Extended 'Guardians of the Galaxy' Trailer Promises Cosmic Marvel Goodness

Tonight 17 minutes of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy was screened to eager IMAX audiences, and afterward -- lo and behold -- a new trailer popped up on Fandango. This one has an extended comedy moment used in earlier ads and we get to hear Ronan the Accuser speak for the very first time. Nice use of "Cherry Bomb" as well.

I'm very interested in the film, but that interest is accompanied by my long fanboy sighs of wishing the comic was better. I really liked Abnett and Lanning's relaunch, but I kind of feel like Bendis's revival stalled out quickly. Marvel's working hard to make sure the Guardians in the books match the Guardians on the screen, and I get it -- it's good for business. But I just read a bunch of old Starlord stories this weekend, and those sure are a different beast than what they're serving up here. No matter. I still want to see the damned thing, so it's working.

'The Winter Soldier,' ECCC, and Pull Lists Dominate ESN.fm's Test Pattern

So, I use this space to pimp Giant Size, the comic book podcast I co-host with Moises Chiullan, but I've never linked to Test Pattern before now. Test Pattern is the pre and post show chatter that Moises and I have every time we record (as well as the full audio from creator interviews before they're edited for use in Giant Size). It's usually part of the ESN.fm live feed but we chop it off to create the Giant Size show and post the shorter tidbits later in a separate feed. Every now and then we'll actually plan a discussion for Test Pattern. In this case, Moises and I had both seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier a little early so he decided we should discuss it and post it on opening day (so that spoilers were a non-issue).

There are three new episodes of Test Pattern that all hit on the same day...

Episode 5: 'Creator-Owned Success' was cut from the post-show of Giant Size #4. In it, we talk about how to figure out whether one of our shows was good or not and the fact that we're almost completely ignorant of each others' comic pull lists.

Episode 6: 'The Sarah Connor Chronicles' (from Giant Size #5) is mostly me badgering Moises about who he should talk to at Emerald City Comic Con.

Episode 7: 'Throws His Mighty Shield' (also from Giant Size #5) is the one that's the most like a "real" episode of Giant Size (minus production values). In it we talk about The Winter Soldier, its place amongst the Marvel studios films, and our general opinions on Marvel movies as a whole.

Listen at the links above or subscribe to the Giant Size master feed to get all of the related content.

Marvel Teams With Netflix for 'Daredevil,' 'Luke Cage,' and More TV

listen to ‘Here's Everything You Need to Know About Netflix's New Marvel Superhero Shows’ on Audioboo

Editor of Movies.com, Erik Davis and invited me and colleague Sean O'Connell for a brief discussion concerning today's huge Marvel news. Netflix and Marvel are partnering for four exclusive 13-episode original series -- Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Jessica Jones -- culminating in an event mini-series titled The Defenders. The new shows roll out in 2015 as part of Netflix's subscription-based streaming service. You can read Marve;'s press release here. Spoiler: I'm really glad to see DD coming to TV.

Ben Affleck as Batman in Superman Team-Up Film

listen to ‘Is Ben Affleck The Right Man to Play Batman? ’ on Audioboo

I got a phone call this morning from Movies.com editor Erik Davis and fellow Movies.com writer Sean O'Connell to discuss the recent Batman casting news for 2015's upcoming Superman/Batman movie. It's a quick talk about what our expectations are, what direction they might take with the character, and what Affleck's motivations might be in the wake of an Oscar win for directing.

Quick Thoughts: Taking a Look at Marvel's 'Big Hero 6' Comics

Sometimes writing about comic book movies is a lot of fun, and sometimes it is WORK.  Nobody has really been paying much attention to Marvel's upcoming animated flick Big Hero 6, and since I cover the Marvel Studios beat at Movies.com, I took it upon myself to read the most recent 2008 mini and the original first issue that kicked the property off in 1998 (titled Sunfire and the Big Hero 6, itself a spin-off from Steven T. Seagal's short late-90's Alpha Flight run).

I wasn't a fan. Scott Lobdell's original mini-series just barely skirts an uncomfortably stereotypical "ah-so, most honorable reader"  line, and he's further weighed down by Gus Vasquez's noticeably rookie pencils. Veteran writer Chris Claremont and manga artist David Nakayama teamed up for the second mini in 2008, and while it's arguably improved, it's still a bit of a mess. The series is about young Japanese operatives who never really gel as a team, sent on a mission to protect mysterious artifacts by a Japanese Nick Fury surrogate named Furi Wamu (she's even missing an eye). I never got the impression that any of the creators involved on any of the Big Hero 6 minis had any kind of handle on the team's personality or larger purpose. Claremont makes a noble attempt at more light-hearted fare than what he's known for, but the five issues just aren't particularly inspired. There's a lot of visual manga cliches as well, such as having all of the characters spend an issue in their beachwear.

Now, despite not liking the characters or the books themselves, I actually still have high hopes for the movie. One of the bad things about the property on the page is that it's still a bit of a blank slate. That makes for tedious reading after a fistful of issues, but it also means that a movie has free reign to approach the team in a way that matters. Maybe the Disney movie will kick off new interest, and we'll see a worthwhile ongoing Big Hero 6 book in 2014?

You can read about the film and the characters of Big Hero 6 in my Countdown column at Movies.com.

Quick Thoughts on 'Shadowman' Vol. 1

I'm rooting for Valiant. I like their enthusiasm and I like their branding. I like that the company was revived by Valiant fans, who are dedicated to producing quality material. I also like trade paperback collections that are $9.99, which was the perfect price point for me to pick up their first Shadowman volume. I read X-O Manowar every month, and I tried out the first issues of Bloodshot (too military and needlessly violent for my tastes) and Shadowman. Shadowman #1 was frustrating because the hero didn't turn up until the final page of the book, and the first issue failed to tell a whole story. I feel like a first issue should reveal the hero, his powers and motivations, and give me some sort of complete beginning, middle, and end, so that I can get an understanding of what I'll be buying into on a monthly basis. Shadowman, while sporting competent writing by Justin Jordan and appealing art by Patrick Zircher, was good enough to intrigue me, despite not delivering what I'm looking for in a single issue. I kind of knew then that I'd be picking up the trade.

​The positives? The supporting cast is strong, as is the villain, Master Darque, who turned out to be my favorite part of the book. The downside is that as an introduction to Shadowman himself, it leaves a lot to be desired. He's not as three-dimensional as the two characters who assist him, and his powers are ill-defined and nebulous (at least in this first outing). If you already have a taste for mystical superheroes there's a good possibility you'll find the little mysteries of Shadowman's world more involving than I did, and I recognize that my indifference here may be chalked up to my own personal taste and not that the comic itself is bad, per se, because it's not. Shadowman is a perfectly acceptable action comic that just didn't get its hooks in me in the way that I'd hoped. Your mileage may vary.