What concerns me is the possibility of WB rushing into a new Batman film to try and cash in on the success of the Dark Knight, before the story has had time to mature and be polished. As successful as the Dark Knight was, it was rather bloated affair and could have done with at least half an hour shaving off it’s running time.

It also concerns me that WB concentrating on another Batman film so soon after The Dark Knight will push their other comics properties even further into development hell, where they all currently lay. If you remember, WB were supposed to be halfway through filming Justice League: Mortal by now, and that never even got underway despite having a full cast and crew.

Film has had a surprisingly strong year despite the global economic downturn. Audiences have flocked  to cinemas to take in a selection of blockbusters that have been something different to the usual empty spectacle. The biggest, naturally, is The Dark Knight, the second film in the revived Batman franchise. That film left countless records smashed to pieces in its wake. While the film ran to a rather bloated running time, it captivated millions with its gritty, urban take on the first struggles between Batman and the Joker, and proved that comic book movies can be more than just set pieces and effects.

That said, the two major Marvel movies out this year had greatv effects and set pieces as well as fantastic stories, acting and direction. The Incredible Hulk was vastly superior to the 2003 film, and Iron Man may well be THE definitive Marvel movie thus far made.

Other big genre movies this year have included the superb new take on the monster movie idea, Cloverfield, as well as the fifth film in the SAW franchise and the long-awaited new X-Files movie. The X-Files sequel, I want To Believe, turned out to be a low budget and very small scale piece which disappointed many fans despite being a strong standalone story. Other fun flicks this year have included Death Race, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Transporter 3 and Rocknrolla, but the end of the year has been dominated by one film- Twilight. The adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s bestselling teen vampire novel may be leaving many people shaking their heads in bemusement at it’s popularity, but the fans have been lapping it up. There was the movie release of Star Wars: the Clone Wars, which kicked off the TV series too. That film wasn’t quite the hit many had expected, but the series is going from strength to strength.

US imports Battlestar Galactica, LOST and Heroes have continued to thrill TV fans across the world, and fans have seen the end of Stargate Atlantis come and go. Stargate fans needn’t worry too much though, as Stargate Universe is on the way, helmed by respected actor Robert Carlyle, of all people! UK fans were also treated to new series of Doctor Who, Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Chronicles, Merlin and Primeval. The year’s UK genre delights were rounded off by the stupendous Doctor Who Christmas Special, The Next Doctor.

The comics scene in 2008 has again been dominated by Marvel and DC, who wheeled out two hugely popular crossovers, namely Marvel’s Secret Invasion and DC’s Final Crisis. DC’s entry was walked all over by Marvel’s massively superior story and creators. The comics world was rocked by the sad death of Michael Turner, art supremo and creator of the Fathom character.

Games have continued to dominate the entertainment industry throughout the year, with Halo 3, Gears of War 2, Dead Space, Fallout 3 and the like all battling for supremacy. The Wii really came into its own this year, and games such as Guitar Hero proved that everyone can join in. Another Tomb raider game, Underworld, also proved that Lara Croft still has what it takes to get fans parting with their cash.

On the merchandise front, the big sellers this year have been video games action figures. Figures from Halo 3 and the Gears of War games have been flying off the hooks at a surprising speed, as well as figures from Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Street Fighter and more.

Sales of the Twilight novels went through the roof this year, with the latest installment being released and the movie doing huge business, here’s hoping that this means more genre projects will get off the ground and show people just what fantasy and science fiction is capable of.

What’s ahead The big names for next year are JJ Abram’s STAR TREK recreation, the second Transformers movie- Revenge of the Fallen, and of course the highly anticipated WATCHMEN, adapted from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s legendary graphic novel. Doctor Who and Torchwood will return for shorter runs in 2009, and Sarah Jane will also return for a 3rd series. Primeval is back too, as are a multitude of US series to enjoy.

