Happy New Year!

Happy New Year 2011 to everyone from Comics in Crisis!

Enough partying! Now go read comics!

When Stephen J. Cannell Made Profit

We have reached the end of another year, so you know what that means: Many TV news programs, magazines and Web sites will run year-end reflections on noteworthy people within the entertainment industry who passed away during the previous twelve months. Among the year-end list for 2010 is Stephen J. Cannell, a giant in the TV production industry who created hit shows such as The Rockford Files, The A-Team, 21 Jump Street, and many more. Yet one of the shows that I remember the most that would not have seen the light of day without Cannell's support was a short-lived show that he did not create: Profit.

Profit was created by David Greenwalt and John McNamara, and Cannell was one of its executive producers. While eight episodes were produced, it only lasted for five episodes on the Fox Network. Greenwalt and McNamara said that they were inspired to create the series after watching a production of Richard III which featured Sir Ian McKellen, although Profit's more obvious predecessor would be Bret Easton Ellis' 1991 novel, American Psycho.

Profit detailed the exploits of the enigmatic, psychopathic Jim Profit (Adrian Pasdar) and his unhealthy obsession with--and career advancement at--Gracen and Gracen, a multinational corporation. To make such a villainous, amoral character the central figure of a weekly TV series was unheard of at the time, and it was most likely the cause of Profit's premature demise. This was long before the cable networks such as HBO and Showtime began airing dark, edgy hour-long dramas; all of its satirical jabs at multinational business ethics aside, Profit is essentially the proto-Dexter. Adding greatly to the show's intensity was Pasdar's pitch-perfect portrayal of Jim Profit. Pasdar gave Profit a fluid mixture of easy charm, single-minded determination and cold detachment, so much so that you could believe that Profit could and would do anything he needed to at a moment's notice to serve his own interests, no matter how brutal, shocking and inhumane it might be. While Profit wasn't a horror TV series, it was certainly very horrific.

Profit was an ambitious experiment in prime-time drama, and it would not have been possible without Cannell's support--he even tried to get it picked up on cable after it was cancelled on Fox. My hat is off to you Mr. Cannell, wherever you are, for taking a chance on such a delightfully dark idea. If you haven't seen it yet, make it your New Year's resolution to see the entire series by picking up a copy of the complete Profit DVD set.

Trailer Thursday 2: Thor!

I am not now nor have I ever been a Thor fan, but when I saw this trailer I had to post it. I never cared much for Iron Man either, but the movies made me enjoy the character. I must say though that this Thor movie doesn't look like it's going to stay very close to the source material as far as it goes unless they're going for the "Ultimates" version of Thor.

The Replacements (part 2)

We talked about a few of them last week, now here are 5 more hero replacements to consider:

Ray Palmer replaced by Ryan Choi

When the stellar DC miniseries "Identity Crisis" ended, we saw Ray Palmer shrinking down to microscopic size and then disappearing. That was it! Was he dead? Where did he go? Well, for years he was gone and we were never going to find out where he went.

During that time, a college student stepped into his place and ran with the title for a while. Then Ray came back and the world wasn't big enough for 2 Atoms (ha! Get it?). Of all the hero deaths out there he definitely ended up getting the short end of the stick. We never even saw him killed! Instead, he was just quietly replaced.

I have to say that I fully supported DC bringing Ray Palmer back at the Atom. He had such a rich history that they could draw upon, while Ryan always seemed a lot like a whiner. I don't think killing him was necessary, but it did make for an interesting plot point.

Superman replaced by...a bunch of folks

Now this was the first one to really hit the stride and set the mark for major superhero deaths. The "Death of Superman" issue was shipped in a little polybag and I can still remember tearing through the issue of nothing but splash pages. And dude, was I let down by how quickly the fight was over (almost as quickly as it was on "Smallville").

Then the second wave of Supermen showed up. I personally was rooting for the "sunglasses Superman" (the Eradicator, we later found out) to be the real thing, but it wasn't to be. At any rate, it was pretty cool to see some new folks in the red-and-blues for a while. Even the news media knew this was just a temporary gimmick, but it was fun while it lasted, and it gave way to our next change...

