This week in New York City, the annual Toy Fair convention hits the Jacob Javits Center and thousands of new and popular toys and toy properties are shown off. There were, of course, some less-than-interesting booths, but we know what you want to see, so we went straight to the newest lines of toys and statues based on some of the upcoming movie and TV properties.

Obviously, Toy Story 3 had a huge presence at the show, given the fact that it’s the best hybrid of toys and film out there today. Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland had some great new figures of the whacked out Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. LEGO stepped up their game with some brand new LEGO Star Wars playsets, including a great “Luke on Hoth” scene.

Diamond was also in attendence with some great new Ghostbusters products, including a new Ghostbusters replica sign for those hardcore fans. Finally, there were some great new 12-inch figures for the upcoming Jonah Hex film, including our first look at John Malkovich from the film.

Check out our Movie Toys picture gallery from the show after the jump, and be sure to check back in tomorrow to see what else we’ve got to show you from this year’s Toy Fair.

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Welcome to the first edition of The Pull List Comic Reviews for 2010! This week both Blackest Night and Siege took center stage with numerous titles, but don’t worry as the Caped Crusader and the Wall Crawler make appearances, too. As always, WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

PULL OF THE WEEK:

Blackest Night #6 [of 8]
DC Comics – $3.99 US
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Ivan Reis
Score: 9/10

When we last saw our heroes, well… let’s just say that some of them were no longer heroes. As black rings zoomed towards the Flash and Green Lantern, their friends and allies who had suddenly switched sides surrounded them. Superman. Wonder Woman. Green Arrow. And so on. With the universe slipping precariously into a never-ending pool of black, a new group of Lanterns have risen to the cause, and you won’t believe your eyes when you see who they are.

I’m starting to think that Geoff Johns should have been a major league pitcher as opposed to a writer, just with the sheer number of curve balls he’s thrown at readers throughout this series so far. Clearly outdoing himself, Johns put together a new group of Lanterns consisting of some of the most inspiring choices to date. The story beats keep pumping along, making the rapidly approaching ending all the more bittersweet.

Artist Ivan Reis continues to weave his magic in this series. Classic speedster moments? Check. Glorious double-page spreads? You bet. Jaw-dropping panels for significant moments? Of course! All this, and a slew of costume re-designs for the new Lanterns, just in case you didn’t know that Reis is drawing at a level that’s almost peerless. The art in this issue, and the series overall, can be summed up in one word: unparalleled.

The fifth installment of this mini-series received a Pull of the Week and a spot on the Best of 2009 list, so I wasn’t expecting an encore performance with this latest chapter. Shame on me. Both Johns and Reis raise the bar once again, and let the record show that, if this upward trend continues, I might not survive the series in its entirety. For sheer comic brilliance – and Lex Luthor! – this was easily the Pull of the Week.

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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.

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With Twilight: New Moon making over $500 million worldwide, it only makes sense that production studio Summit Entertainment would try as many gimmicks as possible to help boost the next film’s success. It has been announced that the third film in the series, Eclipse will get a simultaneous IMAX release along with the worldwide theatrical release of the film.

The film is set to open on June 30th of next year, which will make it a linchpin for the summer’s blockbuster season. In a recent article in Variety, Summit is already quite pleased with the plan.

“‘Twilight moviegoers will have a whole new way to experience this next installment of the series, with the enhanced image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience putting them in the movie,’ said Richie Fay, Summit’s president of domestic theatrical distribution.”

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Welcome to another edition of The Pull List Comic Reviews! This week Jonah Hex takes top billing, a couple more Blackest Night mini-series debuts and a slew of over-sized annuals and one-shots invade your pull list. As always, WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

PULL OF THE WEEK:

Jonah Hex #50
DC Comics – $3.99 US
Writers: Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti
Artist: Darwyn Cooke
Score: 9.5

The landmark 50th issue of Jonah Hex hits the stands, featuring a done-in-one tale of the scarred bounty hunter’s latest task: to locate and dispose of 50 various bad guys. The cost of victory, however, may prove to be too much to bear…

Jonah Hex is no stranger to violence. We’ve been exposed to his brand of “justice” for decades now, so it’s very easy to forget that, under all of that hatred, this killing machine does have a heart. Thankfully, writing team Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti weave a story that is sure to please the loyal Hex fans with plenty of merciless vengeance, while injecting a tragedy that goes to great lengths to humanize the central character.

Darwyn Cooke handles the art chores on this commemorative issue, further cementing how incredible a read this was. Gorgeous pencils accompany the artist’s usual cinematic flair, with numerous examples of how to kill a man mixed in with a few touching moments, and a final page that speaks volumes without the aid of dialogue. With the holidays around the corner, I’d gladly accept this final page in all of its original glory as a nifty Christmas gift.

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Once again it is time for this weeks’ peek at what DC Comics has in store (and in the store for us this week. Of the comics coming down the pike from our other favorite comics publisher, we’re particularly interested in anything Blackest Night and anything Batman, so there’s some great titles featuring these characters and story arcs this week.

Check out the list:

BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL #38
BATMAN: THE CAT AND THE BAT
BATMAN: UNSEEN #5 (OF 5)
BLACKEST NIGHT: THE FLASH #1 (OF 3)
BLACKEST NIGHT: WONDER WOMAN #1 (OF 3)
CARTOON NETWORK ACTION PACK #44
THE GREAT TEN #2 (OF 10)
JONAH HEX #50
JSA ALL-STARS #1
LOBO: HIGHWAY TO HELL #2 (OF 2)
LOONEY TUNES #181
THE MIGHTY #11

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As a big fan of Warren Ellis and his writing, I’m particularly happy to report that one of my favorite comics of his, Gravel, has now been optioned by Legendary Pictures for development as a feature film. This latest acquisition by Legendary makes a lot of sense considering they have several genre projects already going including Inception, Sucker Punch, Jonah Hex and Clash of the Titans.

In case you’re not as familiar with Gravel as you should be, it was created by Ellis in 1999 and is published by Avatar Press in its most current form. It centers on William Gravel, a soldier in the British S.A.S. who uses his skills in dark magic to moonlight and battle supernatural beings for clients in order to make extra cash. Along the way he encounters all manner of nastiness but still manages to not only survive, but to flourish.

According to the trade, Ellis will do the first draft of the screenplay and will also serve as an Executive Producer on the project, with Rick Alexander Producing. Given my fondness for Ellis’ work, I hope this continues the trend of his projects being adapted for the big screen.

No word on a director on any casting for Gravel, but for my money I would like to see Zack Snyder make this his next project after Sucker Punch. And, while we’re at it, how about Gerard Butler as Gravel? I think that combo, when combined with Ellis’ story, would make one hell of a movie.

For actor Michael Fassbender, getting into distinct characters is another day at the office. Over the last two years, he has transformed himself into a Spartan warrior, an emaciated hunger striker and a dashing English military man. For the upcoming DC Comics adaptation of Jonah Hex, Fassbender donned facial tattoos to play the charismatic henchman Burke, and the actor told Sci Fi Wire it was the costume that helped him get into character the most.

“Burke on the page was a certain sort of character, but then when I arrived in New Orleans and met up with Michael Wilkinson and Christien Tinsley, who did the tattoo, they really gave me all of the information I needed,” says Fassbender. “I put on this three-piece suit, and then I was going through hats, and I just put on a bowler hat, and I was like, that reminds me of Clockwork Orange, and that reminds me of Frank Gorshin’s Riddler. So that would be my physicality—I wanted to try and make him quite angular and quite rakish, and I definitely got the inspiration through the hat. So I found it all in that bowler hat, to be honest.”

According to Fassbender, his primary purpose in the film is to offset the intensity of John Malkovich, who plays Turnbull, a calm and menacing character and Jonah’s main adversary.

“I knew that [Jimmy] wanted quite a sort of boisterous, colorful character to go against John Malkovich’s,” he said. “Something that was sort of off the wall. So that’s sort of why I thought of the Riddler in the 1970s, and then there’s also something very sinister and dangerous about the Clockwork Orange element. So I just sort of mashed them together.”

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Even though Warner Bros. dropped these brand new posters during Comic-Con a day or so ago, that doesn’t mean everyone has seen them yet. Plus, they’re both pretty cool. So, for those of you who haven’t had a look, we’ve got the posters for both Jonah Hex, featuring Josh Brolin and Megan Fox, and the reboot of A Nightmare on Elm Street, featuring a somewhat obscured shot of Jackie Earle Haily as Freddy Kruger.

Of the two, I find the Jonah Hex poster to be the more interesting — at least in terms of the way its designed and who it features. Obviously, if the movie is called Jonah Hex you need to show that character and the actor who portrays him on the poster. That’s pretty much a no-brainer. What’s funny is that the poster also features Megan Fox prominently and lists her above the title right next to Josh Brolin.

Why do I find this unusual? Well, according to Fox herself, she plays a minor role in the film — that of a world-weary prostitute — and isn’t really all that important to the story. So why is she featured so prominently on the poster? Well, as you’ve probably figured out already, she’s kinda a big name at the moment and Warner Bros. obviously wants to capitalize on her fame as much as possible. Makes sense, especially as Jonah Hex might be a somewhat difficult sell to a middle America who may or may not have ever heard of the comic on which its based. Seems like a smart decision by the Warner PR department to me.

Jonah Hex hits theaters on June 18, 2010 and A Nightmare on Elm Street arrives on April 30, 2010  . Check out larger versions of the posters after the jump.

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It’s official, the full schedule for San Diego Comic-Con is now online. This year promises to be an exciting time and it looks like there will be plenty of stuff to keep us busy at the Con. From panels to screenings to booths and everything in between, we’ll bring it all to you right here at The Flickcast.

Looking over the schedule for this year, here’s a few of the TV and Movie events, panels, and more that we are particularly interested in and the days on which they happen. Tomorrow, look for our picks of the coolest and most interesting comics and games-related panels and events coming up at the Con.

Wednesday, July 22

6:00-9:00 Special Sneak Peek Pilot Screenings— Comic-Con and Warner Bros. Television proudly present exclusive pilot premiere screenings of some of the most buzzed-about new TV series of the 2009–2010 season—Human Target, V, and The Vampire Diaries—as well as an exclusive preview trailer for additional upcoming shows. Ballroom 20.

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