Tuesday, May 18, 2004
SMALLVILLE, GLOBAL FREQUENCY ON THE WB
Smallville will remain in its Wednesday at 8 p.m. time slot for its fourth season on The WB and Global Frequency will be made available as a midseason replacement, the network announced on Tuesday at its upfront presentation.
Smallville will lead into two new comedies, Blue Collar TV and Drew Carey's Green Screen Show.
"Wednesday night, Smallville presents a clear male alternative to a broadcast landscape dominated by female-skewing programming," said Jordan Levin, the network's CEO. "It took audiences a little while longer than we would have liked to find Smallville on Wednesdays at 8, but once they did, Smallville reasserted itself as not only our number one series, but our strongest series with all male viewers. We're using that strength to deliver our two male comedies the strongest lead-in possible.
"While comedies have not always performed well coming out of dramas, Blue Collar TV and Drew Carey's Green Screen Show represent two non-traditional forms of programming which are key in attracting young men."
Returning for the fourth season are series stars Tom Welling, Kristin Kreuk, Michael Rosenbaum, Allison Mack, John Glover, Annette O'Toole and John Schneider. Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, Greg Beeman, Mike Tollin, Brian Robbins, Joe Davola and Ken Horton serve as executive producers.
Global Frequency is based on the comics series created by Warren Ellis. The pilot episode will be before the cameras in July.
Here's how the network describes the series:
"Based on the suspenseful and action-packed graphic novel franchise, Global Frequency marks the dramatic television debut of successful producer Mark Burnett. The Global Frequency is an independent, illegal, covert intelligence agency determined to prevent international politics from undermining the security of the global community. Led by the former NSA agent Miranda Zero, GF is everywhere and nowhere -- and it's mankind's best defense against everything that occurs outside our peripheral vision. This marvel of brains and machinery is hacked into every satellite, mainframe, cell phone and database across the globe. With the help of her central command dispatcher, the feisty but brilliant Aleph, Zero is just a phone call away from tapping anyone anywhere to volunteer their skills to help save the world. GF's newest 'recruit,' suspended cop Sean Ronin, is paired with introverted Kate Finch, a mastermind of the scientific inner workings of the covert network. The most original conspiracy saga since The X-Files, Global Frequency shows us that one person can make a difference in the battle against the dangers of the modern world. From Warner Bros. Television Production Inc. and Cloudbreak Entertainment with writer/executive producer John Rogers (upcoming film Catwoman, The Core) and director Nelson McCormick (Alias, Third Watch)."
BATMAN'S "WAR GAMES"
DC Comics released its August solicitations on Monday, providing first story details and images from "War Games," a three-month event in the Batman titles.
The event kicks off in Batman: The 12-Cent Adventure, written by Devin Grayson, with art by Ramon Bachs and Raul Fernandez and a cover by Jason Pearson. It involves a meeting of every gang head in Gotham City.
"We get into a situation in Gotham City where the situation with the gangs implodes and becomes really volatile," Grayson said. "And as we know from following things in Gotham City, when things get bad, it gets really bad. So Batman has to call in the his team and try to figure ou what's happening and stop it.
"What's interesting now is that we have so many players in Gotham City that are on Batman's team, it's hard for them not to actually get in the way at the same time they're helping. And there's some interesting subtextual riffs about leadership and how you put a team together and how do you keep a battle moving.
"I think there will be some surprising revelations and some great character moments ... and a huge crisis."
Grayson said the genesis of "War Games" came from the most recent Bat-summit last November.
"It's a difficult task to get everybody in line," Grayson said, "but, in a funny way, it was echoing what we were doing in the stunt on how you orchestrate a team and keeping everybody moving in a helpful direction."
Unlike previous Batman stunts she's been involved, Grayson was the veteran of the writing group this time.
"We already had a decent idea, but Bill Willingham threw out the thing that made it a Batman idea," Grayson said. "And it's been a lot of fun."
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In other "War Games" notes:
* Greg Rucka, who writes Gotham Central with Ed Brubaker, said issues #23-24 will be part of "War Games." Rucka said that subsequent story arcs will be shorter than previous ones.
* Brubaker on Catwoman: "It's like City on Fire. It's like everything that possibly can go wrong, goes wrong. I deal with a lot of that in Catwoman. The storyline that I'm going to do after that deals with some of the aftermath and how that affects Catwoman and her friends."
