Spoiler alert!! War of the Green Lanterns begins!

 The latest issue of Green Lantern has served as a prolgue to the Spring event: War of the Green Lanterns.

The issue contained the movie preview (left) and the last panel of the story hints that we will be losing one of our four Earth-born Green Lanterns.

Will one die?

Will one join another Corps?

Honestly though, I don't see any of them dying.

We could lose Hal to the Sinestro Corps or Guy to the Red Lanterns, but they aren't going to kill off three really popular characters or John Stewart (even though he hasn't really done anything since Kyle made him a new GL ring, except for being in the cartoon).

As long as Kyle still has a book, I'll be happy.

Star Wars 3D cinema releases

The cinematic release of the Star Wars saga in 3D will begin with Episode I: The Phantom Menace in February 2012. Will this be wonderful, probably not. Do these films need much more tinkering with? With the exception of some snipping in the prequel trilogy, probably not.
Should we just shut up and enjoy the fact that we get to watch them at the cinema again? Hell yes! I mean, the original trilogy hasn't been shown at the cinema since 1997. For those who suck at maths, that'll be a 15 year gap. Lucas doesn't let these guys out to play very often and some fans will have never seen the original trilogy at the cinema. That first Star Destroyer shot was made for the cinema and it will probably be the shot that translates to 3D with the greatest effect.
Verdict: Unnecessary, but enjoy.


Source: DailyBlam

20th Century Fox and LucasFilm have officially announced the theatrical re-release of the first STAR WARS film in the six-part saga; which was first teased to fans in September of last year.

Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox announced today that the 3D theatrical launch of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace now has an official release date – February 10, 2012!
Set against the thrilling and exotic backdrop of a “galaxy far, far away,” Star Wars is perfectly suited to the immersive 3D theatrical experience, and Episode I delivers some of the Saga’s most stunning and spectacular sequences – from the Naboo invasion to the Tatooine Podraces to the climactic lightsaber battle between Darth Maul and the Jedi.
Supervised by Industrial Light & Magic, the meticulous conversion is being done with utmost respect for the source material, and with a keen eye for both technological considerations and artistic intentions.

Green lantern: Emerald Knights DVD cover

The cover art has been release and it looks perfect. I couldn't have hoped for any better.
Enjoy.

Source: DailyBlam

David Cage urges designers to make games for adults

The head of Quantic Dream, creator of Farenheit and Heavy Rain, has urged vidoe game creators to adopt his philosiphy for game making. This looks toward pitching games at intelligent adults and trying to do new things with the medium, rather than relying on FPS etc.
I think that he's completely right, whilst his own games both had flaws, they were distinct and interesting. The majority of videogames don't even catch my eye because they look like carbon copies of each other or are dumbed down to meet a younger audience than their age rating would suggest. Occasionally we get really great stand out titles that do something special with a genre, but how often do we get games that just refuse to fit into a genre?

David Cage is not afraid to show his frustration with the video games industry at large. Its part of what makes him so engaging, so passionate - and so proud of what his lean French studio, Quantic Dream, has achieved.

At GDC 2011 in San Francisco today, Cage stood resolute in front of a packed room of coders, writers, artists and designers with a clear message: It's about time video games finally grew up.

Here we reproduce a large chunk of his comments, which were met with not a little respect - and plenty of loud applause...

With most games and the designs we as an industry offer, we clearly target teenagers. Most games are based on violence and/or physical actions.


What do you do in most video games? You shoot. You kill. You destroy something with violence. Or you jump on platforms, you climb, you run, you do physical actions.

These two activities are what you do in most video games out there. The consequence of all this is that video games become, most of the time, meaningless. You have a gun and you shoot at enemies to go through the level, to fight a boss... to go to the next level to fight more enemies and more bosses.

The game tells me I'm the good guy, although I'm a mass murderer - because I have to kill thousands of people in order to be that good guy. Where's the meaning in all this? Kissing the princess in the end as your reward?

There is no real meaning that is possible when the only thing the hero can do is shoot other people or jump on platforms. As a consequence, most games are emotionally limited. The kind of emotions you feel in most games are quite basic; they are about frustration, competition, anger. These are the kind of feelings games give you.

But there are many other emotions out there. You can feel empathy - and some games do that very well. But there is sadness, there is guilt - there are many more subtle emotions available that very few video games try to trigger.

In any type of experience, what matters is not so much what you do - it's how you feel. When you see a painting, you don't enjoy just standing in a museum watching the paint; what you like is how it makes you feel. When you go to the cinema, you don't just enjoy sitting in the dark and watching moving images on a screen; what you like is what you feel.

