If you are like me and was sorely disappointed at how poorly The Last Airbender film, directed by M. Night Shyamalan represented the animated show, then buck up because a sequel to the hit television series is in the works. The original series garnered 5.6 million viewers, was nominated and won awards from the Annual Annie Awards, the Genesis Awards, the primetime Emmy awards and a Peabody Award chronicled how Aang The Avatar, and his group of friends setting out to help him master the four elements so he can save the world from the evil Fire Lord Ozai and end the war with the fire nation.

The new series, titled The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra, was announced last summer at San Diego Comic Con by series creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. It explains how Korra, a teenage girl from the southern water tribe has become the new Avatar and must learn airbending from Tenzin, the son of Aang and Katara. The series is set 70 years in the future and contains a stellar voice cast which was released last week, including:

KORRA voiced by Janet Varney
JINORA voiced by Kiernan Shipka
HIROSHI SATO voiced by Daniel Dae Kim
MAKO voiced by David Faustino
ASAMI voiced by Seychelle Gabriel
LIEUTENANT voiced by Lance Henriksen
BOLIN voiced by P.J. Byrne
TENZIN voiced by JK Simmons

Dante Basco, who lent his voice to Prince Zuko confirmed his return, via twitter stating that he will be giving voice to a different character related to Zuko in some way. The Legend of Korra is slated to be a mini-series originally at 12 episodes, but Nickelodeon ordered an additional 14 bringing that total up to 26. To me this shows how much faith they have in the new series to wash the bad taste of the film from the mouths of all the fans. The animation style is apparently the same as we get a look at the protagonist in action and is scheduled to begin airing on Nickelodeon in early 2012. The official synopsis of the show is below:

“The Legend of Korra” takes place 70 years after the events of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” and follows the adventures of the Avatar after Aang – a passionate, rebellious, and fearless teenage girl from the Southern Water Tribe named Korra (voice of Janet Varney).

With three of the four elements under her belt (Earth, Water, and Fire), Korra seeks to master the final element, Air.  Her quest leads her to the epicenter of the modern “Avatar” world, Republic City – a metropolis that is fueled by steampunk technology.  It is a virtual melting pot where benders and non-benders from all nations live and thrive.

However, Korra discovers that Republic City is plagued by crime as well as a growing anti-bending revolution that threatens to rip it apart.   Under the tutelage of Aang’s son, Tenzin (JK Simmons), Korra begins her airbending training while dealing with the dangers at large.

The last week of the month is always a nice haul for comics, and even with February being the short bus month, we got some nice beginnings and one really lovely ending.

PICK OF THE WEEK:

Though not the most entertaining read of the week, the one that was the most powerful and memorable the most was Hickman’s elegant farewell to the fallen FF member. Fantastic Four #588 showed FF family and friends in their mourning, and my heart broke a bit for their anger and sadness. The book ended on a note of courage, when Spiderman explains to Franklin the duty of a hero to care for what he loves. The conversation was an echo of Uncle Ben’s “great power, great responsibility” speech, and made for one of those powerful, resonating scenes that make me glad that I read comics.

MUST READs:

DC’s best bet this week is Synder’s noir Batman, while Marvel offers up some choice bit with its Iron Man titles, and Age of X get a’rolling.

Detective Comics #874sets up the new arc involving the return of Commissioner Gordon’s criminally insane son. Synder write a really sympathetic Gordon, and Francavilla ’s soft, moody art suits the gravity of the story perfectly.

Invincible Iron Man #501 begins a new arc with Stark against a cankerous Dr. Octopus. Not much action took place thus far, but a dude rebuilding Broxton/Asgard—and rebuilding it green—is worth reading about even when not punching out supervillians. While Stark’s gone all small-business in the main Iron Man title, Iron Man 2.0 #1 features War Machine as the Iron Man in the system. Hats off to Spencer’s promising Marvel debut, with its engaging premise (tech and the military) and a suspenseful plot about undead rogue technology.

