My Precious....

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King Extended Edition is now available. I hope Santa or Mrs. Blog o' Stuff puts the final piece of the Geek’s Holy Trinity under the tree next Saturday.

Batman Begins – New Trailer up, nuff ‘said. In theaters June 17. Summer '05 looks to be a veritable geek-fest of movies with this, Episode III, The Fantastic Four, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, among the potential blockbusters I'll be seeing.

In an obvious move, DC is releasing and/or re-releasing some classic Batman material, beginning in March, to start getting the kids in the Batman-know:

Tales of the Demon – since Ra’s al Ghul (the Demon) is one of the primary characters in the new Bat-flick, this makes sense. These are stories penned by Denny O’Neill one of the Batman scribes over the past 25 years, and these are considered some of his strongest stories. Sure doesn’t hurt that Neal Adams is the artist on some of these, as well.

Batman: Chronicles Volume 1 – This one is long overdue. DC is reprinting EVERY Batman story in TPB form from Detective #27 going forward. EVERY SINGLE BATMAN STORY, in chronological order. This is a much more affordable way to get these stories than the highly priced DC Archive Editions. Perhaps once Bryan Singer's Superman gets closer to reality, DC will start a similar publishing program with the big Red S.

Batman: Year One Deluxe Edition – this is THE modern retelling of Batman’s origin by Frank Miller and Dave Mazzuchelli. Considered by many to be one of the defining superhero origin stories of all time and a truly amazing piece of graphic fiction, Miller intertwined Jim Gordon's rise in the Gotham police force with the appearance of the mysterous Batman. Along with Dark Knight Returns and the Alan Moore/Brian Bolland masterpiece A Killing Joke, Batman: Year One forms the holy trinity of modern Batman stories. Batman Begins screenwriter David Goyer has acknowledged this as the primary influence for his script of the forthcoming film. This thing is has a price of $19.95, with some unreleased art, so I will definitely be picking it up, even though I have the original issues.

In my younger days of comic book reading and collecting, I gravitated more towards the Superman family of titles than the Batman family of titles. I’ve found over the past few years, that while I still do enjoy good Superman stories, I’m more drawn to Batman. What does this say about me? Am I learning to look more to what is possible than what is impossible? That a hero in a black bat suit is more plausible than a man who can fly and bend steel appeals to me more now is interesting. Either way, my favorite hero is still The Flash.

DC released their solicitations from March
Aside from what I typically pick up, some of what interests me:
Slaine: Warrior’s Dawn, one of the new copub deals with 2000AD looks pretty interesting.
Flash concludes the cross-over with Wonder Woman
Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight #1 (of 4) Grant Morrison writing Modern Fantasy, need I say more?

Earthsea was better than I thought it would be, even if it trails a bit too much from the source material. I’ll be watching the conclusion tonight.