If you’re in the mood for a classic cocktail, you might order up an Old Fashioned—a jigger of bourbon, two dashes of Angostura bitters, a lump of sugar and just a splash of water. It’s a drink that goes back to the 19^th century and is something every bartender should know how to mix. “THE NEW OLD FASHIONED,” however, is an entirely different yet no less potent concoction of heartwarming harmonies, familiar aural flavors and inhibition-busting a cappella, served Straight No Chaser, in the Indiana tradition. Welcome to your new addiction. Please tip generously.

In fact, here’s a tip for you: if you have an opportunity to see Straight No Chaser live in your town, you owe it to yourself to do so. They’ll lift your spirits, get your toes a-tappin’, and stay for a solid hour after the show to meet you and sign your CD, t-shirt, and ticket stub, or perhaps even one of your children. You won’t find too many musical acts more accommodating!

With assistance by Mike Maillaro

Check out Newsarama for a complete list of Marvel books shipping in February.

SPIDER-MAN #1 by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS & SARA PICHELLI

With assistance by Mike Maillaro

Check out Newsarama for a complete list of DC books shipping in February.

THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS: THE LAST CRUSADE #1 by FRANK MILLER,BRIAN AZZARELLO, JOHN ROMITA, JR., and BILL SIENKIEWICZ

The Joker. Poison Ivy. Selina Kyle. And the last Robin.

SECRET WARS, TOO

Sraw Terces by Jonathan Hickman and Brian Churilla

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR is coming May 6, 2016, and we've got the first real trailer.  

Appropriately, I saw this on Stan Lee's website!   Thanks to the post-credits sequence for ANT-MAN, we already knew Winter Soldier was going to be at the heart of the Civil War conflict, and this trailer seems to lay out exactly how that will work.  We do get a glimpse of Black Panther in the trailer, but no sign of Spider-Man.   I loved both of the Captain America movies, so I am really looking forward to this.  Though I will say that THIS should have been the plot for Avengers 2.  I like Ultron, and James Spader was awesome, but it just seems strange that they are calling this movie "Captain America" when it features Iron Man, Black Widow, War Machine, Falcon, and Black Panther too.  Hopefully the marketing will clue the general movie goer in that "this is really an Avengers movie."

HUCK #1

Written by: Mark Millar
Art by: Rafael Albuqueque
Colored by: Dave McCaig
Lettered by: Nate Piekos of Blambot

Published by: Image
Cover Price: $2.99

Warning! This review contains quite a few spoilers!

by Mike Maillaro & Mike Weaver

Black Knight (2015) #1

Written by: Frank Tieri
Art by: Luca Pizzari
Colored by: Antonio Fabela
Lettered by: VC’s Joe Sabino

Yesterday, WB announced when some of their new shows will be launching and returning.  Tops on the list for me is the much anticipated Legends of Tomorrow!   Legends of Tomorrow is a spin-off from Arrow and Flash.  Arthur Darvill (Rory from Doctor who) plays Rip Hunter who comes back from the 22nd century to put together a team to stop Vandal Savage (played by Casper Crump).  The team consists of Atom (Brandon Routh), White Canary (Caity Lotz), Heat Wave (Dominic Purcell), Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller), Hawkman (Falk Hentschel), Hawkgirl (Ciara Renée), and Firestorm—the new team of Martin Stein (Victor Garber) and Jefferson “Jax” Jackson (Franz Drameh).

Here's the trailer:

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

Comics shipping this week

Cheap Pops - November 22, 2015 by Chris Delloiacono, Mike Maillaro and Jeff Ritter

This week!

Americana songwriter Andy Hackbarth wrote and recorded Panorama Motel in the wake of a messy breakup. The record finds Hackbarth singing over acoustic guitars, dobro, upright bass and organ -- turning his recent brush with heartbreak into some of the most moving songs of his career.

No song sums it up better than the title track, which takes a headfirst dive into the frustration that follows a breakup.

“It’s reflective of my music career as a whole,” Hackbarth explains, “from the classical/Spanish guitar background to the darker, more indie/acoustic rock writing style that I’ve been gravitating toward lately. It’s beautiful, but dark and emotional. I’ve always loved the sound of the nylon-string guitar, and paired with layered violins, guitar swells and some haunting background vocals its aim is to capture the despair and loneliness we all feel after a breakup.

THE LEFTOVERS, an HBO series, is a complex story that takes place three years after an “event” happens where 120 million people -- 2% of the world’s population -- disappeared in an instant. It centers on the town of Mapleton, New York where 100 people disappeared and the local sheriff, Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux), is trying to hold his family together while simultaneously trying to keep the peace and help people get on with their lives.

