Guys”, which was the series which came closest to realisation. It only stands to reason that this comic will closely resemble the story planned out for this spin-off series.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

IESB reports producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura has approached Mark Wahlberg for the role of Duke in the long delayed GI Joe movie, and further, Walhberg has agreed to it!

I’ve been sitting on a copy of the script for a couple years now, kind of sure that this movie would never get made. But with Transformers poised to be one of the biggest movies of 2007, di Bonaventura is obviously chomping at the bit to get his other hot action figure property into production.

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.