Earth One

I'm really bummed about the departure of J. Michael Straczynski from Thor. So, now, I'm trying to find books written by him. Then, yesterday, I found out that he's actually on a new project, Superman: Earth One. It's a revamp of Superman in an entirely new continuity, and it will be in an ongoing graphic novel format. This sounds really epic. Hopefully, with JMS at its helm, this new continuity of Superman won't be lame. I'm kind of expecting him to modernize Supes the way Mark Miller did with the Avengers in Marvel's Ultimate continuity.


On the other hand, there's also an Earth One revamp of Batman. Geoff Johns will helm the project. So it's also going to be big. What really got me about this Bats revamp is Alfred. No more nice Alfred Pennyworth, it seems like. He's crippled and grizzled, a veteran of the Royal Marines. He just looks more kick-ass (see picture above).

This Earth One sounds really promising, and might be a good starting point for new readers or those who aren't that familiar with the DC Universe -like me. Hopefully, if it's really good, DC will expand this Earth One and not concoct another crisis that will meld all continuities.

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Animation Pile Up Pt. 2

I've spent a lot of time on gaming these past two weeks. In fact, I've been playing non-stop and have already finished Batman: Arkham Asylum. The only thing I remember doing outside of playing games were reading comics and updating this blog. So today I decided to pull away from my PC and watch some comics-to-cartoons instead.

Anyways, here are my quick reviews of the animations that I saw today.

Green Lantern: First Flight
8.9 of 10
Even as a comic book enthusiast, I honestly don't know much about DC characters. Luckily, they've been churning out a lot of Direct-to-DVD animations of their superheroes' origins. First, it was Wonder Woman (which I really liked a lot). Now it's Green Lantern's turn. Like Wonder Woman, Green Lantern: First Flight tells the story of Hal Jordan and how he became part of the Green Lantern corps. This is a pretty good animation, even better than Wonder Woman. The story is good, the voice-overs are done well and the art is just amazing.

Witchblade
8.5 of 10
I saw 3 episodes of this anime last year, and I liked it. So when I learned that one of my friend had a couple of DVDs of this series, I just had to borrow it. The anime is also based on a comic book. However, this is not a faithful adaptation of Top Cow's version of Witchblade since the setting, the characters and the story are entirely different. Nonetheless, it is a good watch. At first, since the series is riddled with well-endowed and scantily clad women, I thought this was just another "B" anime with tons of great fights and eye candy. But the story turned out to be good, and the main character is also likable.

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies
7.0 of 10
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is one of the first graphic novels that I bought. I didn't like it, however. That's why when I rented this DVD I was hoping that DC added something more to the story. But they didn't. In fact, the script was lifted up from the comics, panel by panel. So there's nothing in here. The bond between the two iconic heroes' weren't even explored in depth, which they should've. The art is also horrible, even more than the comics. The heroes just look too muscular and Power Girl looked like a blow up doll. The only thing good in this movie is the action, lots and lots action.

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