Good friends are important, and best buds even more so. Someone who has your back, and who will be there when the chips are down. And of course, a heavily super powered friend that shares your own values, motivations, and love for extremely tight uniforms has to be pretty much the best thing ever.
There have been a lot of great pairings over the years in the comic book world, from best friends to friendly rivals. With more than a few friends taking each other on in the theaters next year with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War, it’s important to take stock of these friendships that have developed on-screen and in the comics for years. Sure, they’re fighting now, but chances are after the battle they’ll all go and grab a few beers and bro out over the battle.
There are quite a few more great friendships among the superhero community, buddies that have been through the thick and the thin, fought each other more times than they could count, and have even survived the ‘finality’ of death (at least until the inevitable rebirth). Let’s take a look at some Superhero Best Buds that have survived the test of time.
With the release of the latest Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer, we couldn’t have been more excited to see DC’s Trinity stand united on the big screen for the first time. And while this film will obviously focus more on Batman and Superman, we couldn’t help but wonder if we might see the comic relationship between Supes and WW explored in any future films.
In the coming months DC Collectibles will be releasing quite a few new statues, and we want almost all of them. But we here at Grizzly Bomb are realists, so we’d settle for just ten or so. We have selected our ten favorite pieces from the upcoming lines, but narrowed it to just the Bat-Family for now. These are all available for pre-order, and anyone of them would make a fine addition to your desk at work, or shelf at home. Continue reading DC Collectibles Has Some Great Bat-Statues Coming Out→
They say knowledge is power and in the case of collectors that is certainly the case. With the foresight that comes from pre-order release dates, no fan need ever worry again about missing the release of a treasured piece of memorabilia. DC is by far the best at this particular market tactic and they’ve already given us a look at some of the releases that will be winging their way to specialist stores in 2015. Below is a list of a few that have taken Grizzly Bomb’s fancy.
DC Entertainments Black and White series continues to impress, with a huge range and variety of choice in sculpt designs available to the consumer. Included in the collection this time around is a superb sculpting of Barbara Gordon Batgirl statue (in her Batgirl issue 35 gear). More commonly known as the Batgirl of Burnside, it presents a more modern take on the Batgirl costume. The figure sculpt is by artist Irene Matar (Batman: The Animated Series action figures) who has done a great job of keeping the Cameron Stewart and Babs Tarr original design style. It is due to ship in September 2015 (price to be announced).
Joining her we have a Dave Johnson inspired piece with a limited run of 5,200. It is due for release on March 2015. Then we have Ivan Reis take on the Dark Knight coming out in June 2015 and the incredible looking Mike Mignola Batman design, which comes in August 2015, all priced at $79.95.
There are many more DC releases that may be of interest to collectors, like the WonderWoman: ArtofWar statues by Tony Daniel and Cliff Chiang, showing two different Wonder Woman designs, both ready for battle. They are both priced at $79.99 and arrive on May and February 2015 respectively. More entries into the Jim Lee comic book busts collection are coming are way to with Deathstroke and Nightwing each making an appearance (both $49.99 and coming in February and June).
Finally there is the dynamic duo of crime; The Joker and Harley Quinn, each coming in July of next year. What makes Harley’s figure that extra bit special is the fact she is decked out in her roller derby gear from her new 52 series. The design work (based on the Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti and Chad Hardin series) is spot on and will complement nicely the dark, knife wielding Joker figure.
If you cannot wait to get your DC freak on, then you can always pick up a life-sized batman utility belt from $299.95.
Marvel never seems to be as on the ball as DC are with regards to advanced orders. This may be due to the wide array of figure creators working under the Marvel umbrella, making it slightly more difficult to track their new products down. Still there are a few pieces of interest coming in 2015. One of the more interesting sets is the oversized return of an old Marvel figure line; Secret Wars. These 12 inch figures are based on the old sculpts from the ’80s and are just quirky enough for collectors to take interest. I myself owned the Hobgoblin figure in my youth, so it’s a nice surprise to see it reappear. Joining him will be the black suited Spider-Man and two other figures in the near future (one of which looks to be Wolverine). These will be coming via Gentle Giant Limited around for summer 2015, and will roughly retail for about $89.99. The backing itself certainly harkens back to the figures that were released originally and it’s a nice retro touch by Gentle Giant.
Also appearing in 2015 (February) will be the anticipated dancing Groot bobble head figure which Marvel fans have been salivating for ever since he appeared in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. From Pop! Vinyl it has the same trademark cuteness you would expect from that brand and will retail for about $12.99. Entertainment Earth has an exclusive variant version of this as well as a variant version of the dancing Groot mug (also coming in 2015 at $14.99).
