Everyday Hero, your fanboy news roundup

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Welcome to your daily collection of handpicked headlines from around the fanboy universe. First a flashback: Here on the left is one from the vault, one of my favorite covers from the wartime Fawcett comics. It’s ‘Captain Marvel Jr.’ No. 31 from July 1945, the same month that President Harry S. Truman approved orders for the use of the atomic bomb.

Now on with today’s roundup ...

Laura Hudson interviews Brian Azzarello (writer of ‘100 Bullets’) on his nihilistic new graphic novel, ‘Joker,’ about an ex-con who becomes a henchman to the infamous evil clown of DC Comics. ‘Joker’ was completed before the ‘The Dark Knight’ was filmed, but Azzarello says its resonates with Heath Ledger’s interpretation: ‘If that Joker is what people want, then this is the book for them. What we wanted to try and do something realistic with the character, and what it’s like living in a city with a crime boss who’s completely insane.’ [Publisher’s Weekly]

‘Smallville’ creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar are part of the team that will produce the Warner Bros. film ‘Headshot,’ an adaptation of the French graphic novel series ‘an unlikely alliance between a cop and a hitman [that] takes place after each watches his partner die. The new partners seek revenge and discover they have a shared enemy and much in common despite being on opposite sides of the law.’ [Variety]

Revving up: ‘Hot Wheels: Battle Force 5,’ a CG-animated television for Cartoon Network, is being ramped up by Nelvana and Mattel Entertainment and is scheduled to premiere next fall. [Hollywood Reporter]

Steve Fritz interviews Don Hahn, the author of the new book ‘The Alchemy of Animation,’ and producer of both ‘Beauty and the Beast’ (which earned him the only best-picture Oscar nomination ever given to an animated-film producer) and ‘The Lion King.’ On animation and its history he says, ‘It can surpass opera as an artform, but really it all started off as a parlor trick. My favorites have always been by Jay Ward, Tex Avery and Bob Clampett who were incredibly subversive.’ [Newsarama]

There’s a real ‘wrath-of-God’ sort of trailer for Marvel’s ‘Ultimatum,’ the high-profile Jeph Loeb and David Finch five-issue series that hits store shelves on Nov. 5 [Marvel website]

Sasha Stone writes about ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘Wall-E’ and reads the tea leaves regarding their chances in the awards season. Why lump the two films together? ‘Both films are apocalyptic in their view of the state of the things, both films feature an untraditional hero and both films challenge authority, especially when it has become too focused on the wrong goal.’ [Awards Daily]

Killing time: Your parents think all those horror movies you watch are a waste of time, but Marc Vera says there’s valuable information to be gleaned amid all the splatter. He sums them up in a photo gallery entitled ‘I Will Survive: 14 Must-Know Lessons from Watching Scary Movies.’ [Entertainment Weekly]

Writer Kevin Champagne (love that name) says his new ‘Ghostbusters’ comic book with artist Tom Nguyen and IDW Publishing will pit the loopy adventurers against a spectral mob that includes the ghosts of Al Capone, Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano. ‘It’s a different kind of adventure for the team, part adventure, part hard-boiled crime drama, plenty of comedy.’ Maybe they should make this the plot of the third movie... [Splash Page blog, MTV]

-- Geoff Boucher

‘Joker’ cover courtesy of DC Comics, art by Lee Bermejo.