Who are these people? These people must have just moved from Liberty City from Grand Theft Auto IV or Pacific City from Crackdown. Seriously, how else could you explain these people thinking they live in a nice place? The economy might be down but really… after rebuilding your watch repair store for the thousandth time you might think about moving to a new city.

Or after 1 out of every 10 of the kids in your class has been killed or had someone they know killed by the Joker you would think they would ask their parents — assuming they weren’t the ones killed — to move, or at least go to a different city for college, or something.

I mean, how do these people just get up and go to the bank without a care in the world? Whenever terror does break lose you always see the fear and utter surprise in their eyes. Seriously?!? Do they read the Daily Planet, or the Gotham Daily Whatever? I know the comics are not written like episodes of 24, but seriously, pretty much every single week a major villain is killing people, blowing something up, or both. Every…single…week. Yet each time it happens these people act all surprised. Stop already, just freaking stop!

Lois Lane might have teased Clark Kent about being from Smallville, but I think the Kents had the right idea. Sure a few times Ma and Pa Kent got in trouble, a few times big bads found their way to Smallville, but only like a fraction of a fraction percent of the time they messed stuff up in Metropolis. If I were Joe Civilian living in Gotham or Metropolis I would move, move to Smallville. Smallville is pretty country, they seem to have a good high school, the kids their have good moral values, and everyone seems to genuinely like each other. Good public education, pretty countryside, good people, and no freaking murders and citywide explosions… seems like a mighty fine place to me.

Or fine, Smallville might not be for you. The winters in Kansas are cold, you want mountains, you want the beach, whatever, whatever, whatever. Fine pick your own nice small to midsized town. I say let Lebron move to Miami and get blown up in some super villain’s crazy attack, I’ll be in Cleveland thank you very much kicking it with 30 Rock’s Floyd and Drew Carey. Not only will everyone there think we are supermodels (don’t worry about it, another 30 Rock reference) but we will also be safe and sound. And I imagine the Cleveland Tourism Board would agree with me that Cleveland is a great city and fine place to raise a family.

Pick somewhere, anywhere, other than the place where you see death and destruction all the time. How many times does the commissioner of your police department need to be kidnapped or almost blown up before you realize the police cannot protect you and your local superhero may or may not get to you in time? Sure the superhero almost always ultimately saves the day and prevents the big heist from going down, that says nothing about all the minor characters trapped in their car on a bridge when it explodes and you never see what happens because the next panel just stays on the superhero whisking away after the big villain. I didn’t want to bring it up because Batman gets pissed when I do, but young Bruce Wayne couldn’t exactly save his parents could he? And Batman didn’t exactly save that one Robin either… I know, I know, low blow perhaps, but I am just saying.

Fine, whatever, I am done trying to convince you. Stay in Gotham, stay in Metropolis, its your life, I cannot stop you. But just don’t expect me to care when something bad happens.

And me, I’ll be splitting my time between Smallville and Cleveland, heck I might even tryout for the Browns, because, seriously, the Browns are just bad enough that I could probably make the team…

Christian Spicer is a professional comedian, comic book reader and regular blogger for Comics on Comics. He is also a co-producer of a monthly stand-up show in San Diego and he has been featured in numerous major print publications in San Diego. Spicer was also featured in the 2010 North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival, and has performed at colleges across the country. His official website is ChristianSpicer.com and he can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Or maybe I’m just imagining things.

To be sure, many media outlets reported on the audience Q&A, during which the current DCU overlord was asked whether a more unified DCU would ever be seen at the multiplexes and whether fans would ever see a JLA movie – both essentially the same question. Other fans wondered if we would see other classic Green Lantern characters onscreen, such as Alan Scott or Kyle Rayner.

Johns offered the same answer to virtually all of these questions – something approximating, “Nothing’s impossible.”

Maybe I’m just imagining things, but I feel like Marvel Studios – with its stirring introduction of the full Avengers lineup – “won” Comic-Con this year. For the most part, fan reaction to the Marvel Studios lineup of movies has been positive. The leaked trailer for Kenneth Branagh’s Thor drew positive (if mixed) buzz, and fan goodwill for the Iron Man franchise (despite a less-than-stellar second installment) is sky-high. Even Louis LeTerrier’s Incredible Hulk had acquired more emotional capital from the fans than I thought, given the outpouring of support for Edward Norton when the studio decided to dump him from the Avengers project. But at the same time, fan reaction to his replacement, indie stalwart Mark Ruffalo, has also been positive.

