We interrupt your regularly scheduled SITE INACTIVITY (You’re the one who’s not active, RJ. -Ade) for a video clip I found on the interwebs! Batman: Arkham City was released on the PS3 and 360 last week, but sadly, PC gamers won’t be able to play it until November 15th :(. But PC gamers, being the master race, are willing to wait. And while we wait, check out the new Nightwing DLC trailer!

Thanks to Krispy Kreme and Discovery Channel, Comicgasm editors Ade & RJ were invited to an exclusive screening of The Green Hornet. Yes, these two idiots get invited to events now. We’re more surprised at the fact that people still actually bother to read this blog. Anyway, here’s what the Comicgasm crew thought of the Michel Gondry and Seth Rogen superhero flick.

Part 1 of the review can be found here.

WARNING: This review contains SPOILERS.

RJ: Let’s talk about the Black Beauty. Coz damn, it took the spotlight sooo many times! Most badass ride in a comic book movie. Ever.

Ade: Dude, I may be going on a limb here, but Seth Rogen’s Black Beauty just beat that other iconic superhero car, the Batmobile. Yes, I’m talking about every incarnation ever of the Batmobile –  even the flying one Dick Grayson rides nowadays. It has guns, missiles, and even a vinyl player.

RJ: If there’s one thing the Batmobile lacks, it’s a lethal arsenal. And THAT is what the Black Beauty is built for! Or rather, their usage of the weapons. You don’t see Batman firing a rocket directly at a thug. These guys went all out, massive explosions and random things landing on criminals.

Ade: I was expecting them to break out some Pabst Blue Ribbon because a retro car playing vinyl records is so hipster, dude.

RJ: I loved how they went through with the vigilante act by pretending to be criminals. It’s like anti-Adam West. It suited their “fuck it, let’s kick some ass” attitude really well. And being true to the TV series at the same time.

Ade: There’s this one part of The Green Hornet which I really loved – remember the scene when Chudnofsky put a bounty on The Green Hornet’s head? And all the thugs just spread the word and the screen just split into different pieces as each thug went off into different directions? It’s an amazing way to interpret comic book panels, and was surreal enough to remind you that yes, you’re still watching a Michel Gondry film. (continue reading…)

To be honest, I wasn’t really enthused with this new Young Justice cartoon. I wasn’t really a Teen Titans fan, and this cartoon, even though it carried the name of the awesome series by Peter David, wasn’t the same team from that comic. First, Robin was Dick Grayson, and not Tim Drake. Okay, I understood that Dick was the most iconic Robin. Most non-nerds (who will probably make up a huge part of the audience) aren’t even aware that there have been a lot of Robins already. I think I can live with that. Kid Flash is Wally West, not Bart Allen, which is fine with me. However, the disturbing lack of Wonder Girl, and having Arrowette stand-in for the obligatory strong female character is not something I liked.

What got me excited about Young Justice, however, was the concept – it was a completely different approach from all versions of the young superhero sidekick team we’ve all seen before. Here, let me quote Wikipedia for you because I’ve tried to write the next sentence a billion times but I can’t just fucking get it right:

The show is set in Earth-16, a DC Multiverse world, and corresponds to the present time of our world — a time period Vietti has called “a new age of heroes.” The recently founded (three to four years in activity) Justice League is a powerful organization of superheroes who find themselves becoming “high-powered, high-wattage celebrities” tracked closely by the public. As it grows increasingly difficult for the Justice League to operate outside the spotlight, the supervillains take advantage of their opponents’ prominence while becoming better at organizing and working under the radar. Meanwhile, the teenaged sidekicks of several Justice League members feel they are ready to graduate on to the next level and become more independent. Consequently, Batman organizes the teens to fill the need for a covert operations team while keeping their protégés under their authority.

Okay. There. The concept of a covert ops team made entirely out of sidekicks appealed to me. In fact, this sounds pretty awesome. And the fact that it’s set in Earth-16 made the show more interesting for me to watch, because that means if it happens on the show, it affects the DC comic multiverse. (continue reading…)

Well, not exactly. One of my new favorite writers, Paul Cornell, is indeed taking over from Grant Morrison after he finishes his tenure on the totally fun and Dick Grayson-centric Batman and Robin. But it’s not like Cornell’s going to be the regular writer of the series, though- he’s just writing a 3-issue arc starting with #17 on November 24, basically filling in until Pete Tomasi is ready to take over the title. I don’t have any complaints though – Cornell and Tomasi have proven to be great writers, although I feel that Cornell fits the “60′s-Batman-on-recreational-drugs” feel of Batman and Robin better.

So what can we expect from Cornell’s very unfortunately short run on Batman and Robin? Here are a couple of paragraphs taken from his interview with IGN, just to give us an idea of what’s going to happen: (continue reading…)

I CALLED IT.

Yes, Comicgasm readers, I called it months ago. When Batman comes back from his time-hopping adventures in Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, I figured that they weren’t going to let Dick Grayson go back to the Nightwing identity that easily. No, I said. A lot of readers have already warmed up to Dick Grayson as Batman, so he was going to stay on as The Dark Knight.

Okay, so I never really wrote my little theory on this blog, and I was hoping for a Batman Beyond kind of dynamic – Dick running around as Batman while Bruce coaches him and feeds him information from the Batcave. I never expected that Grant Morrison would throw a curveball and give us Batman Inc. – a series where the newly-returned Bruce Wayne builds a Starbucks-like franchise of Batmen.

I guess everyone who’s been following the saga of Morrison’s Batman figured out that we’d be getting multiple Batmen the moment Batman Inc. was announced, but the story in The New York Post just made it official:

In fact, two might not be enough either, DC publisher Dan DiDio said.

"Bruce Wayne realizes that he can’t just be the grim avenger he was before," DiDio said. "He wants to be more aggressive in his reach, and realizes the change that Batman as a symbol can effect around the world."

In the new title, "Batman Inc.," Wayne does what any billionaire would: build a Starbucks-style franchise of Dark Knights.

"Without giving too much away here, we wanted to show how Batman can have a global influence," he said.

You know what? I don’t mind having more than one Batman running around the world. That’s cool. That’s a new idea that hasn’t been explored in canon before. I’m just glad they’re keeping Damian “I’m a badass motherfucker” Wayne as Robin.

Now that the Nightwing costume is going to be empty for at least another year, can we have Cassandra Cain as a female Nightwing please? (Fuck Chris Kent as Nightwing, really – the Nightwing identity belongs to the Bat-verse)

What do you think?

[via Cocoy]