8 Superheroines Who Are Real Bitches

by King Oblivion, Ph.D.

We've already brought you two lists of superhero douchebags, but we don't want to give the impression that we're not equal-opportunity haters, or that superheroines don't also suck.

So here, we lovingly give you the bitchiest ladies in spandex this side of Suzanne Somers.

Scarlet Witch
Known for: Having powers that can basically do anything, being Magneto's daughter, screwing a robot
A bitch because of: Her propensity to wipe out entire races of people, destroying a team of her old friends
The defense: One time, when the Avengers got sent back in time by King Arthur's elven half-sister (don't ask), she restored Captain America's memories, thereby making sure the world doesn't forget how much Nazi ass he squashed in WWII.
The case against: When a slightly drunk Wasp (we'll get to her in a minute) mentioned the children the Scarlet Witch actually never had with her robot husband, the Vision, she went crazy nuts and killed half the team. She also destroyed their home base, which cost Tony Stark what would equal about ten bucks to us, but still. Then, in the ultimate, "fuck you, Dad" moment ever, she wiped out all the mutants in the world, basically. Tell me that's not worse than some lady cutting you off in traffic.

Terra
Known for: Lying, having an exceptionally literal name, hanging out with the awesomely named Deathstroke the Terminator
A bitch because of: The lying, not giving her man a chance to explain hisself
The defense: The Terra who hangs around with the Teen Titans now doesn't seem to lie nearly as much, but that doesn't mean she couldn't.
The case against: Okay, yes, she's not technically a superheroine, but she pretended to be one, so it counts. Much is made of the fact that Terra infiltrated the Teen Titans and posed as a member so that Deathstroke could kidnap and try to kill them, but that's not the main issue here. Our real beef is that she turned on Deathstroke because she thought he turned against her, even though it was his punk-ass son that freed the Titans, not him. She didn't even let him explain before she brought down his whole, quite expensive complex down on him. That's cold.

The Wasp
Known for: Being tiny, having a different outfit, like, every day, constantly talking about how hot Thor is in a Paris Hilton-like manner
A bitch because of: Her indefensible love of douchebags
The defense: She came up with the name The Avengers, which I gotta say is pretty sweet.
The case against: Timid scientist Hank Pym, a.k.a Giant Man, had never gotten up the balls to ask the Wasp to marry him, and she was apparently okay with that. But when he burst in saying he was a totally different guy, Yellowjacket, she upped and got hitched to him. She knew all along Yellowjacket was actually Pym, and took advantage of his schizophrenic outburst to finally make the leap. So in summary, she didn't actually think it was worthwhile to marry a guy who loved her until he became a fucking crazy cockmunch. What a boost to the egos of regular dudes everywhere.

Raven
Known for: An unyielding love of hoods, extreme gothiness, not being the Raven from "That's So Raven"
A bitch because of: Her literal manipulation of her boyfriend's emotions
The defense: Outside of Robin, she's the only tolerable character on the "Teen Titans" cartoon.
The case against: Not once, but twice, in two different incarnations, she used her powers of emotion control to convince dudes to love her. First, it was Kid Flash, then it was Nightwing, as if those guys were even worth the effort. Oh, and she occasionally turns into a manifestation of her evil dad, much like any number of my ex-girlfriends.

The Invisible Woman
Known for: Being subject to Reed Richards' rampant sexism, invisibility, being played by Jessica Alba with a terrible dye job
A bitch because of: The fact she has a whole other personality devoted to being a bitch, ridiculous parenting choices
The defense: She did decide to turn against Reed after he made a clone Thor. Good move.
The case against: Sometimes, when she's in a particularly bad mood, Susan Richards will just turn into a whole other person named Malice, who is sometimes mean to The Thing, which seems all but impossible. Malice is nothing but bitchiness incarnate, like a physical manifestation of PMS. She could only get rid of Malice when Reed made her genuinely hate him, which is hilarious. On top of that, when she left Reed after he made the aforementioned clone Thor, she left their children in his care. This is a man who just created a murdering mechanical thunder god, and you think it's best he keep the kids. Smart.

Zatanna
Known for: Talking backwards all the time, a very weird relationship with Batman, fishnets
A bitch because of: Horrible ethics, her ill-advised habit of pissing off a guy who dresses like a bat for fun
The defense: In the kick-ass Grant Morrison "Seven Soldiers" miniseries, she casts a spell to move time and space so that Frankenstein can whomp more people.
The case against: Her only solution to anything is to erase people's memories, apparently. Dr. Light rapes the Elongated Man's wife? Erase his memory. Other people know stuff about the Justice League? Erase their memories. Batman shows up to complain about all the memory erasing? Erase his memory. Red Tornado catches her finishing up the last of the peanut butter in the Hall of Justice? Oh, you better believe she's erasing his memory. That's like somebody trying to swat a fly by hitting it with a wrecking ball.