So let’s switch back to the panel for Green Lantern. By no means am I arguing that fan reaction to this panel was negative. Far from it. Reaction to the footage was by and large positive, even though it was edited very fast, and star Ryan Reynolds’ recitation of the Green Lantern oath for a thrilled young man was one of the highlights of the con.

But all the same, Geoff Johns has overseen one of the largest and longest ongoing storylines in the DCU’s history – the Blackest Night/Brightest Day arc – and he successfully rebooted the entire Green Lantern universe a few years ago. The guy loves DC comics, and like any comics fan, I’m sure he’s dying to see an onscreen DCU that can compete with Marvel Studios’ current incarnation.

That said, what would such a DCU even look like? As of now, the DCU movies we’ve seen have (for the most part) been hermetically sealed canisters that hold one hero apiece, and in some cases, it’s hard to imagine how these different heroes could even exist in the same universe. By his own admission, Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies exist in their own, non-superhuman universe, so if we were to see a unified DCU move forward, we would most likely have to see a reboot of some kind happen in both the Batman and Superman franchises – reboots that would usher these heroes into a single universe that’s broad enough in scope and flexible enough in tone to accommodate everyone (and everything) from Bruce Wayne’s Gotham City to Clark Kent’s Metropolis.

(Side note: It’s a shame that the world depicted in Nolan’s The Dark Knight strayed so far from the one seen in Batman Begins, because I think the world of Begins could have withstood the incursion of metahuman activity, while the world of The Dark Knight can’t. The Gotham City seen in the first four Batman movies – for better or worse – could also have housed other heroes. It’s worth noting that one of the best moments in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever came when Wayne made an offhand reference to Metropolis.)

But I digress. If the DCU reboots its heroes into a unified universe, it will be the world seen in 2011’s Green Lantern, I submit. At the panel, Johns said that the DC’s future onscreen plans will depend on the success (or failure) of Green Lantern, and I submit that the world depicted in any Green Lantern movie would be flexible and durable enough to enclose the larger DCU. It would simply have to be.

And for what it’s worth, DC is in pretty good shape to launch a unified onscreen universe – let’s start calling it a UOU – because DC doesn’t have quite as much riding on it as Marvel does. Comics guru and all-around geek Joey Esposito wrote that Marvel may be putting all of its comic-book eggs in one basket with The Avengers:

If Captain America or Thor fails next summer, that essentially makes one third of The Avengers’ main cast unmarketable. There’s always a chance it wouldn’t matter anyhow; summer moviegoers will see anything, after all. But it’s still a risk, particularly when there are hundreds of millions of dollars being poured into these projects.

By contrast, if Green Lantern should falter, DC would still have plenty of ways (and plenty of characters) with which to kick-start a UOU.

But I hope Green Lantern succeeds. I think Ryan Reynolds would make an outstanding addition to an onscreen JLA, and I’d love to see Mark Strong among the chief ranks of a Legion of Doom. Maybe we can even get Inception’s Tom Hardy to play Lex Luthor.

Enjoy.

2007:

ME: Kristen, Kristen, hi, it is me Christian Spicer. Remember that one scene in Spider-Man where you kissed Tobey Maguire while he was hanging upside down?

KRISTEN DUNST: Hi Christian, how are you? Yes, I remember that scene.

ME: Some critics said that scene would have been better if we were the ones kissing, even though it might not have made sense in the movie, seeing as how I wasn’t playing Spider-Man in the film. Do you agree?

KRISTEN DUNST: Well, I kind of see the point, but I’m not sure if…

ME: Hypothetically speaking, if you weren’t married…

KRISTEN DUNST: I am not married.

ME: Right, so hypothetically speaking, if you weren’t married, would you marry me…if I were dressed in a Batman costume?

KRISTEN DUNST: That makes almost no sense at all. But because it does make a little sense, yes, hypothetically speaking, yes.

2008:

JENNIFER HEWITT: Excuse me.

ME: Yes?

JENNIFER HEWITT: Do I know you?

ME: Ha, not likely. And if you’ll excuse me, I really need to be on my way.

ME (to security): Could you please get this woman out of here. Thanks.

2009:

ME: Scarlett, is it true that you want to marry me?

SCARLETT JOHANSSON: Where did you hear that rumor?

ME: Where I heard it is not important. The important question is whether it is true or not.

SCARLETT JOHANSSON: Well…

ME: ANSWER MY QUESTION DAMM IT!!!

