Everything's fine at the WB

Yikes, an anonymous letter to Warner Bros CEO Kevin Tsujihara was posted over on Pajiba yesterday implies that the upcoming Wonder Woman movie is a mess. I mean it does a bunch of other stuff too but I'm only worried about Wonder Woman. For anyone that's seen the last 2 or three DC movies none of it is very surprising. It's a former employee of WB blaming the big boss for all the failures of the studio. I'm not sure why the internet is treating it like it's such a big deal?

I blame him too. I think everyone does. I don't know, go ahead and give it a read yourself. I don't see a whole lot of substance to the letter just a lot of vitriol.

Sure Batman v Superman wasn't as big of a hit as expected and it bombed with the critics. Is anyone surprised they're sticking with Zack Snyder? I mean the movie still made a bunch of money and there are fanboys out there that will defend it to their deaths. At this point I doubt Warner Bros (and to a lesser extant DC comics) have a back up plan if these movies start bombing.

Back to my original point and reason for writing this. I'm bummed to hear that there are rumblings that Wonder Woman might be a mess. The trailer was SOOOOOO good and I think a lot (and I mean a lot) of fans are excited about a female hero soloing finally soloing a film on the big screen. You think people were upset at Superman's portrayal in Man of Steel? You do not want to get Wonder Woman fans angry.

Nothing but Links

No, It's Not Just You, Suicide Squad Makes No Sense. Suicide Squad is not a good movie, all those DC fanboys throwing a fit over its Rotten Tomatoes score need to take a chill pill. Yes, it has it's moments and it's not the complete shit show that Batman v Superman was, still it's not a good movie.

I'm glad this list of plot issues starts out with the most glaring. A team specifically created to take out an evil Superman should not container 4 people without any sort of super powers. Maybe I'll give you Deadshot because he's the worlds greatest assassin and that's something that could be helpful but Captain Boomerang? Harley Quinn? Katana? Rick Flag? This is a fantastic example of DC and WB awkwardly shoehorning their version of a shared universe into the plot weather it fits or not. Don't drop Superman's name, just say you're putting together a team full of expendable idiots to do stuff the government can't get caught doing. It's not hard and it actually makes sense, heaven forbid one of these DC movies makes sense.

It’s real: Ars Technica goes hands-on with the fabled Nintendo PlayStation. It's cool that there's one of these in existence. I mean there's not really much you can do with it but it's just cool that it exists. Imagine how different things would be for both companies if they had kep this partnership together.

50 Shows I Would Watch Based On Nothing But The Title. I'm 99.9% sure that Loose Cannons premieres this fall on USA.

‘Rogue One’ Hi-Res Images Reveal the Best Looks at Gareth Edwards’ Epic Yet. This movie had better be good. All those reshoots they reportedly went through make me nervous. Suicide Squad went through a ton of reshoots and more than likely they made the movie worse. Don't blow this Disney.

Suicide Squad does the Ballroom Blitz

Hoooo doggie was Emerald City Comicon fun this year. I've got a lot to unpack and am massively behind at work so instead of talking about it lets just post this new Suicide Squad Trailer. It's pretty good. Word on the street is that Warner Bros ordered a ton of really expensive reshoots after the beating Superman v Batman took. I guess we'll just have to wait and see if that's a good or bad thing. If nothing else the movie has given us several good trailers and a lot of cosplayers in fishnets and hot pants. That's a lot more than the Fantastic Four ever gave us.

Suicide Squad, Worst Heroes Ever

Last night DC/Warner Bros did some big special on the CW that I completely missed. The showed off some new footage of Batman V Superman (yawn), like 10 seconds of Wonder Woman footage (double yawn) and the new trailer for Suicide Squad (yaw... wait a minute). Suicide Squad looks sooooo good.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for Queen, or a blonde in hot pants, or both. Sweet Christmas this is as excited as I remember being for an upcoming DC comics movie since The Dark Knight. There's still a good amount of net nerds that are wringing their hands over Jared Leto's Joker but I don't know, it looks pretty awesome to me. I feel like it's the universe's way of making up for pulling the plug on the Nic Cage Superman movie.

Hey, Look at that Joker

A couple days ago Empire Magazine, who I'm pretty sure only exists as a magazine so they can be the first to leak superhero movie pics, premiered a cover that shows Jared Leto in full on Joker costume from the upcoming Suicide Squad movie.

I like it, I don't love it or anything but the more I see of him dressed as the joker the more I like. Sure he looks ridiculous but pretty much every on screen incarnation of the Joker looks ridiculous. I think people are freaking out just because it's so different. Also I'm guessing the stories of Jared Leto being a wackjob on the set of the movie probably don't help. It's like nerds want him to take the role seriously but no TOO SERIOUSLY. I don't know, I'm still excited for the film. If DC has to make their films all dark and gritty they might as well make a movie about a bunch of killers teamed up to fight even worse killers.

