Link Roundup: WWE Draft, the Hulk, Smashing Pumpkins and Green Lantern

What if the WWE draft was tweaked? News on the next Hulk Comic. The Smashing Pumpkins replace a new member with an old one. And are they giving Captain Kirk a ring?

WWE Draft, with a Twist
Grantland puts an interesting twist on the WWE Draft: taking athletes from other sports. It’s pretty fitting when you think of it.

Bryce Harper was one of the first athletes that came to my mind; I almost am willing to say he’s the heel of the MLB. He’s cocky, talented, young, and can work a mic. Imagine him in the ring, being interviewed by Michael Cole, and give the answer of “That’s a clown question, bro.” Genius.

The Totally Awesome Hulk
Marvel announced today that Greg Pak and Frank Cho will be doing the post-Secret Wars Hulk title; I groaned when I heard the title…the Totally Awesome Hulk. It bugged me when they changed most of the new title to “All-New…”, but Totally Awesome as a title is rediculous.

I’m also not keen on the fact that a new person will be the Hulk. It might be a new twist on the character, but I liked the direction that Mark Waid took Indestructible Hulk. Hulk as a SHIELD agent, in exchange for Banner to have a lab and a lab crew. The series was well written; they could have gone back to that formula.

Original Pumpkin Back to be Smashed
Remember the Smashing Pumpkins? Siamese Dreams might be one of my all time favorite albums. They are still making music, but it was Billy Corgan and a SP cover band (new Asian guitarist, new female bassist, new white drummer). They released a semi-decent ablum that seemed to cover all of the phases of the previous band.

The band is set to reunite with original drummer Jimmy Chamberlain. Chamberlain was the drummer from 1988-2002 and 2005-2009; he was also away from the band in 1997 after a musician touring with the band overdosed and died with the drummer; the concert I went to was postponed due to this and I wasn’t happy.

Truthfully, the Pumpkins haven’t been relevant since just after Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was released; I pretend that was their last album (OK – Adore was decent, but didn’t sound like them).

One and Done for Green Lantern
With the DC Universe making it’s way to film, people started to question the fate for Hal Jordan. It was pretty obvious that the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern film was a bomb (both box office and content-wise). So what happens with the Green Latern?

Apparently DC is already looking to recast the character; Chris Pine is currently tied to Hal Jordan and there is talk of using the John Stewart/Green Lantern as well.

Green Lantern was Batman and Robin level bad, so it’s not surprising that they are starting over. If they are smart, they’ll have Jordan in place as GL instead of rehashing the origin story. They could very easily have him train Stewart, like we saw other GLs do with Jordan in the previous movie.

Song of the Day
Another great band from St. Louis is the Urge; they were bigger 10-15 years ago, but they still play shows in St. Louis (including one next month). Lead singer Steve Ewing also does a lot of solo performing. This was from 105.7 The Point: