Go to any comic/gaming/sci-fi convention and you’ll see a multitude of people dressed up as characters from their favorite nerd related media. This year’s Comic-Con in San Diego was no exception. Here are the pictures I took this year of those dedicated individuals who are the true stars of the con!

Hey! We’re finally at the end of the road for “Captain America”! It’s been an interesting ride to be sure, and it’s been fun sharing it with all of you. That being said, if you enjoyed watching the serial in, well, serialized form let your voice be heard! I have enough serials to keep this column going for at least a few years! Let me know what you’d like to see! We could share the various adventures of a downright violent Captain Marvel, find out the origins of the Misfits skull logo with The Crimson Ghost, or witness the trouncing of gangland by Dick Tracy! The serials are full of fun and history, and I want to share as much as I’m able! Until then though, let’s watch how Cap’s adventure comes to a close with Chapter 15: The Toll of Doom!

For our final supplement, I have a Return of Captain America lobby card for this chapter. It’s nothing spectacular, I know, but it is better than a glorified screenshot. Stay tuned for when Movie Serial Saturday returns with… something. I haven’t made my mind yet. Anyway, enjoy!

This first appeared on The Huffington Post.

With the release of the incredibly well-put together, amazing, thrilling Captain America movie, I think it’s time to take a look at one of the unsung heroes of the character. Joe Simon created Captain America (along with Jack Kirby) and he’s a living legend. Not many people remember his name since it was Stan Lee (another living legend) who revitalized the character in the 60s, again with Jack Kirby.

He released his autobiography this year (Joe Simon: My Life in Comics) and I have to say after reading it you get the feeling that comics today would not be the same without Joe Simon.

Penned without the aid of an assistant or ghostwriter and looking back on a long, eventful life, Simon’s memory is lucid and his writing is crisp and engaging. He starts at the beginning, working in newsrooms for Hearst papers, learning the skills that would make him a legend as a writer, designer, and illustrator. The book reads very much like a non-fiction version of Michael Chabon’s masterpiece The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It has wonderful anecdotes about working in newsrooms of the era, and even then they were expecting imminent doom for the newspaper industry, wondering how much longer it could possibly last.

Captain America is probably his best known creation, though he revolutionized comics in every genre, having his biggest successes at the time with romance and satire comics. In an interview for Big Shiny Robot!, Simon talked of his time creating the most successful comics ever made:

I’m especially proud of having created the romance comics, the most successful line of comics ever produced-each issue of Young Romance and Young Love sold a million copies and up. Those titles took a smaller publisher, Prize Comics, and gave them a huge hit. We were sitting on top with the big boys inside of a year, and they were stealing our ideas in an attempt to copy our success. Jack and I were on the way to see my wife in the hospital, where she had just given birth to our first child. We stopped in a candy store to pick up a card and saw a cluster of girls crowding around the comic book rack for the very first issue of Young Romance. That was when we knew we had a hit. We loved all of the different genres in which we worked, but the romance books hold a special place for me. It’s a shame that so much of the diversity we once had in comics has practically disappeared.

The book takes you through all of the highs and lows — through his storied career with hilarious and heartwarming anecdotes all the way through. It’s almost bizarre reading a book about comics before Stan Lee’s time, and to see stories told of him as this snot-nosed kid who came into the office because of a relative of someone who worked there, and Joe Simon gave him his first writing job. The book flows naturally from the dawn of comics, through the golden age and silver age. Anyone who loves the medium of comics would do well to read this tome, it should be listed as one of the definitive history books on the subject.

As a creative professional, Simon’s life is incredibly inspiring. He spent his life doing what he wanted, plying his art, and making a business out of it. He worked tirelessly, even in the old days, for the rights of creators, even if it bit him in the ass sometimes. And you’ll love reading about his misadventures during World War II.

If you enjoyed the Captain America film then you owe it to yourself to learn more about the man behind it, and Joe Simon is about as fascinating as they come. And the easiest way to do it is to read about it in his own words, do yourself a favor and pick up Joe Simon: My Life in Comics. You won’t regret it.

Bryan Young is the editor of the geek news site Big Shiny Robot! and author of Lost at the Con.

