Famed composer John Williams has composed “Fanfare for Fenway” as a tribute to Boston’s Fenway Park in celebration of its 100^th anniversary.

According to the press release:

 

The piece, just over three minutes long, was recorded Saturday, March 24, at Boston’s Symphony Hall, and performed by musicians from the Boston Pops Orchestra with Williams conducting.

Maestro Williams is a loyal and passionate fan of the Red Sox and Fenway Park, and his music has had a long-time connection to the team and ballpark. A portion of the 2005 Opening Day Ring Ceremony, celebrating the first Red Sox Championship in 86 years, was set to a John Williams medley that featured the “Main Theme” from Star Wars, “Raiders March” from Indiana Jones, and the “Theme” from Jurassic Park, performed by musicians from the Boston Pops. Williams’ music was also featured prominently during the 2008 Opening Day Ceremony as players received their World Series Rings and the second World Championship banner in four years was hoisted to the composers “A Hymn To New England,” performed by the Boston Pops Brass Ensemble. That opening ceremony also featured the “Main Theme” to Superman, “Throne and End Title” from Star Wars: Episode IV, and “Raiders March” from Indiana Jones.

Williams, as indicated above, is no stranger to pieces celebrating sports, though he is most often celebrated for his memorable film scores.  His “Olympic Fanfare and Theme,” written for the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, is still heard during Olympic Games to this day.  He also composed for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, and the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.  Several of these can be found on the Summon the Heroes CD, which I heartily recommend.

He also directed the Boston Pops as they performed the National Anthem for Game One of the 2007 World Series at Fenway Park (Boston swept the Series, winning four games)¸ and he has had the honor of throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at a Red Sox game.

John Williams has demonstrated extreme flexibility and talent whether composing for events, celebrations, or films.  He has graced us with his music for over six decades, and he continues to entertain.  At the recent Academy Awards, he received two nominations for Best Original Score.  Though he did not win, being nominated twice is a clear indication of how his ability to embellish films with his music has continued to endure.

Here is the official teaser for the much anticipated 7th series of Doctor Who. Shown at the 1st official Doctor Who convention held in Cardiff this past weekend, this teaser does its job of leaving you wanting more!

In case you hadn’t heard fans of the television series “Avatar: The Last Airbender” will be happy to hear that the new television series “The Legend of Korra” is coming out in the next month. The series is set in the same world as the previous series however it takes place 70 years later after Aang has died and a new Avatar Korra is set to train all four elements. The world is really cool and it’s become a industrial world through the use bending. But the good thing is I’m not just telling you about something that will come, the first two episodes of the series are available for free online at the official fan site for the show. So go and watch the first two episodes, I’ve watched them twice and they make me incredibly excited for this show. You can find the episodes at

http://www.korranation.com/

Did you watch the episodes? What do you think?

This article contains spoilers regarding the ending of Mass Effect 3.

You have been warned.

Earlier today I wrote a post on my initial reactions to the ending of Mass Effect 3. Now, I want to dive in to the controversy, the fan reactions, BioWare’s response, and my own personal thoughts on the whole matter.

Let’s start with the fan reaction to the ending.

A few days after Mass Effect 3 hit shelves, some of the more dedicated ME fans began to voice their complaints regarding the final moments and ultimate ending to the game. They were upset, and they were vocal. As the days wore on, the ME fanbase grew more vocal as more and more people crossed the finish line of the game, and it’s safe to say “the majority” were displeased to say the least. Fans took to the internet in force, tweets were sent, Facebook posts were published, blog posts went up, communities were formed. Unfortunately, this initial outcry quickly turned nonconstructive, with one fan even filing a false advertising complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and the Better Business Bureau. To add gasoline to the fire, many video game news sites were quick to call out these fans as being a bunch of entitled crybabies.

