1.  AMAZING!  SUPPORT OF AMAZING SPIDER-MAN . . . AND THE BIG O.M.I.T. REVEAL. Finally!  Matt at Multiversity defends Spider-Man: One More Day, something I’ve been doing for a long, long time (and have received more than one negative comment about it).  He says:

Forget the fact that One More Day isn’t really that bad at all (it was written by J Michael Stracynzski, come on people!), but the fallout of One More Day and Brand New Day was absolutely fantastic an absolute boon for Spider-Man and Marvel Comics. . . . Whether you like the story or not is irrelevant at this point. What’s done is done, and I honestly feel that rather than spend forever and a day obsessing about why making a deal with the devil is stupid, it happened.

Exactly!  You can find the whole article here.  And now that enough time has passed, Marvel has announced it’s new O.M.I.T. project–”One Moment In Time.”  Specifically, the moment that Peter and Mary Jane got married, which was erased by “One More Day.”  The story will appear in “Amazing Spider-Man” #637-640.  This is a credit to Marvel’s thrice-monthly plan: They continue to include nearly all relevant Spider-stuff in one book, rather than spread it out across several titles and miniseries.  There were hints that this plan was deteriorating with the launching of Web of Spider-Man and Peter Parker, but both of those titles seem nonessential.  (And pretty bad, frankly.)  In O.M.I.T., Marvel promises to answer all the lingering questions about what Mary Jane knows (and doesn’t know) about the past, and about what she whispered to Spider-Man so long ago . . . This title just keeps getting better!

2.  PACK IS BACK! I love Power Pack, and think they should be the next subject of a Marvel movie.  That said, Marvel’s kid-friendly line of miniseries starring the foursome has been uneven at best.  The ones with Spider-Man and Franklin Richards were great.  The ones with Iron Man and Wolverine, not so much.  The latest installment, “Thor and the Warrior’s Four” looks to be the best of the lot.  Which is ironic, because I’m not a fan of Thor.  But he’s not even in it!  Instead, we find Frog Thor and the Pet Avengers, with a teaser that next issue will bring us Beta Ray Bill.  There’s also a laugh-out-loud second feature starring The Mighty Babysitting Hercules.  If your kids are between 6 and 11 and they don’t like this book, disown them.

3.  MIGHTY MARVEL CARTOONS! At the Chi-town convention, Marvel announced new seasons of “Superhero Squad” and “Iron Man: Armored Adventures,” neither of which matter to me personally, but also mentioned a 2011 series: “Ultimate Spider-Man,” and confirmed that this September’s new series, “The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes,” will feature Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Ant-Man, Wasp, Hulk, Black Panther as the main lineup, with episodes including guests and baddies like The Red Skull, Ultron (of course), Hawkeye, Loki and Black Widow.  He also indicated that the “Black Panther” cartoon, which was produced by BET cable network, will eventually be shown in the U.S.  Finally, he hinted that “Spectacular Spider-Man” would not return (but that’s a Sony project, not a Marvel Studios one) and said “Wolverine & The X-Men” is kaput.  No great or unexpected losses there.

4.  THE EXPENDABLES. Before Kick Ass, I had to suffer through around eight stupid and boring trailers.  But then came the one with Arnold, Sly, Willis, Lundgren, Rourke, Jet Li, and Jason Statham.  I said, out loud, “Is this for real?”  Apparently, it is.

5.  IT’S A BIRD!  IT’S A PLANE!  IT’S A CONSOLIDATE, SINGLE STORY LINE! James Robinson has commented that his “War of the Superman” will actually replace all the Superman books in May, and the war will actually take only 100 minutes in “real time” to fight.  Kinda makes it like a season of 24, only in a comic.  I applaud Dan “master of chaos and disorganized crossovers” Didio for replacing all the Superbooks with the one story—it’s much likely to get me to read it.  It only took Marvel half a century to figure out that centralizing all the Spidey books was a good idea (see item one, above).  Maybe DC can figure that out, too.  Because it looks like the return of Bruce Wayne is going to be another Morrison-helmed tangled mess weaving through several titles, with no clear indication whether (and which) particular titles are essential to the storyline.

6.  THE FANTASTIC 3. In a desperate attempt to get attention, the F4 will lose a member this fall.  Prediction: It’ll be Thing, who is joining one of the Avengers teams and who has a history of quitting the team anyway.  I’ve heard that under Jonathan Hickman this title has become interesting again, but it’s hard to imagine.  The FF haven’t been worth reading since 1985.

7.  THE FLASH #1. Geoff Johns and the brilliant Frances Manapul were behind last week’s relaunch of a Flash title.  The Flash: Rebirth series was horrendously complicated, so I wasn’t expecting much here.  I read the first issue and I zzzzzzzz.

Tags: Movies, Spider-Man, Superheroes