It’s that time again: A post about news, views, and upcoming mooo-vies. See how I made that rhyme?
This week, lots of deaths and pictures of the new Spider-Man movie.
Y’know, I wanna see a movie this weekend and there’s not a single thing to see. Very sad. All the good stuff is crammed in between March and August, and I’ll be very busy during those months: X-Men First Class, Thor, Captain America, Battle: LA, Sucker Punch, Hangover 2, Priest, Transformers 3, Limitless, Scream 4, Super 8, and probably a half-dozen smaller films I don’t even know about yet.
Aaaah. It’s good to be American.
Hit the break.
NEWS ABOUT . . . COMICS IN PRINT!
DEATH AT MARVEL. January brought down Human Torch and in February Marvel killed Marla Jameson. Marvel’s also promised to kill a major character every quarter this year. (One is already announced: Ultimate Spider-Man.) Death is the new “event tie-in,” looks like.
DEATH AT DC . . . AND SERIES CANCELLATIONS. Meanwhile, D.C. promises that its own Flashpoint event will change everything. They promise that a “major” character will die in the series, and that the very fabric of the DC Universe will be altered. What, again? Every time DC does this they screw it up. Please don’t tell me you like the last five “Crisis” series. They don’t even make sense. But you can be sure of a few concrete changes: DC is cancelling a slew of books: Azrael, Batman: Streets Of Gotham, Batman Confidential, Outsiders, Doom Patrol, JSA All-Stars, Freedom Fighters and R.E.B.E.L.S. In other words, a whole buncha stuff nobody reads anyway. (I didn’t even know half of them were still being published.)
SECRET AVENGERS. And speaking of cancellations . . . . Ed Brubaker will be leaving Secret Avengers, which is good: It sucks. Truly. And I am a huge Brubaker fan. Ed says the book is too difficult manage alongside his other projects, and it just didn’t come naturally to him. I agree. Kudos to a creator saying no to a paycheck that implicated his art.
MOON KNIGHT. No one, and I do mean no one, is more excited than me to see Brian Michael Bendisand Alex Maleev take on Moon Knight. Dude was one of my favorite characters when I was a lad—probably my absolute favorite, actually—and I still own every issue of the Bill Sienkiewicz run. Bendis recently revealed that the series will be quite different: Moon Knight’s schizophrenia will be at the forefront, with him adopting even more personalities—including those of his fellow Secret Avengers. Okay, so it’ll be different. But I’ll bet it’ll also be extraordinary: Bendis/Maleev, after all, revolutionized both Daredevil and Spider Woman.
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN AND VENOM. Amazing Spider-Man #654 ran a backup feature revealing that the new Venom supersoldier—soon to arrive in a Rick Remender series—will be none other than former-bully-turned-heroic-veteran Flash Thompson, for whom the symbiote will grow legs. It’s a great idea—of course the military would try to figure out how to weaponize the symbiote (frankly, I’m shocked Norman Osborn didn’t try it)—but there’s a built-in self-destruct that may prevent the series from (ahem) fleshing out Flash. He can only do so many missions as Venom before the symbiote takes him over completely. I understand that this adds tension, but at the same time it will stop the character from developing—and likely means that the series will begin with Flash going on a few missions and seeing how cool it is and then will deteriorate into a seen-it-before story of him fighting off the influence of the symbiote. I hope they’ve got somewhere else to take this, but I have serious doubts.
ALPHA FLIGHT. Yes, due to fan demand, they’ll be back—under the helm of writers Fred Van Lente (Amazing Spider-Man, Taskmaster) and Greg Pak (Incredible Hercules) and artist Dale Eaglesham (Captain America, Fantastic 4). The creative team certainly can’t be beat, and the Alpha Flight team are always cool. The line-up will be the original one, with Guardian, Vindicator, Sasquatch, Shaman, Snowbird, Aurora, Northstar and Marrina, and the series will run 8 issues. What, no Puck?
COMICS AT THE MOVIES
NEMESIS. Yes, Mark Millar’s ridiculous, over-the-top miniseries is being developed for a movie. I have to say, I thought the comic asked way too much of me as a reader, in terms of it being completely unbelievable. Not a fan of Millar lately. He’s become like Jeph Loeb: He used to be great, now he just writes “big” and “violent” crap that reads like a reheated and toned-down Garth Ennis.
I AM LEGION. Another comic goes to the movies. This book, written by Fabien Nury and illustrated by the genius John Cassaday. It’s about Nazis during WW2 trying to get a little vampire kid to help them defeat the Allies. It’s a fairly cool concept—kind of like Hellboy with vampires—but what really sells the comic is Cassaday’s art. We’ll see.
IRON MAN 3. Will be directed by Shane “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang” Black. He’s also knows as the writer of the great Lethal Weapon (as well as the progressively not-as-great sequels). Meh.
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: THE REBOOT. Pix have been coming fast and furious. I’m annoyed. Do they really have to change the costume? Really?
COMICS ON T.V.
SMALLVILLE. Spoilers: Michael “Lex Luthor” Rosenbaum will return for the series finale, and that redheaded Luthor clone will not be evil alternate Earth Lex, as in the comics, but will become Conner Kent—Superboy. Is there still a chance for a live-action follow-up series, like Teen Titans? The two-hour series finale will air at 8 p.m. ET/PT May 13 on The CW.
BATMAN: YEAR ONE. This will be next DC Animated DVD, following All-Star Superman (which I still haven’t seen!). Word is, the 4-issue Frank Miller story was a little short, so they’ve added a second feature—kind of like what they did with Shazam/Black Adam. No word on what that second feature is, at least not yet.
WONDER WOMAN. It’ll be Adrianne “Lone Star” Palicki. She was also in the never-aired WB pilot for Aquaman, which I understand you can buy on iTunes. Although, really, why would you want to?
