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Writer Benjamin Percy (Detective Comics, Green Arrow, Teen Titans) appears at Midtown Comics Downtown on Friday, August 31st at 6:00 PM to celebrate the release of Nightwing Annual #1! This is an open signing. The purchase of Nightwing Annual #1 required. Limit 3 items signed per attendee.

There will be a CGC representative (Certified Guaranty Company) to grade books signed at this event. Any previously signed books are not eligible for this service. Cost of CGC is $10.00 + CGC grading fee (This does not include the cost of purchasing the books). CGC books will be shipped to CGC offices for grading and will take 17-35 days for them to return, in the CGC protective slab. This is determined based on which options are chosen for CGC grading and shipping.

Nightwing Annual #1:
The smart city overhaul of Blüdhaven was just the beginning of a larger cyberwar that Nightwing is only starting to understand. But now the story of the Dark Web organization begins to expand as Grayson travels to Gotham City and partners up with Vicki Vale. It’s an era of fake news, alternative facts, and disinformation. The gatekeepers of truth can’t be trusted anymore, and sometimes elections, businesses and even lives are at stake. Nightwing faces off against the first of three lieutenants in the army of the Dark Web: Vire, the psychic embodiment of malware who can unearth your darkest secrets. Writer Benjamin Percy and artist Otto Schmidt present Nightwing Annual #1!

Dick Grayson is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly in association with Batman.

RSVP on Facebook!

Midtown Comics Downtown
64 Fulton Street, New York, New York 10038
(212) 302-8192

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Born in Passaic, New Jersey, she grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York. A tragedy had the family move to the Dominican Republic where her father was from. She soon found herself back in New York where in 1995 she performed in a theater group in Brooklyn.  She later moved on to roles on television and then on to the big screen. She is married to Italian artist Marco Perego, who adopted her surname when they married, breaking the wedding tradition of just the wife taking the surname of the husband. Her name is Zoe Saldana-Perego. His name is Marco Perego-Saldana. Together they have twin sons.

This 38th birthday is bittersweet for her.  It is Father’s Day in the Unites States, a day she cannot celebrate with her father because her dad died in a car crash when she was 9. A memory cruelly relived today and darkened by another tragedy because her Star Trek co-star Anton Yelchin had a freak accident with his car on his property yesterday on June 18. He was pronounced dead today at the age of 27. The talented young Mr. Yelchin portrayed Pavel Chekov in the new series of Star Trek films.

Saldana and Yelchin can be seen together in the latest installment of Star Trek, Star Trek Beyond when it premieres next month on July 22, 2016.

Incidentally Zoe’s name in the Greek language means Life. May she live long, and prosper.

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Glorifying a villain as misunderstood due to a deprived, troubled childhood is beyond inappropriate. It’s reprehensible and diminishes the hero, who should be the one being glorified and romanticized or what the heck is the point of the hero? The hero is not the supporting character, what part of “hero” do some hack writers not get? Romanticizing the villain without the character fully and permanently redeeming him or herself isn’t even good writing in terms of character development nor plot so there is no real point of doing it.  Particularly when they are as twisted and evil as DC’s The Joker. There is no redeeming factor for some of these devils as much as can be said for some real life people out there who are just plain evil. Some do it by choice, for others it’s in their nature.  Whatever the case, they commit terror against other people who have every right to live out their lives, so NO. It isn’t grey. It’s clear cut. They kidnap, rape, torture, and kill people in barbaric ways. He or she chose to do the bidding of evil. They are the bad guys. PERIOD. There should be no shades of grey here. A perfect life is rare, even for the hero. This incessant need to humanize villains is off center. It is the victim and the hero with whom the reader should identify with. Not the character who chose the wrong side of justice. We all have problems which is why we should tolerate and be kind to each other instead of miserable. It is part of being a mature, responsible adult and citizen. Most of us still know to take the loss and still do right by others, but glorifying and romanticizing villains, be it mobsters like those seen in The Godfather, The Sopranos, Scarface, and Goodfellas to comic book villains in the upcoming Warner Brothers feature film Suicide Squad, it’s twisted.

Marvel Comics’ The Punisher (Frank Castle), saw his entire family get murdered. He became a vigilante. He took the law into his own hands because he saw the law as slow, full of loopholes, useless. The law frowns upon vigilantism because of population control. The government doesn’t want everyone going around taking the law into their hands. It doesn’t justify the existence and authority of the police and the judicial system, so it’s seen as a crime in its own right. In real life, President Andrew Jackson supported vigilantism. If it was fine for the Democratic President, then it is fine for fictional soldier and citizen Frank Castle; especially when you have an inept criminal justice system and people whipped into fear through shaming and political correctness.

People refer to the Punisher as one who is glorifying guns, others see him as a hero who is getting rid of some bad guys before they hurt others. His character is reminiscent of Charles Bronson’s character in the Death Wish franchise and Clint Eastwood’s character in the Dirty Harry series.  Punisher is doing Batman‘s job but in a more permanent way that goes against Batman‘s views.  Both characters are known in their respective universes as needing psychiatric attention; Frank Castle is Dick Tracy on steroids. He just happens to be a more believable character than Bruce Wayne is. One whose existence could be possible and probable. He doesn’t have the luxuries Wayne has so he needs to come up with money and he needs guns.  It’s hard to fight evil without a gun when evil has guns. He has to fight fire with fire. The difference is, the gun in Punisher’s hand is used for good; to take out evil. The guns in the bad guys hands are used to carry out crimes, usually heinous ones. Yet both Batman and The Punisher find that more often than not they have to work under the cover of night where there are less witnesses out and about. The night gives them the extra chance to disappear into the darkness without being caught by the local and/or government authorities who despise vigilantes because vigilantes are doing a better job than the ones deputized to do the work in the first place, particularly in literature.

Writers need to stop humanizing and glorifying a depraved individual like The Joker. When the final installment of the Christopher Nolan Batman movie premiered in a theater out west, a lunatic shot up a movie theater and killed a number of people. That sick individual did it for the notoriety. What made him into the monster that he is, isn’t guns or comic books. It was the medication he was on and his warped feelings toward society. Taking gun rights away from all Americans wouldn’t have changed anything. When you get an evil nut like him out on the street, he’ll figure something out to kill a large number of people. From building a homemade bomb to simply locking everyone in the theatre from the outside and setting the building on fire.

The movie theater tragedy re-ignited the gun debate. The irony  is not lost here. The Batman character himself has his origin in gun violence as we have seen it played out time and time again in the comics, on film, and in animated media. As a result of  what happened to his folks, Batman does not carry a gun. He originally did but that was before they concocted his origin; after his origin was explained, he never really carried a gun again and he never killed until recent reboots of the character by DC that is. Bad move on DC because DC just destroyed the most admirable part of the character. The issue here is mental illness, not the gun. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have guns and they have them at home to protect their families. Hundreds of thousands of these guns were not used in a crime today. It’s not the weapon. It’s who has possession of it. Much like Batman’s utility belt, the gun is a piece of technology and like any other piece of technology, it can be used for good or bad. The Punisher uses guns for the side of good; his enemies use them for evil.

The movie theater killer is an insane guy who got dressed up as the equally insane Joker with the only difference being that The Joker is fictional. He committed a heinous act while an audience watched the Batman movie, something like The Joker would do in the comics. Maybe that nut was trying to call out a real life Batman to his real life Joker.  Surprisingly, the Media and the politicians did not attack comic books over this issue.

They chose not to because superhero movies are big box office for Hollywood and Hollywood is politically active. Hollywood gives lots of money and perks to the politicians who do its bidding. There is the crime that really goes unpunished. Comic Books are glorifying guns and evil as much as the rest of the entertainment industry is. It’s where the money is.

To quote the late professional wrestler Randy “Macho Man” Savage: “Where money lies, honor dies”…and usually it’s with a body count.

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Mr. Martin Juarez works for General Motors. A married man with four children and one granddaughter, he began collecting comics with his brother in the 1980’s. He never really had a preference on what comic company he bought from for like many other readers if the story caught his attention he kept on buying the same series. [Most comic book titles published by various comic books companies were very good back in the 1980s.] He happened to have purchased many special issues throughout the years, including highly sought after comics such as the first appearance of popular Marvel Comics characters Cable and Deadpool, and even a specially graded issue of DC’s Batman Eternal autographed by writer Scott Snyder.  Since the 1980s to the present Mr. Juarez has collected enough comic books to store in a mixture of long storage boxes and some shorter ones, 15 in total.  He planned on handing down his comics to his children someday.

Like many others before him, Mr. Juarez rented a self-storage unit due to a lack of space in his residence to store and protect various valuable and sentimental items including all of his comic books. Mr. Juarez  put the comics into a specific self-storage unit facility that was referred to him by a friend.    

According to Mr. Juarez, he and his wife signed a monthly contract with the facility. When they moved to a different part of town, they called the facility to advise it of their new home address. On June 3rd, Mr. Juarez went to the storage place to make a payment because the monthly fee for their rented self-storage unit never came out of their account for the month of May according to his bank records. When he told them he was there to make a payment, he was informed by the manager at the office “not to worry about it” because his storage unit was auctioned off! He was informed that they sent letters to his attention, but the facility still had the Juarez’s old address on file even though the Juarez’s insist that they had called and advised the facility of their new address. The storage facility accused Mr. Juarez of failing to make payments since October 2015 but Mr. Juarez’s bank statements suggest otherwise. His records indicate that payments were made via automatic withdrawal until May 2016. The storage facility further implied that Mr. Juarez did not return their phone calls.

