Yesterday was Stan Lee’s birthday and in a interview he said he thinks the next character to get the big screen treatment is…DR. STRANGE! Stephen Strange was a brilliant but arrogant surgeon who had a car accident that crippled his hands. Searching for a way to restore his hands he wandered the world and spent his fortune trying everything. Finally, broken and beaten he heard rumor of a man known as the Ancient One who could cure anything. As he climbed into the dangerous mountains, a snow storm rolled in. Almost dead he was dragged into the caves and met the Ancient One and his student Mordo. The old man refused to help Stephen but the storm made it to dangerous to leave. While wandering about one evening he found Mordo casting a dark spell that was attacking the Ancient One. The spell failed but when Strange ran to tell the old man, Mordo cast a spell on him to prevent him from speaking of what he saw. Unable to alert the Ancient One, he asked that he become a student and become a better person. He accepted Strange’s offer and removed the spell from him. Surprised that the Ancient One knew all about Mordo’s treachery he asked why. “At last the spark of good in you has been fanned into a fire. Mordo is a lost cause and has already fled. You are destined to be the new Sorcerer Supreme!”

For more info follow the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Strange

Alright, collaborate and listen to me talk about Champions Online. My brother and I got into the beta but that wasn’t the end of it. Remember how you were all happy when Mount Doom exploded at the end of Return of the King and then you were all like ‘wait…what happened to Mister Frodo and Sam?’. That’s kinda how the beta was. I pre-ordered the game, got the key and everything, downloaded the client, and everything was free and clear! Then I had to patch the game and let me tell you, I’d rather be shot in the leg than go through that again. I won’t delve into the innumerable amounts of problems the patcher had but it mostly consisted of a folder mix-up leading to a 3.6 GB download just for the patch and a constantly failing patch server leading to disconnect after disconnect. So let me lay it down for you, really long day of intermittent success that ended at 3 in the morning with an up and ready game to play. But, by that time I didn’t feel like playing.

Then tomorrow came. I woke up at the crack of noon and rolled out of bed to play Champions. It was all fun, the best part of course being character creation. There are tons of costume pieces, maybe even more than City of Heroes (Cryptic’s last venture into super hero MMOs) and you don’t have to wait 20 levels to get a cape! But I didn’t make a cape guy despite my elation, I made a bad ass robot who shoots equally bad ass bolts of energy and has a shoulder-mounted mini-gun. He’s that big billy bad ass at the top of the post. So I did a run through of the opening scenario and the desert zone that follows. I picked up the jet boots flight power, which is cool if you don’t mind the bad maneuverability. Then I made some triflin’ witch doctor bastard with a skull head.

I gave him a mix of the magic and supernatural power sets which turned out really good and thematic. I picked up earth flight with him, its pretty self explanatory. You fly around on a hunk of whatever you were standing on at the time, you do it in the city you’ll get a rebar-filled concrete chunk, and if you’re in Canada you’ll fly on a snowy chunk of stone. And then, as I told my friends I would, I made Broly.

You might not know him, so if you don’t I’ll just throw this explanation at you: 350 lbs. of shit your pants flying at Mach 4 shooting energy balls that destroy planets. Surprisingly, it worked out well. They had all the pieces necessary to make him and if they didn’t I found something real close to it. The ability to customize the color of your powers (and where they shoot from, for some) make making original guys a possibility.

The only problem I found through all my character creating adventures (minus the expected beta bugs) was taste-based. I’m not a Silver Age comics guy, I’m more of an Ultimates guy, where Hulk gets to eat people. So, obviously, I was a bit disappointed when I walked through fields of campy dialogue, enemies, and villains. It’s made bearable by the bad ass game play but if you like Silver Age stuff. you’ll love this game. In my honest opinion, I like the cast of villains and heroes for City of Heroes/Villains better.

The game comes out September 1st, pre-order customers get a head start (myself) and you should buy it if you like comics or superheroes in general. This game gets my GOOD stamp.

With San Diego comic con going on there has been a lot of buzz on the new comic book movies going on.

Fifteen minutes of Iron Man 2 were shown and the hall was packed. I’m sure some clips can be found on the net somewhere. Black Widow, Backlash, and War Machine were all shown in the preview. War Machine allegedly had three machine guns mounted on his armor.

Marvel made a official announcement on the Avengers, Thor, Captain America and even Iron Man 3!

The Avengers will have Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Black Widow, and most likely The Hulk. It’s up in the air at to whether or not it will be the Hulk from the last movie but I pray that it is. Also, they want to use some other Avengers that are not getting their own movies but nobody has been named. I vote for Giant Man and Hawkeye.

