This past Sunday at the mecca for all things geek, San Diego Comic-Con, there was a Doctor Who panel which myself and Swankmotron attended. The amount of people there just for the Doctor who panel was insane! On the panel were executive producers Piers Wenger and Beth Willis, Toby Whithouse (who wrote “The Vampires of Venice”, and the upcoming episode “The God Complex”), and Matt Smith and Karen Gillan. Here are some tidbits that were given along with the Q&A with questions from the fans.

-They had a dummy ending for the season six finale and really didn’t know who River was or what until end.

The following is Swank-mo-tron’s transcription of the Q & A.

Matt:We’re truly all fans of the show, so we’re all as excited as when you watch it, especially with all the twists and turns this season.

Q: Were you fans before you got the parts?
-Karen:We didn’t watch it growing up, but we knew what it was. I’d watched a bit of it.
-Toby Whithouse:We spent all of our lives working to this moment. When I was a child, I didn’t know I was doing research for my future job. It’s so ingrained in the English consciousness and it’s massively important. It’s amazing to see it so well received here.
-Matt:It’s really exciting for us that it’s growing so much and that it’s more widely seen.It’s quite wonderful to be part of the legacy of Dr. Who, something with such history.
-Beth:We’re the luckiest people in the world coming to work every day. It’s like working in a toy store.

Toby:For a man of a certain age, writing “INT. TARDIS” is quite a thrill.
Beth:In Neil Gaiman’s script, on page 2, he wrote “INT. TARDIS” and just past that he wrote “I’ve been waiting my entire life to write that” and we kept it in every draft.

Q:Will we get resolution to the astronaut killing the doctor?
Toby: We’ll probably address that at some point. But I don’t know. You work on Doctor Who and you learn about things you don’t want to. I deliberately don’t know how it ends because I want to see the end just like you.

Q: Matt, When do we get to see new episodes?
Matt: The next episode is August 27 on BBC America

Audience Questions:
Q: (Man dresses as Dalek) Will any of his kind be featured in the new season?
One word for that: Spoilers. Not answering.

Q: 5 Doctors special? Will there be another one like it?
Toby: You’d have to ask Steven, but yeah. Why not.

Q: (Another fan dressed as a Dalek) When the Doctor’s Daughter will be coming back so he can exterminate her?
Matt: Steven Moffat question. You never know.

Q: Will the dream lord be back?
Matt: I’d love to have him back. The doctor has so much guilt and death on his hands, so I think it’s a really interesting question. I’d love to see him back.

Q: What is your favorite alien race?
-Karen: I love the sisters of plenitude. (The Cat Nuns)
-Matt: I’m into the sisters of plenitude aboslutely. But I’m into the Weeping Angels.

Q: Taking Matt out of the equation, who’s your favorite Doctor:
-Piers: Tom Baker
-Beth: Tom Baker
-Toby: Tom Baker – David Tennant
-Karen: Christopher Eccleston
-Matt: What’s so wonderful about this show is that there’s so many generations of the doctor.

Q: (From a little girl dressed as a Weeping Angel) I was wondering if the Doctor can or will regenerate into a Woman?
Beth: I think it’s possible, but it’s also up to the actor or actress who’s right at the time. Whoever is making the show at that time will make that call.

Q: Matt, How much of yourself do you put into the Doctor? And how much of the Doctor rubs off on you?
-Piers: Matt IS the Doctor. What you see on the screen is pretty bloody close to him, though he’s probably a bit less competent.
-Matt: I’m no where near as cool as the Doctor.
-Beth: The way the character has evolved, Steven evolves and writes to that. So the two come together very organically.
-Matt: I wish I was as cool as him.
-Beth: Never.
-Matt: Just like Amy Pond is way cooler than Karen.

-Karen: No, it’s true.
-Piers: Matt’s a modest guy, but he’s the first person nominated for a BAFTA for the role.

Q: What was the audition process like? When you first got there?
-Matt: Everything is Top Secret, you get the script the day before. You only get a day to look at it and do your thing. My mum kept texting me and saying “You should be the next doctor” and you go and do it and there’s a couple more people there. And I’ll never forget when I got the part and I got the call and they wanted to give me the part and it’s such a life changing thing. IT was rough.
-Piers: It was the easiest casting decision we made. The moment he walked into the room it was obvious. It was really simple. The day after we met Matt for the second time I got an email that said, “It’s him. Let’s face it, it’s always been him.”

