OK, it looks like this whole War of the Green Lanterns thing seem to have dissipated just like that and any form of closure is replaced just with air. At least the re-boot is not too far away, this whole Flashpoint thing is throwing spanners into everything as well.

It’s suprising that the most “normal” book that I like this week happens to be one of the more “unhinged” ones. Jim Gordon’s son has been creeping people out in Detective Comics, and things look to be coming to a head in #880. The Joker takes great pains in pointing out the differences between Dick Grayson’s Batman and Bruce Wayne’s Batman and for once…he’s not really the bad guy in this. (check out the cover, it’s awesome).

Like I’ve mention earlier, the Flashpoint titles are making reading comics a headache (at least for me). Project Superman #2 is meh, whereas I’m still getting used to seeing Hal Jordan without a ring in Hal Jordan #2. I wonder how DC plans to consolidate this universe with the current main one to form up the re-boot, it has to be an event of cataclysmic porportions.

On the Marvel side of things, Venom #5 doesn’t disappoint at all despite taking away the guns early in the story to let Flash Thompson deal with daddy and drink issues. I wonder what will happen when Peter Parker finds out that Flash is wearing the symbiote… I mean, having the former lose his spider senses in the Spiderman books was a stroke of genius, otherwise, he would have found out at the drop of a hat.

X-Men: Legacy #252 should probably be renamed as X-Men: Legion #n whereby n = the number for the particular split personality that Legion is battling in this issue. He gives up without much of a fight to the big bad personality he has been hunting, but we can only see the repercussions in #253.

X-Men: Schism #2 is interesting, but the art kinda steals its thunder a bit. Just take a look at Rogue’s costume, and how Cyclops looks like a malnourished Somali or something. Before I get to the next title, it seems that the X-books are really having their cake and eating it, if you’ve got a limited budget, buy any of the X-titles mentioned here today….including this one: Uncanny X-Force #12.

It’s bloody good as it asks plenty of What-If worthy questions like What-If mainstream Wolverine meets AoA Jean Grey…and better still…sets up the stage for the former to face his AoA counterpart, the supposedly dead one-armed Canuck revived as one of Apocalypse’s heralds! FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!

If you have an iPhone 4 or a 3rd Gen iPod touch, you might want to check out Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty. Previously priced at USD 4.99, it’s now going for just USD 0.99 to celebrate the stellar opening weekend of “Captain America: The First Avenger“. Remember to check out our review over here, before downloading the game from the iTunes App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/captain-america-sentinel-liberty/id434478300?mt=8

Funny how you can find a whole bunch of video game related books on the bottom shelf in the “Culture” section of a huge book store. Harold Goldberg’s All Your Base Are Belong To Us: How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture has been something that I’ve been looking for quite some time, and I found it several weeks ago languishing in one of the bottom shelves of Kinokuniya.

The title of the book is a line taken from a Japanese Sega Mega Drive game, Zero Wing, known for the use of broken English in the European translation of the game, which became an Internet meme of sorts. This sets the tone for the book as each chapter in the book takes readers through some of video games greatest moments and achievements, most of which have far reaching effects on popular culture.

I really like the parts about Trip Hawkins and the rise of Electronic Arts, on how BioShock came about, and the two chapters dedicated to Rockstar and its magnum opus, the Grand Theft Auto series. Other highlights include the making of some of the most influential MMORPGs of all time.

The rest of the book is no less an enjoyable read as it is brimming with of video gaming anecdotes, like the  one on Nintendo’s Miyamoto which kinda implied that the guy is a company mascot of sorts, which in turn confirms what I think about that chap (I don’t like him).

All Your Base Are Belong To Us deserves to be on the bookshelves of anyone that considers him/herself a  fan of video gamers. It’s prose is friendly and engaging enough for non-gaming folk to enjoy as well. Nine Over Ten 9/10 rates All Your Base Belongs To Us at 4.5 out of 5. The book is available on Amazon, check it out over here.

To kick start this morning’s mobile gaming related news, Fruit Ninja is now available for free on the Android Market. Yup, those of you who have not gotten the game, here’s your chance to get Halfbrick’s amazing casual game opus, where players master their ninja-chopping skills by slashing and splattering fruit. To download, head over here: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.halfbrick.fruitninjafree

On to another hit casual game, Cut The Rope is set to get its very own Digital Comic for iOS devices. Yup, the developers, Zeptolab, along with Ape Entertainment, announced at Comic-Con 2011 today a new licensing agreement to create a series of digital comic books based on the on the popular game.

