superman

If you can’t wait for Zack Snyder’s ‘Batman vs. Superman,’ this awesome new fan-made short film should satisfy your curiosity. Created with LEGOs, this new short is expertly made and features a pretty clever ending. If you want to know who would win in a fight between the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel, we now have an answer … sort of.

Q: Can a setting, location, or place actually be "a character," as people often say about Gotham City or Bioshock's Rapture, and if so, what exactly does that mean? -- @Jon_Ore A: Technically, no. No matter how well-developed or intriguing a setting is, no matter how many good stories have been set there or how characters and creators have talked about it, it's still just that: A setting. The action and development, even if they're a reaction to the setting or have effects on the setting, are all things that happen to characters. The setting just provides the backdrop. Practically, though, they can be close enough that for all intents and purposes, they might as well be characters, with everything that comes with it.

Q: What's your favorite example of a comic having an effect on the real world? -- @jamesdeleech A: You know, a lot of the questions I get for this column, at least the ones I tend to like answering, are the ones that are open to interpretation, and it's fun to pick and choose stories to talk about that back up a particular idea that I have about how something works. This one, though, is one of those questions that's about as close to having one definitive answer as is possible. When you talk about those great times when comics changed the real world, there's really only one choice. It's when Stetson Kennedy teamed up with Superman to bring down the Ku Klux Klan.

We're still over a year away from the big-screen debut of the amazingly titled Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, in which your two favorite DC Comics heroes will be v-ing each other alongside other members of the Justice League, and maybe getting around to fighting an actual supervillain somewhere in hour three, if they have time. If you can't wait, though, I have some good news: BrickNerd Studios has brought you a short film in which the LEGO counterparts of the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel slug it out in brutal combat... for... some reason. I'm not overselling things when I say that this is the best possible version of this fight that you're likely to see onscreen, and that Hollywood's going to have a hard time topping it in 2016.

Even the most passionate critics of 'Man of Steel' tend to agree that Hans Zimmer's bombastic and emotional score is a highlight of the film, so it wasn't surprising at all when he was invited back to score 'Batman vs. Superman.' What is surprising is how he's choosing to go about it. In keeping with the confrontational aspect of the film, Zimmer will provide all of Superman's music and another composer will provide the score for the Caped Crusader.

If you're the kind of person who keeps up with news about people spending truly massive amounts of money on comic books, then you're probably aware that there was a copy of Action Comics #1 rated at 9.0 that sold for $3,000,000 earlier this year. On one level, that makes sense. It is, after all, an incredibly important historical artifact, featuring the first appearance of Superman and Lois Lane in a story that kickstarted the entire superhero genre. On the other hand, if you really want to read that comic, you don't need to spend three mil. You can get it for like fifteen bucks. Either way, the CGC corporation put the entire issue online to read for free -- presumably to prove that these crisp, unblemished pages really are as good as they say they are -- and there's a lot more in there than just Superman, whose first appearance has naturally overshadowed the numerous other short features contained in this most coveted comic.

At a presentation to investors on Wednesday morning, Warner Bros CEO Kevin Tsujihara unveiled his studio's blockbuster movie slate for the next few years through to 2020, finally confirming the titles for an ambitious number of movies based on DC Comics superhero properties. The announcement confirms that we will finally see a long-awaited Wonder Woman movie in 2017. Gal Gadot will reprise the role after 2016's Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice. The announcement also includes the expected Justice League movie -- and a sequel -- the previously announced Suicide Squad movie, and pictures starring Justice League members Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Cyborg. This means DC now has one superhero movie in the works with a female lead, and three with non-white leads.

We really don't know much about how Wonder Woman will fit into the plot of 'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.' We do know that she's being played by Gal Gadot and that she will, somehow, get some screen time alongside Henry Cavill's Superman, Ben Affleck's Batman and Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor. But that's about it ... until now! Thanks to a tiny snippet (caught on Vine, no less) we now know that DC's Amazon warrior will forego her classic origin story in favor of her modern beginning.

Though New York Comic Con 2014 kicked off this past Thursday, October 9, the high-profile panels and festivities bring out more intense fans, and that means more cosplayers. For those of you who can't attend the four-day-long nerd fest, check out our NYCC cosplay photo gallery and see what you've been missing.

Q: Aside from the amazing cover for Superman #180, what's the best DC Comics story featuring Dracula? -- @brendan42 A: October is the month where I always find myself thinking about Dracula even more than I usually do, and just the other day I was thinking about how weird it is that there's never been a really good story about Batman fighting Dracula. They've tried it a couple of times, sure -- including a direct-to-video movie that takes a premise like Batman vs. Dracula and ends up committing the cardinal sin of being boring -- but it never really takes. Once I got your question, though, I started thinking about it, and I realized that there aren't many good stories about any DC Comics character fighting Dracula. It turns out that dude just doesn't show up a whole lot in the DC Universe. And that's pretty weird.

By now, you've probably heard all about the genuinely awful licensed t-shirt featuring Superman planting a seemingly unwelcome smooch on Wonder Woman and proclaiming "SCORE!" and that he's "done it again." It's bad for a lot of reasons -- blatant sexism, the awful lettering of the caption box -- but, as an optimist, I've always taken the position that nothing is so bad that it can't be improved in some way. And apparently, that's Bill Sienkiewicz's position as well.

DC Comics has been the butt of a lot of jokes and criticism about sexist depictions of female characters and the company's lack of female creators. But recently DC has been making strides towards employing more women in creative roles and publishing more progressive, women-centric books like Gotham Academy, the new Batgirl and the Wonder Woman anthology Sensation Comics that seem to have a lot to offer women readers. It’s disappointing, then, to see a rash of new licensed DC apparel aimed at women with sexist slogans like “Training to be Batman’s wife.” This kind of clothing does not send women the message that they are welcome within the DC Universe as anything but prizes to be won.