Q: Do you much research for the science behind the show?
Toby: Yes. Um. Yes. The kind of research of a child watching Hammer horror films. It’s spacey-wacy-timey-wimey. It’s a great coverall, because I certainly don’t know what I’m talking about, science-wise. For the God Complex, I researched Greek mythology, which will make sense when you see it. It’s more research like that. You research the tone more than the science.

Q: The fez. Did that just seem like a fun line or would it be this huge thing sweeping fandom.
-Matt: That’s one of those things you have no idea about. That’s Steven Moffat to have the ingenuity. It’s actually him that makes fezzes cool. That was me actually, bleeding on to him. I kept telling him I wanted to wear a hat and he gave me the stupidest hat he could.
-Piers: And bowties?
-Matt: Bowties are cool.
-Beth: Matt did the costume. He pulled the tweed jacket out of a bag and the bowtie and I was like “noooooooo” and I went away, but it just worked.

Q: Why do you keep killing Rory?
Matt: We keep getting him back. That’s what’s important.

Q: I actually wear bowties in real life and they really are cool. Throughout this last season, you had secrets for your characters that you had from your characters, how does that work?
-Karen: It helps. My secret, I forgot.
-Matt: Steven told Karen something and she won’t tell me. But, you know, it was really interesting. It was something interesting and frustrating. That’s good. The Doctor always wants to know the most and it was interesting for this season and I hope it translated to on screen.

Q: How many sonic screwdrivers have been broken?
Matt: Phil the props guy, he’s solid gold and does a fantastic job, and I have to give credit to the crew. There’s this great box, it’s a sonic box and there’s 5 sonic screwdrivers in there and I break one a day. I’m very clumsy. And I break bits of the TARDIS quite a bit.

Q: If could crossover Doctor Who with any show other than Torchwood, what would it be?
Karen: Star Trek the next generation. I want to meet Data.
Matt: I like that The Big Bang Theory keeps referencing Doctor Who.

Q: Will we see more glimpses of the Doctor’s Dark side?
Matt: Yes. Well, I hope so. As I said earlier, there’s a lot of blood on his hands and he’s so effervescent and mad because he has to keep saving people and if he slowed down he’d go mad. He’d be losing people, like Sarah Jane and letting go and so on. And I think Steven is really interested in it to and so I think we’ll see a lot more of it.

Q: If you can choose any guest writer, who would you choose?
Matt: JJ Abrams.
Karen: Roald Dahl
Toby: Roald Dahl
Beth: That’s a good one
Piers: Russel T. Davies.

And that wrapped up the panel. Here is the trailer for the back half of series 6 that they showed us. It is chock full of Cybermen, Silence, Hitler, Weeping Angels, and is that River dressed as the eyepatch lady?

And here is the clip from episode 11, The God Complex.

https://youtu.be/N3LoZWmXEk8

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.

This week on Anime Update: news from Comic-con, a new Berserk trailer from Japan, and the recently opened Guinness World Record-breaking coaster at Japan’s Fuji-Q!

First up on this week’s update: Viz Media held a 25th anniversary party at Comic-con this weekend and had lots of announcements to share with fans. On top of the news recently shared at Anime Expo, Viz also unveiled their new and improved VizManga.com,which will now support more than just Apple digital content. In their official press release they discussed the following additions:

“With this new expansion of our existing digital platform, fans can browse and access from ANY computer or web-enabled device (Android, Blackberry, etc) the rapidly growing library of the most popular manga in the world on the VIZ Manga App for iOS devices, currently offering 40 series and over 300 volumes, including NARUTO, BLEACH, BLUE EXORCIST, VAMPIRE KNIGHT, and more! And, as before, registered users can view and access their purchased manga on VIZManga.com and through the VIZ Manga App, no matter which device or digital experience they prefer! To celebrate the launch of VIZManga.com, all Volume 1 manga titles will be 40% off through July 31st! The first chapters of all manga titles will also be available as a free preview!”

Next on this week’s update: An amazing new Berserk trailer has just appeared for the upcoming re-imagined series of animated films (originally, the manga was turned into an anime series in 1997). Part one of the upcoming films,  Berserk Golden Age Arc 1: Egg of the Supreme Ruler, is set to premier in Japan in January 2012. This film series is aiming to more closely follow the story in the manga, and director Toshiyuki Kubooka is an excellent choice for the project having extensive experience in the anime and videogame world. He has contributed his many talents to Batman: Gotham Knight, Gunbuster, Giant Robo, several of the Lunar games, and Yamato 2520.

