By Todd Allen

Joss Whedon started something when he decided to continue Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a comic.  Now DC/Warners is following that lead and continuing Smallville as a comic, with Season 11 set to drop in April or May, depending on which format you want to read it in.

The comic will be written by Bryan Q. Miller, who was part of the Smallville writing staff and ended up as the Executive Story Editor.  He also spent a couple years writing the Batgirl comic.  Miller is as authoritative a Smallville vision as was available and he’s written comics before, so it seems like a good match there.  The art will be by Pere Perez.  Perez was on Batgirl with Miller and has done a few other things, notably some work on the Nightwing and Flamebird Action Comics run a couple years back.

The release schedule has a little bit of a quirk to it.  Weekly digital comic “chapters” starting April 13, 2012 (a Tuesday) and then collected into a print edition starting on May 16.  Offhand, I’d say the digital is there to do two things:

• Trying to find the Smallville fans that are certainly dedicated enough online, but don’t seem to have a presence in the Direct Market.  Cat Staggs is the cover artist for the digital edition and Gary Franks for the print.  Having Franks, much more famous in the DM, for the print comic does speak to different audiences.
• Mimicking the weekly schedule of a TV show.

Buffy started out with huge numbers as a monthly comic and settled into merely very good (for an independent comic) monthly numbers and a lot of trade paperback sales.  It will be interesting to see if Smallville can find similar success.

We also have an answer to an old question.  What will it take to get DC to do a regular Smallville comic?  The show getting cancelled.

Official announcement follows:

Fans of the smash-hit TV series Smallville haven’t had much to cheer about since the show ended its critically acclaimed 10-year run on The CW last May.  That’s all going to change with the upcoming new comic book series from DC Entertainment: SMALLVILLE SEASON 11.  Written by former Smallville show scribe Bryan Q. Miller, the new digital first series will be published digitally on April 13, 2012, with new digital chapters released weekly thereafter.  Additionally, the online chapters will be offered in a print periodical, along with an episode guide to the hit television series, with the first print issue released on May 16.

The new comic book series picks-up where the show left off (with Clark officially now as Superman!) and features other fan-favorite characters including Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, Chloe Sullivan-Queen, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, and General Lane.  The book features an all-star creative team – in addition to Miller, SMALLVILLE SEASON 11 creators include print cover artist Gary Frank (SUPERMAN SECRET ORIGIN), digital cover artist Cat Staggs and interiors by Pere Perez (BATGIRL).

“Six months after Clark Kent donned the cape and took to the skies to save Earth from Apokolips… enter Season 11!” enthuses Miller.  “New allies abound!  New enemies afoot!  And old friends return where they’re least expected!  Pere and colorist Chris Beckett have done a fantastic job of capturing the look of the show and the players, and Gary and Cat are knocking it out of the park on covers. I couldn’t be more excited to help give seasoned viewers and new readers an all-access pass to Clark’s first year in the cape.”

¶ Oh yeah, Tyrion, Daenerys, Jon Snow—all your favorites who are still alive are coming back April 1.

¶ THE DARK KNIGHT RISES’sTom Hardy admits that wearing the Bane mask is not fun, but he’s okay with that:

Speaking at the premiere of his latest film, This Means War, Tom said: “Bane’s mask is tight, actually. I got used to it, but you get used to anything really, in time.”

…”I didn’t get into a dark place at all. A lot of dark characters are easy to have distance from, it’s something I feel comfortable with, I suppose.”

Comfortable enough to speak clearly? We’ll see.

¶ Aw. Make-up master/actor Tom Savini is campaigning to play arch-villain The Governor of The Walking Dead, partly because he looks just like the character.

John Hawkes (below)was pretty awesome in WINTER’S BONE; he would also be a good Governor.

¶ Albert Torres has been tapped to write the BEN 10 movie. Torres previously wrote HENRY POOLE IS HERE, about a guy who goes to a house to die, so it’s all….connected.

¶ The movie version of Alex Robinson’sTOO COOL TO BE FORGOTTEN has writers: Rocky Russo and Jeremy Sosenko (MOVIE 43). The movie is at Red Crown Prods. and Likely Story—the latter you will recall, is actually a partner of publisher Top Shelf, with a first-look deal—this is the first fruit of that alliance. The story concerns a man who transports back to his 15-year-old self.

