Jumper: Jumpscars

Have you heard about the new movie "Jumper"? Yeah, neither had I. However, having now heard about it, I am kind of interested. Jumpers are people with the special ability to teleport pretty much anywhere on the planet. Nice, I'll take two please. Originally a book by Steven Gould, the movie stars Hayden (Darth Vader is a whiny bitch) Christiansen and Samuel L. Jackson. Christiansen is, of course, the titular jumper, while Jackson plays one of the Paladins, an ancient order dedicated to protecting us from jumpers. I checked out the website for the movie, and it's pretty cool, lots of neat little things tucked away in corners (check out all the locales on the globe!).

However, I found my way into all this kind of @$$-backwards. I was poking around on the Oni Press website when I saw the OGN. I probably wouldn't have thought too much about it, but then I noticed the name of the artist, our very own Brian (The Damned) Hurtt. Thinking back I remembered Brian mentioning he was doing this, but promptly forgot about it. Sorry Brian. Originally slated to be a four issue mini-series, Oni and 20th Century Fox decided an OGN released just before the movie was better then four issues spread over four months. This is not a bad call as I have seen several comic tie-ins get killed just by the fact that either a) they came out too late (Halo 3?), or b) they came out too early (Southland Tales?). So putting out the OGN the day before your movie is released? Good plan.

The comic, Jumper: Jumpscars (that's JumpScars, not JumpsCars) is set twenty years in the past of the Jumper world. It follows the training of the newest Paladin by one of their best, Roland (Sam Jackson). The writers, Nunzio DeFilippis & Christina Weir, felt that the Paladins were shortchanged on screen time, so they wanted to round out their world and mission a little more. Said DeFilippis, "We see Paladins in the film, but we don’t see how hard their job is.” Weir added, "We wanted to show you this war from the ground level. What is it like to be swept up in this conflict? How does a Paladin get started and what is it like to have to do they things they have to do?”

All in all it looks pretty interesting. Oh, by the way, did I mention its directed by Doug Liman? You know, the guy who did "The Bourne Identity?" Yeah. The movie opens on Feb. 14th, just for you love birds, and the OGN, Jumper: Jumpscars, comes out the day before, Feb. 13th.


-Dan