ExSeq Ep.65-Chuck Dixon
62 mins. Our creator profile on underrated and prolific superhero writer, Chuck Dixon. His talent, writing style, and influence on superhero comics in the late 90s is discussed, as well as the controversial issues and personal politics which led to his blacklisting at both Marvel & DC. Also, Whoopi Goldberg’s love life and Billy Connolly as Dr. Who.
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You can email us at kris (at)extrasequential(dot)com and befriend us on the NEW ES Facebook page.
ExSeq Ep.62-Arkham Asylum
72 mins. In honour of next week’s highly anticipated release of the Batman: Arkham City videogame, we discuss the best Arkham Asylum comics, the dark history of Gotham City and a few of its cruel and unusual inhabitants. Also, predictable superhero posing, Woody Allen as Batman and the ice-cold woman known as Frostbite McDonough.
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You can email us at kris (at)extrasequential(dot)com and befriend us on the NEW ES Facebook page.
ExSeq Ep. 52-Cats
58 mins. Celebrating World Cat Day, we take a feline focus on some our favourite cat-themed characters. Catwoman, Black Panther, Doraemon and oh, so many more. Also, DC’s controversial approach to female creators, and race within superhero comics.
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You can email us at kris (at)extrasequential(dot)com and befriend us on the NEW ES Facebook page.
ExSeq Ep. 36-Rombies and Peanuts
54 mins. Some DC reviews and a discussion about Rombies #1 and the new Peanuts OGN. Also Joss Whedon’s apparent foot fetish, Snoopy’s cousins and Mladen plays Kris’ former sidekick. It’ll make sense once you listen to the ep.
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1:50 NEWS
Green Lantern’s toes (yes, you read that correctly).
Batman Live World Arena Tour has a press day with costumes and video. And confetti.
Michael Shannon cast as General Zod.
Tokyopop closes.
14: 44 WHAT WE’VE BEEN READING
Brightest Day #23. Swamp Thing returns to the DC Universe and a few characters get turned into elementals.
Fear Itself #7. The Red Skull’s daughter Sin picks up a Norse hammer and brings madness upon the earth!
Batman: Arkham City game.
Tron Legacy: Reconfigured soundtrack.
28:05 The return of Panel Plays (because we demanded it!)
30: 40 FEATURE REVIEWS
Happiness Is A Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown. A Peanuts OGN from BOOM! Studios. We both liked it and found it rather funny, with a consistent visual style. Peanuts purists and newbies will enjoy its charms.
Rombies #1, an awesome new series from Tom Taylor, Skye Ogden and Gestalt Publishing. Zombies in Old Testament times. A father’s love brings death. This promising start to the new series is a great looking and highly entertaining comic.
ExSeq Ep. 27
63 mins. Another rambling, yet informative episode. We discuss a bunch of comics and film stuff, plus tedious fantasy movies, interstate travelling, water pistols and what Batman’s up to these days.
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1:13 NEWS
The upcoming Red Sonja film starring Amber Heard, Comic-Con 2011 is all sold out, the new Thor, Captain America, Cowboys & Aliens, and X-Men: First Class trailers, Lois Lane and Ursa in the Superman reboot, the most popular comics website, and theDreams Come True Disney exhibit in Melbourne.
25:35 WHAT WE’VE BEEN READING
Weird zines such as Modern Gentlemen #3, and the far cuter Summer Tears#1, the disappointing Dinner for Schmucks film, Brightest Day #19, Thorgal by Jean van Hamme and Grzegorz Rosiński, the supporting cast spotlighting Superman 80 Page Giant 2011, Raymond Briggs’ nuclear drama When The Wind Blows, Batman and Robin #20 with the new creative team of Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason and finally Deus Ex: Human Revolution #1.
Episode 25-1986
69 mins. It’s our 25th podcast and we celebrate the occasion by looking at the 25th anniversary of the year 1986, and what a year it was. We talk about the comics of the time plus power ballads, being born, multiple Sheens, the popularity of the high-five, and the shock of seeing Transformers dying.
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1:32 NEWS
Death of the Comics Code and the upcoming doco about it, death of the powerful comics magazine Wizard and Shaun Tan’s Oscar nomination.
