They have totally changed the opening to the Walking Dead.
Now, hit the break for lots more foolishness, including the latest on the “real” Batman movie, the status of the Deadpool flick, Green Arrow’s TV show, new Garth Ennis work, and the latest on The Walking Dead. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Captain America, Deadpool, Filthy Muties, The Avengers, The Caped Crusader, Thor, Zombies
As artist only, the writer/artist who created Frog Thor and Beta Ray Bill will be the new regular artist for the Brian Michael Bendis written Avengers book, beginning with issue #25. Of course, with Bendis promising to leave The Avengers this year, could it be Walt is prepping for a larger role? One can only hope, as Simonson’s imagination has led to some brilliant work in the past, such as:
· The afore-mentioned creation of Beta Ray Bill and Frog Thor, and a long run on Thor that split Don Blake and Thor for the first time, brought Ragnarok, and introduced Asgardian warriors to the wonders of automatic weapons.
· With his wife, an X-Factor run that introduced Cable and Mr. Sinister.
· The artwork on X-Men/Teen Titans, the greatest Marvel-DC crossover ever.
· A tremendous run on The Fantastic Four that replaced the foursome with Ghost Rider, Hulk, Spidey and Wolverine.
· Award winning issues of Detective Comics, during the 1974 event “The Manhunter Saga.”
For more on the world of comics, including the rundown on new and cancelled DC titles, hit the break….
Tags: Comic books, Daredevil, Grant Morrison Sucks, The Avengers
The top 10 things Marvel oughtta consider for 2012. Look back for my suggestions for DC and indies.
10. Make Marvel Digital iPad compatible. This is a no brainer.
9. Collect the Micronauts. Whatever the legal bullshit may be, do what it takes. And donate a huge chunk of it to Bill Mantlo’s medical fund while you’re at it.
9. More animated movies! Your Avengers Next, the Ultimate Avengers DVDs, X-Men Anime, and Planet Hulk proved you can do it right. So keep it up!
8. You should be having less, not more, Avengers books. I know they sell, but the quality is slipping, guys. I have hopes for Rick Remender on Secret Avengers—if that’s good, maybe you’ll change my mind.
7. Except for Black Avengers. Or were you kidding about that?
6. The Ultimate universe books are scattered, unfocused, and mostly kind of suck. Fix that, please.
5. Instead of cancelling DeadpoolMAX, grow it! If this book doesn’t have legs, then make it a bimonthly double size book with other satirical takes on heroes. You could have the X-Statix crew or Madrox, or include NEXTWAVE or even Irving Forbush! It could be an opportunity for stories like Matt Fraction’s brilliant Punisher tale about the funeral for Stilt Man. How about featuring some of the odder Morrison characters 
from New X-Men (like the see-through guy, the floating head, and Beak)? Even a look back a the old Power Man and Iron Fist rogues gallery, who were largely inane but terrific fun to read (Chemistro!). This is a book that could, can, and should reward nerds—we’ll buy it, I promise.
4. But cancel the “regular” Deadpool. When the horse is dead, it is prudent to dismount. Put the book on hold for a while and then bring it back when/if the movie gets made.
3. Contain the X-Verse, at least a little bit. It’s all over the place. New readers can’t jump in. You need a new “Astonishing” title, like the one Joss Whedon did, which rewards long-time readers but doesn’t alienate those of us who don’t have enough resources (or patience) to read 7 mutant monthlies.
3 (tie). And while you’re at it, leave some money on the table. Yes, you can probably sell a million X-books or cross-overs with the “events” you hold, but your fans are irritated with you for holding us hostage.
2. Break the Omnibi! I loved the Byrne and Simonson Omnibus editions you released in 2011, but they’re just too damn big. For the same price, you could easily print three softcovers and sell them as a set (maybe in a nice bookshelf hardcover sleeve, like they do for DVD sets). It would prevent breaking the binding. Of course, reading an Omnibus is sometimes my only form of exercise, so I can’t complain that much…
1. No more events. Schism was good, but it really wasn’t an “event,” it was just a good, fairly self-contained X-men story. Fear Itself, on the other hand, really, really, really sucked.
1 (tie). And since you’re going to ignore that last one, make events matter. There really was no fall out after Fear Itself. Bucky Cap and Thor died, but then came back just .1 and .3 issues later. And nobody thought they’d really died anyway. Ho hum.
Tags: Comic books, Deadpool, Filthy Muties, The Avengers
From Marvel
Celebrating the best of the year….Hit the break.
Tags: Best of 2011, Comic books, Daredevil, Deadpool, Filthy Muties, Spider-Man, Superheroes, Superman, The Avengers, The Caped Crusader, Zombies
...AvX, the best "new" event at Marvel!
