If you skip over the commentary from the critics and modern writers, and focus on the quotes from the past from the actual filmmakers and actors, you may find some new details behind the nine Star Wars movies in a book coming in July. In their two volume treatise The Fifty-Year Mission, The Complete Uncensored Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek, authors Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman compiled quotes from dozens of people inside Gene Roddenberry’s creation, which meant a lot of what you’d expect by way of discussing the creation of the franchise, colliding with what you might not expect–speculation, ranting, gossip, and even anger among the crew. With their new book the authors switch gears to compiling quotes from people behind the scenes of George Lucas’s creation, including many expected, nostalgic trips to the past coupled with equal parts speculation, ranting, gossip, and anger.Secrets of the Force: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Wars explores the Star Wars material in a single volume.
Let’s take a trip back 33 years ago to a galaxy not all that far away. It was my very first issue of the only comic book I ever subscribed to. It was the end of the school year in 1986 and at last I took the plunge to send in a check to start getting a comic in the mail. My first issue? Star Wars #107, which contained a note from Marvel Comics stating that this was to be the final issue and I was going to be sent something instead going forward from a new universe of comics Marvel was starting called… New Universe. In the days before the Internet or anyone to call to say “what?” I was then sent eleven monthly issues of Star Brand. Not quite Star Wars, each issue reminded me of what I was not getting. I was a fan of the Star Wars comic book (issued as Star Wars Weekly in the UK) since receiving my first ever comic as a giveaway when my mom took me to my local library’s Star Wars Day right before Christmas 1977. The series would introduce me to a roster of creators (many I’d later meet in person) including Roy Thomas, Howard Chaykin, Steve Leialoha, Rick Hoberg, Archie Goodwin, Donald F. Glut, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, John Byrne, Michael Golden, Chris Claremont, Herb Trimpe, Al Williamson, Tom Palmer, David Michelinie, Klaus Janson, Ann Nocenti, Jan Duursema, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Walt Simonson. I read every issue up to Issue #107.
The big surprise? That original Star Wars series became everyone’s first encounter with the word BORG. It’s probably the first ever use of those four letters to describe a cybernetic organism, and it was spoken by none other than Luke Skywalker in reference to Valance, The Hunter way back in 1978. We would learn Valance was a borg who killed borgs, and he became an inaugural inductee here at borg in our borg Hall of Fame, and part of my opening dialogue with borg readers eight years ago here. This year, through the miracle of an idea worthy of a light bulb floating over your head, Marvel Comics introduced for its ongoing 80th anniversary celebration something I’ve never seen done before: a single, new, numbered issue continuing a series canceled as far back as 33 years ago. The issue is Star Wars, Issue #108–it’s fantastic and available at local comic shops everywhere now.
Providing a chapter by chapter sequel not to Issue #107 of the vintage series, but to the Issue #50 story “Crimson Forever,” Matthew Rosenberg is the writer on the new Issue #108 titled “Forever Crimson,” and along with Valance we again meet some of our favorite characters of the entire Star Wars universe who we haven’t seen in decades: the villainous Domina Tagge (remember Baron Tagge?), the stylin’ Amaiza Foxtrain, the memorable telepathic hoojib and the red Zeltrons, and best of all, Jaxxon the bounty hunter rabbit, who we last saw on a special variant edition copy of Marvel’s reboot Star Wars, Issue #1. Plus all the stars of the series we all know and love. As for the artists, Jan Duursema returns to the series for this one-shot issue, along with Giuseppe Camuncoli, Cam Smith, Andrea Broccardo, Kerry Gammill, Ze Carlos, Stefano Landini, Luke Ross, and Leonard Kirk, with colors by Chris Sotomayor, and lettering by Clayton Cowles. The result is everything you could want in a Star Wars comic. It’s the kind of purely fun story that would make a great monthly even today. If only they continued this story in an ongoing series!
