geekosystem

We all have that one moment in our childhood when we "borrowed" our parents camcorder for the afternoon and attempted to make a stop motion masterpiece with the action figures we had lying around. But chances are the final product was, well, nothing short of absolute rubbish, with the camcorder always ending up broken somehow -- no matter how hard we tried to prevent that from happening. If its any consolation, stop motion animator Kyle Roberts has recreated the intro of the incomparable X-Men cartoon series from the '90s entirely from his collection of Marvel Legends figures, showing us all what could have been. Suffice it say that it's better than anything we filmed in the garage.

It's pretty much become a tradition for Marvel and DC Comics to kill off a major character every few years when they've decided they would like some publicity. Sometimes, they even kill off characters that died previously for similar reasons. There are a few instances where the death remains justified and seems to stick for long periods of time, Gwen Stacy comes to mind, but usually it just feels like another ploy to get folks to cough up some money. Marvel's apparently doing it again, though, and says it's going to stick.

While Marvel's mutants carry on a fictional struggle for personal and public acceptance, it seems the issue of whether or not mutants are human is a done deal for Marvel. However, it's not so much an issue of ethics, but something far, far more compelling: Tax law.

We're big fans of Joe Stone's epic X-Men family tree, but supergeeks though we are, we will concede that it can be a little confusing unless you have read more comics indeed. Luckily, friends of Geekosystem Lauren Henry and Andrew Cedotal have painstakingly annotated it. Lauren notes that she was an editor at Marvel when Deathcry was killed off, and that she is NOT in fact the daughter of Deathbird.

Completely Theoretical But Awesome Plot for a New Zelda Game (Reddit) A Visual History of Daft Punk Helmets (Agent RayBans) The Pulp Firefly Novel That Never Was (Kyohazard) Probably the Last Set Images from The Green Hornet (Collider) Grand Theft Auto IV, With No Killing (Destructoid) Pirate Gambit. 'Nuff Said (Kalman Andrasofszky) Archie Sues Bollywood (Bleeding Cool) (Happy birthday Isaac Asimov! Pic via Rowena Art.)

We Quite Like The BBC, Too (yesthatmitch) The Rapping, Dancing X-Men Cosplayers From NYCC (G4) Sometimes Fictional Superheroes Save Real Lives (Reddit) World Record for Reciting Hamlet's Soliloquy While Using a Shake Weight (The Universal Record Database) The New GoldenEye Game Has A Plot (GameInformer) We Think This Miss Havisham Cake is In Excellent Taste, Actually (Hotham Street Ladies) Chris Sims Explains How a Bit of Silver Age Crack Introduced Him to Comics (Comics Alliance) (pic via Reddit.)

X-Men Arcade Game Coming to XBLA and PSN (GameInformer) Streaming 3D Movies on the 3DS? (GameRant) NYCC Cosplay Day 2 (Kotaku) Now is the Time To Buy Comics On Amazon.uk (Bleeding Cool) A Pessimist's Guide to the Future (The Globe and Mail) Largest Lego Mosaic Ever? (GeekDad) A Cuddlesome Cowlike Cthulu Milked by A Brave Milkmaid (Joystiq) (pic via WoW Insider.)

Maryland State Senator Nancy King is running for reelection on a platform of education reform, and her ill-thought out direct mailer is slightly confusing for a moment, and then, once its meaning is fully grasped, starts raising the blood pressure of anyone who has ever worked in or enjoyed the fruits of sequential art. It implies, for the record, that if children don't have teachers to educate them, they will start reading comic books. The HORROR.

Ever since it was confirmed that Kevin Bacon will be playing the role of the villain in the upcoming X-Men: First Class, comic fans have been enjoying the speculation on which villain he is actually going to play. Names like Mister Sinister, Apocalypse, and even Proteus have been brought up and bandied about. But the only rumor that has actually attached itself to some semblance of possible credibility is that he will play Sebastian Shaw, Black King of The Order of the Phoenix The Hellfire Club.

Sorry, I got into X-Men through Ultimate, and the whole Hellfire Club/Dark Phoenix bit was my favorite part.

X-Men: First Class has reeled in someone exceptional: Showbiz 411 reports that Michael Fassbender, perhaps better known as the German-speaking British Lieutenant Archie Hicox from Inglourious Basterds and Spartan warrior Stēlios (You remember: "Then we will fight in the shade.") from 300, has officially signed on to play Erik Lensherr a.k.a. the mutant supervillain Magneto in Matthew Vaughn's upcoming origin film story. Fassbender's presence was already a welcome sight in those two films, but if you've seen his performance in the 2008 Irish film Hunger, in which he plays IRA hunger strike leader Bobby Sands, you'll know just how good he is, and what exciting news this is for the X-Men film.

Comics can entertain us, but they can also send us powerful messages about life and society. The latest comic being launched in Mumbai as a part of Mumbai Cyber Safety Week teaches a very valuable lesson: don’t download torrents. Yeah, right.

In Escape from Terror Byte City, (above) boys Jeremy and Ben download a pirated copy of a movie only to find themselves trapped in a virtual city full of scary green blob viruses and spyware with giant fangs.

First of all, it seems odd that, while the comic is admittedly aimed at Cyber Safety, it really touches minimally on the issue of illegality concerning downloads of pirated content. But with a target audience of five through ten year olds, maybe the legal issues would have gone over readers’ heads. Either way, the political message just doesn’t seem to be in the storyline, though the incentive of the comics is clear: don’t let these kids get addicted to torrents.

Just saying: This is the most likely file to get disseminated as a virus-infested torrent ever. It’s as cruel and fun as sending out a spyware-infused movie, but now with overflowing irony!

In honor of the perhaps misguided efforts of the organization behind Terror Byte, we have compiled a list of some comics that were more effectively -- and often controversially -- political.

Frequent Threadless t-shirt designer buko has a knack for the sorts of cultural mashups that the Internet gobbles up: See his printed designs for a Conan O'Brien/Conan the Barbarian shirt, Mr. T in tiger form, and the Joker/the Queen of England. This latest submission of his just may be my favorite: Edvard Munch's The Scream meets The X-Men's Cyclops. See it fully-sized after the jump:

It's official: Matthew Vaughn, director of Kick-Ass and Stardust, is at the helm of X-Men: First Class, the reboot of the X-Men movie franchise. This new prequel film (a long the same world-exploring lines as Wolverine: Origins) will "chart the epic beginning of the X-Men saga," which probably means Professor X and Magneto as young rebellious allegory-for-civil-rights-leaders.

This dashes our dreams of watching a movie where the X-Men sit at the front of an airplane for two and a half hours, enjoying complementary drinks.

Bleeding Cool News has tipped us off to some serious and unexpected discounts. As of this post, Amazon.com is listing a huge number of Marvel trades and omnibuses at $8.24 or $14.99 a piece. Many are even hardcovers.