Daily Archives: April 9, 2013

MOVIES

Hero Express: ‘Black Panther’ Rumors & Bad News For ‘Justice League’?

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Welcome back to the Hero Express, your one-stop sometimes SPOILER filled shop through the top stories in superhero comic based Film & TV news!

X-Men Days of Future Past

Bryan Singer uses Twitter to preview Beast and to fool.

https://twitter.com/BryanSinger/status/318836138452328448

I am not usually one who likes April Fool’s Day, but I did get a good laugh out of this “casting announcement”. Like in our last installment of Hero Express, Singer uses Twitter often to let fans in behind the scenes, including casting  news. So it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that he’d cast Lady Gaga as the Dazzler, but let’s be honest, it was a sigh of relief when realized it was a prank.

Thankfully it appears as if all joking is over as he later tweeted out this picture.

X-Men, Superhero

Beast is looking pretty good! Nicholas Hoult (Warm Bodies) is set to reprise his role as the younger Kelsey Grammer/Hank McCoy/Beast, but its still unclear if this is simply a makeup test, a concept pic or the actual look of Hoult as Beast.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

What’s that about Black Widow?

Oh, you heard correctly, Black Widow has been confirmed by Marvel as a part of The Winter Soldier. Not only that but Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury also has a relatively substantial role in the film. Marvel was very chatty about the new Captain America movie and released info on Robert Redford’s role as……

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Alexander Pierce!

A S.H.I.E.L.D Agent himself, Pierce works alongside  Nick Fury in what will amazingly enough be the first time Redford and Jackson have starred in a movie together. In the EW article it is said that he has been pulled back in to “help run” the agency.

As if all that wasn’t enough, they kindly gave us a glimpse behind the scenes with Chris Evans as Captain America and his trusty shield.

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Marvel’s Black Panther

No, really, it’s a thing now.

First it was Ant-Man and Doctor Strange. Now its Black Panther. At this rate Marvel is going to be announcing movies about Auric and Silver Fox or another somewhat obscure superhero any day now. There isn’t much out there about the Black Panther project that’s been hinted at for an eternity (about as long as Ant-Man) but earlier today Morris Chestnut tweeted that “It’s time to get familiar with the Black Panther character!” which included a picture of the Black Panther comic.

Later in the day he responded to someone who everyone needs to maybe hold their horses a bit because –

I’m guessing maybe Marvel got a little touchy about this because now both tweets have been taken down as has the link on his Facebook page. Of course that’s all it took because now we are all talking about Black Panther! Well done Mr. Chestnut, well done.

Speaking of Doctor Strange, he’s got a director now. Well, a rumored director at least. The Latino Review (sadly this is not the first time I’ll mention them) are keeping at their somewhat amazing ability to sniff out rumors and are saying that Evil Dead‘s director Fede Alavarez is slated to helm Doctor Strange. Of course just rumor for now so we’ll have to see if it sticks around. There a lot of time between now and Doctor Strange’s scheduled premier in 2016.

Guardians of the Galaxy

From ballet slippers to “green skinned humanoid”

THR is reporting that the star of the hit movie Center Stage, Zoe Saldana, is in talks to join Guardians of the Galaxy. Okay, so she’s had a few roles since Center Stage, not the least of which would be Star Trek and Avatar (small little art films, maybe you can find them on Netflix), but she’ll always be that little ballet star wannabe to me.

superhero, guardians of the galaxy

If things progress like people think they will, Saldana will be joining Chris Pratt and Dave Bautista in the 2014 movie. Who will she play? Well, it’d be none other than “The Most Dangerous Woman in the Universe”, Gamora. All they need now is Groot and Rocket Raccoon and the Guardians will be set.

Justice League

Will someone please make this happen?

Seriously universe, outside of The Dark Knight trilogy, DC fans haven’t had much to brag on when it comes to big box office summer blockbusters. Would it kill you to let the pieces fall into place for the Justice League movie? Would it?

Apparently it would.

Once again, The Latino Review is behind the rumor that the Justice League movie is derailing. El Mayimbe joined the SchmoesKnows podcast and gave them the bad news.

