Star Magazine claims that Dunst will be written out of the next Spider-Man film:

"The plan is for her character to be written out, probably by dying. Anne will take over as Peter Parker's new love interest for this project and for Spider-Man 5 and 6 which are being written now. Anne's in L.A. doing a lot of meetings on the movie, because filming is right around the corner."

But Hathaway's representative told Gossip Cop there's no truth to rumors Hathaway will be Spidey's new girl. Nor has there been any confirmation that Hathaway's even in the film, in the rumored "Vultress" role or any other. Still, we can always hope the part about Mary Jane dying off is true.

Hollyscoop is reporting that producers of the remake of Supergirl: The Love Story, a movie we haven't heard a thing about, are very interested in Taylor Swift for the title role.

Unfortunately we hear differently. Our own insider source in Swift's camp says, "Nothing is planned." This is how rumors get started, folks. A bunch of "Hollywood types," i.e. people who live in LA, are sitting around talking about movies they'd like to make and who'd they like to see in them, probably moved by Swift's generally humorous SNL appearance, and all of a sudden it's a cold hard fact.

As far as we know, Swift is not Kara Zor-El.

The film Despicable Me is about the supervillain Gru, voiced by Steve Carell, and his attempt to remain the baddest evildoer in the world. And these yellow monsters are his henchmen.

Listen to that evil cackle — we want nothing to do with it. It's like two twinkies got rolled around in some hair. Meanwhile, the film itself, with the voice talent from Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Will Arnett, Kristen Wiig, Danny McBride, Miranda Cosgrove, Jack McBrayer, Mindy Kaling, Jemaine Clement and Julie Andrews, we're still quite interested in.

Plus the theme song by Pharrell Williams is addictive...

[via Yahoo]

The 1990s were a pretty weak time for movies based on both video games and superhero comics. On the video game side, there were Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter and a couple of Mortal Kombat films. And on the superhero front, Batman acted out the law of diminishing returns. And that was about it. (I'm going to pretend Steel didn't exist.)

And then in the 2000s, CG visual effects caught up to the amazing superpowered spectacles that comics and games had led us to expect. In 2000, Bryan Singer, well-regarded director of The Usual Suspects, directed X-Men, which was a huge success. And the floodgates of superhero movies opened. Meanwhile, we got movies based on Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, and a ton of others.

But superhero movies have vastly outgrossed video-game movies, according to Box Office Mojo: $7.2 billion to $900 million. (And to be fair, the site lists 77 superhero films, and only 28 video-game films.) Not only that, but directors like Singer, Christopher Nolan, Sam Raimi, Jon Favreau and Ang Lee have been willing to venture into superhero films. By contrast, the most well-known video-game directors are people like Paul W.S. Anderson, and... Uwe Boll.

Why is this? There seem to be a few reasons. For one thing, many of the most successful video games haven't yet made the leap to movies. Neill Blomkamp's Halo film could have been the X-Men of video-game movies, but it fell apart. Ditto for Gore Verbinski's BioShock movie, which seems to have stalled out due to budgetary concerns.

And it's possible that translating video games to movies requires a higher level of CG mastery than translating comic books — the CG renditions of superhero comics just have to live up to our memories of 2-D pen-and-ink drawings. A live-action CG rendition of a video game, meanwhile, has to look cooler than the already impressive computer graphics most games serve up these days.

But also, movie adaptations of video-game films have generally employed the same kinds of story logic you used to see in the Joel Schumacher Batman films. Like, really — the Doom film, which featured evil alien parasites whose tongues could tell if you were genetically evil or not. Let me just repeat that: They had tongues that could genetically scan you and figure out if you were evil. No superhero movie in the past decade has shown that level of disrespect for the audience or the material. Sure, the Tomb Raider and Resident Evil films were a lot better — but even the mediocre superhero films showed a certain commitment to telling a semi-coherent story. Most comic-book heroes have decades of stories in the bank, however contradictory and full of holes, and the films have gotten slightly better about drawing on them.

