VOLUME 10 I MAY I 2015 I $3.99
COMIXASYLUM.COM
MOVIE PREVIEWS
© & TM 2015 VALIANT ENTERTAINMENT INC.
JURASSIC WORLD MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 5 ANT MAN MAD MAX: FURY ROAD TERMINATOR: GENISYS
VALIANT 25
TH
ANNIVERSARY GREAT WEB-SPECTATIONS WELCOME TO THE MCU PETER PARKER
TIME CODE CLASSICS MAD MAX
BACK TO THE FUTURE AT 30
30 YEARS LATER AND STILL GREAT
CONTENTS MAY
7
I
VOLUME 10
I
2015
EDITOR’S NOTE COMIX ASYLUM 2.0
RECENT NEWS 8
NETFLIX’S DAREDEVIL 9
45
ALL YOUR INDUSTRY NEWS & UPDATES
DAREDEVIL SCORES ANOTHER HIT FOR MARVEL AND NETFLIX
ON OUR COVER The Valiant 25th Anniversary Celebration Begins in May with Monumental New Releases for Free Comic Book Day and Beyond!
TOP 10 RIDES IN POP CULTURE 10
12
17
18
WE RATE THE TOP GEEK RIDES
GREAT WEB-SPECTATIONS WELCOME TO THE MCU PETER PARKER
JURASSIC WORLD WE RETURN TO THE ORIGINAL PARK
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 5 A STUNT MAN’S WET DREAM
50
FEATURED ARTIST CHRISTIAN ZANIER
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD A POST-APOCALYPTIC WASTELAND PAINTING
19
ANT-MAN
MARVEL’S BIGGEST GAMBLE
FACEBOOK FACEBOOK.COM/COMIXASYLUM
SPECTRE
BOND CONFRONTS HIS PAST
TWIITER @COMIXASYLUM
YOUTUBE /COMIXASYLUMCHANNEL
20
22
TERMINATOR GENISYS ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER RETURNS
24
THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. GUY RITCHIE TAKES US BACK TO THE 60’S
26
THE ROAD WARRIOR TIME CODE CLASSICS
27
NO MERCY 1 COMIC REVIEWS
33
LOLA XOXO
COMIC REVIEWS
BACK TO THE FUTURE AT 30
36
39
COMICS . MOVIES . TV . PULP CULTURE
PUBLISHER Vaughn Joseph EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Steve Bynoe LINE EDITOR Loraine Jackson LAYOUT EDITOR Sheldon Johnson LEAD DEVEOPLER MassiveNUmedia COPY EDITOR Eureta Bynoe LAYOUT INTERN Kiel Ryan VIDEO PRODUCTION Claude Barnes CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Courtney Small, Marcus Clarke, Paul Miranda, Vaughn Joseph, Peter Van Horne, C.S. Young, Niki Cheu ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Valiant Entertainment, Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Studios, Paramount Pictures, Boundless Comics, Avatar Press, EPK TV, Columbia Pictures, Warner Bros., Aspen Comics, MTL Comics, Image Comics, Netflix, Christian Zanier, Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures, Universal Pictures, Universal TV COVER Valiant Entertainment MARKETING & SALES sales@comixasylum.com Contact Comix Asylum at: info@comixasylum.com Comix Asylum is published six times a year by: Comix Asylum Inc. 1444 Dupont Street Unit 15 Toronto ON, Canada M3J 2T2 ©2015 All rights reserved. Copies of Comix Asylum can be purchased and downloaded for $3.99 per issue. The publisher reserves the right to accept or reject all advertising matter. The publisher assumes no liability for return or safety of unsolicited art, photographs or manuscripts. AVAILABLE ON: Apple iTunes via Magzter All images contained within are TM and 2015 their respective owners. All rights reserved. Please direct editorial and retailer inquires and contributions to Steve Bynoe: steve@comixasylum.com. Inquires regarding advertising in Comix Asylum Magazine or Online should be directed to steve@comixasylum.com. Any statement made, expressed or implied, in Comix Asylum Magazine are the opinions of the columnist or person being interviewed and do not represent the position of the publisher. JOIN US ONLINE AND LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK WWW.COMIXASYLUM.COM
6
COMICS . MOVIES . TV . PULP CULTURE
EDITORIAL COMIX ASYLUM 2.0
W
elcome to Comix Asylum 2.0! We’ve updated the magazine you’re
holding and have changed the format a little. It’s still interactive and chalk full of all of the latest news and features in the world of comics, movies, toys and pop culture. We really enjoyed the old format but the time had come for us to update things and broaden our reach. We’re happy to announce that our new magazine is part of the Magzter platform and will continue to feature the video trailers and some of the interactivity that you’re used to from the previous version of the magazine. I’d like to personally thank all of you who’ve been along for the ride so far and would also like to welcome our new readers. We’ve got some special promotions planned with our new platform and the rest of the year promises to be a good one. Now let’s