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There were two thoughts running through my mind during the last few (epic) minutes of The Dark Knight Rises. The first, that Joseph Gordon Levitt was going to have a fantastic feeder system in the new Wayne Foundation’s Children’s Home, providing the new Batman with an endless supply of already emotionally damaged Robins and Batgirls. The second, that perhaps now that the trilogy was over, I’d finally be able to see the real Batman, my Batman, the Batman I’ve grown up with and listed as co-leaser on a number of tenancy agreements, make his on-screen debut.

And now let’s take a breather to return your seats to their upright positions. Don’t get me wrong, I adore the Nolan trilogy (henceforth referred to as ‘The Trilogy’ – sorry SW/LOTR) and everything it has done for both the Batman canon and the medium. The last time I was in Chicago I spent the entire first day walking up and down Lower Wacker drive and LaSalle Street telling everyone I passed that ‘this is where Batman did that cool flippy-truck-thing’. When Batman was using his iPad to bet on the NYSE (GCSE… hmm?) I was soaking in the Gotham City backdrop, wondering whether Crime Alley would be in NYC, Chicago, or Pittsburgh – and then, wondering where I could get myself a BatiPad (BatPad/iBat)? Point is, I have more than a passing interest in this stuff, which translated into making me a massive sponge for every facet of the Nolan universe – they made Bats relevant to a new generation and tackled the series in a respectable and realistic way – they really asked the question, what would Batman really be like?

But there’s the rub. I don’t want to see a realistic Gotham City. I don’t want to see a realistic villain. And I sure as hell don’t want to see a realistic Batman.

Well ok, maybe a little realistic.

There seems to be a trend in Hollywood of trying to ground comic books in a reality that the largest possible audience will be able to comprehend and accept. David S. Goyer, the slightly befuddled Moses of comic book movies, spoke on the approach that Christopher Nolan and himself had taken when working on the new Superman movie:

“We always had a naturalistic approach (to the movie), we want our stories to be rooted in reality, like they could happen in the same world we live in.”

And how did that work out for Superman Returns hmm? The film forwent Mech-Suit Luthor in favour of a great big rock, supposedly for the sake of realism. And though I may have drunkenly stated in the past that Returns was criminally underrated, I fear that any future Superman film, where he himself is the most ‘hyper’-real character, is destined to fail. I am of the opinion that building a ‘realistic’ world around a superhero only seeks to further alienate them from the viewer, and in fact in order for audiences to connect with a superhero character, especially the archetypal boy scout, on an emotional level, they need to be presented with an enemy so out of this world, that it makes them look like one of us. Its classic social psychology, ingroups vs outgroups. Kal-El is so close to being human that seeing him beat the snot out of Lex Luthor for the millionth time no longer appeals to me – it’s just two dudes fighting within the same social group. Superman fighting for us, against one of us. But Superman in a drag-out, slobber-knocker with Doomsday or Darkseid or hell, even Titano, sounds awesome to me! Who is the audience going to most identify with in that scenario?  A guy that looks like one of us, acts like one of us, speaks like one of us, and even (tries to) sleeps with our chicks, or a giant, marauding King Kong cast off?

Superman’s one weakness – intimacy.

It becomes a case of normative globalism – Superman is one of us, an inhabitant of our planet, against one of them. That’s the only way you’re going to make the great Man of Steel relevant to the viewer.

One of my favourite Batman villains is Killer Croc. The dude is so ferocious he’d bite your face off for suggesting he should maybe try moisturising. Now whilst I don’t think ol’ Waylon Jones could carry a film by himself, seeing him in a role ala Scarecrow in TDK would make my fan-boy bones shudder with excitement. So many of Batman’s foes test him mentally and philosophically, Croc is just a massive dude who eats people. How in the blue hell do you portray that realistically? You don’t.

Tom Hardy was incredible as Bane in TDKR – imposing, ruthless, and perhaps one of the most intimidating characters in cinema history, despite sounding like a puberty-reaching Mickey Mouse. Bane as a character was always meant to be Batman’s equal in every conceivable way; it was his mind as much as it was the Venom that gave him his edge. He was never so much an allegory for addition as he was a warning against the insatiable thirst for victory at all costs. But he was limited by the reality of Nolan’s universe; he had to conform to the same sets of physics and rules that we do here in the real world. And not only does that not work for me, it doesn’t work for the character either… wait a second, hang on, what, the dude can punch through walls now? And wait, let me look at that flashback timeline again – wouldn’t Bane be in his 60s? Does this character actually reside within our reality? Does he… oh wait, never mind, Catwoman shot him and now he’s dead.

Everything suddenly makes way more sense.

So I’d like to subscribe to the school of Hyperrealism. To borrow a phrase, a hyperrealist approach to comic book filmmaking would allow our favourite heroes to operate in a world like ours, but with the volume turned up to 11. A hyper-stylized version of the mundane would find fantastical heroes and villains alike living side-by-side with the general populace. I’ve often heard these approaches being compared to a ‘live-action cartoon’ (which I would regard as a compliment), or being accused of emphasizing ‘style over substance’ (see: Watchmen). To those people, I would ask them to consider where comics came from.

I got into comics because Batman: The Animated Series was so frickin’ entertaining, I started reading Daredevil because I was flipping through an issue and thought ‘hot damn’ this artwork is incredible. Comic book movies need a little bit of style, some pinash, a little bit of that cartoonish element to them, otherwise they’re just vigilante films. In what rational world does a person decide to dress up in a tight, red leather onesie with devil horns atop, when a hood or a ski-mask would suffice? Though, thinking of it, seeing Bullit or Harry Callahan in pixie boots and flesh coloured tights would make those movies well more exciting.

The point is that every comic book movie requires a certain suspension of disbelief on the audience’s part. It is essential, vital, and therefore, I feel, counterproductive for studios to label a film as ‘realistic’, ‘naturalistic’, or the dreaded ‘grounded’. Embrace it the escapist fantasy. Free the film from the shackles of its reality and explore a theme or a concept that an episode of Law & Order ABCXYZ couldn’t.

That’s what I want from a comic book movie. These films are the modern man’s parable; I want to be taught about the human condition in a fantastical element. I want them to offer me something that I can’t get anywhere else, show me something that I can’t see from my window.

Just, please, for the love of God, don’t go back to Oa.

I’m not even going to pretend I know what this is.

And Goddammit I want to see Batman’s grey tights on screen!

Skyfall received near unanimous praise since its worldwide release, averaging over 90% in favorable reviews from both critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.  James Bond’s 50th anniversary outing had firmly replanted our favorite superspy once again on familiar soil after being rebooted in 2006 with Casino Royale, then exiled from the silver screen for four years after the disastrous Quantum of Solace in 2008.

Yet there are a small percentage of Bond fans who have been griping about Skyfall being a little too much like those pre Daniel Craig adventures, citing everything from an overly flamboyant villain (Javier Bardem) to inane plot contrivances and inconsistencies.

