Thursday, September 13, 2012
Wonder Woman and Wolverine
This is my favorite version of Wolverine - with the brown suit and without the memories. I was hoping that the conclusion of the Avengers Vs. X-Men event would result in Wolverine finally leaving the Avengers, but it looks like Marvel is going in the other direction and further mixing the two teams together. It's a strange move and I feel that it serves to make the various teams less unique, but maybe they have something in mind with the set up that I haven't thought of.
I also read that Wonder Woman is once again being prepared for a potential TV series. Let's hope they learned something from the mistakes made with the last attempt, which looked pretty lackluster from the footage I saw of it.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Hawkman Vs. Thor
The first photos from the set of Thor: The Dark World have leaked, and it looks like Thor still hasn't learned to put his helmet on for battle. Other than that personal pet peeve, the film promises to be a lot of fun with all the new characters that are being introduced. I don't imagine we'll see a Hawkman film any time soon, but perhaps he will show up as part of the inevitable Justice League movie (or its sequel). If that comes to pass, let's hope that he gets to keep his helmet at least!
Labels:
DC Comics,
Jim Starlin,
John Buscema,
Marvel Comics,
Super-Team Family,
Team Up,
Thor
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Tintin and Jonny Quest (Part Two)
Now that Tintin has had his big box office debut, it is high time for Jonny Quest to shine on the silver screen as well. His tales were always packed with adventure, danger, and exotic locales and had all the elements necessary for a fun animation to live action transition. Hopefully some big time producer who remembers the old cartoons as fondly as I do will get the ball rolling one of these days.
Labels:
Herge,
Jonny Quest,
Super-Team Family,
Team Up,
Tintin
Monday, September 10, 2012
Tintin and Jonny Quest (Part One)
I was pleasantly surprised by the recent Tintin film. I was concerned at first that the characters would look creepy in CGI, as often happens in motion-capture films. Fortunately the right balance was struck between human features and Herge's character designs that it looked pretty cool to me. Some of the Thompson Twins' bumbling didn't translate well, but for the most part I thought the film was increibly well realized. The action and pacing reminded me of Spielberg's earlier work on the original Indiana Jones films, he really seemed to be having fun as a director here. I understand Peter Jackson will be helming the next one and that will be cool to see.
Stay tuned for Part Two of this team-up, coming tomorrow!
Labels:
Herge,
Jonny Quest,
Super-Team Family,
Team Up,
Tintin
Friday, September 7, 2012
Green Lantern and Iron Man in "Dead Ringer"
I like the paring of these two heroes, so I decided to try another cover featuring them, this time giving Iron Man the upper hand. I see in the Green Lantern comics that they are introducing a new GL, and Hal Jordan is taking a back seat for a while. I hope that this is just a story line and not a sort of "punishment" for the Green Lantern movie not living up to expectations. It would be a shame to lose the Hal Jordan character again after all the hard work that Geoff Johns did to rehabilitate him a few years back. It's cool to have lots of multiple Green Lanterns running around, but I still prefer for Hal to be the main man.
Labels:
DC Comics,
Gil Kane,
Green Lantern,
Iron Man,
Jack Kirby,
Marvel Comics,
Super-Team Family,
Team Up
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Justice League of America Vs. Thanos
The Thanos teaser at the end of The Avengers was very cool, but what does it mean for the future of the franchise. Will Thanos be the villain of the Avengers sequel as it suggests, or will he be a Nick Fury type who will have a cameo in a few more different movies before getting a major starring treatment down the line? Either way, it's great that Marvel is making him part of their movie-verse. I wonder if his appearance will put a wrench in the Justice League movie plans - Darkseid would be a good villain for them to go up against, but it might seem too similar to Thanos. I say, bring on Starro!