Having not finished the game, I was of the thought that perhaps the ME fan community was overreacting. Now having finished the game, I now know what all of the frustration was about – though, still not handled in a mature and constructive way by some in my opinion. BioWare stayed relatively quiet, but standing behind their product, but eventually the fan feedback was too much to ignore. Dr. Ray Muzyka, co-founder of BioWare posted this to the BioWare blog a few days ago:

Building on their research, Exec Producer Casey Hudson and the team are hard at work on a number of game content initiatives that will help answer the questions, providing more clarity for those seeking further closure to their journey. You’ll hear more on this in April. We’re working hard to maintain the right balance between the artistic integrity of the original story while addressing the fan feedback we’ve received. This is in addition to our existing plan to continue providing new Mass Effect content and new full games, so rest assured that your journey in the Mass Effect universe can, and will, continue.

There are numerous theories out there regarding the ending to ME3. Some argue that BioWare simply didn’t know how to wrap up their epic trilogy and dropped the ball in wrapping up their story. Others say that the ending was changed after a script for the game was leaked and a few individuals rewrote the ending without input from the staff. Then there’s the prominent theory that the ending to the game was a battle taking place in Shepard’s mind as he fought the indoctrination process of the Reapers, and the evidence to support this theory is stacking up – but more on this in a moment.

In my previous post, I pointed out many of the things I found confusing and nonsensical. I could take the time to write up an entire separate post on this, but someone has already done a great job of that. After completing the game, I had so many questions and frustrations, this Google Doc does a great job breaking down what I -and I’m sure most others- feel to be all of the major inconsistencies, plot holes, and just plain problems with the ending. It’s well written, factual, and isn’t meant to be malicious or fanboy bitching. If you’ve finished the game, I suggest giving it a read.

I knew what my frustrations and points of disappointment were with the ending, but now I wanted some damn answers. I began scouring the internet and came across a gentleman by the name of Paul Tassi, who is a freelance writer for Forbes, and his numerous posts on all of this ME3 ending business, and to say he got me thinking is an understatement. On particular article, “Did the Real Mass Effect 3 Ending Go Over Everyone’s Heads?”, contains a video about 20 minutes in length, illustrating most of the evidence for the indoctrination theory.

This video, along with Tassi’s commentary (including additional commentary in later articles) started to form a narrative that made sense. Why would BioWare end such an amazing story with three basic endings (Control, Synthesize, Destroy) that took into account none of the decisions previously made by the player throughout all three games? Not to mention these endings are all essentially the same animations, just with different colored effects. There’s also the fact that the ending separates itself from the entire Mass Effect universe so greatly, it’s baffling. BioWare’s staff spent so much time developing this universe and it’s backstories -right down to a history for every single planet in the galaxy of the game- why would they end the game with a “space magic” cop out? It makes little to no sense.

Momentum is growing for this indoctrination theory, and many believe that Mass Effect 3 isn’t actually over and that the “true” ending to this game has been withheld to be released later as DLC. Afterall, in the final seconds of my play-through my Shepard is shown awakening in the rubble of London with a gasp for air. How did he end up back in London after being on the Citadel as it blew up in low orbit over Earth? The answer seems to be he was never on the Citadel and everything that took place from the moment he “awoke” from the blast from the Reaper, Harbinger, was a struggle playing out in his head to fight the indoctrination process. A fight that had to happen eventually since he has spent so much time around, in, fighting, and handling Reaper technology. I really believe the war is not yet over, and there is still a final battle to take place to ultimately save the galaxy (or not) from the Reaper-lead extinction of all life in the galaxy.