But maybe the crux of it is that superhero films learned the difference between respect for the format, and respect for the characters. In some superhero films earlier in the decade, you saw some half-assed attempts at making "comic book panels" and captions on the screen — this was especially heinous in Ang Lee's Hulk. But as the decade went on, superhero films learned that the format wasn't what made these worlds awesome. Meanwhile, even as video games became more cinematic, the movies based on them haven't been able to distinguish between paying homage to video-game action, versus translating it to the different format.

But the other thing that becomes apparent, after you look at all of the superhero and video-game films of the past decade, is that the overall level of quality of both has been pretty bad. For every X-Men 2, Spider-Man or The Dark Knight, there are plenty of films like X-Men 3, Wolverine, Catwoman, Daredevil, and so on. Uwe Boll would have to work overtime and weekends to make a film half as bad as Catwoman. Superhero movies have won, in part, due to sheer quantity — if you generate a large enough mountain of crap, some good stuff will rise out of it. But also, a movie doesn't have to be good to make ten squillion quatloos.

But one thing's for sure: The House That Bryan Singer Built won't stand forever. Something's going to come along and knock superhero movies off their perch, establishing a new Hollywood feeding frenzy. Will it be video-game films? Maybe, if the ten video game movies that are in the pipeline actually get made, and achieve Dark Knight/Iron Man levels of success. It really only takes one movie to make half a billion dollars to turn on the firehose of copycats and sequels.

And even though Avatar isn't based on a video game, it's enough like a video game that if it has a strong enough second and third weekend, you could see the gears (of war) turning in the studio execs' heads. Avatar could turn out to be the movie that supercharged the video-game movie genre, since its strengths can so easily translate to recreating Dead Space or Bioshock. And of course if Tron Legacy does gangbusters next year, it could also provide a shot in the arm.

But right now, the up-and-coming genre seems to be toy movies instead. The two Transformers movies did superhero numbers, and appealed to a similar sense of nostalgia and escapism to superheroes. And there are tons and tons of toys out there waiting for their moment on the big screen — and unlike video-game companies, toy companies don't have any concerns about making sure the movies do justice to their existing stories. A toy movie doesn't have to tie in with existing continuity or jibe with the stories that have already told. A toy movie has one purpose only: To sell toys.

And that means toy movies can be dumber, and yet also more spectacular, than superhero films and video-game films combined. Just look at the Transformers films — they're so overstuffed and bloated with nonsense, they can barely move, but they have the power to spew crap for miles in all directions. And now there are films based on Monopoly, Battleship, Viewmaster, Stretch Armstrong, Battle Bots, and countless others on the way. Actual directors, like Ridley Scott (Monopoly) and Peter Berg (Battleship), are signing on to these projects.

Toy movies could well win out in the next decade, because the key to success will be casting the widest net for nostalgia among adults aged 18-49. Everybody feels vaguely nostalgic for Monopoly or Battleship — and it's just a matter of time before we get Steven Spielberg's Sorry! or David Lynch's Yahtzee. It's like the perfect combination: Everybody feels nostalgic, but nobody will complain that they got it wrong. How on Earth do you get a Yahtzee movie wrong?

It already seems like we're maxed out on superhero films, when Warner Bros. puts the kibosh on Superman and Wonder Woman movies and a Green Lantern film starring "it" boy Ryan Reynolds struggles to get made. If Marvel follows through on its plans to put out four movies a year, we could discover just how many superheroic origins the movie-going audience can stand. So maybe we'll see more of a blend of action/nostalgia pics, with films based on comics, toys, video games and other sources. Or maybe toy movies will just crush every other film genre, until there's nothing but massive CG recreations of your old plastic playthings, as far as the eye can see.

The object of all slot games for players is to arrive at the bonus round. In Superman, the player gets a chance to save the world when they are in the bonus round, much like the title character does in the comics and in the movies.

Part of saving the world in the bonus round will revolve around destroying missiles and players working their way around meteor fields. In the end, the ultimate goal is to go as far through the bonus round, picking up extra cash along the way.

The popular superheroes have made their rounds in movie theatres and competed for entertainment dollars on the big screen. Now, they will be competing for online players' money. Superman joins the Silver Surfer and the Incredible Hulk as comic icons who now have their own online slot game.