Labels:
Aquaman,
Black Canary,
DC Comics,
Dick Giordano,
Flash,
Justice League,
Marvel Comics,
Red Tornado,
Superman,
Thanos
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Black Lightning and Captain America
I really wish that DC had stuck with this look for Black Lightning, rather than only using it for a single mini-series. It's a great updating of the classic look by Cully Hamner. I'm a little disappointed to see a lot of the promotional art for Captain America with the character sporting the "painted on wings" look from the movie version. The films should strive to be closer to the comics, not the other way around - especially when it comes to costumes, which the movies still get wrong a lot more than they get right.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Starfire and Mr. Spock
Here's another pairing that I think would just write itself. Their personalities could not be more different, and that would make for a lot of fun interaction as they faced various perils. Spock was always my favorite Star Trek character as a kid, and still is. I look forward to the next Star Trek film, and while Zachary Quinto does a great job as the new Spock, I hope that Leonard Nimoy can make another appearance as Spock Prime.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Green Arrow and Thor
Definitely a bit of a mismatch here, but I always like it when Green Arrow gets a chance to interact with larger than life and overly powerful characters. I'll be giving the new CW series, Arrow, a shot and I hope that it is faithful to the comic book incarnation. While I don't expect to see any of DC's more outlandish characters showing up, the series does promise to have appearances by more street-level folks like Black Canary, The Huntress and Deathstroke. With this upcoming series, Hawkeye in The Avengers, and Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, it's no wonder that the sport of archery is experiencing some renewed popularity these days.
Labels:
DC Comics,
Don Newton,
Green Arrow,
John Buscema,
Marvel Comics,
Super-Team Family,
Team Up,
Thor
Friday, August 31, 2012
Swamp Thing and Spider-Man
I was glad to use the art of Bernie Wrightson and Frank Cho for this cover. Interestingly enough, the Spider-Man here is by Wrightson and the Swamp Thing is by Cho, instead of the other way around - which I what I would usually expect with these two artists. That speaks to the strength of these illustrators, that they can transistion between genres. They can go from horror to funny animals to superheroes and maintain a high standard of quality with each style.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Superman Vs. Iron Man
I've been watching The Tudors lately and I have to say that now that I have gotten the chance to watch him act, I really like the choice of Henry Cavill for Superman in the upcoming Man of Steel. Facially, he looks perfect for the role as well. He resembles a Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez illustrated Superman.
Iron Man 3 seems to be shaping up nicely with the addition of Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin. He was always my choice to play Hugo Strange in a Batman sequel, but it will still be cool seeing him wreak havoc in the Marvel movieverse instead.
Labels:
DC Comics,
Iron Man,
Marvel Comics,
Ryan Sook,
Super-Team Family,
Superman,
Team Up
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Batman and The Outsiders and The Transformers
I was hoping that there would be a place for The Outsiders in DC's New 52, but I don't know if that is going to happen. Metamorpho has been replaced with by Element Woman, Black Lightning is hanging out with Blue Devil, Katana is about to join the JLA, and Geo-Force & Halo are nowhere to be found. I'm sure that I am not the only fan of the team, though, so perhaps there is still a chance that we will still see them together sometime in the future.
Labels:
Alan Davis,
Batman,
Black Lightning,
DC Comics,
Geo-Force,
Katana,
Metamorpho,
Optimus Prime,
Outsiders,
Transformers
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Wildcat and The Black Panther
Wildcat is another victim of the New 52 DC Reboot. Oh, I'm sure that James Robinson's Earth 2 series will feature some kind of take on Ted Grant, but from what we've seen thus far, I don't know if we can count on this new incarnation to resemble the Wildcat that we knew before.
With all of the Marvel movie news of late, I am surprised that we haven't heard anything new from the long-rumored Black Panther film. A superhero who is also the king of a technologically advanced society in the jungles of Africa could make for a cool and unique film. Marvel seems to want to have characters to add to its Avengers movie roster and T'Challa would be the perfect candidate, so hopefully we will hear some movement on a solo film soon.
Monday, August 27, 2012
The Damned
This cover originally was going to be Hellboy Vs. Fin Fang Foom, but I kept stumbling on more Mike Mignola images and I decided to make a complete team out of it. This is a pretty powerful grouping so I imagine that there would have to be some pretty catastrophic events leading up to their assembling together... and drama like that always makes for a fun comic. I doubt that you would see this group hanging out with one another any longer than is necessary, so they would waste no time in getting right down to business. Each one has a curse of some sort upon them that they would like to lift, so that could add a personal stake for the members as well.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Han Solo and Captain Kirk
Forget Aliens Vs. Predator, this is the sci-fi team-up movie I would really like to see. The question is: Could movie screens contain the combined attitude and swagger of these two loose cannons? I'm not sure but it would be fun to watch them interact. Alas, short of a full on CGI film, this isn't likely to happen... but it's fun to speculate.
