New York, U.S.A - If you were suddenly granted superpowers, would you save the world, or just get laid? Meet the most unconventional group of anti-heroes yet in the most provocative sci-fi series ever made. And only Logo has the guts to bring this breakout hit from across the pond to American television. Fans can look forward to all four seasons of “Misfits” in the upcoming months. Sexy, dark, and defiantly British, the first season of “Misfits” (six, one-hour episodes) premieres July 19, 2012.

When a group of law-breaking 20-somethings are suddenly vested with supernatural powers during a freak electrical storm, their already out-of-control lives are plunged into even deeper chaos. The rough and rebellious clan includes characters Nathan Young (Robert Sheehan), Simon Bellamy(Iwan Rheon), Curtis Donovan (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), Kelly Bailey (Lauren Socha), and Alisha Bailey (Antonia Thomas).

Whether it’s turning back time, or throwing people into a sexual frenzy, their newfound abilities prove to be as troublesome as they are strange. As they come to terms with their powers, these teens will have to decide how to use them and whether to do so for good or just for good times. Take the supernatural formula, give it a bad attitude, a punk haircut, and hit of ecstasy—and you’ll get an idea of just what makes this series so wildly different.  “Misfits” joyfully crosses lines, defies expectations, and could only appear in the U.S. on Logo.

“We’re proud to introduce the U.S. television audience to this beloved series, which is like the mutant offspring of ‘True Blood’ and ‘X-Men,’” said Marc Leonard, Senior Vice President of Multiplatform Programming, Logo. “‘Misfits’ is the perfect series for our Logo viewers who will appreciate how the show’s underdogs rise up, take center stage and start blurring the lines of morality, sexuality, gender and reality itself.”

Produced by Clerkenwell Films and distributed by BBC Worldwide, the series has enjoyed acclaim from critics, winning multiple BAFTA Television Awards including Best Drama Series in 2010, as well as earning an impressive 1.9 million Facebook fans across the globe, with over a hundred thousand stateside Facebook fans eagerly anticipating the U.S. premiere.

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Adam WarRock has made a name for himself in the Nerdcore genre of music. His music is not only full of geek references but also contains a real message for all listeners.

You Dare Call That Thing Human?!?, Adam’s second album released in February, is about being  true to yourself, not society’s expectations. The cover of the album is inspired by a most poignant scene from the 1980′s comic book  ‘God Loves Man Kills’ by Chris Claremont and illustrated by Brent Anderson. In the scene, the leader of the X-men, Cyclops, states that mutants, for all their different abilities, are still human and should be treated as such, despite popular belief.

Each track has a fluid sound combined with unique hip-hop beats and WarRock’s geek and pop cultural sensibility. The track 616 is an excellent example of this. Other tracks on the record such as I Kill Giants, Retcon, and the bonus track Andrew Garfield @ SDCC (Joules remix), stand out because of their deeper meanings.

Neo-Tokyo, his newest album released May 13 this year, is inspired by the legendary anime Akira. WarRock brings listeners seven new futuristic tracks that could be an addition to the original Akira soundtrack. Each track focuses on a particular character, place, or event that is featured in the film.

Toonari Post (TP): What inspires you to write and when did you begin writing?

Adam WarRock (AW):I started writing when I was in high school, because I read a lot, and envisioned myself as some kind of intellectual, artistic writer. I filled up notepads with bad short stories and poetry, before I realized I didn’t have the attention span to actually write, and rewrite and edit, and finish anything. Eventually it started turning into spoken word pieces, which eventually turned into lyrics.

TP: How did you get into music?

AW: My parents were always big into music. My mother was a voice major in college, my sister studied piano, music was a constant in the house. As a result, I grew up dabbling in a ton of musical instruments: guitar, trumpet, drums, piano. I just honestly can’t remember a time of my life where music wasn’t one of the most important things in it.

TP: Besides rap, what genres of music are you most influenced by?

AW: I’m definitely influenced by a lot of pop music. It’s impossible to not be somewhat aware of current pop trends, and have it influence your music in little ways. I also love folksy indie music. Jonathan Coulton is a huge influence on my music.

