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Krypton Radio First Look: New ‘Man of Steel’ Trailer

Comics, Marvel / DC, Movies, Superhero No Responses »

May 232013

Click on the above image to see the full image. If you want to download it after that, right-click on the image and select "Save As".

This newest trailer is a radical departure from the moody, poetic earlier trailers. This new trailer gets straight to the good stuff, with the Fate of the World as we Know It hanging in the balance and Superman battling a threat only he can. Anyone looking at this new trailer could be forgiven for thinking it was an about an entirely different movie!

In this one we get some pretty solid tracking on General Zod as the big villian, who has come to Earth with an army of Kryptonians looking for the son of Jor-El. It’s thrilling, it’s exciting, it’s so beautifully done – and then when you’re done watching it, and the excitement wears off just a tad, you start thinking about the fact that Zod was supposed to be in the Phantom Zone and that Kal-El was supposed to be the Last Son of Krypton, and what exactly have they done with the story if they’ve broken these two primary assumptions about the Man of Steel?

This is some pretty serious stuff – Zod wants Kal-El, or they’re going to puree the planet.

We’ll have to see the movie to find out.

Man of Steel premieres June 14.

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Happy Birthday, Superman!

Comics, Marvel / DC, Music, Superhero, Television No Responses »

Apr 182013

This 1948 Republic Serial starred Kirk Alyn, the first actor to portray the Man
of Steel. For millions of movie-goers, his was the face and voice of Superman.

The Last Son of Krypton and Earth’s Greatest Hero is 75 years old today! It’s on this day that Action Comics #1 was released, the comic book that introduced Superman to the world. Lois Lane, the feisty reporter love of his life, was also featured in the same story.

The iconic character that would form the kernel of our modern superhero mythology was born from the minds of two comic book geeks still in high school – writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Schuster (Lois Lane was based on Jerry Siegel’s real life love interest Joanne Siegel who became his wife).

Over the years, Superman has appeared in virtually every medium, beginning with the famous radio serial and moving television, movies, video games, apps and an amazing array of pop music, much of which we play here on Krypton Radio.

Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson has declared April 18 to be Superman Day in that city. Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster were living in the Glenville area in Cleveland when they created the comic book hero in 1938.
To commemorate the event, these events are planned:

Superman flag will be raised on the steps of Cleveland City Hall with Superman in attendance
Lights on city hall and the Terminal Tower will be blue, red, and yellow
Cleveland Hopkins International Airport will have cupcakes for travelers and a birthday card for the hero at its recently-installed Superman Exhibit
City’s website and social media sites will feature citizen tributes to Superman

The proclamation will take place Thursday at 1 p.m. on the front steps of Cleveland City Hall.

MTV Geek will be celebrating the birthday all day long. Such celebrations are happening all over the country, the internet is vibrating with the news. Perhaps in these dark times, we turn in our hearts to symbols of hope.

Happy Birthday, Superman. We sure need you now.

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Krypton Radio First Look: 3rd Man of Steel Trailer

Comics, Marvel / DC, Movies No Responses »

Apr 162013

Have you ever read Sumerian poetry or storytelling (it’s more or less the same thing)? It’s extremely repetitive. It makes the elements of the story almost a litany, a chant to be memorized and retold. The first superhero’s story was written in Sumerian: the story of Gilgamesh, who was thought to have been a demigod, two thirds god, one third human; five epic poems were written about him that we know about, and were distributed widely in ancient Mesopotamia.

Our modern legends owe a lot to Gilgamesh and the Sumerian view of him, especially our modern legend of Superman – so when retellers of the story take liberties with it trying to make it artificially trendy, they misunderstand what they’re working with and miss the mark.

From the trailer released today, it’s clear that director Zach Snyder and screenwriters David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan understood what they were working with. The new film looks less like it was meant to keep kiddies happy on a Saturday morning and more like an honest treatment of the Man of Tomorrow and what his life might be like were he here today. There is a lot of action on the screen, but every detail on the screen adds up to a whole instead of fighting for attention. The last several Superman movies have ranged from lackluster to embarrassing, but we think this one will be one to remember.

Man of Steel, from Warner Bros. Studios, opens June 14.

Krypton Radio First Look: DC’s SUPERMAN UNBOUND

Comics, Marvel / DC, Television No Responses »

Feb 042013

Superman Unbound, based on Geoff Johns’ 2008 Action Comics story arc, finds the Man of Steel squaring off against the planet-destroying alien machine, Brainiac, while balancing his responsibilities to Lois Lane and cousin Kara (Supergirl). The voice cast includes White Collar‘s Matt Bomer as Superman, Fringe‘s John Noble as Brainiac and Castle‘s Stana Katic and Molly Quinn as Lois and Kara, respectively.

In Superman Unbound, we find Brainiac descending upon the earth. Which is something of a problem, since it was Brainiac that was responsible for the destruction of Krypton. Brainiac has crossed the universe, collecting cities from interesting planets –
Kandor, included – and now the all-knowing, ever-evolving android has his sights fixed on Metropolis. Superman must summon all of his
physical and intellectual resources to protect his city, the love of his life, and his newly-arrived cousin from Krypton’s sister planet Argo.

Supervising Producer James Tucker (Justice League, Batman: The Brave and the Bold) also directs the film from a script by Bob Goodman
(Warehouse 13, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns).

Superman Unbound will release on Blu-ray, DVD and later this year – but we’ll have some more on this once we get to Wonder Con in Anaheim late this March. Then in two more months, Man of Steel comes out, and that’s scheduled for May 15th.

Aaah, yes. It’s going to be a great summer.

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Krypton Radio First Look: Man Of Steel Trailer #2

Comics, Marvel / DC, Movies No Responses »

Dec 112012

Click on the above image to see the full image. If you want to download it after that, right-click on the image and select “Save As”.

Here it is – a much tastier, more comprehensive look at the new Man of Steel movie coming out in May of 2013.

2013, that’s next year, you say. But remember – 2012 is almost over. We don’t have a year or more to wait anymore. Now it’s just months, and we can see from this trailer that it’s likely going to be worth the wait.

Indications are that this version of Superman is going to be going on to the Justice League movie currently in development, but we don’t know if Christian Bale’s Batman will be. The end of The Dark Knight Rises hinted at somebody else taking up the cowl (just in case you’re one of those people who still hasn’t seen that movie, we’re not going to spoil it for you, but you really should go see it).

We love this new trailer. We think you will too.

Enjoy.

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Daughter Of Superman Co-Creator Writes Open Letter To Fans About Warner Law Suit

Comics, Marvel / DC 1 Response »

Oct 132012

Krypton Radio Newswire

Superman fans have been following the battle over the rights to Superman for decades – the families of Jerry Siegel amd Joe Schuster have been fighting for ownership of the property for nearly 80 years now. The results have been less than complete, with various aspects of the Superman universe being owned by a number of different entities.

The Seigel family has been trying to wrest control of Superman from Warner for years, and met some limited success in 2008. Warner has counter-sued on the grounds that they’re trying to simply interfere with the management of Superman as a property, and just this week accused the family attorney Mike Toberoff of fraud, alleging that he intentionally withheld pertinent facts from the case.

Laura Siegel, the daughter of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, has sent out the following open letter to the public addressing her families’ ongoing decade-long legal fight with Warner Bros. and DC Comics over key rights to the Superman character.

Superman’s Home Town May Become Real

Comics, Marvel / DC, Movies, Special Reports, Television No Responses »

Sep 052012

The banner from the Hutchinson, Kansas Should Be Renamed Smallville page on Facebook

The boyhood home of Earth’s greatest hero may make the leap from the pages of the Superman comic books into the real world, if comic book artist Christopher Wietrick has his way. His Facebook campaign hopes to create a real Smallville by renaming Hutchinson, Kansas to Smallville, Kansas. The fictional city in Kansas was first identified by name in Superboy #2 in 1949, and it’s been a staple in his tales ever since. Despite the fact that Metropolis, Illinois has built a robust tourism business by laying claim to being the hometown of the adult Superman, no Kansas town has ever done the same by laying claim to the Smallville name.

Wietrick’s Facebook campaign aims to get his hometown of Hutchinson, Kansas officially renamed to Smallville, Kansas. Wietrick is working on a comic book to support the name change, which will be used to help raise money for the Boys and Girls Club of Hutchinson.

