Scottish DC writer Grant Morrison has some interesting observations about the social class differences between Batman and Superman:

Bruce Wayne is a rich man. He's an artistocrat. Superman grew up as Clark Kent on a farm bailing hay, and he's got a boss that shouts at him if he's late to work. He's actually more human; Batman is the fetish fantasy psyche of the aristocrat overlord who can do anything he wants, and that's fascinating. The class difference between the two of them is important.[...]

People often forget Superman is very much a put-upon guy. Bruce has a butler, Clark has a boss

Link via Comics Alliance | Image: DC

OMG! Shatner was fooling around at a con and decided to photobomb some Trek cosplayers posting for a picture!

Well, possibly. But look at the name in the bottom left corner. It's Rachel McCauley, a professional photograher and photoshop artist.

Be assured that if The Shatner wished to photobomb you, you would be photobombed. Nothing could stop him. But I suspect that this isn't real.

Link via MArooned

Marvel has come out with a new webseries. The Handi-Cats is about a blind, flying supercat and a bionically-enhanced disabled cat who try to correct the BP oil spill. It's based on a bestselling memoir by Gwen Cooper about a blind cat who brings meaning into Cooper's life.

http://thehandicats.com/ via Link | Image: Marvel

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"I say that we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." You know, over the years, I've found that there are very few problems for which this is not an appropriate solution.

via reddit

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A long-lost scene from Return of Jedi was displayed at Star Wars Celebration V. It shows Luke tinkering with a lightsaber. Someone secretly recorded it and uploaded it to YouTube. Watch it while it's still available.

via Ace of Spades HQ

At Star Wars Celebration V in Orlando, George Lucas presented The Daily Show host Jon Stewart with an action figure modeled after him. It comes with an interchangeable head -- one with a goatee and one without. You can view more pictures at the link.

Link via blastr | Photo: Techland

Artist Steve Thomas made three LOTR travel posters in an Art Deco style. I'd love to see one for Mordor.

Link via Super Punch

In one particular set of Peanuts strips by Charles Schultz, Snoopy is writing a novel. In 1981, Len Wein from DC Comics took the script from these strips and turned them into a Batman comic.

For real. Click on the link to view Peanuts original and the resulting Batman comic.

Link via Geekosystem

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A computer animation studio called Moonlight House created this modern remix of the title song from the musical Singin' in the Rain. This time, Stormtroopers and R2D2 take the place of Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor.

via Fanboy

In Back to the Future II, Marty McFly purchases a sports almanac providing 50 years of sports statistics in the hope of gambling his way to wealth. He doesn't use it, but in an alternate timeline, Biff Tannen does. An infographic (excerpt above) from NFL Injury argues that the scheme wouldn't be profitable for several reasons.

http://nflinjury.com/the-mcfly-scheme-time-travel-sports-betting.html via Geek Tyrant

Matthew Johnson has a fascinating hypothesis about the Mutant Registration Acts in Marvel Comics -- a series of US laws that require mutants to submit to government oversight and monitoring. These story arcs have been seen as representative of the way that racial and ethnic minorities are sometimes treated. But Johnson thinks that there's a more everyday parallel that fits the core audience. Mutants represent teenagers:

The X-Men series is often described as being a metaphor for the oppression of minorities, but when looked at it this way it becomes clear that the metaphor doesn’t stand up: if superhuman mutants really existed society would have a legitimate reason to fear or at least be wary of them, something that has never been true of any oppressed minority.

But if the metaphor that’s supposed to be at the heart of the series doesn’t work, why has the comic been so successful? Because the X-Men don’t represent oppressed minorities, they represent oppressed teenagers. (This may also explain why comic books about characters who are actually part of oppressed minorities generally fail to sell.) Nobody feels more persecuted than teenagers, especially the nerdy, white, middle-class teenagers who have traditionally been the main audience for comics. In the hyper-dramatic world of the teenager, breaking up with your girlfriend (or, more likely, being turned down for a date) has the same emotional impact as your fiancee being disintegrated on the Moon, and being hunted by giant robots is exactly equivalent to being told to buy something or get out.

Link via reddit | Image: deviantART user mechasoldier

Use a pole next time.

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Cracked has an infographic (selection above) illustrating how long-running TV shows rise, plateau, decline, and die a slow death over time. Scott Edelman at blastr thinks that it's particularly applicable to science fiction. I agree, and Stargate SG-1 springs immediately to mind. That show lingered on too long. But episode 200, which was explicitly fan service, made it all worthwhile.

Which science fiction shows do you think suffered particularly prolonged deaths?

Link via blastr

Gary Kurtz was the producer of the first two Star Wars films, as well a contributing director. He has a lot to say about George Lucas' motivations, and it's not positive:

“I could see where things were headed,” Kurtz said. “The toy business began to drive the [Lucasfilm] empire. It’s a shame. They make three times as much on toys as they do on films. It’s natural to make decisions that protect the toy business, but that’s not the best thing for making quality films.”

He added: “The first film and ‘Empire’ were about story and character, but I could see that George’s priorities were changing.”[...]

“The emphasis on the toys, it’s like the cart driving the horse,” Kurtz said. “If it wasn’t for that the films would be done for their own merits. The creative team wouldn’t be looking over their shoulder all the time.”[...]

“We had an outline and George changed everything in it," Kurtz said. “Instead of bittersweet and poignant he wanted a euphoric ending with everybody happy. The original idea was that they would recover [the kidnapped] Han Solo in the early part of the story and that he would then die in the middle part of the film in a raid on an Imperial base. George then decided he didn’t want any of the principals killed. By that time there were really big toy sales and that was a reason.”

Link via Geekosystem | Photo by Flickr user simononly used under Creative Commons license

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There have been rumors percolating through the geekosphere in the past two about an alternate ending to the 1990 movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. According some folks, the original planned ending for the movie was selectively released in Germany. This video is allegedly that missing section of the movie, followed by an extensive commentary about the film by a fan.

via Comics Alliance