Berserk is a fantasy epic that follows the story of a young mercenary, Guts (Gattsu); a female soldier who has suffered a difficult past, Casca (Kyasuka); and the leader of mercenary group “Band of the Hawk,” Griffith (Grifisu). The story is set in medieval Europe and forces readers/viewers to question the true meaning of humanity, and the places that ruthlessness, compassion, and death take during a violent war.

Let’s hope these new films get picked up for U.S. distribution. So far they look to be quite promising, and the animation quality is stunning.

Last on this week’s update: Fuji-Q Highland in Japan has added another amazing roller coaster to their park – this time breaking the Guinness World Record for World’s Steepest Coaster with the addition of Takashiba. Recently opened on July 16th, Takashiba is 141 feet high with a vertical fall of 121 degrees. The coaster travels up to speeds of 100 mph:

Takashiba isn’t the first amazing and mind-bending coaster to be added to Fuji-Q. Roller coaster lovers around the world travel to Fuji-Q every year to check out their cutting edge rides. Click over here to their website and you’ll see video of some of the most intense roller coasters in the world.

I leave you this week with a Japanese classic I’ve been re-watching (and enjoying tremendously) – Takeshi’s Castle aka Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. It’s great to watch in the original Japanese or the humorously re-written, dubbed English version:

https://youtu.be/SdPWfFsrgf4

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!"

AMC has debuted the official trailer for the second season of The Walking Dead at Comic-Con!

I thought the first season of this show was absolutely fantastic. The show stuck to the spirit of the popular comic book very well and what liberties were taken with the story and some of the characters worked well and made sense for the live-action series.

The trailer for the second season can be viewed below, and The Walking Dead‘s second season premiers on AMC on October 16!

Perhaps one of the most exciting things for me to see this year at Comic-Con is Steven Spielberg’s first ever appearance at the San Diego convention. He was presenting his film The Adventure’s of Tintin.

Before he was brought out, a very powerful montage of his best movies (also Hook and The Lost World) was played and he was presented with an Inkpot Award for his contributions in film. During his brief acceptance speech, he talked about how he’s still a kid inside, just like everyone else in the room an he quickly sat down and got straight into the impetus for making Tintin.

He was introduced to Tintin in 1981 when people kept comparing Raiders of the Lost Ark to Tintin and fell in love, even though the copy he got his hands on was in French.

Most of this will read as a Q and A:

Q: Where do you start with casting?

A: The way you’d cast a normal movie, finding the best actor for the part. You don’t identify with Daniel Craig, but you’ll see every nuance of his performance through the thin skin of animation.

6 years ago I asked WETA to see what it would look like to see a digital dog next to a real actor and so I commissioned a test. They sent me back this. We have that video here.

(The video showed was of Peter Jackson playing Captain Haddock, interacting with Snowy. It was a pretty impressive test.)

Then Peter Jackson showed up and joined the panel, talking about how fantastic Spielberg is. Spielberg got the rights to Tintin in 1983 and he was looking forward to Steven’s Tintin movie… for a quarter of a century. “You can imagine the mindblowing moment when Steven asked me to work on it.

Spielberg explained, “We’re both Tintin fans and that’s why we decided to collaborate on this project. We wanted the movie to look like the drawings in all the Herge albums and books. We love art so much we wanted to honor Herge to get characters as close as we could to his art.”

Jackson continued: “We also wanted to make it as much of a hybrid as animation and live action as we could. Even though we have these faces you’d never find in a real human being, that it almost looks like live action. We wanted to create a version of animation and mo-cap to let the filmmaker, Steven, to step into the virtual world. Steven could shoot the movie, but this is like a hybrid and he had a virtual camera and could step in and film it like it was a real film. This is the film Steven personally shot, he had the camera in his hands the whole time.”

Spielberg: “It was like a Playstation controller with a giant monitor in it and I could see a rough animation on the set that the actors were working on.”

He says he felt more like a painter doing this.

‘This is a much more direct to canvas art form.”

PJ asked about the Hobbit: “I’m enjoying it more than anything. I’m having a blast. Done 60 days of shooting, almost 200 to go. They’re resuming in 3 weeks. This break is enforced by Martin Freeman’s Sherlock schedule.”

Steven: “I operate on about 5 or 6 different tracks in the same direction. I find when I do more than one project at the same time, it creates clarity and I can come back and see what I can change and whatnot.”

