[SDCC 2019] HBO’s Watchmen: New Trailer Has Some Big Reveals!

HBO has released the first real trailer for creator Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen series based on the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons graphic novel of the same name, debuting in October.

The Man Who Laughs: The 20 Greatest Joker Moments, Part IV

Welcome to the final installment of Grizzlybomb’s Greatest Joker Moment’s Ever! Brian Kronner and I (Scott Fraser) took a look through our memory warehouse and compiled a list of those moments that we felt made Joker who he is today. Obviously with the New 52/DCYou reboots the Joker of today may or may not have been affected by these moments, but we will look past that to continue to celebrate the awesomeness of the Clown Prince of Crime.

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Whether he’s duking it out with Batman, intimidating fellow criminals, making time with Harley Quinn, or terrorizing the Bat family he is always in the forefront of the Bat titles, and is well-regarded as the ultimate Bat-villain. No other member of Batman’s rogue gallery has caused the level of pain and suffering to the city of Gotham quite like the Joker has, and the remaining moments on our list further prove this. So enough of the chit-chat, let’s get to it.

Mark Hamill To Return As The Joker In Batman: The Killing Joke Animated Film

Veteran actor Mark Hamill will be lending his trademark vocals to Batman’s arch-nemesis for the animated adaptation of The Killing Joke, one of the most revered Batman stories of all time.

Kevin Smith and Grant Morrison Discuss The Killing Joke: Does the Joker Die?

As you may know, Kevin Smith is a huge Batman fan and weekly presents a podcast called Fatman on Batman as part of his SModcast empire. Each week Kevin Smith invites a creator who is involved (sometime tenuously) with Batman. This week Smith was again joined by famed writer and spiritualist, Grant Morrison for issue #44. Morrison was invited to discuss his favorite Batman stories, and as part of the podcast discussed Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s seminal Batman story The Killing Joke.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The TV Series?

As if Alan Moore’s work has not been butchered enough by the motion picture industry, it looks like Fox is going to have a go at one of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s crowning works. Yes, they want to make a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen TV series. Now maybe I am been a bit harsh on the adaptations of Moore’s work. While Watchmen was pretty good (but not without its flaws) and V for Vendetta certainly had its moments, none of these films have ever come close to the raw emotion and amazement you get from reading the source material. Moore himself is very aware of this, having distanced himself quite publicly from every adaptation so far. Fox’s plans for the book are as follows:

[quote]“A drama series based on Alan Moore’s critically and commercially successful graphic novel series about a group of Victorian-age literary characters, including Captain Nemo, the Invisible Man, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, who team up to fight a common enemy.” [/quote]

Not really much to go on at this stage, but what Fox really needs to do is take a good hard look at the abomination that was The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie starring Sean Connery, and do the exact opposite from that. Turning Moore and O’Neill’s work into an action epic took away most of the wit and charm of the book and dumbed it down for a movie going audience that could have coped with its dark edge. If you take it as a below average popcorn movie it can be quite the enjoyable guilty pleasure, but when you remember what source material this film actually came from it takes all of the joy away from repeat viewings.

Fox already has a team in place with the show runner for Kings, Heroes, and The River; Michael Green taking on multiple roles as writer/executive producer/showrunner, and Erwin Stoff (The Matrix) producing (per Collider).

Could the books work as a TV series is the main thing we have to ask ourselves here? There is a wealth of material from the books, and numerous storylines branching out throughout history, so it could be good if Fox followed this template and had each season follow the various incarnations of the League as they live through the different decades. The television format has proved it can successfully adapt great stuff like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, though less so on network television. If structured correctly though, I think there is potential here but that’s a big IF.

There are other comic book series out there more deserving of a TV show than The League, which has already had its time in the sun Fables for example could be a great book for TV expansion. For the sanity of Alan Moore fans everywhere I certainly hope it will be better than the movie was…

Weird & Wacky World of Comics – Van Helsing: From Beneath the Rue Morgue

 So. Van Helsing. We all have our views on it, and for the most part I think everyone would agree that it is not exactly the cinematic masterpiece we were hoping for. I kind of dug it though, in that “this is awful but let’s see what other tripe they throw at the screen” kind of way. But the advertising company certainly tried to get us to like it, the promotion was everywhere. That leads us to this comic book, which is a semi prequel to the original film.