Superheroes

BURBANK, CA (March 15, 2023) - A Warrior for Peace will stand as a symbol of justice for visitors and residents of Burbank to enjoy for generations to come. A seven-and-a-half-foot tall bronze Wonder Woman statue was unveiled today in a special ceremony at Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood as part of a partnership between Visit Burbank, DC and Warner Bros. Discovery. 

Today’s unveiling ceremony was attended by local government and business luminaries including Burbank Mayor Konstantine Anthony, Pam Lifford, President, Global Brands, Franchises and Experiences, Jim Lee, DC Chief Creative Office and Publisher, and Wonder Woman 1984 Director Patty Jenkins.

Marvel Comics has emasculated their fan-favorite vigilante, taking away the Punisher’s guns and replacing his skull emblem to make him kinder and gentler for modern readers, but fans of writer Mike Baron’s acclaimed five year run on the street-level sentinel can revisit his no-nonsense, gritty take on vigilante justice with Baron’s newest hero, partially inspired by Gerry Conway’s creation.

Mike Baron’s upcoming graphic novel is Private American and it marks a return to form for the Eisner winning writer of brooding, complex, and often violent protagonists. Hot on the heels of his hilarious Florida Man comics (American Mythology), Private American is a Cuban American living on the US southern border, whose frustration with the migrant crisis turns to retributive violence when its consequences touch his family circle.

After three controversial seasons, CW's Batwoman has finally reached the end of her bat-rope. Having initially lost its leading actress after the first season, the show tried to move in a new direction by having the suit land in the lap of homeless Ryan Wilder (Javicia Leslie), who took over the duties of the hero while the mystery of what happened to original Batwoman, Kate Kane (Ruby Rose) played out. Later, through an improbably sequence of events, it was found that Ryan had been given up for adoption by her fabulously wealthy CEO mother, Jada Jet (Robin Givens), who went on to have another child, Marquis Jet (Nick Creegan). Suddeny, poor girl Ryan is in charge of Wayne Industries... at least, until she's not.

It's hard to believe it was nearly 20 years ago that The Batman debuted on television (and don't even get me started on how many yesterdays it was since Batman: The Animated Series began!), but fans of the show can now binge the entire series with this 6-disc Blu-ray collection from Warner Brothers.

The DC Animated Universe projects have been a little hit-or-miss lately, largely when they tried to stay within a cohesive universe that was almost-but-not-quite the New 52. More recently, however, they have had successes with one-off stories that focus more on the tale at hand rather than with how to make it fit into the rest of the DCAU. The 70s grindhouse style Batman: Soul of the Dragon is a good example of this.

With Catwoman: Hunted, director Shinsuke Terasawa brings together several fun, nostalgic elements, delivering an anime-aesthetic film full of 1960s spy-caper style. The result is surprisingly fresh interpretation of the characters that doesn't diminish them but rather enhances.

Keeping with the 13 episode format of the previous season, I'm still left wanting more Stargirl. But perhaps the leaner season prevents any of those unnecessary padding episodes; there are almost no lulls when you have a half-season to deal with the big bad.

The new JSA -- Courtney / Stargirl (Brec Bassinger), Beth / Doctor Mid-Nite (Anjelika Washington), Yolanda / Wildcat (Yvette Monreal) and Rick / Hourman (Cameron Gellman) find themselves taking classes in summer school together since their grades slipped due to the time spent saving Blue Valley and the rest of the country from the threat of the Injustice Society -- a battle that left emotional scars on some of the team members.

The latest Marvel TV show is one that many didn’t expect to see. After years in the MCU as the target of countless jokes, Hawkeye has finally been given his own solo series, just in time for Christmas. Yes, Clint Barton is shooting to be home for the holidays and he’s got a secret weapon in his quiver; new protege Kate Bishop. Hawkeye has often felt like a secondary character when compared to more flamboyant MCU alumni like Iron Man, Thor and the Scarlet Witch, so it came as a surprise for many fans when Disney made the announcement that the faithful SHIELD agent would be given his chance to be the main man.

Perhaps one is officially old when the best versions of their favorite things date back beyond twenty years. I was pleased to find that Superman: The Animated Series was getting a Blu-ray collection of all three seasons. But I did blink at the fact that it had been twenty-five years -- a whole quarter-century -- since the show had debuted on television. And while Superman hasn't really been away from the animated theater, this particular incarnation, a by-product of the success of Batman: The Animated Series, was a show that understood the character, what he was about, and was able to tell engrossing stories that challenged the hero.

Over the years in comics we've seen various alternate storylines that have explored the DC universe should Superman have held different values other than truth, justice and the American way (which anyone can now say, since there's no trademark on it). We've seen him raised in Communist Russia, seen him raised in Nazi Germany, even seen him raied by African gorillas, all under different Elseworlds titles.

LEGO System A/S  has made many a fan happy, adult and child alike, by producing unique brick models of some of fandom's favorite franchises. From Star Wars to Harry Potter, from DC Comics to Marvel, movie scenes and props all come alive on your own table with you in control of the creativity.

The Infinity Gauntlet, the centerpiece of the last two Marvel's Avengers movies, is one of the latest of a set of pop culture prop pieces, released alongside similarly trade dressed packages of helmets of Darth Vader and The Mandalorian, and the 1966 Batmobile (which we did on a live build stream here).

