Weekly Watch Wind - 05/7/2010

News/ Superheroes: This is about a week late, but worth reading. The Make a Wish Foundation came up with a city-wide-spanning adventure with superheroics, sports celebrities and the whole nine yards.

A kid suffering from liver cancer was given the chance to get on a super-hero outfit, rescue folks and stop bad guys. Sounds like a pretty darn good day to me.

Also here.

I find the story equal parts touching and compelling. Plus, I'd kind of like to be a superhero for the day.


Batman: The third film in the Nolan-directed Batman film series has a release date. July 20, 2012. So let's hope that if the Mayans are right, Armageddon can hold off until Labor Day.

I am really hoping they've chosen Crazy Quilt and Batman Jones to appear in this installment.


Spider-Man/ News: Real-life Spidey stops a crime! With help from The Flash and Jedis! Sure, it was a guy stealing from a comic shop on Free Comic Book Day, and the cops must have been quite amused to find Spidey on the scene. We can't help but tut-tut anyone who decides to steal books about people fighting crime.

But to do it right in plain view of masked crusaders of justice? That's just sloppy.


Comics: DC's web comics effort, Zuda, has abandoned the "competition" format.

That's fine by me. I quickly grew tired of watching good comics get voted out of existence and quit looking at Zuda over a year ago, knowing that DC was ushering their quality winners into print (see: Bayou), and I'd catch them there.

There was also something kind of odd about a "survival of the fittest" model when one benefit of webcomics is the low overhead and opportunity for niche items to find an audience. I look forward to seeing what Zuda is doing by 2011.


Comics: Life Magazine may be no more, but the photo archive lives on! And this week, they ran a feature called "In Praise of Classic Comics".


Comics: Cullen and Brian from The Sixth Gun are getting a lot of steam, thanks to that FCBD comic. Here's another interview at Indiepulp.


Awesome: Apparently there was a GI Joe convention. Complete with folks in costume. And, yes, there were women dressed as The Baroness.


Batman/ Porn: So... Vivid Entertainment, a purveyor of the finest in adult entertainment, has produced a movie entitled "Batman XXX: A Porn Parody". So obviously I'd like to see what they did. Yes, I said "obviously". The studio rented a realistic looking Batmobile, the costumes are spot-on, and it looks like someone dumped a lot of money on this thing. (The trailer is 100% SFW, oddly)

Sadly, I'm not much of a "porn guy", and I'm not sure how to get my hands on a copy of this thing without causing all sorts of problems.

Now if someone wanted to send me a screener...


Captain Marvel/ Comics/ News: I saw this story online entitled "Shazam! Berlin looks at superheroes' Jewish roots", and...

1) Sounds like a neat exhibit.
2) The press needs to put a halt on all stories that have any "Bam! Piff! Zow!" exclamations in the title. Officially played out as early as 2002.
3) The creators of Captain Marvel (aka: Shazam) weren't actually Jewish. I double-checked Gerard Jones' "Men of Tomorrow" (as good a source as any, I guess), and Fawcett was unusual amongst comic publishers of the Golden Age for not being primarily Jewish staffed (Captain Marvel artist CC Beck was a Lutheran from Minnesota). So... swing and a miss from either the exhibit or from the news wire. But I guess fact-checking is just so passe these days.
4) Solomon is important to Judaism, but its not like he doesn't appear in Christian texts, too. (I think he's featured heavily in Kings, if you've a Bible handy). So that "S" standing for Solomon? Not exactly your silver bullet explanation.
5) Pretty much every other comic character you care about? Created by a Jewish guy.