Until someone bootlegs it this is about all we are getting of The Avengers Teaser but it’s still enough to make me excited. If you haven’t seen Captain America this is a HUGE SPOILER. Otherwise enjoy

Thanks to http://www.slashfilm.com/

Today’s featured origin is an interesting one, and probably can use a bit of setup. Captain America was of course created in the early 1940’s by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, he fought in WWII and all of that fun stuff. Eventually super-heroes fell out of favor and Captain America sort of went away for a while. Then, in the mid-50’s Stan Lee decided the time was ripe to bring Cap back to fight the “Red Menace”, but it didn’t take and Cap went away again. Lee decided to resurrect Cap again in the 60’s at the dawn of the Marvel Universe. This time it stuck, but there was a problem. Lee gave the in-story reason for Cap’s absence since the war due to the whole “frozen in a block of ice” thing. Because of this, there was no explanation for Cap’s 1950’s commie smashing adventures. Then in the early 70’s Steve Englehart came along and came upon an idea that fit those stories back into continuity without negating any of Stan’s stories. If he were a fan, Englehart would have won the ultimate No-Prize, but instead we got… The Secret Origin of the 1950’s Captain America!

As our tale begins, caption boxes nicely set the scene: Steve (Captain America) Rogers and Sharon (Agent 13/Cap’s girlfriend) Carter are vacationing in the Bahamas, unaware that two madmen calling themselves Captain America and Bucky are out to kill them! Cap and Sharon are oblivious to this fact for the time being, and they have some beach fun, until Steve catches a glimpse of a boy who looks amazingly like his former partner, Bucky! Cap gives chase. He can’t be sure the boy was Bucky, but he has to make sure, even though “Bucky looked like a lot of boys”. Sadly for Cap, but not for the story, Steve is ambushed by a flurry of fists, and we find that his attackers are of course the impostors mentioned before.

Oh Buck, what an unfortunate turn of phrase...

With Cap subdued, “Fake Cap” says all that’s left is to capture Sharon. He switches outfits to dupe Sharon, but the lady is a smart cookie and knows something is up. You see, her Cap has a bit of a sunburn from going shirtless in the Bahamas for so long. Sharon turns tail and flees. Ersatz Cap and Bucky are in hot pursuit, and things aren’t looking good for her, as she is about to be caught. Just as hope seems lost, fate (or the Falcon) intervenes! He initiates a stand-off, Sharon gets him up to speed, which causes Falcon to launch into a rage. Fake Cap recovers from Falc’s initial attack to shout some racial epithets and implies that Sharon and Falcon are Russian agents. Falcon is fed up with the bigotry of Fake Cap (they had words last issue, apparently) and calls upon his partner to deal with it, and Redwing, the Falcon’s, um falcon rakes his claws on Fakecap’s back. The evil Cap recovers and spouts more hate-speech.  Falcon says what everyone else is thinking and Fakecap replies in such a way that makes it really hard to take him seriously.

America, the exact opposite of Hitler!

The fight continues, but Fakecap is full of rage at being called “A Hitler” so he channels said rage… by beating a black man and a woman into submission. Very un-Hitler-like indeed. Once everyone has regained consciousness, Fakecap (now in full costume), reveals why he went to the trouble of capturing them all: So he could have a captive audience for his origin story! He then introduces himself as the Captain America of the 1950’s and turns on the flashback machine (not literally)! You see he was 11 in 1941 when Captain America came on the scene, and the young lad was enraptured. His world came crashing down when he read the news of Cap’s apparent death. Instead of being overcome by grief with the death of his hero, the boy decided to make it his life’s work to study Captain America’s life, in essence, he was the ultimate fanboy. As the years passed, the young man graduated summa cum laude in American History, writing his thesis on Captain America, because in the Marvel Universe, you could get away with that. It wasn’t enough though! Sure, the guy knew everything there was to know about Cap from the American perspective, but what did the Nazis think about the Star-Spangled Avenger? It turns out they didn’t like him. On a trip to Germany, the young man is poring over many volumes of text, most untouched for years, when he makes a startling discovery!

"But if I become Cap, I'll have to shave my awesome mustache! The toughest decision of my life!"

Of course the young man takes his finding directly to Washington, because a nameless guy with an encyclopedic knowledge of Captain America apparently has that kind of access. The government suits decide it’s a good idea seeing as the Korean War is going on and they could use a Sentinel of Liberty. They want to hand-pick someone to be their super-soldier though, but ‘ol Fakecap won’t give them the formula unless he gets to be Captain America. The government must have been desperate for a super-solider, because they agree to these insane terms. After some tests on monkeys (because why not?), our nameless “hero” is ready to undergo the process himself, but not before a makeover…

-- Dance Lessons!