So where does this leave the fans and BioWare now? Well, there is always a chance that this ending really was intended to be the actual end to the trilogy and fans have had their voices heard, evident by the statement from BioWare’s co-founder. If this is the case, then this indoctrination theory is simply something that fans have come up with in response to their disappointment with the bookend of an otherwise amazing trilogy of games. If that’s the case though, BioWare has been presented with an exceptional opportunity to take this fan-made theory and run with it, claiming that “Yes! This was the plan all along!” If it turns out that the fans supporting this theory are right, and BioWare had this planned all along, then fans are still going to be upset, but will hopefully still get the closure they are looking for. Why will fans be upset? Because this will mean that BioWare deliberately withheld the ending of their incredibly popular Mass Effect trilogy to release it later as DLC – DLC that’s safe to assume would cost us, the fans, more money. If you bought all of the Mass Effect games at face value, bought all of the additional DLC for the two previous games, and now are “forced” to pay even more to get the “true” ending to the game you’ll have spent over $200 total for this experience. Frankly, this is a price I wouldn’t mind paying considering the quality, but to get all the way to the end and seemingly try to squeeze another few dollars from your fans is a poor decision to have made in the first place. To reference Paul Tassi again, he believes some face may be able to be saved by releasing the DLC for the actual ending to the game for free, I tend to agree, but fans will still know what the true intentions were and BioWare may lose a lot of fans for this move.

Final Thoughts

As I layed down my controller after choosing to destroy the Reapers and watched the ending moments of Mass Effect 3 play out, I was not angry. I was disappointed and frustrated. The Mass Effect trilogy is an amazing sci-fi adventure that holds up to any of the great sci-fi stories told in all mediums, and a major part of what makes this such a great video game is the fact that the story is yours. You make all of the big decisions at all of the major plot points and your decisions and story resulting from them carry over across three games and one sweeping narrative. These decisions you make will have repercussions across the entire Mass Effect universe, and to not provide the player with any sort of closure or epilogue illustrating the impacts your decisions have made is not a very fulfilling way to end such an involved story.

Personally, I know there are a lot of decisions I made throughout the game I was sure there were going to be repercussions for later on, or at least be expanded on in some sort of epilogue on how these decisions affected the universe going forward. I was disappointed to not see any of this play out, I was frustrated to think that BioWare lacked the foresight to think the players would want to have an ending to their game that somehow took into account all the decisions they made as they weaved their own story and legacy through the Mass Effect universe.

I know that the indoctrination theory could prove to be a case of disappointed fans looking for something that just isn’t there. BioWare could release some DLC expanding on the ending and take it in a direction that no one sees coming, pleasing some fans, further disappointing others. However, there is just too much evidence to support this theory for it all to be coincidental, and if it is, then I agree with my friend, and fellow BSR contributor and Mass Effect fan, Senador Kooch, when he said to me earlier today, “I’m having a hard time not believing what they did was intentional to make people think and to set the stage for DLC. If you have odds that great at accidentally being successful, you should be playing the lottery!” If the DLC that eventually comes out proves this indoctrination theory to be true, we will never really know if the folks at BioWare came up with a genius ending for their story, but made the shady decision to withhold the true ending to be released later as DLC, or if this was something that the fans made up in our heads and BioWare jumped on it as an opportunity to please the fans and give them the ending they were hoping for.

I understand there are a lot of thoughts and feelings out there when it comes to this discussion of the ending to Mass Effect, and I welcome all comments, theories, thoughts and commentary you may have on the issue. All I ask is for you to keep it civil as you sound off in the comments section below!

This article contains spoilers regarding the ending of Mass Effect 3.

You have been warned.

Last night around 9pm and after over 80 hours of gameplay, I completed the Mass Effect trilogy. Over the last few weeks I’ve been hearing rumblings regarding the ending of Mass Effect 3 and the fan outcry for it not being a fitting end to an otherwise epic trilogy. Needless to say, I have been avoiding these articles and discussions. Until now. I will follow this article later today with some thoughts and theories regarding the ending, and of course the controversy surrounding it, but first I’d like to share my experience with the ending. My thoughts, my questions, and ultimately my disappointment.

