Civil War brings us two issues this week, Ms. Marvel #6 and Front Line #5. Ms. Marvel was an unpalatable turd rating a grade of D / C, and Front Line was excellent as usual, rating an B+ / B-. To get an explanation of why, and to gorge yourself on spoilers a’plenty, continue on. [Read the rest of this entry…]

SQUADRON SUPREME #6
by J. Michael Straczynski and Gary Frank

Tomorrow, Marvel’s hitting us with issue #6 of Squadron Supreme, written by J. Michael Straczynski (JMS, for short – AKA the mastermind of Babylon 5). Now, for those of you who just crawled out of the ocean and grew legs, Squadron Supreme is a book Marvel put out in the 1980s which starred analogues of DC’s Justice League, but it did them in a much darker, more ‘real-world’ fashion, beating The Authority to the punch by over a decade. It’s considered a classic to this day. A couple years back, JMS took up the torch, and kicked off the series with a fresh start, calling it Supreme Power.

You might be asking yourself why I’d bother telling you to pick up a series at issue #6. Well, before the book was called Squadron Supreme, when it was running under the title of Supreme Power, the first issue I grabbed was #4. It was an issue that focused on Nighthawk – the Batman analogue. What I saw left a bit of an impression:

At the time, the book was under the MAX imprint. Now that it’s under Marvel Knights we won’t be seeing anything quite that ruthless, sadly. But my point is, I needed little other than that issue to run with the series. And the upcoming issue #6, which (as I’ve noted) hits the stands tomorrow, is similarly a Nighthawk-focused issue. Since this is the first real time we’ll be seeing the guy in a year, it should be a good re-introduction to the character. And it should be a good introduction to the book.

Try it out. And if you like it, you’ll be onboard well before the Ultimate Universe crossover drops. Which will make you WAY cooler than all your friends.

The days of Pilotwings 64 and Wave Race: Blue Storm are a distant memory.

Nintendo appears to be getting huge support from 3rd parties, with Ubisoft promising 7 launch titles, including the previously announced Red Steel and Rayman. PC/Xbox island survivor shooter Far Cry will likely get the Wii off to a good start with a solid online multiplayer. Monster 4×4 World Circuit and GT Pro Series will add racing action, and Ubisoft is also planning an adaptation of the forthcoming animated movie Open Season. Finally, theres Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII, which is about squadrons of WWII or something. Prince of Persia has been mentioned but not yet confirmed.

Thats not all! Midway is in on the act too. The Chicago based publisher will bring Rampage: Total Destruction, Blitz: The League, and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon! While all 3 of these are current gen titles, they have no presence on the PS3 or 360. Rampage is an update on a classic arcade game. Blitz is a football title stripped of the NFL license but beefed up with arcade play and a more true to life atmosphere. MK: Armageddon is the final installment in the legendary fighting franchise, featuring every character in the series thus far (see right).

EA’s been eerily silent on the Wii but plan on Madden NFL, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, SSX, Need for Speed, Harry Potter, and The Godfather to make it out sometime. Madden NFL and Need For Speed are the only titles from their camp likely to make it out in the launch window, but the rest won’t be far behind.

Sega’s Sonic Wildfire has slippsed to the beginning of 2007, but Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz is planned for launch.

Finally, Activision is going to port Marvel Ultimate Alliance to Wii as well, giving the Wii an awesome action RPG and comic books fan’s dream all in one.

Thats over a dozen third party games to hit on or near launch for the Wii! And don’t forget they’ve still got Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3, Mario Galaxy, and Super Smash Brothers Brawl.

Also, if you love reading tech specs, look at a breakdown of the Wii, and if you like rumors, check out the The Ultimate Wii Rumour Compilation . All that stuff is secondary to what we’re really excited about: a ton of good games.

I’ll try to compile some info on the PS3 launch too when I get more info. But honestly, just look at whats happening here. Nintendo in less than a year’s time has gone from the 3rd place purple box to the developer darling. Got to admit, its getting better. Getting better, all the time….

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It looks like Fox will announce on Friday that X-Men: The Last Stand will be coming to DVD on October 3rd in two different forms. One will be a standard release special edition with 10 deleted scenes. The special special edition will feature 3 alternate endings to the movie. A box set of all 3 X-Men movies will also be made available.

In other X3 news, FX has picked up the rights for the movie to air on television along with a whole mess of other recent and current high profile movies. You can expect to be seeing X3 10 times a day on FX soon enough. At least it won’t be as compelling to sit down every time its on and watch like X2 was.

Ok fans, get comfortable because there are a LOT of updates in this one. Instead of the usual breaking up the updates by company, this time around I’m going to break it up by properties (ie. Transformers, Marvel Superheroes, Star Trek, etc)

To view all the updates, continue on after the jump. Please note that I will be updating this constantly for a while until I feel I got everything I needed to.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

The biggest news in the Halo universe this week (this week having no Halo 3 news of course) is that Marvel and Bungie are going forth with an ongoing Halo comic book.

Frank O’Conner was also caught by a pirate at ComiCon, which explains why he didn’t pen this week’s update.

I found out about Halowiki, which is vast repository of information on Halo 2’s multiplayer. These guys are experts and mapped out every advantage and weakness of every weapon on every map. Best of all, they’re sharing the knowledge so we can all be better players. Of course it goes without saying they beat Bungie in 3 game match.

Last week some friends got up in arms about Oscar Winner Denzel Washington playing Master Chief John Spartan. Denzel was in New Zealand recently and was spotted chatting with Richard Taylor of the Weta special effects design team (Lord Of The Rings, King Kong). Apparently theres something wrong with a highly respected and talented actor lifting this franchise beyond its inferred b-grade game roots. Well relax, denizens of the internets: according to AICN Denzel was just making a visit to Weta workshop for another movie he’s directing. Richard Taylor isn’t even working on Halo, since Bungie is doing all art and conceptualization in-house. Weta is just going to build and model what Bungie designs.

If you like boxart and you like fan art, then how about some fan box art? With limited elements at hand and no knowledge of the game itself, these are some convincing Halo 3 covers.

Finally, Joyride studios made a new ODST figure for ComiCon. He’s limited to only 1200, and is probably gone by now. I can’t imagine how much this will fetch on the secondary market as first wave figures like Sgt Johnson already command $80 and over.

Day 2!

Once again, keep checking back because I am updating this as I find stuff through tomorrow afternoon, when I start Day 3’s coverage. Details for Day 2 after the jump.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

I will be updating this post throughout the day with news and announcements as I find them. I will include coverage of last night’s previews as well.

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