Big Blue Arndt: September 2005 Archives

Brand New!
Season Premiere!

Alias!

Jennifer Garner!

and Carl Kolchak returns at nine pm in Night Stalker....

just a bunch of reminders...

I cannot believe that we don't have more posts than this today....

Not going to say that I have faith in these supposed revelations but the large Google news search lends credence to the idea that Kirsten Dunst let slip who the baddies are for the next Spider-Man movie.

The bad guys are Venom and Sandman and the actors playing them are Topher Grace and Thomas Haden Church.

I don't entirely trust these reports. First of all I recall stuff by Sam Raimi saying he was into the Romita era of Spider-Man and earlier. He'd drive mostly for Ditko characters. Venom came out in the 1980s and was drawn by Todd McFarlane. Venom was created by David Michilinie.

It's hard to believe the reports that Topher Grace would or could play Venom. The important thing to remember is that Venom is a giant freak. You know those football players in college? That's Venom. In a Spider-Man costume with teeth on it. Topher Grace is comparatively tiny. Bulking up would still make a small Venom. I don't trust these reports yet. Sounds like the rumor mill to me.

For the past two weeks Scott Tipton has been doing a more or less complete rundown of the Supergirl character and character concept. Today's entry is part three of that series and covers the modern versions.

Cir-El is covered. The latest Supergirl is barely covered (in the physical sense; it's like a John Hughes movie). Matrix is covered for the most part. The only things that were left out were Matrix's involvement in Panic in the Sky, the aftermath of the return of Superman from the dead (the return of Clark Kent to public life), and her masquerade as Clark Kent when Superman went into his exile, thus again preserving his secret identity.

He only leaves out the latest Supergirl details because nearly all the stuff is still in print, and probably I suspect because it sucks, but he praises the story in the Superman/Batman Vol. 2: Supergirl trade.

I'll just point out that Supergirl #0 is the first issue of the newest series and features woman-on-girl mouth-to-mouth action not because it's tasteful but for reasons I haven't figured out and do not want to consider. Supergirl #1 is the second issue; many do not realize that; I forgot about it. I think I hate this new character.

He also, if I recall correctly, leaves out the last appearance of the Pre-Crisis Supergirl in a Deadman story in one of DC's holiday specials. They say that it is very touching.

Today's PvP was actually updated before 1:15 PM EST!

wow.

Usually he can rarely get the strip for one day done seven hours before the next. That's right; Scott Kurtz's daily comic strip discipline is so strong that on average I'd expect tomorrow's trip to be online at five in the afternoon.

Then again, his long-time readers may guess that if Kurtz spent less time playing World of Warcraft he'd have more strips done on time.

(I wasn't going to at first, but let's all go to Day by Day. Chris Muir gets every strip published within five minutes of the apropriate day's start. I have never went to his site and noticed yesterday's strip still up for today. It has never happened. Reward discipline and read Chris Muir's work every day.

I am not Alan Kistler and I am not a patient man. There are even more X-Men films than what Alan showed us here and here. Rather than wait, I'll show you where to find the rest.

X-Men: Death Becomes Them is the very first continuity-wise and was created first chronologically, apparently. I find it odd that there's continuity in these cartoons.

The cartoon that Kistler first told us about is here and I only tell you about the original source so you can go click some ads for capitalism's sake.

Revisiting Profit rips on the Age of Apocalypse, the X-Traitor, and raises the question on just how is it an aging bald dude in a wheelchair managed to stop this immortal shape-changing giant from conquering the world. It also mocks the X-iles. I've said too much.

Then there's House of M - Part 1. I impatiently wait for Part 2.

The cartoonist also created a hilarious and insightful Star Wars cartoon, a boring Star Trek parody and something that will touch you deeply if you were ever a fan of Square 1 TV on PBS so many years ago. Ninja's Mistake is also hilarious and quite unexpected.

The author-creator of all of these if Matt Gardner and he was the creator of a KeenSpot webcomic which I will now mock simply because A) he quit doing it and B) he maintains that it is his home page. It's a combined reason.

Comic Book Resources has a preview of New Thunderbolts #13 where Marvel's under-promoted team book with reformed bad guys takes on the latest iteration of Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

I'm not spoiling anything by saying that the New Avengers rightly get their butts handed to them. It may be harsh to say but as written the Avengers are outclassed.

The art looks good; the writer is generally good; the drama doesn't lie in the brawl.

I never finished the movie and I have no opinion, good or bad, about the film but apparently the soundtrack has been out of print for some time now. Apparently some people enjoyed that soundtrack.

Here is the soundtrack, in electronic form; enjoy it while you can before some lawyers take it away.

I wish I could listen to it where I am.

It's an anecdote so old it's in one of the text pieces in Origins of Marvel Comics. Stanley Martin Lieber wrote comic books for a living but didn't want his formal name attached to mere comic book work (he wanted to save it for the great American novel!) so he attached "Stan Lee" to his early Marvel Comic work (simply as an easy, quick pen name) and later on ended up legally changing it. It turns out that Stan Lee hates that name!

"Comics were the bottom rung of the creative and artistic totem pole. I'd go to a party and people would ask me what I did," recalls Lee. "They would turn around and walk away from me like I had the plague. I mean, nobody had any respect for comics. Consequently, I changed my name." A name that he hates to this day.

"It's a stupid name," spits Lee of the moniker that has caused him much grief (all of his personal identification bears "Lieber").

I find it sort of admirable that he's willing to take on a name he despises just to create a disconnect between his profession and his personal life.

In the past Monitor Duty has covered the transformation from decent, low-tier pop actress to Tom Cruise's new "real life" love interest so I feel free to pass along here that she's changing her name. Her new professional name will be Kate Cruise.

Remember when Brad Garrett was tossing off hints about a Robert-centric spin-off to Everybody Loves Raymond? Apparently he "wasn't just being optimistic". According to the Hollywood Reporter

Negotiations for a "Raymond" spinoff revolving around Garrett's woebegone character, Robert Barone, his wife and in-laws are said to have heated up at CBS during the past two weeks.