If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you have also completed Mass Effect 3 and are familiar with these final moments after regaining consciousness. To be frank, as I experienced the ending I didn’t know what to make of it, here are my thoughts as I experienced it, just as nonsensical as when I initially had them:

As my Commander Shepard battled his way through wave after wave of Reaper forces I was full of excitement. This is it, this is the climax. The final push to destroy the Reapers and save the entire galaxy. My Shepard had lost close friends, millions if not billions of people have died holding off the Reaper forces to buy time for me Shepard to unite the races of the galaxy into one unified force to take these bastards down. All of the sacrifice, all of the hard decisions had come down to this. The plan to board the Reaper-controlled Citadel had crumbled around our forces despite our best efforts, and before I knew it I had Shepard in a dead sprint towards the only access point to the Citadel as the Reaper known as Harbinger decimated the men around me. Then, the unthinkable. Shepard doesn’t make it. He is nailed by a blast from Harbinger and all goes dark…

But wait. After all he’s been through, it’s going to take more than a single grazing blast from a Reaper to take Shepard down. Out of the darkness, he comes to with the bodies of fallen soldiers all around him. This is where things begin to make less sense and follow a narrative very out of line with the previous 79 hours and 55 minutes I had spent in the Mass Effect universe, and this is where the frustration for myself and other Mass Effect fans begins.

Reports coming in over my radio are of the Alliance reporting that all soldiers running for the conduit have been wiped out – do they not see the single man limping his way towards it? The Reapers just through everything they had at us to stop us from reaching the conduit, would they not be thorough and make sure this one man, Shepard, who they are personally familiar with is dead? I dispatch of three Husks and the noble -oZo”>Maurader Shields with a pistol that has an endless clip and board the Citadel. But, I’m not alone, Admiral Anderson also made it on board. Communications from him make next to no sense; one moment it seems as if he made it onto the Citadel before me, the next it seems he was behind me. I limp my way to the control room where Anderson has already arrived. There is a weird affect on the screen, am I fighting indoctrination? The Illusive Man shows up. I argue with him, tell him he’s crazy, he forces me to shoot Anderson, I even the score by shooting him. I collapse next to Anderson, as he dies Shepard looks down at a bullet wound on himself in the exact same spot he had just shot Anderson only moments earlier. Shepard begins to fade away, but Admiral Hackett comes in over the radio.

“The Crucible isn’t working, nothing is happening.” he tells me. How does he know I made it to the Citadel? Wasn’t the Alliance just reporting that all forces trying to board were wiped out? Shepard clamors for a control console, collapses just in front, and is lifted into another room. The ghostly image of a child appears before me, begins to talk about the Reapers, what they are “actually for”, that he controls them. The Reapers wipe out all advanced organic life every “cycle” to prevent them from creating sentient synthetic races thought could wipe out all organic life if left unchecked. What the hell? The Reapers who are Synthetics themselves, controlled by this ghost child wipe out advanced organic life to prevent them from creating synthetic races that could potentially wipe out all organic life? What kind of logic is that? After more vague and contradicting explanations, the ghost child presents me with three options:

1. I become one with the Reapers and take control of them, obviously allowing me to call of their decimation of the galaxy.
2. I can jump into some green ray thing. Doing this will “synthesize” the entire galaxy, merging all organics and synthetics into a single type of “DNA”.
3. I can use the Crucible as I originally intended and destroy all current synthetic life, including the Reapers and my Geth allies. But this comes with a warning that the peace that I have brokered between all races to fight against the Reaper threat will not last and there is still the possibility of synthetic life once again being created that could wipe out all organic life.

I paused the game and thought for a moment. The first two options seem fishy, and really don’t make a lot of sense. Fuck this, and fuck the Reapers. I blow them all to hell. It’s what I’ve been working towards, it was my mission. I don’t want to control the Reapers, I don’t want to merge synthetic and organic DNA (however the hell that’s supposed to work). I want the Reapers dead.