By and large the James Bond films have always been the perfect comfort food cinema for the past 50 years. You always knew the type of cinematic meal you were getting, and it was usually pretty good (The Spy Who Loved Me), even if some of it was pretty bad (Moonraker). By 1999, however, audiences had grown tired of the stale taste of Bond. The World Is Not Enough was Pierce Brosnan’s final outing, and you can tell his heart was no longer in the character.

The franchise was long overdue for a menu upgrade, and it would take seven years before we would see a fresh new take on the character. Casino Royale stripped away many of our comfort food favourites. Gone were the over the top villains, the gadgets, and bad Roger Moore styled puns. Even the famous theme song had changed! Instead we were fed a grittier Bond, one more in line with the Jason Borne franchise, full of brutal fight scenes and humorless dialogue.

These changes were mainly well received as a rebooted James Bond (now in the capable hands of Daniel Craig) found a younger audience of movie fans to carry the legacy forward. Unfortunately the honeymoon was short lived. A mere two years later this new menu would create gastric distress in movie goers with the underdeveloped (and poorly directed) follow up, Quantum of Solace.  Conceived during a writer’s strike, Quantum would pull even farther away from the established Bond canon and become a standard action flick full of bad editing choices and dull villains.

As film warriors, we’ll tolerate certain menu changes, so long as you don’t remove the menu entirely. Bond was now a humorless jerk, and we found no comfort food in this entrée.

In the four years between Quantum and Skyfall, the powers that be in charge of the franchise would come to realize one important fact about its audience and then set in motion a film that would restore the comfort food balance. Simply put:

All we want is a Bond film.

That’s all we’ve ever really wanted! Gorgeous women, larger than life action, crazy villains, a familiar cast of characters (M, Q, Moneypenny, etc.), famous lines, and nutty plot points. This is our comfort food! This is what we settle into the theater with after a long day of reality during the holiday season. We just want to slip on a tux for a few hours and get away to some exotic locale with a shaken martini and a Walter PPK.

It’s for these reasons Skyfall is being touted by some as the BEST BOND FILM EVER. It’s because director Sam Mendes and screenwriters Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and John Logan were successfully able to repackage these familiar comfort food elements with the gritty new Bond from Casino Royale. As a result, Skyfall is a wonderful, nostalgic homage to one of the most famous cinematic characters in film history, a summation of 50 years of creative filmmaking.

It’s the reason we love movies. Perhaps that small percentage of Skyfall naysayers has forgotten just how good comfort food cinema can taste…

I’m not arrogant enough to assume that the people at Netflix read this column but… you can’t deny the correlation. Although there might not be much for the genre fanatic, they have stepped things up somewhat and their continuing devotion to Breaking Bad (season five!) and them nabbing things like 21 Jump Street is to be commended. The stuff that they have added that appeals is certainly eclectic enough to keep them in the game for now but LOVEFiLM still reigns supreme for the time being.

Black Sheep (2006) – LOVEFiLM

I don’t want to be a bitch so you should know that this has been available on Netflix since the start and has now made its way over to LOVEFiLM. Although Black Sheep is kind of hilarious in a way that only a film featuring a sheep driving a tractor can be, it still feels like it never rises above its ridiculous premise which is pretty much all it has going for it. Still some great practical effects and gore on display though.

The Guyver (2005) – Netflix

Not to be confused with MacGyver.If you are an anime fan in any fashion then you probably know of this series even if just by name. What you might not know is this is a modern version of it which is more faithful to the manga than the ‘90s series. The dub job here is much better than the ‘90s version and the animation is also superior although it has that annoying thing that most modern anime have where the opening credits feature stunning animation that doesn’t make its way through to the actual episodes. All 26 episodes are now here for you to enjoy and it’s pretty epic stuff, it’s surprising this hasn’t been done on a big scale by Hollywood yet (the straight to video ‘90s movies don’t count) as The Guyver is like Spider-Man in Japan.

Iron Sky (2011) – LOVEFiLM

Another film that is considerably less than the promise of its premise. Iron Sky is a Finnish, made in English international mish mash of a film that has a central premise involving Nazi’s encamped on the moon since the end of World War 2 that invade after an astronaut discovers their ‘camp’. Whilst it’s not a total disaster, Iron Sky is nothing like the greatness that it should have been. It is far too concerned with bad taste comedy and Dr Strangelove like satire than actually being something cool with airships descending from the moon. An interesting failure…

Synecdoche, New York (2008) – Netflix

Apparently Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze set out to make a horror movie and this was the result which Jonze bailed on and so Kaufman went ahead and made his directorial debut. This is a film about ageing and about not having enough time that anyone who saw Holy Motors recently will no doubt appreciate. Philip Seymour Hoffman gives a stunning central performance as the theatre director whose based on real life creation literally becomes a working breathing production of its own with an economy and living people. Of course his obsession means that he doesn’t notice the real life going on around him and the horror comes from him watching his loved ones get forgotten and die. It doesn’t make sense but it’s hypnotic and hauntingly beautiful.

The Lost Boys (1987) – LOVEFiLM

Of all the films that I saw as a kid this was perhaps the one that was the biggest influence on everything I wrote for about 20 years afterwards. Joel Schumacher is actually capable of great things when he isn’t just turning up for the paycheck and The Lost Boys is cool, self-aware, violent and just exciting as hell with a kick ass soundtrack. Oh and it has ‘The Corey’s’ before they became a punchline.

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) – Netflix

Of all the failed young adult or kids fantasy books series that came to screens in the wake of Harry Potter this is the one that hurts the most. The film did okay but I think people were confused, Jim Carrey was a heavily made up baddie intent on murdering children and marrying a child towards the end and the whole thing had a Tim Burton esque look to it which confused people because it wasn’t actually Burton. Still there is darkness in this film aimed at youngsters that is refreshing (see also The Spiderwick Chronicles) and an old fashioned feel where someone is telling you a story right out of a book of dark fables. Sadly despite there being many, many books to draw from, it was one and done for this franchise.

Innerspace (1987) – LOVEFiLM

Another film from 1987 that is perhaps not as well-known as The Lost Boys but is just as good and still holds up surprisingly well. Basically this is Joe Dante’s take on The Fantastic Voyage with Dennis Quaid’s miniaturised pilot injected into neurotic mess Martin Short and the two of them have to work together to elude an evil group of rival scientists. Endlessly inventive and hilarious, Joe Dante’s films have an energy all their own that is missing from cinema.

Tokyo Godfathers (2003) – YouTube

Of all the losses we have had over the last five years the one I feel most deeply is that of the late Japanese director Satoshi Kon. Kon was pushing the limits of what anime could be and what he was making was like nothing else ever seen before or since. After Perfect Blue and before the masterpiece that was Paranoia Agent, Kon directed this sweet, heartfelt tale of three homeless people who find an abandoned baby in modern day Tokyo on Christmas Eve. Beautifully animated and uplifting in a way that only Pixar can usually accomplish, if you haven’t caught up with Kon’s work yet this is a good (and free) place to start.