TP: What inspired the albums You Dare Call That Thing Human?!? and Neo Tokyo? What was the creative process?

AW: Most of what causes me to make an album is fairly uninteresting. With Akira, I had a pile of beats from producer DicepticoN, and they sounded so futuristic, like it was the soundtrack to a futuristic motorcycle chase. It made me think of Akira, and I went from there .

With Human?!?, it was after a 3-month straight tour. I wrote that while delirious and tired, and just suffering from homesickness, and sort of punch drunk. I knew I had to have a new album, and it just kind of came out of me in between road trips and tour stops along the way.

TP: You have an excellent work ethic. Where does that come from?

AW: Boredom. I hate being idle, I can’t stand it. Even if I’ve finished an album, if I have nothing to do that day, I’ll probably still record a song or two.

TP: What’s the best thing about being a musician and what’s the hardest?

AW: The best thing about being a musician is getting to feel like you have some sort of legacy, that this artistic endeavor that you do makes any sort of impact or difference in the general scheme of things. I think that deep down, that’s what we all kind of hunger for, and not in a narcissistic way (though there’s a bit of that too). You just want to feel like you’re not some small, insignificant speck in the universe.

The hardest is just being okay with the lack of structure, that you can’t plan for anything. Good and bad things happen, and they’ll happen whether you like it or not. You just have to roll with it, and hope that you can make it from one victory to the next.

TP: What artists are you currently listening to?

AW: I listen to a lot of people I’ve worked with before, like Dual Core, ThoughtCriminals, Jesse Dangerously, MC Frontalot, people like that. And then there’s people whose music I’m just a fan of, like K.Flay, Shad, Doomtree, Brother Ali. And then there’s embarrassing stuff like really bad ’90s R&B, Disney soundtracks, or old Paul Simon records.

TP: What future goals do you hope to achieve with your music? What type of future projects would you like to do?

AW: Honestly, the only goal I want is the financial and personal security to keep making music. I have tons of ideas for subjects and ways to take what I do, and I just want to survive long enough to at least attempt to do them.

TP: What advice can you give musicians who are just starting out?

AW: Write and record as much as you can, as fast as you can. And then put it out there, publicly. Even if you don’t think it’s perfect. You need that public shame and embarrassment to get better, and it has to be a real thing to you. It’s not real until you ask other people to judge it, and hopefully you’re good enough, or you’ll get good enough, to have other people accept it.

But no one just started making music, and was amazing from the get-go. You need to evolve, and it has to be in the public eye, whether you like it or not. If you’re too embarrassed to put something on a website or tweet about something, you definitely don’t have the stomach to stand up to how much harder it will get.

Image Courtesy of  http://www.adamwarrock.com/

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The American gay community and its supporters have had a lot of political and social spotlight in the last two weeks. First, President Obama publicly supported gay marriage. That was followed a week later with an official endorsement and support from the NAACP for gay marriage. Then a day after this, DC Comics jumped into the fray with the announcement that one of their core characters would be outed. That’s right, one of the company’s iconic characters; Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, Robin, Green Lantern, or Green Arrow, will come out of the closet and reveal to be gay.

President Obama’s approval of gay marriage is no surprise as he was for it back in 1996 and is the most liberal person to be President in decades. As an organization, the NAACP has been moving steadily down the liberal path for some time and will do a lot to support President Obama. DC’s decision, however, is more puzzling. It is one thing to add a gay super hero to their character roster. However, to decide to out one of the iconic characters in American pop culture is a more bold move, and will in my opinion backfire.

Which ever character DC has chosen to out, they will not be the first gay comic book character. Marvel comic books character, Northstar, was the first gay superhero in comicdom but Northstar never became a well-known character, nor prominent outside the Marvel comics sphere. By comparison, everyone knows Wolverine, even if you do not read comic books. In the ensuing years after Northstar, other gay characters have been introduced. Colossus of the Ultimate X-men line from Marvel, Batwoman in DC, as well as two lesbian characters in the DC title “Outsiders.”

