Watch ComicCenter as the guys talk Captain America casting, Thor filming and how awesome Iron Man 2 is going to be.

Variety is reporting that Michael Bay has added some serious acting cred to Transformers 3 by casting John Malkovich and Frances McDormand. No word on how they will be appearing, but Shia LaBeouf is confirmed and Megan Fox hasn’t been ruled out even with her demanding more screen time from Bay. I’m actually getting worried now that Malkovich and McDormand have been added. I had hoped all along that as we get further into the movies, the less we would need to have humans in major roles. The movie is called Transformers, not Sam drives around in a robot car as things blow up around his girlfriend’s @$$. Although if the best Bay can do with more Transformers is the racist Autobot twins and giving Devastator balls… we might be better off with more human actors…

When Watchmen was announced as a movie, all of comicfandom held their collective breaths and thoroughly enjoyed Zack Snyder’s adaptation of a truly beloved and groundbreaking story. Nevertheless, it didn’t do the numbers that Hollywood expected it to. Kick-Ass is going to have a different result. This is going to quickly become a cult favorite movie that breaks all kinds of records and puts Nic Cage back on the road to financial success. Mark Millar & Matthew Vaughns’s Kick-Ass debuts April 16^th and stars Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Mark Strong and Nicolas Cage.Check out the new trailer below, I’m going to buy tickets now…

I’m going to try to ask this question as calmly as possible: WHY THE F@$%! DOES AUSTRALIA GET THIS CARTOON AND THE MAIN SUPPORTERS OF THE BLACK PANTHER COMIC BOOK (re: the U.S. buyers) CAN’T EVEN WATCH IT ON THE INTERNET?!?

I was so geeked over the announcement of this animated project two years ago and now I get kicked in stomach. BET was advertised as the network that the cartoon would be on, but maybe it was too “racy” for BET – you know how they like to over censor everything. But, honestly, with the success of Wolverine and the X-Men and The Spectacular Spider-Man, why isn’t The Black Panther showing on Cartoon Network, NickToons, Disney, MTV… something? I think the reason that I’m so upset is that one of the best known black superheroes is once again being told to sit in the back of the bus. Why? I wanna see it and I’m white-white. I’m so sick of not seeing heroes of color getting their due. Sure we have Luke Cage (black man from the streets of NYC. I like the new take on Cage and the fact he’s married to a white woman. No complaints), Storm (a black woman hailed as an African god and now a real African queen. No stereotype here… hah), Patriot (the most normal of the bunch), John Stewart, the new Firestorm and the Milestone stable of characters who seem to be segregated within DC. Brian Michael Bendis, Mark  Millar, Joe Quesada, Mark Waid, Geoff Johns, Jim Lee – you guys have significant pull at each of your companies… how about a cool black superhero that doesn’t play up stereotypes? Just a normal dude who gets powers. That’s why I loved Static and the Static Shock cartoon: normal kid gets powers and goes on adventures and everybody on the show is colorblind (the way it should be everywhere). Dwayne McDuffie does a great job bringing DC’s ethnic heroes to the forefront (Mr. Terrific, Firestorm and his great work on the DC Animated shows and movies) and Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi have really let Green Lantern Jon Stewart shine in the pages of Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps. I can count ethnic heroes from the major companies and probably not get to 50, but I’d need help counting all the lame-ass white heroes that are cranked out each year. Don’t make me start to recite Dr. King’s I Have A Dream speech…

Sorry if I got off track here, but I like to see color in my world.

The Black Panther cartoon written and co-produced by Reginald Hudlin (who’s done an amazing job on the Black Panther comic…) and features the voices of Djimon Hounsou as  T’Challa/Black Panther, Stan Lee as General Wallace, JB Blanc voices The Black Knight and Batroc, Kerry Washington as Princess Shuri and Jill Scott lending her voice to X-Men member and wife of T’Challa (in the comics), Storm.

By the way, why isn’t T’Challa or Shuri part of the Heroic Age Avengers?