Suicide Squad Trailer!

Well this is a weird turn of events. Just hours after DC was pretty adamant that they weren't going to be releasing the Suicide Squad teaser they showed at Comic-Con this year DC has done just that. It's almost like they realized people were watching the bootleg version anyway so what was the point of holding out on the official HD release. Way to be effective marketers DC.

Anyhoo, the trailer looks cool. I like this one WAY more than I do Superman v Batman.

Streaming Links

Harley Quinn and Suicide Squad In Action With New Set Photos. Hey Harley, How you doin'?

Apple pushing music labels to kill free Spotify streaming ahead of Beats relaunch. Man the guys at Apple are complete dicks, I'd be super surprised if this didn't lead to a lawsuit or at the very least an investigation from the DOJ. It's funny how Apple has this really great public image but they're just as mean and nasty as any other corporation. I guess that's what really clever advertising really buys you.

Infinity Stones Cheat Sheet: What You Need To Know After Avengers 2. It's funny my wife started asking me about the Infinity Gems (I refuse to call them stones) after we saw Age of Ultron and I was pretty clueless about them. How am I supposed to know which on the purple one is? Lets talk about Scarlet Witch and The Vision's demon babies instead.

Joss Whedon Has Deleted His Twitter Account After the Domestic Debut of Age of Ultron. I just don't get people sometimes. It would seem that this all stems from some fan's reaction to how Black Widow was portrayed in Age of Ultron. People were upset and instead of say, going on twitter and telling their followers what they thought of the movie they just started swearing at and threatening Whedon. It's like the opposite of Gamer Gate but just as depressing.

It's the Suicide Squad... I guess.

Yesterday the director of the upcoming Suicide Squad movie tweeted a picture of the cast in costume. It didn't quite blow up like the picture of Jared Leto as the Joker but it got around pretty quickly.

I'll be the first to admit, I don't know much about the Suicide Squad. I know the premise of the book and I know the main characters but outside of the New52 I've never read any of the comics. Given all that knowledge I was able to recognize just three characters in the team photo. Harley Quinn, Deadshot and Katana. Once I was told Captain Boomerang and Killer Croc were also on the team I was kind of able to figure out who they were. After that it's like, guy with gun, other guy with gun, guy without gun. You know all the popular villains.

Don't let my ignorance fool you though. I'm still pretty excited for this movie WAY more excited than I am for Superman v Batman. If you're going to insist on making all your comic book movies hella dark and violent I'd rather see more movies about villains that Superman.

Suicide Squad Cast, or Thanks For Helping Me Sell Comics DC

Yesterday WB/DC announced that they have cast some of the principals for a Suicide Squad movie. Will Smith, Tom Hardy and Jared Leto are some pretty big names and certainly shows their commitment to making this an honest attempt at a summer blockbuster not just another Jonah Hex. It also helped shoot my pending ebay auction for Suicide Squad #1 up to 31 dollars.

Honestly I don't care much about a Suicide Squad movie. The concept is cool, a group of super-villains sent out on a suicide mission to clear their names. I mean it better be cool, it's a complete rip off of the dirty dozen. Still, DC movies have a lot to prove to me. I like the Chris Nolan Batman movies as much as the next nerd but if they're going to grim and gritty it up over all their characters like they did with Superman, count me out. Still big names are big names and me selling comics is a bold new frontier for me.

I have about 4,800-5,200 comics in my collection (I have most of my collection counted and databased but there's still 5-6 boxes unaccounted for). That's something like 26-28 short boxes of comics which is a lot of space in the house dedicated to comic books. Comic collecting is also a moderately expensive hobby. Comics these days cost 3.99 a piece and publishers are starting to ship books a slightly increased paced. A couple years ago a title might have shipped 12 times a year, now some books are up to 14-16 times a year. Even a short pull list like mine, combined with the single issue or trade every now and then can run a collector 60-70 dollars a month. So what to do when a hobby becomes expensive and unwieldy? Sell Sell Sell!

About a month ago I sold a 7 issue run of Batman on ebay for $102. Then I followed it up with a couple Deadpool books and a Guardians of the Galaxy #1 that got me a combined hundred bucks. Currently I'm selling another Batman #1 and the aforementioned Suicide Squad #1 that are going for a combined $55. I don't expect to be able to maintain that kind of return for any length of time. I've been picking and choosing highly sought after books to maximize my Christmas budget but the end goal of having a collection that pays for itself and allows me to maintain a reasonable amount of comics seems pretty obtainable. That's pretty cool if you ask me, a lot cooler that Will Smith as Deadshot... Maybe as cool as Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn.