Batman: Superhero or Just a Dude in a Vinyl suit? The fans weigh in.

The Bat symbol is arguably one of the most recognizable symbols in the comic universe, heck, it's one of the most recognizable symbols in the actual universe! Needless to say, regular folks like the some particular members of the RWE Staff & customers of ROCKWORLDEAST have been able to relate to Batman in a way that you can't with many other superheroes (except for maybe Iron Man because he is also just a rich dude with a bunch of cool gadgets). Let's put it this way, you probably know someone who has, has had or has multiple versions of this classic Bat symbol shirt:

As you may already know, we've been putting our twitter feelers out there for the past few weeks to engage some pretty famous people, and those closest to them, to ask some serious but mostly ridiculous questions. This week we unintentionally riled up the #batman twitosphere by asking some of the Batman insiders what they thought about some comic diehards claiming that Batman wasn't a 'real' superhero becasue he had no super powers. @batmannewscom was kind enough to give us a re-tweet and then chaos ensued. We were bombarded with tweet after tweet with hash-tags like #dumbppl and #themsfightinwords.

We surely couldn't post all of the responses but we put a few together, including a response from MTV's self described 'Teen Mom OG/Original Birth Father' (or something along those lines) Tyler Baltierra. Seriously, we can't make this stuff up.

Here's the fan response:

To sum up, Batman is both a superhero and a dude in a vinyl suit. And there's nothing wrong with that. You don't have to be pretentious to be a comic fan, you can just like Batman, a really handsome rich guy with a neat cave and a really, really cool car. Or you can be a totally snobby comic fan, we think that's actually pretty cool too!

Here's how you'll know if you're the amongst the super duper ultimate Bat fans:
1) You've said the phrase 'I am the Batman' at any point in your life, ever.
2) Every time a new Batman film is released you've just finished watching all previous Batman films to refresh all your Bat knowledge, and to accurately point out mistakes in timeline or references.
3) When you saw this batman lamp, you thought, hmm, that will look good in my bat cave:

4) All your ice cubes are shaped like tiny bats:

5) and you put them in a glass that looks like this:

BUT WAIT! There's more! With the release of Part 2 of Batman: the Dark Knight Returns and the anticipated release of the Batman Arkham game later this year, we've been stocking up on all the best Batman gear. We've got something for everyone in the family! Check it out here:

Q&A with Star Wars Insiders: What really happened to Darth Vader at the End of Episode 4?

 If we, the folks here at ROCKWORLDEAST were the betting type, we'd bet that the most acutely focused fans in the world are Star Wars fans... by a long shot. There doesn't seem to be a group on fans anywhere in this galaxy that we've heard of, that is more inquisitive about the plots, sub plots, characters, machinery, development or film to film referencing than this group. Yeah, a lot of them like to live a happy-go-lucky lifestyle of re-watching the classics and cos-playing their troubles away, but that doesn't mean these guys don't mean business. Star Wars fans have been demanding answers on a variety of points for decades including, 'How did the 2nd Death Star get built so fast?', 'Why aren't Jedi's allowed to have families?' and probably most famously, 'Who Fired the first shot in Episode 6?'

These rabid fans are not a small group either, in fact, just this week we released to our email subscribers, the RWE Quarterly Top 5 Tees and Top 5 Hoodies of the year (so far) and out of 10 items, Star Wars took 2! If you're curious, it was the Star Wars Le Force Baseball Jersey and the   Star Wars Boba Fett Hoodie.

But to get back to getting some answers, we tried our best to solve the mystery of one of the greatest unanswered Star Wars questions of all time: What ever happened to Darth Vader at the end of Episode 4? How exactly did he manage to survive when it seemed impossible? So we contact a few folks from Lucasfilm as well as many of the current and past artists and writers of the Star Wars comic series. Well basically we contact every Star Wars insider we could find to get down to the bottom of this mystery.

Here's what we came up with, it looks like you may have to take these hypotheses and settle on your own conclusion:

We nay not have solved the mystery, but we sure had fun trying! Check out our huge selection of Official Star Wars merchandise, t shirts and collectibles (seriously, it's probably time you considered how sweet a Storm Trooper lamp might look in your living room!)

Game of Thrones Season 3 Premiere & Q&A with GOT Cast

We've been enjoying the epic buzz leading up to the season 3 premiere of HBO's Game Of Thrones. HBO has just released 12 posters featuring the main characters from the upcoming season that is sure to be filled to the brim with an all-out war for the Iron Throne. Here at ROCKWORLDEAST, we move enough Official Game Of Thrones Merchandise to know that the fans are as equally split on which house they are fighting for as the folks of Westeros. If you don't know what we're talking about, you need to catch up in the next two weeks, pick a side and plan your premiere party or you will have no idea what the rest of the world is talking about in April!

WARNING: If you  haven't read the books, do not watch the official trailer (below) released by HBO as it contains spoilers! Don't ruin it for yourself. You've been warned!