11:22 WHAT WE’VE BEEN READING
Arrested Development, and the whacky shenanigans of Axe Cop Vol. 1 TPB.
21:30 1986-THE YEAR THAT WAS
We kick off with the year’s Top Ten grossing films, talk about dying Transformers, Steve Guttenberg, and then get to comics of the time.
John Byrne’s Superman: Man of Steel that revamped and streamlined Clark and co.
Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, that showed an aged Bruce Wayne putting on the cowl once more in a mad future that put Batman back into the darkness, where he belongs.
Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
The British Invasion that saw English creators (such as Grant Morrison and Neil Gaiman) getting huge success in America, particularly DC Comics.
The rise of the independent publisher such as Dark Horse Comics and Slave Labor Graphics.
Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize winning Maus.
The formation of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
A few long running characters debuted including Booster Gold, Kilowog, Sodam Yat, Apocalypse and Eddie Brock (Venom).
For non-superheroes, 1986 saw the debut of Dylan Dog, Tintin and Alph-Art, Golgo 13, Area 88, Lone Wolf and Cub, Crying Freeman and Spirit of Wonder.
Episode Sixteen-Detectives
78 mins. During the increasing heat, Mladen and I yak about a plethora of awesome Batman comics showing Bruce Wayne starting his crusade to build an army of international Batmen, the Green Lantern film trailer, our look at detectives in comics, how reading comics and novels differ and unusual eBay items.
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2:45: NEWS
Dennis Leary as Captain Stacy in the upcoming Spidey film, the Green Lantern film trailer, Ninja Turtle’s co-creator Kevin Eastman’s fire sale and the first photo of Karl Urban as Judge Dredd.
The New Batman
So, Dick Grayson is the new Batman, and Bruce Wayne’s son, Damian is the new Robin. Though you couldn’t really tell from reading this week’s Battle for the Cowl conclusion. The current Robin, Tim Drake and former (dead) Robin Jason Todd were running around in different Batman costumes while various classic Batman foes watched as Gotham descended into more hellish chaos. And just so you know Batman, AKA Bruce Wayne is not exactly dead. Rather he was sent way back in time thanks to Darkseid’s Omega Sanction eye beams. You can read all about it in Final Crisis if you don’t mind a migraine. However, as a sum up, here’s my latest Broken Frontier article, The Battle for Batman.
There’s also an interview at Newsarama with the writer/artist of the 3 ish mini, Battle for the Cowl, Tony Daniel. For those who are unsure as to the precise identity of the new cowl wearer, as it is rather ambiguous in the final pages of BOC #3, this excerpt from the interview should make it clear.
NRAMA: What can you tell us about how these last couple pages were designed? Why didn’t the readers see the face of the person putting on the cowl? The words from Dick make it pretty clear he is wearing the cowl, so does the lack of a face have another meaning? And anything you want to share about the design of the pages? They’re pretty cool-looking…
TD: Thanks – well, I wanted us to view what Dick was viewing, be Dick, for that moment. Going through the mansion, down to the cave. Putting up the cowl. Yes, his hair is shorter. But it’s been Dick’s captions all the way through issue #3, so I thought it was pretty self-explanatory.
Okay then. Here’s a few pages from Cowl #3 for your perusal.
Get Wired
The tech-mag Wired appears to be ramping up its comic book cool factor lately. You can check out an interview with Neil Gaiman on his delayed conclusion to the Batman’s farewell, Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader? Now, the interviewer describes these final two Batman-centric issues of Detective Comics as “hilarious” for some odd reason, but then again Gaiman’s issues, which either discard or embrace continuity, depending on your point of view, are somewhat intriguing. They’re also slightly maddening as a send off to the legendary man in the cowl. The interview is worth a read though, as Gaiman discusses Alan Moore, the Watchmen and Sandman films, and more.
Also, you can read an interesting piece in the latest issue of Wired, by guest editor J.J. Abrams about his frustration over the internet hating his attempted 2002 Superman script (the one where Krypton doesn’t explode, Lex Luthor is a Kryptonian and Jimmy Olsen is gay). Um…yeah, there’s many reason why fandom didn’t embrace your script, Mr. Abrams.