Reaper:  Season One and Two (2007-09) – LOVEFiLM

After the Kevin Smith directed pilot, I tuned out of this after about 6 episodes because it was kind of repetitive with a monster of the week formula that started to grate. I have since failed to catch up with this short-lived series despite endless repeats on E4. The basic premise is that a man and woman sell the soul of their child to the devil and the devil (played by the legendary Ray Wise) comes to collect and forces this useless slacker to become his bounty hunter. The slacker is aided by his friends and hindered by his boss at the hardware store where he works leading to all manner of Office Space like humour. It was funny and sometimes inventive and from what I hear it got better so I will be checking this out.

The Booth at The End: Season One (2010) – Netflix

I have been hearing a lot of good things about this show. At the moment 5 episodes at twenty minutes each isn’t much and easy to blow through but I hear it’s great anyway and season two has just finished stateside. The basic premise is that a man sits in a booth in a diner and grants those who come to him their wishes if they perform a task for him. It’s weird, clever and original and I can’t wait to dig in! At the moment someone recommends this to me at least once a week so it must be good…

It was an exciting time here in tinseltown as the world premiere of Silent Hill: Revelations 3D was held at the luxurious Arc Light Theaters next to the legendary Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, California. Starburst was on hand to chat with some of the cast and crew…

 ***

First to arrive was Kit Harington, best known for his role as Jon Snow in the hit HBO series Game of Thrones…

Starburst: What was the scariest part for you while filming?

Kit Harington: The scene with the nurses was pretty nightmarish.

Did you see the first movie?

Yes. Christophe Gans and Michael share the same vision, yet Michael has taken this film in a different direction. The story is strong and has good scares. 

This is your first feature film, isn’t it?

Yes, doing a feature film was all new to me. We shot this two years ago and it’s the first time I’m seeing it tonight. It’s my first horror film and it was kind of a freaky experience. 

What are you working on now?

Game of Thrones, The 7th Son and some new projects coming up.

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TOMM HULETT – PRODUCER OF THE SILENT HILL VIDEOGAME SERIES

Starburst: We understand Silent Hill: Revelations is based on the third game.

Tom Hewitt: Yes. We wanted to stay close to the source material rather than create a new story. I always wanted to see a different take on the original idea and see where another writer and director would take it. Michael’s done a good job.

How did you get into the gaming business?

I started out as a tester. I was always interesting in creating games. I worked hard and my persistence paid off.

Are you a big horror fan?

No, but my wife is. She’s a big horror movie buff! 

***

 

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SAMUEL HADIDA – PRODUCER

Starburst: You’ve produced a lot of horror films. What attracts you to that genre?

Samuel Hadida: I grew up watching Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead. Sometimes I’d watch the audience because I knew where the scary parts were that would make you jump and the girls would scream. Everyone loves to be scared. As you know, I produced Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead series and now they’re doing a remake of Evil Dead. I love horror films!

Director Michael J. Bassettt looks like he’s in his element with horror films.

Yes! Michael did a good job writing and directing this film. When we were developing this project we were looking for someone who understood the games and the horror genre. Michael was a gamer, which I didn’t know and was excited about this project. I had worked with him before on Solomon Kane. We also used the same crew from Solomon Kane as well for this film.

What can you tell us about the Revelations?

Heather was 12 when we first met her in Silent Hill. Now that she’s 18, the order wants her back for sinister reasons and will stop at nothing to do so. They kidnap her dad and she has to go back to the town to find him. Gamers and fans of the first movie should be pleased as we follow the storyline of the third game faithfully. And it’s in 3D!

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ADELAIDE CLEMENS – HEATHER/ALESSA

Starburst: Were there some scary moments for you working on this film?

Adelaide Clemens: Yes! Walking on some of the sets the first time!  The art department did an amazing job and the graphics in this film are pretty scary. Everyone did a great job making this it look scary.

What can you tell us about your character?

Heather is an outsider, but she has to be to keep her secret. She’s distant with people, a bit lonely, but she’s a very strong woman. She’s constantly moving with her father changing her look and identity. She’d like to have a normal life, go on a date, stay in one place, but that’s just not going to happen because the order is constantly searching for her.

What’s coming up next for you?

I’m in The Great Gatsby, coming out in January!

***

SILENT HILL: REVELATIONS opens in US cinemas on October 26th, before making its UK bow on the 31st.

To read our interview with director Michael J. Bassettt, click HERE.

This is a big week for comics, as publishers roll out new material and tie up more than a few ongoing titles. Marvel in particular has its fair share of final issues debuting this Wednesday as they prepare for the oncoming wave of Marvel NOW titles that are rapidly approaching. DC, Dark Horse, and Image have several stellar options on the table as we head into New Comic Book Day. This week, we welcome a ghostly new edition to the Dark Horse family, hack our way through some post-apocalyptic debris, and become unlikely allies with a bunch of Rogues.

Ghost #1

 

Story by: Kelly Sue DeConnick / Art by: Phil Noto

From Dark Horse Comics: The enigmatic Ghost, along with paranormal investigators Tommy and Vaughn, takes to the streets of Chicago in search of the crystal-powered machine that first conjured her, hoping to find clues to her mysterious past life. But the machine’s original owners have a deadly agenda of their own. Picking up right where Ghost #0 left off, Ghost #1 continues Kelly Sue DeConnick (Captain Marvel) and Phil Noto’s (Angel & Faith) reimagining of Dark Horse’s greatest heroine!

Mind Management #6

 

Story and Art by: Matt Kindt

From Dark Horse Comics: Henry Lyme’s past is revealed, but investigator Meru wasn’t prepared for Lyme’s shocking confession about tragedies in her own life. Learning that her world-spanning journey has been just another part of the psychic spy’s game, Meru fights back, as MIND MGMT’s first arc reaches its twist-filled climax!

Flash #13

 

Story by: Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato / Art by: Francis Manapul

From DC Comics: “GORILLA WARFARE” starts here! Gorilla Grodd’s army attacks Central City, and The Flash is forced to team up with the Rogues!?

Batman Incorporated #4

 

Story by: Grant Morrison / Art by: Chris Burnham

From DC Comics: BATMAN and TALIA AL GHUL continue their fight for control of their son DAMIAN – better known as ROBIN! WINGMAN and REDBIRD descend upon GOTHAM CITY! Who are these heroes, and what is their relationship to THE DARK KNIGHT?

Superman #13

 

Story by: Scott Lobdell / Art by: Kenneth Rocafort

From DC Comics: It’s a death trap for Superman as he matches wits with his greatest enemy for the final time as The Man of Steel loses it!