I make my choice. Red space magic envelops the planet, destroying all of the Reapers. The red mist then shoots into the local Mass Relay and the red space magic mist stuff shoots off to all other Relays across the galaxy, destroying them in their wake. I’m also presented with a scene of Joker piloting the Normandy to God-knows-where, with my entire crew on board some how. They crash on some planet, get out, smile. The final scene is that of rubble in London where the final battle took place. Here lays the body of Commander Shepard, he takes a gasping breath, credits roll.

I sat staring at my television. What the hell just happened? I’m not angry, I’m frustrated and disappointed. Up until these final moments BioWare had threaded a story and a universe together that was enthralling, epic, and emotional – did they really drop the ball with a bookend to their story full of nonsensical space magic conclusions? Are none of the major decisions I’ve made during the course of the story going to be addressed in some sort of epilogue?

At this point I began frantically texting Senador Kooch about the ending who had just finished the day prior. I spent the next several hours texting with him discussing the ending and scouring the internet on others’ thoughts, theories, and the possibility that this was not truly the end, but instead just an event that will lead to a more logical conclusion in future DLC. Would BioWare actually do this? Would they withhold the end of a game and release it as DLC?

I’ll be back later today to discuss the theories out there, and share my thoughts on whether or not I believe BioWare just fumbled the ball at the one yard line, or if this “ending” was some sort of hallucination and battle that took place in Shepard’s head and the real ending has yet to come.

In the mean time, feel free to share your own experiences with the ending of Mass Effect 3 in the comments below!

UPDATE: I have posted the article discussing the controversy with my own thoughts and opinions on the matter. You can check that out here.

Another year, another Madden, another cover athlete to be cursed. (My thoughts are in italics.)

-The information from the Official Press Release is dated 3/21/2012-

Electronic Arts Inc. and ESPN announced today the 32 fan-selected NFL players who will advance in the EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 13 Cover Vote.  The announcement follows a two week play-in round, during which time fans voted between two teammates in matchups for each NFL team on the SportsNation Facebook page.  Today, winners from each matchup moved on to the official cover vote bracket.  Fans can vote for their favorite cover athlete candidate from their computer or mobile phones at ESPN.com/MaddenVote through April 25.

To kick off the Madden NFL 13 Cover Vote bracket debate, a SportsNation “Madden Cover Vote Special” will air tonight on ESPN 2 from 6-7 p.m. ET.  Every Wednesday throughout the campaign, fans can tune in to SportsNation at 5 p.m. ET for an in-depth discussion about the latest voting results and to see which players have advanced to the next round. The tournament will culminate with the reveal of the Madden NFL 13 cover athlete on SportsNation on April 25, the night before the 2012 NFL Draft.

The results of the Madden NFL 13 Cover Vote play-in round are:

*Entered the Madden NFL 13 Cover Vote play-in round representing the St. Louis Rams.

So, The Rams don’t get any representation here and the Patriots get two players. The same now has to be done with Tebow moving to the Jets and Denver getting no athlete in the polling. Polamalu, Fitzgerald, and Brees have all already been on the cover guys, they’re not going to be on there again. Way to waste your votes. Personally, I’d like to see Jared Allen, The Gronk, Ray Rice, or Megatron on there.   However, if that curse is real, I’d really like to see anyone from the Jets or Giants. Frickin’ Giants.

We’ve already had a cover with more than one athlete, why don’t we just have all of them on the cover?

Contact me, EA.

Among the 32 players are past Super Bowl winners including Victor Cruz and Aaron Rodgers; perennial Pro Bowl players Larry Fitzgerald and Drew Brees; and some of the most dominant players in the NFL such as Troy Polamalu and Jared Allen.  During the first ever play-in round, fan voting resulted in upsets like LeSean McCoy surpassing Michael Vick who was a finalist in last year’s award-winning Madden NFL 12 Cover Vote competition.

“Every football fan has an opinion on who should be on the Madden NFL cover, which was highly visible given the overwhelming response and debate that ensued during last year’s campaign. We’re proud to once again put the fate of the game’s cover in our fans’ hands and let them decide who is worthy of becoming the Madden NFL 13 cover athlete,” said director of marketing Anthony Stevenson. “Our collaboration with ESPN and SportsNation helped elevate the campaign to new heights last year and we’re thrilled to team up again on this award-winning program.”