It helps to know upfront that Scottish comedian and personality Frankie Boyle always wanted to write comics. His inspiration wasn’t from the decades of superhero comics, but Alan Moore, whose attitude, as Boyle sees it, was “that comics had sort of run their course.” A fan of the writing of Ed Brubaker, David Lapham, and Jason Aaron, Boyle embarked on an ambitious project, asking “what sort of comics do you write after comics have been done already?” The result was first published in serial format in Mark Millar’s short-lived CLiNT magazine, and with two new chapters to wrap up his story a complete, graphic novel-length story arrives next week from Titan Comics, called Frankie Boyle’s Rex Royd.
Ambitious is the key word to describe Rex Royd. At its worst, Boyle has touched on Alan Moore’s outrageous depravity as seen in his Lost Girls. At its best, Boyle has created a character that will appeal to fans of the disconnected and dispassionate Dr. Manhattan and the idiosyncratic and self-absorbed Ozymandias in Moore’s acclaimed Watchmen series. With his protagonist, the Lex Luthor-esque supervillain scientist and CEO Rex Royd, Boyle has created a brash reflection of non-mainstream comics in the pre-Marvel Cinematic Universe era. His “hero” is like Ian Fleming’s James Bond if you remove all the tropes that make us actually like Bond, all the fun things that keep us coming back for more and not just dismiss the character as a misogynistic, unexpurgated blunt instrument. Boyle is fully in on this, as his lead female character Eve–as in the biblical partner of Adam–resembles Bond’s confidante Eve Moneypenny in the last two Bond movies.
And yet, Rex Royd—the book–is like a writing experiment. What do we get if we take out all these good elements and swap in the dark outcomes? So it sometimes reads like Neil Gaiman writing a 24-Hour Comic (I’ve read that, this is probably better), but then, as in the ninth and final chapter of the book, we’re surprised with a clever sort of play on Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, with some Harvey Pekar-inspired attempts at making some meaning of it all. So there’s a lot going on. If you find linearity and deep meaning in the book, well, the joke may be on you, as the author has said when the artists needed some of his script to be explained, his response was, “It’s supposed to be a joke.”
Another “prequel that is also a sequel” is in the works, and this time it’s for one of the action genre’s biggest franchises. Director Len Wiseman confirmed at a Television Critics Association event that casting for both a young John McClane and young Holly Gennero will be part of a new film: Die Hard: Year One. Wiseman is waiting for a final script from writers Carey W. Hayes and Chad Hayes. He said that story will feature both a flashback element and a future story. The past will focus on McClane in the 1970s. And Wiseman said he and Bruce Willis want to be part of the process to select the actor who portrays the young McClane.
Back in 2015 when the idea for this movie first surfaced, one logical casting idea was floated: Why not Joseph Gordon-Levitt? Gordon-Levitt played a young McClane character in Looper, and he also has the acting chops to come back for more for such an iconic character. No one else seems that obvious, yet Nicholas Hoult might be a good choice considering his age and significant (and critically acclaimed)action performances in the X-Men series and Mad Max: Fury Road. Another choice that would be difficult not to rule out is Jai Courtney, who played McClane’s son in 2013’s A Good Day to Die Hard.
It also seems obvious that the script writers should look to the two pieces of source material that have already been written. First would be the novel that inspired the film series, Roderick Thorp’s Nothing Lasts Forever (reviewed here at borg.com), the sequel to the 1966 novel The Detective, which was turned into a movie starring Frank Sinatra. If you’re looking to get into the shoes of McClane, this would be the place to begin. But next would be renowned writer Howard Chaykin’s own take on the same title, his comic book series Die Hard: Year One published by BOOM! Comics in 2010 (reviewed here at borg.com). It doesn’t appear the new script writers are looking to these two books for ideas, but note the covers above to the Chaykin series have a great vibe fans would no doubt love to see on the big screen.