Emma Frost
Known for: Bitchiness, extremely revealing clothing, having creepy triplets around her all the time
A bitch because of: Her pursuit of a married man who just happens to be wed to a woman who can turn into a huge bird made of fire
The defense: When Iron Man tried to get the X-Men to participate in his douchey Superhuman Registration Act, she said no thanks in a showing of bitchiness being used for good (at least, good in our view).

The case against: Not only did she try to make moves on married stick-in-the-mud Cyclops, she did it by infiltrating his mind and making herself look like the guy's wife, Jean Grey, who happened to catch them in the act.
Also, she always wears ridiculously revealing clothes, but seems like the most frigid bitch who ever bitched a bitch. Like, she'd get all crazy and smack you with her diamond fists if you just tried to touch a little cheek or even looked for too long. Bitch!

Wonder Woman
Known for: Her wondrous ability to combine bondage with polygraph exams, starry tights, being played by Lynda Carter
A bitch because of: Cold-hearted murder
The defense: She has saved guys named Steve from danger more times than I can count. Also, she pretty fly.

The case against: So, this guy Maxwell Lord, who everyone thought was a great dude but had in fact just shot the shit out of Blue Beetle, had Superman under his mind control, right? Because apparently everyone who lives in comic-book-land has the technology to control everyone else's mind. Anyway, Superman's beating the crap out of Batman. So Wonder Woman finds Lord, ties him up in her crazy lasso of truth or whatever and asks how to stop it. He says, "Kill me."
And without even blinking, she turns his neck into a bendy straw. And here's the kicker, she was so ice-cold that even douchebag Batman was like, "Whoa, that was harsh!" That takes effort.

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MSNBC Takes Incendiary Hosts From Anchor Seat

By BRIAN STELTER

MSNBC tried a bold experiment this year by putting two politically incendiary hosts, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, in the anchor chair to lead the cable news channel’s coverage of the election.

That experiment appears to be over.

After months of accusations of political bias and simmering animosity between MSNBC and its parent network NBC, the channel decided over the weekend that the NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host David Gregory would anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night. Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews will remain as analysts during the coverage.

The change — which comes in the home stretch of the long election cycle — is a direct result of tensions associated with the channel’s perceived shift to the political left.

“The most disappointing shift is to see the partisan attitude move from prime time into what’s supposed to be straight news programming,” said Davidson Goldin, formerly the editorial director of MSNBC and a co-founder of the reputation management firm DolceGoldin.

Executives at the channel’s parent company, NBC Universal, had high hopes for MSNBC’s coverage of the political conventions. Instead, the coverage frequently descended into on-air squabbles between the anchors, embarrassing some workers at NBC’s news division, and quite possibly alienating viewers. Although MSNBC nearly doubled its total audience compared with the 2004 conventions, its competitive position did not improve, as it remained in last place among the broadcast and cable news networks. In prime time, the channel averaged 2.2 million viewers during the Democratic convention and 1.7 million viewers during the Republican convention.

The success of the Fox News Channel in the past decade along with the growth of political blogs have convinced many media companies that provocative commentary attracts viewers and lures Web browsers more than straight news delivered dispassionately.

“In a rapidly changing media environment, this is the great philosophical debate,” Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, said in a telephone interview Saturday. Fighting the ratings game, he added, “the bottom line is that we’re experiencing incredible success.”

But as the past two weeks have shown, that success has a downside. When the vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin lamented media bias during her speech, attendees of the Republican convention loudly chanted “NBC.”

In interviews, 10 current and former staff members said that long-simmering tensions between MSNBC and NBC reached a boiling point during the conventions. “MSNBC is behaving like a heroin addict,” one senior staff member observed. “They’re living from fix to fix and swearing they’ll go into rehab the next week.”

The employee, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity because the network does not permit its people to speak to the media without authorization. (The New York Times and NBC News have a content-sharing arrangement exclusively for political coverage.)

Mr. Olbermann, a 49-year-old former sportscaster, has become the face of the more aggressive MSNBC, and the lightning rod for much of the criticism. His program “Countdown,” now a liberal institution, was created by Mr. Olbermann in 2003 but it found its voice in his gnawing dissent regarding the Bush administration, often in the form of “special comment” segments.