“Sports fans are embracing the new structure of the Madden NFL 13 cover vote and the response has been tremendous for the play-in round, which gives each team’s fans an increased voice in the player selected for the vote,” said Jamie Horowitz, Vice President, Original Programming and Production, ESPN.  “SportsNation has the most engaged social audience across the ESPN network, and enabling them to share their votes across Facebook was an ideal way to tap into some of football’s most passionate fans.”

The Madden NFL 13 cover vote marks the third-consecutive year that EA SPORTS has asked fans to help shape the face of the Madden NFL franchise through a cover athlete voting campaign.  It also marks the second year of its collaboration with ESPN and SportsNation.  Last year, nearly 13 million votes were logged through ESPNSportsNation.com online and via the mobile web, the most ever for an ESPN cross-platform activation, which witnessed 10^th seeded Peyton Hillis (Browns, RB) winning the honor to grace the cover of Madden NFL 12.

To ensure their favorite player advances to the next round of this year’s competition, fans are encouraged to vote daily and tweet their picks using #MyMaddenCoverVote on Twitter. Beginning March 22 at 9:00 a.m. ET, fans can also visit the Madden NFL Facebook page to fill out their own Madden NFL 13 cover athlete bracket to compete against their friends for the chance to win Super Bowl tickets and copies of Madden NFL 13. Visit www.facebook.com/EASPORTSMaddenNFL for Official Rules.

In this month’s episode, we learn that Cookies are an “Always” food, Zombies bad-Condoms good, and We’ve Got Cabin Fever! We discuss a ton of stuff including the upcoming Hunger Games excitement, Muppets and some awesome video game news, too. Our listener questions prompted some interesting discussion, so be sure to enjoy that part and keep the great questions coming!

Listen here or go get it on iTunes! (We’re under the Big Shiny Robot’s Podcast feed)

Enjoy, and please remember to share your questions and comments with us here on the site or over on our Twitter page and Facebook page!

This first appeared in The Huffington Post.

I’m constantly reading three or four books at a time, and I made the mistake of trying to read The Hunger Games alongside a book by Umberto Eco and another by Graham Greene. To say the writing style wasn’t very good beside those two was an understatement. I made it three or four chapters, interested in the story, but the writing left me wanting more. Eventually it simply fell by the wayside, waiting for me to revisit it.

I’m still planning on revisiting it at some point. I want to.

After seeing the movie, I think I have to, if nothing else so I can read the next two installments of the series.

I just wanted to get that out there so people reading this know where I’m coming from as far as the faithfulness of the adaptation is concerned. It all matched what I read, but I hadn’t read very much.

As for the movie itself, I’m very pleased to report that the movie is very good. The filmmaking that went into making the movie was much better than the writing that went into the novel.

The movie, as the book does, begins with Katniss Everdeen on the day of the Reaping, and follows her story through the constant government manipulation of The Hunger Games. Jennifer Lawrence brings the character to life vividly, giving us her internal monologue without having to say a word. There is no narration of her thoughts, but her performance is so strong there doesn’t need to be.

In fact, there’s not a performance I can point to that felt out of place (with the exception of Donald Sutherland as the president, but we’ll talk about that in a minute). Looking at trailers for the film, I was convinced Woody Harrelson was going to gnaw through the scenery, as distracting as a goat eating the set in the background, but his character, Haymitch Abernathy, was much more complex than his limited screen time would imply. Though their costumes bordered on distracting, Stanley Tucci and Elizabeth Banks (as Caesar Flickerman and Effie Trinket, respectively) brought a much needed big city contrast to the bland lives of the denizens of District 12. Even Lenny Kravitz, who I would have assumed to be distracting, felt right for his part.

