Captain America comes to Dunkin’ Donuts

OK, this is kind of cool. I just got the word (from my good buddy John A. Wilcox) that Dunkin’ Donuts actually has a in-store tie-in to the upcoming Captain America film. The franchise is currently selling drinks based on Cap, including a tri-color slushee sporting Cap.

You should rush right out and get your own as well! Oh yeah then go watch the movie, then pick up the Official Index to Captain America while you are at it (yeah, I contributed to this index as well).

Green Lantern is (finally) showing up @ Subway!

Yes, finally I found some (more) Green Lantern kid meal bags at my local Subway restaurants (some of the locations still haven’t received their promotional items as of yet.)

Well, here are three more. Each bag also came with an additional premium:

This one came with 3D glasses and a small booklet.

This one came with one of those rubber friendship bracelets

This one came with a cardboard “punch-out” mask and bracelet.

Now I’m only missing one bag and whatever comes with that bag.

Hey! There's a panda in my cereal

Kung Fu Panda 2 toys in my cereal! How cool is that?

Everybody wants to pack movie toys into your food products.

Green Lantern comes to Subway (Finally!)

Yep, you read that right, kids, after having the promo materials out in the stores for nearly a month, Subway finally has received the reusable Green Lantern kid's meal bags that come with their kid's meals. (after the movie hit the theaters!)

Anyway, here is what we’ve acquired thus far (there are six bags, and each bag comes with a small (additional) giveaway.

One bag with GL Booklet & GL Doritos

A second bag with GL Bracelet 

Two of the six bags.

Broadway Bound

OK, OK, we've all heard that a totally revamped Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark has finally opened on Broadway. Well,  before dropping a couple of hundred on the new and improved play, we wanted you all to see  how the Muppets would fare doing their version of the play...





Yeah, that’s more like it.

Comics I've been reading

OK, so a couple of comics I've been reading include X-Men #s7-10. The X-Men are now living out on Alcatraz , but some of them head back east so that they can get into a team-up with Spider-Man (not the real reason). As it turns out, kids are being turned into lizards and they meet up with Spidey and all the heroes go into the sewers of NYC to find the lizard creatures. only one of the X-Men who makes the trip is Storm, who has either apparently gotten over her complete and total phobia of being underground and in enclosed places, or the writer of the series simply never read those earlier Claremont issues where it was established that she had this fear.

Either way, while the art was fine, and the story (other than this HUGE out of character bit), was OK. However, the character disconnect was so huge that I really couldn’t enjoy the story at all.

Next up is Venom (#3).

Venom is now Flash Thompson, who lost his legs protecting his platoon while he was stationed in Iraq. Well, recently, he was given the Venom symbiote by the U.S. military to be a super spy for them. While I’m still not entirely sure if I like this development in Flash’s character, in issue #3 Flash — who was in the Savage Land attempting to protect a shipment of Vibranium, learned that Betty Brant (whom he is dating), was kidnapped, and the kidnapper offered to trade Betty for the Vibranium. So he told Flash to fly the chopper to NY for the trade.


Problem is that I don’t believe that the chopper could have made it from Antarctica to NY in a non-stop flight. I believe that a man can fly. 


You see, while I totally believe that Norse & Greco-Roman gods roam the Earth, and I believe that if bitten by a radioactive spider, you will acquire the proportional strength of one, put on spandex and fight crime. I further will go so far as to admit that if exposed to gamma radiation you will bulk up and turn gray, er, green, ah, red, no, wait, blue…whatever.

What I simply don’t believe is that you can fly a helicopter non-stop from the Savage Land, to Brunswick New York.


Why is it that the folks that are hired to write (and edit) comics simply overlook the parts of their stories that invalidate them instead of working just a bit harder to write believable stories.

It all goes back to #1

So, by now you’ve all heard that DC Comics is doing a re-launch of every single title in their line. That is to say, they are resetting the clock back to #1 on every single title. We have been assured that they are not “re-booting” or “retconning” the line, but just resetting the clock back to #1 on the comics so that today’s readers will feel that they are getting in on the ground floor with the comics. DC further indicated that there will be some “upgrades” to some of the heroes histories so as to clear out some of the junk in their pasts. Also, the digital versions of the comics will be released on the same day as the print versions.

