Hero Squared #3
Written by Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis, art by Joe Abraham

The setup so far: Milo’s self in an alternate universe is Captain Valor. But in this universe, Milo’s just a lazy, immature ass. Too bad Captain Valor’s universe got DESTROYED by Caliginous, his arch-enemy, because now he’s stuck here with Milo. In this universe, up until recently, Milo was dating Stephie. That is, until he hooked up with the Stephie from Captain Valor’s universe… who just so happens to be the super-villainess Caliginous. Got it?

All of last issue was spent in a therapist meeting for Milo, who dragged Captain Valor along for the ride. It was thoroughly entertaining, and while there isn’t always a lot that happened in each issue, it’s always rife with the classic “Bwa-ha-ha”-larity and meaningful characterization that Giffen and DeMatteis are so beloved for.

So, if you like the Super Buddies, or the recent Defenders mini they did, then this is the book you need to be reading. You’ll probably have to shakedown your comic shop guy if you want to buy one though, because I know my guy only orders two – one for me, and one for the other guy that reads it.

Of course, if you didn’t like their previous work, then I can’t really recommend this to you. It’s clearly too much for your fragile mind to handle. Go read something dark and gloomy instead, like the newspaper.

There was a lot of Transformers news in the past few days that we passed over, so I wanted to do a quick round up of some of the things we missed in case you missed it too.

First off, the lenticular cover art was revealed for the 20th Anniversary release of The Transformers: The Movie. That can be seen here. Its a large animated gif, so it may take a minute to load. Magnus seems to have gotten the shaft on this one.

The Hartmans’ shared some images of a ‘few’ items they will be bringing with them to Botcon to be sold. The Hartmans’ have what is generally believed to be the most complete collection of Transformers and have stated that it will be on sale at Botcon. The images can be seen here on the 2005 boards. The wall of American carded figures alone leaves me speechless.

Registration letters and events schedules should be arriving in the mail for those who have pre-registered for Botcon.

An image of an upcoming 2-pack in the Classics line surfaced. It features a repaint of Prime as Ultra Magnus and Starscream as Skywarp. The package indicates it will be a Target Exclusive.

The peoples at e-Hobby have listed Rodimus on their site, with a very nice collection of pictures showing his all the new features that he comes with. Check out this boner-riffic repaint below.

Link.

Saw the trailer for this new Martin Scorsese film “The Departed” the other day. Its a remake of a Hong Kong film Internal Affairs, part of a trilogy of acclaimed thrillers.
Leonard Dicaprio plays an undercover state cop infiltrating the Irish Mob in Boston, led by Jack Nicholson; who is stepping away from comedy for the first time in over a decade(with the exception of “The Pledge” which was terrible). Meanwhile, Matt Damon is a mob ally within the police force, keeping the criminals safe. Also featured are Martin Sheen, Marky Mark Wahlberg, and Alec Baldwin: The Greatest Actor Of All Time.
Scorsese is noted for his crime movies, I’m going to personally look forward to this movie a great deal.

How ridiculous is it that every news site is running with “Brian K. Vaughan” headlines, when it’s the entire creative team leaving the book? I’d buck the trend, but I get limited space in that title bar. Sorry Adrian Alphona!

Yes, that’s right, Brian K. Vaughan AND artist Adrian Alphona are leaving the book with issue #24, leaving them with only 5 more issues to share with us. Read Vaughan’s own words HERE, from his site. To sum up, here’s a small excerpt:

“This was entirely my idea. While Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina have planned endings, I’ve always said that I hoped Runaways would last forever, long after I left the series. I never wanted Runaways to become a vanity book that was dependent on its original creators’ involvement; I wanted our kids to be able to eventually run away from us, and find new life apart from their ‘parents.’

“I can say with a great deal of confidence that these next five issues are the pinnacle of the series, and Adrian and I decided that the best thing for the Runaways would be to hand them off to new creators on this high note, rather than risk overstaying our welcome until we ran ourselves–and the book–into the ground.”

We won’t find out who the new team is until next week, but I don’t think anyone’s expecting to hear names that can outperform the series’ original creators.

Sadly, this comes not too long before Y: The Last Man will be ending (at issue 60, as he’d always intended). So what will Vaughan be doing with his free time?

Maybe more work on books like the new one he’s got coming out, called Pride of Baghdad. If you haven’t heard of it, you need to pay better attention. As the NY Times article/interview reiterates, the book will be arriving in stores on September 13th, and it provides the story of a group of lions that “escape a zoo in Iraq during an American bombing raid.” Sounds almost cute at first blush, but if you read the articles, it becomes clear that it’s nothing of the sort. I have no doubt it will be at least as deep, meaningful, and impacting as his previous work, if not moreso. More info available in his Newsarama interview.

In an effort to do more around here, I’m going to start posting any cool customs I see on the net, and once in a while, put up some stuff I have in my files, which is pretty expansive (200+ MBs in size).

So I’ll start off with Freestyle’s Deluxe Primus. Hit the links for the full gallery.

AICN has posted three images of Optimus Prime from the upcoming Transformers Movie coming in 2007. I have mirrored them below after the jump. These images are much clearer than the images that surfaced several weeks ago.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

From now on, instead of writing 2 different columns each week, my $20 GOTY and Buried Treasures sections will be combined into 1 big juicy post. This will ensure that you don’t miss anything, especially from the other writers. Also, this is important becuase this week will be extra big. You’ll know why as soon as you finish reading this sentence.

It’s the day after labor day, and while other news sites might chill out after the holidays, I double up! That means you get 2 articles this week. Oh waitaminute, it’s been 1 year since I started doing the $20 GOTY, so that means I gotta add in 1 more to celebrate. Two of these games you may have seen before, becuase they got lost when we switched to word press and they were so dope, I needed an excuse to look at them again. Besides, it will be a first time a lot of you will be seeing them anyhow, especially if you’re reading this on Area 4:51. So without further ado, come ride with me [to the bargin bin at your local gamestop]. [Read the rest of this entry…]