Fanboys and girls took these changes in stride. After all, in a world where people can fly, shoot lasers out of their eyes and hands, and a regular man can beat out Superman, writers try to make it as close as possible to reality. Yes, in a world where all this is possible, there would be gay super heroes and villains. Besides, as one Orlando, Florida area comic bookstore manager said, “they are just following the current social trends.” And he is right, comics left the space of silly kid fun a long time ago. Social realism has been injected in the story lines and characters for years. Characters have been made drug addicted, alcoholics, wife beaters, in the 1970′s black characters where introduced, as were stories about racism. So what is so different now, and what is the big deal?

I have a few answers. The first, I believe it is a cardinal sin in writing to change anything about a well-known character for any reason other than storyline. If you violate that rule, you typically lose the audience. An example of this is the change in powers for Superman, following the “Death of Superman” storyline. After the mega sales caused by the death of Superman, it was revealed that he was in fact not really dead, just in a super coma. Once he returned, his powers were energy based, and his hair was long. Calling the fan reaction lukewarm would be charitable as best. Sales for the comic dropped way below expectations, given he was back from the dead. Over the years various characters have been tweaked and changed in effort to stay fresh, or increase sales. Origin stories can change a little, sometimes costumes can alter, and you can change their powers a bit, but you cannot change say, Batman into a black man. If you make too drastic a change, you will lose readers.

Can there be anything more of a blatant pander, than changing Superman into a gay alien? Will we be faced with seeing Wonder Woman, not in love with Steve Trevor, or secretly Superman, but with Supergirl? There is no original storyline which will makes sense, other than “Oh, well they were secretly gay all these decades.” And that is a problem. Millions of people have grown up with these characters, millions more still enjoy them and now they will watch as decades of story, of character meaning, go out the window just to make a point. Here is why this matters.

Wonder Woman is from an island of amazons; no men. So it is really easy to make her a lesbian. If they ever make a movie for Wonder Woman, will the movie version incorporate a possible impending revelation? What do you do with integral characters like Steve Trevor who was the main reason she wanted to leave her cozy little island in the first place. What if it is Batman? What are the implications, justified or not, of a gay Bruce Wayne, living with young boys dressed in tights? Will this affect the millions of kids who would be future audiences — which super heroes are they going to be cheering on?

To me, the issue is not about having a gay super hero. If super heroes existed, there would naturally be a few. Rather, the issue is changing an iconic character for a political or social statement. The racial unrest of the 60′s and 70′s prompted the creation of characters like the Black Panther, Falcon, and Black Lighting. They did not; however, turn Captain America into a black man from the Bronx.

What DC is doing is wrong and stupid. I love comics, but I will not be buying a comic with one of the major heroes turned into a gay character. Neither will many others. I predict many parents will stop buying those comics for their children. If a movie comes out, if they do not hold true to the original characters, I will not see that either. This will be because DC destroyed an iconic character and all its rich history. The hero, whomever it turns out to be, will not be that character of old, any longer. There is no Superman without Lois Lane. There is no Batman without the tension of Catwoman. There is no Wonder Woman without Steve Trevor. There is no Green Arrow without his doggish ways, and love of the Black Canary. I could go on and on. These are icons. You do not change them.

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Considering the recent demise of Bandai’s North American anime licensing branch, and the closure of Tokyopop’s North American manga licensing offices in 2011, that old Western cliche seems still to hold true in America: There ain’t enough room in this town for the both of us.

In place of several publishers, licensors, and distributors that once offered a selection and variety to the translation and quality of the Japanese-imported anime and manga, the landscape now features two sole skyscrapers: Funimation for anime, and Viz Media for manga.

Unlike the North American comics industry, which has a “big two” of DC and Marvel, along with several notable smaller publishers such as Dark Horse and Image, the manga scene has steadily been thinning out since the early 2000s, and today, Viz is really the only big name in the business.

