This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt are joined by resident gaming expert John Carle for another round of discussions and debate. This week’s topics include the rather lame Superbowl ads, Smallville: Absolute Justice, Avatar being dethroned by Dear John, Betty White hosting Saturday Night Live, Microsoft stopping XBox Live for original XBox, reboots of Daredevil and The Thing and upcoming games such as Mass Effect 2 and the future of console gaming.

The boys also made some great picks this week including John’s pick of the animated X-Men series, Matt’s pick of Double Team with Jean Claude Van Damme and Mickey Rourke and Chris’ pick of John Carpenter’s 1982 horror/sci-fi classic The Thing.

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

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According to Heat Vision Blog, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Grindhouse) and Joel Edgerton (Attack of the Clones) are set to star in the latest incarnation of The Thing, Universal’s take on “the shape-shifting alien who terrorizes a group of people in a remote facility.” Oh yeah, that one.

Winstead will play a Ph.D. candidate who joins a Norwegian research team in Antarctica after it discovers an alien ship frozen in the ice. When a trapped organism is freed and begins to kill, she is forced to team with a mercenary helicopter pilot (Edgerton) to stop the rampage. Matthijs Van Heijningen is directing the movie, which was written by Ronald D. Moore and Eric Heisserer.

Sadly, Van Heijningen has never directed a big budget feature film before, so he’s probably the best choice for this one. Yes, that was sarcasm.

The Thing has, of course, been made into a film at least twice before. The best (and best-known) of these is probably the John Carpenter version from 1982 which featured Kurt Russell as the titular “mercenary helicopter pilot.” That film was a contemporary remake of 1951’s The Thing From Another World, directed by Howard Hawks and featuring pre-Gunsmoke James Arness as the creature.

A March 15 start date in Toronto is planned with a very short theatrical run and swift trip to your local video store probably soon to follow.

Marvel is at it again, adding a new spin to their image and changing things up to excite readers new and old. This time around, the publisher is set to unleash “the dawn of new heroism in the Marvel Universe.” What are they talking about? Well, read on for all the scoop, via the official press release.

Marvel Comics is proud to announce The Heroic Age, the dawn of an exciting new era of heroism in the Marvel Universe! Beginning in May 2010 with the release of Avengers #1, The Heroic Age ushers in a brighter Marvel Universe and a bold new era for the world’s greatest super heroes as they emerge from darkness with a renewed sense of hope and optimism, leading to the formation of all new teams with new members…and brand new characters!

Titles branded with the Heroic Age banner offer a perfect jumping on point for readers new and old alike, as the top comic book creators in the world deliver a Marvel Universe like you’ve never seen before!

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When you think of comics and comic history, one name probably comes to mind pretty quickly: Stan Lee. Having created or co-created some of the most famous and popular characters in comics history, his name has become synonymous with comics and Marvel, the company he helped put on the map.

Now, “The Man” is lending his talents to a new project for Marvel, the Marvel Digital Holiday Special. This four-part comic is available only online and features a story by Stan lee himself. For more info on the comic and where to get it, check out the official press release. And, be sure to check out some pages and a cover from the comic after the jump.

‘Tis the season to celebrate! And what better way to do so than with the 2009 Marvel Digital Holiday Special – an exclusive, four-part comic available only at Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited (www.marvel.com/digitalcomics). The legendary Marvel founding father Stan “The Man” Lee makes his Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited exclusive debut, penning a special Fantastic Four tale with art by Nick Dragotta that could only be called Marvel Digital Holiday Special: Rock of Ages. Check out a free preview right HERE!

The Thing teaches the rest of Marvel’s First Family all about Chanukah, and in turn, they impart some lessons of their own on some would-be street toughs. All this plus an art cameo by Lee’s FF co-creator Jack Kirby in a one-of-a-kind story that should not be missed!

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It should come as no surprise that in addition to the big announcements yesterday, especially the Disney Marvel deal, there was other news. One such piece that may please many Marvel fans out there who were less than thrilled with the way the first two movies turned out is the late breaking revelation that Fox is rebooting The Fantastic Four franchise. But wait, don’t get too excited because Akiva Goldsman, the man who wrote the two worst Batman films in history (Batman and Robin and Batman Forever) and the feature film version of Lost In Space featuring Matt Leblanc is in charge of the reboot for the studio.

Fortunately, he’s not actually writing the script and is just a producer. Michael Green, co-executive producer of Heroes, co-writer of the new Green Lantern and creator of the short-lived series Kings is the one tapped to write the new script. So, that may mean good things for the new Fantastic Four franchise. In case you don’t recall, 2005’s Fantastic Four and the 2007 sequel Rise of the Silver Surfer were directed by Tim Story and starred Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis. Since the details of the reboot are still being worked out, it is unclear if any of them will return. Or, if they should.

To be honest, I wouldn’t mind if nobody from the first films returned. I wasn’t a big fan of Tim Story’s direction nor most of the performances except for Gruffudd and Chiklis. Starting over fresh is not a bad idea and now that Iron Man and The Dark Knight have clearly shown the way to make really great comic book movies, maybe Michael Green can turn The Fantastic Four into something great also. Let’s hope so because these characters deserve a better cinematic treatment then they’ve gotten so far.