It wasn’t to be though. As soon as Fakecap is ready for his injection, the government gets cold feet, because the war has ended, so why bother? Fakecap is pretty PO’ed about this, but goes with it, seeing as you know, he’s not about to defy his government… yet. As it is, he is a little on the odd side. He decides to legally change his name to Steve Rogers and becomes a teacher. Life seemingly goes on until he comes across one of his young charges that is as big a fan of Captain America as he is.

Fanboys unite!

So you’d think sharing his sordid tale would ease “Steve’s” burden. This Bucky is a bit of an enabler though. “Bucky” keeps egging “Steve” to don the costume he made and take on the commies. “Steve” insists that he can’t because the Soviets would take that as a personal affront or somesuch. It isn’t until the twosome hear on the radio that the Red Skull has returned that “Steve” finally gives in. While “Steve” is still unsure about this course of action, he decides that this is fate. He offers to give “Bucky” an injection as well, to which the youngster is super-enthusiastic about. Their destiny lies ahead, so it’s time to shoot up!

You always have all the answers, Bucky. What's your answer to that? Captain America... is a JUNKIE!?

And so America’s Fighting Force is reborn! They easily topple the Red Skull (who isn’t REALLY the Red Skull, but that’s a whole other story), and go on to smash commies left and right! All is not well though, it seems that as time passes, Cap and Bucky start seeing communists everywhere (much like America itself– zing!) When the star-spangled duo start seeing Reds in Harlem and Watts though, it’s apparent to the higher-ups in the government that things have gone very wrong. The government bigwigs try to talk them down, going in for treatments, that sort of thing. “Captain America” isn’t really receptive to this though, so drastic measures are taken.

"Yes, lets keep them alive so they can menace us in the future!"

And so, because the government never learns from their mistakes, the two were freed in the 70’s. The catalyst? Richard Nixon’s trip to China. Their emancipator was afraid that America was about to be swallowed in a Red Tide, so not only did he let them out, he told them about the real Captain America, saying that he was a poseur. Now back in the present day, Fakecap is smug about his capture of who he thinks of as his successor rather than his predecessor. It’d be deliciously ironic if it wasn’t so tragic.  Falcon continues to be ballsy and calls out Fakecap as a loser. Why? Well, have a look!

"Now where's my Joker toxin? Oh wait..."

Not to take you out of the story, but I wanted to make an interesting observation here. Both the Captain America of the 1950’s and the Captain America from the movie serial lack stripes on the back of the costume. Both are also not the real Cap. Coincidence? Probably, but it’s still interesting. Anyway, Falcon’s gambit paid off. His tirade caused Fakecap to run off in a huff, giving the real Captain America a chance to free himself and the others. Now knowing the full scope of Fakecap’s madness, Steve Rogers vows to take him down, because as he says “It’s not his fault he’s dangerous, but that doesn’t make him any less malignant!” Now this is where the issue ends, but I didn’t want to end the column there without finishing the story. I’ll be back with part two of the 50’s Cap saga… right now!

As it turns out, Falcon, Sharon and Cap were aboard a plane after their capture. They wisely decide to bide their time until landing. As soon as they get back to U.S. soil it is, as they say, on. Cap takes the fight to his captors and is so clearly the superior fighter than Fakecap resorts to using a gun. He blows a hole in the side of the plane and the fight kind of comes full circle on the beach.

Ironically, ersatz Cap's shield was made in China.

A Coast Guard cutter happens to be off shore and orders the Caps to knock it off, but like that’s going to happen, this is a Bronze Age Marvel comic! Fakecap’s atom gun misfires and ends up putting a massive hole in the cutter as well. Cap is galvanized by this, and disarms his foe. Fakecap and Fakebuck know they aren’t on the winning side of this battle so they scurry away, but not before challenging Cap to a rematch. In the interlude, Cap, Falcon and Sharon save the members of the Coast Guard and inform the local authorities to the trouble. Cap intends to face his impostor one-on-one, but his partners nix that idea, reminding Cap that with the fake Bucky it’s wouldn’t be mano-a-mano anyway. The trio make their way to the appointed rendezvous with fisticuffs, but before they can reach their destination, “Bucky” ambushes them. His job is to distract Sharon and Falcon so the Caps can indeed duke it out without any interference. I could go on about the fight between a super-powered Bucky and our two protagonists, but suffice it to say “Bucky” lets out more epithets, pisses our heroes off and they end up using the power of teamwork to lay him out in a spectacular way.

Fisttodaface!

With “Bucky” laid out, It’s time for some Cap on Cap action! As they fight, the two Steve Rogers talk about their ideals and how Fakecap is twisted by his tainted super-soldier serum. Now, if you think that Cap was able to reason with Fakecap, you’d be very wrong. All of the things “our” Cap tells Fakecap just further incense him. It isn’t until our Captain America reveals that he is indeed the original that Fakecap truly goes off the deep end.

"I love you, so I must KILL you!"

With that, Cap has actually won the battle. The overwhelming madness has made Fakecap lash out blindly and Cap takes him out with one mighty fist of justice! While the battle is won, Cap can’t help but feel down. You see, if he had gotten the same dose of the serum that Fakecap got, he very well could have gone down the same mad path, albeit he’d be obsessed with goosesteppers and not pinkos. So the story closes on a somber note…

Puny Humans never leave Cap alone.. Oh wait, wrong hero.

That isn’t the end of Fakecap’s story though. In later years, he was revived as the “Grand Director”, a true villain, albeit a mind-controlled one. Recently, he was used to great effect in the pages of Ed Brubaker’s Captain America, where his real name was finally revealed as William Burnside, although he’s as crazy as ever. I personally think it’s really cool that what was originally a Stan Lee afterthought could be turned into such an interesting story in the hands of clever writers. That’s all for this week, why not hit the theater and see the real Captain America in action on the big screen?

This story originally appeared in Captain America #155-156, reprinted in Essential Captain America Volume 3.

I was talking to a friend recently, about Captain America and his role in the movies. Can you believe with the new flick by Marvel Studios, the star-spangled avenger has had a total of five live action movies? Sure, they are all critically panned, but it really speaks to the enduring nature of the concept that so many attempts have been made over the years. Early word is that the new Chris Evans film is excellent, but of course this film here is where it all began. I am proud to be able to share it with all of you! So, let’s all gear up for the penultimate chapter of Captain America: The Scarab Strikes!

I don’t have any supplemental stuff for Chapter 14, but I do have one last higher res screenshot, so it’s better than nothing, right? In any case, get out there and watch the new Captain America, in theaters now. I can practically guarantee that the adaptation will be better than this one!

"Well, *I* believe you're innocent. However my partner, Mr. Gun, disagrees with me!"

It’s been really super-crazy the way comic book movie teasers have been leaking the last few days, hasn’t it? Well, we’ve got another one for you today, I’m not sure which movie this trailer is attached to (one would assume Captain America), but it’s pretty long for a first trailer, clocking in at about two and a half minutes. Have a look at the muffled, slightly shaky footage and I’ll share some thoughts after ward.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWP8TdXdFZg

So, the first obvious thought is: Really? You’re going to tell the origin again? Why? the Raimi movies aren’t that old, everyone and his uncle knows how Spidey got his abilities. If they’re tying it into Curt Connor’s story, or to explain mechanical web-shooters I guess it’s justified, but it shouldn’t take more than 5-10 minutes tops.

Also, we’re actually going to get a glimpse into Peter’s parents? That’s pretty cool. Too bad that Spider-Man is kind of off to the side with other Marvel movies, because using the “Red Skull killed Richard and Mary Parker” would be a cool way to tie them together.

Gwen is brainy Gwen. That’s cool, I suppose.

I know Spider-Man can be a brooding character, but he can also be fun-loving and bombastic. The Raimi movies barely had the type of Spidey-brand humor that I’m talking about, and it seems this one is going to follow suit.

The end sequence is admittedly cool. It’s like an FPS (First-Person-Spidey)! It also is a good way to convey Spider-Man’s moveset without the CGI looking super-fake.

The bottom line of course is that I love Spider-Man and I’ll watch this movie regardless of the quality, but if anything else, I am more cautiously optimistic rather than gung-ho over this movie now.  Who knows? Maybe when it’s officially released, it’ll wow me a bit more. Until then though…

UPDATE: Of course we’ve got the officially released trailer now.