Why not, in games design, focus on what the player is feeling second-to-second? Storytelling seems to be the best way to trigger these emotions, which need to be as varied, subtle and complex as possible. Triggering only one emotion is boring. People like the emotional rollercoaster. Why should interactivity be any different from all the storytelling mediums that humanity has invented so far?


Video games are also based on the same repetitive mechanisms. What you do in a video game is basically involves ten actions. And when you press buttons in a certain order or timing - and if you are quick enough - you can go through a level and see another one. This isn't new; you always do the same thing in these games. That's another limitation.

The last problem is probably the worst. When you think about it, video games have been based on the same paradigms for 13 years. The technology has made tremendous progress in that time - it's amazing. But when you think about the concepts of games, most of the time, you can take the last game you played and compare it to a game that was released 20 years ago. They are both probably based on the same basic rules.

In Heavy Rain, we tried to answer all of these challenges. The first one was to make a game that would clearly feature adult themes and tone. The tagline for Heavy Rain is: "How far are you prepared to go to save someone you love?" It's a very complex and difficult question.

Then there was the themes that we wanted to talk about - of course love, but also redemption, guilt. These kind of complex feelings.

And then there was the story - which if you take it in a cruel way, was about child abduction. When I pitched this game to publishers, I told them: "Yeah, I've made this game. It's about love, redemption guilt and child abduction." It was often not a success.

But what we wanted was to tell something meaningful. We didn't want you to be the good guy fighting the bad guy. We wanted you to be this normal guy - who could be me or you or anyone - who is confronted by specific events that totally change his life.


We hoped players would be surprised to go through many different emotions; to make an imprint in their mind. We didn't want the audience to turn on the console and say: "Yeah, that's great. Now what else?"

We wanted the audience to remember this game for a long time; to think about the characters, the situations and what they've done. We wanted these things to follow them for a while and be just a small part of their culture - like the best movies they've seen or the best books they've read. That was our objective.

We wanted to offer varied interactions for a very simple reason: I don't know how to tell a good story if my hero can only shoot and run. I don't think there is a good story to be told when that's all you can do. We needed to find a way to change that; to allow our hero to do whatever we wanted him to do. It was about freeing our characters.

Of course, the consequence of wanting to change all this is that you need to experiment with new paradigms. You need to take risks. You need to dare to fail - and dare to fail miserably, but at least fail trying. We needed to invent new rules; to see an end product in a different way.

We wanted to create a meaningful experience; to go beyond the "I'm the good guy, you're the bad guy" and create something that would resonate with the player as a human being.

You don't have to create a game for teenagers. You can create a comedy, you can create a tragedy. You can create whatever you want. You can create something for adults. And that's what's really interesting to me.

Source: CVG

X-men First Class character posters

First character posters are out for First Class. They look like th Smallville season 10 promos, only not as iconic. Verdict? Lame.

Suggestions and comments

With between 60 & 100 page views per day, this blog is starting to build a small, but regular following. If you are a regular visitor to the site, please take the time to follow the blog through Blogger and/or twitter, make comments on posts or add some suggestions to the end of this one. Does anything on the site work particularly well? Is there a topic that you enjoy reading about? Let me know.
I'm thinking of opening up a competition next month, but I haven't decided yet. Would you want a Q&A style competition or something more subjective, like art or writing?

Green Lantern movie posters

Here we get a look at some posters, obviously designed for a younger audience, but I'm sure that won't stop many grown-ups from bying them as well.

Look at the bottom of the first poster.

Is this our first shot of Isamot?
Is that supposed to be Iolande at the top or Saalak (or even Parallax)?

 

 

Source: GeekTyrant

Thundercats trailer, Ho!

Giddy geek warning.

This looks freaking perfect! I love that Tygra can still turn invisible. Sight beyond sight! Getting very excited about the return of Thundercats!

Roaring to life through WBA and Studio4°C’s use of the Japanese animated artistry of anime, 'ThunderCats' characters Lion-O, Mumm-Ra, Panthro, Cheetara and others will spring off the screen with realistic cat-like characteristics inconceivable in previous incarnations. 


The new 'ThunderCats' will appeal to viewers who have loved the characters all their lives as well as young newcomers to the franchise. A sweeping tale combining swords and science and boasting ferocious battles with the highest of stakes, the grand origin story of Prince Lion-O’s ascension to the throne – and of those who would thwart his destiny at any cost – takes on epic dimensions in this sharp new telling. As the forces of good and evil battle each other in the quest for the fabled Stones of Power, Lion-O and his champions learn valuable lessons of loyalty, honor and mortality in every episode.

Source: BleedingCool

War of the Green Lanterns

DC The Source has posted this beautiful cover.