The easy answer is to blame the bad economy, but escapism into a fantasy world never gets old, and that is exactly what manga and anime sell. North American comics are more or less stable, and the video game industry is now even larger than the film industry in North America.

Escapism booms during economically tough times, but manga is busting. And on the anime side of things, Funimation’s nearest competitor, 4Kids, is now in bankruptcy. What have Funimation and Viz done that other companies have not?

For starters, they did not make stupid business decisions like Bandai’s North American wing, and they went with safe and solid titles. Funimation and Viz were both able to acquire several properties during the late ’90s that would each have been flagship titles for lesser companies.

So is it a simple matter of strong-arming the competition into destitution? Selling established North American comics such as Batman or X-Men to North Americans is a much easier task compared to importing Japanese media. A certain level of cultural and linguistic empathy bolsters the potential sales of DC and Marvel’s comics in America. Add a familiar name to that, and by comparison, half the marketing is done before you even start to sell an issue of Spider-Man.

That creates a larger market for those titles. Dragon Ball, on the other hand, had several failed attempts at being introduced here before it caught on like wildfire, because it was a very Japanese title.

Take some characters from the Journey to the West (a story that would be instantly recognizable within Asia), add in a Shaolin monk and ubiquitous references to ladies’ underwear (some of which, such as Bulma’s name, didn’t even carry over), and you have a mixture of nonsense that turns out as popular as green tea in Asia, and as popular as, well… green tea in North America, at least at first.

Companies cannot afford to follow the model of Dragon Ball. They need to create something familiar and established to give it appeal, and that ends up meaning one thing: a lack of innovation.

Viz and Funimation are successful because they play it safe, licensing only the most popular titles and then holding on to them for as long as possible. At the same time, Japanese content creators are realizing the same thing, and putting out nothing but the same familiar archetypes season after season, year after year.

Remember the original GameBoy, with its blocky grey body, its green screen, and its inexplicably purple buttons? Who said the buttons on that thing should be purple? Who knows? It was a weird decision, a silly risk, but it made for one of the most iconic handheld platform designs to this day.

Anime needs purple buttons. Just a few weird, innocuous twists to pull it out of the ordinary, make it interesting, and make it iconic. Dragon Ball would probably be too risky and foreign to introduce into today’s market, but surely something like 2008‘s Kaiba would have been warmly appreciated stateside.

Playing it safe results in diminishing returns at best. Funimation and Viz may be doing well for the moment, but when the mediocrity reaches a fever pitch and fans are aching for something novel, plucky risk-taking little companies will be the ones reaping the rewards.

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Cut off one of its heads, and two more take its place — An all-new Hydra has risen and they have their sights set on the Sentinel of Liberty in your first look at Captain America #6.

Critically acclaimed writer Ed Brubaker is joined by legendary artist Alan Davis for an important new chapter in the life of Steve Rogers. Throughout Fear Itself, Rogers has been harboring a dark secret and its one that may leave the leader of Earth’s Mightiest — powerless. Can Cap and his closest allies take on the revitalized Hydra and stop them before it’s too late?

Meanwhile, Norman Osborn’s new Dark Avengers are put to the test next month in New Avengers #19, courtesy of the blockbuster creative team of Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato.

The new and improved H.A.M.M.E.R., led by Osborn, is out for revenge and failure is not an option for his new Dark Avengers. And when the New Avengers find out who their doppelgangers are, it will send shockwaves throughout the team. Get your front row ticket to the action in New Avengers #19.

Finally, for X-Men fans, Stryker’s rampage against all of mutant kind escalates in your first look at Ultimate Comics X-Men #4 from the creative team of Nick Spencer and Paco Medina.

With the number of mutants still on the run dwindling down, the new X-Men must act quickly if there is any hope of survival. Except when tensions rise amongst the group – a traitor may be in their midst.

Can Stryker be stopped and can the X-Men hold it together in time to save their race? Find out in Ultimate Comics X-Men #4.

