THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 2007
MORE NEWS ON THURSDAY
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LEGION OF SUPER HEROES' IMPERIEX
Imperiex will be appearing in the second-season premiere of Kids' WB!'s Legion of Super Heroes on Saturday, Sept. 22, and it won't be his only episode.
"He won't be in every episode, but he is the over-arching threat this season," Legion producer James Tucker said last weekend at Comic-Con International.
Tucker explained why Imperiex was chosen.
"In the comics, he kinda sucked, to be honest," Tucker said. "The thing is we needed a villain who we could do anything with who didn't have a lot of baggage like Darkseid or some of the more established villains. We needed a guy who had some heft to him. For the way we wanted to deal with him, which is in kind of broad, almost over-the-top kind of way, we picked someone who: A.) The fans wouldn't care too much about if we tweaked him a little; and B.) Someone we could really develop and not be shackled by the comic-book history.
"In the comics, Imperiex was pretty quickly forgotten. So we said, let's make him somebody interesting. Let's make him the guy we can mold and play around with and have some fun with.
"He's way cooler in the show. I think you'll grow to appreciate him as a villain in his own right. And I think it worked out really well."
Phil Morris, a longtime comics fan who is also returning as Martian Manhunter in Season 7 of Smallville, provides the voice of Imperiex.
He agreed with Tucker that this version of the character is improved.
"They just pump him up to such a degree," Morrie said. "I mean, he is an intergalactic threat par excellence. He's got style, he's got flair, he's just ultimate evil.
"I remember when I was first doing the voice, James was like, 'Oh, yeah, that's good. Can you make him 10 times more savage?' I was like, 'Yeah, let's go there.' Because the greater the evil, then the better the heroes look.
"If the evil is kind of (so-so), then the heroes really don't get a chance to use their heroism, their courage, their bravery, their loyalty, their teamwork to defeat anybody.
"You kind of know every episode is going to end well. And in this series, this version of it, Imperiex is such a bad cat, that you don't know if somebody's going to killed that episode or if he's actually going to accomplish this threat that he's posing to this team.
"It was a joy to play him. Because every day I would go in and exorcise the toxins of evil that we all have and carry around all the day."
Yuri Lowenthal, who plays Superman, recalled Morris' enthusiasm in recording sessions.
"If was funny because he come in and it would be all like evil, evil, evil and then we would finish the take and then he would be like (light tone), 'I'm on the Legion of Super Heroes!'" Lowenthal said.
"I'm such a geek," Morris said. "It's so fun. You throw all your all into it. You have to honor yourself as a fan. There's nobody who's going to critique this character more than I am. I am very thrilled with it. I think it's going to be very interesting."
THE BATMAN, TEEN TITANS DVDS
Warner Home Video on Thursday announced a Nov. 20 release for The Batman: The Complete Fourth Season and Teen Titans: The Complete Fourth Season.
Both will be two disc-sets with a suggeting price of $19.98.
Warner also released a description of The Batman collection:
"Season 4 features a redesign of Bruce Wayne/Batman, that is more reminiscent of the DCAU (Bruce Timm) Batman. The season also introduces Dick Grayson as Robin (Evan Sabara) into the series as well as other characters such as Lucius Fox (Louis Gossett Jr.). More villains appear such as Tony Zucco (Mark Hamill), Killer Moth (Jeff Bennett), Black Mask (James Remar) and Number One (Diedrich Bader), Rumor (Ron Perlman), Everywhere Man (Brandon Routh), Harley Quinn (Hynden Walch), Francis Grey (Dave Foley) and a new Clayface (Wallace Langham). Batgirl returns this season as well, and is now officially part of Batman's team."
No extras have been announced yet.
Click on the thumbnails for larger images and look for more news on The Batman soon here in The Continuum.
FIRST LOOKS
For covers and five-page previews of upcoming titles CLICK HERE.
Titles include Ripclaw Pilot Season #1 from Top Cow Productions and Image Comics and The Order #2 from Marvel Comics.
OCTOBER SOLICITATIONS ROUNDUP
For previously published solicitations for October, click on the publishers' names below:
* Archie Comics.
* Aspen Comics.
* Avatar Press.