2008 has been a hell of a ride, and 2009 is going to be very interesting indeed for everyone on planet geek. There has been more than enough for geeks to get into some serious flame wars over, and that’s how we like it, really. From everyone here at Starstore.com and The Last Picture Show, thanks for a great year, and we look forward to meeting more of you in 2009!

Some of you have been asking us just recently to tell you some of the history of Solomon Grundy in DC Comics. As you know this villain makes regular appearances over the years and is firmly entrenched as part of the DC Comics mythology. I will give you a few clues below to finding him in various comics and graphic novels, without giving too much away, so you can hunt some down and really enjoy your Halloween reading.

First you may know that “Solomon Grundy” is a  traditional 19th century children’s nursery rhyme and was presented by an English Shakespearean scholar.  James Orchard Halliwell-Philips in 1842. The poem was meant as a riddle in which the life of Solomon Grundy appears to take place in just one single week.

Solomon Grundy,

Born on a Monday,

Christened on Tuesday,

Married on Wednesday,

Took ill on Thursday,

Grew worse on Friday,

Died on Saturday,

Buried on Sunday.

That was the end of

Solomon Grundy.

However it is soon apparent that the answer to the riddle is that each day’s events represent the so called seven ages of man.

But did you know, a fine piece of trivia we found for you to treasure,  that the name “Solomon Grundy” is said to have first derived from the English food Salmagundi, which was integrated into the English language from the French in the 17th century? This is a salad, not for vegetarians, of cooked meats, lettuce, anchovies and eggs, with other condiments. The name of the salad was corrupted, particularly in the United States in the 18th century, to Solomon Gundy.

In Batman the Long Halloween DC Comics expert writer Jeph Loeb used the already well established DC villain Solomon Grundy but with a new twist on the lyrics, to include words illustrating the week’s prevailing weather rather than just about Solomon’s ‘brief’ life:

Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday,

Christened on a stark and stormy Tuesday,

Married on a gray and grisly Wednesday,

Took ill on a mild and mellow Thursday,

Grew worse on a bright and breezy Friday,

Died on a gay and glorious Saturday,

Buried on a baking, blistering Sunday.

That was the end of Solomon Grundy.

The original DC Comics version of Solomon Grundy depicts him as a large, heavy, strong creature type supervillain perhaps bearing some resemblance to that old classic, Frankenstein’s monster. The sorry tale begins in the late 19th century when a wealthy merchant named Cyrus Gold is brutally murdered and his sorry body dumped in the dreadful Slaughter Swamp, near Gotham City. However some fifty years later, the submerged decayed corpse is reanimated as a huge shambling zombie-like figure merged and entangled with putrid swamp matter. Solomon by now has understandably scant memory of his past debauched life.

Gold discovers and murders two hapless escaped criminals who are hiding out in the soggy marsh and steals their, at this stage quite useful, clothes to cover his obvious embarassment at being naked. He then finds his way to a somewhat sombre hobo camp. When questioned over his name, one of the few things he can recall is that he was “born on a Monday”. One of the men at the camp recalls the nursery rhyme character Solomon Gundy, who was born on a Monday, and Gold adopts that name and the rest is DC Comics history.

Strong, vicious, and having virtually lost his mind, Solomon Grundy quickly and naturally falls into a life of terrible crime. Over the years he regularly battles Green Lantern and his fellow members of the Justice Society of America. There are run-ins with Superman including classic combats across two Earths before – or should that be after? history is changed with DC Comics pivotal Crisis on Infinite Earths.

In Batman: The Long Halloween Grundy forms a strange friendship with newly-disfigured Harvey Dent when he escapes to the sewers to plot his revenge on the ruthless crimelord Carmine Falcone.

Prior to Infinite Crisis, Solomon Grundy is manipulated by Gorilla Grodd via mind control into attacking Batman and Superman for President Luthor for the bounty of one billion dollars in Superman/Batman. In Infinite Crisis #7, Solomon Grundy is seen fighting against the Blood Pack in the Battle of Metropolis.