I can see the Hulk being a good icon for Internet gambling, what with the poor impulse control. According to another gambling industry site, besides Superman, the other new characters who've just joined the world of online gambling include Forrest Gump, Braveheart, Batman... and Wonder Woman. Great Hera!

Says a press release:

"Big brands drive player popularity, and that is why CryptoLogic is excited to launch a game based on Superman, one of the most iconic brands of the entertainment world," said Brian Hadfield, CryptoLogic's President and CEO. "By also adding Forrest Gump and Braveheart, CryptoLogic continues its industry leadership in launching branded games that resonate with both the casual and serious player. We aim for these games to be both popular and profitable."

We won't even comment on the fact that we can't get a Superman movie, but we can get Superman slots.

One of the things I like best about comics is they require no restraint. Most methods of story-telling benefit from some moderation. Comics are like the car pile-up scenes in the Blues Brothers movies. The more you add, the better it gets. No matter what the problem, it can be fixed by piling on a little more.

Problem One: Unpopular Subject
Let's start at the bottom of the barrel: Nazis. From the Batfamily to the Von Trapp Family, everyone hates Nazis. There is just no way to make them work. Or that's what you'd say if you didn't work in comics. If you did, you would see that Nazis are a starting point, a good, golden-age foundation that you can build up into something extraordinary.

Step One: Make them bigger. At first glance, this seems like the wrong way to go. All it does is make giant Nazis. That's no fun.

Step Two: Make them robots. Robots improve everything. Cops, rebellions in galaxies a long time ago and far, far away, Elmo dolls: there's nothing that can't be spiced up by adding robots. And yet, a giant robot Nazi still doesn't have the kick we need. What else can be done?

This. That's what. You take that giant Nazi robot, and you make it into an octopus. A land octopus. In a graveyard. Because, that's why.

Problem Two: A Plethora of Lame Concepts

Start with a shaky base: literally. When is the last time you saw someone on stilts? If you can remember, then I applaud your memory. Stilts are things that provide no value and make the act of walking both harder and more dangerous. They're a terrible concept all on their own.

Now take that terrible concept and make a supervillain out of it. Stiltman has terrorized the Marvel Universe since the sixties, presumably by nearly falling on people and then suing them for damages. Sure, the stilts are electronic and look like high-rises, but a crappy villain way, way up in the air is still a crappy villain.

Now rip off crappy villain with a sadass tribute character. A few weeks ago we saw the debut of Lady Stiltman. For those of you not paying attention, I will repeat the name: LADY StiltMAN.

This is bad piled on bad piled on bad. Nothing can save it. Except something worse.

I don't know how adding a pair of novelty high heels saved this concept, but it did. Some things just need a cherry on top to turn out delicious. I'm the last person in the world to champion putting more comic book women in heels, but when I see this I can only sit back in wonder. Touché, Marvel. Touché.

Problem Three: Gimmicks That Have Been Done to Death

"Who would win in a fight," is the kind of tired speculation that wasn't even fresh in Stand By Me. Now it's torturous. We've seen Batman versus Superman a thousand different times. We've seen Batman versus Captain America, and Captain America versus Iron Man and Iron Man versus Wolverine, and Wolverine versus the Punisher, and the Punisher versus Everydamnone. At this point, the horse is dead.

In comics, there is only one solution to that: Zombie Horse.

When Marvel pitted The Incredible Hercules against Thor for the second time, they just kept trying things until it worked. Last time they had to lift up the entire city of New York. This time, they just had the two heroes switch outfits. I don't know why that's even cooler, but it is. Last time it was a lot of pyrotechnics. This time there was more banter. Again, for some reason it worked. But it needed something more.

And this is why comics will always triumph over other media. When you see that literal purple nurple, splayed gloriously across the page, movie sound effects pale in comparison.

Problem Four: It's Not Crazy Enough Yet

You see, there's this thing called the Green Lantern Corps. They're space cops with battery-powered laser wish-rings. Sound good? No?