For his part, Donald Sutherland was fine as the president, adding an air of menace, but the reason he felt out of place was because he was a villain who had no plan and did nothing but twirl his mustache. When the film ended, I was left with the feeling that I was missing something. Imagine how unsatisfied you’d feel if Star Wars had ended with Luke and Han getting Princess Leia off the Death Star and the movie just ended there before they could go back and blow it up. I understand there are more books coming, and this film telegraphed the plot of the next one so completely that I shouldn’t be surprised, but it still felt odd and out of place.

And, to be honest, the odd structure was my only complaint with an otherwise well-made film. The emotional climax comes right in the middle of the movie and, even though it was blatantly and repeatedly telegraphed from the beginning, it had a significant punch, eliciting more than a tear or two from me. But nothing got bigger or better than that. The movie peaked in the middle, the consequences of that peak causing a riot in District 11 toward the overthrow of the government, and then the film went strictly by the numbers from that point.

Sadly, there’s too much of a reverence to the source material filmmakers have for films of this sort that seems to render them incapable of fixing major mistakes in order to make a better film. (Which is why fans of the books rarely seem to understand why Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabanis hands down the best film in the Harry Potter franchise.)

Other than that one minor complaint, I thought this film was incredible. It invested me wholly and is forcing a desire to read the books.

Is this the best movie I’ve seen this year so far? No. That honor still belongs to John Carter (which if you don’t already have tickets for The Hunger Games, you should this weekend while you wait for the crowds to die down). But it’s still a very excellent film.

Will I see the next one? Absolutely. And I will come having read the source material this time. I’m a fan, now, and nothing is going to stop that.

I saw it with my 9-year-old son and he loved it as well, winning over the kid vote. I’m not sure I’d bring my 8 -year-old daughter, though. Not because there was anything too graphic or intense, but because I don’t think that mid-film emotional climax would sit well with her particular personality. It’s not exactly fun for the whole family, but for most of the family it’s just right: challenging, thrilling, intense and well-made.

Bryan Young is the editor-in-chief of geek news site Big Shiny Robot and the author of “Man Against the Future.”

Walt Simonson is one of my favorite writers and artists ever and to see him still doing top-notch work on books I want to read makes me very happy.

Here is a first look at his work on Avengers #25 with Brian Michael Bendis, which is an Avengers Vs. X-Men tie in.

From the press release:

Marvel is proud to present your first look at, Avengers #25, an explosive tie-in to the hotly-anticipated blockbuster event of the year – Avengers VS. X-Men! From superstar writer Brian Michael Bendis & legendary artist Walter Simonson; Captain America has declared war on The X-Men! The impending doom of the Phoenix Force lurks ever closer; forcing The Avengers to suit up and join the battle to save the Earth! But, which Avengers will follow Captain America to the front lines? Find out in Simonson’s epic return to Marvel with Avengers #25, hitting comic shops everywhere and the Marvel Comics app, this April!

You’ve heard It’s Coming—and this April The War Is Here in Avengers VS X-Men! All your favorite super heroes enter—and only one team will emerge victorious!

Which team will reign supreme? Join the conversation on Twitter with #AvX!

For more on Avengers VS. X-Men, please visit http://avx.marvel.com

I really love this show and I’m glad to see that it’s continuing. I can’t wait to see more episodes.

From the press release:

Assemble!! Marvel’s The Avengers hits the big screen May 4… But in the meantime, get your hero fix with Marvel TV’s trailer for season 2 of The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, premiering April 1 inside Marvel Universe on Disney XD! The Avengers have fought against some of the most powerful and dangerous super villains in the world. But just when the team thought they had things under control, new threats emerge… Caught in the crossfire between two warring alien empires — Earth’s Mightiest Heroes must make a stand. But whom can they trust when they learn not everyone is who they seem to be?

Tune in for The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes season two premiere, along with the series premiere of Ultimate Spider-Man inside Marvel Universe on Disney XD April 1 beginning at 11am/10c