Some people said, and still say, that the event was the Rapture, while some say it isn’t that because not everyone was a good person that disappeared. Others still look to some sort of scientific physics-based explanation to the phenomenon.

BATMAN: SEASON 3 DVD
Warner Bros. Entertainment
$39.98 SRP

Being a kid growing up in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, you didn’t have the television world at your fingertips.  There were literally seven channels for me to watch until I was about ten years old.  During the week, the only kid-friendly shows were on in the early morning till maybe 9 o’clock then in the afternoon from say 3-6pm.  Oddly, a lot of the shows weren’t even cartoons.  Instead it was shows like GET SMART, THE BRADY BUNCH, and the Adam West BATMAN that helped keep me entertained.  

Critics are in an uproar over Jesse Eisenberg’s scathing commentary on critics in the New Yorker.  In the column, he pretends to be an Internet reviewer who sums up his thoughts on a film he reviewed with:

In sum, these are the main problems with “Paintings of Cole”: it was inconveniently shown on the Upper West Side, written by a guy I envy, screened by a cute intern whose name was too confusing to remember, based on an idea that I poorly executed in grad school, and praised by the Times, which rejected me.

Mike: Maillaro: We’re going to start transitioning to a POST-SECRET WARS version of Front lines, discussing a bunch of different comics in addition to Secret Wars.

SECRET WARS #7 by Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic

Summary: This issue reveals that the Prophet leading the attacks on Doom is the Inhuman, Maximus.  He has been working with the Reeds to cause a distraction so they can put their real plan in place.

Thomas McCarthy is an actor, writer, and director with a couple of nice independent films under his directorial credits. With his latest film, SPOTLIGHT, he’s poised to be a household name, and almost certainly a name you’ll hear read aloud at the Oscars. The outstanding job he’s done crafting a story that by both default and historical accuracy require the film to be nothing more than a collection of talking head frames is so compellingly done, so engrossing, that it really makes my job difficult. I don’t want to tell you anything about it. I want you to see it for yourself. You need to see this film. Even the group that should be the most opposed to this film is very positive about it, and that’s the Catholic Church I’m talking about. Thomas McCarthy may just have directed a miracle.

Before I discuss Mockingjay, I want to discuss something else. Bear with me. I have a point, I promise.

(Some spoilers for Twilight and Mockingjay Part 1. No spoilers for Mockingjay Part II)

There is an emerging trend in the YA books-turned-movies industry, and that is the final book in a series being made into two individual movies. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows started this trend, followed quickly by Twilight’s Breaking Dawn. And let’s not forget that awful strategic decision to take J.R.R. Tolkien’s 320-page classic, The Hobbit, and turn it into not one, not two, but three separate movies.  

IRVING BERLIN’S WHITE CHRISTMAS is gracing the stage at the Fabulous Fox Theatre from November 17-22, 2015, just in time for…Thanksgiving. You can blame WICKED’s December residency for that, but that’s fine, really. The retail stores rolled out their Christmas gear before Halloween, so chances are you’ve already been dreaming of a white Christmas. And why wouldn’t you? After all, Bing Crosby’s rendition of the Irving Berlin classic is the best selling single of all time, according to the good folks at Guinness Book. Chances are you’ve seen the old movie or witness the production on previous tours, but believe it or not, I’ve never seen it before tonight.

After his battle with Zoom, Barry (Grant Gustin) was left without feeling in his legs. In case you were worried, don't be; he's got a very fast metabolism, and he heals pretty fast. His broken back is already mostly stitched back together as this episode opens.

However, while Barry is almost walking, his running speed isn't back. It's not the physical damage, but the emotional damage that leaves The Flash crippled. He was dragged all over Central City by Zoom, and the city that depended on The Flash to be their hero has now seen him defeated, and that has given him a mental block about using his abilities.

(By the way, this isn't the first time the hero has faced this kind of a physical challenge.)

A long time ago, at a PC far, far away (it was an Excel x286, and I sprung for the extra good SVGA card and monitor), I logged into the fledgling cyberspace. In those days you had to have a sheet of paper with the phone numbers for local Bulletin Board Systems and dial into them. If you wanted to go to another one, you had to hang up your connection and dial the next one. Your phone line stayed busy during all this, so the house was peaceful as nobody could call you. There wasn't much in the way of email, but there were lots of discussion boards.

And then came the day things changed. In a simple discussion filled with barbed sarcasm that would become the de facto method of communicating online, I saw two characters.

:)