Get your freak on!

Today, it’s news of the inhuman: superheroes, zombies, Italian fashion designers and John Mayer!

Comic book fans are nervous: bad enough that Batman is apparently dead but he’s being replaced with a sleek, red-haired lesbian! The June issue of “Detective Comics” will introduce Batwoman to nervous nerds afraid of the change. But is it such a radical change? She’ll still be more butch than Robin.

UK singer Will Young is back with a sad new single and its peculiar, superhero-themed video:

A real-life hero is Australian Olympic-gold-medal-winning diver Matthew Mitcham, who was once nervous about being passed over for endorsements for being out of the closet but has finally scored a deal with a big telecom company. After the brouhaha over Michael Phelp‘s loss of endorsements last week, we’ll have to hope Mitcham can keep from wrapping his lips around a bong pipe but somehow I think he’ll be fine!

Other business news today involves the maker of elevator music filing for bankruptcy. Muzak is in a sad financial state but the filing was made easier by lawyers who took out all the legal jargon and played it back on a pan flute.

How did talking about Muzak lead to John Mayer? No idea. But here he is in a bathroom stall(!!) with Ellen Degeneres(??!!), performing the week’s strangest duet:

 

Also odd is the cameo by fashion designers Dolce and Gabbana, playing priests in a new film from the director of “Chicago.”

But there’s nothing strange about the slick new redesign for one of the internet’s hottest sites, Made in Brazil:

Pit that site’s hotties against 37-year-old Irishman Max Krzyzanowski, winner of the first Mr. Gay World pageant, held this week in Whistler, BC (Canada’s own Darren Bruce came in fifth!) The winner says gay young people need to stop feeling afraid of how other people judge them but Max, isn’t that easy to say while you’re holding a giant trophy?

The man has a point though: let fear stop you from chasing your dreams and you’ll just end up spending your days playing video games or masturbating. But what if you could play video games while masturbating? Well, that’s a whole different story:

But lesbian superheroes, fashionista priests and Atari handjobs pale in comparison to the epic madness that is “Otto: Or, Up With Dead People.” Bruce LaBruce‘s gay zombie opus is this week’s coolest new DVD:

A former editor of the late, lamented fab magazine, Scott has been writing for Xtra since 2007 on a variety of topics in news pieces, interviews, blogs, reviews and humour pieces. He lives on the Danforth with his boyfriend of 12 years, a manic Jack Russell Terrier, a well-stocked mini-bar and a shelf of toy Daleks.

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