Chris Samnee’s artwork on Thor: The Mighty Avenger is some of my favorite work in years. I hadn’t been drawn to the artist prior to this title, out of both ignorance and stupidity. But his lighthearted approach matches Roger Langridge’s scripts perfectly, and every panel seems to bleed the whimsical, expansive world of T:TMA. With that in mind, I was pretty stoked to come across this video over on Comics Alliance. This video is sped-up, but his actual work took only twenty-seven minutes. A feat apparently accomplished because, like me, Samnee is a Caffeine Warrior. A much, much, much more talented Caffeine Warrior, but nonetheless.

Comics Alliance:

Ever since I witnessed Thor: The Mighty Avenger artist Chris Samnee confess to downing inhuman amounts of coffee on a regular basis at this past summer’s Comic Twart panel at HeroesCon, I feel like I’ve had a better understanding of his equally inhuman art output (The man gets pages done!).

Amazing. Hit the jump to check out Samnee’s super-fast Batman drawing. And if you haven’t check out The Mighty Avenger already. For the love of god(s of Asgard).

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Enlarge.

Batman: Arkham Asylum was one of my favorite video games of last year. Going around kicking ass as the god damn Batman? Win. And now we have a title for the sequel, Batman: Arkham City. Well then. Apparently they didn’t learn shit from what happened at Arkham, let’s fill an entire city! with sociopaths. Just kidding. I assume there’s going to be some sort of outbreak that allows the douchery to flood into Gotham proper.

Kotaku:

The sequel, in development by Rocksteady Studios, has players taking Batman into Arkham City, the new maximum security home for all of Gotham City’s criminals. This new prison is described as a heavily fortified walled-prison in the heart of Gotham City.

The game will include story that “draws together a new all-star cast of classic characters and murderous villains from the Batman universe, as well as a vast range of new and enhanced gameplay features to deliver the ultimate experience as the Dark Knight,” according to the press release.

Super-dope-time. If you peep closely, I think you can see Two-Face in the background of the Game Informer cover, which, of course, gets me percolating.

Holy fuggin’ shit, it looks like the Riddler is really going to be in The Dark Knight 2 / Batman 3 / Whatever. And more so, it looks like my wet dream of Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing him may be coming true. Get ready to e-masturbate:

via slashfilm:

There have been rumors of a JGL Riddler in the Batman sequel for some time. Today, FirstShowing got info from a source with a studio casting grid for Batman 3, so their report about the Riddler and Joseph Gordon-Levitt is more than pure speculation. In short, the casting gird is a data array with the roles in the film, possible actors, and scheduling needs. It shows talent availability and   which roles have actually been offered out. It can also be crucial in noting what actors can cover roles other then the ones they’re primarily wanted for.

So this info lists the Riddler, and has JGL as a primary candidate marked as ‘interested’. As FirstShowing says, don’t take this as any report that Levitt is in the film, but it may be a good sign that the Riddler will be.

Fuggin’ boom! Boners and cartwheels. I would fucking love this. My dickcrush broner (yes, broner) for JGL is reaching staggering heights. The idea of him being in the third Batman movie is enough to send me into fits of ecstacy. And in case you’re wondering what that looks like: lots of drooling, rubbing body parts, and kissing my computer monitor while Batman Forever loops in the background.

Let’s get this shit done.

[deviant art via kotaku]

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Take that, Batman! Maybe when you spy on Wonder Woman and Superman, they’ll just engage you in some ethical debate. But Donkey Kong? Fuck that shit! He knows you videotaped him masturbating to one of Princess Peach’s scarves, and he’s mad as fuck. Prepare to get served.

[click images to enlarge]

God damn! Maybe golfing isn’t for yuppie douchebag pussies! I mean, if Batman, and no, not Bruce Wayne!, does it, it can’t be that bad.

Via: Comics Alliance:

This LA Life was the first to post pictures of the Tumbler Golf Cart, based on the vehicle’s design as seen in “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight.” A golf cart with a jet engine and armored plating is pretty darn hilarious and impressive on its own, but pushing this vehicle’s coolness factor over the edge is its place of residence: the Warner Bros. studio lot. The original rumor suggested that this golf cart actually belongs to director Christopher Nolan himself, that he’s been using this to get around the WB lot while finishing post-production on “Inception.” That rumor has since been squashed, but the fact that it’s hanging around the studio at all? That’s pretty darn priceless!