Why Tim Drake endures.

Newsarama have posted a great article on Tim Drake's continued popularity and touch on many areas that I have covered in my previous posts. Tim will always be my favourite Robin, probably because he is so cautious and was introduced to be a thoughtful detective that hangs out in the shadows to listen rather than burst through the door and start throwing punches.

"Tim Drake, the former Robin now wearing the mantle of "Red Robin," is a rarity.
Created in 1989, he's one of the few characters introduced during the Modern Age who are still popular with comic fans. In fact, he's among the most beloved heroes in the Batman universe, appearing in multiple titles each month, including the current crossover between Red Robin and Teen Titans.
"I think, given everything that's been done to him, he's exceeded all expectations," said Chris Yost, who launched the Red Robin title in 2009. "Tim Drake carried several Robin mini-series, his own title for well over 100 issues, [and] is currently in a Top 50 book 20 issues in."
But his introduction came at a time when the idea of a new Robin was far from being popular. In the '80s, original Robin Dick Grayson had "graduated" to an adult role, wearing the mantle Nightwing. Batman readers were given another Robin named Jason Todd, whose existence was markedly unpopular — so much so that readers voted to have him killed.
Marv Wolfman, the writer who created Tim Drake as Robin in the pages of Batman, said he thinks it was important that DC successfully restore the Robin legacy after Jason Todd's death. "Nothing was wrong with Jason except that the fans didn't take to him," Wolfman said. "He was a fine character, but during that time period in comics, the idea of a snotty, possibly criminal Robin could not be accepted. But look at Damian today. I had nothing to do with Jason so I could come in and create a Robin the readers of the time would like as a person."
Denny O'Neil, the Batman editor at the time, initially wanted to wait awhile before introducing a new Robin. "After we bumped off Jason, I thought eventually, we'd need a new Robin, but I thought we'd give it a year," he said. "But word came down from on high — I mean, higher than Jeanette [Kahn, then DC president] — no, we need a new Robin right away."
Yet O'Neil made sure the character was introduced slowly, something Fabian Nicieza, who currently writes Tim's character in Red Robin, noticed as a reader. "By developing the character slowly, making it obvious he would eventually become Robin, but not putting him into costume too quickly, fans got a chance to see the character's foundation," Nicieza said. "As a reader and rookie writer at the time, I remember thinking that Denny O'Neil's writing group was doing an excellent job of defining Tim's strong moral underpinning, and most importantly I think, the fact that he never became Robin for selfish reasons, he did it because he knew Batman needed it, and he knew how important Batman was."
O'Neil also had to face a new challenge, particularly after the death of teenager Jason Todd. Because stories were becoming more realistic, the editor felt like he had to come up with a reason why Batman would put another child in danger, something "they didn't think about in the early days, when they made the first Robin character," O'Neil said. "But we had to think about that, because of the realism we were using at the time in the industry. It was a different time. I even hired somebody to design a costume that would afford maximum protection, thinking it might be acceptable to put a child in harm's way if he was well protected. We used almost none of that design, but we did think about those things at the time."
To explain a child's presence in brutal battles, Tim Drake's character had to be developed in a way that made him an asset to Batman in the field, which the writers accomplished by making him a great detective and supportive presence for Batman. "We waited several months before we actually had Tim in danger," O'Neil said. "At first, he was the guy who did reconnaissance from across the street. This is not real life. This is fantasy melodrama, so eventually, the stories put him in danger. But we didn't want to be callous about it. And we wanted to establish that this child was more than just a kid that Batman decided to put in danger. Tim Drake was an asset."
O'Neil also wanted to eliminate the idea of Robin that was established in the old Batman television show, as a sidekick that said "golly!" a lot. And he credits Marv Wolfman with accomplishing a whole new level of intelligence and heroism in Tim Drake.
"Simply, with the end of Jason Todd, I was asked what I'd do to create a new Robin. My thoughts were that this Robin should want to be Robin and not Batman," Wolfman said. "That he have parents, to differentiate him from all other kid partners, and that he not only be a good athlete, but incredibly bright and intuitive. To accomplish some of that, I had him at the circus, as a very young child, when [original Robin] Dick [Grayson]'s parents were killed; I thought that would be something he'd never forget and would cement the memory of Dick's performance in his mind. The rest followed out of that."
Nicieza said the character seemed to be introduced as a likable character from the beginning. "Tim seemed specifically developed to counter the difficult creative position DC had been put in after what had happened with the 'marketing death' of Jason Todd," Nicieza said. "I imagine half the audience was happy with Jason's death and half weren't, so whatever you did with the next character to assume the mantle of Robin had to be smartly designed enough to keep your divided audience satisfied.