As Mr. Olbermann raised his voice, his ratings rose as well, and he now reaches more than one million viewers a night, a higher television rating than any other show in the troubled 12-year history of the network. As a result, his identity largely defines MSNBC. “They have banked the entirety of the network on Keith Olbermann,” one employee said.

In January, Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews, the host of “Hardball,” began co-anchoring primary night coverage, drawing an audience that enjoyed the pair’s “SportsCenter”-style show. While some critics argued that the assignment was akin to having the Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly anchor on election night — something that has never happened — MSNBC insisted that Mr. Olbermann knew the difference between news and commentary.

But in the past two weeks, that line has been blurred. On the final night of the Republican convention, after MSNBC televised the party’s video “tribute to the victims of 9/11,” including graphic footage of the World Trade Center attacks, Mr. Olbermann abruptly took off his journalistic hat.

“I’m sorry, it’s necessary to say this,” he began. After saying that the video had exploited the memories of the dead, he directly apologized to viewers who were offended. Then, sounding like a network executive, he said it was “probably not appropriate to be shown.”

In an interview on Sunday, Mr. Olbermann said that moment — and the perception that he is “not utterly neutral” — restarted months-old conversations about his role on political nights.

“I found it ironic and instructive that I could have easily said exactly what I did say, exactly when I did say it, if I had been wearing a different hat, and nobody would have taken any issue,” he said.

“Countdown” will still be shown before the three fall debates and a second edition will be shown sometime afterwards, following the program anchored by Mr. Gregory.

The change casts new doubt on what some staff members believe is an effective programming strategy: prime-time talk of a liberal sort. A like-minded talk show will now follow “Countdown” at 9 p.m.: “The Rachel Maddow Show,” hosted by the liberal radio host, begins Monday.

Mr. Griffin, MSNBC’s president, denies that it has an ideology. “I think ideology means we think one way, and we don’t,” he said. Rather than label MSNBC’s prime time as left-leaning, he says it has passion and point of view.

But MSNBC is the cable arm of NBC News, the dispassionate news division of NBC Universal. MSNBC, “Today” and “NBC Nightly News” share some staff members, workspace and content. And some critics are claiming they also share a political affiliation.

The McCain campaign has filed letters of complaint to the news division about its coverage and openly tied MSNBC to it. Tension between the network and the campaign hit an apex the day Mr. McCain announced Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. MSNBC had reported Friday morning that Ms. Palin’s plane was enroute to the announcement and she was likely the pick. But McCain campaign officials warned the network off, with one official going so far as to say that all of the candidates on the short list were on their way — which MSNBC then reported.

“The fact that it was reported in real time was very embarrassing,” said a senior MSNBC official. “We were told, ‘No, it’s not Sarah Palin and you don’t know who it is.’ ”

Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams, the past and present anchors of “NBC Nightly News,” have told friends and colleagues that they are finding it tougher and tougher to defend the cable arm of the news division, even while they anchored daytime hours of convention coverage on MSNBC and contributed commentary each evening.

Mr. Williams did not respond to a request for comment and Mr. Brokaw declined to comment. At a panel discussion in Denver, Mr. Brokaw acknowledged that Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews had “gone too far” at times, but emphasized they were “not the only voices” on MSNBC, according to The Washington Post.

Al Hunt, the executive Washington bureau chief of Bloomberg News, said that the entire news division was being singled out by Republicans because of the work of partisans like Mr. Olbermann. “To go and tar the whole news network and Brokaw and Mitchell is grossly unfair,” he said, referring to the NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell.

Some tensions have spilled out on-screen. On the first night in Denver, as the fellow MSNBC host Joe Scarborough talked about the resurgence of the McCain campaign, Mr. Olbermann dismissed it by saying: “Jesus, Joe, why don’t you get a shovel?”

The following night, Mr. Olbermann and his co-anchor for convention coverage, Mr. Matthews, had their own squabble after Mr. Olbermann observed that Mr. Matthews had talked too long.

Some staff members said the tension led to the network’s decision to keep Mr. Olbermann in New York for the Republican convention, after he ran the desk in Denver during the Democratic convention. MSNBC said that he stayed in New York to anchor coverage of Hurricane Gustav. But some workers say there were other reasons — namely, that Mr. Olbermann was concerned about his safety in St. Paul, given the loud crowds at MSNBC’s set in Denver.

NBC Universal executives are also known to be concerned about the perception that MSNBC’s partisan tilt in prime time is bleeding into the rest of the programming day. On a recent Friday afternoon, a graphic labeled “Breaking News” asked: “How many houses does Palin add to the Republican ticket?” Mr. Griffin called the graphic “an embarrassment.”