The comic series will explore yet the untold backstory of the game’s endearing hero, Om Nom, building upon his adventures in the popular mobile game. The question is, is anyone interested in this kind of stuff? Does everything need a back-story these days, it’s an addictive casual game….like Tetris! For more info, head over to www.ape-entertainment.com or www.zeptolab.com

Having released their comic book app for iOS devices, DC Comics has partnered with comiXology to come up with its very own Android app and just in time for Comic-Con too I might add. Check out the press release below for more details:

DC COMICS LAUNCHES ANDROID APP: Partners with comiXology to bring its DC-Branded App to Huge Android Audience

07.19.2011– NEW YORK / BURBANK, Calif., – Just in time for San Diego Comic-Con, DC Comics and comiXology have partnered to create a DC-branded app for the Android platform that is available starting today. Already one of the most popular digital comics publishers, the new app for Android users brings DC’s extensive line of the world’s greatest super heroes to an even broader mobile audience.

Additionally, DC Comics purchased via apps powered by comiXology are accessible across different platforms so customers can access a comic purchased once on the iOS and the Web as well. “This launch is another great milestone in our digital strategy,” stated Hank Kanalz, senior vice president of digital for DC Entertainment.

“Our goal is to make DC Comics available to the broadest audience possible and this Android launch extends our reach among mobile phones and tablets. We want our readers to enjoy comics whenever and wherever they want, be it at home, work or while walking around San Diego Comic-Con.”

The Android app will offer more than 3,000 issues from the DC Comics and Vertigo libraries, priced from $.99 to $2.99 per issue.  The hugely popular $.99 sales will also apply to comics sold via the DC Android app.

“DC has really embraced digital as a strategy to ensure that their readers will be able to enjoy their comics whenever they want,” said David Steinberger, CEO of comiXology. “The launch of the DC Comics App for Android shows their continued commitment to their amazing community as they continue to broaden their digital horizons.”

The DC Comics app for Android will leverage ‘Google In-App Billing system’ to streamline the purchasing process for any comic fan by providing users the ability to include their billing information directly into the app at the point of purchase through the Android Market billing service. Users will also have the option of paying via Paypal as well.

I pretty much panned the live action Green Lantern movie in my review published right here on Nine Over Ten 9/10 several days ago. However, I forgot to mention that there are superior feature-length Green Lantern movies, albeit animated ones in the form of Green Lantern: First Flight and Green Lantern: Emerald Knights.

First Flight (Amazon: USD 18, Blu-ray, click here) is the earlier of the two, and is basically Hal Jordan’s first major case right after being inducted into the Green Lantern Corps. Sinestro betrays the Corps, harnesses the yellow light of fear to wreck havoc on his former Corps before being brought down by Hal with help from Killowog.

Emerald Knights (Amazon: USD 17, Blu-ray, click here) on the other hand features Hal as a veteran of the corps, telling the new recruit Arissa stories of some of the most illustrious members of the Corps as they prepare to face an old foe hell-bent on destroying Oa, home base of the Green Lantern Corps.

Having said that, what the live action film lacked, these two animated films had in spades: amazing space battles, special effects, and the Green Lantern Corps in action. Emerald Knights deserves special mention, since its plot device results in 5 mini stories being told, with some of the funniest, and bloodiest scenes I’ve seen so far in a DC animated film.

I read Christopher McDougall‘s mouthful-of-a-title book, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe , Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, over the past week and it was an absorbing read. The author not only described a foot race between members of an elusive indigenous tribe of long distance runners against the best there is in ultra-running in vivid detail, but use it to advance a singular, resounding but long-buried fact: humans are made for running.

The Tarahumara Indian tribe gets the spotlight in this book. Living in the Mexican Copper Canyons, this tribe of Indians have almost a mystical reputation of covering astounding distances (think 100 miles and above) at high speed without seemingly getting hurt themselves. The author seeks them out in order to find out their secret and gets close to them thanks to an unlikely, and most like crazy, source.

That’s not the only interesting character he meets along the way and the cast of characters include scientists, ultra-marathon runners, coaches….all of which working in parallel or in tandem to a conclusion that yes, humans are made for long distance running. The final race in which the world’s best ultra-marathoner, Scott Jurek going up against Tamahumara’s best is a gripping one thanks to the author’s narration but at the same time celebrates human camaraderie born simply out of the love for running.

