Music

As regular readers will no doubt be aware, ComicsAlliance's most anticipated movie of 2015/ever is the upcoming live-action adaptation of the greatest glam-rock cartoon of all time, Jem and the Holograms. That said, there are a lot of rumors floating around about changes made in the transition from the small screen to the big screen. Some of them are interesting (possibly recasting Eric Raymond as a woman), some of them are worrisome (making an entire Jem movie without the Misfits), but they're all pointing at a Jem that's pretty different from the one we're used to. We just weren't quite expecting it to be this different. As you can see from the video above, it seems like the live-action Jem has recast its stars as men who sing in Italian. So... that's unexpected.

It probably shouldn't be surprising that Jason Latour and Robbie Rodriguez's Spider-Gwen is inspiring musical tributes from readers. She is, after all, one of the year's most talked about costume designs, ranking just behind the Batgirl of Burnside in terms of spiking fan interest even before the comic came out, and once it did, the revelation that she was the drummer for a band called the Mary Janes paved the way for people to express their love of Gwen Stacy through the magic... of song. We loved Married With Sea Monsters' grrl-group take on The Mary Janes' fictional anthem "Face It Tiger," and we're equally fond of the new track from ComicsAlliance's favorite MC, Adam Warrock. As you may already know, Adam (alias Euge Ahn) does a fundraiser every year called the 24-hour Rap-A-Thon, where he does as many tracks as he can in a single day, and one of those tracks was all about Gwen Stacy's turn as the new Spider-Woman. Today, he dropped the remix, and it's pretty great.

Mondo, you are killing me with this. As part of their year-long celebration of Batman's 75th Anniversary, Mondo has produced an art show, posters, and a truly beautiful soundtrack album that sold out of all five designs at San Diego, and now, they're giving me the most compelling reason yet to get into vinyl: a die-cut single of Danny Elfman's theme from Batman: The Animated Series. I definitely do not need this because I don't even own a record player, but y'all... it's shaped like a bat. How can I not get this?

As successful as 'Guardians of the Galaxy' was at the box-office (and, as the highest-grossing film of the year, it certainly was that), the film's iconic soundtrack was equally as successful. "Awesome Mix Vol. 1" spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and is currently the 10th largest selling album of 2014. You've been able to buy the digital album, the CD, vinyl and even a "Deluxe Edition," but so far, no actual cassette like the mix tape in the film. But, that's all about to change.

It looks like the good folks over at Mondo have been on quite a tear lately when it comes to cornering the market on comic book themed vinyl records. Just a few months ago at San Diego's Comic-Con International, they put out a limited edition Batman: The Animated Series soundtrack, and now, they've announced that they're following that up with a collectible edition of the soundtrack to Guardians of the Galaxy.

Batman's movie and TV adaptations have had varying degrees of success over the years, but one aspect of the DC Comics franchise that has been almost universally good for the past five decades or so has been the music. As if to prove it, the Piano Guys -- a duo consisting of a pianist and a cellist (shouldn't they be the Piano and Electric Cello Guys?) -- have taken three iconic Batman themes, arranged them for their own instruments, and mashed them up in a really creative and compelling way. Not only that, they put it all in an absolutely beautifully shot video.

In case you haven't read it yet (and missed our review), Edge of Spider-Verse #2 by Jason LaTour and Robbi Rodriguez is a fantastic comic. It introduces an alternate-universe Gwen Stacy who become Spider-Woman and is on the run from the cops after being blamed for the death of poor old Peter Parker. It also involves an awesome element: A band called The Mary Janes, in which Gwen is the drummer, Mary Jane Watson is the lead singer/bassist, Glory Grant is the keyboardist, and Betty Brant plays lead guitar. That'd be cool enough on its own, but a band called Married With Sea Monsters took it a step further. They've actually recorded a version of the song from the comic, "Face It Tiger," and posted it to YouTube.

If you're a die-hard fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, then there's a chance that you saw the first Equestria Girls movie that came out last year. If that's the case, feel free to skip ahead. Everybody else, settle in, this is going to get weird real quick.

I'll admit that I've never really been into the Smiths, but I have no trouble believing that the X-Men, Marvel's mopiest mutants, would beall about that stuff. I mean, their entire deal is that they combine eye-lasers with angst and occasionally use that mixture to power trips to space, right? It's a perfect match. Or at least, that's the conclusion that artist Adam Villacin came to with "These Charming X-Men," a series of portraits on display at Secret Headquarters in Los Angeles that mashed up the Children of the Atom with Morrissey's most famous lyrics, resulting in absolute hilarity. Seriously, Cyclops trying to cover his eyes set to "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" might be the best thing I've seen all day, and that's just where it starts.

Despite all efforts to stop it, there's a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie produced by Michael Bay set to be released this week, and to its credit, it is attempting to recreate the single most successful and memorable moment from the Turtles' film history. We speak, of course, of Vanilla Ice's classic "Ninja Rap," an unquestioned high point from TMNT 2: The Secret of the Ooze. This time around, the tune they're going with is "Shell Shocked" by Juicy J, Wiz Khalifa and Ty Dolla Sign, a song that has found a critic in Vanilla Ice himself. When asked by GQ what he thought of the new song, Ice was dismissive of the song, claiming that it lacked "the Magic" to musically represent what it means to be a "True Ninja."