They’re getting the band back together, man.
Newsarama readers contributed 19 pages of questions to the new Justice League writer Brad Meltzer. He answered every single one.
Part One is online now, with more Q&A later in the week.
Justice League of America relaunches tomorrow with #0, with Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman rebuilding the shattered team from scratch. Meltzer won’t reveal who will make the cut, but after his fascinating work on “Identity Crisis” in 2004, I can’t think of a better person to determine the future of the team.

During the early part of the PS2’s lifecycle, the original Timesplitters emerged as a FPS game which would quickly challenge the norms of the genre.  It was designed by Free Radical, a studio made up of programmers who had worked on Goldeneye and Perfect Dark for Nintendo 64, so there was already a lot going into it.  It featured some innovative weaponry, a plot spanning several time periods, numerous multiplayer modes, and most of all, a map maker.

A few years later, a sequel came out for all current generation systems.  The stages were bigger, there were even more crazy weapons and multiplayer modes, and the map maker’s functionality had been expanded to allow players to create story mode missions.  It was yet another class expierence,  but still something was missing: online play.

Last year, EA took control of the licence, and released TImesplitters Future perfect.  The series now has a cohesive plot, and the levels are much more multi-faceted.  You play as Cortez as he jumps through different time periods hoping to trace the origin of the timesplitters.  In each period he teams up with a different assistant character as he completes his objectives.  More importantly, the series was online for the first time, and players can create maps to upload and download to and from the internet (except the gamecube version).  This includes storymode missions as well.  In fact, I have a few uploaded to Xbox live under the gamertag “screwfacecapone”.  Even though this is a conclusion to the series, hopefully Free Radical can create more innovative FPS titles on the next generation systems.

Richard Linklater’s film adaptation of the story by Phillip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly is the semi-Autobiographical story of Dick’s own battles with substance abuse and his perceived course of the drug war.

Published in 1977, his bleak outlook gave us only 7 years until everything we say and do is monitored. Obviously, the current world climate nearly 30 years later is coming closer to that becoming a reality than ever.

Keanu Reeves plays the role of Robert Arctor, an undercover narcotics agent who has to ingest dangerous amounts of the drug he’s trying to get off the streets in order to maintain his cover. The drug “Substance D” causes brain damage and combining that with his already split identity causes Arctor to slowly lose grip on reality. Woody Harrelson, Robert Downey Jr, Winona Ryder, and Rory Cochrane round out the cast as Reeve’s perpetually stoned friends.

Linklater took great care with the visual style of this movie, using a rotoscoping technique where actors are filmed and then had animation cells and computer effects painted over the original film. While the film rarely takes upon any action that one might associate with producing a feature in such a manner, the story calls for some events and visuals where the medium is pitch perfect.
With Total Recall, Blade Runner, and Minority Report already successful adaptations of Phillip K Dick stories, this one is much more subdued, a lot less action packed, more paranoid, and as a result, more faithful to the source material.

The score by the Golden Arm Trio with songs by Radiohead and Thom Yorke assists the ambiance of a “world getting progressively worse.”

Some may be turned off by the film’s lack of motion. Its also hurts that a so clearly science-fiction concept in its time resembles life today so closely. Had the film been made 10, 20 years ago in the same way, it would’ve seemed revolutionary and controversial. But its concepts are so accepted as fact or eventualities that it becomes too easy to pick apart the drama and characters.

But thats OK. Not every head trip movie has to be for every person who liked head trip movies. Certainly Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas was a failure in theatrical release, but a favorite on dvd years later. A Scanner Darkly may take a few years to reach its ultimate audience.

I can say, however, that I enjoyed it.

Trailer: A Scanner Darkly

Botcon.com has posted official images of the next exclusive for this year’s official Transformers convention. We have seen many pictures of this figure on ebay and elsewhere surface for the past couple months, but here it is finally in official paint scheme.

 

You might remember the previously announced figures, but if not here’s whats official so far:

• Optimus Primal
• Dinobot
• Cheetor
• Rhinox

Unofficially we’ve also seen:

• A repainted Cybertron Defense Red Alert with remolded head as Megatron
• A repainted RID Windshear with remolded head as Waspinator
• A repainted energon divebomb that could be Terrorsaur

From this it seems pretty obvious we’re not just getting a maximal set of figures, but we can only speculate on that for the time being until things play themselves out.

Also, I was pretty disappointed that news of Rattrap’s revealing was not trickled through the email list of the Collector’s Club first. If I’m paying an annual US$40-60 membership, I expect news like this to be given to the members first and not have to find out via another news site, especially where the club and convention are so tightly coordinated.

Activision just sent out an email:

“Kurt Wagner, a.k.a. the whip-tailed blue mutant Nightcrawler, will be appearing as an NPC alongside more than 140 Super Heroes in the upcoming next-gen super-game, Marvel™: Ultimate Alliance, and Super Hero Newsletter subbers are the first to know!”

Wow, a whole email dedicated to announcing a non-playabled character. Way to keep me informed, Activision. Wasn’t Nightcrawler playable in X-Men Legends?

In other news, Marvel Ultimate Alliace is a video game that will be distributed on a digital versatile disc that can be interfaced with by way of an electronic gaming console or personal computer.

Here’s a wallpaper.

Who would win in a fight between Batman and Wolverine? What if Wolverine didn’t have mutant powers? What if Batman was a magician instead of a detective?

Well, this post is about a stupid as I’ve ever written within the first line, but what I’m getting as is Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale are starring in a movie by Batman Begins director Christopher Nolan called “The Prestige” and it looks pretty solid. They play a pair of magicians at the turn of the century who each seek to create tricks that dumbfound the other, which boils into a bitter rivalry.

The movie also stars David Bowie as famed scientist Nikola Tesla. Amazingly, I’m not making that up. Thats really David Bowie in a fake mustache playing Tesla. Michael Caine and Scarlette Johansson round out the cast.

The Prestige trailer is available online in the usualy small, medium, and large varieties as well as iPod and HD versions. Of course I’ll reccomend you just click the 720p or 1080p one and wait for it to load. This movie looks like fun, and its due out October 27th, just in time for Halloween.

Sony Pictures has released a new back-lit lenticular teaser movie poster for Spider-Man 3 to theaters. SuperHeroHype got their hands on an image of this poster and have posted it for our viewing pleasure.

Grab your gravity gun, Half Life 2 is making a second pass at consoles.
After a positive, but decidedly lukewarm, reception for the bare-bones Xbox release last year, the top rated PC game of 2004 will arrive on PS3 and Xbox360 at the same time the second episode for the PC is released.
Valve’s Gabe Newell spoke at an EA Press event today and said not only would the full Episode 1 and 2 be packed in with Half Life 2, but they’re also throwing in Team Fortress 2 and a new title called “Portal”
This could not come at a better time for me personally. I just finished Half Life 2 on Xbox tonight, and I’m itching to get my hands on Episode 1 (I’m in the Mac camp, so Valve’s games have been off-limits to me unless they get ported).
The Xbox release also lacked any multiplayer at all, which was a big difference from the PC version where you’d get Counter Strike Source and Half Life 2: Deathmatch. Still, the game by itself is glorious achievement to even get running a standard Xbox, I was happy to play, even with PS1 style load times and downgraded graphics (from the PC, compared to other Xbox titles, Half life looks fantastic)
For all its acclaim, this will be the first chance for many console players to try Half Life for the first time. And even though the game will be 2 years old by then, I anticipate a smashing success.
Wake up, Dr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the consoles!