Debris #4

 

Story by: Kurtis J. Wiebe / Art by: Riley Rossmo

From Image Comics: The epic finale to the junk punk series sets the stage for a massive battle between humanity and the Colossals, with the fate of the entire human race in the balance. Maya must lead the Athabascan Tribe to victory against the insane wasteland dragon spirit, Nogo.

Revival #4

 

Story by: Tim Seely / Art by: Mike Norton

From Image Comics: Dana investigates threats sent to a pair of siblings running a charity to help people adjust to life with undead loved ones. But there’s more to this brother and sister than philanthropy. Meanwhile May Thao discovers photos of a bizarre creature, and just can’t help but get herself into deep sh*t.

Punisher War Zone #1

 

Story by: Greg Rucka / Art by: Carmine Di Giandomenico

From Marvel: The Punisher vs. The Avengers. Welcome to the War Zone.

Captain America #19

 

Story by: Ed Brubaker / Art by: Steve Epting

From Marvel: Steve Epting returns for the grand finale of Ed Brubaker’s EPIC RUN on Captain America, and the end of an era!

Invincible Iron Man #527

 

Story by: Matt Fraction / Art by: Salvador Larroca

From Marvel: END OF AN ERA! Who lives? Who dies? Who wins? Who loses? More importantly: what’s next for Tony Stark and Iron Man? You won’t believe it until you read it!

Silent Hill. To a certain sub-section of gamers those two words are enough to bring fervent praise, at least for a few of the titles in the series, and remembrance of psychological horrors that few videogames have ever managed to match. For many the series is the pinnacle of horror on the home consoles, offering a different take on the survival horror genre than the likes of Resident Evil and being all the better for it.

The general consensus amongst fans is that the first two games in the series, which has seen 13 titles released thus far, are the pinnacle. Both are magnificent blends of visceral fear and complete mind-screwingly terrifying plot, mixed with musical scores that can stand up against anything in the horror genre on a video game console.

The first time players found their way into Silent Hill was during the glory years of the PlayStation. Resident Evil had shown the world what the survival horror genre was capable of when it came to jump scares, but this new title from Konami went an entirely different route. This was a game that featured mutilated babies in a school attempting to kill you (they were removed from the PAL version). Resident Evil had monsters. Silent Hill had abominations.

The fear was truly ratcheted up with the realisation that main character Harry Mason was utterly useless. He got out of breath after running, could barely aim a gun and was extremely fragile. In short, he was human. The stark realisation of that fact made Silent Hill all the more terrifying, as the player attempted to venture through the game with only a radio to alert them to the presence of nearby creatures.

Silent Hill introduced the idea of a demonic child who was behind all of the problems in the town, an idea that was later used for the first film alongside a host of other bits and pieces (more on that later). There were also echoes of the possibility that the town itself, rather than anybody in it, was to blame for the horrors that faced the player. However it was Silent Hill 2 that explored this idea further and, in doing so, provided the series with its most iconic character to date.

The sequel started with a man named James Sunderland arriving in town after receiving a letter from his dead wife. This was a little bit odd considering the fact that she was, well… dead. Sunderland arrives in the sleepy seaside town only to soon discover that things are not quite right. The few people he encounters seem to have a few screws quickly coming loose and the town soon develops a habit of transforming into a living nightmare. Most petrifying of all is one particular fiend that seems to stalk James wherever he goes.

This particular monster could be mistaken for the archetypical unstoppable slasher villain, however it was so much more than that. It was the physical manifestation of all of the guilt and hatred that James Sunderland had for himself over the death of his wife. It was Silent Hill’s way of getting so far inside Sunderland’s head that it could set up shop there and was the ultimate implacable man. Wielding a butcher’s knife that was far too large to ever be useful, the creature had a scary disregard for anything that came near it and was relentless in its efforts to destroy James. That creature was the iconic Pyramid Head.

It was an amalgamation of these two games that was used when the first film to be based on the series was announced. The movie, which starred Sean Bean (Christopher Da Silva), in a rare role where he didn’t die, and Pitch Black’s Radha Mitchell (Rose Da Silva) saw the family attempting to help their adopted daughter, Sharon, deal with her constant nightmares and sleepwalking. The one constant they could draw upon in doing this was the phrase ‘Silent Hill’, often murmured by the youngster during these fits.

Being the intrepid, and apparently rather rash, parent that she is, Rose decides to take the kid to Silent Hill after discovering that the town exists and is considered a bit of a ghost town by all accounts thanks to a mining accident that apparently incinerated much of the population. Of course fans of the series know that once she enters, Rose is going to have her work cut out if she ever intends to leave.

Upon arrival to the town, following a brief chase with a policewoman named Cybil Bennett, Rose crashes her car when a young girl walks out in front of it. Upon awakening from her unconscious state, she discovers Sharon missing and thus proceeds to look for her and discover the grisly story behind the mysterious town.

The film drew a generally mixed reaction and there are a number of things that it does both right and wrong. Director Christophe Gans decision to cast a female in the lead role, ostensibly because he considered the game’s Harry Mason to be a feminine character because of how much he cared for his daughter (!), wasn’t taken well by fans, especially when it was revealed that Sean Bean was added to the cast to provide a male presence to the film. “Why not just have him play Harry Mason?” was the cry that would have been heard if people were crying it, but instead people generally simmered about the issue a little bit.

The general plot of the game was flipped around a little bit too. The game saw Alessa, who was the supernaturally-powered child responsible for much of what was wrong with the town, having been possessed by the deity worshipped by a cult within the town. However, despite keeping the cult idea, the movie actually saw the opposite as fanatical cultists attempted to murder the girl amidst accusations she was a witch. This led to her anger and hatred becoming so pervasive that she could be possessed by a dark spirit that allowed her to seek revenge on the fanatics, hence Silent Hill. Ironically, despite this turnaround, the fanatics who weren’t trying to bring their deity onto the planet actually succeeded in doing what the ones in the game were trying to do!

Perhaps the biggest crime, though somewhat mitigated by the monster’s cool factor, was the reduction of Pyramid Head to essentially the aforementioned slasher villain. It could be argued that the creature was the ultimate manifestation of Alessa’s hatred and it is certainly brutal enough for that role but, when compared to what it was in the second game, it just seemed a mite simplistic.

Having said that, the film also got quite a lot right. The visual styling was widely praised by critics, and rightly so as the town of Silent Hill is eerie when it is fairly normal and downright horrifying when it transforms. There is never a moment when you get the sense that the main characters are starting to feel comfortable in their positions, which is the exact feeling the games inspired that allowed them to freak so many people out.

This is partially down to the styling of the monsters, most of which were taken from Silent Hill 2 as well. Very little CGI was used in the film, so the jerky movements you see on screen are actually people acting out the monsters movements, making it all the more convincing and disturbing at the same time.

