Matt D. Wilson

New Line Cinema's rights to the Vertigo series Y: The Last Man have officially lapsed, reverting back to creators Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra, according to director Dan Trachtenberg. The studio announced early last year that Trachtenberg -- who doesn't have any features to his credit, only a handful of short films, including a very well-received Portal film -- would helm the project. He and the studio only had a limited window of time to get a movie finished, and that time has come and gone.

Over the past few years, comics fans have been embroiled in a debate over the double standard that applies to superhero costumes. While men's costumes are increasingly depicted as totally functional, women's costumes remain what they've been for decades: skimpy, overtly sexualized, and all too often, anything but what would be practical for the purposes of patrolling the streets and fighting crime. Filmmaker Luke Patton's short film "Sexy Superhero" faces that debate head-on and makes something really funny out of it.

The critical and popular consensus on this summer's Amazing Spider-Man 2 was that it was, to put it diplomatically, underwhelming. As The Daily Beast's Marlow Stern put it, the movie felt overstuffed and "like a setup film for The Sinister Six spin-off." In fact, he put it that way directly to actor Andrew Garfield, who has played Peter Parker in the last two Spidey flicks. Garfield defended the movie to a point, but he also laid any blame for its failures solely on the studio behind it, Sony.

I'm going to tell you this right up front: This Nerdist video that presents a what-if scenario about the Waynes faking their deaths instead of really being killed in Crime Alley will inspire a lot of quibbles. You'll want to quibble with it like crazy. I know I did. Fight that urge, because it is genuinely funny.

After nearly two years of convincing Guinness' record judges that his comic book collection is, in fact, the world's largest, Mission Viejo, California man Bob Bretall was able to announce on his Facebook page that it's finally official: His comic book collection is on page 172 of the new Guinness Book of World Records. Bretall's collection totals 94,268 issues, all of which are "unique" books, which presumably means there are no duplicates. The whole collection weighs a whopping 16,800 estimated pounds. That's more than eight tons of comics.

About a decade after the formation of the Comics Code Authority in 1954 effectively killed off EC Comics' popular line of horror comics, Warren Publishing aimed to bring back some of that malevolent magic. The result was the anthology series Creepy (and later, its sister book, Eerie). Published as a black-and-white magazine, the series didn't have to adhere to the Comics Code's strict content standards, and as such, was able to push the envelope in ways comics in the mid-1960s generally couldn't. Now, the book's current publisher, Dark Horse, is celebrating the magazine's 50th anniversary with a big, blowout issue featuring work by Fred Van Lente, Corinna Bechko, Dustin Nguyen, Peter Bagge, Alison Sampson, and Art Baltazar, among others.

The CW has announced that Australian actor and former rugby player Matthew Nable, who American audiences may know best as Boss Johns from the movie Riddick, will play Ra's al Ghul in the upcoming third season of Arrow, starting with the fourth episode, "The Magician."

Comics fans have become well acquainted with the notion that sometimes, creative people learn the wrong things from successes. It's why certain comics have been dominated for going on 30 years by a "dark" and "mature" sensibility that often comes off as grim, self-serious and overcooked. Well, get ready for that way of thinking to make its way to movie theaters very soon. According to a report at Hitfix, Warner Bros. has a strict rule for its upcoming DC Comics movies: "No jokes."

When Mondo, the merchandising arm of the celebrated Alamo Drafthouse theater known for selling super-cool movie posters, announced that it would host a convention in Austin, Texas, September 20-21, it wasn't entirely clear what the focus would be. Movies? Artists? Movies about artists? As it turns out, it's all of the above. In addition to hosting the world-premiere screening of the new documentary about the British comics anthology 2000AD, Future Shock!, the weekend event will also host an array of comic artists, many of which have contributed their talents to film. Some of those artists, including Alex Ross have contributed art to celebrate the 15th anniversary of The Iron Giant.

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice director Zack Snyder apparently has a superpower: The ability to know when radio DJs are talking smack about Aquaman. Last week, after the on-air personalities on Detroit's sports-talk radio station The Ticket spoke somewhat disparagingly about the character, who will reportedly be played by Jason Momoa in the upcoming Batman V Superman, Snyder called in to school them about Aquaman's "cool abilities."

As fans debate what superheroine should get a solo movie from Marvel Studios, it would appear that Sony is looking to beat the Disney superhero factory to the punch using a Marvel character. According to a Deadline report, Sony Pictures is planning to release a movie in its Spider-Man franchise led by a woman, though it's not clear which character will be front-and center. The movie would see release in 2017.

If you've read my recaps of The CW's Arrow, then you likely know I've been pretty hard on it. Yet I ultimately think the show accomplishes what it has brazenly set out to do since it started: be a television version of the Christopher Nolan Batman films. The CW's new series The Flash, which spun off from Arrow and even features a guest appearance from Arrow star Stephen Amell in its pilot episode, takes much the same approach, but the movies it attempts to emulate aren't the dark, brooding Batman films. It's chasing after the Spider-Man franchise. And for both better and worse, it nails it.