Tag Archive: spider-man


New Facebook ‘Marvel: Avengers Alliance’ Game Announced

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January 15, 2012

THE BUZZ: Disney, along with their social games division Playdom, have announced the plan to launch a new Marvel inspired game for Facebook in the next three months.

The game will feature many of the most popular heroes and villains from the Marvel Universe and will be titled Marvel: Avengers Alliance. In the game, you will play as a new agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. tasked with assembling the greatest team of Avengers yet to battle many of the villains from the Marvel Universe who are converging on Manhattan after a galaxy wide event known as “The Pulse”.

Aside from following this story, the game will also feature PvP battles for players to test their social standing and feature a leveling up system for each individual hero.

EGM’S TAKE: No surprise really to see Marvel and Disney trying to get a game into the social market in time for the Avengers movie release, but the game would likely appeal to fans of the comics anyway no matter when they released it.

From the screens below and the fact you can level up, the game looks to be shaping up into an old-school RPG with the enemies on the left and villains on the right.

It also looks like your character will fight alongside the heroes at the top of the screen in traditional S.H.I.E.L.D. garb. Nick Fury has also been mentioned as head of S.H.I.E.L.D. for the game so the story will likely be less tied to the comics and more to the movies. It should be interesting to see if they use the traditional comic book version of Fury or the Ultimate version portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson like in Marvel’s recent slew of movies though.

The first big question I thought of when I saw this though was when are we going to get a full blown Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 for a console?

To check out the trailer and to get the latest updates on when the game may go to open beta, you can check out the game’s Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/avengersalliance

What do you folks think? Is this going to just be propaganda for the new Avengers movie or will it be a legit foray for Marvel and Disney? What villains and heroes do you think the game should feature? Let us know what you think with comments below!

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The Pullbox – Issue #18

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This last Pullbox of the year before our winter break sees a lot of limited series take the spotlight as we’re simply seeing better potential for more complete stories from these limited series than a lot of monthlies lately. We also feature our first independently published Indie as it doesn’t get more independent than that. So enjoy this Pullbox and we will be back the week of Jan. 11!

1) DC – Batman and Robin #4: Ghosts of Batman’s past continue to haunt him as the son of Henri Ducard, one of Bruce’s most influential teachers, has surfaced calling himself “Nobody”. And he looks to teach Batman a lesson he will never forget. And it may cost him Damian in the process.

The most compelling aspect of this story so far is really the dynamic between Bruce and Damian. As Bruce tries to protect him more and more, he seems to push Damian farther and farther away and possible right into the arms of Nobody. More old-school fans might not appreciate this dynamic though because it has a very Bruce/Jason Todd feel to the banter. Of course, Damian is also Bruce biological son and there is a lot more history in a much shorter time because of his origins than what needed to be laid out with Jason.  Overall, definitely a story to keep an eye on though and very strong so far. It will be interesting to see how this continues to play out and is finally resolved.

2) DC – Deathstroke #4: Deathstroke is up to business as usual as he continues to use his infinite resources to start tying up loose ends and finally verify the contents of that briefcase that has haunted him since the first issue.

After an action packed opening sequence to set the tone of the issue as Deathstroke performs another hit, you would think it was father/son week at the DC offices as we finally learn that the contents of the briefcase are a freshly bloodied Ravager mask and knife insinuating that somehow, Deathstroke’s son is still alive. When you couple this with the bloody conclusion of the issue with a mysterious assailant attacking one of Deathstroke’s allies and you start setting up a few potential rivals for this major DC Universe player. It’ll be interesting to see though if DC strings this out over a few issues much like they did with the reveal of the briefcase or if they jump right into it, but it is unlikely. They’ll look to build some suspense first as Deathstroke hasn’t shown the depth of character in many other ways through these first four issues and this can give them a chance to build some while building up to an epic confrontation.

3) Marvel – Carnage USA #1 (of 5): After months of planning, Cletus Kasady has finally decided how he is going to exact his revenge not only on Spider-Man, but on the entire world.