Wolfman decided to make the character very moral, and Chuck Dixon further developed that feature in subsequent comics featuring the character. "I think that he's good, bright, and though he figured out who Robin really was, he never said anything, [and that] meant he was honest," Wolfman said. "That he had a family and a background that fleshed him out before he became Robin helped. And that his ties were directly with Dick Grayson — being there for the death of his parents — gave him a heritage."
"I think that's a pretty hard foundation for fans not to embrace," Nicieza said. "They might not like his personality or the role of Robin in general, but you can't deny that it was hard not to respect Tim Drake."
Soon after his introduction, Tim Drake starred in several mini-series by Chuck Dixon that sold well and created industry buzz. "I think new readers were taken by Chuck Dixon's take on the character, which very smartly combined aspects of 'the making of a hero' arc with 'teen angst' that wasn't too dour, but gave Tim conflict in a fun way," Nicieza.
The character is also different from a lot of other heroes because he has faced a lot of adversity, but did so without becoming bitter or "dark," something that's a particular aspect of many other Batman characters.
Brad Meltzer, the best-selling novelist and comic book writer, was given the task of putting Tim Drake through a horrific experience in the mini-series Identity Crisis. "Full credit to [then Executive Editor] Dan DiDio, who knew that Tim's dad was about to be killed elsewhere, and said to me that if I could make it work with the plot, I could do it," Meltzer said. "And since Identity Crisis was about death in all forms — from death of family, to death of self — it worked perfectly for what we wanted. Plus, it was the kind of death that mattered — one that would impact the character forever."
Soon after losing his father, Tim also lost two of his best friends, Superboy Conner Kent and Kid Flash Bart Allen. Yet the impact of all the deaths was not a particularly negative one for the character, making him even more heroic and familiarly human for having experienced those things.
"He's embraced Batman's world, been put through hell, and come out the other side emotionally OK, in ways that Batman still isn't. He's still human in a way that Batman really kind of isn't," Yost said.
By the time Bruce Wayne was assumed dead, Tim Drake had evolved into one of the more respected heroes of the DCU. And with Bruce gone, his ascension from the title "Robin" was something most fans saw as fitting. "I have to believe that since Tim was in serious contention as someone who could take over for Bruce, seeing him evolve from Robin was inevitable. Tim still has lessons to learn, but they're different lessons now. Damien Wayne needed the role and lessons of Robin more," Yost said.
That's when Tim Drake began wearing the costume of Red Robin, a mantle that was first introduced in the DC mini-series Kingdom Come, which told of a future Robin-turned-Red Robin. So the costume and look were somewhat familiar to readers.
But what wasn't familiar was Tim Drake as an adult superhero, something writer Chris Yost had to establish. "Tim was in a horrible place when I got to him, having lost pretty much everyone he loved. Mom, Dad, Conner, Bart, Bruce... it was a rough patch. And Robin was always supposed to be the light in Batman's world," Yost said. "So honestly, I really wanted to bring the light back, to see Tim through the tunnel to the light at the end, and making sure it wasn't a train. I like that he can operate like Batman, be the detective, crack skulls, and still have a life. Still smile. He can be serious like Bruce, and enjoy it like Dick."
The other aspect of Tim Drake that has helped him endure is the role he filled in the Batman family as someone who thinks before he acts, mirroring his mentor Batman, but in a more caring and healthy way.
"I think he considers himself the spinal column of the Bat-family," Nicieza said. "His arrival brought Bruce back into the light, brought Dick back into the fold and in many ways, that status as a thematic lynchpin continues to this day, even now that he's on his own a lot more."
Now that Bruce Wayne has returned, it's unusual that the other players in the Batman family have not returned to their old roles, with Tim Drake continuing as Red Robin. Whether that lasts into the future is anybody's guess, although some fans have voiced a wish that he would someday become Batman.
"I hope he'll never be Batman," Yost said.
"Seriously, as a result of everything that's happened in the Bat-family the last few years," Nicieza said, "I'm kind of burned out to the whole on-going — never-ending it seems — conversation about 'who will this character become?' Will Dick go back to Nightwing? Will Tim become Batman? Or Nightwing? Will Bat-Mite become Sugar & Spike?
"How about if Tim is Red Robin?" Nicieza said.
For Meltzer, the most important thing for Tim's future is that he's handled with the same type of care he's experienced since his introduction 22 years ago. "I think the strength of Tim Drake has been the strength of the many writers and artists who treated him as Tim instead of just as Robin. That's why he endures," Meltzer said. "We all knew what Robin did. We now know what Tim would do as well. No small task.""

Source: Newsarama