DC/WB developing a Hawkman movie?

I know, I know, I'm on hiatus, but I saw this on twitter and felt obliged to post it. Flying around the net* this morning are rumours of a Hawkman movie! That means that hopefully Carter Hall, with his obscenely large wings and waxed pepperoni-nippled chest, will be coming to a cinema near you in 2013. Warner Bros, presumably banking on Green Lantern being a success, are shopping for writers as we speak. For the uninitiated, here is their pitch;


"Part INDIANA JONES/DA VINCI CODE, part GHOST tentpole about the fictional superhero that appears in D.C. Comic books. He used archaic weaponry and large, artificial wings attached to a harness made of the Nth metal that allows flight. Most incarnations of Hawkman work closely with a partner/romantic interest named Hawkgirl or Hawkwoman in his fight against supervillains. Based on the DC comic."


First thing's first; Hawkman looks ridiculous. Look at the image from Smallville below. Look at it very carefully and decide if you'd pay eight quid to sit through that for two hours, probably in 3D. There are other more deserving DC heroes to adapt, such as the Flash and Wonder Woman. Household names, that need their films before (let's face it) the superhero blockbuster bubble inevitably bursts. There are other reasons not to adapt Hawkman; his convoluted history for one. I mean, I consider myself very well-versed in comic lore, and even I couldn't tell you what "Nth Metal" is. As well as his origins being tied to ancient Egypt, he is also linked with the alien race known as Thanagarians for no real reason I can comprehend, despite spending the better part of an hour on Wikipedia. I'm sincerely hoping they leave that bit out.



But Smallville did an excellent job with the character, delicately balancing his past lives and tragic storyline very well with his hardass-mace-man persona. The project has potential; a pissed-off, tooled-up Indiana Jones flying around Nazi-bashing sounds like an appealing prospect, and if done straight-laced could be a real feather in DC's cap*. But what finally convinced me was a youtube clip from someone in the CBM comments section, from a film entitled Legion that I've never seen before.





With the mace, and the wings... stick a helmet on him and you get some idea of what to expect. As long as it sticks to a period setting I'm all for this, but not at the expense of a decent Wonder Woman movie. This is all speculation anyway; if Green Lantern flops, the Hawkman movie will sadly never get to spread its wings*.


*Puns fully intended. I regret nothing.

On hiatus - back soon!

After thumbing through the Questionable Content archive for about two hours (in between, of course, putting off that horrible, guilt-ridden revision; it's always there, ticking away like The Telltale Heart) I've a craving for hipster-made coffee and pastries. I may swing by the shop with a bag of books, I guarentee I'll get more done without a computer.

On the subject of my all-important work, the blog is going to be quite quiet for the next week or two. At least until exams are finished, and maybe a little bit after. I'm looking at getting a domain name of my own and tinkering with the layout, with a bit of guest-posting to do in the meantime. I want very much to make the look of the blog less... standard-blogger-template-esque is the only hyphonated word I can think of. Probably because it IS a standard blogger template. A bit more professional, you might say, and now that I've got a bit of content I wanted to do this as early in the blog's life as possible. To my devoted readers (all three of you) I understand that these are harrowing times to simply go cold turkey without your thrice-weekly dose of my wonderful witticisms. Be strong, you'll make it.

Back-issue blog: Mark Millar's Superior

About six months ago, I would have assumed Mark Millar could do no wrong. This is the guy that wrote Kick-Ass, Marvel Knights: Spider-Man and perhaps most importantly Civil War. It's a terrific run; "The Last Stand" was the Spider-Man story that got me reading comics properly in the first place. But Nemesis, his other big mini-series, was sadly a misfire. Some terrific moments and truly diabolical scheming by the titular anti-hero were wasted on the cardboard cut-out characters and I was afraid that Superior, Millar's attempt at a Superman story, was going to go the same way. Millar is teetering on the brink of overexposure with these projects, Kick-Ass 2, his new film and London comic-con, and I was worried that the slippery slope of success had got to him. However, I'm happy to report that four issues in and it's looking good. Not Kick-Ass good, but good nonetheless.


So let's recap: a disabled twelve-year-old boy is approached by a monkey in a space suit and offered a "magic wish" that turns him into his favourite comic-book hero, Superior.

Hang on, what?!

Past the slow start and ridiculous premise, the book is actually rather good. It's a character story, the sole reason that Superior succeeds where Nemesis failed. The comic forces us to actually care about the plight of poor little wheelchair-bound Simon Pooni, Millar's very own mystically transfigured Tiny Tim. But all this character development is a double-edged sword; this comes at the expense of much of the action, putting off casual readers.

Once the supporting cast expands by issue #4, Millar gets off his backside and kicks the story into gear. A maverick female journalist and even Barack Obama prompt some great moments by Superior, showing not only the hero inside of ourselves, blah blah et cetera, but the frightening realisation that a twelve-year-old boy, unused to walking, can now lift buses with one hand and threaten the school bully with exposure. Even the monkey's big reveal by the end of issue #4 was a genuine "Oh shit" moment for me, something that not many comics are able to accomplish.