SCARLETT JOHANSSON: I mean, jeez, that information wasn’t supposed to get out. Things are a little rough between the Green Lantern and me.

ME: Wait, you mean Deadpool right?

SCARLETT JOHANSSON: Huh, oh crap, I’ve already said too much.

ME: Ha, nice try, but I am not going to let you skirt the issue that easily.

SCARLETT JOHANSSON: Yes.

ME: Yes what?

SCARLETT JOHANSSON: …

ME: OK, fine, another question. Do you remember that scene in Spider-Man where Kirsten Dunst kissed Tobey Maguire while he was hanging upside down? Some critics said that scene would have been better if we were the ones kissing, even though it might not have made sense in the movie, seeing as how I wasn’t playing Spiderman in the film and you weren’t even cast in the film at all. Do you agree?

SCARLETT JOHANSSON: I agree 100%.

ME: I thought so.

SCARLETT JOHANSSON: (takes two steps and jumps off the balcony and flies away).

ME: Amazing. She CAN fly!

2010 Preview Night:

JENNIFER HEWITT: Excuse me.

ME: Oh crap, not again. Security! Look, Jennifer, we talked about this…

LATER THAT NIGHT:

ME: Kevin, hey, so Cop Out was a huge success.

KEVIN SMITH: It made money for the studio and that is all that is really important. And that is why people like me continue to work in the business.

ME: Uh-huh.

KEVIN SMITH: You see the key to really making it is to give the studios something they can rely on. Keep it on budget and on time.

ME: (texting on my iPhone).

KEVIN SMITH: I mean really when it comes to it, I mean really, what is really important is…

ME: Hey, Kev, sorry to interrupt, but do you remember that scene in Spider-Man where Kirsten Dunst kissed Tobey Maguire while he was hanging upside down? Some critics said that scene would have been better if I was kissing Kirsten and Scarlett Johansson at the same time, even though it might not have made sense in the movie, seeing as how I wasn’t playing Spider-Man in the film and kissing two people at the same time is actually pretty hard to do. Do you agree?

KEVIN SMITH: Good question. You see what is important in answering that question is whether or not that scene would have given the studio something they could have relied on, and whether the scene could have been kept on budget and on time…

ME: Oh, crap Jennifer is coming back! Hey Kev, gotta split.

(Scarlett flew in and picked me up and we flew away together. She later dropped me off back at my car).

Christian Spicer is a professional comedian, comic book reader and regular blogger for Comics on Comics. He is also a co-producer of a monthly stand-up show in San Diego and he has been featured in numerous major print publications in San Diego. Spicer was also featured in the 2010 North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival, and has performed at colleges across the country. His official website is ChristianSpicer.com and he can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

The Comics on Comics crew will be on hand to screen all of our Comic-Con footage from the show floor and special highlights from TWO episodes taped at the convention!

First Edition, the new web series already being called “The Guild for comics” will also debut the first two episodes with the cast and crew on hand!

Plus a special viewing of upcoming fun from our friends at Fury of Solace

We’ll all be there with special guests galore along with CC2K.US and Geekscape.net

As well as our most requested special guest star: FREE BEER!

Be sure to RSVP on our Facebook event page here!

So come join us this Friday, July 30 at Meltdown Comics, located at 7522 Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles, CA!

The party starts at 8 p.m. and the cover is $5!

Those are the kinds of questions that the brainy creators behind IDW’s  new limited comic series Kill Shakespeare like to ask. More to the point, both Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery enjoy posing questions that lead to dream match-ups and meet-ups among the most famous characters from Shakespeare’s venerable pantheon, all of which unfolds in a fantastical Elizabethan dreamworld that’s equal parts Sunnydale High and the Globe Theater

Comic-book fans in Los Angeles should note that both creators are visiting Hollywood’s legendary Meltdown Comics tonight from 6-8 p.m. Meltdown is located at 7522 Sunset Blvd. Their phone number is (323) 851-7223.

The basic pitch for the first volume is simple: Hamlet has to kill the mysterious wizard William Shakespeare. At odds with his mission are no less than Richard III and the Weird Sisters that vexed Macbeth. Also roaming the scene are a tough-as-nails Juliet and an Othello who’s on a mission to avenge himself against Iago.

Wait – Hamlet, Othello, Richard III and Juliet are all still alive? What’s happening here?

