On Thursday Warner Bros. launched its DC: Batman Bat-Tech Edition app for iOS, aimed at kids aged 6 to 12 (but who’s counting?). The app comes loaded with exclusive Batman content, mini-games, augmented reality (AR) filters and digital comic books.
It’s not a bird. It’s not a plane. It’s not a man. It’s Supergirl.
Seeing Kara Zor-El finally embrace her amazing Kryptonian powers in this trailer for the upcoming CBS television series Supergirl is an eye-welling moment of pure awesomeness for men and women alike who appreciate the Super myths from DC Comics.
Watching her bumble her way through cheesy, flirty moments as the gopher for media conglomerate owner Cat Grant (played by Calista Flockhart) and giggling through her scenes with beefcake James Olson, however, is a cheesiness that rivals some of the worst of Smallville, so color us warily excited. Check out the trailer and make up your own mind.
If Batman’s going to take on Superman, he’s going to need some extra protection and firepower. The first trailer for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice gives us our a glimpse of the armored batsuit — complete with glowing white eyes — the Dark Knight will don in the superhero smackdown flick.
I think we can safely assume Jony Ive isn’t designing products for Bruce Wayne. The armored batsuit looks anything but thin and light.
For a comic book character that’s been around since 1941, it’s surprising how few women (five) have written DC Comic’s biggest female protagonist. The character is as least as popular and visible as DC’s other superstars, Batman and Superman, but it’s not until recently that we’ve seen her potentially coming to the big screen, while the other two have dominated DC’s movie output in recent years.
It’s exciting, then, to hear that the comic book itself is getting some new creative energy: Meredith and David Finch, a husband and wife writer/illustrator. While David has some serious comic book cred, from Ultimate X-Men (with Brian Michael Bendis) and Batman: The Dark Knight, Meredith Finch has some chops as well, as seen in her short stories for Zenescope Entertainment. This will be her first lead comic writing gig.
Meredith reminds us that having a female writer for one of the most iconic female superheroes is important. “It makes sense if you’re going to try to attract that female market that you appeal to them on every level,” she told USA Today, “– your writing demographic reflects the demographic of your readership.”
But while Dini’s animated version of Freeze was good enough to become the standard portrayal of the character in most forms of media, more recently I’ve been loving the reinvention of Mr. Freeze seen in DC’s New 52. (SPOILERS) You see, in this universe it turns out that Nora was never Freeze's wife at all, but rather a woman born in 1943, who was put into cryogenic stasis at the age of 23 after being diagnosed with an incurable heart condition.
Writing his doctoral thesis on Nora, Freeze fell in love with her, and became obsessed with finding a way to bring her back to life. One cryonic chemical accident later, and the already unhinged Dr. Victor Fries is transformed into Mr. Freeze. It’s a clever re-imagining of Freeze’s origin which makes him less sympathetic, but a whole lot creepier.
Got your own favorite underappreciated supervillain? Let us know in the comments below.
Faster than a speeding bullet,
As one of last year’s top-grossing iPad apps, the digital comics platform has sold an astonishing 6 billion comic book pages since its 2009 debut — 4 billion of those coming in 2013 alone.
In helping revive an industry that was almost dead on its feet, ComiXology has done for comics what iTunes did for legal music downloads.
At the height of its success, it’s now been snatched up by Amazon for an undisclosed amount of money — prompting the question of whether Apple has missed out. (Particularly when taking into accounts the reports that Amazon is reportedly set to debut a smartphone of its own — capable of busting out 3-D.)
After all, ComiXology’s CEO David Steinberger has always had big ambitions. He once wrote that his “crazy goal” was to turn everyone on the planet into a comic reader. Sounds just like Steve Jobs.
Before the acquisition, CEO David Steinberger told Cult of Mac ComiXology’s backstory and its deep ties to Apple. Sometimes the Cupertino company has acted as its Krypton-esque home planet, and other times more like its Lex Luthor-style nemesis.
Ready for ComiXology’s secret origin story?
Warner Bros. / DC Comics-owned Vertigo has published this amazing ongoing series called Fables since 2002. Written by Bill Willingham, the stories all revolve around the idea that all the characters in fairy tales are real, and they’ve been banished to upstate New York until they can reclaim their ancestral homelands.
One of the most interesting characters is Bigby, better known as the big bad wolf from tales like “Red Riding Hood” and “The Three Little Pigs.”
Bigby is the sheriff of this winged-horse town, and he’s kind of a badass. Check out the trailer below for a glimpse of this gritty noir-thriller based on the award-winning comic, Fables.