They showed another clip from the film and to be honest, all of my worries that I had with the motion capture on this film have melted away. We saw Tintin in action with Captain Haddock, Snowy and the rest of the crew. It was cartoony enough to be believable to me, but real enough to be stunning. It was fantastic.

Then it was opened up for audience questions:

First question was asked by Andy Serkis in disguised. He asked if it’s true when Daniel Craig met Clint Eastwood he wasn’t wearing mo-cap tights…. It didn’t make much sense but everyone seemed to laugh.

Question: About Jaws, you had an idea for a scene that might have appeared in a sequel, can you share that?

SS: I don’t want to give Universal any ideas, they’d take it and make it themselves without me.

Q: How did people in your childhood affect your movies?

PJ: How much of your own child do you use to make your films? I’m totally a kid still. Everything I loved from age 6-17, train sets, movie making, Ray Harryhausen, I’m still obssessed by it. I literally haven’t had any new interests since I was 17. When I make movies I make them for the kid I was and still am.

Q: How do you compare the CGI in Beowulf to Tintin

SS: The evolution of this technology is that we can be photorealistic character where the animator can slide the face into position, but they create a musculature and nerves that reacts as we do. It’s exactly lifelike. We have evolved from The Polar Express to the Na’vi in Avatar.

Q: 6 year old asked, “What your favorite movie to make was?”

SS: The most important personal thing to me that happened where a movie was concerned, which makes it my favorite, is ET. When we finish making a movie, we’re like a family with a crew, everybody gets really close and I get to go home alone. When I got to the end of production and I didn’t want to end. I realized for the first time after that film that I wanted to have children. I have seven now, thanks to E.T.

Q: Peter, are you going to make more bloody funny movies?

PJ: I’d love to. I’m in early conceptual design things for the future. So, yeah, aboslutely.

Q: Of all the movies you’ve produced, which one would you have liked to have directed.

SS: Because the second you answer the question the director says, “My god, I didn’t know my job was in jeopardy.” But the one I gave away that I wish I directed was American Beauty. That was the one that got away, but it got away to the right director.

PJ: Tintin. But I’m really happy Steven directed it.

SS: My favorite is producing. I just hire a director and go away. And that’s what producers SHOULD do. My happiest movie producing was Bob Zemeckis’ Back to the Future movies.

Q: What keeps you inspired?

SS: You guys. If it weren’t for you, I’d stop. We cannot make the audience movies we make without the fact you guys like them and see them over again and you’re honest in your feelings about the movies. Take us to task when you feel like it. Please. It keeps us honest.

Q: Jurassic Park 4. Is it happening?

SS: We have a story I can happily announce right now. We have a writer working on a treatment. Hopefully it will be in all of our forseeable futures in the next 3 or 4 years.

Q: What made you film the Secret of the Unicorn instead of the other stories?

PJ: There are 24 Tintin adventures and they’re all different, but we wanted to start the cinematic life of Tintin with a story that brought him and Captain Haddock together. We felt that was important. It was chosen because it was a great plot and great story and we came up with ways to expand it. Also, having developed this relationship, the Secret of the Unicorn goes into his back story and that appealed to us. It just made sense.

Q: What do you think makes a great short film?

SS: I look at a lot of short films. We never had Youtube, so we had to go door to door with an 8mm projector to try to get work. I love the amount of freedom technology gives .

I look for something that isn’t a send up of someone elses stuff. You can’t just believe in movies, but what do you have to contirbute to the conversation. Yes, style, content, telling a story. It’s more than a lot of quick cuts. It’s where’s the beef.

PJ: What you’re looking for is to react to the film in a way that excites you and gives you a sense that the people behind have an ineherent understanding of storytelling. It’s there or not. Or you see a kernel of it, maybe. But the best thing is to make a short film. Over the years, so many people contact to get into the film industry and the only thing I tell them is, “well, make a film.” If you want to become a filmmaker, grab a camera and start shooting.

And then, a fellow came up to ask a question, but was wearing a shirt that read, “If possible, if I met Steven Spielberg, I’d love to shake his hand and say thank you very much.”

At that point, Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg brought him on stage, they all shook his hand and took lots of pictures and that was the end of the panel.

All in all, the movie looks stunning and it was the treat of a lifetime to see Spielberg in person.

Swank is in San Diego for Comic-Con right now hitting the pavement for BSR, covering as much as he can and bringing you the geeky goodness! The poor guy even found himself in the infamous Hall H attending the Twilight panel. Why? I don’t know. I’m just chalking it up to him most likely being drunk because like all real men out West he drinks according to the East Coast Time Zone!

