Happy 75th Anniversary Superman

On April 18th 1938, Action Comics #1 arrived in stores. This comic, by Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster, marked the first appearance of the worlds first and greatest superhero, Superman! Since that first issue, Superman has gone on to conquer not only the world of comics, but radio, television, Broadway, movies...and just about anything else you can think of. It would be hard to find a person on this planet that hasn't at least heard of him. It was the popularity of Superman that led to the creation of the superhero genre with literally thousands of characters created over the last 75 years. So...Happy Birthday Superman!!! Actually, Happy Birthday to the entire Superhero genre!

Dark Knight Rises ...All About Bane!

With Christopher Nolan's final Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, opening today and some weird political controversy surrounding it's main villain, I thought I would inform those not in the know about just who Bane is. Let's disregard his terrible appearance in Joel Schumacher's craptastic bat-nipple filled Batman and Robin and tackle the character from the source material, comics. He was created by Chuck Dixon, Doug Moench, and Graham Nolan and first appeared in Batman: Vengeance of Bane #1 (January 1993).

  The character of Bane was born in the fictional prison Peña Dura in the fictional Caribbean Republic of Santa Prisca. His father, a revolutionary, escaped the system and the corrupt government forced his young son to serve his life sentence. In prison, Bane spent his time learning and honing many skills. Growing up his dreams were often plagued by a demonic bat haunting him. He killed his first inmate when he was 8 and continued to assert his dominance becoming know as the king of Peña Dura prison. Those in charge of the prison noticed and forced him to become a test subject for a mysterious drug known as Venom. The experiments nearly killed him, but he survived and found that the drug greatly increased his physical strength, although he had to take it every 12 hours (via a system of tubes pumped directly into his brain) or he would suffer horrible side-effects. During this time he heard stories about Batman and became convinced that this was the demonic bat that haunted his dreams as a child. He believed that fate had set the two of them on a collision course, so he broke out of prison and made his way to Gotham City. In Gotham he broke all the inmates out of Arkham Asylum forcing Batman to spend months rounding them up exhausting himself. Bane observed Batman during this time eventually figuring out his secret identity. When he returned to the batcave, Bane ambushed him, beating him and breaking his back turning him into a paraplegic. Bane then declared himself the ruler of Gotham City. Bruce Wayne passed the mantle of the bat onto Jean Paul Valley, Azrael, who adopted a hi-tech batsuit. Valley became reckless allowing villains to die and shunning Robin as his partner. Eventually he came face-to-face with Bane and beat him nearly to death, severing the tubes that fed venom to his brain. Bruce Wayne eventually rehabilitated and returned as Batman and Bane later followed, now firmly established as an iconic bat-villain.

  Beyond the comics Bane has appeared across all media from animated series to video games most recently making his presence felt in the Batman Arkham video games and CN's Young Justice... Oh! and of course...the reason I'm writing this...in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Rises played by Tom Hardy.

from Knightfall

from Batman: Arkham Asylum

from The New Adventures of Batman and Robin

from Cartoon Networks Young Justice

Tom Hardy in The Dark Knight Rises

ACTION COMICS!!!

On April 18th 1938, Action Comics #1 arrived in stores bearing the cover date as June 1938. This comic, by Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster, marked the first appearance of the worlds first and greatest superhero, Superman! Since that first issue, Superman has gone on to conquer not only the world of comics, but radio, television, broadway, movies...and just about anything else you can think of. It would be hard to find a person on this planet that hasnt at least heard of him. It was the popularity of Superman that led to the creation of the superhero genre with literally thousands of characters created over the last 70+ years. So...Happy Birthday Superman!!!

Batman: Arkham City

Well, today is the day one of the most anticipated video games in years is released, Batman: Arkham City. It is of course a sequel to the groundbreaking Batman: Arkham Asylum from a couple years back. So today I thought I would show off some of the amazing concept art for this game as a well as a few screenshots from the game itself. Enjoy! Btw, Batman: Arkham City is available now for PS3 and XBOX 360 at a retailer near you!

Happy Birthday to the King!!!

Today marks the birthday of one of the greatest comic creators of all time, Jack  "the King" Kirby  (August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994). With writer Joe Simon, Kirby created the iconic Captain America for Timely Comics (later Marvel) in 1941. After serving in World War II, he returned to the printed page. After stints with other publishers he returned to Marvel and along with Stan Lee, he created the Fantastic Four, Thor, Iron Man, the Silver Surfer, X-Men, and the Hulk just to name a few. He left Marvel in 1970, after a falling out, and went to DC where he created the New Gods and worked on books like Superman, Mister Miracle(whom he created), and Jimmy Olson. He went back to Marvel in 1976 and left in 1978 to work in animation doing designs for Turbo Teen and Thundarr the Barbarian. Happy Birthday Jack! You will be missed.