Rick and Herschel enjoy a heart-to-heart talk in this brief teaser.

Hm. Another 6 episodes of heart-to-heart talks? Egads. Michonne, do not forsake us!

Actually Robert Kirkman was all “I don’t know if Michonne is showing up in season 2″ at the recent Television Critics Association tour. Right. He’s only an unfrozen caveman show creator! He wouldn’t know!

We say: Expect the popular katana wielding bad-ass to show up in the very last shot of season 2.

Meanwhile, Daryl (Norman Reedus) did promise more action for season 2.5 — that’s what we like, Daryl, action!

Here’s the first season 2.5 teaser, in which people stomp around, look anxious, and argue.

AMC has released a teaser poster for the midseason return of The Walking Dead on February 12 with Andrew Lincolnas Sheriff Rick Grimes taking aim. After the rather Shane-centric first half of the season, will we see Rick getting back in the saddle?

Unsurprisingly, AMC has also announced a longer season 3 — 16 episodes as opposed to 12. The season will be split in two, and writers Nichole Beattie (Rubicon, John from Cincinnati) and Sang Kim (Crash, Hawthorne) are joining the staff.

Since debuting last year,The Walking Dead has set viewing records for AMC and spawned one of the strongest comics-based franchises in recent years.

Warner’s search for a new superhero that can fill the ache left by the end of Smallville’s run has landed on Green Arrow. The CW has ordered a pilot written and executive-produced by Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim (GREEN LANTERN) and Andrew Kreisberg (Fringe).

Although he co-starred on Smallville for several years, this Green Arrow will be set “outside the comics continuity.” For those of you who like to follow the studio trail, here’s the origin story as told by Deadline:

Arrow, produced by Warner Bros. TV and Berlanti’s studio-based Berlanti Television, was developed by Berlanti and Guggenheim who came up with the idea and wrote the storyline and then brought in Kreisberg to write the script. Kreisberg, who has comics experience, having written DC Comics’ Green Arrow and Black Canary among other books, previously worked with Berlanti and Guggenheim on their ABC drama Eli Stone.

Smallville’s David Nutter is set to direct the pilot.

Warner and the CW have been eager to find just the right superhero for their lineup for some time. Both Deadman and the Spectre have also been inspected — Green Arrow is the first to make it to an actual pilot stage since the incident with Wonder Woman. One name not much mentioned in all this: Geoff Johns, who presumably is working behind the scenes on some of this.

Another gender clash in the comics world….so soon??? YES.

The title and trailers for that Kevin Smith Secret Stash comic book store show we mentioned a while ago have been revealed and it’s called COMIC BOOK MEN, a fact which saddened Jill Pantozzi – she and other comics-wise females had auditioned for the show:

Yes, I’m disappointed in Smith for taking the show in this direction but I’m also disappointed in him for wasting a huge opportunity to help change the way the world views geeks. It’s not that I think Smith is some bastion for geek women but I know he’s a fairly enlightened individual (even if that doesn’t always show in his films). He named his daughter Harley Quinn after all, you can’t tell me she isn’t being brought up as a geek girl. And as far as television and movie marketing go, isn’t it sort of the norm to add a woman to a male ensemble cast? Especially to reality shows? I’m not saying Smith should have added a female to pander to the male audience, I just think it would have been nothing but a benefit to the show to have at least one knowledgeable woman there to add to the conversation and perhaps, show a differing perspective.

Comics writer and TV host Zoë Gulliksen also auditioned and made the first cut in a pilot…but not the final cut for the show which airs February 12/ right after The Walking Dead.

UPDATE: I’ve actually been enjoined to remove my quote and photo of Zoë because they were perceived as a slam. My intent was actually the opposite but in the light of morning I can see it was open to interpretation.

Just to make myself clear the picture I had was of an attractive young woman sitting in a comic shop with an adorable French bulldog. In my considerable experience with the media, I think attractive young women and adorable bulldogs havea higher Q factor than bearded dudes talking about comics, so I would concur with Kevin Smith’s judgement: Zoë Gulliksen would have been a PERFECT castmember for a show set in a comic book shop.

Anyway, this did seem like a bit of a wasted opportunity to present a 21st century view of the comic book world. There are two trailers for the show below, and one of them even plays with the whole “Comics men never touch women!” idea.