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Someone has Wolverine’s money and he’s determined to get it back in your first look At Wolverine #19. From the fan favorite creative team of Jason Aaron and Ron Garney, X-Men Regenesis continues deep in the heart of  San Francisco’s Chinatown as Logan finds himself paired up with Immortal Weapon Fat Cobra and Gorilla Man.

Except when the three have to go up against the world’s newest and most powerful drug dealer — what’s waiting for them at the gates of his underground stronghold is not at all what they expected. Want to know what Wolverine and crew are up against and if they’ll all make it out alive? Find out this December in Wolverine #19.

And that’s not all from the amazing X-men — here’s a first look at X-Club #1.

This December, fight fire with physics as Marvel is pleased to present the first look at X-Club #1 from writer Simon Spurrier and artist Paul Davidson.

The X-Men’s team of supreme scientists have finally created the world’s first elevator –to space!

But just as they’re about to launch this majestic innovation, chaos erupts and the X-Men are to blame. It’s up to Dr. Nemesis, Madison Jeffries, Dr. Kavita Rao and Danger to clear their name before the experiment backfires. No fan of the X-Men can miss X-Club #1.

Want to find out more about the X-Club? Head on over to Marvel.com and see what Spurrier had to say.

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It’s official, Wolverine & The X-Men is a hit and to celebrate the book’s critical acclaim, Marvel is pleased to present the first look at Wolverine & The X-Men #2.

Wolverine leads a brand new crew of X-Men and the team started out with their hands full this October as the Hellfire Club ushered in a new . Marvel Architect writer Jason Aaron and Chris Bachalo, a fan-favorite artist, constitute the superstar creative team behind the new era of the mutantkind.

Following the catastrophic disruption to the Jean Grey School of Higher Learning, Wolverine and his new school is put to the test. With the all-new Hellfire Club causing all sorts of headaches for the new students, Logan must rally the troops and face the return of a classic X-Villain.

Fans and Critics agree, they love Wolverine & The X-Men:

“Jason Aaron and Chris Bachalo have delivered a fantastic  first issue of the kind of X-Men book that I want to read for a very long time.” – Ron Richards, iFanboy.com

“It’s nice to feel taken by the hand and led into a world you already know intimately only to find it has been given a serious upgrade that could very well drive it most excellently into the future. I’m in.” – Kelly Thompson, ComicBookResources.com

“If you’re looking for an in to the X-Universe, this should do it.” Joey Esposito, IGN.com

“Wolverine and the X-Men #1 makes me hopeful for the future of comic books in America.” – Alex Zalben, MTV.com

“I was caught off guard by how much I enjoyed it and cannot wait for the next issue.” – Tony Guerrero, Comicvine.com

“As far as first issues go, Wolverine and the X-Men passes with flying colors. Enroll now.” – David Pepose, Newsarama.com

Did Wolverine make the right decision by moving to Westchester? Can he keep his school together before it’s too late? Find out this December, in Wolverine & The X-Men #2.

The article Wolverine & The X-Men #2 Coming Soon appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Marvel has brought their comic book characters to the big screen for a long time. Marvel has brought out one film every year since 2002, starting with “Spider-man.” Since then, we have seen many Marvel character adaptations, including Daredevil, the Punisher, the Hulk, Elektra, Ghost Rider, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America.

Future releases include “The Amazing Spiderman” and its sequel. Both “Thor” and “Iron Man” will also have sequels. The Avengers is the latest Marvel comic book to see the big screen. It is part of the Marvel cinematic universe that crosses over several Marvel superhero films including “Iron Man” (2008), “The Incredible Hulk” (2008), “Iron Man 2″ (2010), “Thor” (2011), and “Captain America: The First Avenger” ( 2011).

The movie is directed by Josh Whedon, and stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, and Scarlett Johansson. The Avengers comic book made its debut in September 1963. The original lineup consisted of Iron Man, the Hulk, and Thor.

Captain America did not appear alongside until the fourth issue when the original team found him. The other two characters, Ant-Man and Wasp, are not featured in the film. Even though many Marvel characters have been in the Avengers lineup, one thing has always remained consistent: they fight.

As with most Marvel films, the movie version of the Avengers does not exactly remain totally faithful to the comic book. Now this may not upset many moviegoers who seem to love these comic book action heroes. Diehard Marvel fans do not like these stories being tampered with.

On a Marvel fan site, I found that a majority of Marvel fans do not like many of the films that have been produced, except the first two Spider-man and X-men movies. Being a Marvel fan myself, I can remember the days when there were no Marvel movies whatsoever. Waiting for a Marvel movie looked like something that was never going to happen.

Spider-man was something that was rumored to happen since 1992, with many people promising a Spidey film, including James Cameron, which never saw light of day. Finally, when these films did come out, fans expecting something great only felt disappointed time and again.

All Marvel fans agree the action in the movies has been great, but the stories is where they feel let down. They don’t understand why Marvel cannot make the same quality movies as D.C. Comics, which D.C. Comics has done with Superman and Batman, movies that have brilliant stories.

One of the great examples of a Marvel picture that had a storyline that was tampered with was “The Hulk”starring Eric Bana. They came up with a side story about Bruce Banner’s father, which was the reason why he was affected by gamma rays. This totally diverts from the original vision and should have been left out of the picture.

It should have just stuck to the facts. Although the recent Iron Man films have been viewed by the fans as brilliant, ” The Avengers” also looks to be another film fans are eagerly awaiting for.

Image Courtesy of  http://marvel.com/ 

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X-men: First Class is the answer to every X-Men fans prayers. After the 2009 release, and subsequent flop, of X-Men Origins: Wolverine many people wondered how, or if, the franchise would bounce back. Well it did, and it bounced back hard. This is easily the best comic book superhero movie to be released since The Dark Knight.

Director Matthew Vaughn did a great job introducing moviegoers to the two most important mutants of the X-Men universe. He also decided to start the franchise up from scratch. By ignoring the events of the past X-Men films, he gives us a fresh view of who became who and why. Magneto’s anger towards humans is explained as is Professor X’s belief that humans and mutants can co-exist.

The film starts out by introducing us to a young boy named Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto, Michael Fassbender) being separated from his mom at a concentration camp. During this separation he becomes enraged and showcases his talent of being able to manipulate metal. This catches the attention of a crazed Nazi scientist (played by Kevin Bacon) who wants to learn more about the boy’s amazing power.

At the same time, on the other side of the world another boy, Charles Xavier (James Mcavoy), is excited to find out that he is not the only person with super-human abilities. His power is telekinesis and he becomes Professor X. He is awoken by sounds from the kitchen of his mansion, and upon investigating the source of the noise he discovers Raven (you might know her as Mystique), an abandoned child who can shift her shape to assume the form of another human. An immediate friendship is forged because Charles makes Raven feel unashamed of her natural blue, rough skinned form and accepts her for who/what she is.

The main question being asked in the movie is how a group that is feared and shunned by society should go about gaining acceptance. Magneto believes that since mutants are the next step in human evolution, that they are better than mere humans. For that reason all mutants should stick together to protect each other from the wrath of humans. Professor X, however, believes that mutants and humans can and must co-exist. While Magneto and Professor X are not enemies, their strong beliefs force them to go there separate ways.

The balance between showcasing Magneto’s views and Professor X’s is close to perfect, leaving the viewer wondering who is right and who is wrong. Of course, both characters propose great arguments for why they are right, but in the end it is impossible to simply say one or the other is right and the other wrong. Here I think Vaughn did an extraordinary of making viewers feel sympathy for both the hero (later on in X-Men that will be Professor X) and the villain (eventually Magneto).

Right from the start the movie captivates the viewers. The action and special effects are awesome and so is the dialogue. It is witty, funny, smart, and at times even thought provoking.

The film serves as a re-boot of the X-Men franchise. Instead of taking all of the most popular mutants and building a story around them with little background, it starts from scratch. The movie ignores the events of the prior movies in the franchise, while at the same time keeping and advancing one of the main themes of X-Men, acceptance in society. This is a must see not only for fans of X-Men, but also for anyone looking for a fun movie.

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