But I digress . . .

As we all flock to the theaters this weekend to see the Star-Spangled Avenger smash some Red Skull with his shield we will be treated to the “real life” interpretation of Captain America’s famous get-up. No doubt we’ve all seen more than enough photos to know exactly what to expect, and most of us are more than pleased with the direction they went with his WWII-era costume. However, not all of you may know that that costume is not the one Steve Rogers will be sporting in the Avengers movie coming out next year. Cap will be getting an updated version of his red, white and blue duds – and guess what is on display at Comic-Con this weekend!

That’s right! It’s Cap’s updated uniform he will be sporting as he is thrust into the modern world and becomes an Avenger alongside Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow and Nick Fury!

Personally, I really dig it. It’s a modern take on his traditional costume without it being cheesy looking – at least in this photo. It will be very interesting to see this in action as Cap dons his modern costume in The Avengers in 2012!

UPDATED 07/25/11:

Thanks to BSR reader Joey, we now have some more high-res photos of Cap’s Avengers costume!

What do you think of the modern Captain America costume that will be featured in The Avengers? Sound off in the comments below!

Oh yeah, this is definitely news-worthy. KISS, the incredibly iconic rock group is returning to comics. While both IDW and Archie have the license to make KISS books, I wanted to focus on Archie’s effort. Archie is no stranger to off the wall crossovers, famously teaming with the Punisher and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the 90’s. And KISS is no stranger to the comics page, having some truly high concept stuff from Marvel in the 70’s and later on with Image in the 90’s. I’ll be honest though. When I first heard about this, my WTF meter kind of spiked. Then I read the book’s actual summary and now I am really jonesing to read this book.

Starting in November’s Archie #627, the four-part “Archie Meets KISS” story will be written by Alex Segura, who recently proved his writing chops over in Archie & Friends and it’ll be drawn by Dan Parent, who is in my opinion the best artist in Archie’s stable. The premise is this: One of Sabrina’s spells goes off wrong and a bunch of monsters invade Riverdale. This predicament brings the forces of the Archies and KISS together to rid the world of these foul creatures with the power of rock!

Don’t take my word for it though, here are some select quotes first, Gene Simmons himself.

“KISS has a comic book history that spans almost four decades…but it was time to do things better than ever before. What’s bigger than two different companies sharing the KISS license? Archie and IDW will tell two unique and in-your-face tales of KISS, and we’re thrilled to be working with them on these projects.”

Then from Archie Co-CEO Jon Goldwater:

“We’re ecstatic to team up with Gene, Paul and the entire KISS Army for this project. KISS is such a huge part of Americana and that goes hand-in-hand with Archie and friends. We’re honored and excited to help bring KISS back to comics in a huge way.

And while IDW hasn’t really announced their part yet Chief Creative Office at IDW, Chris Ryall had this to say:

“IDW’s KISS series will kick off in a very special way in 2012. “Having done comics with Gene Simmons for a number of years already, I’m ecstatic to now be involved fully with the ‘hottest band in the world. We’ve found a very unique way to launch our KISS comics, and have big plans for the series that we’ll be revealing soon. I look forward to bringing KISS back to comics in a huge way!”

“I think this is the first time two comic publishers have shared a license at the same time, and I’m happy that setting this precedent are Archie and IDW. We both have very different audiences and distribution methods to reach our unique audiences, as well as both of us reaching traditional comics fans, too. We’ll be able to reach all ages of the KISS Army in ways never before equaled. We’re both ready to rock and roll (all night).”

Well said, now, I wonder what we have to do to convince Archie to print the comics with authentic KISS blood?

Fans at the Star Wars Fan Film awards were offered a special treat, a glimpse at the above clip.

They are preying on my weaknesses here. These are scenes that I’ve been hoping to see moments from for the last 25 years. Like the Sandstorm! And the Wampa Attack!

At the end of the day, I’m just incredibly excited about this. You can pre-order it on Amazon right now.

I’m not even sure where to start with this evening’s Clone Wars panel. There was so much talked about and so much shown that it’s a little intimidating to figure out just what exactly it is you’d want to read about first.

I suppose I’ll take the advice of the Mad Hatter and just start at the beginning and when I get to the end I’ll stop. I’m sorry if it skips around a bit, that’s just how the panel was.

