Titans Terrors and Toys

I’ve read many articles over the years that have discussed the transition of comic books from paper to the Internet. While I prefer my comic books to stay on the printed page, one upcoming title that might change my mind is Batman ’66 , a new series that’s being published online by DC starting this summer. Batman ’66 issues will be written Jeff Parker and its initial stories will be drawn by Jonathan Case. Batman ’66 will be based on the live-action Batman TV series that premiered in 1966 and starred Adam West and Burt Ward. According to Parker in an interview with Comic Book Resources , Batman ‘66 is going to follow the TV series’ approach to Batman as closely as possible, including the campy scripting and bright visual aesthetic. “We are able to say that a grown man dressing as a bat and fighting crime is a whacked-out concept, and embrace it all the way,” says Parker. “I think with this you have to be able to get thrills and humor in balance, you can't treat it like a...

For as much as horror movies are associated with scary monsters that are made possible through complex special effects, some of the most noteworthy movies are the ones that take something that is so ordinary and harmless and turn it into the source of unimaginable terror. Such is the case with the Super 8 movies that form the center of Sinister , a 2012 film that was directed and co-written by Scott Derrickson. Sinister tells the story of Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke), a true crime novelist who moves his wife and kids to a small town in Pennsylvania where a family was massacred by an unknown killer. Oswalt hopes that his research into the murders will provide him with a new bestseller that will rejuvenate his stalled career. While his family moves into their new home, he finds a box of Super 8 home movies in attic that were shot of different families at different locations, from the 1960s to the present. Strange and eerie things begin to happen as Oswalt researches the films to u...

In my last post, I looked at what has been revealed to be the last episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars , since it ended its run on Cartoon Network and Disney has no plans to continue it on any of their TV channels. As I was drafting the text for that post, I came across a message from Supervising Director Dave Filoni about the future of Clone Wars , a message that hinted at further Clone Wars adventures in the future (not as a TV series but in some other unspecified format) and it included new animated footage. Unfortunately, the news I read yesterday took a more dire turn: According to several sources, the creative team behind Clone Wars is being disbanded and its members are either being assigned to new projects or are being let go. Along those lines, rumors have surfaced that Disney is severely downsizing Lucasfilm Animation and handing all future Star Wars TV projects over to an existing TV operation, thus further reducing the likelihood of Clone Wars ever seeing a prop...

This month marks the end of three major series from the Cartoon Network: Green Lantern: The Animated Series , Star Wars: The Clone Wars , and Young Justice . As a horror and sci-fi fan, I've gone through may fair share of TV series cancellations; nevertheless, between these three shows and Disney XD's recently departed Tron: Uprising , I've never seen so many genre show cancellations within such a short time frame. Click below for some additional thoughts and observations about the final episodes of Cartoon Network's latest cancelled series.

With its new line of figures based on the 1986 sequel Aliens , NECA is taking a cue from its line of Predator figures--namely, to produce and release figures based on creature designs that appeared outside of the Alien movies. The first example of this strategy will be hitting the shelves in June as an action figure 2-pack that's based on the Dark Horse Comics' miniseries Aliens: Genocide . For those of you who haven't read any of the Aliens comic books, Genocide is about a group of humans who insert themselves into a war between two rival Alien hives. In an obvious nod to the Aliens' ant-like social structure, one hive consists of black Aliens while the other consists of red Aliens (think black ants versus red ants). Thus, NECA's 2-pack will feature 9-plus inch black and red Alien figures, each with over 30 points of articulation, extending inner mouths, bendable tails, and double-jointed elbows and knees. You could argue that all NECA is doing here is ...

Among modern horror film franchises, Paranormal Activity is the only one that has been able to consistently use the "found footage" style of storytelling throughout each of its films. Other franchises that began in the horror subgenre of found footage all jettisoned that style at one point or another. Some did as soon as the first sequel ( Blair Witch Project , The Last Exorcism ), while others did so later ( REC ). Yet upon my viewing of Paranormal Activity 4 , this franchise's accomplishment is looking rather dubious. After all, why stay within the style of found footage if it begins to hamper a franchise's storytelling possibilities? For as competently made as it is, PA4 serves as a reminder that its franchise needs to make some major changes very soon to keep its central story engaging and avid fans interested in more PA movies. Read on for my complete and spoiler-free review of Paranormal Activity 4 .

