Green Lantern logo and release date revealed

Here it is the logo/teaser poster for Green Lantern. Shiny. I can't wait.

Directed by Martin Campbell, Green Lantern stars Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, Mark Strong, Jay O. Sanders, Temuera Morrison, Taika Waititi, Angela Bassett and Tim Robbins. The movie opens on June 17, 2011.

Ben Fardon once found an alien ring. But it was broken and out of warranty. So he put it on eBay.

First Walking Dead zombie pictures!

AMC has begun shooting the first six episodes of the TV adaptation of The Walking Dead, set to air in the US this autumn.

Based on Robert Kirkman's graphic novels, the project will be directed by Frank Darabont (Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and The Mist) and produced by Gale Anne Hurd (The Terminator, Termaintor 2: Judgement Day and Aliens). This Life alumni Andrew Lincoln will play lead character Rick Grimes.

"AMC strives to make original shows that play like movies and 'The Walking Dead' is a perfect complement to the network's celebrated movie franchise, Fearfest, which has always been an important destination for our audience," said AMC president Charlie Collier. "With its depth of story and the remarkable talent attached, The Walking Dead gives us an opportunity to raise the bar significantly within this popular genre, and continue our commitment to being the home of premium programming on basic cable."

To promote the series, AMC have cleverly released pictures of the zombies inspired by Charlie Adlard's artwork, rather than the usual cast photos. I'm sure most of you have seen this now, but in case you haven't here they are...

Ben Fardon isn't using the zed-word. Are there any out there though?

New Beginnings - Avengers Prime #1

Lurking amongst the other four big Avengers titles launching the Heroic Age is Avengers Prime, a series focusing on the ‘Big Three’ Avengers; Thor, Captain America and Iron Man. Taking place between scenes at the end of Siege, though there are internal inconsistencies on this, the three are assessing the ruins of Asgard and also bickering quite a bit.

Considering the Heroic Age is meant to be about heroes being heroes again and not fighting amongst themselves, it seems a bit odd that writer Brian Bendis would play so heavily on the in-fighting between the three (well, between Stark and Rogers, with Thor stuck in the middle), especially when he has to drive Rogers out of character so much to make it work. Steve here completely contradicts everything he stood and died for in Civil War, making him look like a hypocrite for no particularly good reason or effect.

Before long, the three are sucked through a damaged Asgardian portal and dumped across the nine realms of Norse mythology, lost and alone. Well, Thor’s not lost, obviously. Which only really serves to further make him seem like a third wheel.

Splitting up the characters is a mistake. All these three characters have solo books. Therefore, they don’t really need a joint title doing character pieces on them, unless it’s going to focus on them as a group and as friends. Splitting them up robs the book of its reason for existing, especially as you don’t gain any sort of extra insight to the three when they’re alone. Steve manages to get into a fight with some goblins, which is fun, but all it serves to do is put him in a rough approximation of his Captain America costume – which tells us what exactly? That he’s Captain America? Well, a) we know that and b) he isn’t any more, which is what these new Avengers titles are all trying to establish.

The biggest problem is though that we already know what happens next. This issue takes place before Avengers #1, which still has Tony and Steve hostile to each other and Thor stuck in the middle. If the rest of this series does go on to have some manner of reconciliation between the three, it’s immediately irrelevant, because the reader already knows it doesn’t stick.

The only real saving grace for the issue is the art by Alan Davis, quite possibly one of the best artists currently working in the medium. That’s a bit of a shame really though. I’d like to think there’s more interesting titles he could be putting his talents towards. He seems wasted on this title, even if he does draw the nine realms very nicely.

Avengers Prime really does feel like a waste of time. It’s so busy retreading old ground that we should all be moving away from, with little in the way of return or reward, that it forgets to do anything worthwhile with itself. It’s a character study that doesn’t study its characters.

Martin S Smith is an author and blogger. He’s just released his first book, The Redundancy of Flightless Birds, and reviews stuff every week over at The Taste of Rising Bile.

Fingers on the Pulse

***WARNING: contains mild spoilers***

Short review; I like this show and want to see the full series.

More? Good, as I'm working to a word count here.

Paul Cornell is someone that has gone below the radar for a long time. Since the early nineties he worked on things like Holby City, Casualty, Doctor Who novels and a few Marvel comics. He also wrote a two part episode of Doctor Who for it's third series. Based on his own book, Human Nature and Family of Blood were very well regarded and are probably two of the best episodes of the modern Who series.

This work has now paid off as now we have Pulse, an original Paul Cornell TV show pilot.

Set in a teaching hospital, it follows one of the students, Hannah, who is returning to her schooling following the death of her mother. Trying to fit back in she sees something moving in the stomach of one of her patients. Or did she?

Well, yes she did. In the opening sequence we see one of the surgeons operating on the patient and implanting... something.

There we have the crux of the pilot. Secret medical experiments, someone trying to uncover the truth and a bucket full of blood.

Blood? Yes, this is a hospital. People have operations. Which we see. Graphically. Those scared of blood need to know this. There is blood. And scapels.

If you can deal with the blood the main thing to consider is this; does it work?

Yes it does.

It works as a stand alone show rather well, it feels like a Future Shock from 2000AD. The characters are well drawn and the premises is intruiging. Whilst there are no real answers given as it is a pilot, it leaves you wanting more but in a good way. You don't feel annoyed and left hanging like other island based TV shows.

My only problem with it was the overpowering music. There is a sense of foreboding to the show from the very beginning just in the way it's filmed. This is hammered home by the music, a little too much for my taste. It cheapens a few of the scares in the show.

I want to see more, which you will remember from the beginning. It's a great little concept and, so far, is executed well.

More please.

(Pulse airs Thursday 3rd June on BBC3 at 9pm. You can watch it online right now. If you like the pilot, please comment on the BBC3 blog afterwards - all feedback helps)

Phil Doyle is one of the creators of abadeducation.com and co-host of the sonicsring.com podcast. His real job is in insurance which he hopes won't be forever. He also has every issue of the 1990s Midnight Sons crossover and does not feel guilty about it.