After the critically acclaimed five-issue series Carnage by Zeb Wells that brought one of Marvel’s best villains back into the spotlight, this mini-series looks to follow up where that left off. While Carnage was hiding, he finds that his powers have grown in new and interesting ways and decides to set up his most elaborate trap for the wall-crawler before making himself a new powerhouse in the world and not just looking to kill a town or a city, but to finally go global. Honestly, if you’re like me and got into comics right around the time of Maximum Carnage, then that story and everything that has come after it still holds a special place in your heart. And to see Zeb Wells start working on these epic symbiote style storylines that make sense really hits that sweet nostalgia spot that Dan Slott has not been able to for me in the main Spidey continuity. Add in Clayton Crain’s spectacular artwork and this is a must for old-school Spidey fans.

4) Marvel – Avengers: Sanction #1 (of 4): The ultimate soldier of fortune is back and Cable is none too pleased with what he has learned. Thought to be dead, he merely timeshifted to a future so distant that only his old time traveling mentor Blaquesmith is there waiting for him. There Cable learns he will be consumed by his techno-organic virus within 24 hours, but when Blaquesmith explains the world he currently stands in is a wasteland because Hope had died before her time, Cable knows what his final mission must be: to go back in time and stop Hope’s would be killers, the Avengers.

Considering this is only supposed to be four issues, expect the action to be hot and heavy. Aside from taking on Captain America and the Falcon in the first issue and using them as bait for the other Avengers, the big question that this series brings up is what will become of Cable now? Will this be his true swan song? Is this how he will be brought back into the fold? And if so, you’d have to assume he would side with Cyclops, right? Lots of questions come from this one issue and by that definition alone, if you’re a Cable fan you need to pick up this issue.

5) Independently Published – Sacrifice #1 (of 6): An epileptic boy with strange tattoos and on an array of medication is somehow connected to the ancient Aztecs and their massive empire from hundreds of years ago.

Time travel, human sacrifice, psychedelic trips, and a lot of questions makes this one of the more interesting comics I’ve read in a while because I have no idea where it is going to go because I barely have an idea where it’s just been. Flashing back and forward through time with each turn of the page keeps you on your toes and the action and plot is definitely intriguing enough to pick up a second issue, but I admit if things don’t start to come together fast, there may be too many moving parts to stick with this the whole way through. But the first issue? Definitely worthy of our indie pick as it clearly has a lot of awesome elements that if brought together in the next issue or two can make for a very entertaining mini-series.

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EGM Review: Spider-Man: Edge of Time

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October 14, 2011

One hell of a paradox

Trying to capitalize on their success with last year’s Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Beenox brings us now Spider-Man: Edge of Time. A new villain in the year 2099, Walker Sloan, is at the forefront of time-travel and finally cracking the fourth dimension. Working for Alchemax, Sloan uses the corporation’s mass resources for his own purposes though and constructs a time machine that propels him back into the 1970s. With over 100 years of future knowledge, Sloan pilfers many of the late 20th century’s great ideas years ahead of their conception in order to re-write history and the Alchemax company into his own image. Now, Spider-Men from two ages must work together across space and time in order to put things back the way they once were and close up the wormhole that Sloan has opened up with his time hopping.

There are a lot of good things that Beenox has done with the Spider-Man franchise to date and some of these things continue in Edge of Time. Unfortunately, they get away from two things that I feel are critical to any Spider-Man game dating back to Spider-Man for the N64/PS1: lots of web-slinging and lots of villains. With the entire game taking place inside a single building, you do a decent amount of wall-crawling, but there is not as much room as you’d like to swing and something that has been a staple I feel of all the great Spidey games of the past 10 years has been a fair amount of web-slinging. This lack of web-slinging makes Edge of Time feel more like a generic brawler whose heroes happen to occasionally walk on walls than a genuine Spider-Man game.

Also, Spidey’s Rogues Gallery is one of the most diverse in comics and is only trumped probably by Batman over at DC. So to see Beenox go from over a dozen classic villains in Shattered Dimensions to only a handful of low appeal ones in Edge of Time really felt like a punch to the gut that knocked the wind out of this game. Mind you, without giving anything away, fans of that old-school Spider-Man from the N64/PS1 will likely draw parallels to a new villain who appears in Edge of Time, but besides that fleeting moment of recognition, none of the villains featured in this game got me as excited as those from Shattered Dimensions.

Still, there is a lot of good in this game and fans of Spider-Man will likely walk away pleased with the overall experience. The story, written by original Spider-Man 2099 creator Peter David, is one of the more compelling Spidey tales I’ve seen in a while and has so many twists and turns that you’ll find yourself willingly falling further down the wormhole just to find out what is going to happen next.