In my opinion, Traveller's Tales' Lego video games are works of evil addictive genius. Unlike other licensed video games, Lego video games combine the logic of game play, toy play and toy collection into a single interactive experience. Since the first Lego Star Wars game was released back in 2005, each subsequent Lego game has added new features to this format but the original combination remains intact. In a Lego video game, players control characters to guide them through game-like scenarios, interact with objects and environments as if they were brick-assembled toys, and acquire new characters and vehicles to complete a virtual, in-game toy collection. These games also feature a two-player cooperative option, so you and a friend can play with the toys each game has to offer. One of the latest Lego games is Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes , which was released in 2012 for each of the major consoles. Lego Batman 2 is not only a sequel to the previous Lego Batman game;...

This is fantastic news for geek parents who are introducing their kids to classic video games, so I had to post it here. It was written by game designer Mike Mika and published in Wired magazine, and the article's title says it all: "Why I Hacked Donkey Kong for My Daughter" . As Mika writes: "My daughter ... jumps at the chance to play games with her old man. She’s only 3, but she’s always exhibited a keen interest in games. ... (O)ut of all of the older games, she most enjoys playing Donkey Kong . Maybe it was because it was the first game we really played together, or the fact that she watched the King of Kong documentary with me one afternoon from start to finish. Maybe it’s because Mario looks just like her Grandpa. Whatever the case, we’ve been playing Donkey Kong together for a while. She’s not very good at it, but insists on playing it over and over again until she finally hands me the joystick in total frustration. ... Finally, one day after work,...

A recurring complaint that I've read in film reviews--particularly of films that rely heavily on special effects--is the one of "style over substance". While this is a valid complaint, I find it irritating at times because of its rote usage by bored film critics who overlook the instances where a film's style is its substance. After all, cinema is an inherently visual medium; thus, the possibility that a filmmaker can tell a compelling story by emphasizing images and only using minimal dialog (or no dialog at all) should be part of a film critic's range of considerations. Not every film has to provide Shakespeare-caliber soliloquies in its script in order to be a bold and intelligent film. Such is the case of 9 , and 2009 CGI animated movie that was directed by Shane Acker and produced by Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov. 9 is a science fiction fantasy film that takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting. It's short on complex dialog but long on symboli...

For those of you who are still reeling from the disappointment of Gearbox’s Aliens: Colonial Marines , here’s something to assuage your frustration for the time being: Angry Mob Games has just released Alien vs. Predator: Evolution for the iOS and Android platforms. AvP: Evolution is a third-person action melee game, where gamers can play as either an Alien or a Predator. Unlike most previous AvP games, Evolution does not have a human campaign, although it looks like there will be plenty of humans around to slaughter anyway. Evolution is also the first AvP game to include the Super Predators, the leaner, meaner space hunting clan from the 2010 sequel Predators . I don't know the game's plot in detail, but it appears to borrow a few ideas from Dark Horse's Aliens vs. Predator: Three World War comic book miniseries. The game footage looks impressive, but I’ve read from some who have already bought the game that it’s best to play it on higher-end portable dev...

Anyone who has paid attention to the toy industry over the last few decades will tell you that when it comes to toys based on pre-existing creative properties (e.g., comic books, TV shows, movies and video games), the amount of features and details present in such toys has skyrocketed. Nowhere has this change of quality has been more evident than in the toys for Star Wars, a franchise that has been producing toys by the ton ever since it first arrived back in 1977. Kenner found itself with a huge cash cow on its hands when it secured the toy license for Star Wars during the original trilogy, but the toys produced by Hasbro during the subsequent years are much more movie-accurate than their predecessors. This post will look at two popular Star Wars characters, the loyal droids R2-D2 and C-3PO, how they were represented as 12 inch scale figures by both Kenner and Hasbro, and the MPC Star Wars model kits played a part in these figure designs. Read on ...