On Twitter, Kevin Smith responded to some of the complaints:

Via @ActionChick “Then why did you bother auditioning some women?” Because there are women in the show, just not on Stash at the staff.

Via @slackerheroes “Then why is it called Comic Book MEN?” Because it’s about four grown males who work at the Stash, I’m guessing… #wtf

Via @TheNerdyBird “Why No Women in COMIC BOOK MEN” Saving them for season 2, to have somewhere to go story-wise. Season 1, we meet the guys.

Although we here at the Beat would much rather see a coed comic shop — and Secret Stash is wayyyyyyy behind the times in not hiring a woman on the staff — we do get his point. This is TV we’re talking about, people. You know, the medium that produced WIFE SWAP and CHEATERS and ROCK OF LOVE and CELEBRITY REHAB. This is not a verdant steppe of subtlety and progressive thinking. It’s all rockfisted stereotypes and preconceived notions — you know, like the idea that guys who work in comics shops can’t meet girls.

That said…we’ll be watching. The actual execution could go any which way. We do like some of our reality TV here at Stately Beat Manor. Our love of KITCHEN NIGHTMARES is well documented. We’ve been known to sneak a look at AMERICAN IDOL. FMB has got us addicted to STORAGE WARS which sounds like a sad show about people’s lost stuff but is actually a funny show about competitive people who annoy and distrust one another.

So yeah, a show about a comics shop is bound to feature awkward social interaction and anal tendencies…but hopefully Smith has a grasp of the wider possibilities.

By Todd Allen

Ever heard of a UK import called “Misfits?”

I’ve heard it described as “Heroes, but better.”  Actually, I’d say closer to a mash-up of Heroes, Smallville and the Nathan Barley/Snuffbox school of very dark British humor.  And yes, it is better than Heroes.  Especially Heroes after the first season.

The premise starts with the “mysterious empowering event.”  In this case, there’s a storm and some hail (evoking a Smallville meteor shower in my mind).  Our heroes, also like Smallville, are young adults.  Unlike Smallville, they’re juvenile delinquents on their community service detail.  Oh, yes — this show is a bit twisted.

These aren’t particularly flashy powers.  You have a receiving telepath (she only seems to hear the thoughts of others, but doesn’t speak to them), a time traveler whose power is seemingly triggered by guilt and not under tight control; a young lady whose touch causes people to want to have sex, aggressive sex, with her NOW (I mentioned it was a little twisted, right?); a fellow who can turn invisible; and a fellow who figures he _must_ have a power, but can’t figure out what it is.

Misfits is currently available on Hulu.  They’re just starting to show the third season, which has already been broadcast in the UK.

Watching the first season, I found each episode very good, but thematically all over the map.  You start out with an origin episode that’s relatively straight forward.  You move on to an episode that’s a full on sex farce (yes, there’s a reason Hulu wants you to verify your age – this is an R-rated episode, complete with nudity).  Moving on, you have probably the best time travel with consequences sequence I’ve ever seen as the guilt-ridden time traveler accidentally throws himself into a time loop he can’t seem to maneuver his way out of.  Every time he goes back in time, things _do_ change.  It’s a serious episode about regret that triggers hilarity in its aftermath.  You don’t really see what a comics fan would likely consider a proper super villain until the final episode of the first season.

What’s going on?  Young adults (I was never clear on whether these characters were over or under 18) trying to get a grip on their already screwed up lives.  A fair amount of sexual tension, some of it with ill motives.  Young adults trying to get a grip on having powers.  Trying to deal with/cover up the fallout from the incident just after their powers manifested.

Misfits walks a tightrope between melodrama and moments of humor that’s very, very wrong.  It manages to go places you just don’t expect it to go to.   For all the darkness of its comedy, Misfits does have a warm heart and even manages an angry youth, non-conformist take on the Prisoner’s “I am not a number, I am a free man” individuality credo in the final episode.

This is a show I don’t like to say too much about in advance, save a warning on how scatological it can be, as the ride’s better if you’re not quite sure what’s ahead.

For your convenience (though, I think this will probably only work in the US), the first episode is embedded below.

Enjoy.

With the growing ascendancy and popularity of the “nerd” archetype, especially as exemplified by the hugely popular THE BIG BANG THEORY, a bunch of television programs exploring and/or exploiting this personality type are on the drawing board. Some of them might be fun, but some of them are probably going to make nerd blood boil and dominate late night discussions at SF conventions for months to come. Herewith, a field guide.

