What Is Techno Again?

DC and Warner Bros. Pictures tore up the wild west with their misfire Jonah Hex flick, which stars Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, and John Malkovich. In anticipation of the summer snooze, artist Tony DeZuniga hitched a spot on Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti’s writing team, and together the three whipped out the first-ever Jonah Hex original graphic novel. Does the comic fare differently than its Hollywood counterpart, or does the gun-slinging vigilante take center stage in a story about as interesting as a colony of prairie dogs?

I’d choose those grassland rodents any day of the week. Jonah Hex: No Way Back follows the DC icon as he traipses across the Nevada landscape in search of his long lost mother Virginia “Ginny” Dazzleby, who resorted to prostitution after abandoning a young Jonah and leaving him in the hands of an abusive, drunken father. Recounting influential moments throughout the character’s past, the book eventually forces Hex into a standoff against the savage El Papagayo and his gang of Mexican bandits.

If you’ve visited the theaters lately, then you probably sat through a comic book movie trailer or two. 2009 might have been relatively dry in terms of the genre, but 2010 promises a new wave of both superhero and indie productions. While there are plenty on the slate, here are our picks of movies with a targeted 2010 release date. Which of them will you watch on the big screen?

April 9: The Losers

Sylvain White (Stomp the Yard, Quiet) helms the film adaptation of the Vertigo comic, The Losers, written by Andy Diggle. Loosely based on the original Losers WWII-themed DC series, The Losers—starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Clay, Chris Evans as Jensen, Idris Elba as Roque, Columbus Short as Pooch, and Óscar Jaenada as Cougar—centers on a U.S. Special Forces unit double-crossed and left for dead on a mission in the Bolivian jungle. With the help of a mysterious operative named Aisha, the team bands together and makes plans to enact their revenge.

With its release four months away, trailers should already be bombarding the internet if not soon. The directive choice isn’t the best, and with the more obscure title, there’s a danger that The Losers might wind up last in the box office competition this spring. Only time will tell.