As if not enough, through the years the villainous Solomon Grundy has also crossed paths with Starman, Green Arrow, Doctor Fate, Hawkgirl and many more famous DC Comics characters

Solomon Grundy later appeared in The Batman animated series. Here Grundy takes the form of a zombie as created by the poorer citizens of 19th century Gotham City. They cunningly made him in order to get horrible revenge and wreak havoc on the selfish rich landowners that polluted the local lake with toxic industrial waste. This incarnation of Grundy is shown as less heavy but certainly a good deal more ghoulish than the earlier Justice League monster version. There bears a closer resemblance to an actually rotted, desiccated corpse. Being “born” in Gotham, he naturally becomes a true Batman villain of the first order.

Local Gotham City legend has it that Solomon Grundy will again arise on a Halloween night when there is a total lunar eclipse in order to take more revenge by attacking the descendants of the rich landowners; fearful Gotham City residents therefore refer to this Halloween as “Grundy’s Night”.

Lunar Eclipse 2897

Fortunately for the residents of Gotham City, although total lunar eclipses do occur on Halloween, they are not very often. The last one took place over 800 years ago, in 1175. The next will occur in 2897, 889 years from now. Let’s hope the timeless Batman will still be as vigilant as ever!

Ladies, gentlemen, boys, girls, Daleks and Klingons, we are proud to bring you STARSTORECAST, the new podcast series from STARSTORE.COM and The Last Picture Show. Presented by Andrew Hawnt with Jonathan Winwood and Rich Thorp, the show brings you chat, reviews and all the geek infighting you can eat. Covering the latest in movies, TV, comics and collectibles, the current episode of STARSTORECAST is available to check out on the player below! You will soon be able to subscribe to the podcast too! Check back soon for the next episode!

STARSTORECAST EPISODE 1

DOCTOR WHO- BBC DENIES RUMOURS
The BBC have openly denied the rumours of Paul McGann’s return in the Doctor Who specials that spread across the UK media recently. No surprises there really, as they’ve denied everything from the Daleks coming back in series 2 to the Master and Rose’s return along the line, so the rumour is probably more true than the BBC care to admit. Either way, it really is time the eighth Doctor was given another chance to shine. After all, Paul McGann is one of the British acting profession’s most talented men.

THE DARK KNIGHT… RETURNS?
Warners will be rereleasing The Dark Knight in cinemas in January, just in time for Oscars season. Whether the film will be rereleased over here is not yet known, but I can’t see them missing out on milking another few quid out of the film before people’s interest wanes.

HOT TOYS PREVIEW TWO-FACE FIGURE
Following on from the hugely popular large format Dark Knight Joker figures from Hot Toys, a figure of Harvey Dent/Two-Face has been previewed on the HT site that looks set to carry on the interest in the range. Once we have something other than the teaser image (which doesn’t show much at all, hence it being a teaser), we’ll post it here. Looks promising though.

BATMAN TAKES ON SPIDER-MAN
The Dark Knight has officially passed the first Spider-Man movie as the most successful comic book movie blockbuster of all time. The new Batman film now stands at number 7 in the list of all-time blockbusters due to its massive opening run. It has now grossed well in excess of 400 million dollars at the US box office alone. Incidentally, you can still check out our discussion of the film from yesterday- THE DARK KNIGHT DEBATE.

McFARLANE NOT SOLD ON VENOM IDEA
Todd McFarlane has said in a recent online interview that he’s none too sure about the proposed Venom feature film. He stated that he didn’t think that the character, as popular as it is, had what was needed to be a viable movie lead. This can agree with as it is hard to feel any connection with a murderous alien symbiote who spends much of his time ripping people new orifices. While I can see an audience wanting to check out a full-on Venom movie, I do believe it would be a mistake to make him a hero, as that goes against the character’s history, not to mention his previous movie outing in Spider-Man 3.