Check out the Black Panther intro below and sound off if you agree or disagree with me.

Twisted Pixel’s upcoming platformer game Comic Jumper, features the adventures of Captain Smiley as he jumps from comic to comic righting wrongs and breaking the fourth wall more than Deadpool. Each time he jumps into a new comic, he takes on the artistic style of the comic – ranging in styles from Jack Kirby to Frank Miller. Smiley is accompanied on his adventures by his “sidekick,” Star – the sentient logo on his chest who hates him. Sarcastic, fun and visually cool, Comic Jumper is sure to be an underground hit. Check out the trailer from PAX below…

With the success of Dragon Age: Origins, it looks like Warner Bros. Interactive Games wants a slice of the fantasy rpg pie and is going to use Lord of the Rings to get it. From what little details exist, publisher Snowblind Studios (Justice League Heroes) says Lord of the Rings: War in the North will be an online, three player co-op RPG that takes place in parts unseen in the movie. Players will interact with key LotR characters from the movies as they forge their own destiny in the War of the Ring. Seems pretty cool from the cinematic trailer below, but pretty is as pretty does. I’m also not fond of the trend that makes co-op play exclusive to online players. I have four controllers and a big TV, if I want to play co-op with a group of friends I should be able to without paying an online fee. Other than that little complaint, I’ll more than likely be playing it as soon as it hits.

What do you think? Have you had enough of bad Lord of the Rings games or will this game keep you interested until the Hobbit gets release?

Microsoft’s answer to Sony’s Uncharted franchise looks like it will finally see the light of day… which is good for a game that uses light as a weapon. As cinematic as any game I’ve seen, Alan Wake puts you in the titles character’s shoe as he struggles with a waking nightmare in which light becomes your main weapon. The Sony commercial about how much like a movie Uncharted is seems to have influenced Alan Wake. Wake is a writer who moves to a small town with his wife to relax and is thrown into a nightmare scenario. Seems like a pretty cool premise and anything that gets my wife to watch me play a video game is okay in my book.

Check out the trailer below and let me know if you think it’ll be a buy or rent…

When Iron Man came out in 2008 I thought, “Wow. This is going to be tough to beat.” Just from what I’ve seen from the Iron Man 2 trailers… it’s going to do just that. As more of the plot details are released, we see that Mickey Rourke’s Whiplash character plays a big role at the beginning of the movie and is once again jailed. Stark corporate rival and baddie, Justin Hammer approaches Whiplash with the job of recreating the Iron Man armor into something he can sell the military. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that Whiplash becomes Crimson Dynamo by the end of the movie. Just a hunch. Between the Nick Fury scene and seeing Stark don the briefcase armor (the red and silver armor from the late eighties…) – this movie has me already wanting to see the Avengers.

Check out the trailer below and let me know what you think.

Man. I just got completely through with Dragon Age and now I can see Red Dead Redemption on the horizon. I may have to have someone set a password on my Xbox. Check out these new trailers and let me know if you are planning to rent or buy. I’m geeking just thinking about pretending I’m Clint Eastwood in Hang ‘Em High…

Variety is reporting that Vin Diesel has decided to return to the character that helped lauch his career. Reteaming with Pitch Black and Chronicles writer and director David Twohy, this third chapter in the franchise is said to be returning to the tone that Pitch Black set for the character. A shooting date hasn’t been set yet as Diesel is trying to workout a shooting schedule for the fifth Fast and the Furious movie and this one.

Is this going to be a good thing for Vin’s career or is he just admitting that he can’t make it in other roles? I liked him in Find Me Guilty, Knockaround Guys, xXx and A Man Apart – but when you look at most of his upcoming movies, they’re all sequels. xXx: The Return of Xander Cage, FF5 and Riddick 3 tell me that he’s set on making money after critically striking out on smaller roles (and that whole sellout to Disney for a few years… yeeck…). My thinking is this might be a good thing for him. Get back to what put you on the radar and start building the “Hollywood heat” all over again.

What do you think?