Door

I’m immediately intrigued by the plot of the new story arc in “Grindhouse: Doors Open At Midnight” #5. I’m a big fan of b-movies and schlock cinema — one of my favorite theaters is The Spectacle, a former Brooklyn bodega converted into a 25 seat theater that screens the strangest stuff committed to celluloid. Alex de Campi loves the genre as well and has used the limitless storytelling budget of comic books to create a Grindhouse-style blood and guts story based in a medieval setting. It feels like a mash up of plot points from “Kill Bill” and “I Spit On Your Grave.” I’m hopeful that since these similarities are introduced so quickly, the team will expand beyond them in the upcoming parts of this arc. Branwyn is set to wed her betrothed Lord of Callyreath on a tiny isle surrounded by extras from Twelfth Night. I like the slow burn of the opening of the story as we switch from POV shots behind Bran’s bridal veil to third person shots of the action in general. It’s a fun choice by arti

From the grindhouse homages of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez to the surprise popularity of B-movies like “Sharknado,” it’s fair to say that schlock storytelling has found an audience again. Alex de Campi’s new Dark Horse series “Grindhouse: Doors Open at Midnight” attempts to bring that exploitation aesthetic to comics, with artist Chris Peterson drawing the first arc, “Bee Vixens from Mars”. The title more or less says everything you need to know about the story. It’s a classically-structured monster movie where young people get torn apart while the authorities get picked off investigating their disappearances. Meanwhile, one lone cop — in this case, the silver-haired, eyepatch-wearing, shotgun-toting Garcia — attempts to bring the reign of terror to an end single-handedly. As you’d expect, the grindhouse aesthetic is completely up-front. It’s all gore, sex and explosions. That said, Peterson does do better with the moments of over-the-top horror than with the moments of ex

Dark Nights: Metal #2 hit shelves this week and, in doing so, successfully book ended one of the deepest running plot threads from Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s New 52 Batman run. In an issue absolutely loaded with big reveals, one of the biggest was that the Court of Owls is directly at the heart of the DC Universe-spanning Batman epic. RELATED: The Batman Who Laughs’ Origin Story is Absolutely Bonkers Now that we know how closely Snyder and Capullo’s epic run ties into their current opus, it’s time to take a closer look at just who the Court of Owls are and what their plans might mean for the future of the DC Universe as Metal unfolds. The Court and the Parliament In the simplest terms, the Court of Owls is a secret society operating in Gotham City, while the Parliament of Owls is what they’re called when they work on an international level. The Court’s been operating just beneath the surface (sometimes literally) of Gotham for hundreds of yea

This is “Provide Some Answers,” which is a feature where long unresolved plot points are eventually resolved. Reader Corey L. recently wrote in with basically a question about Doctor Strange: The Other Side of Darkness, a miniseries by J. Michael Straczynski that never actually came out. While it never came out, Straczynski DID find a way to sort of kind of come out with it. Anyhow, it all begins with Amazing Spider-Man #42 (by J. Michael Straczynski, John Romita Jr. and Scott Hanna), where Spider-Man comes to Doctor Strange for help and Doctor Strange mentions that he is busy, and the reason that he is busy is something that will be revealed in Doctor Strange: The Other Side of Darkness. Anyhow, Strange then leaves Spider-Man and closes his door ominously… So, again, that miniseries never came out. Two years later, Straczynski instead wrote a revamped Doctor Strange origin miniseries called Strange that inspired a goodly chunk of the recent Doctor Strange film&h

Side story performance to be held before 4th stage play in December The official website for the Tōken Ranbu stage plays announced a new side story stage play titled Tōken Ranbu Gaiden: Kono Yoru-ra no Odawara (Tōken Ranbu Side Story: Odawara of These Nights) on Monday. The play will have one performance outside at Odawara Castle om November 23. The performance will feature the same cast as the upcoming Tōken Ranbu: Jo-den Mitsura Boshi Katanagatari stage play. In addition, the staff announced the following cast members playing historical figures (Note: Historical Japanese names are listed family name first here, while modern names are listed given name first): Kento Takeshita as Fujiwara Ariyoshi Kazuya Hayakawa as Hōjō Ujinao Masashi Gōda as Nagao Akinaga Tōken Ranbu: Jo-den Mitsura Boshi Katanagatari, the franchise's fourth stage play, will run from December 15-29. Touken Ranbu Giden - Akatsuki no Dokuganryū, the franchise's third stage play, ran from June to J