Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

Contents of Episode 182, brought to you by Free Comic Book Day at Heroes Landing and the AAA Network:

2011 Summer Geek Movie Preview!
May:
Thor (5/6)
Priest (5/13)
Honorable Mention: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (5/20), Kung Fu Panda 2 (5/26)

June:
X-Men: First Class* (6/3)
Green Lantern (6/17)
Honorable Mention: Super 8 (6/10), Cars 2 (6/24)

July:
Captain America: The First Avenger (7/22)
Cowboys and Aliens (7/29)
Honorable Mention: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 2 (7/15), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (7/1)

August:
Honorable Mention: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (8/5), Conan the Barbarian (8/19), Fright Night (8/19)

*The sound clips in the podcast version of this episode from “X-Men: First Class” come from the second released trailer for the film, which debuted online AFTER this episode was originally recorded. To watch that trailer, click HERE.

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 118 is brought to you by A Comic Shop, though they may not realize it. We have now confirmed (by looking at a calendar) that this upcoming Wednesday, May 24th, A Comic Shop will be hosting Tony Bedard, the new writer on Green Lantern Corps, starting at noon. I’ve never known a signing at that store to NOT be fun, so do stop in with lots of copies of R.E.B.E.L.S. for Tony to sign if you’re in the area and have a chance to do so, and tell them you heard about it on PTG. They’ll probably give you a weird look and ask, “Why do you listen to that crappy show when you could be listening to OUR show?”, at which point you should respond, “Because I dig permanent guy-liner.”

During this episode we revisit our written review of Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood” to expand further on why it works as period drama, rather than swashbuckling adventure, then dive into all the week’s news covering the Network TV Upfronts that took place in New York last week. The number of new sci-fi/superhero-type shows is down this year–CBS doesn’t have one, while ABC, NBC, FOX, and CW each have one–but it’s an interesting mix that we’ll be keeping close tabs on come September. Which ones we’ll actively follow as part of our Flash TV Reviews segment we’re not sure yet, but we’ve got to find something to replace 24 (ends tonight!), Heroes, and FlashForward (ends 5/27). This hour wraps with a focus on three new DC Comics books from last week: Legion of Superheroes #1 (promising!), Brightest Day #2 (misleading cover, but intrigue definitely building), and War of the Supermen #3 (great penultimate chapter!). Enjoy!

NOTE: The original broadcast of this episode ran just under 1 hour and 35 minutes. This podcast version has been edited down by 30 minutes in order to closer match our usual running time. If you wish to listen to the full, unedited version, as well as watch the recorded video of the episode, click HERE.

PTG Episode 105 is brought to you by Talk Nerdy Show. Episode 6 of Talk Nerdy Show will air this Friday night starting at 8PM. Don’t miss Ryan, Josh, Joe, and Mark as they give THEIR take on ‘Clash of the Titans‘ as well as take on other geek topics and the thoughts of their live audience. You can find their live show over at www.tinychat.com/talknerdyshow.

In this episode, as you may have guessed from the title, we talk about the end of the ‘Blackest Night‘ event in DC Comics, along with some its implications in terms of the characters restored to life in the course of issue #8. Joe Carbonell, resident artist of the Talk Nerdy Show, takes point in discussing with me the comic in terms of Ivan Reis’ artwork as well as the impact of the story and its themes. it’s been a great ride, but all things come to an end, and in this case the end opens the door to ‘Brightest Day‘, which DC readers will learn more about in the weeks and months to come. For my part, I of course enjoyed the story immensely, and I’ll definitely miss playing that ‘Blackest Night Spotlight’ sounder during our future broadcasts.

Later in the hour, Josh Urbanowski takes the baton from Joe and joins with me in discussing TV during the Flash TV Reviews segment, sharing his thoughts on the return of Fringe and this past season so far. Fringe was most certainly the more compelling of the two sci-fi TV show returns to new episodes this past week; V, in comparison, continued to underwhelm, and I for one have begun a personal countdown of how many more weak episodes of the series will we review before we give up on it entirely.

Finally, the whole cast of Talk Nerdy Show weighs in on an idea I had for a new weekly segment on PTG, one that doesn’t necessarily fit our style and our usual mode of expression, but may provide a bit of a jolt to our listeners and some variety in terms of the way we editorialize. What’s the segment called, you ask? Well, you’ll just have to give the episode a listen, but I’ll give you this hint: the segment from week to week would NOT focus on someone we’re particularly HAPPY with that week. Enjoy!