The early history:

BEAT THE GEEKS

I can’t remember the name of this show but it ran on MTV or someplace for a little while and featured very nerdy smart people in a classic quiz show. Via the comments this has been identified as Beat the Geeks which aired on Comedy Central briefly from 2001-2:

On the show, contestants face off in trivia matches against “geeks” who are well-versed in music, movies, and television, as well as a fourth guest geek with an alternate area of expertise which varies from episode to episode. The object is to outsmart the geek at their own subject; as a handicap, the geeks are given questions of considerably greater difficulty than the contestants.

as we recall, pne of the contestants had an inappropriate pony tail and another was known as “The Master” or some other kind of highly aggrandized nerd name. The nerds on this show reminded me heavily of people that I tried to spend as little time as possible with in certain convention situations. It ran VERY VERY early in the nerd-fetishing cycle, long before anything nerdy became even a tiny bit cool. Definitely a pioneer!

BEAUTY AND THE GEEK

This reality show ran on the CW for FIVE SEASONS. In it a bunch of nerdy guys were paired with beautiful women who would teach them about love and life and compete in quizzes and challenges. The idea was that the hots girls would lead the way through common sense, while the nerds would answer questions about boron and neutrinos. Of course, the entire premise was spectacularly sexist AND nerdist – in the fourth season a female nerd was paired with a male “beauty” to quell some of the criticism. The “beauties” also tended to come from the “professional reality star” end of the spectrum — a buoyant, siliconed crew of would-be fitness models, centerfolds and so on, of the type seen on other shows like ROCK OF AGES. I watched a few episodes of this and was appalled.

THE IT CROWD

Graham Linehan’s great Britcom isn’t really a nerdshow per se, but Chris Dowd’s lovable fuck-up Roy and Richard Ayoade’s unlovable Asperger’s case Moss do remind you of every uncomfortable encounter with an IT person you ever had

THE FUTURE

GEEK LOVE
This is actually present/past as its a TLC pilot for a show about geek dating set at speed dating events at various comic-cons. A two part special aired on TLC on December 18th. The show is hosted by Ryan Glitch, who hosts convention speed dating shows “IRL” as we call it.

We managed to miss it, but Jessica Nagel at sciencefiction.com did not care for it.

I feel that this show, along with most reality TV shows, take the few extreme cases and exploits them. I felt bad for “Chewie” because he is that awkward nerd. He wants to find someone to love, and you know what that is great for him. I know, he has to sign the release that says that he can put himself on TV with his story and what happened during the event. But we come to the same basic issue that comes with any reality show; how much is real. How much of it was editing? How much of it made him look more awkward than what he actually is?

FANDOM RISING
We’ve already covered this “Jersey Shore with geeks,” which is just a bit of a conceptual oxymoron. Very, very frightening.

Untitled LARPing reality show:

Recently a casting call from the producers of PAWN STARS went out looking for what would appear to be a reality show about live action role players:

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Danielle Gervais. I’m a Casting Producer based in New York City and I’m currently casting an exciting new tv project that will be dedicated to Live Action Role Play and the groups and individuals who participate in it! We’re searching the country for the most dynamic, interesting and dedicated groups of players and we’re open to all types of live action role play, both fantasy and historic. I’m including the casting information below – if you’d like to learn more, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

I look forward to speaking with you!

All My Best,

Danielle

NEW TV PROJECT IS SEARCHING FOR THE ULTIMATE HISTORIC and/or FANTASY LIVE ACTION ROLE PLAY GROUP!

From the Producer’s of History Channel’s Pawn Stars comes a brand new show dedicated to Historic and/or Fantasy Role Play and the people who love it (and live it!)

We’re searching the country for a passionate and talented group of Historic and/or Fantasy Live Action Role Play participants to feature on this new series, which will follow them as they battle their way from city to city. If you or someone you know would be interested in participating in a TV Project dedicated 100% to Historic and/or Fantasy Live Action Role Play, we want to hear from you!

Please email us with some photos, a brief description of yourself and your group and why you’d be perfect for this show! Don’t forget to include your contact information.

Danielle Gervais

Casting Producer RolePlayTVCasting1@gmail.com 212.564.2607 x 2365

– Danielle Gervais Casting Producer

This went out in November, so no need to send your resume. LARPing features a variety of amazing personality types, and this could be an entertaining show if it is shot with some creativity — and not of the lying type.