Lucky Chapter 13 at last. Well, maybe not so lucky for District Attorney Grant Gardner! OK, OK, we all know the man who in this reality is really Captain America will survive, so instead I want to point out something that I noticed about this whole sequence. You’ve got your exciting car chase, right? Turns and swerves everywhere, the bad guys are firing on Grant, but still able to focus on the road. Grant returns fire, but the way he does it is just kind of screams badass. All he does is use the door frame as an armrest, and just casually fires back. It’s like he knows he’s got the upper hand, cliffhanger or not, cause he is (ersatz) Captain America, dammit! Anyway, on that note, let’s watch Chapter 13: Skyscraper Plunge!

I took a different tack with the supplement this week. I had a super-small image of a Captain America poster I’ve never seen anywhere else, but with the size of it, the quality was laughable at best. So this week, I did a vector recreation of said poster. It’s missing some fine details, but I am generally satisfied with how it turned out, and I hope you are too. Until next week, bust up some Ratzis with war bonds and stamps!

If you’ve been following us at BSR you’ll know we’re big fans of Pinball FX2. If this is your first time, Pinball FX2 is a realistic pinball gaming system for the XBOX marketplace. You can download tables on the system and play them much like normal pinball tables. Each table is between 200 and 250 points so they’re quite affordable.

But now we have here the newest table Captain America, and this one may be my highest recommend for first timers. This table is probably the best mix of difficulty and challenge I’ve seen on any of the tables so far. It’s a smaller table but it’s more compact then others, there are so many different missions and side quests to do that you’re always busy and everything gives you decent scores. Probably my favorite feature is that nothing is lost when you lose a ball, if you got kickbacks they’re still there, and also the game rewards you for how much of a mission you did. For instance if a mission ends up giving you 14 million points in total and you happen to lose the mission halfway through, you’ll gain 7 million points and then when you reenter the mission you’ll start from where you last left off. On other tables I would feel major pressure right when I was at the end of a mission cause if I failed then I would have to start all over, but this table is helping me keep my cool the whole time. This is the major reason why I think this is a good table for beginners. It’s also a pretty high scoring tables which will make you feel awesome and thus be able to play better as well. My other favorite thing is The Cosmic Cube. The Cosmic Cube is located in the middle of table and when you’re able to hit it, it helps you with whatever current quest you are on as well as giving you a decent amount of points. So if you find yourself really stuck, get the Cosmic Cube out and it’ll help you on your way.

The story line elements are pretty good too. You’ve got a bunch of sidekicks to choose from including Bucky and the Howling Commandos like Dum Dum Dugan. There’s a way in which you can play as each character and they each give you special abilities. The villains are Red Skull and my personal favorite Baron Zemo. The whole of the story takes place during World War 2.

I highly recommend this table, I became good at the game recently and went back and bought all the tables I didn’t have previously, and though this isn’t my highest scoring table it’s near the top and it’s one in which I feel more accomplished in getting a high score then any other. Within about half an hour I had gotten up to about 50 Million and finally ended up getting to 95 Million points. So it’s a very fun table and I highly recommend it, especially to those who have yet to check out Pinball FX2 because it really is a good starting level.

Marvel is giving a look at the relaunch of Ultimate X-Men. The title originally ended in a pretty lackluster way in the wake of Jeph Loeb’s less than stellar Ultimatum. I’m going to pick this up because, for the most part, I love the Ultimate Universe and this doesn’t look bad to me. And I love what Bendis did with Kitty Pryde and Bobby Drake.

Marvel is pleased to present your first look at Ultimate Comics X-Men #1, from rising stars Nick Spencer & Paco Medina! Iceman, Kitty Pride and the Human Torch discover the true history of the x-gene as the divide between Mankind and Mutantkind grows deeper than ever before! Who are the X-Men and how will they handle the fallout of this universe shattering discovery? Find out in Ultimate Comics X-Men #1 this September, as Ultimate Comics Universe Reborn continues!

ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN #1 (JUL110608)
Written by NICK SPENCER
Art by PACO MEDINA
Cover by KAARE ANDREWS (POLYBAGGED)
Variant Cover by PACO MEDINA
Rated T+ …$3.99
FOC – 08/22/11, ON SALE – 09/14/11