But wait! They're actually part of a larger Rainbow Corps, in which each color represents a particular emotions. Now is it good? No again?

The red ring is for rage. Red Lantern Corps members have rings that are powered by anger. And they can spew something that looks like blood but burns you like lava. And even though they are aliens, some of them just happen to look like earth creatures.

And so, without further ado, I present to you the crowning achievement of graphic novels to this date:

Ruffles the Rage Kitty.

Keyboard Cat, Ceiling Cat, and the entire population of I Can Has Cheezburger can go to hell. Nothing can match the genius of this. Nothing.

Caleb Paullus' Super Not Super is a series of brief photo comics exploring the not-so-superheroic trials and tribulations of caped crusaders. Batman finds even he is not immune to the economic meltdown, the Flash fails at physical intimacy, and Catwoman unwinds with a little *ahem* catnip. Sadly, Wonder Woman and Supergirl couldn't be given anything more interesting to do than household chores.

You can read the full comics at Super Not Super.

[via Geekologie]

This is, of course, just our opinion, and feel free to disagree in comments. We went back and forth about several of these films, and there were a few others that we almost included instead, so we're not claiming infallibility here. If you want to view this in non-gallery format, click here, and I promise it'll work.

Pitch Black. This is nearly the perfect movie — a gritty anti-hero with weird eyes that can see in the dark is on a prison ship, which crashes on an alien planet. The lurking monsters are ominous and alarming, but the film's real mystery is Riddick himself — the Furyan inspires loathing, hero-worship and a desperate longing for the anti-hero to become a hero by the movie's end. Like Riddick's own eyes, our view of him only really works when we see him through total darkness.

Avatar. I'm going to post my review of this film in a few days, closer to its actual release date. But this is definitely one of the decade's most significant science-fiction films, both in its startling new look and in its elaborate alien world. Sigourney Weaver is one of the few heroic scientists we've seen in movies lately, and she fearlessly spouts facts about the science of Pandora. Avatar is by no means a perfect movie — it's a frustrating mixture of brilliance and utter cheese — but it's clearly an important movie in science-fiction history.

Slither. This movie sort of slid (I'm tempted to say slithered) under the radar, but it's one of the great all-time alien possession movies, and a brilliant metaphor for being trapped in a bad marriage. An alien parasite lands in a small town and takes over a woman's awful husband — and then it starts infecting everyone else in town, so that they all speak with the husband's voice. Wherever the wife goes, she hears her husband talking to her. And then people start getting grotesquely pregnant with alien offspring — this sort of thing is really why body horror was invented.

Star Trek. A young hero reluctantly starts to claim his true destined greatness... only to find out that his whole life has been altered, and maybe wrecked, by time-traveling, tattooed maniacs from the future. It's a weird spin on a Star Trek movie, but considering how hard it was to imagine being thrilled by another Trek after Nemesis, this film is a marvel. Plot holes, frat-boy antics, "red matter" and all, it's still the film that recharged Star Trek and may have helped bring back space-opera as a genre. And Spock has never been so... fascinating.

Donnie Darko has garnered an enduring cult fan base, for good reason. Its blend of mysicism and weird physics has aged amazingly well, and we still get lost in its "tangent universes." We keep hoping Richard Kelly will make another film that's both as mind-blowing and as well-constructed as this one.

Robot Stories. Another great movie that didn't get enough props when it came out. Greg Pak, who went on to write the Planet Hulk storyline for Marvel Comics, creates an anthology of three stories about robots that show how much robots are connected to our emotional lives — and what will happen when robots get emotions. In one story, two office robots fall in love, only to find that robot love is forbidden. In another story, a mother becomes determined to help her dying son amass the perfect collection of robot action figures — at any cost, even stealing. You'll see robots in a whole new light after watching this film.

Spider-Man 2. There were a number of superhero films that managed to bring the greatness of comics' storylines to life in the first half of the decade, including two X-Men movies and two Spider-Man movies. For my money, though, this is the best of the bunch, particularly because of Alfred Molina's Doc Octopus. Peter Parker's superpowered angst collides with Doc Octopus' cyborg identity crisis, and both hero and villain seem to be clinging to their identities by a thread. Even though we wish Peter Parker could keep his damn mask on, it's still thrilling and maybe the most perfect straight-up superhero movie of all.