Right off the bat we were screened the trailer for Season 4 we’d all seen before. There is a battle between the Mon Calamari and the Quarren and the Jedi are helping end the conflict. The panel was introduced and we were shown a new clip, including a new character named Riff Tamson (sp?). He’s a shark looking villian, biting at people and things. He’s part of a new race called Carcadons. (Cue Jaws music and Richard Dreyfuss – “It’s a carcaradon carcharias. It’s a Great White.”)

It was also confirmed that the Mon Calamari seen so prominently in the trailer is indeed Admiral Ackbar as a young Captain. Dave Filoni related a story about how he wanted to have Anakin introduce the concept of a “trap” to Ackbar in order to make his line in Return of the Jedi even funnier, but it ended up on the cutting room floor. This entire Mon Calamari arc is going to be opening the season and it is, indeed, a multi-part arc.

When asked about something special for Kit Fisto (who was in the clip) and his appearance, Filoni remarked, “Kit doesn’t wear his shirt, so I guess that’s like a Twilight reference for you.”

We also saw planet Umbara, which is something new. We’ve seen a couple of Umbarans in Star Wars, but never their home planet. It’s a dark, dreary, misty place and fighting there doesn’t look as though it would be much fun. All indications are that this is a 4 episode arc that shows the clones fighting the Umbarans themselves, a non-Droid, humanoid enemy. This marks the first time that has happened on the show.

Next, as they talked of upgrading the character models over the course of the show, it was revealed that moving forward the clones will have all converted to the Type 2 Clone Armour, bringing them one step closer to Order 66.

The next tasty morsel dropped at the panel was about General Krell. General Krell is a Besalisk Jedi Master whom Dave Filoni described as very powerful and unconventional. You caught a glimpse of him in the trailer, he has four arms and two double-bladed lightsabers and looks exactly like Dexter Jettster. It was said that he gives the clones a lot of things to chew on, challenging their ideas.

Another clip was shown this time and it was very Artoo and Threepio-centric. In fact, this could have been the opening battle scene of A New Hope. There they are, aboard a Star Destroyer, laser blasts going off all around them, but instead of rebels defending their position, it’s stormtroopers. The role reversal was astounding. They even go looking for an escape pod. When Artoo doesn’t find one, he orchestrates for the pair of them to hijack a Y-Wing. It was a really hilarious, incredibly well-animated scene.

Another pair of scenes were shown at this point. The first was a look at the space battle over Umbara, very reminiscent of the space battle of Revenge of the Sith. It followed a pair of clones through this tremendous battle and my breath was taken.

The penultimate clip shown was Katee Sackhoff’s clip from yesterday, but Filoni added onto it by confirming that Jon Favreau was reprising his role as the leader of Deathwatch. Sackhoff plays his lieutenant. As they talked about Favreau, there was a slide show playing that clicked by totally unacknowledged, but went on as though no one noticed. It was production art, to be sure. What was interesting about it were two things in specific: 1) the imply that General Grievous is going to take Naboo apart. And, 2) Savage Oppress might very well find Darth Maul.

At this point, Team Unicorn arrived on the panel dressed as Dathomiri Nightsisters. Apropos of nothing, here they are with Ray Wise (aka Leland Palmer from Twin Peaks)

But, Filoni then showed one last clip that featured the Nightsisters. It was very rough animation and had no lighting or textures, but it seemed to be a very cool battle sequence between the Nightsisters and… The Separatist battle droids? Apparently, Count Dooku wasn’t pleased with the betrayal of his apprentice. How dare she live after he ordered her death?

During the Q and A portion of the panel, there was some pretty succint information given:

• Cad Bane will be back, along with Bossk and Boba Fett
• Joining them is Dengar!
• Han Solo will not be on The Clone Wars
• When asked if Mortis was the home of the Force, Filoni said that he had agreed not to talk about it because there are more episodes concerning the mysticism of the mythology coming
• Durge will not be on the show.

And the last thing that I found interesting was a question asked about Ahsoka.  She’s a very clever student, what would happen if she discovered Anakin’s secret marriage to Padme?  Dave Filoni seemed to think that Ahsoka (and Obi-wan) both trust Anakin enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. And that Ahsoka, even if she did find out, wouldn’t be likely to tell anyone because she likes them both too much.

That’s pretty much all the news that’s fit to print from the Clone Wars panel. I’ll be back soon with interviews with Joel Aron, Dave Filoni, and Dee Bradley Baker, and more Star Wars stuff tomorrow.

Pick up Bryan’s books Lost at the Con and Man Against the Future.