Another brilliant aspect of the game is how fresh each chapter feels compared to most other brawlers out there. Bouncing back and forth between Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099 feels like a new experience each time as they level up because their fighting styles and special powers are so different from one another.

We also see a huge upgrade with the return of the free-falling levels with Spider-Man 2099 that were introduced in Shattered Dimensions. Although you won’t be fighting any villains this time in elevator shafts and various other vertical corridors, you’ll be dodging a lot more obstacles and a new targeting reticule has been introduced that lets you know exactly where you’ll land on your current path, which makes dodging all those obstacles that much easier. No villains though may make it feel like a mini-game for some, but for me it was one of the most fun mini-games then that I’ve played in a while and are the levels I would replay the most in both Shattered Dimensions and here again in Edge of Time.

Throw in hysterical mid-level dialogue between the two Spider-Men because of a psychic link they have through the wormhole and the relationship between the two becomes a fast growing bond that is enjoyable for the player on a lot of levels. The dialogue is also very strong because Spider-Man 2099 is played by Spider-Man: The Animated Series star and Spider-Man Noir in Shattered Dimensions, Christopher Daniel Barnes, and Amazing Spider-Man is played by Spectacular Spider-Man star and Ultimate Spider-Man in Shattered Dimensions, Josh Keaton, which only makes it feel all the more authentic for diehard Spidey fans.

All in all, Spider-Man: Edge of Time is a good game with a couple of flaws that keep it from being elite. The game play would have been perfect if Beenox could have shoehorned in some web-slinging and some more villains, but everything else is up there with some of the better Spider-Man games of the past in terms of combat and plot. The game may also be a little short in the grand scheme of things, clocking in at just under 10 hours for me, but with a bevy of collectibles and costumes to unlock, there is enough reason to come back to this a couple more times if you’re a diehard Spidey fan and is worth checking out at least once for the more casual fan.

SUMMARY: A lack of web-slinging and villains knocks this worthy Spider-Man tale down a couple of pegs in terms of a game, but should appease many Spidey fans out there overall.

  • THE GOOD: Great plot, great action
  • THE BAD: Not enough villains or web-slinging
  • THE UGLY: My head exploding after trying to understand time-travel as explained by Spider-Man 2099

SCORE: 7.5

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A Fan’s Reluctant Return – First Thoughts on Spider-Island

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September 13, 2011

Originally Published: August 24, 2011, on EGMNOW.COM

Ever want to do whatever a spider can?

Growing up there were always two superheroes I gravitated to the most, Batman from DC and Spider-Man from Marvel. The distinct advantage that these two heroes had was that when I was just getting into comics, they had some of the most epic storylines in comics history, which are still referenced to this day. Batman had Knightfall and Spidey had Maximum Carnage. Batman also had movies and Adam West TV reruns, and Spidey had video games where he fought the Sinister Six, teamed up with the X-Men, and did whatever else a spider can and they both later had awesome mid-90s cartoons. With that kind of media bombardment, it wasn’t hard for those two to rise above the rest in my young geeky life.

As the years progressed, these two remained my favorites, even after learning as much as I could about Green Lantern, Flash, Superman, the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk and many others. That is until a fateful story arc called One More Day in 2007-2008 cast Spidey in a shadow from which I thought he could never return for me. Marvel had re-launched Spider-Man in one of the most ridiculous ways imaginable when Spidey sold his marriage to Mary Jane to Mephisto to save Aunt May. I understand comics are all about the unimaginable overcoming the unimaginable, but this felt like a slap in the face for someone who had devoted the better part of 20 years to this character. I hate that arc so much that I don’t even want to put a representative image of any of those four covers in this story because they all make me so sick to my stomach. Spidey had some mistakes before like The Clone Saga and what not, but this had felt like Marvel had painted themselves into a corner with the Civil War fallout and basically copped out of trying to fix it. I had tried to continue to read Amazing Spider-Man after this, but after only a couple of issues, I could not stand the new direction the comic had taken and so I imposed a boycott to never buy anything revolving around Spider-Man again. This meant I could still read Avengers related comics and crossovers, but Amazing Spider-Man was dead to me. The core character of who Spider-Man was had been drastically changed and I could never look at him the same way ever again.

Fast-forward to the present day. I had successfully maintained my boycott comic book-wise for over three years. I had played the video games (Web of Shadows was so-so, but I loved Shattered Dimensions), but much like the media bombardment from my childhood, I would have to have been living under a rock to have not noticed the Spider-Island push, especially as I still read a lot of Marvel comics. So here I was, with a jumping off point that could take me back into the Spider-Man universe and with a lot of distance from the arc that had pushed me away from Spidey to begin with. So I picked up Amazing Spider-Man #667, the first part of Spider-Island, as well as the Venom and Cloak and Dagger crossovers.

Honestly, I wasn’t impressed. Coming back into the character now, I still see a lot of the shortcomings from the direction he took back in 2008 and the character has become completely un-relatable to me. I think part of the lasting appeal of comic characters is how much one could imagine themselves in the shoes of the hero and I think that Spider-Man has stagnated, possibly even devolved in those regards. I will finish following at least the Spider-Island story arc though to give Spidey a chance to win me back, especially because the Venom and Cloak and Dagger crossovers started off brilliantly. And you might say that giving him only five or six issues to win me back may seem fickle, but it only took four issues to turn me away from him for three years. If this is supposed to be the ground-breaking “Spider-Event of the Decade” arc that it has been hyped to be, then there should be no problem in hooking me back in. But this arc seems more like “The Clone Saga Part 2″ than anything Spider-Man fans old or new should be excited about, and at this rate the boycott will start again in November when this event ends.

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New Avengers #12 Review

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May 14, 2011

Originally Published: May 11, 2011, on Comicvine.com

Mockingbird continues to fight for her life in an operating room while a flashback of Nick Fury’s first Avengers in 1959 continues where they are in the process of hunting down the Red Skull.

The Good

The different art styles between Deodato and Chaykin really do a nice job of making a pointed difference between the two time periods this book takes place in, especially since this is the fourth issue in a row where they’ve been going back and forth with these flashbacks to Fury’s 1959 Avengers.

It was also great to see Hawkeye get mad again. When Hawkeye gets mad and he rushes headlong into a conflict, you tend to get some great action sequences and that has me looking forward to some issues down the road.

The Bad

The worst part about this issue is that we are now four issues in and we still haven’t the slightest idea what the point of these Nick Fury flashbacks are, especially since he doesn’t have anything to do right now with the current New Avengers.

On top of this, the flashbacks comprise most of the book, with only seven pages taking place in current times, two of those have Mockingbird on an emergency surgery table and Hawkeye vowing vengeance. At this point, if the Nick Fury flashbacks do not have some earth shattering reveal that saves Mockingbird when all is said and done, this could be the most drawn out waste of time way to kill a character and could be the most pointless story arc I’ve read in quite some time.

Then combine all this with the fact that we’ve seen this flashback story happen before a million times, just not with these characters. How many times has Captain America, Nick Fury, or some other patriot gone after the Red Skull for it simply to be a clone, a body double, or a robot? It’s not special now that Sabretooth has joined that crowd of not finding the real Skull.

The Verdict

I was really excited at first bouncing back and forth between flashbacks of Fury’s 1959 Avengers and the current New Avengers, especially when Mockingbird got shot. Lots of action coupled with a plot that was clearly laying the groundwork for something big for these characters. Four issues into this though and things have come to a grinding, mind-numbing halt and whatever originality we were hoping for seems to be getting thrown out the window.

At this point we’ve seen all the double crosses and triple crosses and the Red Skull Herrings and for it to drag on over four issues is becoming borderline tortuous and definitely tedious. If things don’t come to a head in the next issue with something unexpected, there is a good chance I’m kicking this from my pull box. Only pick up this issue of New Avengers if you have been reading it to this point, otherwise steer clear.

1.5/5 Stars

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X-Men #10 Review

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April 27, 2011

Originally Published: April 27, 2011, on Comicvine.com

The X-Men and Spider-Man wrap up their expedition in the sewers of New York City as they try to stop Dark Beast and his mad experiments on Dr. Curt Connors and the unsuspecting citizens of Manhattan.

The Good

Any story arc with Dark Beast in it is a win for me because he poses a threat on so many levels to the current X-Men. This is also an ideal time to have him re-emerge in the X-Men’s lives since we know he will be a major player in future X-Force issues, even though we don’t know the details on that as of yet.