Sleep Dealer. Alex Rivera's look at the dark side of telecommuting is one of the most memorable and intense films we've seen lately. In the future, everything depends on the dollar — you can't even access water reservoirs in Mexico or speak to your family in another town without feeding dollars into a slot. And the only way to get dollars is to get cyber nodes all over your body, allowing your nervous system to pilot machines in the United States. That way the U.S. can import Mexican labor without bringing in actual Mexicans. It's beautifully filmed and harrowing look at the ultimate form of alienated labor.

The Incredibles. The other great straight-up superhero was one of several Pixar films that we wanted to pay tribute to from the past decade. If you were as disappointed as we were by the two Fantastic Four films, then rejoice that this film does the FF right. A surprisingly light-hearted look at super-mutants in a world that learns to fear them, this movie does a better job of portraying what makes superhero comics so awesome than almost any live-action film. And we love the Omnidroid.

The Host. Sorry, Cloverfield — this was the monster-rampage movie we loved from the past few years. Unlike Clovey, the Host actually has a decent if snarky origin story, including weird chemicals dropped in the water by a callous American, causing one of the local creatures to get a little too big (and rambunctious) for comfort. More than almost any other monster movie, this film sucks us into caring about its main characters, a hapless family who operate a failing fast-food stand on the beach — we laugh at their antics and then get hopelessly, tragically, wound up in their fate when they tangle with the monster. Rob and Hud just don't quite measure up.

28 Days Later. Purists may hate this film's "fast zombies," but they're not even really zombies — they're the victims of a "rage" virus that stupid animal-rights activists cause to be released onto an unsuspecting world. Of all the apocalyptic scenarios we've seen in the past decade, 28 Days provides the best dose of terror and the sheer horror of society unraveling. When Christopher Eccleston's vicious soldier says the words, "I promised them women," your gut sinks. And the idea that the rage-virus outbreak will cure itself because the quasi-zombies will starve is genuinely clever. We were tempted to include Danny Boyle's other great SF film of the decade, Sunshine, but 28 Days is clearly better.

Paprika. A parade of nonsense images stomps through a man's dreams, forcing him to jump out a window... and it's just the beginning of the mayhem as the dream world collides with reality, in Satoshi Kon's weird exploration of dreams and their potential to tear our world apart. A machine that allows you to enter someone's dreams therapeutically gets stolen, and soon reality itself is being torn apart. Trippy, insane and mind-expanding, this is a film you need to watch more than once.

Primer. Speaking of films you need to watch more than once... few, if any, science-fiction movies talk down to their audiences less than this one. You don't even realize, for a good chunk of the movie, that the geeky characters are building a time machine. and it comes with very realistic and fascinating limitations, even as it allows the main characters to cross their own timelines over and over again, rewriting history in more and more psychotic ways. The walkman scene makes the whole thing worthwhile, just by itself.

Moon. It's interesting how many of the great science-fiction movies of the past decade are about loneliness, one way or the other — but none of them delve into isolation as hauntingly as Duncan Jones' debut feature. Sam Rockwell is amazing as the two versions of Sam Bell, who's tantalizingly close to finishing out his contract on a lunary mining station — until he finds out that things aren't ever what they seem. Add paranoia to the list of things this film does better than almost any other.

Iron Man. As we wrote when this film came out, it's actually more of a cyborg narrative than a superhero one. Jon Favreau and company wisely chose to focus on the heart of Tony Stark's origin — literally, the fusion reactor that keeps his heart from stopping, and turns him into a part-machine badass whose armor is just a shell that goes over his cybernetic body. Tony Stark's uneasy relationship with the military technology that he created parallels his unease with his new technological body — he's like the heroic flipside of Spider-Man 2's Doctor Octopus. And yes, any movie that talks about our dependence on, and unease with, technology automatically gets to leap over the pile of by-the-numbers superhero films.

