Monday, April 8, 2002

MICHAEL ROSENBAUM TALKS SMALLVILLE

Michael Rosenbaum, who stars as Lex Luthor in The WB's Smallville, said he doesn't want the character to get too evil too quickly.

"If you get evil in the first season, then it's four years of evil. I want him to evolve," Rosenbaum told The Continuum. "I want people to embrace the character and never really know what's going on with him."

Rosenbaum also talked about how he got the role, working on the show and his role as the Flash in Justice League.

For the complete interview, CLICK HERE.

YANCY BUTLER TALKS WITCHBLADE

Yancy Butler, star of TNT's Witchblade, told The Continuum that the second season starts with Sara Pezzini not wearing the Witchblade.

GIVE'EM A CLICK

"The first episode is just amazing. We come out of the gate with a quite bang," Butler told The Continuum. "We actually pick it up prior to Pezzini having the Witchblade. So she has to acquire it all over again.

"But where her emotional kind of chronological state in her head is as if she had kind of a weird dream or kind of a bad case of amnesia. She runs into people, for instance such as Gabriel, and he looks vaguely familiar and she's not really quite sure why.

"She not only has to acquire it again, but she's really more confused than ever in terms of who knows what and what she knows."

GIVE'EM A CLICK

Butler said the time change presents a challenge in keeping track of her character.

"It's quite hard. It does keep me on my toes," she said. "I have copies of all the scripts we've ever shot because we mess and manipulate time so much. Chronological order of events is difficult to keep track of."

The second season of Witchblade starts on Monday, June 10 on TNT. Click on the images for larger promotional images from the second season.

BLADE II UPDATE

In its third weekend of release, Blade II finished seventh at the box office last weekend with an estimated $7.2 million.

Blade II's total take is now at $67.1 million, and the film should pass the $70.2 million of 1998's original Blade within the next 7-10 days.

Blade II opened No. 1 two weeks ago and fell to No. 4 last week.

Panic Room finished on top for the second weekend in a row with an estimated $18.5 million, followed by High Crimes with $15.0 million, Ice Age with $14.3 million, The Rookie with $11.7 million, National Lampoon's Van Wilder with $7.5 million and Clockstoppers with $7.3 million.

Official numbers will be released on Monday.

21 DOWN PREVIEW

Jimmy Palmiotti has provided The Continuum with a preview of 21 Down, the new WildStorm series that begins in September.

The book is written by Palmiotti and Justin Gray, penciled by Jesus Siaz, inked by Palmiotti and colored by Paul Mounts.

A four-page preview of 21 Down will appear in Gen13 #0 in July.

Here's how Palmiotti describes 21 Down:

"What would you do with one year to live? The natural reaction for some is to go crazy, live life on the edge, do things you would never do, but not everyone would feel that way. Preston Kills is trying to find a way to accept his death sentence, live a simple kind of life, but all of that changes when he meets this incredibly sexy, intelligent older woman. His priorities shift dramatically even though he's trying to fight it. Preston does well with the ladies but he's emotionally cut off until Mickey turns his world upside down and presents him with the idea that he might be able to save himself.

"Self preservation will make people do some crazy things and for Preston facing a death sentence is going to challenge his sense of morality. He has a choice to make, take the easy path and wait for death, or get out there and try to make something happen even if it means failure.

"Together, we wanted to look at what makes a hero or a villain beside a funny suit and an over inflated sense of justice. There are a lot of gray areas in life, good people do bad things and so on. As we saw with the events of September eleventh, saving one person is a huge accomplishment and worthy of the title hero. In 21Down we're trying to develop a more complex and subtle view of how a comic book works.

"The audience for comic books has grown up, matured on it's own and really a lot of the old rules do not apply anymore. People's tastes change and the industry needs to change with them. 21Down is a book that questions a lot of the every day in and out's of life with an unusual story wrapped around it."

JUSTICE LEAGUE UPDATE

Part two of the "Fury" episode of Justice League will premiere on Cartoon Network on Sunday, April 14.

The first part of the episode aired on Sunday, giving viewers their first looks at such villains as Star Sapphire, Solomon Grundy and Copperhead.

It also provided a preview commercial for the second part, from which are the accompanying screen grabs.

Guest voices in part one of "Fury" included Julie Bowen as Aresia, Susan Sullivan as Hippolyta, Olivia D'Abo as Star Sapphire, Mark Hamill as Solomon Grundy, Stephen McHattie as Shade, Karen Maruyama as Tsukuri and Jose Tenque as Copperhead.

TIDALWAVE AT AVATAR DETAILS

The TidalWave imprint debuts at Avatar in July with full-color releases 10th Muse #1, Black Tide #1 and the TidalWave Sampler.

"TidalWave is representative of the best of the new breed of studio that has emerged in the past couple of years," said Avatar Press editor-in-chief William A. Christensen.

"Like some of the others that have come up in and around Image in recent times, such as Dreamwave and Devil's Due, TidalWave is a well-organized, high-quality, focused line capable of bringing in new readers. In fact, I think they helped kick off the trend when 10th Muse debuted at #6 on the Diamond charts two years ago. The TidalWave line makes an excellent compliment to ours, and this addition to Avatar will be of benefit to both companies, and most importantly, to the comics themselves."

"We are anticipating great things from this new partnership with Avatar," said TidalWave president Darren Davis. "In the last couple of years they established themselves as an organization on the fast track to commercial and artistic success. We fully expect to add to this impressive track record."

The full color TidalWave line will launch at Avatar in July with 10th Muse by Marv Wolfman and Roger Cruz and Black Tide by Debbie Bishop and Mike S. Miller. Cover artists on the books will include Chris Bachalo and Andy Park.

"What I find particularly appealing about the move to Avatar is not only do I keep all of the TidalWave creative teams together, but we are able to experiment a bit more freely with styles," Davis said. "As has been my goal since day one, TidalWave books are driven by cutting edge artwork and engaging storylines. That promise of quality shall continue."

Davis plans to expand his range of titles, including spinoffs of some of the more popular characters such as ISIS, Atlas, and Orion the Hunter. The six titles that are scheduled to date include:

10th Muse - Writer: Darren G. Davis; Pencils: Roger Cruz.

Atlas - Writer: Darren G. Davis; Pencils: Mark Brooks.

Black Tide - Writer: Debbie Bishop; Pencils: Mike S. Miller.

Legend of ISIS - Writer: TBD; Pencils: RV Valdez.

The Odyssey - Writer: Various; Pencils: Norm Breyfogle, Craig Rousseau.

Z ak Raven, Esq. - Writer: Darren G. Davis, Pencils: Renato Arlem.

BRIEFLY