move onto what this issue has in store for you. Valiant Entertainment turns 25th this month and we’ll take a look at the company’s history, its plans for the future and its recent deal with Sony Pictures. We’ll highlight Netflix and Marvel’s Daredevil, examine Spider-Man’s introduction to Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and review Image Comics’ No Mercy and Apsen’s Lola XOXO: Wasteland Madam. Our artist feature spotlights the talented Christian Zanier and his new book, Ember. Time Code Classics is back with a feature on The Road Warrior and we celebrate 30 years of Back to the Future with a behind the scenes look at the film. We also preview some upcoming films including SPECTRE, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Ant-Man and Terminator: Genisys. To round things off we also look at the top 10 rides in the history of pop culture. Head on over to www.comixasylum.com for breaking news and updates including solicitations for upcoming comic books. Continue to follow Comix Asylum on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and don’t forget to subscribe to Steve Bynoe Editorial Director
our YouTube channel. Enjoy the new version of the magazine and we’ll see you again in July!
WWW.COMIXASYLUM.COM
7
TY TEMPLETON SUFFERS MASSIVE HEART ATTACK Some sad news hit the comic world recently with news that veteran artist and writer, Ty Templeton had suffered a massive heart attack and was placed in a medically induced coma. According to Templeton on his website, he “died three times” before coming out of the coma and is now recovering slowly. Warm wishes on a full recovery and it’s good to see through the posts on his website that he hasn’t lost any of his trademark wit. Get well soon Ty!
HERB TRIMPE PASSES AWAY
The world of comics has lost another legend with the passing of Herb Trimpe. Best known as the artist on the Incredible Hulk during the early 70’s, Trimpe drew the first appearance of Wolverine in issue #180 of the title. Trimpe’s career began at Marvel in 1967 and spanned close to 5 decades. One of his last projects was a backup story in Savage Dragon #200.
DO YOU KNOW THE WAY TO SAN JOSE? Apple’s Steve Wozniak has decided to get together with some of his friends, including the legendary Stan Lee, to start a new comic book convention next year. Silicon Valley Comic Con 2016 will make its debut March 19-20 at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, California. Not much is known about the new con but according to a blurb on www.svcomiccon.com, “Silicon Valley Comic Con brings together America’s two greatest superheroes: Pop culture and technology.” In a letter to the general public, Wozniak states that “Silicon Valley Comic Con will be an event where fans of all kinds can celebrate the Age of Geek.”
8
KIRKMAN GETS FIRST LOOK DEAL WITH UNIVERSAL Robert Kirkman’s Skybound Entertainment has just signed a first look deal with Universal Pictures. The twoyear deal gives Universal the inside track to produce films based on any of Skybound’s titles - Invincible, The Walking Dead, Outcast and The Astounding Wolfman.
BY: STEVE BYNOE
Daredevil’s 13 episodes will completely (well, maybe not completely) wipe the 2003 Ben Affleck feature film from most fan’s minds. For those of us who don’t hold grudges, all is forgiven. The first season is dark and gritty – a nod to Frank Miller’s take on the character in the early 80’s – and is definitely not for kids. It’s as if creator Drew Goddard and the producers were heavily influenced by perhaps the best show ever on television, HBO’s The Wire, shifted the action from Baltimore to New York’s Hell’s Kitchen and added a blind, vigilante ninja to spice things up even more. The cast is excellent with Charlie Cox (Matt Murdock/Daredevil) and Vincent D’Onofrio (Wilson Fisk/ Kingpin) leading the way. Even though Daredevil is on the small screen, its tone and production values work well within the Marvel Cinematic Universe – something Marvel’s Agent’s of S.H.I.E.L.D. sometimes struggles to do. The series also extends Netflix’s current winning streak after another solid season of original programming with House of Cards. The shift to well written, highly produced shows that have short runs has been a hit for Netflix and with the critical and artistic success of Daredevil, the future looks bright for the remaining Marvel/Netflix collaborations.