Labels:
Captain Kirk,
Han Solo,
Phil Noto,
Star Trek,
Star Wars,
Super-Team Family,
Team Up
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Superman and The Avengers
It's images like this that remind me why Superman needs an "S" shield on his cape. For some reason or other, designers want to keep it off the costume and I feel that it just makes him look a little more generic. It started with Superman: The Animated Series and on into Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. OK, those shows got just about everything else right, so I can give them a pass and accept the reasoning that it was too hard to animate (although somehow they managed it on Super Friends, decades earlier). But then the live action movies decided to drop it - first on Superman Returns and now on Man of Steel. I just don't get how in this era of CGI that it would be a problem and again, it works so well design-wise to keep the shield. The worst cut was in DC New 52 costume redesigns, where now it is gone even in the comics! I can understand the reasoning behind losing the red trunks but this omission I just don't get. Add in the fact that they changed the color of his belt to red, and you now have hardly any yellow on the costume at all. The overall result is that the uniform just looks like it's missing something.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Hawk & Dove and Daredevil
It's too bad that Hawk and Dove was one of the first titles to be cancelled from DC New 52 line, but the characters and concepts are strong enough that I am hopeful that they will be given another shot sometime down the line. Daredevil, on the other hand, seems to be in great shape lately. The comic has been featuring fun tales with art from masters like Mike Allred and Marcos Martin., and now the movie rights have moved back to Marvel Studios. The Joe Carnahan-proposed 70's take on the character sounded kind of cool, but I am really interested in what path Marvel will take. I'm hoping for a TV series.
Labels:
Daredevil,
DC Comics,
Hawk and Dove,
Marvel Comics,
Super-Team Family,
Team Up
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Firestorm and Power Man and Iron Fist
It looks like DC is re-thinking their most recent Firestorm comic series by getting it back to the "traditional one hero with two identities" concept and a costume closer to the classic look. I have confidence in the talents of Dan Jurgens and definitely think this is a good move. It will be interesting to see where Luke Cage and Danny Rand wind up once the Marvel Now initiative begins. They have been hanging with the Avengers and Defenders for a while now, but with Marvel apparently wanting to look closer to their movie counterparts, I'm not sure if that will still be the case.
I liked the idea behind this cover but must confess that I didn't consider the ramifications when I first created it. What would the merged hero be called? Iron Man is already taken, so that would leave us with... Power Fist? That just doesn't sound right.
Labels:
DC Comics,
Firestorm,
Iron Fist,
John Byrne,
Marvel Comics,
Pat Broderick,
Power Man
Monday, August 20, 2012
Adam Strange and The Rocketeer
I am a fan of movie serials from the 40's and 50's. The budgets on these cliffhangers may have been low but there was never any shortage of action, plot twists, and daring escapes. I of course gravitated towards the comic character starring serials, and it's a kick to see such early incarnations of Captain Marvel, Captain America or Batman and Robin in glorious black and white. Probably my favorite serial is King of the Rocket Men, which was not based on a comic book hero - but certainly inspired a few. The flying scenes are quite cool for the time and it must have been great to be a kid back then and see all of the great aerial action. The Rocketeer would have been right at home in one of those old cliffhangers. Adam Strange would have been another good choice, combining elements of King of the Rocket Men and Flash Gordon in one package.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Hawkman and Tor
I originally had another cover scheduled to go for today, but I felt that I should do something in tribute to my all-time favorite artist, Joe Kubert. Kubert will be greatly missed, his nearly seven-decade career is filled with a body of work that amazingly got better and better with each year. His painterly style showed a confidence that can only be gained by a constant commitment to the craft. He was a master of the human form, as well as facial expressions and the effects of light and shadow. Not only did he provide comic fans with tons of amazing work, his teachings at The Kubert School have passed along valuable lessons to countless other artists (not to mention his sons, Adam and Andy). I count myself very lucky that I was able to meet Joe Kubert at a convention a few years back. He couldn't have been more gracious in front of all of my fawning and when I shook his hand, he had a grip of iron - no doubt from clutching pens and pencils since the Golden Age. Kubert was working right up to the present, with solicitations for Joe Kubert Presents just now appearing... and I can't wait to check out one more work from the master. RIP, Joe - you did it better than anyone else, and with style and class.
Labels:
DC Comics,
Hawkman,
Joe Kubert,
Super-Team Family,
Team Up,
Tor
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