Fandomania

Comic Review: Farscape Strange Detractors #4

Summer Suzuki — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:00:45 +0000

REVIEW: Farscape: Strange Detractors, Part 4: The Binds that Tie
Release Date: 1 July 2009
Writer(s): Rockne S. O’Bannon (story), Keith R.A. DeCandido (script)
Artist(s): Will Sliney
Cover(s): Joe Corroney, Dennis Calero
Colours: Zac Atkinson
Letterer: Ed Dukeshire
Publisher: BOOM! Studios

It’s Inner Space in Outer Space as John takes the antivirus from the Doc’s enclave back to Moya. It worked on him, so it has to work on everyone else, right? If he makes it in time, and they don’t kill him, John just might save the entire universe (again).

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Fan Art Friday: Gangsters

Jason Dorough — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:00:58 +0000

John Dillinger and his buddies are shooting up movie theaters this week in Public Enemies, so I’m taking the opportunity to spotlight some fan art of the seedier sort today. Have a look at these pieces inspired by The Godfather, Scarface, The Sopranos, and more! Click the images to visit the artists’ galleries.

Johnny Depp - John Dillinger by shaman-art

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10 Fantasy Summer Reading Recommendations

Kelly Melcher — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:00:29 +0000

Some may think of summer beach (or wherever you do your summer reading) reading as breezy and carefree reading without much depth, but I beg to differ. I think summer reading should be rich, entertaining, thought provoking when possible or, in this list’s case, full of magic and fantasy. These are my top ten fantasy picks for summer reading, some new, some classics, all great.

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Comic Review: Muppet Robin Hood #2

Julio Ubilla — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:00:34 +0000

Review: Muppet Robin Hood #2
Writer: Tim Beedle
Art: Armand Villavert Jr.
Colours: Mara Aum
Letters: Marshall Dillon
Editor: Paul Morrissey
Covers: David Petersen & Richard Garcia
Publishers: BOOM! Studios
Release Date: July 1st, 2009

Once again Mr. Beedle brings to life that old tale of the world’s most famous outlaw with some of the comic hilarity that comes with the Muppets. In this second installment of the series our band of merry men is joined by the ever popular Friar Tuck, who is embodied by Fozzie the Bear, and we also meet the famous antagonist that is Prince John who had tried to hire Sir Swineman of the Sword, portrayed by Link Hogthrob, to infiltrate Robin’s gang. This ends in disaster because Swineman is the classic dumb jock knight.

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Comic Review: Irredeemable #4

Summer Suzuki — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:00:34 +0000

REVIEW: Irredeemable #4
Release Date: 1 July 2009
Writer(s): Mark Waid
Artist(s): Peter Krause
Cover(s): John Cassaday and Laura Martin, Dan Panosian, Jeffrey Spokes
Colours: Andrew Dalhouse
Letterer: Ed Dukeshire
Publisher: BOOM! Studios

The Plutonian is now officially a world threat, as far as the USA is concerned. The rest of the world? Well, not so much. As usual, they don’t see eye-to-eye with the good ole US, and things get pretty ugly in a hurry. To be fair, The Plutonian is so far gone, it wouldn’t have mattered if all of humanity put aside their differences, firearms, RPGs, and whatnot, joined hands and started to sing “We Are the World”. Yeah, things are getting bad for the planet as a whole. With The Plutonian starting to set things up for something big, and the Good Guys not seeming to be able to stay alive long enough to save the day, it doesn’t look like things will get better any time soon.

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Fandomestic: Bag End Scale Model

Celeste Monsour — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:00:10 +0000

Little-known fact: for many years in my youth, I was really into dollhouse miniatures. I still hope to get back into the hobby someday, and creations like this one are exactly why. LiveJournaler obeliamedusa fell in love with the Lord of the Rings trilogy after seeing the films, and decided to make a tiny Bag End for her LOTR action figures.

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Book Review: Geeky Dreamboats: A Celebration

Paige MacGregor — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:00:57 +0000

From Lacey Soslow, the vice president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Michael Cera fan club (yes, there’s a Michael Cera fan club and yes, it has multiple chapters… yeah, we know…), and author/editor Sarah O’Brien comes yet another intriguing release from independent book publisher Quirk Books: Geeky Dreamboats: A Celebration. Released this past May, Geeky Dreamboats features over 50 of the geekiest guys that Hollywood and the music industry has to offer. For each geeky dreamboat, Lacey and Sarah provide basic information, including birthday, astrological sign, and nationality, as well as fun facts and a blurb description of why each geeky dreamboat was included on this relatively short list.