Faces of Evil: Prometheus Review
I remember when this evil character was introduced, back in Grant Morrison’s excellent Justice League of America run that re-vamped DC Comics’ legendary heroes just over a decade ago. The second DC character to use that name, Prometheus was touted as the anti-Batman during his debut, due to his mad fighting skills, ruthless attitude and tactical mind. He was a great bad guy and almost took down the JLA single handedly by effectively downloading his opponents weaknesses into his brain. He was handled very well by Morrison, and then not so well by a few other writers. However this new one-shot explains why. Apparently Prometheus’ regular beatings more recently are due to the fact that it wasn’t the real deal. Rather, when the Justice Leaguer Martian Manhunter last defeated him he also temporarily imprisoned his mind. making him a vegetable in a lunatic asylum and a drooling shadow of his former self. The man who has been running around in his costume for the last two years was a weaker impostor. Now that Martian Manhunter has been killed, the real Prometheus is free.
I really enjoyed this issue. It’s part of this month’s Faces of Evil series that spotlights villains in the DC Comics Universe. Writer Sterling Gates (Supergril) and newbie artist Federicho Dallocchio do some great work here. Perfect for new readers, or those who have been away from the DCU for a while, it explains Prometheus’ origin very well (son of a criminal couple gunned down by cops, who travels the world training and acquires a supernatural key from a Tibetan monk, and vast sums of money from his parent’s thefts) it also looks gritty, with very Jae Lee (Stephen King’s The Stand)-like artwork. Prometheus is truly menacing once more, and when he meets the pretender to his identity, plus C-list heroes Gunfire, Anima and Argus, you just know a brutal smackdown is on its way. Even the retconning makes perfect sense. I was more impressed with this issue than I expected, and am glad the DCU has another villain on the way to a grand re-entrance. Click below to see some of the great art from this issue.
So, Batman Is Dead
It’s no surprise to hard core readers. Infact, we’ve expected this moment for almost a year now, but what surprises me the most is that DC Comics haven’t made the most of this event with the press like they have with recent “events” such as the unveiling of a new lesbian Batwoman or introducing racial diversity to their characters, such as an Asian Atom, African American Firestorm and Mexican Blue Beetle. DC’s main competitor Marvel Comics, has made an art form of handling the press with headline grabbers such as Spider-Man’s divorce and Captain America’s death. Most recently, it’s been putting Barack Obama in Amazing Spider-Man #583, and experiencing huge queues at comic shops across the US as the mainstream press lapped it up. Obama is a popular draw card these days, with the President Elect also appearing in Image’s Savage Dragon recently, and an upcoming issue of Rob Liefeld’s new Youngblood series. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Obama is a mad Spidey fan either.
So, back to Batman. How exactly did the Dark Knight die? Let’s just say, it’s complicated. Scottish writer Grant Morrison has been deconstructing the hero in his lengthy Batman: R.I.P arc that has divided fans with its convoluted plots and fractured gaze at Batman’s various incarnations over the decades. Now that it’s finished, it’s obvious that it was a grand idea, poorly executed. However, this week’s Final Crisis #6, part of a multi-character end of the world epic that has everyone squaring off against Darkseid, Batman makes the ultimate sacrifice and reminds everyone one last time why he should be feared, by taking out Darkseid for good-hopefully. The best is yet to come for Bats though. There is now a fight on for who shall be the new Batman. Will it be Damian, Batman’s young son, any three of the Robins (Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake), bad guy Hush, or who knows? I will say that the last page of Final Crisis #6 is simply awesome. As every fanboy knows – superheroes die. All the time. And they generally come back. With a fired up Superman tearing up all he sees and showing up with Bat’s corpse in his arms, it’s definitely a WOW moment. But I think, once Battle for the Cowl begins in March, written and illustrated by Tony Daniel, there will be more WOWs to come. Batman’s not really gone I’d say. Just consider it a see you later, even though when Bruce Wayne returns it will probably not be under the familiar dark garb. For a preview of Final Crisis #6, click below.
