It was a holiday week in the U.S., but that didn’t mean we were at a loss for comic book and movie news. Here are the week’s top stories:

- The announcement that “Watchmen” will be returning to theaters this month caused a big buzz — enough to make it our top story of the week!

- Samuel L. Jackson told us whether fans can expect to see Nick Fury in action in “Iron Man 2.”

- Percy Carey (a.k.a. MF Grimm) interviewed “Batman & Robin” writer Grant Morrison about a variety of comics-related subjects, and the first clip was a shoo-in for the week’s top stories. Watch it and you’ll know why! Read more…

Anyone following Splash Page on Twitter is already well aware of my fondness for Marvel Comics’ semi-obscure cosmic hero “ROM: Spaceknight.” I regularly post links to various ROM-related images and videos readers find around the ‘Net and send me, and have been known to wax poetic about my favorite moments in ROM’s seven-year run battling the evil Dire Wraiths.

While ROM has made cameos in various television series like “Robot Chicken” and “South Park” over the years, there’s generally been little reason to talk about him here on Splash Page… until now. Justin Aclin, editor of “ToyFare” Magazine recently sent over this early peek at a parody ad in the upcoming issue, and offered me the perfect opportunity to give ROM his due on the site. Read more…

Last week, I rounded up some of recently deceased entertainer Michael Jackson’s connections to the world of comic books in a post that generated quite a bit of buzz around the comics scene. Unfortunately, I left out one particular cameo by the King of Pop that should have come to mind earlier — mainly because it occurs in a comic I own.

As ComicMix points out, issue #16 of DC’s late-’80s, adult-oriented anthology series “Wasteland” featured a story chronicling the downward spiral of a lonely girl named Shari Evenson whose obsession with a familiar-looking “dark prince named Michael” eventually leads her to take her own life. It’s a small cameo, and writer John Ostrander never identifies the “Michael” as Jackson — but it’s pretty clear who the character is meant to represent. Read more…

Okay, let’s face it — I have an unhealthy obsession with the upcoming “Batman: Arkham Asylum” video game. Every new glimpse of the game has impressed the heck out of me and made me more eager for its release date to arrive… but I know I’m not the only one around here feeling that way.

While I’m worried that no game could ever live up to my grand expectations for “Arkham Asylum” at this point, the project’s latest promotional video does little to bring my hopes back down to Earth — in fact, it only seems to inflate them even more. The video features a bunch of new gameplay footage and interviews with the game’s developers, includes some commentary from head writer Paul Dini, who’s made a long career out of scripting Batman’s adventures in both comics and various animated television series (not to mention his role on the creative team for “Lost”).

In fact, I enjoyed the latest promo video so much, I even snagged a few images from it to include in this post. Read more…

While “Star Trek” actor Clifton Collins Jr. confirmed to MTV News last month that he had a meeting with the live-action “Thor” movie team, it now looks like we won’t be seeing him in the much-anticipated Kenneth Branagh film when it hits theaters in May 2011.

“I have nothing to do with that piece,” said Collins in an interview with TheDeadbolt. “Absolutely nothing.” Read more…

Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons‘ “Watchmen” wasn’t the best-selling graphic novel in U.S. bookstores last month — marking the first time it’s been knocked out of the top spot since June 2008.

According to pop culture business site ICv2, “Watchmen” dropped to the #2 in the monthly report on bookstore graphic novel sales, replaced by Vol. 27 of Tite Kubo’s “Bleach” manga. As always, sales of manga volumes like “Bleach” and “Naruto” dominated the month’s rankings, but “Watchmen” wasn’t the only comic book collection to factor into the report. Read more…

If you’ve been looking forward to Seth Rogen and Michel Gondry’s live-action “Green Hornet” movie, it looks like you’ll have to wait a little longer to see the pulp hero’s upcoming return to the big screen. Sony announced today that it’s moving the release date of “Green Hornet” from June 25 to July 9, 2010.

According to Variety, the move was made to allow room for the studio’s Adam Sandler-penned comedy, “Grown Ups,” which will feature Sandler and a long list of other popular comedy actors. While “Grown Ups” is currently the only film scheduled to open June 25, Rogen and “Green Hornet” co-star Stephen Chow will now go up against the animated film “Despicable Me” and the Robert Rodriguez film “Predators.” Read more…

It’s been a few weeks since we heard anything new about “Surrogates,” the upcoming Jonathan Mostow film based on Rob Venditti’s sci-fi graphic novel. We’ve seen Bruce Willis in action in the first “Surrogates” trailer, and been introduced to the wonderful world of cybernetics in various featurettes and various marketing campaigns for the film, but now the first one-sheet promo poster for the film has hit the ‘Net.

ComingSoon.net has the exclusive debut of the poster, which features the tagline: “How Do You Save Humanity When The Only Thing That’s Real Is You?” Read more…

“Tek War Chronicles” #1, the debut issue of the new comic book series based on William Shatner’s best-selling science-fiction novels is on stands now, but that doesn’t mean the iconic actor and novelist has let up for a moment in voicing his affection for the latest iteration of the “TekWar” — a franchise that has included, among other things, prior “TekWar” comic books, a television series, a feature-length movie, and even a video game.

According to Shatner, he’s taking a hands-on approach with Bluewater Productions’ new “Tek War” comic, and learning quite a bit about the ins and outs of the medium along the way.

“I’m right there from the very beginning, from the concept of how the story will be told to okaying the drawings and the color,” Shatner told MTV News. “I’m getting a good education on the exigencies of drawing a comic book — but at the same time, storytelling is storytelling.” Read more…

Yesterday, we presented the first in a series of clips from an interview with best-selling comics author Grant Morrison, conducted by Eisner-nominated writer, musician and producer Percy Carey (a.k.a. MF Grimm). Morrison discussed his work on “Batman & Robin” in the previous clip, and in this one, he addresses the nature of deconstruction in comics and how it relates to his work on titles like “All-Star Superman.”

“I came into comics at a time when people were doing what I would call deconstruction, stuff like ‘Watchmen’ and ‘Dark Knight’ and some of the things that followed them that were breaking down the hero or examining what it might be like to be a superhero in the real world,” said Morrison. “I wanted to do the opposite. Those guys were bringing heroes into our world, and I wanted to see what it was like in the world of the heroes, and what it would be like to live in a place where the skies were primary color blue and where time cuts between panels and your entire universe can be erased by some guy’s whim.” Read more…