Photo: Courtesy of Netflix © 2014 Netflix, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Marvel continues to have the Midas touch when it comes to adapting characters from their vast comic book library into cinematic properties. Daredevil is the latest of these adaptations and after binge watching its first season on Netflix, it appears that Marvel and Netflix at this point can do no wrong.
9
TOP 10 RIDES IN
POP CULTURE
09.
AGENT COULSON’S CORVETTE
07.
SPEEDER BIKES
HISTORY
A
s the Canadian International Auto Show wound down after another successful 10 day run, a debate broke out in the Comix Asylum offices. While checking out some of the cool new rides coming out of the auto industry, we began to argue over which car was the best in the history of pop culture. After some heated discussion here’s Comix Asylum’s top ten rides in pop culture history.
10.
When Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. first appeared in the Marvel cinematic universe and later in their own series, fans wondered when the agency’s flying car would make an appearance. Well they didn’t have to wait long as Agent Coulson’s Corvette took to the skies during an episode in the first season. Lola, as Coulson calls it, is a red ’62 convertible that has the ability to transform from a road vehicle into a traffic defeating aircraft with the flick of a switch.
08.
FERRARI DAYTONA SPYDER
G-2/SPACEMOBILE
Driven by weapons expert and racecar driver Joe/Jason of the Gatchaman/Battle of the Planets series, the G-2 was inspired by F1 racecars. The G-2 came equipped with a gatling gun and had the ability to hover over water and drive up vertical walls. Housed in the nose of Gatchaman’s God Phoenix airship, the G-2 was usually deployed midflight to help combat the menace of Galactor that Gatchaman faced each episode. 10
Crockett and Tubbs, the most stylish cops ever to grace the small screen, spent 2 ½ seasons driving around Miami in the mid 80’s in a black Ferrari Daytona Spyder. Crime fighting never looked so good and the Ferrari was the perfect compliment to a show that featured all of the excesses of that particular decade. The car featured on the show was actually a replica that was custom built using a Corvette chassis. The cost of an authentic Daytona coupled with Enzo Ferrari’s displeasure with the show using a replica, led to Crockett driving a Testarossa for the rest of Miami Vice’s 5 year run.
There have been a plethora of cool bikes in pop culture but somehow they never seem to get their due. From Easy Rider to Tron to Akira, motorcycles have graced the big and small screen and captured the imagination of gear heads and sci-fi aficionados. The speeder bikes in Return of the Jedi were part of one of the best chase scenes in the original trilogy. Other variations of speeder bikes have been ridden by Darth Maul and Anakin Skywalker in other instalments of the Star Wars movies.
06.
MAD MAX INTERCEPTOR
Mel Gibson burst onto the scene behind the wheel of a 1973 Ford Falcon Coupe in the Australian thriller, Mad Max. Dubbed the Interceptor in the film, the Falcon was a hit with fans and a love affair with the Mad Max version of the car exists to this day. Fans have even taken to building detailed, working replicas of the car and taking part in Mad Max fesitivals to celebrate the film series.
05.
1969 DODGE CHARGER
The image of Bo and Luke Duke jumping over a creek in the General Lee is one of the hallmarks of The Dukes of Hazard. The orange ’69 Dodge Charger played such an integral part of the show it can be considered as part of the cast. The show survived replacing the original Duke boys (Tom Wopat and John Schnieder) for a brief time, but it was the combination of the original cast and the gravity defying General Lee that made the show so successful.
04.
LOTUS ESPRIT
Bond and fine cars have gone hand in hand for over 50 years. After the DB5 was retired Bond, this time portrayed by Roger Moore, sped through his adventures behind the wheel of a Lotus Esprit. The car and its place in pop culture lore is due to its prominent role in 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me. In the film the Lotus not only races around the Sardinian countryside evading motorcycles and helicopters, but also transforms into a submarine before reverting back into a road vehicle.
03.
1964 ASTON MARTIN DB5
Perhaps the most iconic and enduring of the rides on this list, the DB5 debuted in 1964’s Goldfinger. The DB5’s design was stylish and totally befitted its owner, the super suave British secret agent, James Bond. Armed with an array of weapons (e.g., machine guns, ejector seats, bullet proof shields, oil slick sprays) and the latest in 60’s tech, the silver Aston Martin was Bond’s vehicle of choice through the Connery years and made its return to the film series in Pierce Brosnan’s Tomorrow Never Dies.