* Grayson on Nightwing: "I've been putting him through a sort of personal hell, so getting called back to Gotham is sort of a relief to him. It does put on hold what was going on with him personally, but it does so in a very natural way."
* Judd Winick said that his story arc on Batman will be orchestrated to naturally flow into "War Games." "That was by design, and it didn't take very much," Winick said.
* For solicitations on the "War Games" issues and all of DC's titles for August, CLICK HERE.
JUSTICE LEAGUE ANIMATED UPDATE
Hector Elizondo is providing a guest-voice for "Starcrossed," the three-part episode of Justice League that will debut on Cartoon Network on Saturday, May 27.
Elizondo provides the voice of Kragger, a high-ranking officer in the Thanagarian army and right-hand man to Hro Talak.
Elizondo previously worked for Warner Bros. Animation as the voice of Bane in Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman movie and the Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu video game.
Victor Rivers provides of the voice of Hro Talak.
Click on the thumbnails for larger images from part one of "Starcrossed" and look for more Justice League news soon here in The Continuum.
And for The Continuum's coverage of the Warner Bros. Animation panel at WonderCon, CLICK HERE.
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G.I. JOE VARIANT
Devil's Due Publishing has announced a surprise cover for G.I. Joe #31,by Talent Caldwell and Aspen Studios. The image is to celebrate the debut of the three-part back-up story, "Fantom," drawn by the studio and introducing the new villain Wraith to the series.
Variants for #31 and #32 will be by Caldwell, with #33 by Michael Turner.
While the former two covers are being solicited for items shipping in July and August respectively, the variant for issue #31 has only become available after orders for the other cover have been placed (items shipping in June).
According to Devil's Due, the goal is "to create a highly collectible cover that retailers can order at the normal cover cost, while being fairly confident its secondary value will do well."
The new character Wraith promises to test alliances and loyalties as he plays both sides of the fence, but is ultimately Destro's own personal mercenary.
"I'm really excited to be working on this project," Caldwell said. "I've always been a huge Joe fan, and being asked to design a new major character like this is really flattering. I've wanted to do some work on G.I. Joe for a while, and this special story wound up being the perfect fit. It's been a lot of fun and I hope everyone enjoys what we have in store for them!"
BRIEFLY
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COMICS CONTINUUM BACK ISSUES
In case you missed The Continuum's recent coverage, here are some links:
* For Wednesday, May 12, including Top Cow news, CLICK HERE.
* For Tuesday, May 11, including Justice League and Teen Titans animated news, CLICK HERE.
* For Monday, May 10, including Catwoman movie news, CLICK HERE.
* For Saturday, May 8, including Justice League animated news, CLICK HERE.
* For Friday, May 7, including Justice League animated news, CLICK HERE.
* For Thursday, May 6, including Marvel news, CLICK HERE.
* For Wednesday, May 5, including Hugh Jackman talking about a third X-Men movie, CLICK HERE.
* For Tuesday, May 4, including Marvel movie news and more from WonderCon, CLICK HERE.
* For Monday, May 3, including Justice League news and more from WonderCon, CLICK HERE.
* For Sunday, May 2, including Spider-Man 2 news from WonderCon, CLICK HERE.
* For Saturday, May 1, including news from WonderCon, CLICK HERE.
* For Friday, April 30, including Smallville news, CLICK HERE.
* For Thursday, April 29, including Marvel, DC and Image first looks, CLICK HERE.
* For Wednesday, April 28, including Smallville news, CLICK HERE.
* For Tuesday, April 27, including Angel news, CLICK HERE.
* For Monday, April 26, including Spider-Man 2 news, CLICK HERE.
* For Saturday, April 24, including Marvel news, CLICK HERE.
* For Friday, April 23, including Marvel news, CLICK HERE.
* For Thursday, April 22, including Image Comics' solicitations for July, CLICK HERE.
* For Wednesday, April 21, including DC Comics first looks, CLICK HERE.
* For Tuesday, April 20, including Marvel Comics' solicitations for July, CLICK HERE.
* For Monday, April 19, including TV news, CLICK HERE.
* For Saturday, April 17, including TV news, CLICK HERE.
* For Friday, April 16, including TV news, CLICK HERE.
Copyright © 2004, The Comics Continuum