Let's talk about the art. Leniell Yu is probably one of my favourite artists in comics at the moment; his art has this raw, sketchy, effortless quality that really makes it shine. While his work on Secret Invasion was nice, it was more personal, moodier comics like Wolverine and New Avengers that really won me over. Let me tell you, the man draws one hell of a Wolverine. This cannot be overstated. Given his art style, he would not have been my first choice for this project but it works. It really does. The book looks gorgeous.

It's a slow starter, perhaps unnecessarily so, but Superior is a return to form of sorts for Millar. I strongly suggest you jump on the book before it's over, if you haven't already. Grab some back issues and get up to speed before issue #5 hits the stands.

Coffee.

Panic. I've eked out the last morose coffee beans from the bottom of the pot. Horrible timing, as I have a triptych of exams to take next week.

It's funny, but until I arrived at university I was a stoic tea-drinker. Nothing could have seemed better then a cup of great English tea in the middle of the day and my caffeine intake, whatever the makeup of that particular cuppa, was never an issue. It was a simpler time. A time when the very notion of caffeine headaches in the middle of May would never even cross my mind. Yesterday, choking down a latte in the blazing heat, I decided enough was enough; what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity. I'm forsaking coffee forever and making a triumphant return to tea. Even bought a pack of Earl Grey this morning; an elegant drink for a more civilised age*.

Whatever the reality, I've always seen tea (good tea, not half-milk-three-sugar-builders'-tea) as a drink of sophistication and lazy English afternoons. A good cuppa, I mean a good cup of proper English tea from a pot, can only really be enjoyed at leisure. Coffee seems much more of an American concept; a drink on the move. Convenience over class. Cool but crude, like Raphael. I don't know, maybe it's just me. Normal service, rather then uncensored ramblings about hot drinks, will resume next post.

*Star Wars fans, I know you clocked that.

On music.

I'm friends with a lot of very talented people. Musicians, mostly. Real musicians, ones with the uncanny ability to listen to a song for five minutes and come back with an acoustic guitar to melt the hearts (and in many cases, remove the panties) of the lucky few within earshot. Probably on a beach somewhere, in a little circle as we gather to worship the chosen few that can probably see the matrix.

I played guitar for three years. It could have been me on the beach, with my sandals and my flowing hair and my Bruno Mars covers igniting the underwear of the nearby totty. Alas,I was mediocre at best. I was greedy and lazy - I never had the drive to carry on. I was learning guitar because it was cool, not because I enjoyed the thing. My insistance on listening to nothing but classic rock probably didn't help my ear for music, either.

This is part of the reason that years later, I'm dragging my itunes kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century. I'm tearing myself away from the all-too-familiar arms of AC/DC and Poison to expand my operations - it's a big step. Metric I like, courtesy of the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack, a film chock-full of on-the-cusp Canadian indie rockers. I'm growing to love Childish Gambino as my first tentative steps into the hip-hop world, and I've downloaded the entire soundtrack to the OC, a veritable smorgasbord of once-hip indie rock. None of it's cool anymore. I just love the show.

Back-issue Blog: Usagi Yojimbo

"Back-issue Blog" is my little infrequent comics column. This week, we're looking at an introduction to Dark Horse's rabbit ronin with Usagi Yojimbo #136 and #137.

I'm going to be honest, I only picked this title up because I've stopped buying Marvel. Love the characters, love the films, slavering at the mouth for The Avengers et cetera, but having to suffer through Siege, One More Day and Cap's ridiculous resurrection (a "Time Bullet"? Really?) I decided to cut my losses before I broke something. No way on God's green earth was I going to shell out for four Avengers books a month. So like so many others before me have done, I looked for salvation on the internet. Turns out there are very few independent comics with unanimously positive reviews. I could either wade deep into DC's Brightest Day line or admit defeat and slink off back to Brian bloody Bendis and his four Avengers books a month. But just as I was about to bend over I noticed Usagi Yojimbo, a quaint little title tucked away in Dark Horse's output. The reviews were unanimously positive.

I must admit, I was put-off at first. The dialogue was simple, the art was cartoonish and more to the point, the lead character was a rabbit. While a great recipe for a children's book, it didn't sit well in a comic about a masterless samurai doomed to tread the warrior's path. And then, on closer inspection, it kind of did.

The dialogue was simple, true. It was elegantly simple. It was as if Stan Sakai, the man who has written, drawn, and inked the comic for 137 months and counting, took a sword of his own to his writing; every word that didn't build our understanding of a character or didn't advance the plot was mercilessly cut away. Sakai's art also shines; the attention to detail and the hand-drawn cross-hatchings are a breath of fresh air compared to the exquisitely computer-rendered environments of many more commercially successful comics. And say what you will about the rabbit, at least he's memorable. Iconic. Even his cute little ears are done up in a samurai topknot, and the variety of emotions that contort over Usagi's cute little face are so evocative of his character, a guard without a master struggling to find his purpose. Look at that face. That is unmistakeably the face of a badass.

Don't be put off by Usagi's childish nature. Scratch beneath the surface and you have an absolute gem of a genre comic that deserves a much, much wider audience. If you're like me and you're fed up with every superhero title on the shelf, you couldn't go far wrong with Usagi Yojimbo.