KEVIN SMITH’S SECRET STASH

Back in June a casting call went out for a show about comic book readers set in Kevin Smith’s comic shop in Red Bank, NJ and now AMC has picked up the show for a six-episode run early next year, and given it the highly coveted premiere slot right after THE WALKING DEAD’s February mini-season debut. We can expect lots of high-level Smith promo in the coming weeks:

Smith said some major selling points for him were meth and zombies (and Don Draper). “(If) they’d pushed just a little harder in the negotiations, I’d have done this show for no payment beyond early access to every episode of ‘Mad Men,’ ‘Breaking Bad,’ and ‘Walking Dead,’?” riffed the “Red State” helmer in a release.

Smith is also said to have a “Pawn Stars for fanboys” type show in the works.

CONCLUSION

As you can see, there will be a surplus of TV shows featuring Our Chosen Lifestyle on TV very, very soon. While many of them sound like they are based on very annoying stereotypical ideas about nerds, one or two of them — SECRET STASH in particular — might have something to say about the topic that doesn’t send us into a “angry video game” style rant.

By Todd Allen

Looks like the reality television is getting into Geek.  “Fandom Rising” is an attempt by the creators of Jersey Shore to do a reality show on nerd topics.

Seeking: 8 strangers for a mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new lifestyles and relationships, to boldly go where no fanboy or fangirl has gone before.

Or that’s what the casting homepage says.  It’s probably not an accident they name check Big Bang Theory on that web page.  I spoke with a casting director from a different reality show company and he said it’s increasingly common to pitch reality shows as a reality version of <insert movie or TV show here>.  This reeks of a reality version of Big Bang Theory.

Thinking you might be up for this?  Keep in mind this is from the brain trust behind the classy and tasteful Jersey Shore, and let’s take a look at the questions on the application.

What’s the most important relationship in your life?

While they’re still gathering basic info like what’s your job (and full-time work _does_ mean you may need to arrange to be cut loose while this is filming) and have you ever been on TV before, you’ve got a relationship question.  We’ll come back to that.

When we get to the “NOW, LET’S GET TO KNOW YOU!” section, you can really start grouping the questions into categories:

Relationship-oriented (again)

What’s your romantic life like, and if applicable, does your partner share your interests? If single, do you meet people through your interests, or do your interests get in the way?

Describe your dream/perfect date (living or dead, fictional or real):

Self-esteem/socialization assessment

If people (or you yourself) have ever described you as “different” or “interesting” or “weird”, tell us why, especially if you’ve taken flak for just being yourself:

Describe your personality, both best and worst qualities:

How active are you in the community with which you share a passion? Do you primarily meet in person or online? Do you attend shows/cons/tourneys, and if so, which ones?

What are your hobbies and activities, recreational or competitive?

If you could change anything about yourself, what would it be?

Describe a typical night out or one that you’d consider fun!

If you could live in an alternate universe, which one would you choose?

How can we set up conflict and start fights with the cast

What angers you more than ANYTHING?

What are you fanatic about, and what is it about your subject that appeals most to you?

At what would you consider yourself an expert?

What is your favorite thing in the world?

And then a bunch of questions getting a bit more into the actual hobbies and collections of the applicants.

Please be aware that casting directors are looking for conflict when they put together reality shows.  It’s hard to do a show without conflict and that anger question is key.  In a Big Bang vein, it would not surprise me if they want to have a few nerd fights over trivia and/or whether Star Trek or Star Wars is the better franchise.

Relationships are mentioned in the opening blurb (so cheesy, I have my doubts about the geek cred of the writer).  Figure they need at least one person UTTERLY hopeless with the opposite sex.  They need 2 people they’re pretty sure will attempt to hook up.  They need 2 people that will utter flame out.  This whole thing gives the impression that young nerds looking for love is going to be played as a major theme.  Figure it’s optimal if they can get one sweet plot thread, but this is more likely to be mostly played for laughs.  For some reason, I have this idea in my head they want to get the 3 nerdiest guys they can, put them in a strip club and see if they freeze up.  I don’t know it, but… Jersey Shore brain trust, y’know?  They probably also could use _one_ person who’s currently in a relationship.  If they’re particularly cruel, they’ll get a Felicia Day type and dangle her in front of, but just out of reach of the boys.