Fucking amazing. I really hope that it was Topher Nolan riding around in this wagon of bad assery and destruction while finishing Inception. And if it wasn’t him, whoever the fuck it was, kudos.

Welcome to Variant Covers, the joint where every week I glance at a Release List for the comic books coming out and mention anything that catches my eye in the world of Telekinesis, Perpetual Resurrections, and Really Firm Pectorals, Buttocks, and Breasts. Or generally, that’s what I do. But seeing as this is my column, fuck it, I’m going to do whatever I want to. Let not the column dictate my writing, let my writing dictate the column! Or some shit. Word.

Memorial Day and a five-week month have seemingly conspired to draw a really fucking boring week on my ass. I say this full aware that people who are reading this are probably excited for roughly nineteen titles and think I’m a complete dickhead. Whatever. Like I say every week what are you reading? Recommend something to me. I’ll read it, I’ll even probably enjoy it. But on a budget that is stuffed with comics and countless energy drinks, I don’t take many risks on my own. That said, the comic books are coming late this week, and what are coming don’t really catch my attention.

Nonetheless, it always saddens me when shit comes out a day late in the Comicverse. Fucking Memorial Day! I’ll trade a day of eating lobsters and drinking for the ability to snag my funny books on time. Who stops shipments of anything, anyways? This America! Dost Capitalism dare slow down for something as insignificant as recognizing those who have fallen for our right to pound Double Gulps and watch endless repeats of Sportcenter as we bloat and fart? [If you don’t get my sarcasm just close the window. I beg you.

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Cosplay Fever
You know it’s either a slow week or an awesome week when one of the most geeked out things I’m interested in is a compendium of all things cosplay. Cosplay is also amazing in my book. It operates on so many levels of rock, that it takes something calamitous for it to fail me. If the cosplay is awesome, it’s generally a woman or man wearing way too little and giving convention goers a look at some flesh. If the cosplay is terrible, then it works on a car crash sort of way. Either way, it is something to be entertained by.

I’ll never forget the four-hundred pound Jean Grey I saw at last year’s New York Comicon. She was a bulging sea of green and red. As I was sitting in line, it was probably the gravitational pull of her various oceanic waves of cellulite that caught my eye. But I was transfixed. Whatever sort of superfabric she was wearing was screaming for relief. Pulled so tight, it captured every cottage-cheese dimple across her biomass. I thought it was astounding. The lady was tremendous because either a) She didn’t give a fuck about her figure, she was dressing up. I respect that. Or b) she as delusional and thought she had it going on. Like I said, either way, kudos.

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Since I usually spend my time commenting on comic books that are coming out, as opposed to that I’m digging on, I don’t get to highlight titles rocking my ass. Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne is currently deeply embedded in the windings halls of my fanboy heart. Morrison has the Man of Flying Rats tripping through time. It’s fucking odd, which I suppose isn’t anything new from a writer who has thought he’s communed with aliens. Wayne is falling through time, while also posing as a Biorganic Archivist at the end of linear timespace? Or something? Like I said, it’s insane. But it’s also an enjoyable examination of myths and superstitions throughout various timelines, from that of cavemen to the witch trials. Seeing how humanity has a tendency to make the supernatural out of what cannot be easily explained, and how fears play on one’s ability to reason clearly.

It’s super odd, and really, really different from the usual superhero event.

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If this ain’t Variant Covers, then I’m fucking lost. Welcome to the weekly column where I haphazardly stare at the release list of this week’s comics and pick out the titles I’m sweating. Most of them it’s the usual shit! But who cares. It’s summer time, and the living is easy. Or at least I don’t feel bad for sweating through my shitty t-shirt for once, since I can just blame it on the weather and not my glands and caffeine addiction. After that fourth energy drink of the day I’m literally slathered in crevice juice. Crevice juice.

Secret Avengers #1
As I mentioned last week, we’re entering the Heroic Age. And no Age would be complete without seventeen Avengers titles to back it up, would it? So without having read them all, I’m going to blindly and foolishly tell you this: if you’re only going to read one Avengers title, pick this one up? Ed Brubaker has consistently rocked out on both Dardevil and Captain America through the years. The answer to the trivia question, “Who could bring Bucky back to life and not have it suck” will always be Eddie. And then there’s Daredevil. I can’t remember a more tortured and nuanced dude than Matty, and Brubaker took the reins from Bendis back in the day and it was a seamless transition.

