Alison Blaire, aka Dazzler, was one of my favorite mutants, in an era where all of the mutants were my favorite mutants. Sure, she was a product of her disco-ball times, but the concept of being able to convert sound into light was a quantum theory twist I hadn't seen done before. I used to imagine the damage she could do teamed up with Songbird or (gulp!) Black Bolt. I even collected that less-than-stellar BEAUTY AND THE BEAST miniseries that teamed her pseudo-romantically with Hank McCoy.

So I was willing to see what Dazzler was up to in the twenty-teens, and the answer is: not much. Just chillin', just hangin' with the band, not being super and trying to stay out of trouble.

The newest incarnation of JUSTICE LEAGUE, written by Scott Snyder, is now on shelves at your local comics shop.

However, what you may find more difficult to obtain is one of the exclusive variant covers, especially one signed by Mr. Snyder himself!

But let not your heart be troubled--Critical Blast has been gifted with such a signed copy, with cover art by Tyler Kirkham and Arif Prianto, and we want to pass that good fortune along to you!

Be sure to read our Rules and Regulations before proceeding, but after that enter into the contest by performing one, more, or all of the options in the widget below. Some are worth more than a single entry, and some can be performed more than once, so maximize your chances as you see fit.

For justice!

When Scott Miller announced that New Line Theatre was doing Anything Goes during their 27^th season, the local theatre crowd was abuzz – it seemed too “safe” of a show for the bad boys of musical theatre. Of course they put on a dynamite production. The counterpoint production this season is clearly Yeast Nation, a musical about…yeast. Not the bread kind per se, or any other culinary culture, but the base of the primordial food chain, the single-celled stock of the soup of life. Is it weird? Yes. Is it New Line turned up to eleven, zany and shocking and well-acted with music and songs that are, dare I say it, infectious? Yes, indeed! Yeast Nation is easily the most bizarre musical you’ll see this year and perhaps for many years to come.

If you haven't been paying attention to what Scott Snyder has been doing, you've been missing out. There's a reason why Snyder snagged our Best Comics Writer of 2015, and helmed what our readers selected as the Best Comics Storyline of 2017.

More and more shows are being rebooted from the 90’s. Was television just better back then or are there other reasons why they have made a return?

BAILEE MADISON (ONCE UPON A TIME) headlines this unsettling slasher flick, alongside CATCH-22's LEWIS PULLMAN, GREY'S ANATOMY's MARTIN HENDERSON, and GOOD GIRLS' CHRISTINA HENDRICKS.

The film focuses on a nuclear family -- mother, father, brother, daughter -- who have been experiencing difficulties with the behavior of their daughter (MADISON) -- so much so that they've elected to send her to a boarding school for girls. The planned road trip will see them spending the night in a trailer park owned and operated by their uncle, who runs the place for vacationers.

The family arrives late at night to find the place entirely abandoned -- not unusual for the time of year, they think. They get the key from under the mat and begin to settle in for the night, only to find out there's a reason why the place is abandoned, beginning with finding their uncle slaughtered in his trailer.

The famous bay from “The Beach” will be closing to tourists for the first time. The bay will be closed every year for a short recovery period. 

If you did not know who your biological father was, would you break the law to find out?  How far would you go?

Katie, or KT, is a teenager who wants to know her biological father.  Her mother, Kim, finally tells Katie where to find, who Katie believes to be, her biological father.  Truth be told, Katie learns her mother and father used a sperm donor: Donor 806.  Through social media, Katie learns of two boys who are also recipients of Donor 806.

The three of them set out on a journey together to find their biological father.  Their experiences are enjoyable, worrisome, and amusing.  Imagine three extremely different teenagers, from three very different homes, on limited funds, driving together to find a man who does not necessarily want to be found or know “his kids” are seeking him out.  All three teenagers have very strong, but different, reasons for wanting to find their biological father.

Season 2 of the Netflix show 13 Reasons Why has been met with harsh criticism by mental health experts. We take a look the topic in the spotlight. 

WrestlePro makes it's long awaited return to their home at the Rahway Recreation Center in Rahway, NJ on Friday, June 8. Tickets are on sale here!

There are some real big names in the house this month. Tyson Kidd, Demolition, D'Lo Brown, RVD, and Mene Gene Okerland are all here, plus we have Ultimo Dragon, James Ellworth, Flip Gordon, Colt Cobana, and Brandi Rhodes wrestling, along with the always terrific WrestlePro originals.

As usual, WrestlePro has a stacked card, and I am here with your predictions!

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s long-running 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

Disney posted up a new trailer for November's WRECK-IT RALPH 2: RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET!  The trailer is very funny, and I really liked the first WRECK-IT RALPH.  That said, I worry a bit about all the corporate synergy here.  Disney, Marvel, Star Wars...yeah, there is plenty of room for jokes here, but hopefully it just doesn't become one big Disney love fest.  Disney has always had a bit of a cult feel to me, aand even if they are laughing at themselves, I don't need 90 minutes of being reminded how much Disney owns me.  Hopefully, I am just being cynical.

I did love the bit at the end where Ralph says the movie should have been called "Wrecks the Internet." 

Having grown up in Jersey City and spending most of my working life in Newark, New Jersey, I have always had a great love and respect for Warren Murphy’s The Destroyer series. Warren himself was born in Jersey City, and his most iconic character, Remo Williams, started out as a Newark cop. Don’t tell Chiun I called Remo more iconic than him, he would not appreciate that at all….

I had lost track of the series over the years, but I was definitely curious when I heard that Warren Murphy had developed a spin-off called Legacy with Jerry Welch. I immediately fell in love with Legacy. Freya and Stone are terrific characters, and in just a few short books, Murphy and Welch have managed to expand the world of The Destroyer in some brilliant new ways. Jerry has been wonderful about answering any questions I have had about the series over the last few years, and I was glad to be able to sit down with him and do a full form interview.

Have you ever played the game where you try to figure out who would play you in the movie of your life? If you're Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler, or Spencer Stone, then you don't have to think about it any longer. The three were selected by Director Clint Eastwood to play themselves in the biographical picture 15:17 TO PARIS.

The film details the thwarted terrorist attack on a passenger train which was stopped by Skarlatos, Sadler and Stone. However, the film tries to do much more than that, as it reaches back into their childhoods to show how they became friends, became separated, and followed different life paths until meeting up again for a backpack tour of Europe that placed them in the right place at the right time.

Madeleine L'Engle's novel A WRINKLE IN TIME is a benchmark in science fiction and fantasy. Ava DuVernay's version...not so much.

While the film boasts an all-star cast, including three young leads who are already accomplished, the film suffers from immersing itself too deeply in its presentation, with the angelic characters of Mrs. Which (OPRAH WINFREY), Mrs. Who (MINDY KALING) and Mrs. Whatsit (REESE WITHERSPOON) done up so intensely gaudy in both costuming and makeup that it comes across the screen as simply bad cosplay.

Aquaman can talk to sea creatures. Even he admits it's something of a standing joke. But when a great white shark shows up in the waters of Amnesty Bay, he finds his so-called super power to be superfluous -- because this shark can talk! And talk! And talk!

He's definitely the most futuristic shark Aquaman has ever saw...er...seen. And he's lost. He can't find his bandmates, The Neptunes, anywhere.

Yes, he's in a band. Yes, he's the drummer.

Leading Aquaman to where he arrived, Jabberjaw shows him a portal that leads back to Aqualand -- a future world actually named after the hero, Aquaman, and a society based upon his principals of humans and sea creatures living in harmony. There's even an Aquaman cartoon show in Jabberjaw's world.

From MY MOTHER THE CAR to TURBO TEEN, the idea of the human/automobile hybrid has been an inconsistent and, honestly, weird trope that nevertheless pops up now and again.

And while the Hanna-Barbera series SPEED BUGGY had a sentient, anthropomorphic car, Speed Buggy himself wasn't a person trapped in the vehicle so much as he simply was the vehicle.

That story gets a revamp with THE FLASH / SPEED BUGGY #1, one of the many pairings of DC Comics and Hanna-Barbera heroes hitting shelves this week. When The Flash -- Wally West -- stops Kilg%re at S.T.A.R. Labs, he gets an assist from a man in a racing car -- Dr. M. Blanc. (Editors Note: Mel Blanc, the inimitable voice actor, provided the vocals for Speed Buggy in the cartoon series.) Blanc has been building a device that taps into the speed force and channels it into his vehicle. Flash is very concerned about this, because whenever people try to harness the Speed Force, things go very badly.

Nobody likes to get hurt doing something stupid. But everyone loves to see it happen to someone else!

This giveaway features the complete unrated TV collection of JACKASS, and all 7 movies: JACKASS THE MOVIE, it's sequels, and BAD GRANDPA!

For a chance to win this prize, just get in this shopping cart and light this pack of firecrackers while we push you downhill. If you make it across the Interstate without hitting a single car, then...

Excuse us a moment, our lawyers are trying to get our attention.

via GIPHY

Right then. We're back.

So it seems our insurance doesn't want to carry us any longer if we proceed as planned. But we have an alternative method. It's not nearly as fun (or funny) but it keeps us in business.

With the rains of Spring behind us, the clouds are parting and the visibility gets a light brighter, giving way to clear blue...

Look!

Up in the sky!

Is that a bird? A plane?

No, it's our June Bombshell, St. Louis Superman, aka Charlee Soffer!

Please give a warm welcome to our newest...

Critical Blast Bombshell, June 2018

Charlee Soffer

Lana Lang & Classic Superboy
Smallville Superfest

What is your interest in cosplay?

Cirsova Publishing has teamed up with Little Rocket Publications on the eve of the 35^th anniversary of Michael Tierney’s Wild Stars® to publish a special edition of WILD STARS III: TIME WARMAGEDDON.

Faster-than-light scouts are arriving at distant suns to discover that they have been “replaced” by white dwarfs and their planets have gone missing… Terraformers find a world that shows signs of previous human colonization: who were those people and where did they go? The saga of the Wild Stars continues as former-President Bully Bravo seeks to solve these mysteries while pursued by an evil pirate queen and a rogue time-traveler trying to create a god.