According to three staff members, Jeff Zucker, chief executive of NBC Universal, and Steve Capus, president of NBC News, considered flying to the Republican convention in Minnesota last week to address the lingering tensions.

Up to now, the company’s public support for MSNBC’s strategy has been enthusiastic. At an anniversary party for Mr. Olbermann in April, Mr. Zucker called “Countdown” “one of the signature brands of the entire company.”

Just last year, Mr. Olbermann signed a four-year, $4-million-a-year contract with MSNBC. NBC is close to supplementing that contract with Mr. Olbermann, extending his deal through 2013 — and ensuring that he will be on MSNBC through the next election.

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Will Smith Is (Maybe Possibly) Captain America

Uh...

...during an MTV News interview regarding his role in “Miracle at St. Anna,” actor Derek Luke let slip that a very prominent - and surprising - face could be the star of Marvel Studios’ next blockbuster film. “I heard they offered Will Smith ‘Captain America,’” said Luke, adding that the intriguing casting rumor “just shows you how times have changed.”
Okay. Let's work through this together.
• I don't even know who Derek Luke is, let alone why he would know what Marvel or
Will Smith is up to. I imagine his "Hollywood sources" are much in line with Julie Newmar's, which is to say her cats. In fact, Newmar's cats may also be talking to Luke directly. Somebody needs to check on these cats. The point is, there's no reason to trust Luke's word on this.
• If Will Smith has been offered the part, I can't imagine he won't take it. He might be busy, but he's not going to say no because he's not white enough. Him taking the role would be a seriously big deal in the world of race and mass media, let alone our little nerd/comics world.
• If you publicly disagree with this potential casting, someone will call you a racist. I've been trying to figure out some kind of excuse as to why this isn't so, but I've come up with nothing. I'll keep you posted.
• Actually, we're all probably racist. I don't see how we can get around this.
• If Will Smith does end up as Cap, Black Panther is totally screwed.

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This Is The Star Trek Reboot We Want

You may be waiting with baited breath for JJ Abrams' Star Trek reboot to see what kind of new light can be shone on Gene Rodenberry's most famous creation. But you don't have to wait until next summer to see a modern take on the 23rd Century - Trailers for the German SciFi Channel show why Abrams isn't the only game in town when it comes to knowing where Trek could go next.

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The MPAA Hates Kevin Smith

posted by: Amelie Gillette

The MPAA, the film ratings organization that keeps us safe from dangerous movie guns pointed directly at our innocent eyes, recently banned the following poster for Kevin Smith's upcoming movie, Zack & Miri Make A Porno. Their reason? Suggestively placed backs of heads:

Smith wasn't really surprised by the banning, even though as far as allusions to oral sex go, his poster was pretty tame:

"When you've got the word 'porno' in the title, naturally, the marketing materials are gonna be scrutinized more closely by the MPAA," says the director. "I understand they've got a job to do, but c'mon...this image isn't that dirty; they're both fully clad."

Smith is right: the image really isn't that dirty, especially when you consider other movie posters that may have passed MPAA scrutiny. Take this poster for Dane Cook's magnum opus, Good Luck Chuck.

I realize that trying to find logic (and consistency) in MPAA decisions is like searching for depth in an America's Next Top Model marathon, but come on.

So for the MPAA, dripping, phallic ice cream cone = acceptably subtle sexual allusion, but backs of heads = unacceptable sexual allusion.

Oh, wait:

Okay, so maybe the MPAA thinks America can handle the sight of shirtless Dane Cook receiving oral sex, but not fully-clothed Seth Rogen. Or Elizabeth Banks. And they're right: I mean, you can't deny the raw douchebagguality (That's Douchebag + Sexuality. Portmanteau alert!) of Dane Cook.

I'm not sure if the MPAA approved those two posters or if they were only released in an internet-only campaign, but the MPAA definitely approved the following one, which definitively proves one thing: The MPAA hates sexual imagery, unless it involves Dane Cook.

Yuck. Semi-nude Dane Cook bastardizations of iconic John Lennon photographs are precisely the kinds of things the MPAA should be shielding us from, not relatively innocent, fully-clothed blowjob jokes. What about the children?!?!

Original here

‘Dangerous’ Box Office Numbers Reveal America’s Lack of Interest

Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com)

WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE?? Why aren’t you at the local movie theater? What the heck is it that people pack these places during the summer when it is stinking hot and there’s plenty of outdoor activities to take advantage of, yet at the first sign of fall people run like hell from the theaters?!