As Touchstone might say, there’s much virtue in “if.” Along with their other flights of fancy, Del Col and McCreery asked a lot of “what if?” questions to kick-start their series, including several that resurrected some of the Bard’s best-known tragic heroes.

“We asked ourselves, ‘What if, say, Juliet lived?’ She’d be a Joan of Arc,” Del Col told CC2K. “What if the voice that instructed Hamlet to kill Claudius was the louder voice?”

But where did the impulse to kill Shakespeare come from? Easy: David Carradine, by way of Quentin Tarantino. Del Col and McCreery said that Tarantino’s epic Kill Bill directly inspired their title, but once they got that idea, the rest of this new world started to coalesce.

As a reader, all of this comes together in a grim, dark adventure that delivers the same satisfying jolt I get from seeing a DC/Marvel crossover. There’s a cosmic rightness to seeing Richard III team up with the three witches, and in addition, Del Col and McCreery get to take many of Shakespeare’s other toys out for a spin – and by “toys,” I’m referring to set pieces that the immortal writer didn’t have the resources to deploy onstage.

“Comics allow us the freedom to do all of the set-pieces and action sequences that Shakespeare never could,” Del Col said. “Shakespeare is kinetic.”

Pursuant to that “kinetic” idea, Del Col and McCreery pointed out that some of the advantages of building a world based on Shakespeare’s characters are the inherent levels of action, brutality and surprise that the master writer built into his stories – even if they can’t portray every inch of it on the page.

“We just don’t do stories that way anymore,” McCreery said. “We sanitize them. We can’t go as dark as Shakespeare did. You can’t draw everything Shakespeare did.”

But you can certainly draw some of it. Look no further than the opening pages of book one to find a famous scene that Shakespeare alluded to but could never show onstage: Hamlet’s encounter with pirates. But here’s the twist: this time around, Claudius is already dead and Hamlet is on another quest, the aforementioned journey to kill Shakespeare.

Del Col and McCreery mix and match elements from the canon all across their story, including fun stuff like Hamlet and the pirates, as well as classic acts of violence that include Gloucester’s blinding from King Lear, Lavinia’s tongue-ectomy from Titus Andronicus, as well as Titus’ own hand-loss from the same play. For Shakespeare novices, Titus was an early tragedy for the Bard that included characters who heralded the future glory of Lear and Lady Macbeth. The play enjoys a cult following that includes eminent director Julie Taymor, who made the mad general’s odyssey the subject of her first feature film, Titus, and for their part, Del Col and McCreery have pressed one of the play’s villains, Tamora, into duty among their rogues gallery. They also promised that they have “big plans” for Titus himself. Maybe he’ll have time to proclaim that he is the sea.

But Shakespeare’s canon includes stories from several different time periods, some of which span decades, even centuries. How far and wide does this world reach?

Del Col and McCreery said that for now, they’re confining themselves to a pseudo-Elizabethan time period that can logically accommodate such sword-wielding and doublet-wearing characters as Hamlet and Richard III.

That said, the two didn’t rule out the possibility that other favorite characters could join the fray. In fact, they didn’t rule anyone out, including Benedick and Beatrice and Marc Antony. They also plan to bring Caliban (of The Tempest fame) into the fold – Caliban, a character they likened to a current comic-book celebrity, Wolverine. In addition, they compared Hamlet to Batman, and Juliet to Joan of Arc, and in the case of the Moor of Venice, they compared their take on Othello to the Incredible Hulk.

“Othello’s driven by years for revenge,” McCreery said. “And we asked ourselves, ‘When you finally find someone who’s wronged you like Iago has Othello, what do you do?’ We felt like it would tell you a lot about the kind of person you are.”

In any event, Del Col and McCreery plan to ask a lot more mind-benders as they make their way through Shakespeare’s works and into (hopefully) more and more series. Right now they’re slated for 12 issues, and they’re content with that. They have no movie deals in place – yet – and they plan to write as much as they can before they cut any deals with tinseltown, but rest assured that they plan to expand Kill Shakespeare into as many media as will have them.

Shakespeare would be proud, McCreery said.

“If he were alive today, he’d be writing comics and video games,” he said. “He’d like what we’re doing. He was always making spectacle, but in all of his plays, he always found time to slow things down and talk about what makes us human.”

Again, both Del Col and McCreery are signing at Meltdown Comics tonight, Wednesday the 28th, from 6-8 p.m. Meltdown is located at 7522 Sunset Blvd. (323) 851-7223.

For more information, visit the official website, KillShakespeare.com