But if you cannot wait until 2015, then Marvel has a ton of collectible content out there already. Here is a sneak peek at a few of them. My personal favorite is the Egg Attack War Machine ($79.99) figure just for the fact it looks so darn cute and it lights up too! But for great sculpt likeness it has to be a tie between the extremely menacing Green Goblin life-sized bust ($599.50 and limited to 300) or the positively revolting Zombie Magneto mini bust ($99.95 and limited to 5000).
As this year draws to an end and comic fans far and wide look forward to what delights 2015 will have to offer us, it is comforting to know that if nothing else, we will have these new collectibles to look forward to.
Images: DC Collectibles, Pop! Vinyl, Gentle Giant LTD, Entertainment Earth, Sideshow Collectibles, Egg Attack.
Stephanie Brown, a DC comics character who’s been known as The Spoiler, Robin (as in “Batman and…”), and — up until the New 52 was rolled out — Batgirl, is the featured character in a new fan film series that premiered on the interwebs this week …
Welcome to Geeking Out. This is me, geeking out. It’s pretty self explanatory.
The second season of Young Justice (subtitled Invasion) premiered this morning, and it pretty much blew my mind to useless bits of nerdy gray stuff. I thought nothing could get better than the already stellar first season, where we were introduced to the Team, a group of former sidekicks running special ops missions for the Justice League. Now that already sounds pretty bad ass right? The original team consisted of Robin (Dick Grayson), Aqualad, Kid Flash, and Superboy, with new members Artemis and Miss Martian joining shortly after.
This one I’ve been waiting for. The entire line up of the New 52 will be featured in the omnibus, and you can now own every first issue from every new series, if you don’t already. Don’t believe me? Here are 3 reasons why you need to get it:
Welcome back to the Hero Express, your one-stop sometimes SPOILER filled shop through the news filled world of superhero’s in Film, TV, Video Games and whatever else floats your boat.
Here’s a short one to lead us back in to where Scoot left off in yesterday’s Express: Andrew Kreisberg , whose work you may know fromFringe, is slated to write a pilot for SyFy based on DC hero, Booster Gold. Executive Producer Greg Berlanti will be backing the project, which fits in nicely with his previous work on Green Lanternand No Ordinary Family.
It will be interesting to see if DC can find a place for its lesser-known heroes on television, as it seems they remain unable to find a lasting home on the silver screen.
A while ago it was announced that the popular comic, Powers, was shooting a live-action pilot for FX, though it seemed initially like it wasn’t going to make it through. However, word is that FX has passed on a competing pilot and given Powers another chance, provided they can go back and do some more work on the special effects.
The comic’s writer, Brian Michael Bendis, tweeted happily about the news:
“In regard to ‘Powers’ TV: the pilot was crazy expensive and very lovely and shows incredible potential for a long series,” Bendis wrote. “The reshoots are planned for January and are all about tone and clarity. I am very proud of the pilot, as [is] [Michael Avon Oeming]. Stay tuned.”
Supposedly, according to Bendis, the process of going back to work on a pilot is not necessarily a bad sign, as FX is known to do this sort of thing. He mentioned that hit series Sons of Anarchy had to do the same.
Two sets of photos have surfaced regarding The Amazing Spider-Man production. One features an extensive gallery of the cast on set for re-shoots, which you can see here. The other is much smaller, but much more revealing:
Most exciting to see, at least for me, is Rhys Ifans‘ ugly hand up there, which looks a lot like it means Connor’s experiment was a success (Giant lizard-monster transformation notwithstanding).
And here we are with the the Hero Express segment that likely overshadows the rest of these links; welcome to Dark Knight Station. Here are some photos (The best quality the internet has of them so far) of the Empire issue dedicated to the upcoming Batman movie:
Of all the new DC titles relauching, this is the one I was most curious about. How were they gonna get Barbara Gordon out of the wheelchair and not destroy the impact of The Killing Joke? Well, I read it and I have to say, I can’t complain. It’s 3 years later and the effects of the bullet Joker put in her spine are still being felt. She is freshly out of her chair, and out of Jim’s house. The much younger Barbara is trying to get back into the swing of things as Batgirl, but remains a little rusty.
In the issue Babs is forced to deal with sadistic home invaders who like to kill the fine folks they rob. She handles them ok for the most part, but the real intrigue is the mysterious ‘man with the list’. This guy has, you guessed it – a list. And on said list are a bunch of names of people he intends to kill. Barbara Gordon’s name is on that list.
Grizzly Bomb 