We knew from early trailers and buzz going back literally years now that Syfy’s new series Krypton was going to cover Superman’s family’s distant past. Even back here at borg.com in 2014 we previewed the first plans for Syfy’s series, wondering how close the DC writers would stick to the known backstory from the comic book pages, asking “Will they keep the character’s original name Seyg-El?” Answer: Yes, with a slight change in spelling to “Seg”. And “Will they bring in an Eddie Haskell neighbor as a young Zod?” Answer: Not quite, but the Zod family is going to be well represented in the series, which premiered this week with a pilot that should far surpass fan expectations. In fact Krypton’s production values, writing, and actors are so well put together the show has the potential to equal the DC Comics adaptations on the CW network, and ten minutes into the pilot it already seemed more grounded in the comic books than any of the DC movie adaptations going back to Superman II.
The previews for Krypton failed to convey the actual scope and solid space fantasy framework the series is built on (and the epic scope that goes beyond Superman lore, but more on that below). It looked like it was going to be like Marvel’s Inhumans–another odd, fringe fantasy show. So don’t let the trailers mislead you. The acting ranks are excellently cast–the show’s lead, British actor Cameron Cuffe, plays Seg-El. The actor is a bright, knowledgeable fan of Superman in his own right, as conveyed as the host of the after-show. Seg-El’s family grounds the series instantly with genre gravitas: first, Sherlock’s Rupert Graves plays his father, then Paula Malcomson–who portrayed moms in both The Hunger Games and Caprica–plays Seg’s mother, and General Dodonna himself, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,Horatio Hornblower, and Game of Thrones actor Ian McElhinney, plays Seg’s own grandfather. From the beginning the women take on a fierce role in the show, with the house of Zod represented in warrior Lyta Zod, played by show co-star Georgina Campbell (Black Mirror, Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams, Broadchurch). Ann Ogbomo, who portrayed an Amazon warrior in the big screen’s Wonder Woman and Justice League plays her mother, Jayna Zod. While fans are still on a fantasy superhero high from this year’s Black Panther movie, the military guild with the fierce Amazon-inspired Zod warrior-in-charge is well-timed.
The surprise from the pilot is how much Krypton seems to have the potential to be the next big Syfy series, like Battlestar Galactica came out of nowhere to reinvigorate science fiction television 15 years ago in 2003. The show pulls from several science fiction and space fantasy realms, but the space fantasy potential is most interesting, with Stargate, John Carter, Valerian, Riddick and more as possible inspiration. Pinar Toprak’s musical score, with appropriate John Williams Superman movie theme cues, has a pulsating Daft Punk Tron: Legacy vibe, with brightly neon-lit ships also borrowing some of that film’s more familiar visual elements. Add in the visuals you can find late artist Michael Turner’s Krypton and great costume styles from designers Varvara Avdyushko (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) and Bojana Nikitovic (Underworld: Blood Wars, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance). Story elements can be found in Logan’s Run, Flash Gordon,THX-1138. Even parallels to scenes from Batman’s backstory come into play. The story in the first episode plays like one of the better episodes of Star Trek’s Enterprise series, the J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot, incorporating the beginnings of political tangles like those in The Dead Zone.Krypton is also cool and cocky in its sets, style, writing, and acting, much like one of Syfy’s best recent series, Killjoys. As fulfilling as the CW Network’s worldview of the DC Universe has become with the Arrowverse, Krypton is different, with none of the pop culture reference-heavy chatter, or that soap opera vibe of Smallville. It’s a promising pilot–this looks like a most welcome Syfy channel space show.
Never been to a comic book or pop culture convention before? Always wanted to go to San Diego Comic-Con but you don’t have the vacation time available or the funds? Planet Comicon is next weekend in Kansas City and although it isn’t as big as SDCC, it is a great way to get a complete three-day convention experience centrally located in the Midwest, ideal for a last-minute road trip for the family or a car full of friends. It’s less than 8 hours by car from Dallas, less than 7 hours from Minneapolis, a little more than 7 hours from Indianapolis, and a little more than 8 hours from Denver. And you don’t need to buy advance tickets–you can purchase them at the door.
So why make the trip? How about meeting Jason Isaacs, the latest captain of a Star Trek television series and star of the Harry Potter movies (and great TV roles)? Want to compare notes on Doctor Who companions with Catherine Tate (in her first U.S. convention appearance) and Billie Piper? Want to talk Arrow and Torchwood with John Barrowman, or have another chance to meet Arrow star Stephen Amell? Are you a Hellboy and Star Trek fan and haven’t yet met Ron Perlman? It’s the Star Wars 40th anniversary–how about meeting the newest actor to portray Darth Vader, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story actor Spencer Wilding?
