The much-beloved television series I Love Lucy ended in 1957, nearly 20 years before my time. Thanks to the pioneering ways of stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, generation after generation has laughed at the zany antics of “America’s Favorite Redhead.” In the early days of television, most shows were broadcast live in their time zone and as “kinescopes” in other regions—a vastly inferior method that used a television camera to record the image from a television set as the show aired (not unlike people who record TV clips with their cell phones and post them on YouTube today). Desi and Lucille used a three-camera shoot and shot everything on 35mm film so that clean prints could be shown across America. In the show’s second season, Lucille became pregnant and Desi and show producer Jess Oppenheimer decided to rebroadcast the best-received episodes from the previous season, and the ratings were much higher than expected. They had just invented the rerun.

by Mike Maillaro and Mike Weaver

With MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON just around the corner, WB has released the first teaser of their own cadre of superheroes.

Welcome to the world of Zack Snyder's BATMAN v SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE. It's a grim, gritty world, where even Metropolis looks like a place I'd fear walking through at night. We hear two voiceovers, presumably from Lex Luthor who talks about devils coming from the sky. This, as the scene slowly closes in on a statue of the Man of Steel with the grafitti "False God" across its chest, leading this reviewer to wonder if Snyder's Luthor will be combining a little evangelical fundamentalism with his super science in order to turn the public against Superman.

By Mike Weaver and Mike Maillaro

The Punisher Meets Archie

Written by: Batton Lash
Art by:  John Buscema and Stan Goldberg
Published by: Archie and Marvel

Whenever I hear the phrase “based on a true story,” I often wonder, “Which part?” Take “Titanic” for example. I know the boat is going to sink. I wonder if there was a romance between the characters played by Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio or if that was contrived to distract the audience from the inevitable disaster that nearly everyone on Earth knew was coming in that film. I suppose if Hollywood didn’t spice it up they’d be making documentaries, not blockbusters.

JJ Abrams debuted a new teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens at the Star Wars Celebration today.  I guess to prevent crappy bootleg versions from showing up online, they actually posted it online, which was pretty decent of them. 

I do have some quick comments about it, but I'm sure you are much more excited to watch the trailer than read to what I have to say, so here it is.  Meet me below to read my thoughts on it:

by Chris Delloiacono, Mike Maillaro and Jeff Ritter

This week!

THE POSTHUMAN PROJECT is an idea we've seen before, any number of times with varying degrees of success, with outings like X-MEN and GEN-13. In this particular version of the trope, the teens are a group of Oklahoma high school kids nearing graduation. To celebrate, they're going to climb a mountain. Denny Burke (Kyle Whalen) is still recovering from falling off a mountain, in a freak accident which also saw his father disappear.

All is not as it seems, however, as Denny and his beleaguered brother, Archie (Collin Place), meet their long-lost Uncle Billy (Jason Leyva), and his unusual offer. Soon enough, the Burke brothers, joined by their friends Adam (Josh Bonzie), Lisa (Alexandra Harris) and Gwen (Lindsay Sawyer) pile into the SUV and drive off to conquer Mount Dominick, which Uncle Billy now owns.

I think Valiant has been very smart about limiting the number of books they put out at one time. There have been some new series, but for the most part, they have kept their number of books very consistent. The original Valiant seemed to expand way too quickly, and as a result, they had a lot of books put out by weak creative teams. Valiant seems to have a good plan in place to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

One thing that’s odd about the comic industry is that in order to help sell books, we get to see solicits of upcoming titles months in advance. So that tends to diminish some shocking moments. For example, at the end of The Valiant, before she dies, the Geomancers last act is to free Bloodshot from the nanites in his system, turning him human again. But, since we already knew there was an issue called Bloodshot Reborn, coming out a few weeks later, it was obvious this wouldn’t stick.

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

Fox #1 - Black Hood has been excellent, and The Fox has an extra bonus of being written by Mark Waid. So this is definitely my early pick for book of the week...though there is a lot of competition.

This is the trailer Marvel posted this morning.  It definitely looks like it will live up to the terrific movies Marvel has been putting out the last few years.  I'm still not sure Ant-Man needs his own movie, but at least the movie does look pretty awesome.  I laughed when Lang says "my days of breaking into places to steal stuff are over.  What do you want me to do?" and Pym replies, "I want you to break into some place to steal some stuff." 

If nothing else, the effects look incredible.  And the Yellowjacket costume looks incredible.  I was actually thinking that Pym was going to end up having a split personality and secretly be Yellowjacket, but the trailer definitely suggests otherwise. 

Shameless self-promotion: Ant-Man is one of Critical Blast's most anticipated movies for 2015!

