Ryan Reynolds Lands Green Lantern Gig

Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively star in Martin Campbell's film

(NEWSER) - Green Lantern is chock-full of special effects, but they’re not enough to rescue this superhero flick. Critics complain:

• “Green Lantern is bad,” writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times . It’s "impeded by lame jokes; evocations of better movies; an ugly-bruise palette of black, green, and purple; and a formulaic script that mechanically switches among story threads as TV shows often do.”

Joss Whedon directs Robert Downey Jr. in superhero blowout

(NEWSER) - Sure, it's an effective moneymaking scheme: release movies about individual superheroes, then one about all of them. But with Joss Whedon at the helm, The Avengers really works. What critics are saying:

• "Even if you don't particularly like comic-book adaptations, this film just might make a believer of you," writes Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times . "Whedon is the key reason why this $220 million behemoth of a movie is smartly thought out and executed with verve and precision."

But Nicolas Cage seems to get it: critics

(NEWSER) - Critics agree: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is ridiculous. But they're divided over whether the silliness of the sequel, once again starring Nicolas Cage as the devilish superhero, is funny or just bad.

• In the Merced Sun-Star , Roger Moore calls the movie "a profoundly silly mash-up of comic book and quasi-religious 'prophecy' about a motorcyclist who sold his soul to the devil." It beats the original: "This time around, Cage and everybody else on board are in on the joke," and that makes it "almost a great bad movie."

After dropping citizenship, hero salutes land of 'second chances'

(NEWSER) - Superman made headlines last month with his decision to drop his US citizenship —but he’s still American at heart. That’s made clear in a new issue of Superman, which features the superhero reaffirming his love for the country, Bleeding Cool reports. “That’s the American way. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness—and second chances. None of us are forced to be anything we don’t want to be,” he says, gazing up at Metropolis. More»

Silver Scorpion the brainchild of disabled US, Syrian kids

(NEWSER) - It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... well, this time it's something a bit different: The latest comic-book hero will be a wheelchair-bound Muslim boy who lost his legs in a landmine accident, reports the AP. The Silver Scorpion began to take shape when a US philanthropist, inspired by President Obama's outreach to the Muslim world, gathered a group of disabled American and Syrian kids to talk storylines. More»