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Superhero Paper of Choice: The trope of Journalism in the comics
Something that has always drew me to the characters in the comics is the role that Journalism plays. As a journalism major, I have fell in love with the whole world that has been created for these characters. Some of my personal […]
Something that has always drew me to the characters in the comics is the role that Journalism plays.
DC Comics Archive
As a journalism major, I have fell in love with the whole world that has been created for these characters.
Some of my personal favorites include Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Peter Parker.
With this common trope, I have wondered what is the role of journalists and why many characters have chose to pursue it.
In many, you always see the photographer going and taking photos of the event.
There’s the common journalist who uses their profession as a disguise to help them get closer to the action.
Some characters like Clark Kent and Peter Parker use being a journalist to their advantage because they can get intel on the villains they have to defeat.
Showing the characters as journalists also helps fans understand the world of Journalism as a whole.
They see characters like Lois Lane always hunting down what the next story could possibly be.
These characters aren’t afraid to tell the truth and would do anything to make sure it’s out there.
These are also great examples to show just how “heroic” journalists are without the cape and tights.
Lois Lane is one of the best journalist who embodies the term “heroic.”
She is one of the most famous and powerful journalists who works at The Daily Planet in Metropolis alongside Clark Kent.
In efforts to uncover the truth, it may have taken Lane to some dangerous lengths.
Having superheroes like Spider-Man and Superman work as journalists as their day jobs also gives them as sense of normalcy.
Fans are able to relate to the “super” type of characters by seeing them have a typical 9-5 job.
But along with the journalists who use their job for good, the comics also showcase journalists who use it towards their own advantage.
One of these journalists is J. Jonah Jameson from the Spider-Man comics.
After the emergence of Spider-Man in New York City, Jameson became obsessed with finding out who the kid behind the mask was.
He took his power as Editor-In-Chief of The Daily Bugle and vowed that he would expose the masked web-swinger.
Jameson’s character (from both the comics and movies) are known to have a strong hatred for Spider-Man.
This leads to dilemma for Peter Parker because as he works alongside Jameson, taking pictures for Spider-Man, as he has to help him write those stories.
That is probably one of the most important reasons that Journalists play such an important role in the comics.
The stories don’t just highlight and showcase all the good sides of being a journalist. They also show some of the negative sides that can happen when this strive for truth is handled wrong.
As an up and coming journalist myself, I look too many of these characters for inspiration.
I hope one day I can be just as “heroic” as Lane, Kent and Parker and write stories to inspire the world.
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Spotlight: Lawyer by Day, Vigilante by Night
Happy National Superhero Day! In honor of today being a day to celebrate all of our heroes (as well as our own personal heroes), I thought I could spotlight one of my favorites who doesn’t get enough love. One of my all […]
Happy National Superhero Day!
In honor of today being a day to celebrate all of our heroes (as well as our own personal heroes), I thought I could spotlight one of my favorites who doesn’t get enough love.
One of my all time favorite heroes is Daredevil.
Matt Murdock grew up in the neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen with his dad who was a boxer.
As a child, Matt Murdock saw an old blind man crossing the street at the same time a truck was speeding towards him.
Matt saved the old man, meanwhile some radioactive liquid fell from the truck and into his eyes.
This caused him to go blind but all his remain senses were heightened.
Soon after, Murdock met with blind martial arts master Stick who taught him how to understand his new abilities.
One of his many abilities is his heightened hearing. He has the capability to hear a person’s heartbeat from more than 20 feet away. The pace of the heartbeat also helps him identify if a person is lying or telling the truth.
As time went on, he graduated from Harvard Law School with his new friend and partner Foggy Nelson.
Soon after graduation, the two friends decided to start their own law firm under the name of “Nelson and Murdock: Attorneys at Law.”
Matt Murdock/ Daredevil has also had his fair share of love interests in his life.
One of his most prominent relationships was with his old secretary Karen Page. Their relationship was very rocky because Daredevil would always come between them.
The other relationship was his with Elektra Natchios. They met while he was in college and were deeply in love.
Elektra becomes an assassin and one of Daredevil’s foes.
Everything Matt stood for, she went completely against.
One of the most notable villains that Daredevil faces is Wilson Fisk aka Kingpin.
Wilson Fisk is a crime boss who pays and knows all the ins and outs of Hell’s Kitchen. He has payed people like cops and district attorneys so that he could never get caught.
He also is the main villain in many of Daredevil’s stories.
The characters from these stories have also been showcased in other media as well.
In 2003, the film titled “Daredevil” came out. The cast is lead by Ben Affleck as Matt Murdock/Daredevil, Jennifer Garner as Elektra and Michael Clarke Duncan as Wilson Fisk/King Pin.