SUSPIRIA IS THE NEXT TO BE BUTCHERED
Ho hum, another week, another stupid remake idea. Hollywood really have got every last drop out of their ideas well and have taken to seemingly castrating every popular horror franchise and film ever made. The latest film that is to get a dumbed-down, hyped-up makeover is to be none other than Dario Argento’s Suspiria. What makes this worse is that it is Natalie Portman who is trying to shop it around. What? Will she then try and follow it with Inferno and Mother of Tears? If not, whats the point? Suspiria should be left as it is- a surreal genre film that only horror elitists give a monkey’s about. Actually, maybe Portman is hoping that not enough people will have heard of it to realize it’ll be just another bland remake.

ZACK AND MIRI- R RATING APPROVED
The latest entry in Kevin Smith’s quest to fill our lives with rude words and even ruder situations has been granted the R rating in the US, which is what Smith was after. There were fears that the film would receive the NC-17 rating instead due to its subject matter, but the film has been passed without further cuts.

So then Rich, summarize your review and let’s get underway!

RICH: Rarely has a film lived up to the hype as completely as The Dark Knight has. I was a little worried, with the track record of Bat films diminishing into comedic squalor (but that was in a different, darker time). Chris Nolan grounds his film in the dark realism of his original, offering us a healthy screen time packed with awe inspiring characters and memorable action set pieces.

And you, Andy?

ANDY: Is Rich done kissing Nolan’s backside? Okay, basically I really didn’t enjoy it much at all, and by the time the third act eventually came around I was seriously considering walking out of it. I found the film to be hugely overlong, repetitive, badly scripted, shoddily directed and a huge letdown after Batman Begins was so good. I also have an issue with the rating- 12A- which is really unacceptable or a film in which there is so much graphic violence- inferred or otherwise.

RICH: Hey, that backside deserves to be kissed, alright. The man is a cinematic genius, even before and during his time as Batman director; his films pretty much speak for themselves. Prestige anyone? Memento?

ANDY: He’s great director, but this one’s a case of too many cooks spoil the broth. Surely there was some way of cutting the script a bit, or any of the endless scenes of exposition later in the film that are almost direct rehashes of earlier scenes? A film shouldn’t be judged on the merits of the other films the people involved have worked on.

RICH: Absolutely not, I agree on that one. But the film itself is a triumph. I agree it could have been shaved down a little here and there, no doubt. But it doesn’t suffer for having not done so. All we get instead is more time to enjoy the venerable acting chops on screen. Direct rehashes of earlier scenes? You’re gonna have to elaborate on that one…

ANDY: Hi, I’m the Joker- I’m a bit kooky and anti-establishment. Hi, I’m Batman- I have a daft voice and I like to vanish every five seconds while people go ‘He does that’. Hi, I’m Harvey Dent- I’m a good guy with a dark side. Ad nauseam. As for the acting, I have to disagree. What we have onscreen there is a hugely talented cast who have been given a script full of hackneyed clichés and pseudo-philosophizing. Hell, half of Alfred’s lines were pretty much exactly the same as his ‘Why do we fall own’ lines in the last film. As for ‘it could have been shaved a bit here and there’… you’d have to get through the three feet of metaphorical perm and lacquer before you could even start shaving. There’s Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman et al onscreen, and they were all underused.

RICH: Yeah, the bat-voice definitely needs a tone down- but vanishing is what he does. Would you rather the camera pan to show him trying to vault over a picket fence?

ANDY: What, like Nick Frost in Shaun of the Dead? That’d be cool, Heh.

RICH: Guffaw, etc. The Joker was a revelation, and each scene left you awaiting the next with baited breath. If by rehashing scenes you mean character building, then I’m all for it. I respect a film that could so easily spurn the characterisation for the big buck effects and action, and probably get away with it too. Instead we have a film that unashamedly takes time to both introduce new characters and build on existing ones.

As for under-using some supporting characters, I’m glad they did. I’m not a massive fan of the Alfred character, to me he’s a relic of the past, a character that is continuously brought back just because he’s a famous part of bat-lore, whilst Freeman’s Lucius Fox is beginning to feel a little too much like a ‘Q’ to Bruce Waynes ‘James Bond’.