We spend a lot of time on twitter these days, running our weekly contests and we got curious about who on the Game of Thrones cast or crew are the usual suspects to be found lounging, keeping the Iron Throne warm, shouting orders at people passing by or eating their lunch off-camera, so we asked! Here's what we heard back, however, we think some of them may be being a bit cheeky with us:

 Need the world to know which house you belong to? We can help you but sizes are going fast!

How Nerds Really Feel About The Big Bang Theory

 

According to the internet (where we get all of our information), some self described 'nerds' and their counterparts, 'the geeks' say they don't consider themselves to be the target audience of The Big Bang Theory! In fact, we were surprised over the latest ridiculous controversial Blog article that states 'Nerds Hate The Big Bang Theory'. We may be paraphrasing, but that was the jist of the story. We'd like to provide the other side of the story: Real life geeks who love Big Bang!

More than  few members of the RWE Staff are long time fans of the show. Although not neuroscientists or nuclear physicists when they leave the ROCKWORLDEAST office, they're known around here as the staff ultra nerds. For instance, if we ever needed a random fact about Batman, were willing to withstand a half hour lecture on the history of Doctor Who or have an in-depth conversation on who the most skilled Power Ranger was, we've got the right people for that. Common thread between them all: they watch reruns of the Big Bang Theory just about every night and wont let a day go by without dropping a Sheldon Cooper quote on us!

So, there are some sensitive folks out there who think that the Big Bang Theory is taking advantage of the nerd culture! But we think that's silly, we think that it's possible that these folks are not actually nerds at all. If you don't like or can't relate to the endless references to nerd nostalgia, the ridiculosity of Sheldon Cooper, the characters' overt love of the comic book culture and painful inability each of them has to interact with a member of the opposite sex... maybe you're actually one of the 'cool kids'. 

 How many Bazinga shirts do you have? Nerd Points!

Sons Of Anarchy Tattoos & Q&A with Cast & Crew

As one of the top online retailers of Official Sons Of Anarchy Gear, we thoroughly enjoy the massive fandom around the show and the culture it's created among it's viewers. There isn't a busy street left in America that you could walk down without spotting someone showing off an SOA rocker or the famous reaper somewhere on their clothing.

In our travels through the land of the internet, we came across a fan who took his commitment to the series about as far as any crazed fan could (and by crazed, we mean awesome!). Here's the gem the internet laid on us today:

The most striking part of our findings wasn't that there was a fan out there with a tattoo (because trust us, it only takes a quick Google search  to realize that this guy is not the only one out there nuts enough!), it was that out of the 99 ratings his tattoo got from the Rank My Tattoos community, it got a whopping 3.16 stars out of 5! You may think, meh, that's average, but in the incredibly cynical, demanding & critical nature of literally everyone on the internet, 3.16 out of 5 is a resounding 'sweet tat, who did it?'.

This guy is the clearly in the running for leader of the army of fans out there who have had the last 5 years to grow out their hair and beards, shift their wardrobe to black t shirts and leather jackets. Lets not forget about all the girlfriends and wives out there who have had to accept that their boyfriends and husbands who are now involved in a life of unnecessary tattoos and motorcycle lessons for the middle-aged, you ladies rule!

ROCKWORLDEAST QUESTION TIME with Chris D Reed & Dominic Pagone

If that's not a thumbs up from the top, then we don't know what is. For the rest of the world, we'll just stick to t-shirts, thanks! Why? Well, for starters, a t-shirt is only going to run you about $16, but mostly because when Korea decides to drop another bomb and the cast of MASH get's back together for it's 12th season, we'll all still have our backs open for a life size Alan Alda portrait.


SHOP OFFICIAL SONS OF ANARCHY GEAR HERE:

Oz: The Great And Powerful - The T-Shirts Have Arrived!

Hello Friends and Fans of ROCKWORLDEAST New Merch Blogspot! As you may know, the RWE Staff have been taking a bit of a hiatus from blogging to focus on ramping up our massive facebook contests and twitter giveaways! What's that? Free Stuff? Where? You can find them both here:

We had a feeling you missed us, so we're back at it with our latest, greatest New Merch Blog!

It's a big week for the movie goers of the world with Oz: The Great And Powerful premiering in theaters today, March 8th, 2013, so we wanted to get the word out that we've got the two hottest ladies Wicked Witch Tees around!

Here's one of our lovely staff members, modelling these new tees for us, just click the picture to find out more info on sizing and how to get your hands on one of them!

 If it's been a while since you've taken a look at what we've been up to, it's time you took a look!

www.ROCKWORLDEAST.com

We've added a massive selection of merch and collectibles from the hottest shows on TV. We've got all the Sons Of Anarchy tees and hoodies a person could ever want and we've added stacks and stacks of new tees from the craziest, weirdest and wildest metal bands out there!

We'll just leave you with this: