By Graeme McMillan at io9:
Everything You Wanted To Know About Smallville’s Justice Society
Making their debut in 1940’s All-Star Comics #3, the JSA broke new ground by being comics’ first superhero team. The concept, as created by editor Sheldon Mayer and writer Gardner Fox, was that membership in the Justice Society relied upon a character’s popularity – Namely, that any character would remain an “active” member until he or she was popular enough to get a comic of their own, at which point they’d be replaced with another character needing a popularity push. Because of this, the team’s line-up fluctuated a lot; characters like The Flash, Green Lantern, the Atom, the Spectre, Hour-Man and others passed in and out of the series, with only Hawkman appearing in every story.
Amusingly, and depressingly, enough, one character was immune from the “Own Series Means No Membership” rule – Wonder Woman, who stayed in the team, but only as their secretary. Oh, how I wish I was making that last bit up (The series holds another place in comics history besides the first superteam title; by featuring characters from both National Comics and All-American Comics before the companies were merged to form what would eventually become DC Comics in 1944, the series was also the first example of an inter-company crossover).
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Does III Mean An End To Heroes?
Production Weekly is reporting that Tim Kring is working on a new series for NBC, whose working title is III, about alternate world war. Does this mean that Heroes has gone to the great cathode ray tube in the sky?
According to PW, the new series is co-created by Heroes creator Kring and Heroes executive producer Aron Eli Coleite, and will tell the story about an alternate America being invaded, leading to a third World War. With uncertainty surrounding the fate of the NBC superhero series, which finishes its fourth season on Monday, the news of this new series taking up the time of two of the show’s central brain trust may foreshadow an official announcement of Heroes‘ cancellation.
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Will Alex Skarsgård’s Real Dad Play Eric’s Viking Dad on True Blood?
by Jennifer Godwin at E! Online
Who’s your daddy? That’s the question True Blood fans are asking about Alexander Skarsgård’s Viking vampire this season, as the series plans flashbacks to medieval Scandinavia that explore Eric Northman’s origins and roots. Having already introduced (and dispatched with) Eric’s vampire progenitor, Godric (Allan Hyde), the series is now casting for Eric’s human father, King Ulfrick.
Considering that the role calls for a fluent Swedish speaker who looks like he could be Alexander Skarsgård’s father, the part just has to go to Alex’s real-life dad, internationally acclaimed actor Stellan Skarsgård, right? Here’s what we’re hearing:
We asked reps for papa Skarsgård if he would be playing Ulfrick on True Blood, and they said, “He will not.”
OK, so, bah humbug to that, but if Señor Skarsgård isn’t down for the role, who else would work?
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