The soundtrack excels in many ways as well. Often subtle and occasionally unnerving, usually within seconds of each other, Akira Yamaoka brings the skills that made the games such an aural feast to the film. The iconic horn and hideous grating noises that symbolise the worst parts of the town are sure to cause more than a few buttocks to clench.

Despite the criticisms, Silent Hill stands as one of the better video game adaptations thanks to sticking at least somewhat close to the source material. It proved popular enough to warrant a sequel at least, which brings us to Silent Hill: Revelation 3D.

Leaving aside the whole 3D thing for a minute, seeing as it is blatantly there for a scene where Pyramid Head shoves his blade out of the screen, Revelation will follow the story of Heather Mason, who fans of the series may recognise as the star of the third game and adopted daughter of the original’s Harry. Given this information it is perhaps unsurprising to discover that the second film is based on the plot of the third game, with Heather being revealed to be the renamed daughter of the Da Silva’s, thus essentially turning Sean Bean into the Harry Mason that many people thought he should have been in the first place.

The third game in the series followed Heather as she was drawn to the town of Silent Hill only to discover that an evil cult that resides there plans to use her to birth their own god, thus completing a bitter cycle that started in the first game. Sure enough, Carrie Anne Moss has been announced as a cult leader for the third film so it is entirely likely that this particular strand of the plotline will be stuck to, with the added conceit that she comes to the town in search of her own disappeared father.

The film will see the return of the majority of the major players from the original, sans the other cult members who got a little bit torn up by Alessa Gillespie, though seeing as that film ended with the two women stuck in one world and the father stuck in another it will be interesting to see exactly how they explain the sudden turnaround of having the daughter suddenly with the male Da Silva rather than Rose.

Luckily the film looks set to follow the plot of the games a touch more tightly than other game-based movies do, which should at least stand it in a little bit of good stead with the fans. Whether it can grab the casual interest enough to warrant credit as a good film in its own right is now up to the cast.

So, in short, it is set to be a film about a woman who gets trapped in the town of Silent Hill while looking for someone who has gone missing. While there she will be forced to evade a whole host of creepy beasts, including the nefarious and murderous Pyramid Head, before eventually encountering a cult whose plans she must foil to stand any chance of escaping. There is also the promise of a revelation right there in the title, so that should reveal more about the town itself.

Something sounds eerily familiar about all of that…

Silent Hill: Revelation 3D is out on October 26TH.

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Dear Netflix

You are losing this battle now, in terms of actual content you are being trumped by your arch rival LOVEFiLM. Yes the selection of TV you have is breathtaking and you should be commended for having exclusives like Breaking Bad, Archer, Modern Family and The Office but the way people are noticing the services is through the films you have and LOVEFiLM sadly has you beaten by about 10,000 titles not to mention the modern classics they have like Source Code, Attack the Block, Kick-Ass and erm Resident Evil: Afterlife. The point is people remember these films (they are mostly from the last two years) and if they see them available on the service then they assume that provider has game and is what is hip and down with the public.

The point is, Netflix, you can do better. You have the better presentation and frankly you are more reliable in terms of technology delivery into homes. At the moment adding something like Drive once a month isn’t going to cut it. The United States version of your service is impeccable, I realise release dates and strategies are different over here but seriously we are not one tenth of that service yet. As an example here are some of the titles that have appeared on other services (as well as one of your own) over the last two weeks. Hope this helps you see what I mean.

Yours hopefully with love and hugs,

Christopher John Archibald Horatio Holt esquire

Red State (2011) – LOVEFiLM

After a delay of about a week this finally appeared on LOVEFiLM’s streaming service. First thing first, I am not head over heels in love with this film the way some are. Yes it’s good; yes it’s Kevin Smith’s best film in a while but the new found urgency and style to his direction only goes so far with a script that starts brave with something to say but then loses its nerve. The part I can’t get over is the way that in the final act the film puts its balls on the table and then with an ending that seems like it’s about to be the most daring thing ever, suddenly pulls back to just be a joke and turn a powerful figure into a sad old man. Up until the last ten minutes though this is kind of riveting with nary a likeable character in sight and yet still managing to be fairly gripping. Special mention to Michael Parks as well, who should have got that Oscar nod.

Rogue (2007) – LOVEFiLM

Greg Maclean’s directorial follow up to the acclaimed Wolf Creek sat on a shelf for quite a while before appearing straight to DVD. Now it’s on the streaming service for you to all enjoy. Truthfully its only partly successful, like Wolf Creek, Maclean spends far too long setting everything up and by the time the giant crocodile appears the film has almost tipped over into tedious. The fact remains that the last half an hour is a lot of fun and the croc effects are pretty cool. Also features an early performance from your favourite actor Sam Worthington in his best role, playing an Australian.

Devil (2010) – LOVEFiLM

As far as I am aware so far this is the only film in ‘The Night Chronicles’ that we have actually seen. M.Night Shyamalan’s intention was to write and produce a series of movies that would function kind of like feature length Twilight Zone episodes. Devil is a strong and underrated opening and probably the best thing that Shyamalan has been involved with for about ten years. Devil has a simple set up with a bunch of strangers in an office block elevator, one of which is actually Satan himself, and they start getting picked off when the power fails and the lift gets stuck. They all suspect one another and slowly details about their lives start trickling out. It’s scary, darkly funny and has a great score. Perfect for Halloween really…

Night of the Creeps (1986) – YouTube

In the latter half of the decade that was the ‘80s, a director rose to prominence thanks to a couple of fun as hell horror movies he directed back to back. Those films were Night of the Creeps and The Monster Squad and the director was Fred Dekker. Dekker directed Robocop 3 and reportedly had such a bad time of it he just disappeared. It’s a great loss because both of these films show enormous promise and have a sense of wit and invention that was missing outside of what Sam Raimi was doing at the time, The Monster Squad especially has felt enormously influential lately. Night of the Creeps is a film that is a riff on the body snatchers story with alien slugs possessing a town and the hopeless geeks that stand in harm’s way, it’s pretty fun in a goofy cheap kind of way. James Gunn virtually remade the film with Slither in 2006.

Melancholia (2011) – LOVEFiLM

Lars Von Triers most recent film is the second part in a trilogy of films about depression which will conclude with the probably controversial Nymphomaniac next year. Melancholia concerns the titular planet which suddenly appears in our solar system and hurtles towards the Earth. Instead of focussing on Bruce Willis in a spaceship going to blow up the new planet, the film instead settles on the countryside retreat of a rich family and Kirsten Dunst who is depressed in a way that means she can barely function. I want to hate this film because the metaphor for the planet and Dunst’s worsening mental state is a little too on the nose, but I just can’t hate it. It’s so well shot and performed and is actually an affecting study of two sisters and their different reactions to the end. Not great Saturday night entertainment but perhaps a film for a Tuesday evening that will make you think.

Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) – LOVEFiLM

Paul WS Anderson seems to actually be getting better as his career goes on, it still doesn’t excuse the first five or so films he made which were sub-par but his attempt at rebooting his own Resident Evil franchise that he started is actually pretty solid. The film was shot with 3D in mind, so on the streaming non-3D service you have to put up with endless slow motion shots with things in close up that should be flying out the screen at you. It’s entertaining and it looks good, it won’t change your life but sometimes you just want the film equivalent of a McDonalds and this does the job.

The Three Musketeers (2011) – LOVEFiLM

Last year’s Three Musketeers remake/reboot/imagining/whatever was sadly a box office disaster but represents Paul WS Anderson’s best film so far, which he then apparently ruined by running Resident Evil back into the ground last month. Here Alexandre Dumas’ classic tale is reimagined with a steampunk setting with the Musketeers being portrayed as government ninja-like assassins. All the actors they pick are perfect for the roles and the film has a sense of fun and adventure missing from the more serious blockbusters of the last few years. Should have led to a franchise but sadly it seems it’s one and done.

Mars Attacks! (1996) – LOVEFiLM

The same year that Independence Day busted blocks in record numbers also allowed Tim Burton to spend 100 million making what was essentially a gigantic joke with a star studded cast that was funny only to him and the box office numbers reflected this. Burton’s power was such that, with so many hits under his belt, this was the first time he flexed his muscles and was allowed to indulge a specific darkly comic urge he felt. It’s something that the Tim Burton of today needs to remember because Mars Attacks! is brilliant, anarchic fun. It’s not to all tastes and is pretty bizarre but the sense of fun is infectious and by the time Tom Jones becomes pivotal to the plot you’re either on board or you have turned it off.

Archer: Season One and Two (2009-2011) – Netflix

This animated spy show is reminiscent of Cartoon Network’s The Venture Brothers but with more adult, smutty humour. Super spy Archer works for a government organisation where his mother is the boss and he indulges every whim and his Austin Powers like libido. This series has a massive amount of fans especially in the states but here seems to have been buried on one of the lesser Channel 5 channels and so not many people are catching it. I’ve only seen bits and pieces so far but what I have seen has made me laugh and, until The Venture Brothers comes back for more episodes, this will fill the hole.

Fortress (1993) – LOVEFiLM

Remember the days when Christopher Lambert used to headline films that actually got a cinema release? This is back from those times. Stuart Gordon’s futuristic prison movie was overshadowed by No Escape which was the bigger hit released around the same time which also had a future prison. Whereas No Escape tried too hard to be something more than its pulpy origins, Fortress is mainly concerned with being lots of gory fun and this it does in spades. It’s also a timely reminder of when B-Movies used to get a cinema release even if they were noticeably cheap. This was successful enough to warrant a sequel which I didn’t see and… went straight to video.

Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) – LOVEFiLM

This anthology film based on the classic series is sadly overshadowed by a horrific on set incident which led to the death of actor Vic Morrow. Four of the hottest directors around at the time John Landis, Joe Dante, George Miller and Steven Spielberg combined to each direct a different sequence fantastical tale with mixed results. All four are based around an old story from the show and sadly Spielberg’s ‘Kick the Can’ is by far the worst, revealing his predilection for mawkish sentimentality that would reach its nadir with Hook a few years later. Having said that the remakes of Nightmare at 20,000 feet and A Quality of Mercy are pretty damn great, with the former having a great John Lithgow performance. Worth a look…

Poltergeist (1982) – LOVEFiLM

Regardless of whether you think Tobe Hooper actually did direct this or if Spielberg came in and took over in his producer role, Poltergeist is still a classic of the genre and came out at a time when cinema was dominated by fast walking men with knives wearing masks. The film has the Spielberg and Stephen King like air of familiarity in its middle class suburban family terrorised by spirits in their home who take away their youngest daughter. It may have dated a bit but some set pieces still impress and the film has been hugely influential (Insidious). Good time to catch it too if these Sam Raimi directed remake rumours are true.

‘Why are they videotaping themselves? It’s the thing that every found footage movie fights with, I mean, if somebody is chasing you why don’t you throw down the camera and run the fuck away?’

So said the director Eduardo Sanchez in a recent Starburst interview – decrying the rash of bad found footage movies that have appeared since the runaway success of the Blair Witch Project (1999) and Paranormal Activity (2007). Sanchez should know – after all he directed Blair Witch, as well as the recent part-found footage Lovely Molly (2011) and the upcoming Bigfoot yarn, Exists (2012). It seems that almost every wannabe horror director looking for a sure thing is drawn to the genre for the simple reason that it is cheap ‘n’ cheerful. But very few have the skill to pull it off like Sanchez or Paranormal Activity director, Oren Peli. As any Starburst reviewer will tell you, for every film that makes the found footage approach plausible, like Cloverfield (2008), there are plenty (like this year’s Tape 407) that fail miserably to make us believe the conceit. Over seventy found footage movies have been released since the heady days of Blair Witch, and with only a few worth a damn, that makes for a lot of tedious camcorder, kids-lost-in-the-woods-type dross (this year’s A Night in the Woods anyone?).

Of course a successful franchise like Paranormal Activity will keep churning ‘em out, and parts two, three and four still managed to be quite scary. When done well the found footage approach really can draw us into the horror and make us believe what we see is real (or at least partially forget what we are watching is a movie). But the found footage movie is also rife with clichés, and easily spoofed, as the atrocious Scary Movie-type send-up Supernatural Activity (2012) shows. Supernatural Activity shamelessly lampoons everything from Blair Witch to Grave Encounters (2011) to The Last Exorcism (2010) showing how dumb the average found footage movie actually is. The question therefore has to be asked: where can the genre go from here? Is there anywhere it can go? Or is it already lost?

Most critics claim that the found footage horror movie began with Cannibal Holocaust (1980), Ruggero Deodato’s infamous nasty about a documentary film crew who travel to the Amazon to film a tribe of cannibals and then mysteriously disappear, leaving only their filmed footage behind. But the roots of the genre can be traced back further still to Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960), the much-maligned shocker about a psycho-killer who likes to film his victims with his trusty 16mm Bolex. The fact that the killer in the film is also a photographer introduced two key themes into the horror genre that have become staples of the found footage horror film ever since: namely voyeurism and the nature of filmed fear. Many subsequent films feature characters that just love to film, and seem to love to film fear. This is, of course, primarily a way to get around the main problem that Sanchez so eloquently identifies: why keep filming, why not throw down the camera and run? Often screenwriters throw in a neat bit of dialogue to smooth over the plausibility problem: “Jesus, Thad, how can you keep filming at a time like this?” “I dunno. I guess I need to. It kinda helps me to get through it.” And although Peeping Tom wasn’t solely found footage, it featured plenty of through the lens shots to get its point across.