Let’s lead the news this week with Avengers versus X-Men…
Comic fans may be happy to learn that the coming Avengers vs. X-Men event—12 issues over 6 months—will have only one standalone tie-in series, and the only Marvel books that tie in will be those that deal with members of the X-Men or the Avengers. On the one hand, this is great: Fear Itself tied into just about everything, which was very annoying, and Shadowland had at least a dozen miniseries/standalone tie ins, which was very expensive (and overwhelming). Both events also featured poor quality control to boot.
On the other hand, including only books that feature an X-Man or Avenger will exclude…Punisher. And that’s about it. (Note: Marvel has actually promised that Fantastic Four, Thunderbolts, and Amazing Spider-Man won’t tie in, but I’ll believe that when I see it.)
Anyway, we’re promised that the series will stand on its own so that those (like me) who haven’t kept up with the constantly evolving roster of mutants over the past 20 years won’t feel lost or excluded.
Story-wise, we’re looking at the return of Phoenix, hurtling through space towards Earth. That’s a promising premise. Maybe we’ll see some “cosmic” characters getting involved?
And then there’s the title: Avengers VERSUS X-Men. Not “with.” Not “and.” Versus. Unless this is the “fight before we team up” convention, we could be seeing some cool match-ups here. I’d like to see Wolverine face off against the Hulk again. Or Captain America give Cyclops the humbling defeat Scott Summers has deserved for decades. Or Cable versus Hawkeye—how cool would that be?
Oh, and Cage vs. Colossus! Any fights you’re looking forward to? Marvel’s Editor in Chief has promised that, in the end, there will be a clear winner. Read the rest of this entry »
Hit the jump, read the rest of this post, and drop me a note!
Tags: Comic books, The Avengers
IGN published a top 100 comic book heroes that made me crazy, both in its predictability (Hey! Superman and Bats are #s 1 and 2!), overinclusiveness (every single Robin except Damian Wayne (who is the most interesting one by far), as well as Superboy and Supergirl? Really?) and its attempts to be esoteric without providing sufficient justification (Groo makes the list, but they don’t really say what makes him so essential; James Gordon makes the list, but Aunt May and Uncle Ben don’t–nor does Jarvis; and Nova makes the list, but nobody really gives a shit about Nova). Maybe it was the list’s sketchy criteria for placement: “Picked by their cultural impact, character development, social relevance, general cool factor, and importance of storylines, these are the best of the best.
It made me so nuts, I made my own list. Yes, there’s a lot of overlap. But mine is better. Because I said so.
Note: If you’re just looking for a list without supporting arguments, you can jump to the last page of this post. But you can’t tell me I was wrong to put Thor at #33 unless you go and read why. So, read every page and then tell me why I’m full of $#!+.
Enjoy!
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
Tags: Captain America, Comic books, Daredevil, Ed Brubaker, Fantastic 4, Filthy Muties, Flash, Frank Miller, Garth Freakin Ennis, Grant Morrison Sucks, Green Lantern, Hulk, Iron Man, Punisher, Spider-Man, Superman, The Avengers, The Caped Crusader, Wonder Woman, Zombies
Now that the heat is off the New 52, almost everything I have to report this week is about Marvel. But before the fun stuff, a little bit about an article that actually made me cry.
I don’t know how many of you remember Bill Mantlo.
He was one of the most prolific writers during Marvel’s most creative period (1975-1985), and was the creator of Cloak and Dagger, Rocket Raccoon, The Human Fly, and ROM the Spaceknight. He brought The Micronauts to Jim Shooter and insisted that Marvel do a toy-tie-in that ended up outlasting the toy itself by several years (and won many awards as well). He had extensive, influential runs with characters like Alpha Flight, The Hulk, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Shang Chi, among others. He wrote some of my favorite individual issues of my childhood, including The Avengers #174 (“Captured by the Collector!”); Fantastic Four #217 (“By H.E.R.B.I.E. Betrayed”); Amazing Spider-Man #237 (where he fights Stilt Man); and Marvel Team Up Annual #6 (Spidey with Cloak and Dagger and The New Mutants).
Mantlo gave up comic books—and a lucrative income—to fight for social justice, and then was hit by a car and suffered irreparable brain damage. Since then, he’s been screwed by his insurance company and is basically all alone. You can donate to his care at this website. I did. It’s the least we comic book fans can do. And if that Cloak & Dagger TV show ever gets picked up, they oughtta take care of him with some of the proceeds.
For happier news, hit the break.