“They said they called us but our phone records show no phone calls came from them. I was devastated, not just because of my comics being gone, but because of everything we had in there that was of family memories. It really hurts to have your personal things taken from you. A lot of memories gone.”

“When they sold our storage unit in the auction, all they would say is “sorry”.”

To make matters worse, Mr. Juarez learned that the person who bought his family unit in the auction had already sold everything. Had the Juarez family physically received notice from the management or the legal representative of the facility they would still have had their cherished possessions.

Mr. Juarez  wants people to learn from his experience. His advice to people who want to get a storage unit is to “Write down everything that you have going into your storage unit and log it. DO NOT PROCRASTINATE. Find out the value of each item that you have and keep it updated each month.” When asked if he would ever use a self-storage unit facility again Mr. Juarez answered he would. “…I would get another storage unit if need be. I’ve learned the hard way on what to do.”

Most affected by the loss of the comic books, other than Mr. Juarez, is his 16 year old daughter. “She’s the one who’s into comics like me” he said.

Luckily the Juarez family did have renter’s insurance and is in the process of filing a claim. The family is also considering legal action against the facility .

Monthly rates for self storage units at storage facilities can be expensive and do not guarantee that one’s personal belongings, be it an RV camper, a boat, or boxes of comic books, are fully secure. Martin Juarez’s story is proof that even a miscommunication during  a crosstown move can have you lose your belongings. It is best to  heed the advice of Mr. Juarez: get insurance, pay attention to the status of your unit, and log & keep photographs of your items for insurance purposes and police reports.   

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Agent Carter ran for two seasons but has not been renewed for a third. The series followed the secret exploits of Peggy Carter, Captain America’s love interest from the first film starring Chris Evans.  Actress Hayley Atwell, reprised her role from the film, working along with other agents to keep America safe during the infancy of SHIELD.

Also not being picked up is Marvel’s Most Wanted. Starring Adrianne Palicki and Nick Blood as the lead characters,  Bobbi Morse and Lance Hunter respectively, Marvel’s Most Wanted was a promising series. The premise of the show entailed the two stars  being on the run from numerous bounty hunters. Delroy Lindo  was set to play Howard Chaykin’s  character Dominic Fortune, the world adventurer, in this series as well. It is the second time Marvel’s Most Wanted was passed by ABC which, like Marvel Comics, is owned by parent company Disney. Adrianne Palicki was set to star as Wonder Woman a few years ago. NBC decided not to pick up the pilot although it was filmed.

NBC cancelled the highly anticipated Constantine who has been resurrected on the CW Network on Arrow and may be picked up as a series again on CW according to some sources. Reruns of Constantine can be seen on the El-Rey network. CBS has decided not to renew its contract with Supergirl, who is now flying over to the CW. You can look forward to several crossovers on that network now that Supergirl will be the fourth series on the CW starring DC characters.

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Nah, Deadpool is NOT one of the worst superhero films ever..although that Wolverine film he was in…

Recently and in the past few decades we have seen some critically acclaimed and financially $ucce$$ful films based on comic book characters . The Captain America Trilogy, Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy, Guardians of the Galaxy, and the aforementioned Deadpool are recent blockbusters. Before these films, Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992) were financial successes that were nominated for Academy Awards with Batman winning one; Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy (1990) won three Oscars, and Superman: The Movie (1978) was nominated for three Academy Awards, winning an Oscar for Special Achievement for Visual Effects for a total of four Oscar nods.

However, we have also seen box office bombs like The Rocketeer (1991), Billy Zane’s The Phantom (1996), and 1987’s He-Man and The Masters of The Universe (Frank Langella is positively deliciously evil as Skeletor and you Jack Kirby fans will have a field day with the references to Kirby’s New Gods/Fourth World work).  These flops are entirely watchable and entertaining films. They have since developed popular cult followings which isn’t nothing to dismiss. Zane’s Phantom movie did very well in VHS and DVD sales and is presently on Netflix. Remember, even the classic 1939 musical The Wizard of Oz was a commercial flop. That family favorite film property is worth millions now.

AND THEN there are the colossal stinkers. The ones that put the “B.O.” in Box Office (B.O. means smelly body odor in American slang). Movies so bad you wonder how they got made in the first place and who was fired for approving the script, cast, and film be it on the big screen or on television. Some were surprise bombs–Jonah Hex is a great character; the film had a great cast. Yet the storyline was lousy.We all have heard the comments about bombs like Ben Affleck’s Daredevil, his estranged wife Jennifer Garner’s Elektra, Seth Rogen’s The Green Hornet, Halle Berry’s Cat-woman, and Ryan Reynold’s Green Lantern; but these films did not make the list of the top five biggest stinkers. What could be worse than these films? Let me jog your memory.