Lacey and Sarah’s writing is both lighthearted and witty, befitting of a book that celebrates geeky dreamboats like Michael Cera and Matthew Broderick while channeling the feeling of teen magazines like Tiger Beat and Teen Beat. The “geekboat meter” that the authors use to rate each of the stars included in Geeky Dreamboats is also a cute way of calculating each of the guys’ geek factor. As someone who enjoys a geeky boy as much as the next girl, I was overjoyed to encounter this quirky little book (at only slightly larger than 6″ x 5″, the book is practically pocket sized), and decided to test Sarah and Lacey’s geeky boy choices against my own. Basically, Geeky Dreamboats would receive my personal five-star rating if the following five actors were included: 1. Shia LeBeouf (Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen); 2. Topher Grace (That 70’s Show, Spider-Man); 3. Justin Long (Live Free or Die Hard); 4. Seth Rogen (Pineapple Express, Observe and Report); and 5. Zachary Levi (Chuck) were all included.

Much to my surprise, four out of the five actors listed above are included in Geeky Dreamboats, the exception being Zachary Levi of the NBC show Chuck. Despite this omission, I was pleasantly surprised to find several other actors that I had not expected to be included, including John Cusack (1408, War, Inc.), Mark Ruffalo (13 Going on 30, Zodiac), Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), Edward Norton (Fight Club, The Incredible Hulk), and Luke and Owen Wilson.

Overall, Geeky Dreamboats is a fun book to have around when friends come over, as it certainly will incite some interesting arguments about the geek factor of actors like Elijah Wood or the dreaminess of someone like Sacha Baron Cohen. Geeky Dreamboats: A Celebration is available from Quirk Books at www.irreference.com.

Top Ten Fictional Revolutions

Jason Dorough — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:00:22 +0000

The Fourth of July weekend is coming up, and while we commemorate America’s Revolutionary War, Fandomania is taking a look at ten other memorable but fictional revolutions.

10. Marvel: Dark Reign

SHIELD was the supreme governmental agency in the Marvel Universe for many, many years. Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) took over the organization as Director in the wake of the Marvel Civil War. Following the alien Skrulls’ failed attempt to invade Earth, Norman Osborn (aka the Green Goblin) successfully pulled off a mostly peaceful coup that replaced SHIELD with his own organization HAMMER, sent Tony Stark on the lam, and installed a new cabal of shadow leaders including Dr. Doom and Loki to run the world.

9. Animal Farm

George Orwell’s classic novel mirrors the events of pre-World War II Stalinism with the tale of a determined group of farm animals attempting to overthrow their human oppressors in order to take over the farm themselves.

8. Harry Potter

Revolutions abound in J. K. Rowling’s series about the adventures of a boy wizard. The first significant rebellion is in the Hogwarts students’ formation of Dumbledore’s Army, lead by Harry Potter in protestation of Dolores Umbridge’s tyrannical rule as Headmaster. Later, in the final volume of the series, a more brutal revolt takes place as Voldemort leads his Death Eaters to overthrow the Ministry of Magic, effectively supplanting the magical ruling body with villainy.

7. Wicked

The musical Wicked differs from the original novel in many areas, one of which being the omission of the Wizard’s rise to power. In the novel we learn that he deposed the Ozma Regent and tricked and cajoled his way into leadership of the Oz government, something we definitely wouldn’t have seen in the Judy Garland movie.

6. Half-Life 2

Set in the dystopian City 17, Half-Life 2 depicts a society oppressed by an organization called the Combine. Scientist Gordon Freeman joins and eventually leads a guerrilla revolt to topple the regime and to face the head of the Combine, Dr. Wallace Breen.

5. Terminator

In the late 20th century, Skynet becomes sentient and launches nuclear attacks against its human creators, eventually leading to the rise of the Terminators and the fall of humanity. The war that follows has the humans deposed by machines as they fight a desperate battle to reclaim their world.

4. Red Faction

The Red Faction universe depicts Mars as a planet in turmoil, originally settled by Earth but now governed by an oppressive corporate government. All the games in the series play from the side of revolutionaries, fighting to free their people and establish their own set of laws and governing body.

