With the success of The Avengers this year it’s no surprise that Marvel has already announced a sequel slated for 2015-2016. There’s a lot of ground to cover between now and then to set up the cast for that big future and Marvel’s made lots of promises, including new Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, and Thor films to keep us all Marveled up for the next team-up. But who will that team-up include? News indicates that there’s some certain additions to the horizon, including Ant-Man which will be directed by Edgar Wright, and Joss Whedon did joke around about adding some more ladies to the roster.
Considering the size of the Avengers roster over the years, Marvel and Whedon have tons to choose from in terms of super heroes. So who should round out the team next time around? And more importantly, who should play the newest Avengers? Let’s take a look at some possibilities.
The comic book movie used to be a laugh, B-list fodder meant for the five-dollar bin at the local convenience store and mentioned in the same breath as the dreaded video game film. The nineties were littered with poor excuses for comic film adaptations like Spawn, Steel, and Judge Dredd. Every once in a while, a diamond in the rough would poke it’s head out and remind us that good work could be done like Christopher Reeves’ Superman and Tim Burton’s gothic Batman. But overall, most of the movies were a cringe-fest hit or miss mess that plagued comic fans and non-geeks alike.
It’s often considered the misunderstood younger brother of tabletop gaming, a strange land of fake weapons, rock-paper-scissors and improv acting, all garbed up in strange attire and complex rules. Yet any given weekend, folks across the country gear up and head out to dress and act out the lives of characters they’ve created. I’m talking of course about live-action role-play, better known as Larp, and it’s come to the forefront as an oft under-appreciated hobby among gamers in the last few years. And while the world of Larp might intimidate some, one woman dove head-first into the costumes and characters to learn all about the hobby. Her name is Lizzie Stark and her research has made her one of the foremost voices in the exploration of LARP as both a gaming medium and a burgeoning art form. All of that research became the basis for her recently released book on Larp entitled Leaving Mundania.
With the announcement of the Hugo Awards for 2012 recently, there’s been a lot of discussion over some of the inclusions in the graphic story category. The category covers a wide arena of graphic story representation, including comic book collections (graphic novels) as well as web comics. So let’s talk a little about what happened this year and, maybe, what should have happened.
There have been a million words dedicated to the failures and successes of Wonder Woman as a female comic book icon over the years. She has been lauded equally as an example of male objectification and female empowerment since her development in the 1940’s. Yet recent rewrites of Wonder Woman’s story in DC Comics’ New 52 relaunch have female fans raising an eyebrow. There was the rewrite of Wonder Woman’s parentage that had everyone (yours truly) up in arms. Now, writer Brian Azzarello and DC have done it again in Wonder Woman #7 with their rewrite of the history of the Amazon women. Where once Paradise Island was populated by cultured warrior women, dedicated as much to art and beauty as they were warfare, the new history of the Amazons has a much more disturbing twist.
With the Hunger Games film here, some avid Panem fans may be going through what I’d like to call Katniss Withdrawal. There’s only so long one can be away from good Young Adult dystopian fantasy featuring interesting female protagonists, after all. Well, relax, fellow bleak future addicts, because your local booksellers and the ebook community are swimming with other great titles to fulfill your post-Hunger Game needs. Here are only five of the titles making waves in the YA market, each with their own heroines just waiting to lead you through the wastelands. 
The days are flowing away and it’s coming: the movie event that has everyone from pre-teens to former Harry Potter addicts looking up and taking notice. The YA community is rising to the theaters — along with everyone else — in support of the upcoming Hunger Games movie, making it one of the most anticipated films of the year. That’s not to say that it hasn’t had many controversies — such as how much resemblance the Suzanne Collins book has to a certain book/film called Battle Royale — but the film is still set to be a visual adaptation delight.