The Dark Knight. See here for our argument as to why this film really is science fiction. Shorter version: Batman's fantastical technology is at the heart of the story. If Batman Begins showed how Bruce Wayne used technology to become Gotham's fearsome crime-fighter, then The Dark Knight is about how far he's willing to take that approach in the face of a mad bomber.

District 9. Most science-fiction movies, you come out of furiously debating the science or the finer points of the storyline... but this one, people walked out of speechless and shellshocked. Perhaps the ultimate "humans oppress aliens" movie, this film confronts us with a perfect allegory of our own inhumanity, through the story of a crashlanded group of aliens who are forced into shantytowns. Even before the main character, Wikus, starts turning into one of the aliens, our loyalties are getting more and more divided.

Wall-E. The other Pixar movie we couldn't help including on the list, this may have been the greatest blend of post-apocalyptic dystopia and cute robots. The love between Wall-E and Eve is both lovable and genuinely moving, and the trademark Pixar humor is in full effect with Wall-E's junkyard slapstick and spaceship antics. The funniest, and maybe the best, robot uprising we've ever seen.

Serenity. Just pretend for a second that this wasn't the continuation of a beloved TV series, and that Joss Whedon had created a whole new universe from scratch just for this film — it would still be one of the most audacious, most memorable, science-fiction films of all time. The story of the Alliance, which maintains a tenuous grip on a sprawling star system after a brutal civil war, and the lengths to which the Alliance will go to try and make people "better," Serenity is one of the great action-adventure films as well as one of the neatest SF concepts ever. When you discover the secrets of Miranda and see how River Tam becomes both the messenger and the avenger of Miranda's people, it's hard not to jump up and down in your seat.

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. How far are you willing to go to get over a lost love? Are you willing to injure yourself — by erasing a huge chunk of your brief time on this planet from your own mind — just to get back at your former lover? This Charlie Kaufman/Michel Gondry joint does what all the best science fiction does: it creates a fictional technology that has the potential to change who we are as people, and then it uses it to tell a deeply personal story. The scenes where Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet are wandering through Carrey's childhood memories are both unsettling and poignant, as Carrey tries to hold on to the love he was in the process of throwing away — by letting her into more of his mind.

Whiplash is in good company. Here are a few more counter-intuitive weapons from pop culture history.

Sillof showcased his latest set of figures as part of this week's virtual Custom Con, and it looks like there are plenty of goggles and mad inventions to go around. You can also see the customs alongside their heroic counterparts at TheFwoosh.

[via Super Punch]

Movieline is reporting that if all negotiations go as planned, John Malkovich will be playing the bald and pissed off Vulture in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4. All right, fine, another bad guy in the mix. But wait they're not done yet. According to the site, Anne Hathaway is not in negotiations to be the Black Cat, as we'd previously heard. Instead it's much, much worse.

The 27-year-old actress is currently the top choice for Felicia Hardy, who'd been long-rumored as one of the new characters in this installment. (Other names bandied about for the role included Julia Stiles, Rachel McAdams, and Romola Garai.) However, unlike in the comic books, this Felicia Hardy doesn't transform into the Black Cat. Instead, Raimi's Felicia will become a brand-new superpowered figure called the Vulturess.

Well, I think it's safe to say "no thanks," to that idea. While we like the idea of getting Anne Hathaway in a comic book movie, turning the Felicia Hardy character into the Vulture's distaff counterpart is a sacrifice we're just not willing to take. But take solace in this fact, it's still merely a rumor at this point. And the rumors for this film have been spreading like untamed symbiotes.

Farinas is the artist behind ACT-I-VATE webcomic MOTRO, and he has recently taken to drawing Marvel and DC battles packed with superpowered Lego minifigs.

[Ulises Farinas via Forbidden Planet]

For the last year, Norman Osborn (a.k.a. Spider-Man's greatest archnemesis) has been the director of the intergovernmental military force H.A.M.M.E.R. Under his tenure, Norm's made bad behavior the norm - villains are posing as heroes, heroes are hunted as villains, dogs are breeding with cats, and so on.