The banter back and forth between Emma Frost and Spider-Man was also very well written as they are burdened with the task of rescuing the rest of the X-Men after they fall under the spell of Dark Beast’s lizard transformation device.

The Bad

This arc started off so strongly, with a brief spike at the Dark Beast reveal, but has been on a downward slide ever since with this final issue hitting rock bottom. Most of the issue is Emma and Spidey crawling through the sewers trying to regroup and escape from the barely coherent Lizard X-Men. Although the banter was entertaining, it just felt like filler before we got to what was a short and quick resolution with Emma freeing the original Lizard, Curt Connors.

Due to the cramped quarters, you also never really see Wolverine, Spidey, or anyone else with any speed or agility really ramp up and let go in the limited fight scenes. If anything, Spider-Man felt like an unnecessary addition to this entire adventure and was there simply because it is his turf and he’s had experience with the Lizard before and reminded me why I don’t particularly read most Spider-Man comics anymore.

The Verdict

Although the banter was well written, there was far too much of it and made this comic feel like it was dragging two pages in. To sort through all that filler and end on such an anti-climatic resolution on top of it just left me shaking my head.

Spider-Man was nothing but useless aside from acting as foil to Emma and this entire story arc felt like a cheap way of bringing Dark Beast into everyone’s mind before he makes his impact on the Age of Apocalypse storyline with X-Force coming in June. Even if you’ve been reading this arc, I’m tempted to tell you to steer clear and hope for better things next month.

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Carnage #4 (of 5) Review

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April 14, 2011

Originally Published: April 13, 2011, on Comicvine.com

Cletus Kasady is still alive and the Carnage symbiote has left a trail of destruction in its wake in order to reunite with its former host. Can even the combined might of Spider-Man and Iron Man be enough to quell this reborn menace?

The Good

The action and writing for this issue is simply top notch. From the opening flashback of when the Hall Industries doctors originally found what was left of the symbiote and Kasady to the banter that Kasady has going back and forth with both the symbiote and Spider-Man and you are quickly reminded that Kasady isn’t your run of the mill homicidal maniac, he has a sinister streak in him that puts him on par with some of the all-time great villains.

Combine this with making him more powerful than ever by merging himself with some of the armor that was powered by pieces of the symbiote to create a techno-organic super-Carnage and Zeb Wells does a brilliant job of actually making you believe that the heroes might not pull this one out in the end.

The Bad

There is a huge downside to having a limited series released every two months in that it can be hard to remember everything that is happening. So when Shriek and Doppelganger showed up midway through the comic, I was taken aback because I had forgotten how big a role they played in setting up this current situation and should have been re-introduced much sooner in the book.

Also, it seems that while being used as bio-fuel for Hall Industries’ powered armor suits that Carnage had another baby. It’s always risky to introduce new symbiotes into the fold because aside from Venom and Carnage, when was the last time a new symbiote has had any lasting effect on the Marvel Universe. When was the last time someone heard from Toxin? It should be interesting to see what happens with this new symbiote considering whom it has now bonded to, but the odds of it sticking around and having any real significance is unlikely and seemed unnecessary.

The Verdict

Carnage fans will be jumping for joy after reading this book as he is being brought back around in a big way and this could help set up a lot of potential storylines in the future. How will Carnage deal with Flash Thompson’s Venom and Anti-Venom? Or a better question, will Flash Thomson be able to control the Venom symbiote if he happens across Carnage?

No matter what happens in the future, if you are a fan of Carnage then this comic is a must have. With so many Maximum Carnage undertones, the nostalgia factor alone should pull people in for this amazing limited series. The only real downfall with this book is that you have to wait two months again for what is shaping up to be an epic and thrilling conclusion.

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From My Mom’s Basement – Vol. 2 Ep. 5 – Saluting the General

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March 29, 2011

Originally Published: March 29, 2011, on Youtube.com/RCars4885

I come to you once again with your weekly geek fix from my mother’s basement! This week’s episode sees me review X-Men #9 from Marvel and the downloadable Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime from Atari. My hot chick pick of the week is Nancy Patton and this week’s theme is Ray Parker Jr.’s Ghostbusters movie theme.