If you’re trying to get on this show… well, stop and think about what you’re doing first.  You’re not going to control the final cut and you could get put in situations designed to set you off.  If you still want to do it, I’d be making sure you gave an honest assessment on the anger/fight triggers — be clear what they need to do to make you uncomfortable.

With the socialization questions, they’ll _probably_ need to get a little bit of variation with the levels.  You’ll need at least one person who the general public would consider closer to “normal.”  You’ll need at least one mother’s basement type.  The rest will probably vary a little bit, though skew closer to the basement on the whole. Don’t worry about trying to rig this.  If you do, you’ll probably get thrown out pretty fast at the interview stage.

Play your geek cred hard.  There’s plenty of questions about that and some of the fight questions seemed geared to setting up arguments about the hobbies.  Geek pride seems to be in the questions and it wouldn’t surprise me if they want to play with geek pride vs. low social esteem.

The running joke used to be you have to have an asshole, a slut, an alcoholic and an alternative lifestyle for a reality show.  That formula may or may not be intact here, but figure you’re going to have to deal with at least one asshole if you’re going to be cast on this show.  Well… unless you’re the asshole that gets cast.

Among the lists of Twitter-base comedies, roast spin-offs and other hapless men in a hostile world of supermarkets and doorknob comedies,Comedy Central announced one deal based on a webcomic, namely CYANIDE AND HAPPINESS, the generally amusing stick-figure theater comic by Kris Wilson, Rob DenBleyker, Matt Melvin and Dave McElfatrick, all of whom will exec produce. The show is described as “a half-hour animated show featuring the twisted humor of a world populated by glorified stick figures.”

The CYANIDE crew has already been producing shorts and an iPhone app, so this is just another step in their world conquest.

Fairy tales are hot again — with multiple movie versions of Snow White coming out next year and two competing fairy tale set shows on TV this fall — NBC’s Grimm and ABC’s Once Upon a Time — the universality of these iconic tales is once again proved. After all, fairy tales are a fun way for kids to learn all about abandonment and death, as Bruno Bettelheim once pointed out.

In all this celebration of the collective unconscious, however, it has been noticed that maybe Once Upon a Time was perhaps sleeping in the same brain as Bill Willingham’s FABLES — both deal with fairy tale characters dealing with the modern world and — smoking gun? — FABLES was even once in development at ABC.

While accusations of theft or undue influence have been flying for a while, Willingham has shown up at CBR in an interview with himself in which he graciously absolves the show’s writer of wrong doing:

What about the network? Long before “Once” was aired from ABC, didn’t that same network have a deal to produce “Fables” as a TV series?

Yes, but that by itself doesn’t prove anything. First of all, I am and always was on the outside of any deals between DC/Warner and any studio regarding a “Fables” adaptation. DC didn’t want me as part of the deal making and paid handsomely not to have me directly involved. So it was their baby all along. As such, I was never privy to the details of that supposed deal with ABC. I heard the same rumors you did, that the writers of that project weren’t supposed to have made the big announcement when they did. In any case, the ABC “Fables” project went no further than creating an unproduced pilot script. I eventually got to read that pilot, and it was a far cry from anything to do with “Fables.”

There’s much more, including Willingham’s own desire to call off his fans who have been crying theft for a while:

Partly as a call to arms — or more accurately, a call to disarm. As grateful as I am to discover so many loyal “Fables” readers, willing to man the barricades, to help protect a story they love; as much as it moves me to realize I’ve been part in creating something that clearly moves you, affecting your lives in ways only a good story, well-told can, I think it’s time to lay off. Perhaps it’s time to quit rising up in public venues to accuse these folks of Grand Theft “Fables,” even if you still think it’s so.

Jon Bernthal, who plays the hunky and aggro bad boy/survivor Shane on The Walking Dead shows that the brokeback pose can actually work with guys! In fact, this seems to be Bernthal’s favorite way to pose!

Or is it just….a stylistic choice of the show’s art director?

Maybe it’s meant to symbolize twisty Shane’s good guy/bad guy nature? We hereby declare Bernthal King of the Male Brokeback!

BTW, is there a reason that T-Dag never shows up in any of the promos? Or any of the plotlines or dialog? Just wonderin’.