Tags: Comic books, The Avengers
The lead story has to be the October 2011 sales figures, which still show success vis a vis DC’s new 52. It’s safe to say that the new 52, and the new 52 alone, is responsible for America spending 12% more on comic books than they did last October. Comic-book unit orders are also up—by over 32% from last year. That’s tremendous. They’re also up from the first month of the new 52, but I assume that’s because so many DC #1s sold out in September and were reprinted in October. What does 32% mean? It means a million more comic books were sold. DC’s market share was 42%–a new record for the world’s number two comic book publisher. They haven’t hit that number since December 1999, when Grant Morrison’s JLA came out. In comparison, all indie publishers combined got only 28% of the market.
Here’s the top 10 for comic book sales, October 2011:
10. Superman #2.
9. Fear itself #7.
8. Wolverine and the X-Men #1.
7. Hulk #1.
6. Detective Comics #2.
5. Flash #2.
4. Green Lantern #2.
3. Action #2.
2. Batman #2.
1. Justice League #2.
Rounding out the top 25 were second issues of the other Bat-family books, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Teen Titans, Justice League International, and only three other Marvel titles: Fear Itself: Fearless #1; Amazing Spider-Man #671, and the last issue of Uncanny X-Men. So only six Marvel titles cracked the top 25, in a month where one of its bestselling titles ended and we saw a #1 with the word “X-Men” in it. Amazing.
Things didn’t fare much better for Marvel on the trade front, with only one book, Ultimate Spider-Man: The Death of Spider-Man, managing to crack the top 10 (and coming in at #10, no less). DC had 5 books in the top 10, several of them hardcovers, including Flashpoint. Walking Dead got two trades in the top 10 and worth mentioning is that Alan Moore’s horrendously shocking, disgusting, horrifying and brilliant Neonomicon trade paperback came in at #9 for Avatar Press. You should all go buy it, unless you’re easily offended.
Now for the rest of the news, hit the break.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Captain America, Comic books, Filthy Muties, Spider-Man, Superman, The Avengers
HULK SMASH AVENGERS. Coming February 2012. “Hulk Smash Avengers” will be a 5-issue weekly mini designed to shamelessly build up to the Avengers movie. It will be “Hulk vs.” battles that take place from 1960 on—one for each decade–all with covers by the great Lee Weeks. The talent roster for each of these self-contained issues is:
Tags: Comic books, Filthy Muties, Hulk, Iron Man, reme, Spider-Man, The Avengers
At the break, you can read my thoughts about the best of the new 52 and what I think of Starfire’s boobs. But the headline has to be the new Avengers trailer, and related news…
First off, the trailer is awesome. Why is it awesome? Cap uses a gun! Avengers Tower! Updated costumes (except, strangely, for Iron Man)! We get to see Loki versus the U.S. Army, and of course they’re ineffective, so Nick Fury and Agent Coulson summon the team. The trailer then shows a fairly traditional “assemble” scene, with each of the heroes getting ready to answer the call, but then we flash ahead to Loki in custody. At least the heroes don’t all fight each other. (But Cap and Thor do, later in the trailer.) It makes me wonder how much screentime the heroes will actually share…But it’s extremely geek-out cool anyway. Next, we see Fury addressing the team. They’re getting ready for something; presumably, either Loki escaped or the rumors of a Skrull invasion were true and we get to see a little sub-story. I certainly hope there’s more than one major battle. No, I don’t hope it. I expect it. The trailer closes with the inevitable Hulk transformation, which looks pretty good as CGI. I wonder if there will be only one Hulk appearance? Frankly, one is probably enough. With so many interesting characters in the film, I don’t think you need more than one big Hulk scene.
Of course, there’s already controversy with several folks alleging that the preview used existing footage from Iron Man. Michael Bay recently recycled a sequence from his godawful “The Island” picture in his somewhat less godawful Tranformers 3, so movie nerds are on the watch for this stuff. I’m not all that worried—I wouldn’t expect Whedon to have a lot of completed FX shots available for a trailer for a movie that isn’t set to come out for over 6 months. It’s frankly too soon for a trailer, but in these days of instant rewards, I guess the studios feel like they have to keep the hype going. It’s kind of like holding a primary for a national election in January—too soon, and leaves too much time for doubt and negativity to damage the actual release date.
Bleeding Cool has a side-by-side comparison, if you’re curious.
Watch the trailer here:
Meanwhile, Hasbro previewed the toy tie-ins at NYCC, showing both 3- and 6-inch action figures of the main characters. You can find pix of all of them on the internet; Hawkeye has the most remarkable resemblance to the actor (Jeremy Renner), but of course he looks nothing like the actual comic character he’s based on. Black Widow, unfortunately, looks like a cheap sex doll. In the actual film trailer she looks completely different: Like an expensive sex doll. Iron Man is the coolest—but he’s got the circular unibeam, while the trailer shows the more modern one.
Now, hit the break for more comic news.
Tags: Captain America, Comic books, Superheroes, Superman, The Avengers, The Caped Crusader, Thor, Zombies