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 81 is brought to you by 2010. According to the Wikipedia entry for 2010, we’ve got a lot to look forward to this year. Of particular interest to me is the Total Lunar Eclipse we’re supposed to have on my birthday, December 21st. It will actually be visible in North America right after midnight of the 21st, so I’d say that’s good reason for me to stay up late, wouldn’t you? Might even throw a party and make sure it runs nice and late so we can all see it. I think I’ve got lots of time to plan.

Just one hour of PTG recorded this past week, so this will be this week’s only podcast, but we’ll be back to our regular 2 hour time span this upcoming Saturday. It’s been slow as far as geek news these past few weeks, but that’s certainly going to change by the end of the month. Dollhouse rolls on this week, Smallville returns on January 22nd, 24 begins Season 8 on January 17th, as does Fox’s new series Human Target, based on the DC Comics series of the same name. In terms of movies, we have Daybreakers, the vampire thriller starring Ethan Hawke and Sam Neill, debuting this week, The Book of Eli, the very promising-looking post-apocalyptic drama starring Denzel Washington, coming January 15th, and Legion, the “angels are coming to destroy us” movie starring Paul Bettany and Dennis Quaid, coming January 22nd. Lots out there in the many realms of geek to cover and review, so do stick with us!

In this episode we run down PTG’s New Year’s Resolutions for 2010, which is basically a list of all the things we hope to bring to you this coming year in terms of changes and improvements to the show, so you’ll want to give that a listen and maybe give us some feedback on what we’re hoping to do. Also we bring you reviews of a few really fun path board games, last year’s Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year-Germany) winner, Dominion, from Rio Grande Games, and Smallworld, from Days of Wonder. We wrap the show with a Blackest Night Spotlight on last week’s only new comic book release, Blackest Night #6 by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis. No spoilers, in case you haven’t read it yet, but seriously, if you’ve been reading this series and you haven’t read this issue yet, what the heck are you waiting for? Read the issue, THEN listen to this episode! Enjoy!

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 77 is brought to you by the wonderful world of audio editing. Yes, through the miracle that is Adobe Audition 3, we here at PTG can bring to you 1) a version of Episode 77 that is not only 7 minutes shorter than the original broadcast version (much closer to the 1 hour that we should be clocking in at every week); 2) an episode highlighted by music from guitar god Joe Satriani, specifically selections from his 2nd and 3rd studio albums, Surfing with the Alien (1987) and Flying in a Blue Dream (1989), respectively; and 3) an episode free of the host’s breaking of the fourth wall and actually stopping the show and getting up from the host’s chair to see what could possibly have agitated the dogs at the SomaCow compound (one dog in particular whose name starts with a ‘C’) to such an extent that she sounded hoarse from barking. If you listen closely to this podcast, you can probably still hear the barking during the first ten minutes of the show during moments while I’m talking, however–the software is good, but it’s not THAT good. Ah, well.

So in this episode we talk about some of the major announcements that came out of DC Entertainment last week. As promised, here are links to the announcements themselves at DC Universe: The Source:

• DCU in 2010: “The Return of Bruce Wayne” hits in April
• DCU in 2010: Welcome to Earth-One
• DCU in 2010: The “War of the Supermen” Begins

There were quite a few more stories posted that week in The Source that we didn’t cover in the broadcast that you might want to check out, including the announcement of noted TV writer Marc Guggenheim, most recently of FlashForward, taking over as the full-time writer of Action Comics, and Wonder Woman renumbering to celebrate her 600th issue. The cover to what will be Wonder Woman #600, provided by none other than George Perez, is the definition of “classic”-head over to the story and check it out!

Also in this episode we continue our 3-part “Best of 2009″ series with what were, in our somewhat-less-than-humble-opinions, the Top 5 New Comic Series of 2009. Now once again, we limited our consideration to titles we reviewed during our broadcasts and to titles that specifically started in 2009, whether they were limited series or ongoing series. All five of our choices are pictured in the image below:

Agree? Disagree? Know a title that would have made our list had we actually read it? Leave your comments and your feedback in comments, please–look forward to reading them!

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 57 is brought to you by Heroes Landing in Clermont, FL. Their grand opening on Saturday was, by all accounts, a HUGE success, and we at PTG are very happy that we could be a part of the festivities. We could not have asked for more gracious and accommodating hosts than Todd and Stu, who made sure we had everything we needed throughout the afternoon and kept the store open just a bit longer so that we could finish the second hour of our broadcast at about 7:15PM. Check out the pictures below to see more from the day’s events–thanks to Rob Trotman from the 501st Legion (you’ll see him in the photos wearing the Imperial Guard uniform) for providing links to the pictures they took throughout the day, and for their help with a rather troublesome microphone stand that we were trying to get to behave during our setup process!