So no, I don’t know what the fuck is going on in this title. Coming off of Siege, Steve Rogers ain’t no American captain anymore. Instead he’s dubbed some bullshit like “America’s Top Cop” (he’s Nick Fury), and apparently these are his Avengers that are also a secret. This is your on-ramp to the title, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be the same as every other first-issue of a JLA or Avenger’s title these days: just the means through which the team comes together. For better or worse.

Around the Marvel Universe, there’s some other legit stuff dropping you might want to check out. For starters, there’s Fantastic Four #579. And if you read this column even semi-regularly, you’ll find me throwing rope over Hickman’s rendition of Marvel’s first family all the time. Buy this comic book, share it with your friends. Incontrovertible proof that Reed Richards can be more than a douchey guy in the Fox movie. I promise. Then there’s the latest issue of Thunderbolts, which has Luke Cage running the team.   And Juggernaut? What the fuck?

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Speaking of Cain Marko, what the fuck is that guy up to these days? Besides being on the Thunderbolts, apparently. I remember when I was growing up Juggernaut seemed so fucking cool. I mean, he was a guy who could run a lot, and smash stuff with his head. As a kid, this was precisely what I spent most of my time doing. Running into shit, and smashing my head. The idea that it would make me a bad ass, and not make girls laugh at me as my size 15 feet tripped was comforting.

Also, where’s my Juggernaut/Juggalos cross-over? This seems like an untapped brand, right here. What happens when the Juggernaut becomes a Juggalo? It seems like it almost makes too much sense. Let’s get this shit done!

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Sense and Sensibility #1
I’m pretty sure that if this comic book doesn’t feature zombies, no one is going to read it. Sry, yo! No seriously, who in their right fucking mind is going to buy this comic book? Academic geeks like me? Natch. I just spent five months reading British women’s literature from this time period. I have no desire to see this novel drafted panel by panel. Girls? Double natch. They’re all iCarly and shit. They don’t need to walk into the creepy comic store dungeon with their father and pick this up. So uh, who exactly? Completionists? Pedophiles? Maybe.

Is this some sort of reverse cash-in? With Pride and Prejudice and Zombies making everyone go fucking bananas, did they think that maybe slipping out another Jane Austen book in comic form, sans zombies, could drum up some interest? Who knows. I had to listen to the professor from said class drone on and on about how misogynistic P&P&Z despite the fact that a) half the class was female and b) they had dug it. So if anything, I’ve learned something about Sense and Sensibility from this exercise: if it’s not being misogynistic, it’s going to be too boring for people to pick it up.

(Don’t hate on me, I actually enjoy Austen.)

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[Variant Covers is a column every Tuesday that breaks down the various titles coming out that week in the world where Bruce Wayne can look like a complete asshole.]

Batman: Return Of Bruce Wayne #1
Hey kids! Are you totally not fatigued with everyone’s favorite sensation: time traveling? Well, I hope you’re not! Because this week, Grant Morrison is taking Bruce Wayne on some sort of journey across time in an effort to get his ass out of the paleolithic period and back into his Batcave. This week Morrison is rocketing off the first issue of Batman: Return of Bruce Wayne. It’s a six-issue mini-series, and Bruce Wayne is going to jump from time period to time period throughout the series. From the first issue where he totally looks like some shitty 1980’s WWF character to life as a swashbuckling douche, we’ll get to see him in various times.

Man, I’m tired of time travel. Between Captain America: Reborn, LOST, and even last week’s Astonishing Spider-Man/Wolverine I’ve had my fill. But now I have to watch as Batman runs around and gives DDTs to apes and dinosaurs and shit? I don’t know man, I’m not excited. Maybe the mini-series will kick-ass, maybe it won’t. But if there was ever a time when having Batman punch a T-Rex in the nose was a novel idea, we’re far, far from it at this point.

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First Wave #2
Also dropping in the DC Universe this week is First Wave #2, which is the retro re-imagining of the DC Universe. The first issue, which came out a couple of months ago, was pretty dope. Sort of. I can’t really remember it, but I enjoyed seeing the noir take on the universe, and I was eagerly awaiting the second issue. And waiting. and waiting. And now it’s here. Get some! Not to be undone, the second War of the Supermen comes out this week, and hopefully it’s better than the first. The first issue merely reminded me why I hadn’t been reading Superman titles the past couple of years, so egg on my face.

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I can’t be the only person who is burnt out with all the events going on, can I? I’m still trying to catch my breath after Blackest Night, and now we’re getting hit with both War of the Superman and The Return of Bruce Wayne. Sweet Jesus Christ, let me catch my breath! And over in the Marvel Universe, they’re already rolling out news of their next event, Shadowland.