This week, Carey kicks off his gloomy alternative future where mutants are being oppressed (surprise) to the point of near extinction with X-Men Legacy #245 and New Mutants #22. The story itself isn’t particularly radical, but it is fun to read re-imagining of classic heroes—particularly in the X-Universe where the cast is so diverse. I <3 Rogue as Legacy.

GOOD READs:

Gotham City Sirens #19 was a fun little read, quick and possibly a little forgettable. Really like Calloway’s comparisons of Catwoman and Batman’s relationship to that of Joker’s and Harley’s.

I dropped the Conan series a while back during Cimmerian, because all Conan stories are the same Conan story. That said, King Conan Scarlet Citadel #1 reminded me that a distinctive pleasure to be found in cheesy machismos. It is like going to Medieval Knights and eating chicken with your bare hands.

… AND DISAPPIONTMENTS:

The biggest disappointment was Cornell’s Action, which has declined steadily since its promising start. Now, Lex Luthor’s not that complicated, Larfleeze is not that complicated. Yet somehow, I had no idea what went on Action Comic #898… probably a whole lot of nothing?

Thor #620 is almost too epic to be interesting. Pascal’s art is beautiful and Fraction has greatly improved his God-Speak, but this issue has no story. It was just Odin with his crazy-man beard, doing gloriously violent battle for twenty pages, and.. FIN.

Morning Glories #7 focused on Jade, the cheerleader-princess-bitch, and once again, was all setup and no explanation. I did learn that Jade, the current issue’s focal point, is apparently Indian, and not Korean. Didn’t guess that from the art, all Asians must look the same to Eisma.

- – -

PCS WEEKLY PULL is fangirl Sirui reading comics and telling you want she thinks. She makes her list in Weekly Pull List and sums it up in Weekly Pull Scored. Shoot her an email if you got comments or suggestions.

Last week, we started running down 10 of Lex Luthor’s best moments/episodes in Smallville‘s 10 years on the air in response to the news that Michael Rosenbaum will be returning to the show in May. We’ll continue the list this week as we explore the “death” and return of Lex.

CBR reports that Dwayne McDuffie, acclaimed comic and television writer, and creator of Milestone Media, has died today due to complications from surgery performed Monday.

News of his death comes as a surprise to the fan community—McDuffie was young and in good health. He recently completed the script for All-Star Superman, and at last week’s premier, McDuffie was happy and energetic, speaking optimistically to CBR about a Static Shock feature.

Dwayne McDuffie began his career in comics in the ‘80s as a Marvel editor, and quickly gained a reputation as a sharp and provocative writer. Among his more beloved work for DC and Marvel, we remember his run on Damage Control, Deathlok, Fantastic Four, and Justice League. McDuffie was also critically acclaimed for his writing on animate series Justice League, Ben 10, and Static Shock.

Dwayne McDuffie strived towards more diversity in comic industry. Passionate and outspoken, McDuffie often argued against the racial imbalance found in the comic books and shows. In 1992, he co-founded Milestone Media to create realistic minority characters and stories that he had found lacking in the mainstream books. McDuffie himself created and wrote many of Milestone’s titles, such as Icon, Static Shock, and the multicultural Blood Syndicate. Fans remember Milestone’s characters fondly as heroes that dealt with real issues.

I was introduced to McDuffie in grad school, doing research for a paper on the black superheroic identity. In my readings, Milestone Media was cited by scores of comic scholars and culture experts as the most prominent efforts to bring multicultural heroes into the mainstream comics. I enjoyed his thoughtful representations of minority characters in all walks of life, from the ghetto to the penthouse. More impressive still was his ability to bring all such character into superhero genre without missing a beat. Icon, Raquel, Hardware, Static—these were superheroes through and through.

Dwayne McDuffie leaves behind a great legacy, inspiring with writing, and with his life and beliefs. In his memorable Fantastic Four run in 1997, the FF team is confronted with social and political strife, relationship troubles, and other realistic consequences that been often ignored in favor for a more family-friendly tone. McDuffie’s rookie Marvel creator profile listed writing for the Fantastic Four as his greatest comic aspiration. In this case, McDuffie proves that by working hard and stay true to yourself, you can achieve you dreams.

The PCS crew give our condolences to his friends and family. We loved his work and what he did for the industry, and will miss him greatly.

After 10 long years, Marvel vs Capcom 3 is finally here! As a die-hard MVC2 player I was pretty skeptical about how good MVC3 could be, but as the release got nearer and nearer I can’t deny that the impending excitement was starting to melt my cold, jaded heart.

The pessimism began for me and most other MVC2 players when the MVC3 development team first announced that they wanted the game to be more newbie friendly, for example by simplifying the controls to have only THREE attack buttons. But soon after I got my hands on the game I realized this wasn’t going to be a huge problem, and the addition of the universal launcher certainly makes it easier for novice players to pick the game up.

My most immediate problem with the game at this point (a good week or so) is that it’s too easy to kill your opponent. To start off with, the damage is too high. A standard air combo ending in a Hyper Combo will normally take over half your opponent’s life; on top of that, chip damage from beam/gun Hypers is also higher than it needs to be.

Complicating things even further (for the worse) is the new “X Factor” mode which can be activated at any point in the game to buff all your characters up: they get faster, hit harder, and regenerate their health quicker. All of which is fine, and would actually make for an interesting and strategic addition to the game (especially because the effect is greater the fewer characters you have left) — if not for the fact that X Factor is just as excessive as the aforementioned damage settings. Characters in XF mode simply become much too fast and hit way too hard.

In a way, this isn’t a game-breaking problem because *all* the characters hit too hard, and they *all* get overpowered with XF. So it’s kind of fair. As a result, I’d say this is the first area that MVC3 surpasses MVC3: balance. MVC2 had over 30 characters and 4 or 5 of them were godly compared to the rest of the cast. Seeing how many characters in MVC3 can already do 50% damage if not close to 100% on one combo using a single super meter, there’s not a ton of room to become deadlier. So in the weeks or months to come, when players inevitably discover a bunch of exploitable tactics that make some characters much better than others, I still think that the game will have to be more balanced than MVC2.

While the settings and properties mentioned above may turn players such as myself off by essentially making the game seem too easy, it definitely gives newbies the satisfaction of doing big damage in fast-paced matches.

Of course, the one thing which newbies and hardcover players will likely love equally has to be the job Capcom has done in bringing all of these characters to life. While I’m a huge fan of Capcom’s 2D art (what old school gamer isn’t?), the shiny new models found here pop with solid polish and personality. It’s particularly cool to see Marvel’s superheroes & villains jump off the comic book pages and onto the TV screens under your control — Magneto’s still badass, Taskmaster’s cocky, Deadpool’s overloaded with jokes & weapons, and on down the line. And the Capcom side with its mix of old favorites and new additions is just as good. Dante is incredibly popular, and I for one love Wesker (and I’m not even a Resident Evil fan).

In the end, MVC3 never really stood a chance of surpassing MVC2 in the hearts & minds of devotees like myself, but it’s a fun, fast-paced game bursting with personality and its sure to build on and surpass the surge of online fighting game fervor that Capcom jump-started with SF4.

Speaking of which, without a doubt the area MVC3 excels in over MVC2 is hands-down online play. Now that we have a up-to-date MVC game, online play has finally caught up with the times with SSF4-style ranked matches, complete with win-streak counters and graphs breaking down your offensive and defensive strengths and weakness.

Being a port of a 10 year old game, and probably a low budget adaption at that, MVC2 could be infuriating when trying to play online matches. You’d get booted from a room or even at the start of a match with high regularity. If I had a dollar for everytime I got “network error”… Probably the only reason this was even acceptable was MVC2 cost like $15.