The film had an average rating of 5.2/10 from critics and movie goers.
Two years later, a spin-off film about Elektra starring Jennifer Garner came out.
The movie received negative reviews and didn’t succeed in the box office.
Roughly ten years later, Netflix made a deal with Marvel Chair Kevin Fiege about bringing some of the characters to their streaming platform and creating television series.
On April 10, 2015, the television series “Daredevil” debuted on Netflix. Soon after, shows about Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, Luke Cage and The Punisher followed.
The TV show ended up receiving positive reviews from fans and many kept asking for more seasons.
The show was lead by British actor Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin and Élodie Yung as Elektra.
In November 2018, Netflix decided to pull the axe on the show and canceled it after three seasons and one mini-series.
Fans were upset and rallied together stating how much they wanted a season 4.
With the deal between Marvel and Netflix, Marvel was unable to use those characters for up to two years after the date of cancellation.
The cut-off date for that deal was November of last year.
With Marvel now able to use the characters, there are many rumors going around that Charlie Cox could be reprising his role as The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.
After watching the Netflix show myself, I have to say that I have really fallen in love with Matt Murdock and his story as Daredevil.
Just like all the other fans, I have high hopes that Cox will reprise his role and become an official staple and member of the MCU.
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The Man Without Fear just gained a new sidekick!
The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen just found a new sidekick to fight crime with. Last week, I got to add a new addition to my family! Everyone…meet my new puppy Elektra! Her name is based on one of the main characters in […]
The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen just found a new sidekick to fight crime with.
Last week, I got to add a new addition to my family!
Everyone…meet my new puppy Elektra!
Her name is based on one of the main characters in the Marvel Comics story “Daredevil.”
Elektra is a 10 week old Maltipoo (Maltese/Toy Poodle Mix).
Just like the character of Elektra, she has a fiery spirit and is full of energy.
The character of Elektra is known for being one of Matt Murdock’s first and main love interests throughout the comics.
She and Matt first met when they were both learning fighting skill from their trainer Stick.
Ever since then, they have been in each others lives.
With the Netflix show being one of my family’s favorites, as soon as we met her, we knew the name was the perfect fit!
I’m so glad that Elektra is apart of our family and I’m looking forward to many fun memories with her as she grows up!
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Everyday Superheroes Podcast with a very special guest!
I recently created a podcast with one of my best friends who is into superheroes like me! We talk about DC and Marvel comics and movies along with some other fun things! Hope you enjoy!
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Interview with Emil Novak- Owner of Queen City Bookstore
For any superhero fan, they know the joy and excitement of going into a comic book store. They are all eager to get their hands on the latest adventure with some of their characters. As a huge fan myself, nothing can quite […]
In Buffalo, there is a store that delivers that same excitement!
My Interview with Emil Novak:
What made you decide to open a comic book store?
Is there anything that you’ve learned from being a fan of comics or superheroes?
I like the fact that in comics truth and justice should always prevail.
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Spider-Man is swinging from Queens to The Great White Way
Swinging from Queens to Manhattan, everyone’s favorite web-crawler was the next hero to come to Broadway. 45 years after Superman fell victim to Kryptonite on Broadway, creators thought it was time for another go. With the rights to being available since 2005, […]
Swinging from Queens to Manhattan, everyone’s favorite web-crawler was the next hero to come to Broadway.
45 years after Superman fell victim to Kryptonite on Broadway, creators thought it was time for another go.
With the rights to being available since 2005, producer Glen Berger joined director Julie Taymor and Bono and the Edge to bring Broadway’s newest hero to life.
Taymor added new characters including the Greek goddess Arachne (who was never found in any Spider-Man stories).
In her story, Arachne is the reason Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man.
This took away from the true meaning behind Parker’s character that fans could relate to.
In every version of the show, they left out some key moments to Parker’s development into Spider-Man that gives him his moral compass towards good.
From “Wait in the Wings” on YouTube, the show had an initial budget of $52 million dollars.
That wasn’t close to what the whole production would end up costing in the end.
“Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark” made it’s FIRST debut on November 28, 2010 to some of the biggest press coverage from an opening night.
This was known as “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” version 1.0.
“Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark” 1.0:
The first preview set up for what was to happen for the rest of the run.
The show started late, sets were missing and there were wire malfunctions.
Halfway through Act One, the stage manager had to hold the show in efforts to catch a constant swinging Spider-Man.
The show held a 40 minute intermission and stopped once again during the final 10 minutes of the show.
Photo credit: Jacob Cohl
Critics were upset that they didn’t receive any invitations to the show, so they purchased their own tickets and saw chaos.
The press became very harsh toward the show, and reports became even worse when cast injuries started to occur.
