Arkham Asylum 2!

How could they not make a sequel?  He’s Batman!  Here’s the world premiere trailer from Gametrailers:

This one looks to be set OUTSIDE the asylum, as most fans speculate.  Let’s just wait and see. 

Bruce, You Magnificent Bastard.

… how can it ever truly be Batman without you?

You might’ve already heard: next April in the comicbook world, we’ll get to see the Return of Bruce Wayne.

As revealed by The Source, (and as we’ve seen in the last pages of Final Crisis) instead of outright just dying, Darkseid’s Omega Sanction just sent Bruce to the past.  (Another type of Omega Effect is the Omega Sanction, that traps the organism in a series of alternate realities, each worse than the previous one.)  News: Bruce is still alive, etching bat symbols in prehistoric caves.

In a USA Today  interview with Grant Morrison about Bruce Wayne’s return, it would appear that Bruce has also lost his memory.  And from the preview images, it would also seem that he’d be doing like a quantum leap across time, without fully knowing why or to when.

With all his friends and enemies thinking that he’s dead, what lies in store for Bruce Wayne?  And what of the Dick Grayson Batman?  (Admit it, the Dick/Damian partnership’s growing on you…)

We’ll just have to wait for 2010 to find out.  Let’s just hope he doesn’t return as a baby or something.

[Info/images from The Source and USA Today!]

Superman/Batman Public Enemies 09.29.09

Goes to show how much I HAVEN’T been keeping up — there’s a new DCU Animated Feature out — this time, it’s Superman/Batman Public Enemies!  Although not knowing about this until today gave me a pleasant surprise, so there!

Obviously, this one’s based on Jeph Loeb/Ed McGuiness’ first story arc on the Superman/Batman comics.  A DCU Animated feature BASED on Ed McGuiness art?  Awesome.  Tim Daly and Kevin Conroy voice acting?  YES!  (Somewhere out there, Jeph Loeb is laughing hysterically.)  What’s exciting is FINALLY seeing some McGuiness art rendered in animated form!  (Damion Scott Batgirl next feature, please?)

Also, Composite Superman/Batman robot wut wot!

Here’s a link to the official Superman/Batman DVD site, and here’s the trailer from that site:

Superman Batman: Public Enemies – Official Trailer

Also, they have twitter!  Release is on 9.29.09!  Woot!

Batman: Arkham Asylum Gameplay Vids

Unless you haven’t seem ‘em already:

The realism route that the developers/artists chose takes quite a while to get used to, but you’ll get there.  Conroy as Batman and Hamill as Joker is.just.right.  Voices are sort-of out-of-sync — maybe they’ll get that fixed.  (also, the new Harlequin costumesssssssss)

Various styles of play are shown, Final-Fight-style or stealth-mode ninja fighting.  I’m liking the “Detective Mode” vision, instead of struggling around a level, the game helps you by providing a new sense of … intuition.  Highlighting objects in the game that can be manipulated.

Batman AND Robin #1 Review

With Battle for the Cowl gone and done with, (the one where Damian acts uncharacteristically afraid of Killer Croc?) we have a new Batman AND Robin.  What’s also great about this issue is Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely working together again.

Some may say that Morrison’s Batman is a complex, backwards-and-forwards mess, (and sometimes it is,) but here, we finally get to watch the seeds of what he was planning.  (And if you haven’t read Battle for the Cowl) Dick Grayson’s filling in the shoes of the Dark Knight.

We see Dick Grayson and Damian settling into the new Batcave — underneath (what is probably a Wayne-owned) building that looks like a bat.  (A batbase under a building?  Paracapes?  It’s starting to seem like movies…)  Dick’s still struggling with taking over his mentor, and Damian’s just waiting ‘til he can become Batman.

What’s fun about this title is the way Dick and Damian is different as Batman and Robin.  It’s refreshing, really — of the countless Bruce/Tim comic books I’ve read over the years?  (Bruce gets a bit … dark A LOT OF times, and Robin isn’t even there 89% of the time — he’s too busy becoming his own man.)  It’s really something new.  There’s also the throwbacks to the old Bat books — giant text describing an event?  “Boom boom” goes the explosion, and “SPLSH” [sic] goes the splash that makes the book superhero-ey.  Best panel?  That one-two punch on The Toad.  (A new Bat foe.)  It just feels like the dynamic duo is … well, dynamic again.

For the last few panels, we get a taste of what sick new villain this new Batman’s going to have to face — Pyg.

Personally, I loved (and boy, have I loved a lot of things) this issue — it was a refreshing take on Batman and Robin; I mean, this is the best we’re going to get ‘til Bruce comes back, but hey, good stuff, good stuff.

Also, FLYING BATMOBILE?!  Brilliant!

5/5

Toy Con 2009 TVC

Here’s the TVC for the Toy Con this Saturday:

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