I highly recommend this book, and if you are a runner and you have not read this yet, you owe it to yourself to get a copy. Nine Over Ten 9/10 rates this book at a 5 out of 5. Born to Run is available on Amazon, on paperback (click here) as well as on Kindle (click here)

I managed to catch Green Lantern at the cinemas last night, and it was the third superhero movie that I watched this year (second for my girlfriend), and I must say, this was perhaps the lamest movie among the three. Somehow, the notion of intergalactic polic corps powered by rings capable of churning out anything was diluted while making the transition from the comic books to the silver screen.

In movie, the Green Lantern Corp are reduced to a bunch of posers, rising only to two occasions (to shoot beams of light into the sky on head honcho Sinestro’s reckoning), while rookie lantern Hal Jordan from Earth has to face ALONE one really badass enemy (Parallax, which in the comic book looks like a gigantic space bug, over here, he looks like an octopus) that even the bosses of the Green Lanterns, the Guardians, are afraid of.

The storyline, which was supposedly adapted from the Green Lantern Secret Origins books (Green Lantern vol 4 issues #29-#35) is at best a diluted one. The filmmakers have failed to tap the rich tapestry that makes up the Corp and for supposedly a sci-fi epic dubbed the Star Wars of our generation, this film fails miserably.

I’m very disappointed how things turned out. It’s like the same complaint as Transformers 2, the humans get too much of the spotlight, while the titular aliens (in this case Green Lanterns + 1 human rookie) don’t get the screen time. Hector Hammond in this movie is just as lame as Hal, more like a clown compared to the really creepy pervert in the comic books.

Nine Over Ten 9/10 rates Green Lantern at a dismal 2 out of 5. I think I’ll just go read the comic books. Thank God I didn’t splurge on a pair of Gold class tickets.

Duke Nukem is back, it seems like forever (cough…pun totally intended) since we last saw the big guy. And with his return, there’s a new comic book in his name, titled what else but “Duke Nukem Forever“, published by IDW, written by Tom Waltz, drawn by Xermanico (I’d better start mentioning names in my comic book reviews since some people are particular about who writes/draws what books).

Anyways, the storyline is pretty simple, with Duke stepping into a bar, and people disbelieving that he is Duke (since he’s kinda like an urban legend or vapourware by this point of time), and recounting the last time they saw him, each with their own mini-story. Well, the moral of the comic book is that “you’ll always bet on Duke”, since he’s the upstanding go-to guy and all. LOL. It doesn’t do much, but it’s a fun story after all.

X-Men: First Class kick starts with a brief background on Magneto, borrowing  from Greg Park’s amazing piece of comic book work known as Magneto: Testament. I’m not sure whether First Class set off to be a character study of Erik Lehnsherr (a.k.a Magneto) in the first place, but after the movie, you would kinda feel like he’s a tragic anti-hero more than a villain.

The X-Men comic books and story lines have only until a few years ago started casting Magneto as more of a sympathetic character; books like Magneto: Testament, and plot points in X-Force make it easier to understand what motivates the guy to do what he does: protecting mutant-kind and making humanity his bitch at the same time.

While Magneto does hog the limelight, the movie does an amazing take on Charles Xavier, the future Professor X. Here he’s portrayed to be every bit a man of the world but there’s also a certain grey area in him that has been exposed in recent years in the comic books. He has no qualms in reading minds nor does he have any problem giving an attitude adjustment to people. Heh, all for the greater good eh Charles?

Anyways, back to the movie. It’s off then onto the swinging 60s with the backdrop being the Cuban missile crisis. But in this alternate history, the leader of the Hellfire Club, Sebastian Shaw, is the one who instigates this, like a chess player playing both sides of the board, causing the U.S.A and the Soviet Union to clash with each other.In other to tackle this threat, Charles partners with Erik to form a team, and the rest is…history.

This scenario is certainly more mainstream then say assembling a team of X-Men to take on a sentient mutant island called Krakoa (cough….. Giant Size X-Men #1), and certainly less incredulous in having one team of X-Men take on the same sentient island to rescue another X-men team, only to get destroyed in the process, and then having a third team come over (cough… Deadly Genesis).

The movie does work on a lot of levels, but with its cast of characters, it is somewhat leaning to the fan-boy side of things rather than the casual viewer. X-Men: First Class is definitely the pick of the crop when it comes to the X-Men movie franchise, it even trumps the first two films made by Bryan Singer. The last arc fell a little flat though, but nevertheless I like the movie a lot, and it’s two thumbs up!