Luckily for the forces of justice (and comic fans' hemorrhaging wallets), Norman's Dark Reign begins to wraps up this month with Siege: The Cabal, a prelude to the four-part Siege miniseries, which will detail Norman's inevitably ill-fated invasion of Thor's old stomping grounds, Asgard.

As a tribute to the man who made criminal insanity de rigueur for 2009, we've compiled the kookiest moments of the occasional Green Goblin's career. Thanks for memories, Norm.

(PS: As for Norman's man behind the curtain, I've got $25 riding on Shuma-Gorath and a Super Nintendo copy of Spider-Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage on Uncle Ben.)

Norman Pink-Slips The Swordsman

From: Secret Invasion: Dark Reign 1 (2008)

Andreas von Strucker never had a chance to become an A-list baddie. His dad was the most famous Nazi in the M.U. (Baron von Strucker), his superpower was way too incestuous for mainstream villany (skin-to-skin contact with his twin sister Andrea allowed him to fire energy bolts), and - when his sis kicked it - he traipsed about with a sword hilted with her tanned hide. Ick.

Given the Swordsman's lack of PR potential, it's unsurprising Norm fired Andreas from his gig as the Thunderbolts' in-house pompous bastard. Unfortunately for Andy, Norm's idea of a severance package was pretty literal.

Norman Fakes Aunt May's Death Just For Laughs

From: Spectacular Spider-Man 263 (1998)

In 1973, the Green Goblin throws Gwen Stacy off of the George Washington Bridge. It was poignant. In 1995, Aunt May dies of a heart attack (but only after revealing that she always knew Peter Parker was Spider-Man). This too was poignant.

And in 1998, Norman admits to kidnapping Aunt May, replacing her with a genetically altered elderly actress (?) and keeping the real May alive in a warehouse for absolutely no damn reason. This was why I stopped reading comic books in the late 90s.

Norman Recruits The Sentry with Hamburgers

From: Dark Avengers 3 (2009)

Norman's Dark Avengers sales pitch to the Sentry is awesome, particularly when he starts yammering out of the blue about Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Seriously, getting two mentally ill anti-heroes to bond over your burgers is product placement* In-N-Out can just dream about.

*To be fair, I tried Five Guys for the first time shortly after reading this. It was fucking fantastic. Yes, the Green Goblin sold me on a hamburger.

Norman Knocks Flash Thompson Off The Wagon

From: Peter Parker: Spider-Man 45 (2002)

In another story straight out of the "Overly Complex Green Goblin Scheme and Laughably Grim Take on a Classic Spider-Man Co-star" files, Norman hires a down-on-his-luck and recovering alcoholic Flash Thompson, gets him blotto, and puts him behind the wheel of an OsCorp truck on a collision course with Peter Parker's high school.

Luckily for Flash, the ensuing brain damage from the accident was retconned away by Peter Parker's deal with Mephisto in the One More Day storyline. Unluckily for Flash, he had instead lost his legs in Iraq. By the time Brander Newer Day rolls around, Flash will be caught betwixt the Scylla and Charybids of shingles and premature ejaculation.

Norman Mocks Spider-Man's Lack of Fluid

While we're on the topic of One More Day, we're pretty sure this 1982 exchange was retconned out of existence as well. Pity. If all of Spidey's rogues' gallery began making fun of his shortcomings in the fluid department, it could really mess him up on a psychosexual level.

Norman Watches the Submariner Take a Shower

From: Dark X-Men: The Beginning 1 (2009)

When Namor joined the Dark X-Men, one of the men seemingly tacked on a rider requiring the director of H.A.M.M.E.R. to watch the Prince of Atlantis' daily ablutions. Is it a mind game on Namor's part to give Osborn an inferiority complex? Is Norman just being Norman? We honestly cannot say.

Norman Knocks Up His Son's Girlfriend

From: The Amazing Spider-Man 598 (2009)

If Namor was indeed attempting to show up Norman's manhood, he'll have to try a little harder. For a white guy with cornrows, Norm's had disturbingly good luck with the fairer sex, with a big emphasis on "disturbingly" here.