In this episode we talk to Stu from Heroes Landing about his long friendship with his business partner, Todd Merrick, and how they came to decide they were going to follow their dreams and do something related to something they both loved: comic books. We also review Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, the latest episode of Smallville, entitled “Metallo”, and spotlight the two latest Blackest Night titles, Green Lantern #46 and Blackest Night Titans #2. It’s a pretty darned good episode, I think–hope you think so, too. Enjoy!

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com

PTG Episode 51 is brought to you by She-Ra – Princess of Power. Without anything even close to a decent Wonder Woman animated series on television in the 1980s, this spin-off of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was THE “girl power” show of its time, the one show where most of the heroes were women, they took care of business (and the villains) without needing to be bailed out by men, and the one significant heroic character that was a guy, Bow, was … well, he was kind of a wimp. Trivia I just discovered while retrieving this link from Amazon.com–J. Michael Stracynzski actually wrote NINE episodes of the She-Ra series, as well as fifteen episodes of the He-Man series. Turns out I’ve been a fan of JMS a LOT longer than I realized!

In this episode we talk about She-Ra and other girl-targeted animated series of the 1980s in the course of tracing the rise of the “fangirl”, a development in western civilization that I thank my lucky stars for every single day, and the growing influence of fandom’s changing demographic on Hollywood and media at large. Inspiration for the discussion came in part from an ongoing series of articles published by Newsarama by writer Vaneta Rogers, and we look forward to seeing more articles in the series in the future. We also cover top comic pick from the “Big Two” from last week, and EricathePimp reviews two novels from Lois McMaster Bujold, Ethan of Athos and Cetaganda, two books from her Vorkosigan series. Enjoy this, THEN be sure to join us tomorrow night, Saturday, Sept. 12th, at 8PM as we broadcast LIVE from A Comic Shop in Winter Park. Their owners, Jason and Aaron, are both celebrating birthdays this week, so they decided to have a HUGE party at their store and to invite a special guest, Marvel and Vertigo comics writer … JASON AARON!

If you’re local to Orlando or Winter Park and you’re in the area Saturday, stop on by and say hello! Jason Aaron will be signing and meeting fans at the store from 3-8PM, and hopefully he’ll be willing to sit in with us for a segment to talk about his work on Ghost Rider, Wolverine: Weapon X, and his independent series, Scalped. There will also be a live concert in the parking lot outside ACS starting at around 9:30PM, hence our early sign-off time. It’s going to be one very interesting night–hope you can join us!

PTG Episode 36 is brought to you by the Blackest Night. Yes, the prophesied apocalypse of Black Power Ring-bearing zombies craving flesh and the emotion within living, beating hearts is upon the DC Universe and its devoted readers, and starting this week, PTG will feature reviews of Blackest Night core stories and tie-ins in the Blackest Night Spotlight. Judging from issue #1, it’s going to be one hell of a horror story coming at our heroes, and all bets are off as to who will survive …

Aside from the brand-spanking new Blackest Night Spotlight, the episode also features reviews of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (excellent!) and, in the Eat More Geek segment, a review of Taco Bell’s new Bacon Cheesy Baked Potato Burrito (horrible!). While attempting to consume said burrito without ralphing, The Lovely Erica turns on her never-before-used mic to help me break down some other fast food train wrecks in recent memory. McPizza, anyone?

Oh, and just want to say thank you once again to everyone who showed up to the 1st PTG/SomaCow karaoke-tweetup last Saturday night. Got to hang out with Jamie and Nos from The Experience once again, Mickey came out to represent SomaCow, and got to meet some cool new people as well (Tiny, Chico, Sue, Chris, yes, I do mean you!). Despite some technical problems besetting the karaoke DJ, good times were had by all, so much so in fact that :: drum roll :: PTG is happy to announce …

The PTG/SomaCow Karaoke-Tweetup, Part Deux!

This time we’ll be meeting at Colonial Lanes in Orlando, off of Colonial Dr. and Primrose Ave., on Saturday, August 1st, at around 11PM. Same drill as last weekend: PTG will air in its normal slot on Saturday 8-10PM, then immediately afterward we’ll pack up and head out to Colonial, which features a full-service restaurant as well as a lounge and one of the best bowling alleys in town. Best of all, the whole building is non-smoking, so those of you who missed out last time in part because you didn’t want to bring children into Mugshots’ carcinogen-laden atmosphere, you’re all clear this time! Hope to see everyone that came out last time come out again and to see some folks we missed last Saturday. More details to come!

PTG Episode 35 is brought to you by SomaCow’s Cure for the Run. As a part of the SomaCow Media Network, Prime Time Geek will be taking part in this event with supreme geekly gusto! If you’re local to Orlando and you wish to be a part of the event, come down to Wall Street at 4PM to register for the run on Saturday, August 22nd. A form for recording sponsors/donations can be found in the message thread linked above, or you can donate directly, probably the best option for the out of town listeners. All donations will benefit Rock for Hunger. And if you’re worried about actually “running”, not to worry–you run, jog, trot, skip, walk, or crawl the .05k distance (that’s about 164 ft!)