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From My Mom’s Basement – Vol. 2 Ep. 3 – Islands Breed Evil

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March 16, 2011

Originally Published: March 15, 2011, on youtube.com/Rcars4885

I come to you once again with your weekly geek fix from my mother’s basement! This week’s episode sees me review two comics since I’m still working on Dragon Age II. Ghostbusters: Infestation #1 (of 2) and Venom #1 are reviewed. My hot chick pick of the week is Francine Dee and this week’s theme is the main theme from Separation Anxiety starring Venom and Spider-Man back for the SNES and Sega Genesis.

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Never Rub Another Man’s Rhubarb (or I Just LOOOOVE Purple)

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March 4, 2011

Originally Published: March 4, 2011, on Comicvine.com

Batman: Arkham City is probably one of the most anticipated video games of 2011, but it will also mark the end of an era as Mark Hamill, the quintessential Clown Prince of Crime for the past two decades, has said that he will officially walk away from doing the voice of the Joker after this project. With this comes the difficult choice for casting directors of deciding who will take over as the vocal chords behind that infamous rictus grin.

This got me thinking that maybe I could lend Andrea Romano and other casting directors a hand. Romano, the DC Animation casting director who of course introduced us to Hamill as the Joker, will probably have the biggest hand in selecting a replacement for most projects involving the Joker. So with that, here is a comprehensive list I made of possible candidates for a new Ace of Knaves.

Kevin Michael Richardson

An extremely accomplished voice actor, Kevin Michael Richardson has been doing the voices of various comic book and video game characters now for almost 20 years. Bishop, Tombstone, Lucius Fox, Mammoth, Trigon and many others from both the Marvel and DC Universe, Richardson is a possible front-runner for the role after serving as the Joker for the entire five season run of The Batman in the mid-2000s.

Richardson’s Joker was part of a push for a more realistic Batman as a supplement building up to Batman Begins in 2005 and thus was forced to play a bit more of an urban thieving jester than the genius psychopath with a sadistic sense of humor. Preferring a straight jacket with torn sleeves, bare feet, and dreadlocks to the more traditional custom tailored suit and slicked up hair, Richardson’s Joker still got across that most basic of dynamics, that the Joker must be the yang to Batman’s yin. Throw in a sinister cackle cross bred with a hyena for his laugh and Kevin Michael Richardson did something that you want to see from whatever actor takes the role, he worked with it and tried to make it his own. Add in his experience already working with Andrea Romano on several projects to put him a little higher than a lot of the competition.

John DiMaggio

Another top of the line voice talent, John DiMaggio is best known as Bender from Futurama and Marcus Fenix from Gears of War. He also got at least one shot as the Joker when he voiced the Harlequin of Hate for the recent Batman: Under the Red Hood straight to DVD movie from DC Animation.

Strongly criticized for his portrayal of the Joker, I actually enjoyed his performance except for the fact that he didn’t make it his own. It seemed more like he was trying to blend Heath Ledger from The Dark Knight with Mark Hamill’s vision of the Joker instead of bringing something unique to the table. If he should land the role, I hope that whoever the casting director is works with him on trying to make the character more his own instead of trying to give fans what they expect from the character because he definitely has the chops to reach greatness. John also has the advantage of having worked with Andrea Romano as he also portrayed Aquaman and Gorilla Grodd in episodes of Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

Jeff Bennett

Another 20-year veteran of the voiceover business, Jeff Bennett is playing the most active version of the Joker at the moment in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon. The cartoon is a campier version of Batman and his rogues gallery that harkens back to the original run of the comic series of the same name from the 1950s, and so Bennett’s Joker is not nearly as sadistic or sinister as we’ve become more accustomed to. There are some episodes that have shown that he maintains his obsession with Batman, but the overall tone of the show prevents Bennett from ever showing that real dark side that fans have come to expect from the Joker. Not to say he couldn’t do it, but if Bennett were to become to the number one candidate, he’d have to show that he has the range to take the character where the fans want to see it go if it would be a permanent fix.

Being the Brave and the Bold Joker has afforded Bennett the chance to work with Andrea Romano, but it’s more likely that the campy scripts of Brave and the Bold have written off his chance of becoming the Joker full-time. Not to mention, he seems to be just imitating other campy voice versions of the Joker from decades earlier and hasn’t made the character his own at all.