Enough out of me, let's check out the trailer:

Mike Maillaro: Welcome to Blast of the Week.  Each week, the Critical Blast staff will post up a question and do our best to answer it.   This is going to be pretty freeform and stream of consciousness, so I have no idea what we’ll end up with.   So, good luck, and hopefully we will all survive this.

When I was just a small child, I would get my hands on a couple of my mother’s pots and a couple of wooden spoons, and go to town making the most unharmonious racket you can imagine. It wouldn’t take long before those cooking implements were taken away and peace and quiet was restored to the Ritter household. I can’t honestly say that I remember having seen a drummer of any sort before that experience, so maybe it’s more of a primal instinct for humans to make music, however they can manage it. Some people are just plain gifted—prodigies on piano or guitar at a young age that make it look effortless to produce sounds some trained professionals would be hard-pressed to achieve with a lifetime of practice. Some are only concert megastars in the shower or in their car, but either way only in their own heads (that’s me!). Some rare, lucky individuals blaze a new path, turning the kitchenware cacophony of my youth into a fusion of jazz, rock, tap dance and sketch comedy.

Convergence: Speed Force #1 by Tony Bedard and Tom Grummett

About a year ago, Wally West and his twins felt something calling them to Gotham.  They arrive there just in time for the dome to appear stranding them from Linda and taking away their powers.  A year later, Wally has been spending his time trying to break free.  Once the dome falls, Flash is supposed to fight Flashpoint Wonder Woman, but he decides to break the rules and races off to try and help other cities that were taken here by Telos.  He ends up in El Inferno, which has already fallen.  Telos warns Flash if he refuses to fight, his family will fall too.  Flash races through the various cities trying to find his way back to Gotham.  He encounters Fastback, a speedster turtle from Captain Carrot's world.  Fastback proposes all the speedsters team up, but they are interrupted by the arrival of Wonder Woman and an army of Amazons.

In The House of Leviathan by B.D. Bruns

Printed by: World Waters

$15 on Amazon ($9.99 for Digital)

When I started to write this review, it occurred to me that I haven’t reviewed a novel in a long time.  The last time was probably 15 years ago when I was still at Rutgers for a "Criticism" class I was taking under the terrific Terry Teachout.  Just as an aside, Rutgers has a great journalism program, and they really shaped the writer I am today.  So if you like my reviews, you can thank them.  If you hate them, you can blame them.  I prefer not to take personal responsibility for my actions…

As I was sitting down with my tablet trying to figure out which Convergence titles I wanted to review this week, I suddenly had the idea “LET’S DO THEM ALL!”  This probably was a terrible idea, and speaks to mental illness, but let’s try this!  I am posting this in two parts.  Convergence 0, Convergence 1, and the first five issues today (alphabetically) and the rest tomorrow.

by Mike Maillaro and Mike Weaver

Maillaro: This column might look a little familiar.  Last week, we reviewed Convergence 0 and 100 Bullets Vol. 1.  Both books left us in a place where it felt like there was more to talk about as the two series continued, so we decided to give Convergence 1 and 100 Bullets Vol. 2 a shot this week.  

Yes ladies and gentlemen, we've got a sequel!

Picking up from the ashes of SON OF BATMAN, BATMAN VS ROBIN pits father against son in one of the most dysfunctional family dynamics that could be imagined.

Damian Wayne (Stuart Allan) is a ten-year-old assassin, trained by the best in the business. His bloodlust is potentially inborn, what with having Talia al Ghul as a mother. United with his father, Bruce Wayne (Jason O'Mara) for the first time has been tumultuous at best, as Damian is eager to accompany his father in the battle against crime as Batman and Robin. Only this Robin has to be reined in to keep him from killing the bad guys.

As BATMAN VS ROBIN opens, Robin has gone off on his own in search of some missing children taken by The Dollmaker ("Weird Al" Yankovic). It is during this encounter that Robin meets Talon (Jeremy Sisto), who fights like Batman but isn't timid about crossing the line of taking lives. He offers Robin an opportunity to join him, which Robin begins to seriously consider.

From Mashable:

WB Games just put Skylanders and Disney Infinity on notice with the reveal of a new toys-to-life Lego game called Lego Dimensions.

The $99 starter pack (per Toys R Us listings) includes the game, a Lego Toy Pad (think Skylanders' portal), Lego Gateway building bricks, three Lego minifigures (The Lego Movie's Batman, Gandalf, and Wyldstyle), and a Lego Batmobile. The game is in development at TT Games, the UK-based studio behind WB's Lego franchise.

There's no word on whether Dimensions affects release plans for Lego Jurassic World and Lego Marvel's Avengers, both of which are pegged for a 2015 release.

by Chris Delloiacono, Mike Maillaro and Jeff Ritter

This week!

• AJ Lee “retires”

• Best Gimmicks

• Lucha Underground Results