Alan Kistler, Comic Book Historian: March 2007 Archives

While taking a break from the Wonder Woman profile (which hopefully will be up monday night), I took an hour to update the MARTIAN MANHUNTER PROFILE. It now has more information in it, such as the fact that there was a previous character named Roh Kar who was described as a "manhunter from Mars" in a Batman story and the fact that J'onn's daughter was named after Ostrander's late wife. It also has an update on the new character Miss Martian and the new AJ Lieberman series.

If you're just interested in J'onn's recent appearances on SMALLVILLE, skip ahead to PART TWO.

That's all for now. Enjoy!

So apparently, people out there care about my opinion despite a complete lack of credentials. :-P

There's a documentary being filmed concerning comic book adaptations into films and TV. One focus of the film is Wonder Woman, as there's quite a lot of talk about whether or not her movie is still happening and what should or shouldn't be done with the character. Apparently, Lynda Carter, Tom Mankiewicz (writer and creative consultant on Superman), and Jack O'Halloran (star of Superman and Superman II) have agreed to be interviewed by this same documentary.

At the moment, the documentary is still being shopped around to different studios. If for some reason no one actually picks it up, the producers intend to submit it to film festivals at the very least.

This past weekend, I got an e-mail from the folks involved in creating the documentary. They are aware of my being a "comic book historian" and want to interview me this week concerning my thoughts on Wonder Woman, as well as on comic book movies in general, which ones I think were done well and what I think should be kept in mind for the future.

They want to interview ME in the same movie in which they will interview Lynda Carter and Tom Mankiewicz. Who the Hell am I? But, apparently they're impressed with my articles on www.MonitorDuty.com and want me for the project. For all I know, my segment (assuming I even make the final cut of the film) will just be a minute or two, but still, I consdier it very cool as an opportunity and an offer.

So obviously I said "sure." I'm a mixture of being flattered and kind of bewildered by the whole thing. I mean, I interview OTHER people, no one interviews ME.

The interview is happening this Thursday. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Phillip C. Holliday, Jr. drove a pickup truck through a red light on March 7 in Billings, Montana. The pickup truck narrowly avoided striking another truck in the intersection and then Holliday made an "erratic U-turn" through a gas station, crossing a street and crashing into a light pole. No one was injured, fortunately.

When Holliday, 42, was questioned by officers at the scene, he told them the crash was not his fault. Why? BECUASE A UNICORN HAD BEEN DRIVING THE TRUCK.

Holliday pleaded not guilty to felony charges of criminal endangerment and drunken driving. Since he has five drunken-driving convictions, the judge ordered his bail to be kept at $100,000, despite the defense's argument that the last such conviction occurred 14 years ago.

The unicorn has not been found.

I didn't make any of this up.

Original Story.

Continuing the history of Wonder Woman.

So to recap. We had a cool woman from Paradise Island who was several times stronger, faster and tougher than the best human male athlete and who fought Nazis and several different villains. Then she was revamped slightly for modern times and given a boost in super-strength, along with the ability to glide on air currents. And then she had all her powers taken away, was given a wardrobe full of white outfits, and acted as a sort of private detective/professional adventurer who trotted around the globe looking for trouble to fight.

So what happened to bring her back to her roots? Let's find out!

Tobey Maguire has stated that he thinks he will be leaving the webs after this latest movie, saying he feels like leaving it as a trilogy is the way to go and that he can put the character behind him now.

In other news, for today and TODAY ONLY, you can see a 7 1/2 MINUTE PREVIEW OF SPIDER-MAN 3.

Many people have followed Stephen King's THE DARK TOWER series with the same love and dedication that others followed THE LORD OF THE RINGS. And many people have desperately wanted to see it brought to the screen just as many of King's other works have been adapted.

However, King has been pretty adamantly against it in the past. “This is my life’s work, in a sense,” King said. This is part of the reason why he agreed to have Marvel Comics do the Dark Tower comic series, because he saw it as a compromise that was the best of all possible worlds.

But with the art of Jae Lee in the comic series impressing many people, interest to seeing a film franchise has increased again. And so, J.J. Abrams (creator of LOST and ALIAS and the guy behind MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III and the upcoming STAR TREK movie) and Damon Lindeloff (executive produce of LOST) approached King about buying the option to do THE DARK TOWER as films or as a TV limited series. King has been on record several times saying he's a big fan of LOST and had confidence in Abrams' skills.

So as he told folks at the New York Comic-Con, when Abrams and Lindeloff approached him, King responded, "... Give me $19."

Roland, the last Gunslinger, and the Crimson King

And that's that. J.J. Abrams now has the option of pursuing this. What studio he would work with hasn't been set up yet, nor is it yet set in stone that he would actually direct and write it or only produce it. And since STAR TREK is going to be taking up his time, I think it'll be a while before we get to see what's going to come out of all this.

BTW, for those who don't read King, the number 19 has appeared in some of his stories (THE DARK TOWER included) as a harbinger of death and darkness, so I doubt that his asking for EXACTLY 19 bucks is a coincidence. Crazy, talented bastard! :-)

Chris Arndt AKA Blue Spider broke the story here a while ago about how Joss Whedon is no longer attached to write and direct the Wonder Woman movie. This was, as you'll recall, due to the fact that his idea for the character came into conflict with what the studio wanted. For instance, he wanted to emphasize Diana as a younger woman trying to come into her own, whereas the studio wanted a woman who was already an adult and confident. What's more, Whedon wanted to dismiss the costume from the comic books and wanted to invent a villain himself rather than use one from Diana's rogues gallery, which he described as weak.

Now, although the previous post on this site told you folks how Whedon's no longer attached, it didn't explain who IS attached now and what the circumstances are. So for those who are curious, let me explain.

Whedon's release from the project came at the same time that Warner Bros. purchased a script from newcomers Matthew Jennison and Brent Strickland. According to various sources, this script has a few major differences from Whedon's. For one thing, Diana is not as young and still wears her costume.

The other major difference? While Whedon's script was set in the present-day, the script by Jennison and Strickland takes place during World War II. It also apparently stays closer to the original version of Diana's origin.

Producer Joel Silver has said that he has no interest really in making the Wonder Woman movie a period piece, but the script came to his attention after making several rounds and executives were very impressed with the writing. Part of the reason they bought it was to protect themselves against any possible lawsuit later in case there are plot element similarities if the Wonder Woman movie gets made with a story from a different writer. This way, the studio can say they didn't steal or rip-off anything because they own Jennison and Strickland's script too!

But there are several involved who like the idea of having Wonder Woman face off against Nazis such as her Golden Age arch-enemy Paula von Gunther. And as said before, they were impressed with the writing. So a period piece is not out of the question and even if the studio does decide to set it in the present day, that doesn't necessarily mean they won't just ask Strickland and Jennison to do a re-write.

So let's keep our fingers crossed that when our Wonder Woman movie comes soon and that it kicks some ass.

Alan Kistler is a New Yorker in his mid-twenties who works freelance as a “comic book historian”, a label he got from several of his readers and from articles of Wikipedia.org. His recent Profile on Wonder Woman's History in Comics and Media can be found at THIS LINK.

Other articles by Alan Kistler, including various other Profiles posted on Monitor Duty, can be found HERE.