5. STEEL (1997)

Kenneth Johnson created the television series “V” and “The Bionic Woman” and was instrumental in developing the television shows “Alien Nation” and “The Incredible Hulk”. Shaquille O’Neal was an NBA superstar and champion. Together they made this abysmal flop about the supporting DC character from the Superman mythos who had his own comic once and long ago in one of DC’s many reboots. A heavily and overly exploited joke in this film is the reference to O’Neal’s inability to complete free-throws. Yep. That’s about it for this disaster. NEXT!

4. THE FANTASTIC FOUR (2015)

What could be worse than all previous versions of the Fantastic Four live action films? THIS ONE. A totally revamped version of the first family of comics when the fans were begging BEGGING I SAY for one great film and what did they get–a science fiction film that would have stood better off alone on its own rather than be attached to the familiar family property. It did not help the fate of this film that some of the lead actors made arrogant and ignorant remarks prior to and during the filming of this movie; nor did it help that the media plagued the film with its constant barrage of political correctness mud slinging. The director fighting with cast and crew and leaving the project in this one act debacle pretty much sealed its doom that no doctor could have saved.  Hope you caught the pun-NEXT!

3. SUPERMAN III (1983)

It’s a shame that after two great Superman films Christopher Reeve ended up playing second fiddle to an out of place Richard Pryor in this film. Both men seem to be just waltzing through this after they got a paycheck for this poor excuse of a sequel.  This is how evil Superman’s twin is: he straightened out Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa. Any more evil and he might have gone as far as stealing Bruce Wayne’s left socks. NEEEEE–XT!

2. SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE (1987)

It’s a shame that after two great Superman films Christopher Reeve–whoa. Deja vu! What the heck? Yep, another abysmal Superman sequel starring one of if not the best men to don to iconic cape and suit. This one is an incredible train wreck. The premise is ridiculous. Superman is practically tyrant of the Earth as he informs all governments that he is getting rid of their nuclear weapon, and they just blindly accept his “generous” act?  Seriously? That act would make him world enemy and global threat #1 to nations of the planet Earth. Who is he to dictate world policy and step on the sovereign power of each country? We also get to see the Mariel Hemingway as Clark Kent’s new love interest breathe in outer space. What? This film is a face palm from start to end. Regardless how you feel about the last three Superman films, they were better than this and made a whole lot more money than this film and Superman III. This brings us to…

The worst comic book adaptation to film is THE MAN-THING (2005). Even George Lucas’  Howard The Duck was  better than this production shown on the Sy Fy (nee: Sci Fi) Network.  Have you seen it? Good! Then don’t! His powers are different, his origin is different–you figure the people behind the 2015 Fantastic Four film would have paid attention to this disastrous formula in bringing a property to film but nooooooo!  IF IT AIN’T BROKE DON’T FIX IT! His costume looks like a reject of the Spawn suit from the awful 1997 Spawn film (which made number 6 on this list!) painted in green! The character was liked by the fans as it was! You mess with it, you get what you sowed! A disaster!  The Man-Thing in this film is more like DC’s Swamp Thing who had TWO enjoyable films and his own series. You’re far much better off watching Swamp Thing than the unrecognizable Man-Thing mess.

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American comic book characters are known worldwide. People in foreign lands watch these fictional heroes on the big screens in their countries and buy American comic books translated into their respective languages and formatted to their specifications. I myself have a collection of X-Men, Spiderman, Superman, and Captain America comic books from other countries written in their foreign language.

The idea of heroes and freedom is universal. When you have tasted freedom, it’s hard to let it go and give it up; and many who have never had it, are willing to fight for it. American ideals and the imagery of the fictional American heroes materialize in organized public demonstrations worldwide where thousands of people protest against oppressive governments. It doesn’t matter if it’s an Asian nation or and Arab nation. You’ll see somebody dressed as Superman or Captain America…the symbols speak volumes in any language. No translation is necessary.

DC and Marvel, and their parent companies Warner Brothers and Disney respectively, are making money in the overseas market. The companies cannot afford to completely overhaul their established characters because some risks may work in some markets while not in others.  Not every country is as accepting or open minded as others. There are cultural biases. Singapore is very liberal when it comes to homosexuality; to people in Singapore, the two gay characters who got married in Archie Comics two years ago would be no big deal to them but in other countries where homosexuality is grounds for death, it IS a big deal. Even interracial dating or pre-marital affairs can get you into trouble with some cultures.  This is true in countries whose politics and religion are one and the same and any affront to their traditions and/or religion could cost you your life.

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