Hal Jordan replaced by Kyle Raynor

At the end of the "Death and Return of Superman" storyline, Mongul destroyed Coast City with the help of the cyborg Superman. In the process, Hal Jordan lost the city he loved. This led to him losing his mind and becoming a bad guy, and then a dead guy, for years on end. Eventually, Geoff Johns, giver of all good things DC, brought him back.

But while he was gone, Green Lantern was replaced by a young artist who found himself the last GL out there. His ring was no longer crippled by yellow, and charging it wasn't necessary. It seemed a dream deal!

It didn't last forever, but Kyle did a good job and is still a major player in the DC universe. To be fair, I also need to mention that Hal was replaced earlier (for a short time) by John Stewart and Guy Gardner.

Thor replaced by the Thor clone

Did you think of this one? I was never a big fan of the Thor title so I'm not really sure why he disappeared or what happened to him, but I do know he was gone for a long time. During the "Civil War", we saw him return...so we thought. Instead, we got this unstable clone that ended up killing Giant Man (Bill Foster). That one move was a big surprise to the fans, and to myself, until it was explained away.

Eventually, that clone was destroyed at the hands of Hercules (and his infamous "Thou art no Thor!" rant). But he did show back up again later, only to be taken down by Thor himself.

The Question replaced by Renee Montoya

I can't think of another hero who got the shaft bigger than this one. They bring The Question into the DC universe for "52", turn him into this really cool character using the JLU cartoon series, and then decide to kill him off! Huh?

If you're going to take out a major character, don't make him cool just before you do it! I never really cared that much about the Question until "52"...and then you take him away!

Vic came back for a single issue during the "Blackest Night" run, but I still think they should have brought him back during "Brightest Day". He was a far more interesting character than Montoya.

Holy Moley! You mean there are more??? Yep, next week we finish out with looking at a final batch of replacements. Not even superheros have job security!

See you next year!

Merry Christmas!

 

Just wanted to wish all our readers a Merry Christmas! Hope you find all the best superhero toys and goodies under the tree this year!

Brian and Khris

Tron and Tron Legacy: The Secret, Scandalous Lives of Computer Programs Exposed!

OK, so maybe the title of this review of Tron Legacy isn't that inspired, but the movie itself sure is. In a nutshell, Tron Legacy is a fantastic film--both as a sequel to its 1982 predecessor and as a 3-D movie experience. I'm a big fan of man vs. machine stories, so the original Tron's ambitious idea of literally putting man inside of the machine as the setting for this conflict has been an intriguing, unusual one. Tron Legacy continues to explore this concept in engaging new ways, amongst a virtual landscape that both echoes and expands upon the ideas and environments portrayed in the first movie. Read on for my complete review, along with a look back at the first Tron movie. I suppose I could have written this review without mentioning the original film--it's pretty clear that the makers of Tron Legacy didn't want to rely too much on the first film when crafting the sequel's narrative--but it's hard to truly appreciate the significance of Tron Legacy without discussing Tron.

If anything, Tron was the most bizarre, surreal film about corporate-sponsored software piracy ever made. It was almost like a digitized Schoolhouse Rock kind of explanation of how corporate monopolies and ill-gotten ownership of intellectual property will ultimately hinder technological innovation and creativity. Tron's usage of real issues within the computer industry as the launch point for its narrative is one of the things that sets it apart from other man vs. machine narratives, as opposed to narratives where machines suddenly become self-aware without any explanation and either want to be just like people or want to kill as many people as possible.

Of course, the concept of everyday reality only goes so far in Tron. The movie quickly shifts from a tale of corporate corruption to a fantasy tale set in a neon-lit, anthropomorphized digital world where computer programs look, talk and act (sort of) like people. Essentially, Tron is the Wizard of Oz (with a few touches of Gulliver's Travels here and there) for the computer geek crowd--nothing more, nothing less. Even watching the actors in Tron who had to play the anthropomorphized computer programs is really no different than seeing the talking scarecrows, tin men and animals that populated Oz. If you approach the world of Tron--be it the original movie, its spin-off games, comic books and novels, or its movie sequel Tron Legacy--the same way you approach Oz (particularly L. Frank Baum's original books), Alice in Wonderland, or a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm (or even the Star Wars movies for that matter), you should find something to appreciate in this familiar yet alien world. For example, I’m pretty sure that South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone understand this, which explains why their recent Tron-esque parody of Facebook worked so well.

