As you may recall DC Direct was kind enough to let me announce this new assortment of First Appearance figures right after Comic Con last year. Now, almost one year later, they are here and the First Appearance line stretches into it’s third incarnation bringing us to a more recent past in the DC Universe. Those of you that have been reading my column from the past year know that the DC Direct First Appearance line was one of the surprise hits of 2004 for me and this 3rd assortment continues to deliver. An interesting story behind this wave, I was told by a DC staffer at Toy Fair that when they were planning this wave they were thinking for the Composite Superman they would take the Silver Age Superman figure and the Silver Age Batman figure that Tim Bruckner had previously sculpted and would stick them together to form the new figure, but when that was proposed to Bruckner he insisted on doing a new sculpt and making it true to Curt Swan’s artwork… and everyone agrees that decision paid off. What we are now getting is Curt Swan art in three dimensions. There are so many subtle differences in the Superman and Batman sides of this figure, the length of the thigh muscles, the position of the rib cage the tension in the hands… it may be Bruckner’s finest figures to date.

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ELECTRONIC ENTERTAINMENT EXPO- 2005

By Daniel Pickett and Jason Geyer.

It’s that time of year again… for the loudest trade show EVER- E3 the Electronic Entertainment Expo featuring the newest and best of the video game and enteractive entertainment industry. This event was again held in Los Angeles at the LA Convention Center from May 18-20th. And with three new consoles debuting this was the biggest show ever! I had to hit the show a couple of times for work so I figured as long as I was there you guys might like a peek at what is coming up for the next year of cool video games. To start with, here are some views of how chaotic the convention center is during E3. There is no seeming rhyme or reason to the layout of the place, leaving you to wander between the very expensive, very cool displays hawking everything from Pac-Man to a game where you gather trash as you run around! As always, click on a picture to see a larger image.

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By Cuban Zod and Julius Marx
It’s tough to make a guy named “Mysterio” (cue the 1950s Ed Wood Sci Fi music) a really deadly menace, but God bless guys like Kevin Smith and Todd McFarlane for trying… In Todd’s case—he was one of the few villains Todd illustrated in his fairly short but memorable run as Spidey-artist (And who doesn’t dig Todd’s Lizard? Err—that doesn’t sound right…) You can see one of the Spawn creator’s memorable Mysterio covers in this article. In the case of Kevin Smith—he made Mysterio the secret creep behind a whole “Damien Omen”-esque conspiracy that Daredevil was drawn into, where DD had to rescue a baby that could have been either the antichrist or a holy child immaculately conceived.

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