After its premiere season, Stargirl had set a rather high bar for itself. But, at least with this initial episode of the second season, the show seems to be hitting on all cylinders, retaining the charm and nostalgia that fans fell in love with last year.

The second part of Batman: The Long Halloween didn't take long to release, thankfully overcoming the expiration of expectations that can hamper a story cut into two pieces like this. And it doesn't waste any time rushing through a number of holiday murders during which time Batman... does nothing. Why? Because Bruce Wayne (Jenson Ackles) has been mind-controlled by Poison Ivy (Katee Sackhoff), and has been regularly signing over assets at her bidding to her boss, Carmine Falcone (Titus Welliver). Fortunately for Bruce, Catwoman (Naya Rivera) not only notices his absence but also knows his secret identity, mounting a rescue mission that brings Batman back into the thick of things after nearly four months of stupor.

When The Flash series was first announced, nobody was more excited than I was. And in every episode of that first season, I was an excited little boy from opening scene to scrolling credits.

As with any series, the show has had it's peaks and valleys as it progressed from season to season, serving as the fulcrum of the classic CW show crossover, Crisis on Infinite Earths, which saw the multiverse collapse into a singular universe when it was finished. But never has it reached such a prolonged low point as it has with -- well, pretty much the entirety of this seventh season.

2021 marks the 80th birthday of Marvel's patriotic Avenger, Captain America. The brainchild of comic legends Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, he almost became known as Super-American, until Simon nixed it in favor of what has now become a household name, due in no small part to the string of successful movies produced by Marvel Comics.

Captain America: The First 80 Years is a by-the-decade retrospective of the hero's journey, detailing his origins, his evolution and adaptation to the threats of each decade, and his retroactive continuity changes that turned him into a beloved comic book hero. The crew at Titan have gone out of their way to not only tell the story of Captain America, they've nestled it in the story of the comic book industry and American 20th century history as well, so that a full and appreciable context exists.

The latest DC Universe animated epic has been released, this time adapting the Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale graphic novel that took a novice Batman and forced him to forge his detective skills. The connective thread of this adventure was that a killer was taking out people close to mob boss Carmine Falcone, establishing the pattern of commiting the murders on major holidays. The Holiday Killer was a mystery to be solved, and each of the 13 issues that made up the series carried the reader through the year in near real-time, with various Batman villains popping up where appropriate.

The latest offering from the DC Animated Universe is Justice Society: World War II. From everything I can discern, it is not adapted -- even loosely -- from any particular previously published story, although there are definitely elements lifted from other events and transplanted here.

If you're a fan of superhero stories, but require a more intricate level of storytelling than the standard fare, Netflix delivers. Mark Millar's Jupiter's Legacy makes its first season drop this week, and gives the reader a world fully-populated with powerful beings, good guys and bad guys, with a traditional flavor of comic book morals juxtaposed against the reactions of a real world backdrop.

Taking a page from the first seasons of Arrow, the series jumps back and forth between where we are today and how we got here -- which entails a span of nearly 100 years.

Lydia and Emily become best friends in grade school by virtue of both being social misfits. Emily was the curve-blowing smart kid, while Lydia was the sleep-in-class and deliver answers cribbed from Peppermint Patty. But when they have a falling out, they lose touch with each other for twenty years, until Lydia (Melissa McCarthy) decides to reach out to Emily (Octavia Spencer) to attend their class reunion. Through a series of childish missteps, Lydia accidentally obtains super powers from an experiment Lydia's tech company was working on.

The setting for Thunder Force is one where cosmic rays bombarded the world decades ago, creating genetic mutations in a small minority of people, giving them super abilities. Unfortunately, all these people turned out to be sociopaths dubbed "miscreants." One of them killed Emily's parents, and she's devoted her entire life to finding a way to grant super powers to someone who could fight the miscreants on their own level.

DC Comics' Generations Forged is a handsome book. A big book. It's squarebound and demands a ten-dollar premium for the right to own it. And it looks gorgeous, with a Liam Sharp cover. It even looks good on the inside if you flip through the pages to give them a cursory glance. The imagery evokes the greater moments of DC's vast history -- the Crisis, the Zero Hour, and other iconic events.

Stop there. Let yourself believe that's what this book is. Whatever you do, however badly you're tempted, do not read it. And it pains me beyond measure to say this, because it's written by Dan Jurgens, Robert Venditti, and Andy Schmidt, all of whom should know better than to perpetrate the story elements contained in these pages.

While it's not known yet if this will be a weekly occurrence, it's a nice way to keep those streaming numbers up. Offering live viewers an opportunity to get additional content, could keep those hardcore fans watching two nights in a row. SUPERMAN AND LOIS already broke records for the CW when it comes to ratings for Live+3 (which factors in streaming numbers) with over 2.7 million viewers.

So what important scene was left out of the episode that aired on TV? It certainly wasn't a brief moment between Clark and Lana. Instead it was an important exchange between Sam Lane and Superman.

In just two episodes, we've come to realize that General Lane accepts Superman as an ally (see also: weapon). When Captain Luther fails, yet again, in acquiring kryptonite from a military complex, Superman demands to know what he's looking for. That's when General Lane comes clean about his dirty secret.

He's been stockpiling kryptonite.