It was one thing when they said Christian Bale wasn’t going to be Batman, that I can live with. I can even live with Christopher Nolan not being involved at all. Part of me was even okay with Ben Affleck directing. But it just seems that with each passing day, it becomes more apparent that this is never going to happen, no matter how much we want it to.

Excuse me as I go find a beer to cry into.

The Flashpoint Paradox

C. Thomas Howell goes from cop to comic bad guy.

Finally some non-Marvel news that’s good news!

That’s right, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox production is moving along and none other than SouthLAnd actor C. Thomas Howell is voicing Professor Zoom/Reverse-Flash. We already knew quite a few of the other voices, including Vanessa Marshall as Wonder Woman and Ron Perlman as Slade Wilson but there hasn’t been any word on who play the voice of Flash yet. It is set for DVD/Bluray/Digital Download release on July 30th, 2013.

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Of course it would be wrong to mention Flash without paying tribute to the man behind the superhero, Carmine Infantino, who passed away on April 5th. A man who did great things for the DC Universe, such as being one of the guiding hands behind the Silver Age of DC Comics, he leaves behind a legacy that is not soon to be forgotten.

That about does it for this edition of Hero Express! Let us know what you think of these stories in the comments and we’ll see ya next time!

GAMING

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 – Uprising DLC is Coming!

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The Replacers are back and it looks like we’re about to get ourselves from new Call of Duty DLC for Black Ops II! The new DLC is called Uprising and it will arrive for Xbox Live users (sorry PS3 and Wii U peeps) on April 16th which means not only are we being treated to a double XP weekend, but we’re getting a new Replacers ad with the always looking for a job Peter Stormare. Looks like he brought along a new friend, Mr. J.B. Smoove from Curb Your Enthusiasm amongst other things. While not as great as the first one (if anything because that one was brilliant in that we didn’t know what to expect), it’s still a funny ad to check out. Naturally, it’s embedded just below for your enjoyment:

cod uprising magmaAlright, onward with the DLC news. We are getting four new maps called Magma, Studio, Vertigo and Encore. Magma takes places in an Asian village that is being overrun by an active volcano. This introduces the element of lava bearing down on the people and some short and long-range points of attack. We also get Encore which takes place in an amphitheater that is wide open with the center stage being touted as the best position. Personally, this will probably be a sniper haven because of its wide open space so we’ll have to see how it all goes down. Vertigo follows as it’s a skyscraper level and it instantly reminds me of more dangerous Hotel combined with the Die Rise zombie map from the last DLC for Call of Duty. I like the idea of having to jump from space to space and it’ll probably be hilarious to see one Brian Kronner fall off the map repeatedly. The next map, which is destined to be my favorite one judging from how they are selling it, is called Studio. It takes place at a movie studio back lot where all the sets are up from the various genres of movies. But did catch my eye was it’s reference to Firing Range, that awesome level from Call of Duty: Black Ops. Seems to be a good one to check out for sure.

cod uprising mob of the dead

Of course we have to mention the zombie map Mob of the Dead. This map will actually take place in a prison from the 1950s that resembles (if not, an exact replica) of the famous Alcatraz prison. It will also feature four actors portraying old school gangsters like Michael Madsen, Ray Liotta, Chazz Palminteri and Joe Pantoliano that were planning to escape, but get the unfortunate luck of having to blast a few zombies on the way out of the prison. There will be a storyline involved with building a plane out of parts to help escape the island so could we actually get an ending for once? Time will tell but I’m already excited at the prospect of playing this map. There’s also a new mode called Afterlife that is being introduced to where if your character dies, they can see through walls and interact with objects your living teammates cannot touch. Also you get to fire electricity from your hands to battle zombies as well as powerful some perk machines. So this should get interesting…

All in all, this should be good times and you can check the below video to get more details on the Uprising DLC. Until then, we shall see you on April 16th, 2013 on Xbox Live. I guarantee you’ll see the Grizzly Bomb team online and swearing and throwing controllers complaining that was effin’ BS whenever we get killed.