I saw this story on Lucha Underground's Facebook feed.

Danny Trejo was announced as joining the cast of El Rey's From Dusk Till Dawn series.  Sadly, we don't get El Rey by me, but I love Robert Rodriguez, so I've been wanting to see this series for a while.  I have been considering subscribing to Sling just so I can more easily follow From Dusk Till Dawn and Lucha Underground.

I have always had a love for lesser known actors...you know, those guys you've seen in many movies, but you don't know their names.  Well, I take the time to learn their names, and Danny Trejo has been one of my favorites for a while (I should do a column on some of my favorites...including Tina Majorino, Andre Braugher, Peter Stormore, and Clancy Brown).  Danny Trejo has appeared in around 200 different roles, including doing voice work.  He even had a brilliant cameo in the Muppet's Most Wanted as a prisoner in a Russian Gulag...named Danny Trejo. 

From Entertainment Weekly:

Want to see Firefly stars Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk not only back together on screen but back together on a spaceship? Then we recommend you get out your credit card and head over to the just-launched-today Indiegogo page for the pair’s planned web series, Con Man.

Cheap Pops - March 11, 2015

by Chris Delloiacono, Mike Maillaro and Jeff Ritter

This week!

• Jon Stewart Vs Seth Rollins

• Best Tag Teams All Time

While I was flipping through DC's upcoming solicitations, I saw the below solicit and image featuring DC's "All-New" Batman (hey, I thought All-New was a Marvel thing)...

BATMAN #41
Written by SCOTT SNYDER Art by GREG CAPULLO and DANNY MIKI
Cover by GREG CAPULLO
THE JOKER Variant cover by SEAN MURPHY
On sale JUNE 10 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T
Retailers: This issue will ship with two covers. Please see the order form for more information.
The all-new Batman makes his debut! Who is he, and what happens next? Find out here as a new era begins in Gotham City!

For all the spectacle of a San Diego Comic-Con or a Wizard World, there' something that's been slowly slipping away from the concept of the comic book convention: the comic book. Oh, it's still there, but now it's become a mecca for video game developers to show off their latest beta releases and Hollywood movie studios to generate buzz for their next year's action movies.

Mike D'Alessio is no stranger to comic conventions. He may not be known to the fans, but to the industries who attend these conventions, he and his Promoguys Marketing Group are major -- nay, invaluable -- players. Now D'Alessio is bringing all his experience and klout to bear as he brings the first annual Atlantic City Boardwalk Con to New Jersey -- but this isn't just another comic book convention, as you'll see as we talk with Mike about what's going to make this convention bigger and better.

It's always good to learn something when working on a review. Reading Vampirella: Our Lady of Shadows, I learned that when you are sitting by yourself in a nice restaurant reading a Vampirella comic is probably not the best choice. I was getting a lot of odd and annoyed looks at Ramsey's Pub in Caesar's Palace in Atlantic City when I was putting this review together.

BTW, and this isn't related to the comic at all, the food there was great and the service could not have been nicer. But, I'm afraid I've got some bad news....the drinks are way overpriced. Two rum and cokes cost me more than a three course dinner. Yikes!

But, that has nothing at all to with Vampirella. On with the comic!

 Vampirella Vol. 1 Our Lady of Shadows

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

Wait, are you telling me you haven't read Bone? Really? Okay, stop reading this right now. Go! Go, buy Bone. Go buy this trade right now and come back. I'll wait here.

…

…

Oh, you're back? Great. Now, let me tell you why you need to keep buying Bone for your grandparents, your parents, your children, your nieces and nephews, and for yourself. I originally read Bone in black and white about a decade ago. Simply put, I loved it. It was funny, heart-warming, and sweet. I was in college at the time and remembered loving the simple, but wonderfully written story about this little creature, Bone, and his adventures. It brought me back to a time of well-crafted fairytales. Jeff Smith weaves a web that enthralls the reader into needing “just one more issue!” Going back to it a decade later, I knew there was no way the story could possibly hold up to the standards I had set in my head years ago.

Descender #1

Written by: Jeff Lemire
Art by: Dustin Nguyen
Lettered by: Steve Wands
Cover by: Dustin Nguyen

Published by: Image
Cover Price: $3.99

I got an interesting press release from Valiant Entertainment this weekend:

Jerry Springer is like Coca-Cola. When someone says “Coke” you immediately think “sweet, brown, carbonated beverage.” When someone says “Jerry Springer” you immediately think “cross-dressing Neo-Nazi cheats on his pregnant midget fiancée with his gay first cousin.” Well, okay, maybe not that exact scenario, but you’d agree that it’s within the realm of possibility. The Jerry Springer Show is relevant not because it shows the biggest fools America can produce this side of Congress, but because it has done so with consistently solid ratings for two decades. Jerry himself was not immune. Before he became as big of a household name as, well, that other Jerry (Seinfeld), he was a budding politician in Ohio with dreams of the Governor’s mansion. That fell apart when he bounced a check—a check mind you—to a prostitute.

