Hey there, it’s time for a brand new episode of the occasional series The Flickcast. That’s right, we’re excited too.

On this week’s episode Chris and Joe discuss a bunch of stuff including Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Alien: Covenant, Wonder Woman, Blade Runner: 2049, American Gods and angry men on the internet. Plus, the usual even more. 

No beer selections again this week (it’s early in the AM0. But if you do drink, try to buy local. Picks this week include Chris’ pick of the movie Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Joe’s pick of both the movie and the soundtrack. Yes, both.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship, or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook, Google+ or shoot us an email.

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At WonderCon 2014, fans crammed into the Arena to watch the world premiere of DC Universe’s latest animated feature, Son of Batman, and with good reason. The film, which is set to release on DVD and Blu-ray on May 6, delivers fun and adventure with a fresh plot based Grant Morrison’s 2006 DC storyline.

Bruce Wayne (Jason O’Mara) receives an unwelcome visit from his former lover and foe, Talia al Gul (Morena Baccarin), who’s brought with her a son Batman never knew he had. Damien (Stuart Allen) is exactly the type of kid you’d expect to come from these two: smart, strong, ruthless, and bloodthirsty. Bats, with some patience and an assist from Nightwing (Sean Maher), is able to get through to his long-lost son, and it’s not long before the arrogant kid is donning his own version of the Robin costume. He soars off alongside his father to take down criminal mastermind, Deathstroke (Thomas Gibson).

In keeping with its later animated features, DC does not hold back on the blood and gore of the battles. Damien, who is supposed about 10, takes quite a beating and there’s an especially cringe worthy part involving daggers. Still the action is very welcome and keeps the plot speeding ahead. One of my favorite sequences involved the new dynamic duo fighting off ninja man-bats, engineered by a kidnapped Dr. Langstrom (Xander Berkeley).

We figure Marvel and DC get enough coverage, so we mostly try to bring you news from the smaller, more indie publishers. This time around that’s Dark Horse and their upcoming book Dark Horse Presents #24.

This issue is special for many reasons, but the one were most interested in today is the debut of a brand new superhero in the Dark Horse universe: Blackout.

In Blackout, “the commonplace life of Scott Travers changes forever when he comes to possess an extraordinary piece of technology that allows him to access a mysterious dimension within our own.” Okay, that’s good so far. But wait, there’s more.

Blackout writer Frank Barbiere says, “Blackout has a very fun sci-fi/mystery mythology that comes straight from DH Publisher Mike Richardson, and I think readers will be surprised and intrigued by what we have in store for them! Working with artist Micah Kaneshiro is a delight, and I look forward to bringing our story to DHP.”

Catch Blackout appearing in Dark Horse Presents #24, on sale May 22. Check out the full cover after the break.

Note: If you have any interest at all in seeing this film, I firmly advise that you go in completely cold and don’t read this until after you’ve seen it.

I don’t know if Chronicle is the first found-footage superhero film, but I’m certain it’s the best—and will remain so for a very long time. I had no idea what the film was about, and when it opened with a shot of a gloomy teenager filming the door to his bedroom while his drunk father angrily shouts to let him in, I groaned.

Goddammit, another one of those movies. When the kid said he was going to start filming everything, I groaned again. Dying mother? Ugh. Ugly kid clad in black? Blarg. By the time the kid started filming his cousin driving him to school and brought up Schopenhauer, I was about ready to check out.

Then it took a turn from the typical High-School-Sucks Movie into Horror, and I started to get interested. Then it took another turn into the Jackass realm. And just when I thought it would settle on Superhero Film, it just lingered on having a lot of fun with superpowers. But the best twists are saved until the end. Needless to say, when one character threw a baseball at another and it stopped dead in midair, I was hooked.

Super is an odd film, it is hard to take it out of context from the other recent films that it resembles. Both Kick-Ass and Defendor came out last year, and they all tackled very similar subject matter. From a film perspective Super is late to the party, and doesn’t really do anything that the other films didn’t do already. However, there is one area where the film stands out as very much the superior, it’s soundtrack!

Like the previous two films mentioned the soundtrack is populated with quirky tracks that epitomize the title character and their awkward journey through super-heroism. Super excels here with music that perfectly captures the tone of the movie and flows from one track to another with relative ease, which is a tall task when you are combining such different types of music. The selected source music tracks are generally fun to listen to and the score elements are universally excellent with Tyler Bates bringing some truly epic tracks that frankly are way better than the film deserves.

My first listen to the album was before I saw film which usually makes it harder to get wrapped up in the soundtrack because you have no visual base from which to tie to the movie. In that raw, first impression I was already taken with how the music promised a lighter tone with some several dark undertones. The track titles referenced god and religion several times and when the soundtrack needed to be epic, it delivered in spades. I would easily say that on a sound track level it was everything an independent superhero film needed it’s soundtrack to be.