Well, it’s about time. It was only last month that we started seeing official photos from X-Men: First Class, and while I can see Fox’s “rationale” in thinking that anything X-Men they put out will make its money regardless of marketing, I would think this is EXACTLY the kind of film they needed to start marketing much earlier.

When you think of a game that is full of cuteness you might become overly sick to the stomach with the thought, for example “Hello Kitty”. “Hardcore gamers” aren’t known to play games that have any kind of association with the words: cute, super cute, or “awwwww”. I think Ilomilo has redefined this genre and made cute possible for a game with absolute grace and challenges that make you feel accomplished instead of frustrated after you beat the community best on the leaderboards. Yes, Ilomilo has made me a score elitest. You know you’re the shit when you can get to Ilo or Milo with 30 less steps than the general community. Take that!

I wanted this game ever since I saw the trailer. The graphics are very well designed. You know a game is going to be good when you get the feeling that the designers enjoyed their work. Ilomilo is a definite must have for all 360 owners who love indie titles. This game isn’t for everyone, but even the FPS-onry gamers will appreciate it.

My roommate jokes about how I always make the Milo (blue) go to Ilo (red). His exact quotes are: “Always making the guy go to the girl!” so when he makes his own attempt to beat a level he makes Ilo go to Milo instead.

My favorite aspect of the game that I just can’t live without is my absolute love for the music. The soundtrack is just ridiculously addictive. I’m a huge sucker for creativity and the amount of work developers put into the music for the games. I can’t really say anything bad about Ilomilo except that fact that the 360 controller sometimes is a little wonky and it gets possessed by a ghost who seemingly wants to play too. When you want your little guys or gals to move a block to the left, instead of turning towards that direction they end up going up or down. I don’t think that’s any fault the the mechanics of the game.

In conclusion, for 800 MS points I think this game is worth every cent.

A Lynnwood, Washington man, identified only as “Dan,” came “within seconds of having his car broken into” on Sunday when the alleged crook was chased off by a masked crusader. In an incident that local police couldn’t confirm, Dan told reporters a man with a metal strip was trying to unlock his car in a parking lot when help showed up out of nowhere.

“From the right, this guy comes dashing in, wearing this skin-tight rubber, black and gold suit, and starts chasing him away,” Dan said.

Dan’s rescuer was Phoenix Jones, a.k.a. Phoenix Jones the Guardian of Seattle, a “Real Life Superhero” and leader of the Rain City Superhero Movement. Almost every night, the 22-year-old Jones, who keeps his real identity a secret, enters a secret compartment in the back of a Lynnwood comic book store and emerges, in uniform, to patrol the streets. (Watch video of Jones in action here.) His suit includes a bullet-proof vest and “stab plates,” and he carries a taser nightstick, mace and tear gas. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that Jones also sports a “ballistic cup.”

“I symbolize that the average person doesn’t have to walk around and see bad things and do nothing,” Jones said. He told reporters that since he began his patrols nine months ago, he has been stabbed and had guns drawn on him.

Jones isn’t alone in his crime-fighting enthusiasm. There’s an entire movement of Real Life Superheroes out there, across the country. Activities appear to range from handing homeless people water bottles to actually stepping in and trying to stop violent crime. The website rlsh-manual.com defines a Real Life Superhero as “whoever chooses to embody the values presented in superheroic comic books, not only by donning a mask/costume, but also performing good deeds for the communitarian place whom he inhabits.” Reallifesuperheroes.org urges visitors to “Let out your inner superhero and join or support our cause.”

Yeah, I know I’ve taken a six-month hiatus from posting here, but I couldn’t let the year end without joining the throngs of year-end Top Ten lists that are about to clog the interwebs. I mean, if there was ever a year more suited for annoying “Top Ten” lists, 2010 would be that year.

For my list, I’m looking back on the year that was and listing the 10 Asian American entertainers who, I feel, had the biggest impact on the pop culture zeitgeist. So, without further ado: