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In Media Madness, Matt. Murray reviews, revisits and rambles about comics, cartoons and their interactions in and with related media.

I read some disappointing news over at Dark Horizons last week — rumor has it that Hayden Christensen will be playing Mandrake the Magician in some Criss Angel style adaptation of the Lee Falk comic strip of the same name.  Ugh.

While I’m not adverse to updating and playing with what is clearly a dated concept and character, I am frightened and saddened by choosing uber-douche Angel as the mold to recast the hero in (he evidently has a cameo as well) and then there’s casting Dork Vader himself to carry the production… In the words of Patton Oswalt doing his impression of Nick Nolte as Han Solo: Aw Hell, Chewbacca!

How the hell does this guy still get work? Has no one been to the movies in the past ten years? This kid buckled under the weight of the second Star Wars trilogy and was outperformed by the special effects and Billy Fu@%ing Elliot in Jumper. He can barely sustain the illusion of having an emotion on screen, how are we supposed to buy into the fact that he’s the world’s greatest illusionist and escape artist?

(In better news, Djimon “Give Us Us Free” Hounsou is in it too.  I’m assuming he’s playing Mandrake’s African sidekick Lothar as he’s absolutely perfect casting in that department.   So here’s hoping that maybe the producers and director aren’t complete shortbussers.)

In honor of this disgusting piece of casting that will no doubt amount to a staggering disappointment, and the death of another potentially cool classic comic franchise (The Phantom and/or Spirit, anyone?), I’ve assembled a list of the 5 worst performances in movies adapted from comics in the past 10 years or so.

Disclaimer: Enjoy the list, but by no means don’t watch the films. Really. You shouldn’t. Not only are they horrible performances but these people will get paid in some way, shape or form if you pick up the disc or watch it via some other legal means. Don’t encourage crap kids, it only begets more!

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Every Monday, Matt. Murray reviews, revisits and rambles about comics, cartoons and their interactions in and with related media.

by Matt. Murray

A little more than ten years ago, the mis-identified “genre” of comic book movies entered a new phase with the release of the first Blade.  Declared dead in 1997, thanks largely to the efforts of Joel Schumacher and Akiva Goldsman, movies based on superhero comics bounced back a summer later thanks to the underestimated efforts of and a lot of luck riding on the side of  screenwriter David Goyer, actor Wesley Snipes and director  Stephen Norrington.  Blade opened the door for not only two sequels, but for the development and final greenlighting of several other Marvel Comics properties including X-Men and Spider-Man.

Now, as we have either just left or recently entered a newer cycle thanks to Iron Man and The Dark Knight, and the just released Watchmen looms in the collective consciousness – splitting the ranks of film and comics fans a like, I feel that its a good time to take a look back at what I believe to be the true crap that emerged from the shadows of Blade.

This isn’t a list of “the worst” super hero movies per se, but rather a brief look at films I really didn’t like from the past ten years and why I didn’t care for them.

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Lee French, the Sequential Art Collective’s resident self-admitted “fanboy” is taking a month off of rambling to collect his thoughts about life, the multi-verse and everything for future rants and raves. This week, Matt. Murray, executive editor of the SAC Blog and author of our regular Monday Media Madness feature fills in with a ramble about an animated coming out party for a certain princess of Paradise Island.

by Matt. Murray

Warning: May contain “spoilers” for the recently released Wonder Woman animated feature from Warner Premiere.

In this week’s Alphabet of the Arcane, Mr. M. described Wonder Woman as the booty “that launched a thousand issues” referring to her status as the go-to sex symbol for a certain comics publisher. For over 68 years, she’s been the pre-eminent female force in DC Comics, starring in numerous titles and presiding in their Pantheon as one of the company’s “Big Three” heroes (with Batman and Superman). However, until Tuesday March 3rd, 2009, she has never headlined her own animated venture – while Batman and Superman total no less than 40 individual cartoon projects between them.

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