Well, there are quite a few things going on here, and some of them were covered by Beau Smith in his blog, but there are a couple of things that I would like to add:

Specifically (in my humble opinion), all of the reboot, renumbering, re-costuming that both DC and Marvel tend to do with increased regularity, is for naught if the writers can’t write compelling stories about characters  about whom the readers can care. Still, it is not all about the writing (or even the art), if the companies’ marketing departments, can’t get the message out to people who aren’t already reading comics that there are compelling stories being created about interesting characters dealing with compelling topics, or if the distributing department can’t get the books (either digitally or in dead tree editions) into the hands of people who aren’t currently reading comics, then all of this smoke and mirrors is simply re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Personally, I'm not entirely convinced that the publishing houses in question are capable (or even interested), in doing any of those things. Comics are still the only industry that doesn’t essentially no advertising of its core product (the comics themselves) outside the industry. Yes, yes the DC story was picked up by numerous non-comics outlets, but again, if marketing and distribution can’t get their message and the actual books out into the non-buying public, all of this hoopla is worthless.

This is so not a case of “if you build it they will come” this is more of a case where you can’t just lead the horses to the water, you actually have to deliver it to their doorsteps and then convince them that drinking it is a really good idea. Comics need to forget about all of the gimmicks and actually advertise in non-comic media, then start pumping out compelling stories that people will want to read. For more of my thought on this topic, check out articles on Media Connection.

A Hardee cup full o' Spidey

I just recently became aware of (and acquired), a Spider-Man cup that was issued by Hardee’s back in 1990. The cup (which also starred Captain America) was apparently part of a set of four (I believe), that also included a cup that co-starred The Incredible Hulk & She Hulk.

The cup has a short comic strip printed on the side where Spidey and Cap go up against Doc Ock. I’m including three pics of the cup so you can see (and hopefully read) the comic itself.

Pretty cool, eh? I guess this is just my week to acquire cool fast food super hero stuff. First a Green Lantern Cup, then the Cap car, then the Spidey head & figurines, and now this.

Spider-Man from Down Under

So, one of the really wicked-cool things about the Intertubes it the ability to discover things that you not only didn’t know existed, but stuff that you totally want. It was in this fashion that I discovered an Australasian  fast food eatery called Hungry Jack (which is apparently the Burger King Down Under).

Well, apparently at the time of Spider-Man 3 Hungry Jack came out with a very different set of Spidey-toys.

As stated, I recently discovered these items and have (just today), received the set that I acquired.

There were four sets, each set contained half of Spidey's face along with a villain figurine from the film (the Black mask came with Venom & Sandman, while the red mask came with New Goblin & a black-suited suction-Spidey. Each mask-face then connected with the other to form a Janus-like head.

I totally dig getting non-U.S. fast-food superhero figures.

Spidey-Candy

Now here is a neat candy that I recently located.

Interestingly enough, not only did it contain a lollipop (that was not shaped like Spidey, but a “Thumbs Up”, but it also contained “Pop Rocks,” which are always cool.

Oh yeah, and the individual shot of the Spidey Figure that I got with the Hardees’ toys from the other say is below.

Old toys from Hardee’s

Back in 1990 Hardee’s offered up a quartet of Marvel superhero toys. These figures were of the “figures-in-vehicles” variety. Up until recently, I've only had one of the toys. Hulk in a bulldozer:

Then I acquired a second vehicle from that set: Spidey in a multi-wheeled car. 

Recently I picked up a third item from the set, Captain America in a car.

Now I have three of the four:

The fourth item is She Hulk in a car, and I’m still looking for her.

Interestingly enough, when I made this most recent purchase, the seller included a miniature Spidey figure with it.

How cool is that?

In Brightest Day in Darkest night...

...no one shall escape my Green Lantern Cup:

 

As stated the other day, DC chose to team up with Subway for the Green Lantern Movie. At the moment I’ve only managed to acquire this cup. They also have little canvas bags that they give out with the Kid’s meals, only none of the Subways by my house seem to actually have the bags as of yet (and only one had the cups).

Making matters worse, most of the Subways near me seemed to be owned and/or operated by folks whose first (and perhaps even second), language isn’t English, making it very difficult to explain that I want to know :

1. Which bag they have today?
2. Will I be able to buy the bag separately?
3. How much would the bag cost?