Continuing the quest for a follow-up to Smallville, Booster Gold is the latest DC superhero to get a TV development deal, this time at the SyFy channel, under Greg Berlanti’s production banner. The script is being written by Andrew Kreisberg, formerly of Fringe.

Booster Gold appeared on the final season of Smallville, so he isn’t a complete TV virgin.

The story will center on Booster Gold, a washed-up athlete from the future who travels back to the present in hopes of becoming the greatest super hero of all time. Instead of chasing criminals, however, his main priority is chasing fame and money. But Booster Gold discovers that being a hero takes more than just a megawatt smile, and that the future doesn’t happen without first protecting the present.

Booster Gold’s co-creator Dan Jurgens was reached by ComicBook.com and had some thoughts on the move, although he isn’t involved:

DJ: Yeah, though at least Booster on Smallville was a definite thing. This is still in the development stage and may, or may not, happen. At the same time, it’s cool because Booster is standing on his own. Frankly, I think the concept can support it.

There have been many recent (post-Heroes) live-action attempts at getting superheroes on the small screen, but none of them have really stuck — The Cape, No Ordinary Family, the failed Wonder Woman pilot, and so on. But there is a ton of raw material and producers are going to keep trying hurling both Marvel and DC characters into the fray.

Other DC characters currently under TV development include Deadman and The Spectre. Of course, the best DC TV pilot was Fables, which never actually made it but instead got ripped off for two successful shows now airing as part of the current “fairy tale” boom.

We’ve never found much amusing in THE BIG BANG THEORY, the nerd comedy for our times, but we are distinctly in the minority on this, as it’s one of the signature sitcoms of the day (and the #1 show in Canada!) However, in recent years its girl-fearing cast of hardcore geeks has been joined by all kinds of women — not just the hot chick across the hall but smart women like Blossom and…now, actual girlfriends.

John Doyle at the Globe and Mail sees this as clear shark jumping territory:

It ain’t the same. Now it appears that all the nerdy male characters have girlfriends and there are abundant jokes about dating, sex and jealousy. Stupid stuff. Heavens to Betsy, there are even feelings being tossed around. It’s like watching Friends!

But Comicsgirl finds this same material refreshing, in a post called Alice is the future about an episode where Leonard meets a girl at the comics shop.

Admittedly, turning a show about how nerds are uncomfortable around women into a show where women are even dating the guy who owns the comics shop, does seem to be a change of focus. In other words, Doyle is (perhaps humorously) mirroring the feelings of the show’s cast. Comicsgirl is mirroring an actual reality where pesky girls want to horn in on all the action.

What do you think, panel? Is a bleak world of isolation funnier than a complex world of talking about feelings?

One of the major — if not THE major — reasons that Disney purchased Marvel two years ago for $4 billion was that the House of Ideas supplied a ready-made audience of material aimed at boys under 18 — the one quadrant Disney has always had the toughest time reaching. Disney does princesses and Pooh great, but they had to create a whole cable network that could be specifically branded for boys — Disney XD, which already airs various Marvel cartoons.

So this look at just how Disney has used the Marvel universe by Mike Gold is quite interesting as he points out that Marvel TV shows in development at Disney include the Hulk, AKA Jessica Jones (ALIAS), Cloak and Dagger, and a possible Miley Cyrus vehicle based on Mockingbird:

Step back a pace and take a look at what’s going on here.

Most of these shows are built around female superheroes. As headliners, such characters are anathema to motion picture studios. But Disney is betting heavy, heavy bucks that the distaff side will draw a sufficient audience to warrant the investment.

That’s pretty cool – and very risky. Women heroes haven’t fared much better on the small screen: Nikita was renewed by the skin of her teeth, The Bionic Woman revival flamed out, as did Charlie’s Angels redux. David E. Kelley’s Wonder Woman didn’t make it past the pilot stage. Yet Disney is developing no less than three Marvel shows built around women.

Although Marvel’s movie slate is totally boytastic, it does seem that the small screen offerings are fitting into the Closer/Medium/Damages/Prime suspect vibe: women solving crimes and kicking butt. The small screen has long been much friendlier to female protagonists and Disney/Marvel can’t help but have noticed that.

It also fits into some theories from the time of the sale that felt that Disney would revert to type and make even Marvel’s world of superheroes way more girl-friendly than you ever thought it could be. X-23, where you be?