For as long as I can remember people have told me, “Oh, you have to see Phantom of the Opera! It’s so terrific, so beautiful.” I suppose I can’t argue with them in terms of statistics. By box office alone, Phantom is the biggest blockbuster in Broadway history. It has been watched and heard for 30+ years in multiple languages around the world. 180 million audience members can’t be wrong, can they? Leave it to me to dissent with the combined populations of Tokyo-Yokohama, Seoul-Incheon, Delhi, Jakarta, and Mumbai, give or take a goodly portion of San Paolo, as of 2010 statistics.  While the pageantry and grandeur of Phantom of the Opera was evident as it opened its roughly 2-wek run at St. Louis’ Fox Theatre, I found it lacking in several areas. You can start sending your hate mail now, or wait until you’ve read the rest—freedom of choice, God bless America!

I actually wasn't sure if I was going to pick this series up or not. I think Bendis has done a really good job with Guardians of the Galaxy, but I do think the market might be a little oversaturated with Guardians books right now. You have the core Guardians of the Galaxy series, Guardians 3000 (which was sadly unreadable), Rocket Raccoon, Starlord, and now Guardians Team-Up. But, I do try to give most #1's a read...if just for the purposes of reviewing them. So I decided to give it a look.  If nothing else, I knew I would enjoy seeing Art Adams drawing both teams.  

Guardians Team-Up #1

From Deadline:

CBS and Warner Bros. TV have released the first images of Supergirl star Melissa Benoist as the super heroine. Gone are the bleach blonde locks and the skimpy, midriff-baring cheerleader outfit from the Supergirl comics.

The more conservative mesh garb in muted colors is very similar to what Henry Cavill wears in the Warner Bros. Supeman movies — maybe DC and the studio are eying a potential crossover of the cousins in matching outfits?

The CW also is going for consistency, with the Supergirl costume created by the same designer who also did the costumes for the other two CW/WBTV DC superhero series, The Flash and Arrow: three-time Oscar winner Colleen Atwood (Alice in Wonderland, Memoirs Of A Geisha and Chicago). “In designing Supergirl, I wanted to embrace the past, but more importantly, thrust her into the street-style action hero of today,” she said.

On last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart announced that through Omaze they will be raffling off tickets for the final episode of The Daily Show. 

The prize includes:

• Get 2 tickets to Jon Stewart’s last ever taping of The Daily Show
• Receive exclusive Daily Show memorabilia
• Be flown out to NYC and put up in a 4-star hotel

All proceeds go to Night of Too Many Stars and New York Collaborates for Autism.  My cousin Marcus was just diagnosed with Autism, and my wife works closely with numerous autistic and other classified kids as a special education teacher.  This is a cause that is particularly important to me.  And of course, I am also a huge Daily Show fan, so I am glad to be able to provide a little publicity for this. 

In Pixie Hollow, every fairy has a role. Fawn (Ginnifer Goodwin) is a fairy whose specialty lies with helping animals. But her big heart sometimes has her making dangerous decisions, underscored in the beginning of this film when we find she's been tending an injured baby hawk. Apparently hawks are the natural predators of fairies, and Fawn's attempt to return the baby to the wild results in near-catastrophe. As a result, she makes a promise to Queen Clarion (Anjelica Huston) that she will be more responsible.

Shortly thereafter, a green comet flashes by, one that returns every 900 and some odd years. Its glow awakens a large hibernating animal, who does strange things. When Fawn encounters the beast, there's an "Androcles and the Lion" moment that bonds them, and then she tries to learn everything about the creature's strange activities, which include building rock towers.

By Gina and Mike Maillaro

Mike: We have a special guest this week!  My wife agreed to help create "fill-in" issues for if Open Mike Night was running behind schedule..  This was actually written a few weeks ago in case of emergencies.  And this week, I was out of town for most of the week and then Weaver's internet was down.  Our regularly scheduled column should be up early next week. 

My wife is an OG comic geek.  Her first comic was Kingdom Come.  She hasn’t read comics in a while, but she’s still got a lot to say.  Hi, honey!

I'm a Tim Burton fan. Flat out, I've loved everything of his I've seen, from the Michael Keaton BATMAN film through the black and white FRANKENWEENIE short. Even SWEENEY TODD is on my list of Burton masterpieces.

But until recently, I had not seen CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, which puts a slight dent in what I considered a perfect record.

If you've read the Roald Dahl book, or seen the slightly renamed Gene Wilder film WILLIE WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, then you may be somewhat taken aback by the deviations made in this version of the film. Oh, for the most part, it's the same story: Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore) is a good kid from a poor family; Willie Wonka (Johnny Depp) agrees to open his mysterious factory to those who find hidden Golden Tickets; rotten kids from around the world make the cut; cue the Oompa-Loompas for every lesson learned as the rotten kids become victims of their own flaws.

When the New 52 was announced, Justice League Dark was one of the titles I was most excited about. Part of that was that I really loved Shadowpact, and this seemed like the natural evolution of that series. And adding the Justice League name would be good on getting that book a little more attention. I also liked Peter Milligan's work on X-Statix and Human Target, and Mikel Janin is one of my favorite artists.

Cheap Pops - March 4, 2015

by Chris Delloiacono, Mike Maillaro and Jeff Ritter

This week!

• ESPN 30 for 30: The Von Erichs

• The Intercontinental Title

• New Japan Cup