One of the worst injuries to occur was that of Spider-Man stunt double-Chris Tierney.
He was running up the Brooklyn Bridge (as every night) and made the jump to save MJ.
According to ABC.com, this night however, as he made the jump, he free-fell 20-30 feet off the stage.
Tierney broke multiple vertebrae and ribs, along with fractures in his elbow, scapula and skull.
After the accident, the two performances following were canceled and cost the show $400,000 in ticket sales.
Following, the show was put on halt from December of 2010 to January of 2011 due to creative differences behind the scenes.
Once again from January to February 2011 for work on new numbers and rewrites to the script.
Then again from February to March 2011.
While all these pauses, previews were still being performed.
The final pause came from April 19 to May 11, 2011. At this point, the show had performed 140 previews for audiences.
With this, the show finally closed because they all agreed that the book for the show didn’t do the characters justice.
They worked tirelessly to bring a new version of the story to the stage.
“Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark” 2.0:
After six delays, five injuries and 182 preview performances, the show officially opened on June 14, 2011. This was over one year and four months since the show performed its first preview.
Critics thought the new show made more sense, but they still didn’t have strong feelings towards it.
With the negative reviews coming from the critics, they didn’t believe that the show would last more than a few months on Broadway.
The show proved otherwise.
“Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark” performed to sold out audiences consistently night after night.
The show ended up running for 1,066 performances when it came to closing night on January 4, 2014.
According to “Wait in the Wings” on YouTube, the show looked like it would’ve been considered a hit, but in the end, it cost investors over $60 million dollars.
It is still known to this day as one of the biggest flops on Broadway due to all the financial problems and failures it faced throughout its run.
In the end, the show had a $79 million price tag attached to it. It made it the most expensive show to be ever put on Broadway.
Photo credit: Jacob Cohl
After the closing, they announced that the show would be reworked again and brought to a big arena stage in Las Vegas.
All plans of the show were cancelled.
Just like Superman, this show was just more proof that our favorite heroes should stick to fighting bad guys on the big screen rather than a live audience.
Everyone’s Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is one that doesn’t need to sing and swing to U2 songs to show the world how cool he is!
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It’s a Bird……It’s a Plane…..No, It’s the Man of Steel on Broadway
One of the most popular superheroes took the jump from page to stage. In 1966, creators David Newman and Robert Benton (the same screen writers for the 1978 film Superman) came together to try and figure what Broadway’s next big hit could be. They […]
One of the most popular superheroes took the jump from page to stage.
In 1966, creators David Newman and Robert Benton (the same screen writers for the 1978 film Superman) came together to try and figure what Broadway’s next big hit could be.
They took a leap of faith and thus created the musical “It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman.”
Upon creating the show, Newman and Benton had to talk over the idea with DC Comics.
The team and DC Comics came to an agreement that the only characters they would be allowed to use were Clark Kent/Superman, Lois Lane, Perry White and Jimmy Olsen.
They had to come up with their own unique villian for Superman to face.
They introduced the character of Dr. Abner Sedgwick who was a mad scientist because of constantly losing the Nobel Prize. The other is Max Mencken who wasn’t fond of Lois Lane swooning over Superman.
One of the newest members to The Daily Planet team was Sydney Carlton. Her character is known for singing one of the popular songs from the show, “You’ve Got Possibilities.”
The other challenge the team faced was how to make the show seem more adult when the character of Superman was geared toward children.
The show opened on March 29th, 1966 to good reviews from critics on Broadway.
Fans were loving the show and kids were going crazy for Superman. They would even allow the kids in the audience go backstage and meet the actor in character.
After a while, the hype of the show died down.
On July 17 1996, Superman took his last fly on Broadway. It became the biggest Broadway flop of the time.
Even though the show wasn’t crazed by fans, there were attempts to revive it.
In 1975, ABC aired a TV-movie version of the musical which was thrown together in a short, three day shoot.
The show was again not well received by audiences. The show was thrown together in a week and most of the show was improvised by the cast.
The show has rarely been put on since and it’s not really remembered in the Broadway community.
As a Superman fan, I’m not a huge fan of the musical myself but I do like some of the songs in the show.
The Man of Steel didn’t get to fly around for NYC for too long, but he is still flying high on both the big and small screen!
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The Caped Crusader is back in a new animated adventure
Everyone’s favorite superhero straight from Gotham City is coming back in a new film. Warner Brothers Animation Studios recently dropped a trailer for their newest film “Batman: The Long Halloween Part One.” The movie is based on the comic book series of […]
Everyone’s favorite superhero straight from Gotham City is coming back in a new film.