Are you a Browncoat? Firefly’sSummer Glau is scheduled to attend, and Supernatural’sJim Beaver. Do you want to talk 20 years of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with Emma Caulfield? Are you a fan of Lost Girl and need to get your fae fix with Anna Silk, Rachel Skarsten, Zoie Palmer, and Emmanuelle Vaugier?
Want to buy comics, books, or sketches from some of the best creators from across the country, like one of the all-time greats, Howard Chaykin, or Timothy Zahn, creator of the new novel Thrawn? Click here to see everyone you can meet at Artist Alley. Do you collect busts of superheroes and are missing some key characters? Check out thousands of square feet of dealers selling everything from action figures to T-shirts to limited edition prints and toy lightsabers. Whatever you collect, crazy or not, if it’s related to TV, movies or comics you’ll likely find something there. And that’s just part of your day. There will also be panels, and cosplay is always a highlight of the show.
Happy Easter! Along with the Easter Bunny, how well do you know the famous rabbits of print and screen? We thought we’d dig in and see what we found and a few dozen surfaced that you probably know, maybe don’t know, or might want to know. Americans are raised knowing something about the Easter Bunny from year one. Are any of these other rabbits even more famous?
We had a hard time finding a photo of one famous movie rabbit. There he is–Harvey, from the 1950 movie co-starring Jimmy Stewart.
Everyone needs a painting in their home like that.
Since it’s Star Wars Celebration weekend, we won’t forget our favorite rogue rabbit, Jaxxon, from the Howard Chaykin and Roy Thomas 1970s Star Wars comic book series. (That’s him at the top of this article).
We discussed another comic book rabbit only yesterday here at borg.com, Stan Sakai’s samurai from Usagi Yojimbo.
Usagi is a rabbit you want on your side. But so is Judy Hopp. She’s one great cop.
She’s the star of last year’s Academy Award winner for Best Animated Film, Zootopia. And speaking of zoos, Judy would fit right in with this next guy.
That’s Captain Carrot, from Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew!, the 1980s DC Comics series.
Who could be cuter than Thumper, the rabbit from the 1942 Disney movie, Bambi?
Ten years after Return of the Jedi, Topps trading cards editor and writer Gary Gerani was tasked once again to meet fan demand for more Star Wars trading cards. Many years before he would create photo cards for a new trilogy of prequels, he would team up with Lucasfilm’s Steve Sansweet to showcase Star Wars as interpreted by some of the best artists that contributed to the films or would re-imagine the “Star Wars Galaxy” in their own styles.
The three resulting trading card series have been released in the 2016 addition to Abrams ComicArts successful hardbound series featured here previously at borg.com. Star Wars Galaxy: The Original Topps Trading Card Series includes the works of more than 170 artists in more than 200 card reproductions, plus commentary by Gerani and an afterword by notable poster artist Drew Struzan. Unlike the prior volumes in the series, only the obverse image from the cards, which featured the artwork, is included.
You’ll find an incredible array of imagery by a surprising combination of artists, including rare images you will have seen only if you collected the original cards. So you’ll find the work of Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Ralph McQuarrie, Moebius, Drew Struzan, Dave Dorman, Al Williamson, Howard Chaykin, Mike Grell, John Eaves, Mike Zeck, George Perez, Jim Starlin, Dave Stevens, Walter Simonson, Gene Colan, Rich Buckler, Bill Sienkiewicz, Mark Schultz, P. Craig Russell, Dave Gibbons, Sergio Aragones, Boris Vallejo, Charles Vess, and Gil Kane.
The volume includes the entire run of portraits created for Star Wars Galaxy specifically for the Topps cards by Joseph Smith–the original art was later bought by George Lucas for his personal collection.