The Hutchinson, Kansas Should Be Named Smallville Facebook page catalogs reasons why this might be a good idea. At 42,000 residents, Hutchinson’s population is about right. Smallville was said to be 55 miles from Salina, Kansas, and Hutchinson is actually 57 miles from Salina, Kansas. Smallville was known for having meteor showers, and so is Hutchinson, Kansas – in fact, their Cosmosphere space museum has the biggest collection of “stuff from space” in the country. It also has an Underground Salt Museum, which bears some visual echos of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude in the form of the white crystals, and it already contains a Superman costume.

Hutchinson is already roughly shaped like Superman’s shield, as this diagram illustrates.

“I’m a huge Superman fan,” said Christopher Wietrick. The Kansas man spoke with a local CBS station in Kansas to discuss the lofty Facebook campaign he started with a few friends. In the video, one can briefly see a tatoo on his right forearm – the Kryptonian word for “hope”.

“I think it’s a really neat time to dive into the world of comics and turn my city into one,” said Wietrick. “What we’re trying to do is bring a little attention to the town with tourism through art. We’d like to see the town name changed to Smallville, Kansas.”

To that effect, Wietrick has created his own Hutchinson/Smallville comic strip to share his comparisons with the world. “ALL profits will go to the Boys and Girls Club of Hutchinson,” he wrote. “When finished, the comic will be a 12 x 12 or 12 x 16, two-sided piece.”

Can Wietrick make this happen? “The fact that we already have the Superman costume in the museum I think will really help our case,” he said. “Our ultimate goal is for Warner Bros. and DC Comics to recognize Hutchinson as Smallville, Kansas.”

Want to help support the cause? Read more on their Facebook page.

The town of Hutchinson is apparently even roughly shaped like Superman’s shield symbol – we wish Mr. Wietrick luck. Superman needs a home town just like everybody else. Why not Hutchinson?

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Man Of Steel: Not Your Ordinary Reboot

Comics, Marvel / DC, Movies No Responses »

Jul 302012

by Gene Turnbow

The first full length trailer for Man of Steel is out in theaters now. Most of us saw it first when it was shown with The Dark Knight Rises. My first reaction was that this really doesn’t look much like a comic book movie – the footage is dramatic, beautiful, majestic, but appears to explain very little about our new Superman and how he comes to be the iconic hero he must eventually become. There are scenes of a boy wearing a towel around his neck and posing like a hero, and while that resonates with many of us who played pretend at that age doing much the same thing, it makes my brain hurt – who is he supposed to be emulating? Thor? Unless that’s not young Clark at all, but the linear progression of the trailer gives us no hint at this.

This new film is produced by Christopher Nolan, and directed by Zach Snyder. Nolan, of course, directed all three of the most recent Batman movies, including the newest one, The Dark Knight Rises - which has just broken the $500 million mark in box office returns. Snyder is no stranger to the genre either, having directed The Watchmen in 2009. He has a sophisticated, fully matured visual style that brings some much needed substance to what we hope will be the consistent look of the new Superman film. And of course, the trailer demonstrates this nicely.

What it does not demonstrate is whether they’re going to be playing with the origin story yet again, and tweaking things and stirring it around until they like the flavor for the sake of “art”. So far they imply that young Clark will spend some of his life as a young adult meandering through his life trying to find some meaning in it. We see footage of a fishing ship at sea, and we see Clark briefly in it. We do see him on a road, with a full beard. As an aside, we’ve never seen a full beard on Superman before in the movies. How does the Man of Steel shave? Or cut his hair, for that matter? Such questions are best left unanswered. In the comic books, he’s shown trimming his hair and beard using heat vision and a pocket mirror, but of course infrared wouldn’t work that way – even if it did, how would he trim the hair on the back of his head?

I think a bigger question is, is “gritty” going to work for Superman? Batman is pretty much defined by grit, but Superman’s world isn’t about angst. It’s about being courageous enough to be open and honest about your desire to help people, without worrying about the cynicism of society. Is that where Snyder’s Superman is headed?

This trailer, while visually sumptuous, asks more questions than it answers, and entices us to want to find out more, and in that sense, it’s doing what it was designed to do. However, you have to wonder whether these departures from the canon story of Superman signify that they have a fresh new angle on this story, or that they just don’t understand the material? Given how well Nolan nailed the Batman character and mythos, I’m hoping it’s the former. We’ll see more trailers over the next year, and we’ll get to see a bit better what Nolan and Snyder have in mind. The film is set for release June 14, 2013.

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