I can’t tell if it is willful forgetting, or if back in the day they actually let a comic book universe go two or three months without having to introduce some sort of catastrophe or mind-warping adventure. Maybe it is just some sort of selective memory. I mean, Onslaught ran into Heroes: Reborn ran into the Heroes: Return, et cetera. Perhaps it’s part and parcel for such an existence.

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Oh my god I’ve crapped my bat-panties. The Dark Knight 2 or whatever you want to call it has a release date:

via cbr:

The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision blog has confirmed that Christopher Nolan’s next and final Batman film will open July 20, 2012. Presently in postproduction on “Inception,” Nolan is working on the story for the as-yet-untitled Batman film with writer David Goyer.

How the fuck do you to The Dark Knight? Who the fuck knows. Even if the sequel is a Return of the Jedi to the Dark Knight’s Empire Strikes Back, it’ll still be enough to send legions of dorks like me into raving throes of ecstasy.

[Variant Covers is a column every Tuesday that breaks down the various titles coming out that week in the world where Mark Millar continues to redefine absurdly awesome ultra-violence.]

Nemesis #1

Ohhhhh, fuck to the yes. Nemesis is dropping the week. Finally. Mark Millar’s latest license to print money is hitting the shelves and I’m already hyper-ventilating like the fanboy pig that I am. I’ve been waiting for this son of a bitch since it was announced, and now that it’s upon me, I’m geeking out. Let me tell you something. If my boy down at the comic shop forgets to pull me a copy of this I’m going to freak the fuck out. In something of a Hulkian rage, I may or may not flip several shelves and eat as many action figures I can before I asphyxiate and die. Just saying.

The premise is so fucking simple and obvious, even Mark Millar has admitted it’s borderline ridiculous to actually pull off as a title. Millar poses the question, what if a Batman analog was a bad guy? What if a billionaire playboy with all the sweet-ass kung fu moves and guns he could acquire, set out to kill the equivalent of Commissioner Gordon? Either you’re totally fucking stoked about this…or you’re a pretentious windbag. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I still fart towards you.

It’s a little bit of deconstruction this side of the sort of shit that Warren Ellis did with his Batman and Superman derivatives in The Authority, or his work in pretty much deconstructing every superhero archetype in The Planetary. But I think this will be a little more on the visceral, and a little less on the cerebral side. So instead of working out the essence of characters, I assume he’s just going to have lots of bludgeoning and ultra-violence. Absolutely fucking fine by me. I just spent an entire week examining freudian interpretations of Mary Shelley’s Mathilda for class. I’m ready for phallic objects blasting people into mush. Wait, that sounds freudian too. Fuck.

Millar already knows this is going to be a hit. Dude’s already planning a movie. Between Kick-Ass and this, I imagine soon he’ll be bathing in hundred-dollar bills and the alcoholic beverage of his choice. I’m there, dude.

Captain America #604

There’s like nineteen Captain Americas running around right now. There’s Steve Rogers back from the timestream, there’s Bucky back from being a Russian spy, and then there’s William Burnside, a schizophrenic raised to believe he’s Captain America. That’s roughly one for every Avengers title that Marvel is launching after the culmination of Siege. Rimshot, groans from the audience. But no, seriously. What the fuck is going on.

Brubaker continually brings the awesome. And that’s the reason a storyline about Bucky hunting down the aforementioned William Burnside in some yokel town works so damn well. Our boy Burnside, posing as Captain America, is leading a paramilitary group determined to “reclaim” America. A couple of issues ago Brubaker and company got into a bruhaha when someone penciled in some salacious shit onto a sign that was in a scene depicting a Tea Party protest. Being a hippy and a liberal, I wasn’t offended. But Fox News damn near shit their pants so hard, they didn’t just soil his pants, they soiled yours.

I’m digging on the storyline though. If Captain America is a representation of the ideals of our country, where better to examine the clash between the various factions and their competing narratives for what this country is and should stand for? I’ve always had a vague fear that Captain America, while standing for the right things, has actually been an instrument for you know, the dirty fascists that run this corporate empire. Oh shit, I’m kidding about that, okay? For the most part. Captain America as a fascist mouthpiece? It could be worse, he could be portrayed by Chris Evans in the movie. Wait. Fuck.

So hop into this shit this week, and join the examination. It’s got ideological battles, the Falcon, and some really boss action. Yeah, I said boss.

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