Blair Witch Project appropriated the mock-doc conceit of Cannibal Holocaust (“three filmmakers went missing… a year later their footage was found”) cleverly combining 16mm and Hi 8 footage to present not a film-within-a-film as Cannibal Holocaust was but a combination of professional documentary and home movie. It also got around another major plausibility problem thrown up by the found footage approach: that of editing. For a movie to work for an audience it has to be edited, but found footage by nature is raw unedited material. All of which presents a dilemma for the filmmaker: how to explain that the footage has been put together for an audience. The best found footage movies manage to give the impression that what we are seeing is raw material (perhaps edited ‘in camera’) and therefore more real. Cloverfield does this very well. Moc-docs attempt to get around the problem by presenting the film as a documentary edited afterwards but this approach presents another problem. How can the filmmakers edit the film together if they are killed in the course of its making? A plausibility problem that Diary of the Dead (2007), The Last Exorcism and The Devil Inside (2012) almost but not quite managed to pull off.

Blair Witch, of course, featured that famous shot of Heather Donoghue crying and drizzling snot into the camera lens (“I’m so fuckin’ scared.”) and many found footage movies have attempted (and usually failed) to capture the same sense of unseen horror. This has mostly resulted in a lot of obnoxious youths filming each other’s hysteria in night-vision (2009’s Evil Things), but occasionally yielded some effective results in the classic Val Lewton ‘suggested’ horror style. Evidence (2011) is one that makes the most of its found footage conventions in presenting a group of campers set upon by unseen attackers that wreck their RV and pick them off one by one. We are left guessing as to the true nature of the threat until the end of the movie and the hysterical attempt of the survivors to capture the beasts on video actually adds to the suspense rather than detracts from it.

Another found footage movie that managed to add something new as well as take us into the unknown was Apollo 18. Unfortunately it wasn’t very good. But it did, at least, have an intriguing premise: claiming to be classified footage from a secret 1970s moon landing that resulted in the mysterious disappearance of three astronauts. During the course of the film the astronauts are attacked by unseen forces that… you get the gist. Despite its initial promise Apollo 18 takes the lazy route to become another Blair Witch clone (just substitute the moon for the woods), and one which breaks the rules of plausibility to boot. Why would NASA edit the footage tighter and then add a movie score? It makes zero sense.

Mind you, to see a found footage that really makes a hash of it, check out Evil Things, made by someone who has no understanding of plausibility whatsoever. As usual we are informed at the start that the film we are about to see is ‘evidence’ from the files of the authorities (in this case the FBI). Cue the usual inanities of a group of friends on vacation in the wilderness – handicam in tow – stalked by an unseen attacker. The director Dominic Perez throws away any logic in his found footage approach. Not only is the footage edited and given a music soundtrack (presumably by some budding Spielberg at the FBI) but POV footage from the killer’s perspective is added for good measure. If the rest of the film was any good we might suspend our disbelief but everything about Evil Things is so inept that it simply insults the intelligence.

If Evil Things marks the low point of the found footage genre, thankfully V/H/S (2012) offers some hope. Ok, a found footage movie that is also an anthology movie might seem less than promising at first but V/H/S gets inside the skin deeper than any film of its ilk since Paranormal Activity.

In the wrap-around story (Tape 56) a gang of thugs are paid to break into an old man’s house and steal some videocassettes. Things turn nasty as the depravities that the gang visit on others are visited on them. Meanwhile each of the tales presents a variation on found footage scenarios: in The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger a Skype-chat becomes the setting for ghostly goings on in a woman’s apartment; a couple’s holiday video turns into a document of murder in Second Honeymoon; in Amateur Night a man dons a hidden webcam in his spectacles hoping to film a sexual encounter, but the tables are turned on him and his two friends in bloody ways.

V/H/S explores and updates the themes of voyeurism and filmed horror that Peeping Tom introduced more than fifty years ago. And while the technology may have changed, the twisted psychology remains the same…

NYCC had its biggest day in its history, as more fans than ever packed into Manhattan’s Javits Center to the point where it would have been speedier to crowd surf across the show floor. Lines for panels snaked their way through the convention center’s lower floors and few lines were longer than the one for MTV’s Teen Wolf, which kicked off our second day at NYCC. We reiterate that the panels were not spoiler-free affairs, so keep that in mind before forging ahead.

MTV – TEEN WOLF

On Friday, the news broke that Colton Haynes would not be returning for a third season of MTV’s breakaway hit show and Teen Wolf creator Jeff Davis began the panel with a few words about the departure of Colton and his character Jackson. “Colton has to do what’s best for his career,” Davis said and he told fans that the show will provide Jackson with an exit that will allow Haynes to return to the show in the future if he so chooses.

Davis and show star Tyler Posey (who plays Scott McCall) fielded questions from an earlier Twitter survey as well as from patiently queued fans. The panel moderator said the most commonly asked question on Twitter involved the popular fandom pairing of Stiles and Derek – aka Sterek – though Davis deflected the question. Another fandom ship that came up was Scisaac (Scott and Isaac, who is played by Daniel Sharman), to which Posey responded, “Me and the British kid? Pfft!” Davis mentioned fans asking for a Papa Stilinksi/Mama McCall relationship and the audience cheered uproariously.

Davis said the theme for the show’s third season could be summarized in a quote from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: “Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” The character Derek Hale (Tyler Hoechlin) was born great, his occasionally homicidal uncle Peter (Ian Bohen) stole it, and Scott has had it thrust against him – phrasing that led to a series of jokes about Isaac thrusting into Scott, but the panelists digressed.

Davis confirmed the rumours of a female Alpha being introduced in the third season, saying: “Her name is Kali, she is named after Indian goddess of destruction, whenever you see her, she’s bare foot, she uses the claws on her feet to strike.” Davis also said that the Alpha pack introduced in the season two finale would consist of five wolves, two of which were identical male twins. When asked if there was an alpha to the alpha pack (Posey: “Like a double alpha? Whoa!”), Davis said that question would be resolved within the season three premiere. The show will also be introducing another queer character this season. Davis said he is very invested in fair representation of gay and bisexual characters on television.

A fan asked Tyler Posey what the most challenging scene he had to shoot was and he answered that the fight scene between him and Peter Hale was particularly difficult because co-star Ian Bohen kneed him in the groin. Posey also confessed to farting on set . . . a lot.

In terms of character development, Davis said that Stiles would see his relationship to Lydia evolve in a platonic sense, as she moved from being a childish crush to a sort of pack member in her own right. Regarding Allison, Davis said: “she was pretty homicidal… we’re putting her through a redemption story.” Both Allison and Lydia will find their own power this coming season. In terms of Lydia’s mysterious abilities and werewolf immunity, Davis said we’d find out more about her as she gets closer to the werewolves of Beacon Hills.