Scott Cleverdon

Not many people may know of Scott Cleverdon, but when sitting down to make my list, he was one of the first names for me to come to mind of people who have never played the Joker. Comic book fans may know Scott best for his portrayal of Carnage in the mid-1990s Spider-Man cartoon as well as his brief stint in Batman Beyond as Jack of the Royal Flush Gang.

It is his experience as Carnage that really piqued my interest because there are few maniac villains who could come close to the seeming randomness of the Joker’s ways, but Carnage is definitely one. Carnage kills because he loves to kill and that easily could transition into the Joker. The Joker and Carnage are seen as so similar that they even teamed up in a 1995 one-shot crossover versus Spider-Man and Batman. Obviously, Cleverdon would need a bit more control with the Joker to get that calculating nature across if he were to become a candidate, but his high-pitched hyena giggle that he used with Carnage could work very well with the Joker. He has never worked with Andrea Romano and bringing the two of them together could also lead to an interesting exploration of the character.

Michael Nicolosi

Another candidate who has never played the Joker, but is familiar with sadistic clowns is Michael Nicolosi. He may not have the voiceover experience as some of the others on this list, but he did do a fantastic job as the Clown form of the Violator in the late-1990s HBO Spawn animated series. Obviously, in terms of language used, the Joker will be much more toned down than the script used on a premium channel, but Nicolosi provided that perfect calm before the storm. As Violator, he had a cool demeanor that put enough unease in you to know without seeing it that there was a monster just bubbling below the surface, which is literally the case in Violator.

Michael Nicolosi hasn’t worked with Andrea Romano either, but if he can flick that special switch on and off with the Joker like he did a decade ago with Violator, then he might be someone who should be given a look for those really dark storylines involving the Clown Prince of Crime.

Frank Welker

This candidate is probably the biggest wild card (pun intended, pun always intended), but is also easily the most experienced voice actor on this list with more than 40 years under his belt. Frank Welker played the campiest version of the Joker on this list when he played him as a part of The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians in 1985. He has also played nearly every character imaginable and if you saw the list, you’d understand why I think he has the range where, if no others rose to the challenge, Frank could steal the title for himself and provide us whatever version of the Joker we want. Whether a dark, sadistic murderer, an aloof thief and eternal foil to the Dark Knight, or a campy jester prancing around with exploding whoopee cushions, Welker could get the job done.

Andrea Romano and Frank Welker worked together on the 1980s Jonny Quest and several other cartoons so these wily two veterans are probably very well acquainted with one another, which makes you think that if Welker hasn’t been used before for some other projects involving the Joker, then maybe he doesn’t have it in him to play the more serious Ace of Knaves.

Jack Nicholson

Here’s the long shot, and I know how much of a long shot this is, but hear me out on why this could work and why DC Animation should pursue Jack. The reason why this came to mind is I just moved and was looking through my video games and I came across my copy of From Russia With Love from the last generation of consoles and thought how great it was for Sean Connery to reprise his role as James Bond more than four decades after he shot the corresponding film. It’s not like he had a lot on his plate though due to the natural ageism that comes in Hollywood. There are simply less roles out there for older actors.

So here is an opening for the Joker, a role that Jack Nicholson defined for many people back in 1989. Movie roles are starting to dry up a bit for him. I’m sure he could find time in the basketball off-season to head over to a recording studio and reprise a role that many still see him as being the best live action version of. Even if he only does it for one movie or one video game, the appeal for all of us Batman fans out there to hear Jack do the Joker again would make it one of the best selling DVDs or games of that year. Gimmicky yes, but gimmicks sell and you can’t tell me you wouldn’t be curious.

Me, Ray Carsillo

Ok, honestly, this has been a dream of mine for years and at this point it’s probably the best way to get my name out there. If somehow Andrea Romano sees this, then maybe I’ll have a chance because I love the Joker so much I even have my own set of razor blade playing cards.

My name is Ray Carsillo and yes, I have done voiceover work before. Not a lot, but I have a radio/TV background and voiced a couple PSAs and commercials. You would have to trust me on this until you heard it, but I have the most maniacal laugh of anyone you’ll meet and can change my demeanor on a dime if necessary. I think I’ve shown my passion and more than any of these others guys on the list, I come cheap (I used that same line on the folks at Comicvine). All I’m asking for is a tryout…and if you would like a sniff of my flower?

-Ray “StrongProtector” Carsillo

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