Warner Brothers Animation Studios recently dropped a trailer for their newest film “Batman: The Long Halloween Part One.”
The movie is based on the comic book series of the same name.
The comic book series was published in both 1996 and 1997 as a thirteen-issue series.
The story has become one of the most beloved Batman stories.
The story begins on Halloween when a murder occurs that makes Batman decide to form an alliance with Captain James Gordon and Detective Harvey Dent.
With more murders to follow, it becomes harder for the heroes to figure out who the serial killer could be.
The movie contains an all star voice cast.
Jensen Ackles leads the cast as the voice of Bruce Wayne/Batman.
Naya Rivera voices Selina Kyle/Catwoman (in her last film role).
Along with Josh Duhmael as the voice of Harvey Dent and Billy Burke as Captain Gordon.
Part one of this two part movie is set to premiere in Summer of 2021 with the second part set to debut in the fall of this year.
“Batman: The Long Halloween Part One” is going to be rated PG-13. “Part Two” will be rated R.
Check out the trailer for the movie down below!
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The God of Mischief is finally getting his own TV show
Marvel fans got a surprise when Marvel recently dropped a trailer for the highly anticipated TV show of everyone’s favorite Asgardian. “Loki” takes place after the events of “Avengers: Endgame.” The mischievous god will be hopping from place to place throughout […]
Marvel fans got a surprise when Marvel recently dropped a trailer for the highly anticipated TV show of everyone’s favorite Asgardian.
“Loki” takes place after the events of “Avengers: Endgame.”
The mischievous god will be hopping from place to place throughout history and will be acting as an “unlikely influencer.”
In the new trailer, we learn that when Loki escaped with the tesseract in “Avengers: Endgame.”
Loki actually caused a ripple in time that he now needs to help fix.
After seeing the newly released trailer, many new fan theories have been coming up about what could be happening in the show.
One of the most talked about shots from the trailer is a scene that looks like Loki is on the planet Vormir with a blonde woman.
who who WHO IS THIS with Loki in this split second of the #Loki trailer
WHOOOOOO 👀👀 pic.twitter.com/jZRfuL8b22
— April Glick Pulito (@aprilglick) April 6, 2021
Many fans have been theorizing that the mystery woman could possibly be Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) sitting alongside Loki. Vormir is the place where Black Widow met her end during “Avengers: Endgame.”
Marvel is known to be very secretive, so the fans won’t know much until the show officially starts airing.
Many fans tweeted about how impressed they were with the new trailer and how excited they are for the show to finally make its debut.
#LOKI THAT TRAILER IS SO GOOD. pic.twitter.com/dPrHlYly1F
— ًdine is ia (@hiraethrist) April 6, 2021
https://twitter.com/reedushiddles/status/1379095006674350082
Fans just have to wait 64 more days until they get to witness all the chaos that is about to ensue.
Until then, keep coming up with theories of what could possibly be happen and count down the days until we can finally see our favorite god on our screens once again!
If you would like to see the latest trailer for “Loki” on Disney+, check it out below!
“Loki” comes to Disney+ officially on June 11th!!
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Creating unique Marvel merchandise
Another thing I love to do as a huge fan of superheroes is create merchandise to show off my favorite characters. My aunt owns a Cricut machine, so the options to create whatever you want is endless. I got my creative juices […]
Another thing I love to do as a huge fan of superheroes is create merchandise to show off my favorite characters.
My aunt owns a Cricut machine, so the options to create whatever you want is endless.
I got my creative juices flowing and decided to create some merchandise from “Wandavision,” “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” and “Daredevil.”
My cousin and I have a very similar relationship to the character of Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier and Steve Rodgers/Captain America.
I thought something fun to showcase our relationship and friendship would be to make Captain America and Winter Soldier t-shirts.
I tie-dyed two shirts inspired by Cap and Bucky and then made a logo to put on the shirt of them with their iconic line “I’m with you till the end of the line.”
I’m also a Starbucks lover so I bought some of the reusable cups from the stores and put my own designs on them.
The first cup I made was inspired by “Wandavision.” One of my favorite characters is Vision and I absolutely feel in love with the quote he told Wanda in Episode 8- “What is Grief, if not Love Persevering?” The front of the cup matches the icon Vision drew on a map when Vision and Wanda were looking for their forever home to start a family.
The other cup I created was based off of one of my newest favorite superheroes-Daredevil. I started watching the show on Netflix and absolutely fell in love with the characters of Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson. Foggy and Matt have been best friends since college and have always talked about starting a law firm together. Foggy didn’t know the Spanish word for lawyer (“Abagado”) and accidentally called them “avocados.” The joke became a running gag between the two best friends and now they are two of the best “Avaocados at Law” in Hell’s Kitchen.