When discussing the nature of the Scott/Derek alliance/rivalry, Davis said: “What we’re going to show is Derek and Scott working together as a team. We’re going to follow through on the promise in the first episode where Derek said to Scott ‘We’re brothers now.’”

Davis also said that some of the lingering questions from last season would be answered in season three. Regarding why some beta wolves have blue eyes and some have golden ones, he said: “There is a reason for blue eyes that has nothing to do with genetics. You’re going to find that out in a flashback episode. You’re going to find out why Derek had blue eyes.”  Derek’s deceased sister Laura Hale will also feature heavily in the flashback episode.

A fan asked if any of the cast members had bizarre pre-filming rituals and Davis revealed that “Hoechlin needs a 20 minute warning before he puts on his pants because they’re really tight and he doesn’t like them.”

DC COMICS – THE NEW 52

Very little was revealed at DC’s New 52 panel that we didn’t already know, but it was notable in that it was the only DC panel that featured a female creator (Sword of Sorcery’s Christy Marx) and a female editor (Bobbie Chase). Other panelists included Greg Capullo, Jeff Lemire, Paul Levitz, Adam Glass, Josh Failkov, Justin Jordan, Howard Mackie, Bernard Chang, and Aaron Kuder. Although panelist moderator John Cunningham gave all speakers the right to spoil anything they want from year 2 of the New 52, few took him up on that. 

Regarding the new Justice League of America, editor Bob Harris said, “If the Justice League is the world’s greatest heroes, then the JLA will be the world’s most dangerous.” 

When asked which color Lantern he would be, Jason Aarson described him as a “blood vomiting rage kitty,” referring to our personal favorite Red Lantern, Dex-Starr.

When a fan asked if the new relationship between Superman and Wonder Woman would last, Cunningham laughed, saying, “You can ask that about any couple in this room… who can say which of us will last.”

Despite the cancelation of his series, the panelists promised that Static Shock would get a significant amount of play in the future.

After issue #16 of Demon Knights, the series would leap 39 years into the future. Could be interesting. Sword of Sorcery will have a “very Game of Thrones” feel to it, according to Christy Marx. Nicola Scott will be back on art duties on Earth 2 with issue #9.

The juiciest bit of news revealed during the panel was that Green Lantern and the New Guardians artist Aaron Kuder used to be an electrician.

DC COMICS: THE JUSTICE LEAGUE

DC’s Justice League panel tread some familiar ground. Panelists included: Brian Cunningham (editor of Justice League), Jim Lee, Geoff Johns, David Finch, Francis Manapul, Brian Buccellato, Cliff Chiang, Ivan Reis, and Joe Prado.

Geoff Johns discussed the new JLA team and said, “A lot of people are saying why the hell is Catwoman on this team? And Catwoman is like why the hell am I on this team? Stargirl is the only person who’s happy to be there. She’s like ‘Yeah, this is gonna be great’ and everyone else on the team is like ‘Ugh.’” Johns went on to say that “this book will make Martian Manhunter the most dangerous character in the DC universe.”

Regarding his decision to add Vibe to the team, Johns said, “I was like who was the worst character in our library ? Who is the one character no one has ever asked to come back?” There was one Vibe fan in the audience, to which Johns said, “I hope you like Vibe. If you don’t I’m sorry… but it can’t get any worse can it?”

Cliff Chiang said that Wonder Woman 16 would welcome Orion of the new gods as regular cast member for most of the year and that we would meet another member of Diana’s extended family that is related to the flies on the cover.

Individual titles in the DCU line will impact Justice League and the storylines in the books will get tighter in this second year when the timelines sync up. Fans asked about a number of characters who are currently MIA. Jim Lee said Booster Gold will reappear soon. A fan’s mentioning of Wally West earned riotous applause while the panelists mostly just looked tired of the question. “Never say never” was the popular answer of the day every time someone asked about a character being reincorporated into continuity.  

MARVEL NOW: THE AVENGERS

We were back to an all white, all male group of creators with Marvel’s Avengers panel. The panel was led by Arune Singh and the writers, editors and artists were Tom Brevoort, Jonathan Hickman, Kieron Gillen, Dennis Hopeless, and Rick Remender.

New Avengers, released in January 2013 with Hickman and artist Steve Epting will be a companion book to Avengers (also by Hickman). Avengers will be bimonthly and Hickman has 3-4 years of stories planned out.

Regarding Avengers Arena, writer Dennis Hopeless said, “Your favorite Marvel teenaged superheroes will wake up on island that only one of them can survive.” A fan yelled “BATTLE ROYALE!” and the audience audibly agreed. Hickman said, “I know some people are cynical about the premise but it’s a fantastic book.”

A new Secret Avengers creative team team was announced, with Nick Spencer and Luke Ross  for a Feburary 2013 #1 issue. The first issue features Hawkeye and Black Widow on the cover and the book will be S.H.I.E.L.D. focused. Nicky Fury, Maria Hill and Agent Coulson will be recruiting a new team including Hawkeye, Mockingbird, and Taskmaster. Brevoort described it as a “cross between a S.H.I.E.L.D. book and an Avengers book.”

When Young Avengers came up, Arune Singh face planted over some wires in glorious fashion. Hickman said, “That’s how good this book is y’all.”  Singh was uninjured and saluted the judges like an Olympic gymnast. Bryan Lee O’Malley is doing his first Marvel work with variant cover for Young Avengers #1.

Regarding Avengers Assemble by Kelly Sue Deconnick and Stefano Caselli, Brevoort said it was like “shot glass Avengers”, featuring shorter ,more character driven stories. The second arc is called Widow’s Ledger and it goes into her past. That’ll come out in February 2013.

The panel discussed diversity in Avengers World. They say they’re thinking about it and the full roaster of 24 Avengers will be over half new characters that are more diverse.

Remender called Uncanny Avengers “cracker fest 2012“, but said that villains will be racially diverse. He wanted Storm but was told she was unavailable and pointed out the problems with using characters designed in ’60s, and that new members coming up in Uncanny would be intentionally more diverse. Remender joked, “We weren’t like ‘take that every other race, we just want crackers! Represent whitey!'”

Regarding new characters in New Avengers, Hickman said that there would be a new female Captain Universe and the book would welcome the first female smasher, Hyperion.

Fans were pleased that Havoc would play a bigger role in the new Marvel universe. Remender said, “I love Havoc. If Scott is the captain of the football team, Alex is the guy smoking a joint under the bleachers.”

***

To read our report on NYCC Day 1, go HERE.

The eagerly awaited fourth chapter of the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY series opens in UK cinemas today, and to get you in the mood Paramount Pictures have given us an exclusive teaser to share with you guys. Check it out in the player below, but make sure you’ve checked the attic and/or cupboard for vengeful demons first…

Find your local Starburst Magazine stockist HERE, or buy direct from us HERE. Our issues are also available as fully interactive iPad editions, loaded with multimedia, and can be downloaded via Apple HERE.