How much marketing do you need to advertise a movie anyway? For DC Entertainment, when your The Dirty Dozen-style ensemble cast movie features twelve distinct lead characters, that apparently means you role out 24 new posters. That’s what happened this week–DC released two sets of character studies, one rancid candy cereal poster, and one comic booky explosive cast poster, giving fans of the team and movie poster collectors a new collect ’em all project.
Or you can view them all in high quality digital format below.
For cosplayers, it’s the first really good view of costume details. Anyone else have the urge to Photoshop some extra characters (or friends) into the big cast poster?
Here’s the roster: Adam Beach (Everwood, Hawaii Five-0), as Slipknot, Jai Courtney (Jack Reacher, Terminator: Genisys) as Captain Boomerang, Cara Delevingne as Enchantress, Karen Fukuhara as Katana, Joel Kinnaman (RoboCop) as Rick Flagg, Margot Robbie (Pan Am, The Wolf of Wall Street) as Harley Quinn, Will Smith (Men in Black, I, Robot) as Deadshot, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Lost, Thor: The Dark World) as Killer Croc, and Jay Hernandez as El Diablo. Viola Davis plays Amanda Waller, head of the agency A.R.G.U.S., and Jared Leto will play The Joker.
Check out all 24 of the new Suicide Squad posters after the break:
Five years ago today, Elizabeth C. Bunce, Art Schmidt, Jason McClain, and I had already spent a few months talking through the technical details for the launch of borg.com. What should it look like? What should we write about? How do we get to there from here? Then it all came together on June 10, 2011, and I sat down and just started writing. Should this be a weekly thing? Once I started I just couldn’t stop and we cemented borg.com as a daily webzine. And readers started showing up every day. Soon we had hundreds of followers, and hundreds of thousands of visits per year.
The best part? Working with friends and meeting new ones each year.
We’ve had plenty of high points. Cosplay took off in a big way in the past five years. Elizabeth and I hit the ground running at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2011 with our Alien Nation/Chuck mash-up and you can find us all over the Web in photos taken by others at the show. Our years were dotted with the random brush with coolness. A retweet by actress Alana de la Garza, coverage of Joss Whedon visiting the Hall H line at 3 a.m. outside SDCC in 2012, Zachary Levi calling out Elizabeth for her cosplay at Nerd HQ, interviewing the stars of History Channel’s Vikings series, our praise for the Miss Fury series appearing on the back of every Dynamite Comics issue one month, tweets from Hollywood make-up artist family the Westmores commenting on our discussion of Syfy’s Face Off series, our Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (negative!) review featured on the movie’s website, that crazy promotion for the Coma remake mini-series, planning the first Planet Comicon at Bartle Hall and the Star Trek cast reunion, attending the first Kansas City Comic Con and the first Wizard World Des Moines Con, hanging with comic book legend Howard Chaykin, Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Famer Darryl McDaniels, cast members from Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and Star Trek, bionic duo Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner. And borg.com gained some well-known followers (you know who you are) along the way.
We’re grateful for some great Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and other feedback over the years from Felipe Melo, Mickey Lam, Michael Prestage, The Mithril Guardian, Francesco Francavilla, Adam Hughes, Judy Bunce, Mike Norton, Jack Herbert, Mike Mayhew, Rain Beredo, David Petersen, Rob Williams, and Matt Miner, and for creators we interviewed including Mikel Janin, Penny Juday, Tim Lebbon, Kim Newman, James P. Blaylock, Freddie Williams II, Jai Nitz, and Sharon Shinn.
We amassed an extensive archive of hundreds of book reviews, movie reviews, reviews of TV shows, and convention coverage, thanks in part to the good folks at Titan Books, Abrams Books, Lucasfilm Press, Weta New Zealand, Entertainment Earth, Dynamite Comics, IDW Publishing, Dark Horse Comics, Image Comics, BOOM! Studios, and several TV and movie studios and distributors.
My own favorites? Sitting down to come up with my own five all-time favorite characters with the borg.com writing staff.
Thanks to my family, my friends, especially my partner in crime Elizabeth C. Bunce, Art Schmidt and Jason McClain, my support team, and William Binderup and the Elite Flight Crew.
