* Because I wasn’t super-crazy about the film version of The Ruins I haven’t paid much attention to its impending DVD release, but apparently the director’s cut includes an alternate ending. I didn’t have beef with the ending per se, it was more an issue of its pacing, so I’m curious to see if or how that changed.

* In an appropriately dizzying post, Kip Manley connects the dots in the Grant Morrison DCU, from Final Crisis to Seven Soldiers to All Star Superman to Batman to (via Hypertime, or something) The Invisibles and beyond. (Via Douglas Wolk.)

* Rick Marshall (and a fan at an autograph signing) talk to Brian Michael Bendis about, among other things, the current status of the Powers and Alias TV series.

* The RZA’s making a martial arts movie called The Man with the Iron Fist. Marvel Studios, call your lawyers (although now that I think about it, they’re probably already pretty familiar with Shaolin’s Finest). (Via AICN.)

* I try to treat most people who worry that Frank Miller won’t “respect” Will Eisner’s creation The Spirit in his film adaptation thereof with the laughing disinterest they mostly deserve, but ADDTF blogfather Bill Sherman is a guy I take seriously, so I found his post about how Miller’s blog has and hasn’t assuaged his concerns on that score a worthwhile read.

* Speaking of Frank the Tank, I gave my response to Tom Spurgeon’s patriotism-themed 4th of July Five for Friday feature a decidedly Millerian spin. (Honorable mention: The Flash giving Don Rumsfeld rabbit ears during a press conference in The Dark Knight Strikes Again.)

* Chris Mautner assembled quite the critics’ roundtable on the topic of reviewing and ethics, specifically how people handle talking about projects by people they know and are friendly with. It’s funny, even though I’ve been burned once or twice in the past by repeated praise of a book that turned out to be by a buddy of the praiser’s, I find I do this myself in reviewing books by the likes of Shawn Cheng or Jeff Brown. In part that’s because I think I can still be fair, and in part it’s because in the case of pretty much all of my friends in comics, I became friends with them because I liked their comics, not the other way around. For me personally, a stickier area might be how to handle talking about stuff by people who publish or pay me–look over there under the heading “The Sean Collins Media Empire” and you’ll see a list of those who are a going concern at the moment. Due to my stated aim of blogging only about stuff I’m interested in and trying to avoid heaping snark and scorn on the target du jour, this hasn’t been a huge problem to date. Overall I like to think I’ve still been pretty honest and fair addressing what works and doesn’t work in projects relevant to those outlets, and a simple “if you don’t have anything nice to say etc” policy helps any time I’m tempted to really curbstomp something, but as I just said, that’s true of everything I write about. Bottom line: I have never and will never pretend to like something I dislike, or pretend to love something I like, on this blog. After all, I’m not here to make friends.

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