Yes, you read that correctly: Harry Shearer has decided in the nick of time to remain with the 26-years-running animated comedy series, THE SIMPSONS, and will continue lending his voice to Mr. Burns, Ned Flanders and other characters.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Shearer's contract is not special, being the same as all the other primary voice actors: a four-year deal, with a dollar value estimated at nearly $300,000 per episode.

So rest assured -- the voices of your favorite characters will not be given to another actor. Shearer's deal was done just in time so production would not be affected. THE SIMPSONS will begin their 27th season on September 27th.

Now, FOX, what can you do about getting Phil Hartman back?

Secret Wars #4 by Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic

Summary: The Cabal are fighting Thors.  Doctor Strange explains to the liferaft survivors that the old multiverse was created with order by alien entities.  Battleworld was more of an act of desperation with Doom taking the shattered remains of the broken Earths and pulling them all together. The new world is unnatural, and survival is its first and highest purpose.  In needs a god with a firm hand...in other words, it needs Doom.

There's a good chance that if you're reading this, you or someone you know has been touched by autism. It's not often we find ourselves reading about subjects that have nothing to do with us. Only the few seek knowledge in areas they are unfamiliar with, but if not for those select few, we would not gain the wisdom required to understand it better.

If you're one of those people, let me give you a brief introduction to the world of autism.

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

Comics Shipping This Week

Quite a few books I want to talk about this week!

ARCHIE #1 - The big Archie relaunch starts here. Regular readers of my work will know that I have been talking about this relaunch for a while. This is the book I am most hyped about this week, if just for the creative team of Mark Waid and Fiona Staples. All that said, it is VERY weird to see Archie looking so different after all these years.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – (July 1, 2015) – Call it the duck days of summer, the time when it’s 90 degrees outside and still four months away from hunting season. The Robertson family has come up with a way to chase away those summer blues and benefit deserving charities as well.

SCHADENFREEZERS! by Jason Kreher and Matt Moore

Hardcover - $13.99 ($11.15 on Amazon)
Kindle - $10.37
Published by Adams Media
128 Pages

NEW YORK – July 6, 2015 – Actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan will join the critically acclaimed drama THE GOOD WIFE as a series regular during the show’s upcoming seventh season. Morgan will play Alex, a calm, experienced hourly investigator whom Alicia hires. 

"We've loved and admired Jeffrey Dean Morgan for years, and we were thrilled to hear that Julianna did too, so it was a no-brainer to ask him to join our troupe," said executive producers Robert and Michelle King.

It seems like every publication is doing a comic-con variant cover these days. With all of the superhero content hitting the airwaves, it makes perfect sense for TV Guide to get in on the act.

John Connor had it all wrong. Instead of sending his best friend back in time to save his mother, he should've sent someone to round up the dinosaurs.

JURASSIC WORLD, having been in theaters, for several weeks, is still rampaging through the box office. Unfortunately, for the latest rise of the machines, Terminator was crushed under the weight of a movie with an indominus spirit. In an attempt to re-invigorate a once popular franchise, TERMINATOR: GENISYS was unable to meet opening weekend expectations as it failed to exceed $30 million.

INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #1 by Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez

Excitement Level: 4 out of 5 – I really like this Iron Man design.  I am amazed that even though Marvel is constantly changing Iron Man’s look, for the most part, I typically always enjoy what they come up with.  There was a lot of speculation on who would be wearing the Iron Man armor after SECRET WARS, but the teaser images for this book definitely look like Tony Stark to me. 

Today is part 4 of our All-New All-Different Marvel coverage.  The remaining books weren’t particularly easy to group, so I just lumped them all together and will post them alphabetically.

AGENTS OF S.H.I.EL.D. #1 by Marc Guggenheim and Mike Norton

There isn't enough epic horror in the world. Almost every horror story is a killer offing the cast one-by-one, or it ends up with a small group holed up somewhere trying to survive. When I say epic, what I'm talking about is a work like Stephen King's THE STAND, a continent-spanning adventure with multiple settings and dozens of characters. Some would say that's THE WALKING DEAD, but I wholeheartedly disagree with that assertion. It's just a group of characters hiding in various places talking season after season. It's not grand or epic in any way.

You can love it. You can hate it. But you can't deny it's success or sheer popularity among fans.

The first graphic novel covering Superman/Wonder Woman, sub-titled: Power Couple has received the distinction of being the winner of 2015's Stan Lee Excelsior Award!

The Stan Lee Excelsior Award was established in 2011 to "encourage reading for pleasure amongst children and teenagers". It also was intended to "raise the profile of graphic novels and manga amonst school librarians and teachers". With hopes of the awards bringing awareness to schools for graphic novels that deserve to be included in their libraries, it has brought graphic novels to over 77 schools just one year later.

This year's 3 finalists were (in order of placement):

Marvel has been announcing their post-Secret Wars plans.  I'll be posting them up over the next few days with some commentary.  I tried to break them up by theme.  Today, we’re talking Avengers.  I will admit that I should probably have included , SCARLET WITCH, CAPTAIN MARVEL and VISION as “Avengers” books, especially over ANT-MAN, but we had a lot of titles to cover and I needed to break them down as best I can.

Marvel has been announcing their post-Secret Wars plans.  I'll be posting them up over the next few days with some commentary.  I tried to break them up by theme.  Today, we’re talking X-Men.   For months now, we’re heard the rumors that Marvel was going to be getting out of the mutant business.   I’ve called BS on those rumors all along, and I think that this lineup of books SHOULD put that to rest.  These are some terrific, top-notch creative teams and should be a strong indicator that Marvel still has a lot of faith in their mutant line.

This contest is over. The randomly selected winnier is SHANNON B. of EMMETSBURG, IA.

The Who's 1982 tour would prove to be their last with Kenney Jones on drums and the band wouldn't do a full scale tour again until 1989. The tour promoted the then recent IT'S HARD album, which had been released in June 1982, and the set list included a number of tracks from that album, some of which the band would only ever play live on this tour.

The main film features the show from the second of their two nights at New York's Shea Stadium on October 13, 1982, with bonus tracks from the first night.

The Who remain one of the finest live rock acts of all time, and this show will be a great addition to any fan's collection.

Marvel has been announcing their post-Secret Wars plans.  I'll be posting them up over the next few days with some commentary.  I tried to break them up by theme.  Starting today with Spider-Man.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1 by Dan Slott and Guiseppe Camuncoli

Cheap Pops - June 30, 2015

by Chris Delloiacono, Mike Maillaro and Jeff Ritter

This week!

• TNA Resurgence?

• What does Bret Hart think of the WWE?

• Best in our World - Managers

• NXT Results

• Lucha Underground Results

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

Comics Shipping This Week