In this episode, I fume for a bit about DC Comics‘ replacing current Batman scribe Judd Winick and artist Mark Bagley with Battle For the Cowl writer Tony Daniel after just four issues, the latest in a seemingly-interminable string of blunders in regards to restarting mainstay titles, while also professing complete and utter mea culpa over “Wednesday Comics“, which is turning out to be lots of fun and worth the $3.99 each week. Funny thing, though–not sure what to do with 16 pages of newspaper-quality paper once I’m done reading it. Bagging it won’t protect it from turning yellow, but throwing it away or recycling it like regular newspaper just seems … wrong. Current favorite strips running in Wednesday Comics: Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner’s “Supergirl”, Brian Azzarello’s “Batman”, and Kurt Busiek’s “Green Lantern.” I want to like the “Superman” strip from John Arcudi and Lee Bermejo, but so far I’m digging Arcudi’s characterization of Clark, and Bermejo’s art and colors, while pitch perfect for stories like Lex Luthor: Man of Steel and Joker, is a bit too subdued for a Superman story. Watch for more reviews of “Wednesday Comics” in the weeks to come–I have a feeling it’s going to end up in PTG’s Top 3 more often than not.

Oh, and special guest co-hosts Loubowski (Lou Ornstein) and Glakk (Howard Herbst) help me break down Domino’s new line of “American Legends” pizzas in the “Eat More Geek” segment. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say we imagine how tasty they might be if someone ELSE besides Domino’s made them. It’s a fun segment, definitely–we enjoyed recording it, so I hope you enjoy listening.

I just need to say this right now: Dan Didio and DC Comics, just this once, I apologize for doubting you.

Months ago, prior to MegaCon, I complained in this space about DC Comics robbing Blackest Night of some emotional impact by allowing the identities of certain Black Lanterns to surface long before the comics reached the hands of readers. I looked at the revelations of Earth-2 Superman and Martian Manhunter as Black Lanterns as a catastrophic misstep, because what other revelations could they possibly throw at us that could match the heart-rending reveals of Kal-L and J’onn J’onzz to Earth’s heroes as the Blackest Night descended upon the DCU?

Yeah, well, shows what I know.

Unless you’ve somehow had access to Geoff Johns’ scripts or Ivan Reis’s sketches, Blackest Night #1 is certain to leave you in shock. Everything we’ve seen to this point–the emergence of the other Corps, the Sinestro Corps War, even the prophesy of Cosmic Revelations at the end of that story arc that first revealed the coming of ‘the Blackest Night,’–will do NOTHING to lessen the impact of the events that unfold in these first pages. Think back to when you read the Sinestro Corps War Special that kicked off that story, when all the villains, all of the Anti-Monitor’s heralds, stood revealed, and the dread you felt in that moment, the fear you might have felt (along with the need to see what happened next).

I promise you, Blackest Night #1 will top that feeling.

In terms of the art, Ivan Reis is at the top of his game here. Due to the sheer number of DC characters we see in the course of the issue, the fact that everything is coherent and every panel delivers emotional impact, is truly astounding. Add to those pages several double-page splash images that give the proceedings a “widescreen” feel, much like the work of illustrator Bryan Hitch did in his Ultimates work for Marvel. Any one of those splash spreads would make a great poster or gatefold cover, and no doubt at least one of them will when this issue gets into reprints. If he’s able to keep this book on time and it’s his work throughout all eight issues, Reis will have established his claim to succeeding George Perez as THE ‘epic’ artist at DC Comics.

But of course, none of it would matter without Geoff Johns’s seemingly-effortless forays into the minds of his main characters. We as readers experience the events of this issue through the viewpoints of a number of characters, and each of those viewpoints, each of those narrative voices, feels separate and distinct. Of course, its to be expected with Hal Jordan, who Johns has guided in his journey since “Green Lantern: Rebirth.” But the other voices that tell this tale are just as effective and riveting.

Now, seriously, if you’ve been waiting for this as long as most DC fans have been, the chances that you weren’t going to enjoy the story were, in my opinion, quite slim. But so many people picked up Blackest Night #0 on Free Comic Book Day not because they were Green Lantern fans or DC fans, but because it was FREE. It’s to those readers out there who might have been impressed with that issue but still not inclined to grab Blackest Night #1 tomorrow because they’re not fans of Green Lantern or DC that I say this:

Pick this book up. Trust me, you’re going to love it.