3. Battlestar Galactica

The reimagined Battlestar Galactica series is rife with political upheaval as the government changes hands and shifts in and out of martial law on a nearly weekly basis. The biggest revolution came not from the humans, though, but from the robotic Cylons when they cast off their subservient chains and rebelled against their makers.

2. Babylon 5

Babylon 5 is a very political series, full of intrigue and betrayal at the highest levels of government. As the story unfolds it eventually becomes a story of rebellion as a lone space station builds an army to overthrow the corrupt Earth government. At the same time, humans on Mars are revolting in a conflict that very closely resembles the one depicted in the Red Faction games mentioned above.

1. Star Wars

How could we have a list of fictional rebellions without topping it with Star Wars? From Palpatine’s manipulative and underhanded coup to form the Empire in the prequels to the Rebel Alliance’s reclamation of the galaxy in the classic trilogy, it’s hard to find a fictional series more rooted in the spirit of revolution.

Honorable Mention: The Matrix

Sure, The Matrix and its two sequels are all about the humans revolting against the machines, but there’s a very good reason that the series didn’t make it into the top ten: The Matrix is a fantastic movie, but Revolutions and Reloaded are horrendously bad. Still, it warrants a mention, as long as we try to forget everything that happens after Keanu starts flying.

Interview: Mimi Michaels

Celeste Monsour — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:00:48 +0000

Mimi Michaels has been a professional entertainer since the age of four. She appeared as a young girl on Saturday Night Live, busting it up with the likes of Mike Myers and Adam Sandler. She’s had countless guest spots on shows like Law & Order, Six Feet Under, Shark, All My Children, and Criminal Minds, plus starring film roles in Aimee Semple McPherson and Boogeyman 3. And you might even recognize her from a popular Trident gum commercial. Michaels has some exciting new projects coming up this year: the NBC television miniseries Meteor: Path to Destruction (July 12th, 9/8c) and the feature film Gamer, starring Gerard Butler (September 4th). She took some time out of her increasingly busy schedule to talk to Fandomania.

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Xbox Live Arcade: Worms 2 and King of Fighters

Jason Dorough — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:00:54 +0000

Two new games hit the Xbox Live Arcade today: Worms 2 Armageddon and King of Fighters ‘98 Ultimate Match. Each game is priced at 800 Microsoft Points ($10), despite the initial error on Microsoft’s website that showed Worms 2 clocking in at $800. Here are the official blurbs for the games:

Ten years on from Worms™ Armageddon and the turn-based mayhem and destruction continues! Worms™ 2: Armageddon is the most fully-featured digital version of the game ever. With four player online and offline multiplayer, voice support, a raft of new weapons (including the return of some iconic weapons from the past), all-new high-definition landscape themes, new play modes, hats, skins, speech-banks, loads of other customization and to top it all off, a highly-involving single player experience with tutorials, deathmatches, races, fort games, and puzzles. It’s a package as high on fun as it is destruction!

Extensive single-player content: Play through three tutorials, three firing ranges, a thirty-mission campaign, plus five secret unlockable missions.
Online and offline multiplayer: Battle it out in four different ranked game types and extensive leaderboards.
Massively increased customization: Choose from new hats, skins, speechbanks, gravestones, victory dances, and much more.
Retro-themed landscape artwork: The high-definition artwork is based on the most loved Worms game ever made.
Return of iconic weaponry: You’ve got more than 40 weapons out of the box, including the return of fire weapons and the beloved Holy Hand Grenade.

The King of Fighters ‘98 Ultimate Match comes to Xbox LIVE® Arcade! The KOF ‘98 fighting game has fascinated game fans all over the world, and now it’s powered up and ready to be on Xbox LIVE Arcade. Additional characters have been added from the King of Fighters universe, and new battle systems and moves have been implemented. Extend the fight to opponents all over the world. Face off against others to prove who is the real King of Fighters. Use Practice Mode to learn, Challenge Mode to improve your skills, then go to battle to show what you’ve got!

The best of arcade fighting action: The Japanese arcade game comes to full life on Xbox LIVE Arcade, featuring the best of 3-on-3 2-D fighting action.
More characters: Ultimate Match includes more characters than the original King of Fighters ‘98, incorporating some of gamers’ favorite characters from previous King of Fighters games.