In 2009, Norm impregnated his son Harry's girlfriend, Lily. Sure, she was secretly the supervillain she-goblin Menace (and the only woman strong enough to handle Norman's mutated goblin sperm), but really? Really? At least this stupid, creepy baby mama subplot wasn't born out of an even stupider, creepier baby mama subplot…or was it?

Norman Knocks Up Spider-Man's Girlfriend

From: The Amazing Spider-Man 512 (2004)

Hoo boy. Yes, that is Norman Osborn dirty dancing with Gwen Stacy. Yes, that is Norman's O-face. Yes, Norman is too evil for rubbers.

For those of you who don't remember this episode, allow us to recap in the simplest terms possible:

1. Norman has an affair with Gwen Stacy.
2. She secretly gives birth to twins. Norman's Goblin spunk alters the children's DNA and rapidly ages them to adulthood.
3. Norman has a hissy fit and chucks Gwen off a bridge.
4. The twins grow up to be super-assassins or some similar dross.

The most depressing part of this incident wasn't its necrophiliac treatment of the Silver Age of Comics. No, it's that One More Day didn't exile any of this dolorous twaddle into retcon oblivion.

Norman is Willem Dafoe

From: Spider-Man (2002)

Say what you will about his Power Rangers-esque bodysuit – when Willem Dafoe was out of his chartreuse kabuki mask, he brought a mantis-like sensuality to the Green Goblin that few other actors could muster. I almost wish Sam Raimi had simply painted Dafoe green, at the risk of audiences mistaking Norman for a deranged Green Bay Packers fan.

Norman Goes Spider Jerusalem on The Thunderbolts

From: Thunderbolts 120 (2008)

Thunderbolts 120 is perhaps the best portrayal of Norman Osborn. Ever. The issue begins with a five-page monologue of unmistakable Warren Ellis patois and ends with Norman vowing to kill his entire security staff just cuz'. Along the way, we are treated to infinitely quotable epigrams on…

His Green Goblin outfit: "I'm so glad I never washed this particular costume. Smells like death, blondes, and victory."

Venom and Swordsman: "I was wondering if you could direct me to the arm-eating retard and the sword-waving aristo. I have to punish them you see."

Himself: "I'm fricking martyr to my own innate heroism, is what I am. Norman Osborn, America's last hero. That's what I am."

I could write a whole dissertation on this one issue, but let's just say that the brilliance of Norman's portrayal here is that he epitomizes the hallmark difference between heroes and villains – restraint. Let the good guys hamstring their powers with laws and moral pantywaistry. Norman Osborn's screaming "I AM GOD!", watching his peons brown their trousers, and laughing his ass off about it. Who's to say he's the crazy one?

If you're extra lucky, they'll let you into a secret lair (behind a bookshelf, of course). Earlier this year, we wrote about the products available from the store, and now we're bringing you inside. The Brooklyn Superhero Supply is yet another whimsical concept store from novelist Dave Eggers, who runs a series of writing workshops for young people in these storefronts - which include San Francisco's Pirate Store, and a Time Travel Mart in Los Angeles. Eggers' nonprofit 826 National is devoted to teaching kids to write by inspiring them with imaginative scenarios and general fun.

Photographs by Jeffrey O. Gustafson.

via 826NYC

Artwork So Awesome It will Melt Your Face Off [WonderBros via Walyou — Thanks, jorel845]

Vanjamrgan via The Laughing Squid]

Still can't wait to see the giant exploding, Robert Downey Jr. quipping madness that is another Iron Man movie. The film will be released May 7, 2010.

There's no word on how Disney's recent acquisition of Marvel (or Dubai's recent economic woes) will affect the development of the Marvel park in Dubai, but reportedly the plan is to open its doors in 2012. Off-site testing has already begun on at least three attractions: Flying with Spidey, Fantasticar and X-Men: Danger Room.

These concept illustrations come from Chimera Design, and show several designs from the park's planned City of Super Heroes, as well as a map of the park.

Dubai World Marvel Super Heroes Theme Park Concept [Disney and More via Neatorama]