As I was reading all about the controversy surrounding Hit-Girl in the movie Kick-Ass, I wondered why all this hullabaloo? There have been a ton of sidekicks in the past that no one has said boo about. My favorite sidekick of all time, is also the first in comics: Robin, the Boy Wonder.

Robin was a sweet, acrobatic kid until he was trained to be a super-soldier by his caring and crazed “parental guardian” Batman. Albeit, he didn’t kill, but he still had bullets whizzing by his head. He was captured every other week and the Joker even killed one version of him.

Where was the parental outcry for my beloved Boy Wonder then? Instead of my dad decrying the shoddy parenting skills of Batty, he crafted a bat cave out of our sewing room, devised numerous bat-inspired gadgets for our utility belts, and together we trolled the streets of the cul-de-sac in search of evil.

In between ridding the streets of crime by returning a lost cat back to our neighbor, I read copious comic book adventures and looked forward to seeing a kid thwart crime on the mean streets of Gotham. It’s a wonder Robin has survived at all. His mentor, old Bats is a little Batty himself. He’s either sleeping at the office, obsessing in his bat cave over the latest baddie, or being all angsty, dark, and solemn.

The only time he does pay attention to Robin is when he trains him as a soldier to fight crime in grungy alleys. Not exactly, a nice afternoon in the park. Especially since the “superhero” by Robin’s side refuses to carry a gun against super-villains who have many distinct plans on how to torture and kill them. If I was Robin facing a coo coo for CoCo Puffs super-villain, I would certainly be packing a boatload of ammo and not be afraid to use it.

Continue Reading →

One of the coolest comic teams in history is Marvel’s Avengers. With all the turmoil and changes that’s hit the Marvel Universe of late it’s nice to see that the team is intact and stronger than ever. To commemorate this event, and the addition of new Avengers team members and a relunch of the group, Marvel has decided to celebrate with “Avengers Day.”

Want to know more? Check out all the details, including some comics art, from the following press release:

The Earth’s Mightiest Retailers assemble on May 19th for the inaugural, first-annual, Avengers Day! This historic event marks an all new era for Marvel’s greatest heroes as the Avengers come together to usher in The Heroic Age. Mark your calendars and be the first person on your block to score great Avengers Day commemorative items like exclusive limited edition print featuring John Romita Jr.’s “I Am An Avenger” images, door hangers, mini-posters and more!

Plus, fans can’t miss the chance to add their own heroes to the Avengers roster by sketching on the Avengers #1 I Am An Avenger Blank Variant and purchase the stunning Avengers Poster by John Romita Jr!

Plus, Marvel would like to thank participating retailers with a special advance screening edition of Avengers #1! This limited edition comic, featuring a letter from Brian Michael Bendis, won’t be made available to the general public or retailers not participating in May 19th’s historic events.

Continue Reading →

Make no mistake about it, Chloe Moretz (500 Days of Summer) owns this movie. She may only be 11 years old, but her performance as Hit-Girl is spunky, sassy, and exciting. Hit-Girl is poised to become a new comic cult icon, and Kick-Ass is quite simply a rollicking good time.

At one of the panels I attended this weekend, someone likened Kick-Ass to a comic type Pulp Fiction, which I would say is a pretty accurate description. British Actor Aaron Johnson plays Dave Lizewski, a nerdy high school type whose only interaction with the popular kids is when he brushes up against one at his locker.

One day out of the blue he decides he is going to become a vigilante superhero. He concocts a hideous green costume that resembles a wet suit, sets up a social media homepage for his alter ego, and starts “training.” When someone asks his name, he proudly proclaims, “I’m Kick-Ass!”

Completely inept and not blessed with any actual powers, Dave gets the living crap beat out of him by a few thugs mere moments after his official debut as Kick-Ass. This results in a multitude of injuries requiring steel plates and rods being placed throughout his body, which makes him a little more impervious to injury, but still not in possession of actual powers.

Continue Reading →

Thanks to the cool guys and gals at Yahoo Movies, we can bring you the latest theatrical trailer for Matthew Vaugh’s highly anticipated (especially in Geek circles) film Kick-Ass. As you might be aware, the film is based on the comic series by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr., tells the story of teenager Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) who decides to take crime fighting into his own hands and don the moniker “Kick-Ass” while he uncovers the true darkness in the city and gets the crap kicked out of him in the process.

The first trailer and the clips looked pretty cool and left us all hungry for more. And I don’t mind saying that this new trailer only increases our level of excitement adding much more to the action and character mix. This movie looks great and hopefully we’ll get to see it once SXSW rolls around.

Check it out after the jump. Kick-Ass, starring Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloe Moretz and Nicolas Cage, hits theaters on April 16th, 2010.

Continue Reading →

Just because this week is Christmas doesn’t mean everyone is on vacation. Case in point, your friendly neighborhood folks at Marvel Comics who’ve got some great comics for you coming out this week, just in time for your last minute shopping needs.

This week we’re particularly interested in the Captain America Reborn: Who Will Wield the Shield, the latest Punisher Max, a new New Avengers and the latest Secret Warriors. As always, be sure to check out cover art for some of these books after the break. Happy holidays!

Comics On-Sale:
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #611 2ND PRINTING VARIANT
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #612 2ND PRINTING VARIANT (GNTLT)
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #616 (GNTLT)
AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE #31 (S)
BLACK WIDOW & THE MARVEL GIRLS #2
CAPTAIN AMERICA REBORN: WHO WILL WIELD THE SHIELD?
CAPTAIN AMERICA REBORN: WHO WILL WIELD THE SHIELD? DAVIS VARIANT
CRIMINAL: THE SINNERS #3
DARK AVENGERS: ARES #3

Continue Reading →

With 2009 coming to a close, the challenge was to pick and rank the 10 best comics from the entire year. I’ve estimated reading approximately 1,500+ issues over that time frame, so obviously it wasn’t the easiest task to complete. Still, after much deliberation, these are my picks for the 10 best comics of 2009.

1. Jonah Hex #50
DC Comics
Writers: Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti
Artist: Darwyn Cooke
Originally reviewed on December 3, 2009

Perfection. Defined as the highest degree of proficiency, skill or excellence, perfection is near impossible to achieve, especially when every comic ever printed is subjective in nature. You know, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and all that jazz. Still, when I thought about all the comics I’ve read this past year, this issue of Jonah Hex kept coming back to me. While not perfect (frankly, what is?), it’s pretty close.

A wonderful done-in-one tale following our “hero” as he diligently goes about his day job, in this specific case while hunting down 50 various bad guys who had it coming to them. A fine story on it’s own. Now add a dash of romance – or the bounty hunter’s version of it – to the mix, sprinkle in a little personal vengeance, and top it off with a jolting reminder of how cruel life can be, and you’re left with a portrait of a man who makes no excuses for who he is or what he does, life expectations be damned.

Continue Reading →

Well, now we have character posters for what are the four main characters of the upcoming film Kick-Ass, which is based, of course, on the Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. comic book. Chloe Moretz plays ten year old Hit Girl, child who is trained to be a professional and merciless vigilante by her father, Big Daddy (played by Nicolas Cage).

In the new poster, we see Hit Girl on a rooftop, with the tagline, “I can’t see through walls. But I can kick your ass.” We’ve previously shown you the posters for Big Daddy, Red Mist (played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse), and Kick-Ass himself, played by Aaron Johnson. The posters, I have to say, are pretty blase’, considering the extreme nature that the comic, and seemingly the movie, has.

I guess you can’t really have an 11 year-old on a poster swearing and killing people, but I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t quite the correct way to promote  the movie. Cick through to see all four character posters, for your viewing pleasure, starting with Hit Girl.

Continue Reading →

With the release date of Lionsgate’s Kick-Ass drawing closer and closer, this is the time when the internet community gets treated to a slew of marketing strategies to increase awareness of the film. Much like 2008′s Dark Knight strategy, this plan involves hyping up the protagonist’s arch enemy, The Red Mist.

In the film, the crimson villain is portrayed by Superbad’s McLovin, known in the real world as Christopher Mintz-Plasse. In the books, Mist is a bad-ass, fast car driving, weed smoking, caped crusader who decides to team up with Kick-Ass before eventually showing his true colors.

The film is, of course, based on the current comic by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. In the book, a local teenager decides to take crime fighting into his own hands and don the title of “Kick-Ass” while he uncovers the true darkness in the city and gets the crap kicked out of him in the process.

The film is set for release on April 16th. You can check out the full, high-res version of the new poster after the jump. Be sure to keep it here for more details and information on the film as it comes our way.

Continue Reading →

A few months ago, there was a little gathering of pop culture fans that some call San Diego Comic-Con. There, movie studios bring projects that are upcoming to show off, and almost every time, one of the fans shoots the footage on their phone and later posts it on the internet. This has happened to some of the bigger projects of the past few years, from Spider-Man to Iron Man, and it even happened to Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass.

For a while, that bootleg footage was all we had to go by, until now. Lionsgate Studios has been on the marketing warpath this week, with the release of the first Kick-Ass posters hitting the web a few days ago. We now have our hands on the first theatrical teaser for the film, which is even more to salivate over.

The film, which is based on the ongoing Marvel series written by Mark Millar with art by John Romita Jr., stars such names as Nicolas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin), and relative unknown Aaron Johnson taking on the titular role of Kick-Ass.

Check out the first new teaser after the jump, which looks to already have some great panel adaptation, even in a two-minute teaser. Kick-Ass will hit theaters on April 16th, 2010.

Continue Reading →

Once again its time for the weekly list of new comics coming out on Wednesday from our pals at Marvel. This time around there’s some pretty cool titles including the new Dark Avengers: Ares #1, Punisher #10, Secret Warriors #9 and a Zombie variant X-Men Forever.

As always, we’ve got some cool art from some of these comics after the jump. On the way there, be sure to check out all the info via the official press release.

Comics On-Sale:

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN PRESENTS: ANTI-VENOM – NEW WAYS TO LIVE #2

ANITA BLAKE, THE LAUGHING CORPSE – EXECUTIONER #1

AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE #29

AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE #29 SHS VARIANT

DARK AVENGERS: ARES #1

DARK REIGN: THE LIST – DAREDEVIL 2ND PRINTING VARIANT

Continue Reading →

After a week off your favorite team is back in action with an all new episode of The Flickcast. This week, Chris, Matt and Christina make up for lost time and get right back into it with discussions on topics like the formation of DC Entertainment, the new Titan Maximum show from the creators of Robot Chicken, new iPod Nanos, the box office success of Tyler Perry, the box office failure of Whiteout and new, or returning, TV shows the team is excited about like Dollhouse, Flash Forward, Trauma and more.

The team also made some great picks again this week including Matt’s pick of the new film Gamer featuring Gerard Butler, Christina’s choice of TV’s Project Runway and Chris’ pick of Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr.’s comic Kick-Ass.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter and at Facebook, MySpace or via email.

Thanks for listening.

Just because Monday happened to be a holiday, those lazy postal workers made us all wait an extra day to get our comics. How dare they use Labor Day as an excuse? But the wait was worth it as there were a slew of great titles hitting the shelf this week including this week’s much awaited Pull of the Week: Kick-Ass #7. (Don’t worry, Marvel’s Models Inc. was a close second Matt) Make sure to let us know your thoughts on this week’s The Pull List in the comments section as well as other books we didn’t get to review this week.

Pull of the Week:

Kick-Ass #7 – Icon – $2.99

Score: 8.5

Well it’s about time someone said it. “Red Mist was a *expletive deleted*.” I never liked the kid or trusted him and the end of last issue proved why. Last issue, Kick-Ass and his partner Red Mist teamed up with Big Daddy and Hit-Girl to take it to the mob, only to be betrayed by Red Mist. As a result, this issue starts with Red Mist bashing his partner in the back of the head with the butt of a gun. Hit-Girl spells out for Kick-Ass why Red Mist betrayed him.

Spunky as ever, Hit-Girl tries to defend her beaten father only to be shot out a window by mafia leader John Genovese. And if shooting a little girl wasn’t enough, that’s when things somehow get even worse… like when Kick-Ass has to get interrogated by Bobby Bull-Buster’s shock treatment and yes, it is as brutal as it sounds. In addition, the issue gives the true origin behind Big Daddy before a few more astonishingly violent pages and ultimately the tag at the end reading “To Be Concluded”.

The only thing that I don’t like in the issue is hearing that this story is coming to an end. Yes, I know it sounds weird that I was fine with the little girl getting shot but the story feels so gritty and real for a comic book that I can let the adolescent violence slide. Every time you pick up Kick-Ass you forget it isn’t your standard superhero cape and tights story for just a moment. And then within the first few pages, someone is bloodied to a pulp and it reminds you that this isn’t Superman or Captain America in here. As much as someone can enjoy Mark Millar’s work on super hero stories with his work in books like Marvel’s Civil War, he has shown he shines in tales like Kick-Ass or Wanted.

Continue Reading →