I'm convinced that many viewers and movie critics don't like Tron largely because they can't wrap their heads around the notion of using the insides of a computer as a setting for a fantasy narrative. This could be because, to follow some schools of thought in film criticism, such a "high concept" film where people are transported into machines where they can see their digital creations face to face should have intellectual ambitions akin to 2001 or Primer; if they don't, so the thinking seems to go, then these films are nothing more than empty, mindless exercises in special effects. It could also be that far too many people are still too intimidated by computers to think of them as a setting for whimsical (and sometimes dark) fantasy. For those reasons, I can see why some have summarized the Tron movies as just "people trapped in video games"; while it's not an entirely inaccurate statement, it nevertheless reflects the hesitancy (or outright refusal) of some to openly apply their imaginations to what they are seeing on the screen.

If Tron was the Wizard of Oz for the digital era, then Tron Legacy is the Return to Oz. Tron Legacy is darker and more nuanced than its predecessor, but it's still using the virtual world of computers and the programs that inhabit them as the backdrop for an action-adventure fantasy--and what a backdrop it is. Vehicles appear out of thin air, structures have transparent, layered interiors, landscapes stretch out into an infinite darkness, and the program people shatter like glass whenever they are severely injured or killed. This is one of those films that really should be seen in 3-D; it makes the world of Tron Legacy that much more amazing and engrossing, adding an deeper sense of presence to the movie's virtual reality that's more ruled by the flexible logic of computer programming and digital space than the laws of physics.

Despite its roots in science fiction fantasy,Tron Legacy does flirt with certain aspects of "serious" science fiction, particularly when the initial action ends and Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) finally finds his father Kevin (Jeff Bridges). These scenes take on a feel of melancholy and regret, an atmosphere common in other science fiction narratives where characters are forced to confront the reality that the technology that they believed would bring a new era of utopia for everyone simply cannot. (The Reavers and Miranda subplots in the TV show Firefly and its movie sequel Serenity immediately come to mind.) Towards the end of the movie, we see flashes of confused anguish in the character Clu 2.0 (also played by Bridges), the rouge program created by Kevin, that is somewhat similar to the a confused existential anguish expressed by the android characters of Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) in Blade Runner and David (Haley Joel Osment) in A.I. Also, the character of Quorra (Olivia Wilde) and the concept of "Isos" skirt the area of real-world computer research known as artificial life (or Alife), but only in a vague, fleeting manner.

For as impressive as it is, Tron Legacy does has some flaws. While there are plenty of nods to the first film, most of them are done either visually or through brief hints in the dialogue. In contrast, a stronger connection would have fleshed out the underlying ironic tragedy that no matter how much more noble, talented and good-hearted Kevin is than his nemesis in Tron, Ed Dillinger (David Warner), he winds up even more powerless as the result of his efforts than Dillinger was at the end of the movie. In fact, the virtual world created exclusively by Kevin evolves in Tron Legacy into something very similar to the virtual world in Tron that was ruled by Dillinger's programs, the Master Control Program (MCP) and Sark.

Bruce Boxleitner reprises his roles of Alan Bradley and Tron but both characters don't get much screen time, while Cindy Morgan (who played Lora Baines and Yori in Tron) is completely absent from the sequel. I guess it would've been too much to include some footage of the mock Encom press conference event at WonderCon 2010 last April, which featured both Boxleitner and Morgan in person as their human Tron characters, as part of Tron Legacy. (Bummer.)

Oddly, for all of its visual sophistication, one of the sequel's biggest problems is the "de-aging" of Jeff Bridges. While it doesn't interfere with Bridges' performances as Clu 2.0 or the younger Kevin in flashback scenes, it is somewhat distracting in its inconsistency. In comparison, the de-aging effects for Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in X-Men: The Last Stand were more convincing, and that film pre-dates the release of Tron Legacy by over four years.

Overall, Tron Legacy is a great 3-D sci-fi fantasy experience to see at the theaters this holiday season. For more Tron awesomeness, pick up the Tron Legacy soundtrack by Daft Punk. To learn more about the events that happened between Tron and Tron Legacy, check out the Tron: Evolution video games and the Tron: Betrayal graphic novel. Also, click here to read Wired magazine's coverage of Tron Legacy (which unfortunately overlooks Tron's other sequel, Tron 2.0).