ANDY: But that’s just it- it doesn’t introduce characters, it bashes you over the head with them until you get it. As for building on existing characters, were you watching the same film I was? I didn’t catch anything resembling character progression in any of them. Most characters were played as one dimensional as it is possible to get, and I know this is a DC property so we should expect that sort of thing, but still. I’m with you on Lucius Fox. Much as I love Morgan Freeman (and am glad he’s doing better after his car crash) the character isn’t that original. Ho-boy this next bit is going to get people hunting me with rolled up copies of the Killing Joke… Heath Ledger was good as the Joker, but not great. He did have a certain charisma, but nowhere near as much as everyone is saying, and I can’t help but feel the sole reason he is being lauded as oscar-worthy in this film is down to the fact that he sadly died. There were some inspired moments in there from him, but not the earth-shattering clusterbomb of awesomeness we were led to expect. He is a great foil for Batman, but as a character it didn’t really do it for me. That said, he was better than Nicholson in the Burton version. Hmm, and the Joker leads me to my next train of thought which I’ll leap onto when you’ve spat your next answer at me. Stop looking at me like that.

RICH: Maybe I’ll just say nothing and let the screaming masses into the shop to end you. Heh. No, the character of the Joker is difficult to evaluate because you’ve been led to expect an ‘earth-shattering clusterbomb of awesomeness’, which may leave you cold, or due to the tragic nature of the role you just want it to be amazing, in spite of the actual performance. Cutting both these element s out, I still believe the performance is exceptional.

ANDY: We’ll have to disagree there old mate. What I wanted to cover before we wrap this up (I think there’s grounds for a round 2 soon, whaddaya say?), is the rating. This new Batman film was given a 12A, which in my view is grossly inappropriate, especially in the current climate of knife crime in the UK. That rating enables small children to be exposed to the film, taken in by parents expecting a standard superhero yarn, and instead they get some very harrowing violence. What do you think about the rating? I think it is incredibly irresponsible of the BBFC to give it less than a 15.

RICH: Indeed, I was surprised to see the movie had been allowed a 12A, especially given the nature of the Joker’s preferred methods and, like you said, the current state of our streets. I guess it was a short-sighted mistake. That being said, parents should be aware that 12A cannot be taken as a lenient certificate in the way of the old PGs (which were mostly harmless), and should definitely check out such a film before they allow their children to.

ANDY: At least we agree about that.

The Dark Knight Debate will continue soon…

It goes without saying that Heath Ledger’s Joker is responsible for a large portion of audience attendance. Anticipation of this performance had reached fever pitch and all for good reason. From beginning to end his performance is a revelation, utterly compelling and scarily attractive. His persona mottles charisma with insanity and creates a character so inescapable you’re constantly waiting for his next move. Knowledge of Heath’s tragic death does add a wistful, eerie element to his performance, but even without this the role would still have been breathtaking.

Heath may steal the show, but the other performances are still top notch. Christian Bale settles into his dual roles of Bruce Wayne/Batman, and although the whole ‘superhero cold feet’ storyline has been done over and over, Bale brings his own refreshing element to the proceedings. The dark horse is Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent; he delivers a character we genuinely want to believe in; charismatic, honest and proud. When his inevitable fall from grace arrives, the tragedy is palpable. He then becomes remarkable in a completely different way; terrifying and hopeless.

Director Christopher Nolan again grounds the movie in a dark reality that works so well for the subject matter. Respect must be given to a man who resists the obvious urge to overburden a sequel with surplus visuals, especially a superhero sequel. This is a film of characters and interaction, not flashy CGI. The stunts are amazing for sure, the highway showdown being particularly impressive.

Despite a few minor gripes, the editing seems a little rushed and disjointed in places, Batman’s voice still a little over the top etc, this is a film that truly lives up to the hype, full of visuals and performances that stay with you long after you’ve left the cinema. The Dark Knight deserves to be seen by as many people as possible.

Review: Rich