NOPE.

Intermission: “Let’s Watch Another ‘Man of Steel’ Trailer.”

As you might have read previously, I wrote a book and it’s coming out soon through the fine folks at Fangamer.net. I still unfortunately don’t have a set date date of publication to announce, but I can now officially reveal that we’ll be publishing it under the title “SUPER MARIO BROS. 3: BRICK-BY-BRICK”, and here on your right you can see the cover-art (UPDATE: Now without unnecessary hyphens) that the fine folks at Fangamer put together for it.

The basic premise is a “novelized let’s-play.” I’ve re-played SMB3 (my favorite game and my unscientifically-chosen candidate Greatest Game Ever Made) and chronicled not only every step of the journey (along with corresponding noteworthy events of my real life during the months-long experience) but analyzed each and every graphical, sound and narrative element encountered along the journey for their aesthetic, historical and cultural details. Also included: A history of the “Super Mario Bros.” franchise and a separate account of my own personal history as a fan, student and critic of this series in particular and video games as a whole.

More details to follow, and YES we’re planning an E-Book. Stay tuned.

Below the jump (in case this turns out to be some kind of spoiler) are three frames of footage taken from approximately the 2:06 – 2:07 mark of the new “Man of Steel” trailer that seem to show Superman in combat with… something…

(POSSIBLE SPOILERS!)

So! Big swirly vortex, what look very much like tentacles or tendrils of some kind, possibly a glowing “eye” or orb of some kind at the center? Could be mechanical in nature, could be a creature, could be something else entirely?

The “arms” immediately make me think of Starro The Conqueror… but I can’t believe Nolan and company would go for that. Brainiac? Some new, weird version of the Phantom Zone?

JFX Online (yeah, me neither) has “spy” photos from the set of the now-shooting “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” that would appear to reveal that Cap’s look has undergone yet another overhaul. I’m putting it below the jump for the especially spoilerphobic, but if you want a basic idea it’s pretty-much that dull number he was wearing in the “Heroic Age” books while Bucky Barnes was still the “acting” Captain America but with a Cap hood/helmet added. The crucial “missing” detail is the lack of identifying red/white stripes at the midsection (there’s some red-ish armor plates, instead) so mostly it just looks dull and anti-iconic – to say nothing of mildly irritating in a story sense: The getup he had in “Avengers” was A.) a variant on the one he designed himself in WWII and B.) was itself designed in part by the late Agent Coulson – you’d think that out of all the Avengers, Steve Rogers would be the one who’d be sentimental about that kind of thing…

Original image: JFX Online

Well, here’s this then:

Interesting that, though by all accounts the film is really, really action-heavy, WB is still mainly leaning on the iconography and the American Pastoral stuff as the selling point.

Equally interesting that they’re not going the traditional route of selling the central threat/villain harder than the hero. There’s still very little Zod in here – no real sense of what his motives, personality or “plan” are.

So now Lois is hunting around for Superman even before he’s put on a costume and publicly declared himself to be such, rather than just meeting him within a week or so of meeting Clark Kent at work. Clever shift, makes her more immediately proactive, wondering how they avoid Superman coming off like a stalker if he decides to put on a human-disguise and get hired at her workplace after this, though.

It looks like Krypton goes down in a war or some kind of invasion this time around. Not liking the idea of that, particularly if Zod or some other “major evil” force is somehow behind it.

That little exchange at the end? Cute. Less cute? The idea that the writer/producer team who decided they needed to jump through seven or eight different hoops to explain why Catwoman All-Purpose-Crime-Lady wore high-heels and goggles that kinda-sorta-from-some-angles looked like cat ears will now treat us to a tedious, wholly unnecessary explanation for why Superman is dressed like Superman. Yes, I know the comics also like to do the “here’s what the S-shield really means” business, but it’s usually a toss-off and done in the understanding (an understanding, incidentally, that Team Nolan has never quite managed to grasp) that anyone who’d be seriously bothered by stuff like this was never ever going to watch this movie to begin with.

Still, though… looks good. I’m not knocked-out a’la “Pacific Rim,” I’m not comfortably assured of impending awesome a’la “Avengers”… but it looks good. I’m not expecting it to be as good as the ’78 movie, or “Dark Knight,” or even Snyder’s own “Watchmen;” but if the only thing this manages to get right is reminding the world that Superman isn’t inherently “boring” by using him to deliver a huge actioner, maybe that’ll be good enough.

Here’s a show about Bioshock Infinite, because once in awhile I like to talk about small, obscure things that aren’t getting attention from every corner of the internet.

MAJOR SPOILERS!

The Daily Mail has the first snaps of Jamie Foxx in his makeup as Maxwell Dillion aka Electro for “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” restoring equilibrium to the movie-verse by stopping the slow drip of shockingly-NOT-shitty-looking/sounding-stuff gradually being revealed about the project.

“Hey, Jamie Foxx! Congratulations on headlining one of the biggest and most critically-lauded hits of the year – what are you gonna do next!?”

“I was thinkin’ I’d put on Arnold’s metallic-blue bodypaint from “Batman & Robin” to play second-fiddle to Less-Expensive-Robert-Pattinson in the sequel to a cheap reboot that even people who liked it largely shrugged off. Sounds fun, right?”

“…”

Here’s the thing about Electro: I love the guy. He’s one of my favorite Spider-Man nemesis, and he’s also one of the more prominent figures in the “powered-up bank robber” tier of Marvel Universe villainy. Problem is, the reason for both of those is pretty-much his iconic costume – without it, he’s really just another lightning-throwing electricity baddie – which probably wouldn’t “work” in live-action period and definitely won’t be a good fit with the po-faced “realism” aesthetic of Gritty Reboot Spidey.

Okay, fine, a redesign is in order (the shabby state of the pants and hoodie indicate they’re part of the “costume” at least for this scene, as opposed to “Mr. Foxx is chilly today”) but it looks to me like they’re going with a variation (almost-innevitably to be augmented with VFX) of his blue “charged up” form from Ultimate Spider-Man. Probably the easiest route to go (in the newer USM animated series he does both looks, but I wouldn’t count on that here) but somehow the prospect of “Spider-Man Versus Much Less-Powerful/Less-Interesting Doctor Manhattan” doesn’t exactly set my world on fire.

But okay, it is what it is. Now, let’s see what it looks like with the glowy CGI lightning stuff… and whatever they have planned for The Rhino.

For those of you who don’t know, this whole operation is based out of Boston. So I just wanted to give a quick head’s-up that yes, it’s true that two (so far) explosions – apparently now confirmed to be bombs of some type – have exploded at the Boston Marathon. I was nowhere near the incident today, and thus far none of my family/friends are confirmed to have been in the area and are not among the injured.

It seems a little late in the game for “Man of Steel” to start in on the viral-video business, but this is a pretty interesting teaser.

Um… base hit, I guess? I dunno, pick your own baseball metaphor.