* BlueWater Productions.
* Dark Horse Comics.
* DC Comics.
* Devil's Due Publishing.
* Digital Webbing.
* Dynamite Entertainment.
* Fangoria Comics.
* Heroic Publishing.
* IDW Publishing.
* Image Comics.
* Markosia Publishing.
* Marvel Comics.
* Moonstone Books.
* Oni Press.
BRIEFLY
* Image Comics has announced that Elephantmen #10 has sold out.
COMICS CONTINUUM BACK ISSUES
In case you missed The Continuum's coverage over the past month, here are some links. Click on the date to get the day's full report.
* Thursday, July 26: From Comic-Con International -- Iron Man movie, DC Comics Countdown, Darwyn Cooke, Legion of Super Heroes, Heroes, Incredible Hulk movie, Boom! Studio's The Godfather, Dark Horse roundup and SciFi/Virgin's The Stranded.
* Wednesday, July 25: Heroes Season 2, Virgin Comics/Jenna Jameson, Marvel First Looks and Archie First Looks.
* Tuesday, July 24: Superman Doomsday, Flash Gordon, Oni Press for October and Marvel First Looks.
* Monday, July 23: Dynamite Entertainment for October, Fangoria Comics for October, Dynamite First Looks and World of Warcraft from DC.
* Sunday, July 22: Avatar Press for October, Red 5 Comics for October, The Crow: Stairway to Heaven and Archie Comics First Looks.
* Saturday, July 21: Legion of Super Heroes and Devil's Due Publishing for October.
* Friday, July 20: Smallville's Supergirl, Marvel First Looks and Image First Looks.
* Thursday, July 19: Aspen Comics for October, Emmy Award nominations, Kids' WB! for August, Bluewater Productions' Jason and the Argonauts, Garth Ennis' Streets of Glory, Captain Action and Marvel First Looks.
* Wednesday, July 18: The Simpsons Movie, Flash Gordon, Bluewater Productions First Looks and Dynamite's Superpowers.
* Tuesday, July 17: Marvel Comics for October, Image Comics for October and Dynamite Entertainment First Looks.
* Monday, July 16: DC Comics for October, IDW Publishing for October, Archie Comics for October, Marvel First Looks and Watchmen movie.
* Sunday, July 15: The Spectacular Spider-Man and First Looks.
* Saturday, July 14: Image Comics' Lazarus and First Looks.
* Friday, July 13: Marvel First Looks and Image First Looks.
* Thursday, July 12: Activision's Spider-Man: Friend or Foe, Digital Webbing for October and First Looks.
* Wednesday, July 11: Smallville, Fantastic Four, First Looks, The Simpsons and Family Guy.
* Tuesday, July 10: Dark Horse Comics for October and First Looks.
* Monday, July 9: Painkiller Jane and Smallvlle.
* Sunday, July 8: Transformers and Who Wants To Be A Super Hero?.
* Saturday, July 7: TwoMorrows Publishing for October, First Looks and Transformers.
* Friday, July 6: Marvel First Looks, Image First Looks and DC First Looks.
* Thursday, July 5: Teen Choice nominations, Who Wants To Be A Superhero?, Dark Horse First Looks and Marvel's MAX.
* Wednesday, July 4: Markosia Publishing for October, Marvel First Looks, Archie First Looks and Painkiller Jane.
* Tuesday, July 3: First Looks, Teen Titans for July and Image Comics' Brawl.
* Monday, July 2: Transformers' Shia LeBeouf, First Looks, Second Printings and Moonstone Books for October.
* Sunday, July 1: Transformers' Megan Fox and First Looks.
* Saturday, June 30: The Darkness video game, Heroic Publishing for October, Jeph Loeb talks Wolverine #55 and First Looks.
* Friday, June 29: Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps, Image First Looks, Archie First Looks, Marvel First Looks, Superman animation, Mattel/DC Universe, Ultimate Spider-Man #100 Project and Painkiller Jane.
* Thursday, June 28: Cartoon Network's Fantastic Four, BlueWater Productions for October and First Looks.
* Wednesday, June 27: Superman animation, Marvel First Looks and Virgin Comics.
Copyright © 2007, The Comics Continuum