Hero Complex: The first month

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Hero Complex celebrated its one-month birthday on Sunday and, wow, what a month it’s been.

First, a super-hero film enjoyed the most lucrative weekend in the history of Hollywood. In the days that followed, we chased ‘The Dark Knight’ across Gotham and even made plenty of you mad (and some of you quite happy) by suggesting that Angelina Jolie would be a great Catwoman in the next Batman film. (By the way, if you were one of the people who responded that Christopher Nolan should get a real actress like Jessica Alba [!] please remember that Jolie did win an Oscar and that she has been called a truly gifted performer by no less than Clint Eastwood, one of the greatest living directors. I’m just saying...)

Our Hero Complex team covered Comic-Con International like crazy and took you to the front-row, backstage and even onstage: We sat next to Samuel L. Jackson when he explained the inherent comedy of toilets and ‘Torchwood’ star John Barrowman when he began singing to fans.

H.C. was also there when Rose McGowan explained the finer points of wearing a chain-mail bikini and when Jason Statham, over a pint, lobbied Frank Miller to cast him as Daredevil. We watched Gerard Butler search for his lost sunglasses and stepped inside the Owl Ship with Zack Snyder. We even got to introduce the ‘Watchmen’ director to comics legend Neal Adams. No one has covered ‘Twilight’ like our young blog, be it at Comic-Con, at UCLA book signings, on the page or on the screen.

Comic-Con was just the beginning. We took you to Oregon where Dark Horse Comics owner Mike Richardson revealed that he once tried to take over Marvel Comics with Disney money. Then it was Toronto to hear exclusive news about Trent Reznor’s ‘Year Zero’ television hopes. Back here in L.A. we sat down with Ice Cube in the studio to hear about his dream of taking on Mr. T’s old role in a remake of ‘The A-Team.’ It was gangsta rappers to governors, because that same day we got Arnold Schwarzenegger speaking out for the first time anywhere on the next ‘Terminator’ film. We went into some other unexpected territory too: David Duchovny told Hero Complex that ‘X-Files’ was as big as God and, well, maybe God didn’t like it, at least judging by the new X-film’s fizzle at theaters.

It’s been a great month and thanks for your patience and support. It’s been one of the most successful blog launches ever for the Los Angeles Times, and we have some BIG plans coming up, with a lot more graphic novel reviews as well as exclusive news about ‘Twilight,’ the next ‘Harry Potter’ film, ‘Watchmen’ and all the other complex heroes you love to love.

Thanks for a fun month. Stick with us. You will believe a blog can fly.

-- Geoff Boucher

AP photo which was part of the Comic-Con photo gallery