KING OF POP DEAD AT 12-FROM THE ONION-HYSTERICAL

LOS ANGELES—Michael Jackson, a talented child performer known for his love of amusement park rides and his hobby of collecting exotic animals for his Neverland Ranch, died from sudden cardiac arrest Thursday at the age of 12. The prepubescent singer, who enjoyed playing dress-up and often referred to himself as "the King of Pop," was celebrated for his naïve exuberance and his generosity toward other children. "This is a terrible loss for music and for all of us," brother Jermaine Jackson said. "He had so much potential to blossom into a gracious and mature human being. As it is, the world will never know the genius Michael Jackson might have become had he grown up." The singer leaves behind a large body of hits, 25,000 unopened toys, and nearly $400 million of debt.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/king_of_pop_dead_at_12

JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRY FOR JUSTICE PREVIEW

AMAZING ART FROM THE HIGHLY ANTICIPATED SERIES

http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/2009/06/25/are-you-ready-for-justice-league-cry-for-justice-1/

Vanity Fair on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Epic Nonsense: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

The new Transformers movie is a tremendous piece of Epic Nonsense. It’s grandiose, strainingly adherent to its evanescent internal precepts, and full of enough metaphorical signifiers to choke Derrida, but holds together about as well as a birdseed snowball. I’m not sure if I enjoyed it, or was simply battered into submitting to its domination of my senses: when I exited the E-Walk 42nd Street Theater into Times Square, the environment felt reserved and coherent in contrast. After sleeping off myT.F. intoxication, I have three main takeaways as to what this movie is “about”:

1) Closet Narrative: How could one avoid this reading of the Transformers,particularly the Autobots? Save a trio of leather-clad, motorcycle-riding lesbian acrobats, their world is made up solely of bonded male characters; a key subplot concerns the end of a Boy Scout-like adolescent love affair between two dudes, one of whom just happens to be a yellow Camaro (“I love you Bee.”); and the entire premise of the AB’s continued existence on Earth revolves around masking their innate sensitivity under archetypal representations of butch masculinity.

2) GM Rescue: General Motors provided nearly all of the vehicles on which the good robots are based. (The bad guys are mostly construction equipment, foreign cars, and cheap Chinese kitchen appliances, or don’t change into anything at all, making their Transformer moniker somewhat suspect.) The movie thus inherently advocates for the continued relevance of G.M., a sentiment with which I’m pretty down. But like most everything in T:RotF, Michael Bay takes a muddled kitchen sink approach to this symbolic thread: he casts Chevrolet’s upcoming small cars—the Beat and Trax concept vehicles—in a major role, giving them some of the funniest (or at least most scatological) lines, making them scrappy and capable, and providing them with cool “urban” dialect. At the same time, the movie’s core mission revolves around the quest to revive the moribund behemoth Optimus Prime, through the application of … Magical Pixie Dust (source: Alien Rust Alloy) a clear metaphor for our current efforts to revive certain other moribund behemoths.

3) Antiquities are Irrelevant: Much of the film—seemingly three of its five hours—takes place during an immense battle in the desert, during which just about every major ancient monument—pyramids, temples, villages, the Sphinx—is atomized into sand by the overwhelming firepower of an American/British coalition Army. (Sound familiar?) At one point, my viewing partner turned to me and whispered, “Looks like a bad day for archeology.”

Brett Berk is a Detroit native, a life-long car nut, a Gay, and the author of The Gay Uncle’s Guide to Parenting. Visit him at www.brettberk.com

FROM THE DSQUARED2 SHOW IN MILAN

http://www.dsquared2.com/html/runway.html

SPREAD

When Ashton's not Twittering, doing Nikon commercials, or producing CW shows, he's, uh, acting, with Ann Heche in this case.

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN

 I think that if 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen' had come out last summer, it may have helped bailout GM by singlehandedly making their cars seem sexy and fun again.

HOT ITEM!

WWW.ANGRYPANDA.COM

HE'S BARACK OBAMA

OBAMA AS SUPERHERO IN THE NEW JIB-JAB CARTOON.

http://sendables.jibjab.com/originals/hes_barack_obama

FORGET SHARK WEEK... SHARKS APPARENTLY HUNT LIKE SERIAL KILLERS

Great white sharks have some things in common with human serial killers, a new study says: They don't attack at random, but stalk specific victims, lurking out of sight.

The sharks hang back and observe from a not-too-close, not-too-far base, hunt strategically, and learn from previous attempts, according to a study being published online Monday in the Journal of Zoology. Researchers used a serial killer profiling method to figure out just how the fearsome ocean predator hunts, something that's been hard to observe beneath the surface.... READ MORE BELOW!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/21/great-white-sharks-hunt-j_n_218680.html

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SONIC!

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG TURNS 18 TODAY!
Sonic the Hedgehog is 18 years old today. LIKE MY FRIEND JONATHAN LONDON SAID:
I probably spent more hours playing that game 18 years ago than any single game since. At least when someone asks me "where all the years went" I can honestly answer.

DO YOUR PART

For those on Twitter, please consider setting your location to Tehran and time zone to GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location/timezone searches. The more people at this location, the more logjam it creates for forces trying to shut Iranians' access to the internet down. Please Cut & Paste & Pass it Along.

ED MCMAHON DIES AT 86

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/06/23/obit.mcmahon/

MY REVIEW OF STAR TREK FROM PLANETWAVES.NET

http://planetwaves.net/pagetwo/2009/05/04/the-audacity-of-star-trek/

ITALIAN SPIDERMAN (1968)

THIS IS SO WEIRD AND ITALIAN AND WEIRD AND KIND OF WONDERFUL...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhHhXukovMU

ON THE FUTURE OF SMALLVILLE

The only great recent episodes have been the Geoff Johns' Legion episodes...  I agree that the cast is getting long in the tooth and MAYBE IT'S TIME TO PUT ON THE TIGHTS. As far as the JLA stuff, it works on the series to some extent thus far, but with the writing being so sloppy it would prolly end being about as good as Birds of Prey...

http://io9.com/5295986/why-smallville-should-stay-an-only-child-kind-of?skyline=true&s=i

DARKSEID Rules...Kind of... really funny.

Like last year's hysterical 'Garfield without Garfield which made creator Jim Davis look even more sad and neurotic, these strips feature  Jack Kirby's  famous DC Fourth World creation talking to himself... from http://www.4thletter.net/2009/06/and-now-darkseid-minus-new-gods/.... hysterical--especially the last panel.

CONNER AND TIM: TOGETHER AGAIN

DC UNIVERSE BLOG REVEALS THE COVER ART TO ADVENTURE COMICS #3 FEATURING CONNER AND TIM (AS RED ROBIN) TOGETHER AGAIN...
AWESOME ART BY FRANCIS MANAPUL.
http://dcublog.dccomics.com/2009/06/22/how-about-a-look-at-the-cover-to-adventure-comics-3/