Happy Birthday, Khris!

I just wanted to wish my son and co-contributor Khris a Happy Birthday today! 

I'm really proud of you and the comic book geek you've turned out to be!

(yep, that's him with Ethan Van Sciver at Wizard World Atlanta. As for what Ethan was drawing...that will be a nice surprise for a future post...)

Birthday wishes from the heroes:

"Happy Birthday! Have a swingin' time!" - Spider-Man

"Thanks for the support...now please quit stalking me." - Green Lantern

"Happy Birthday! You rock!" - The Thing

The (Jaws) Shark (Game) Is Still Working

For as much as certain people and groups have complained over the years about the marketing of age-inappropriate merchandise to children, the toy industry and Hollywood have been pretty consistent when it comes to producing toys for kids that are based on an R-rated movie and/or franchise. I've seen toys from Alien, Predator, Rambo, Robocop, Starship Troopers and Terminator, just to name a few. By toys, I mean actual play-worthy, durable TOYS, not the fragile, highly-detailed plastic figures made by NECA, Toynami and others. Among the most unusual of these toys was a Terminator 2 Bio-Flesh Regenerator play set back in the early 90s, with T-800 endoskeletons that you could turn into little Arnold Schwarzeneggers for the purpose of tearing off their Play-Doh-like "skin". Why they didn't apply this idea to a Night of the Living Dead Rotting Zombies Play-Doh set, with plastic skeletons you can cover with Play-Doh organs, muscle and skin for hours of flesh-tearing, limb-severing, gut-eviscerating fun, I'll never know.

Even though they were rated PG, the Jaws movies--which are not kid films at all--also had their fair share of toys and merchandise aimed at the prepubescent crowd. (There was even a Jaws 2 Coloring Book!) Among the monster shark merchandise was a Jaws game for ages 5 and up, where players would take turns removing various pieces of junk and debries from the mouth of a toy shark with a spring-loaded jaw, and whichever player got the most out of the shark's mouth before it snapped shut was the winner. I had my own copy of the game but I eventually lost it, and by the time the 80s arrived the game was out of production and off the toy store shelves. Or so I thought.

While I was doing my online Christmas shopping this year, I saw a listing for a toy out of the corner of my eye that didn't completely register at the time but it nevertheless nagged at me. So I went back later to find it and, sure enough, there it was: the original Jaws game, but in a very different box. Read on ...

The game is called Sharky's Diner and it's made by Ideal, the same company that produced the original Jaws game. Other than the different name and the different box it comes in, it's the same as the original Jaws game: the same mold of the toy shark and the same parts to fish out of its mouth. When I looked up the Jaws game on the Board Game Geek site for reference, its entry also listed of all the different versions of the Jaws game that Ideal has produced over the years under different names. In other words, the game that I thought was long gone was actually lurking the aisles of toy stores everywhere for years. Just when you thought it was safe to go to Toys R' Us ...

What this means for Jaws fans will largely depend on what kind of Jaws fan you are. If you already have an original version of the Jaws game in the original packaging, then this means nothing. However, if you'd like to have one of these Jaws games for yourself, then this would be a worthwhile addition to your Jaws collection. You could throw out the new packaging to design your own Jaws game box packaging, either based on the original design (there's enough pictures out there of the Jaws game box to do this) or something completely different. Furthermore, the game's toy shark itself isn't bad as toy sharks go, so you might even want to pick it up to do your own Jaws diorama. It's certainly cheaper than the discontinued Jaws miniature set by McFarlane Toys, and it's close to scale with certain customized Mego versions of Chief Brody, Hooper and Quint.

Customized Mego Jaws Action Figures

(photo courtesy of Lou Pisano).

Then again, if you're just looking for games that involve monster sharks--particularly ones involving monster sharks attacking and eating game players and/or everything else in sight--there are plenty of games to add to your collection. There are other official Jaws licensed games, such as the 1987 Jaws game for the Nintendo Entertainment System and the much more recent Jaws Unleashed. If you have access to an Atari 2600 emulator, you can play Activision's Seaquest and Apollo's Shark Attack. Click here to see GamesRadar's 2009 list of the top seven deadliest shark attacks in video games today.

Me with my Jaws game,
back in the 70s.