02.
DELOREAN DMC-12
Without a doubt Dr. Emmett Brown’s suped-up DeLorean DMC-12 is the most awesome time machine ever created. Powered by a nuclear reactor and later a garbage consuming fusion reactor, the DeLorean used a flux capacitor and needed to reach a speed of 88 mph to travel through time. Due to its ability to travel through time, modifications from the future enabled the DeLorean to hover above the ground and to fly.
01.
THE BATMOBILE
There have been many interpretations of Batman’s iconic Batmobile and several of them are classics. Whether you’re a fan of the 60’s TV show model, the one from Tim Burton’s first two films or the Tumbler from Christopher Nolan’s trilogy, the Batmobile has always been one of Batman’s coolest toys. The popularity of the Batmobile is evidenced by how many fans clamour to get their picture taken at comic book conventions with a replica of Adam West and Burt Ward’s version of the car.
HONORABLE MENTION
ECTO 1 The Ecto-1 was the ride of choice for the Ghostbusters in the movies, cartoons, video games and comics. The 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor was also known as the Ectomobile and housed a plethora of equipment that the Ghostbusters used on their missions to capture ghosts.
11
BY: MARCUS CLARKE
GREAT
WEB-SPECTATIONS WELCOME TO THE MCU PETER PARKER
W
ith the stunning but not totally unexpected announcement that Sony Pictures and Marvel Entertainment had come to an agreement to have Spider-Man appear in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, it was revealed that Andrew Garfield would not be reprising his wall crawling role in any of the upcoming films. While the news did not come as a shock, it did raise a few eyebrows. It wouldn’t be the first time that an actor had been replaced as a franchise lead due to the inner business workings of a film studio. You only have to look to another of Sony’s franchises – James Bond - to see where this precedent had been set. 12
Before the Marvel/Sony deal, Andrew Garfield had portrayed Peter Parker in two films in Sony’s reboot of the Spider-Man film franchise. Although The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 made money, they weren’t exactly hits with fans or critics. Garfield’s portrayal of Peter Parker and Spider-Man was well received – and in some ways was seen as a more accurate representation of the characters than Toby McGuire’s in the Sam Raimi films. What turned fans and critics off were the lacklustre scripts and the underwhelming villains. Initially, many fans and critics were skeptical when news broke that Sony was rebooting the Spider-Man franchise after director Sam Raimi’s enormously successful trilogy. Spider-Man 3 was a disaster but it still managed to outgross its two predecessors, Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 with a worldwide gross of $419, 000, 000. When Raimi, Toby McGuire and the rest of the original cast weren’t brought back for a fourth installment, Sony decided to jumpstart the franchise by starting all over again. Replacing Raimi in the director’s chair was the aptly named, Mark Webb, Garfield was selected to fill McGuire’s Spidey suit and the results were decidedly mixed. The two films that Webb directed got several parts of the Spider-Man mythos correct, particularly the characterization of Peter Parker and his relationship with Gwen Stacey. Where those films failed was in the first movie’s design of Spider-Man’s costume, and the inability of both films to deliver a good villain, despite the Amazing Spider-Man 2’s overstuffed rogues’ gallery. In a market that has seen The Avengers, The Dark Knight, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier significantly raise the bar for superhero movies, Sony’s reboot of the Spider-Man franchise was a disappointment. Despite not setting the box office on fire, Sony was publicly talking about further developing the Spider-Man franchise, including a film devoted entirely to his villains, the Sinister Six. Reaction to those plans were met with skepticism by some fans and others wondered what it would be like if Marvel ever got the opportunity to make a Spider-Man film on their own. Ironically, fans would soon get their chance due to internal strife at Sony. The world came crashing down on Sony in late 2014 when a group called the Guardians of Peace hacked the company and began releasing sensitive emails detailing the internal discourse amongst the company’s top executives and some of its stars. Unflattering emails, company strategies, sensitive employee information (including social insurance numbers) and an early draft of the script for SPECTRE, the upcoming James Bond film, were some of the items released. The fallout of the hacking scandal resulted in Amy Pascal, Chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Motion Group, stepping down from her 13
THANK YOU FOR READING FOR MORE OF THIS ISSUE VISIT COMIXASYLUM.COM MAGAZINE AVAILABLE ON