Probably, no doubt, because Hollywood is driving people away with what they are serving up at the moment. This week, of course, they served up very little: one freaking new movie. And I know it’s back-to-school, and there are still people fleeing hurricanes and the like (the entire east coast was hit by tropical storm Hanna this weekend). And football season is on everywhere. But let’s face it: it’s easy to come up with an excuse not to go to the movies if the flicks being served up are so dog-awful.

The top flick in the land was the lone new release this week: Nicolas Cage’s piece of junk Bangkok Dangerous. Yet it only made something like $7.8 Million. Not even eight freaking million dollars for a first-place movie!! Now that really is sad, folks. A showing like that makes the whole movie industry look like it’s in a depression.

This is definitely the worst weekend of the year at theaters so far. In fact, I’ve read this is the worst weekend at the box office in seven years.

What do you expect, though, when studios treat late August and early September as a dumping ground for all the crap movies that didn’t test well with audiences?! They’re basically conceding defeat before they even start! No wonder there’s no one paying these inflated movie prices, then, If that’s how Hollywood views the early fall period.

Here is how Rotten Tomatoes rated these latest bird-turd releases that rolled out the last three weeks. Bangkok Dangerous: 12 percent. Babylon A.D.: 7 percent. The House Bunny: 39 percent. Traitor: 53 percent. Death Race: 39 percent. Disaster Movie: A big, freaking zero percent!!! Now, Hamlet 2 did get 62 percent, but that was it. One freaking movie rated as “fresh” among the wide releases. No WONDER everyone is staying home.

If you want to see any movies that have a hope of being good, there’s always the Toronto International Film Festival, where everyone from Brad Pitt to Paris Hilton is hanging out. That’s the one place in North America where theaters are packed for these Oscar contenders.

Having been there before, though, I can say with certitude that not all these theaters in Toronto are packed. Some of these art-house and foreign flicks play to pretty empty houses. But the gala flicks all pack the joint.

At least there is SOME place on earth where people are still excited about the movies, instead of totally repelled. Seven freaking million for the top domestic box office movie: that is a joke, folks. Summer is DEFINITELY over and in the grave.

The grim final numbers from this joke of a weekend at theaters:

1. Bangkok Dangerous	$7.8 million
2. Tropic Thunder	$7.5 million
3. The House Bunny	$5.9 million
4. The Dark Knight	$5.7 million
5. Traitor	$4.6 million
6. Babylon A.D.	$4.0 million
7. Death Race	$3.6 million
8. Disaster Movie	$3.3 million
9. Mamma Mia!	$2.7 million
10. Pineapple Express	$2.4 million

So that about wraps up this dismal weekend. What else is there to add? Everyone has flown the coop. The cinema multiplex is a sad place to be these days.

There’s nowhere to go but up, right? Check back later this week for what is sure to be a big weekend with lots of new flicks on the way here at the Reject Report.

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Police: Gary Coleman hit man with truck in Utah

Email Picture

Richard Drew / Associated Press

A file photo from February shows Coleman appearing on the the "Today" show. According to police, Coleman "wasn't happy about" photos of him that the pedestrian had taken.

PAYSON, Utah -- Actor Gary Coleman hit a pedestrian with his truck after arguing with him in a local bowling alley, police said.

Payson police Lt. Bill Wright said Colt Rushton and Coleman got into an argument in the early morning hours Saturday over pictures Rushton had taken of Coleman inside the bowling alley. He said the argument continued outside, and that Coleman hit Rushton and a car as he was backing out of a parking space.

Neither man was issued a citation, and Wright said it wasn't clear whether Coleman hit Rushton on purpose. He said neither man was giving authorities much information.

"We're currently trying to sort through those issues," Wright told the Deseret News of Salt Lake City. "We've been able to establish there was an argument between the two, due to pictures Rushton wanted to take. He took some of Gary Coleman, and (Coleman) wasn't happy about it."

Rushton was taken to a hospital and treated for minor injuries and released.

Neither Coleman nor Rushton could be reached for comment Sunday. Neither had a listed phone number that could be found.

Wright told The Salt Lake Tribune there are "indications" that alcohol was a factor in the accident. He was unavailable for comment Sunday.

Coleman, who starred in the television sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes" from 1978 to 1986 as the character Arnold Jackson, pleaded no contest in California in 1999 to disturbing the peace after he punched an autograph-seeker he claimed insulted him.

Payson is 52 miles southeast of Salt Lake City.

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