Thor is said to be set about 30% on earth. They are casting for the Warriors Three and Odin. Little has been said about the plot. Only that Thor does something to reignite a ancient war in Asgard and it spills over into the mortal realm. Hey, wanna bet he was set up by Loki?

Captain America should be picking up speed by October. Its to early to cast the lead role but the script is being worked on.

Iron Man 3? Director Jon Favreau seems to think so! His hope is that the Avengers will help create some fresh material and keep the third Iron Man movie from being stale like some other sequels.

There was a brief rumor shot down quickly about the next Batman movie. Things are strangely quiet about this one. I guess it’s hard to follow the previous Bat-movie but if there is money to be made, Hollywood will see there is another.

Next time I will try to have something about the Green Lantern movie. Meanwhile, I am going to watch the brand knew Green Lantern animated film Green Lantern: First Flight. It looks good, but then again so did the Dr. Strange animated movie.

It has been a little over two years since Steve Rogers was assassinated on the court house steps where he was to stand trial for deifying the government – he found the registration act to be awfully close to what the Germans did to the Jews before and during WWII.

Now, he’s back. What’ hard to believe isn’t that he’s back but that everyone out there is bitching about it. Come on people it’s a comic book. Everyone knows nobody stays dead in comics. So why is everyone complaining? Honestly, he died like a punk, at the order of his greatest nemesis, The Red Skull.

The way people are complaining is just nuts. Here’s why no one has a decent reason to bitch:

1.It’s a comic book. Everyone knows that no one stays dead. For years Marvel swore up and down that Bucky was dead. Period. Yet, everyone loved the Winter Soldier (Bucky’s new incarnation).

2.The Red Skull could have killed Cap a million times. Go read some back issues and you will see that he always tries to rub Cap’s nose in it first. That’s why he always loses. This time around he was making the world think Steve was dead so he could torture him with his various schemes to destroy America first. By faking Cap’s death he was free to do just that in peace. No one was looking for Cap. Get it?

3. Go read some interviews with Bruebaker (writer of the Captain America comics). He said he could not believe that no one was on to what he was doing. He hinted several times that there was something going on with Steve’s body. Hopefully, things will be explained WHY there was a body left behind when Steve was sent in to the time stream. That does bug me a little.

4.This is hardly the first time that a comic company “killed” a character claiming that said character is dead. Period. Jean Grey, Bucky, Reed Richards, Superman, Jason Todd, etc. Its just about the story and if you enjoy the ride. Frankly, I would have been more pissed if he had been brought back from the dead. He never died, he was thrown out of time.

5.  Finally, there are some super heros that can not be replaced. Steve Rogers is Cap. Period. There have been several who tried to fill his boots but none have ever come close.

I say, just enjoy the ride. It was fun and I can’t wait for Steve to track down Tony Stark. It should be epic. I think Steve is above saying ‘I told you so’ but I am secretly hoping he isn’t.

Justin Timberlake?

In some of the latest news, Warner Bros. Pictures has announced that they’ve come down to the final three choices in casting for Hal Jordan, in the upcoming Green Lantern movie, to be released in summer 2011. I actually caught the news on my way in to work while listening to (get this… ) the FM radio.

Casting experts have narrowed it down to Bradley Cooper(The Hangover, Wedding Crashers), Ryan Renolds (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Van Wilder, Waiting) and… Justin Timberlake??

While hearing the name Ryan Renolds got a raised eyebrow from me, hearing Justin Timberlake caused me to choke on my morning granola bar and nearly careen off the side of the interstate. Really Warner Brothers? Really?? I’m willing to bet Vegas money that we’re gonna be seeing Bradley Cooper portray the ol’ Haly boy in 2011. Ryan Reynolds is a little too comic relief style, not to mention his latest superhero gig as Deadpool left a lot of pissed off comic book fans (not really his fault, but whatever). As for Justin Timberlake, well . . . come on.  He’s really not that bad of an actor but the guy just doesn’t fit the part.

Then again, maybe a slightly comic-relief style is how Warner Bros. wants to take their next superhero movie adaptation. You’ve already got the dark gritty action of the latest Batman movie and the snorefest that was Superman Returns. Or who knows, maybe Justin Timberlake can do action movies…huh?

I just hope this turns out good. Green Lantern is bitchin’, and Warner Brothers needs this to go well if they want to compete with Marvel’s next comicbook-to-movie adaptation of The First Avenger: Captain America, also set to realease in the summer of 2011.

UPDATE by Jim: They ended up going with Ryan Reynolds, according to Sci-Fi Wire.