So much superhero news it's like suffocating under a pillow made of back issues, being pushed into your face by the heavy hand of Hollywood.
(Speaking of which: Did you know the MPAA & RIAA are teaming up to place anti-piracy curriculum in elementary schools? Sure, mathematics and language skills are important, but not nearly as important as putting the fear of the almighty fine into file-sharing first graders )
In a welcome change of pace, Marvel is in negotiations to hire a writer for their new Daredevil show. It doesn't feel like this is how things are usually done. Normally what happens is a lot of worry over who will be cast as the superhero, what the costume is going to look like, how to rough up the concept 'til it carries a grit rating somewhere between "Ron Swanson's sandpaper" and "Rooster Cogburn", and then some writers are thrown at the mess and told to make it stand up and run around for the viewing audience.
But instead, Daredevil's first hire might be Drew Goddard, most recently credited with helping Damon Lindelof save World War Z at the finish line, as well as writing/directing The Cabin in the Woods and writing Cloverfield. His TV work features credits on LOST, Angel, Alias, and Buffy. It's a pretty decent resume. If he's got the job, I hope he knows that working from either Mark Waid's or Brian Michael Bendis' comics runs puts him about 20 steps ahead of the game. He can pretty safely avoid whatever it was Kevin Smith did with the guy.
Speaking of which: For some weird reason, it was decided that Kevin Smith having seen the Batsuit Ben Affleck will wear in the Man of Steel sequel is somehow legitimate news. Multiple sitesreported on it. Apparently it's going to look kind of like Jim Lee's rendition of the suit? Apparently we're supposed to take the fact that Kevin Smith is excited by this as a good sign? Apparently we're supposed to forget that Kevin Smith is excited by fucking everything? He compared Revenge of the Sith to both Othello and Hamlet. He went out on tour with Jay & Silent Bob's Groovy Cartoon Movie like a proud uncle. I mean - Kevin Smith's been legitimately excited about THIS:
So the fact he's "excited" to see the high-budget, nipple-free jammies (Smith was oddly specific about this) his pal will wear in a Superman movie doesn't mean much. Although this is what a Jim Lee-drawn Batsuit looks like, and it would be pretty cool.
My only request? Stop cutting holes in the mask so we can see the actor's eyes, as if that's actually added anything of note to a Batman portrayal. Batman's eyes should be angry white triangles. It's not like we need to see Affleck's eyes. SPOILERS: He'll be squinting. He's playing a grumpy, fascist, sociopathic vigilante wearing over 50lbs worth of caped gimp suit, talking to/fighting with a lunkheaded pretty-boy hayseed alien from Kansas.
Speaking of which: Man of Steel is available on Blu-ray/DVD today. Erik liked it. I thought it was pretty good, too. It wasn't great, there's too much David Goyer in the movie for it to be that. The editing didn't do it any favors, either. And for whatever reason, even though the dialog, characterization, and editing presented more than enough reason to take fair shots at a pretty imperfect movie, the narrative surrounding the film very quickly became centered on the "millions" of people Superman personally murdered in the movie when he "flattened" entire "miles" of Metropolis single-handedly. Which a) never happened and b) is a stupid thing to note if you're, you know, actually watching the movie. And now you have a chance to revisit it! It's got a leather Kevin Costner doll/kite that delivers platitudes every now and again, and a Michael Shannon who is very much disdainful of America's agricultural training facilities, and Superman beating up an Intergalactic Dubstep Machine, among other things. You should check it out if you haven't.