Comic Book Resources

Blackest Night vs. Siege: Place your bets!

Blackest Night #7

Siege #2

They say nice guys finish last, but when event comics will finish is anybody's guess. The demands of a high-profile series around which entire shared universes revolve can play havoc with scheduling. Naturally, editors and publishers love to maintain the artistic quality and consistency (and sales levels) provided by the big-name writer-artist teams that tend to lend such books a sense of "this is a big deal." On the other hand, they need to get books out on time so that other series whose storylines depend upon what happens in the event can proceed as planned -- and so that they don't end up alienating retailers and readers. But these same readers and retailers can end up just as irritated if they get the sense that the creators are being rushed, or if fill-in artists aren't up to snuff. It's a tough row to hoe.

With his front-row seat for a variety of events this decade, including Avengers Disassembled, House of M, Civil War, and Secret Invasion, Marvel Executive Editor Tom Brevoort knows this better than anyone. So it was with an obvious mix of boldness and trepidation that he made the following prediction on his Twitter account:

It's height of hubris time: I'm willing to bet that SIEGE will wrap up before BLACKEST NIGHT does.

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Bendis reveals new projects, plot points in weekend Twitter-thon

Siege #1 by Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel

Very busy writer Brian Michael Bendis became an even busier writer this weekend. With little fanfare -- it "happened by accident" -- Bendis spent over an hour on Saturday answering reader questions via his Twitter account.

The 125-message micro-interview cost him some followers, irritated Warren Ellis (not really), and was eventually cut off by Twitter, but by the time all was said and done some interesting info had hit the Internet courtesy of his tweets.

First up, Bendis spilled the beans on a trio of upcoming projects with familiar collaborators:

* Bendis and his Daredevil: Wake Up partner David Mack will reunite for a new Hornhead project, Daredevil: End of Days, next summer. The project was first announced in February 2007, with Bendis and Mack as co-writers and art from Alex Maleev, Bill Sienkewicz, and Klaus Janson. (Daredevil will also appear in New Avengers #60.)

* "If the stars allow," Bendis and artist Michael Gaydos will reunite for a new Alias miniseries next year. It could be a MAX series "if the content needs it.

* Look for a creator-owned crime project from Bendis and his Daredevil and Spider-Woman collaborator Alex Maleev next summer.

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Jon Favreau's not directing Avengers

Sounds like some other director will be hollering "Avengers Assemble!" to peel a gaggle of high-paid actors away from the craft services table: Jon Favreau confirms to MTV News that he won't be directing Marvel Studios' big movie mash-up of its various superhero franchises. As reported at MTV's Splash Page blog, Favreau says he won't be available to direct the Avengers film, though he is one of its executive producers and will have a hands-on role in that regard. Moreover, Favreau argues that his years-long immersion in Iron Man's "tech-based" milieu might have made him a poor choice to bridge the gap with, say, the Lord of the Rings mysticism and Shakespearean grandeur of Kenneth Branagh's upcoming Thor movie. Which is a good point, now that I think of it: The Avengers movie will most likely include three relatively realistic super-science-based heroes (Iron Man, Captain America, and the Hulk) and a Norse god. That's a tough row to hoe even in the wilder and woollier world of superhero comics.

Anyway, check out more from Favreau, including musings on potential cameos in Iron Man 2, at the link or in the video above.

Bendis: Dark Reign-ending Siege starts in December

Siege: The Cabal

In an extensive interview with Attack of the Show's Blair Butler, Avengers writer Brian Michael Bendis confirms that Marvel's "Dark Reign" storyline will come to an end with a "big Marvel event" called Siege. It starts in December with a one-shot called Siege: The Cabal, which is followed in January by a four-issue Siege series.

Michael Lark will draw the Cabal one-shot, while Olivier Coipel will draw Siege. Both are written by Bendis. He says the storyline will bring a "seismic shift" in the Avengers titles on the level of what happened in Avengers: Disassembled and will reunite Thor, Iron Man and Captain America.

Siege was just one of several subjects Butler asked Bendis about; he also talked about Powers, various Marvel films, Fortune & Glory's 10th anniversary edition and much more. Check out the second part of the interview below (he talks about Siege at the very end) and go here to find the first half.

Also be sure to check out Dave Richards' interview with Bendis on Dark Avengers over on the main CBR site.

The Fifth Color - Overassembled

They're Mighty, they're New, they're Young, they're Dark, they have their own Initiative and, if you want to get technical, they even have their own Marvel Adventures. The Avengers are in high demand in the MU and not as Earth's defenders but as something even more important to one and all. Back in the day, the Avengers had a huge rotating roster, now they have their own specialized teams to tell specialized stories. Think of them less as Earth's Mightiest Heroes and more like... Earth's Mightiest Plot Device.

And really, what's wrong with that? Pick up a Marvel book at the start of the alphabet and you can get an incredible snapshot of the entire Universe in your own favorite flavor! Want to know what's going on with the cool kids? Read New Avengers and get headliners and raucous rebels. Want to know what villainy is afoot? Go for an issue of Dark Avengers and watch the current status quo come alive in various shades of sinister. I'm looking for a book about the foundations of a team and focused character development, so I read Mighty Avengers and find myself satisfied. But are you, dear reader? Are we really getting what we paid for? After all, that's what the cover is there for: to judge the book. So are these Avengers stories or something more?

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Marvels' general counsel on state of the business, movies and recent price increases

Marvel

John Turitzin, Marvel's general counsel and EVP of the executive office, presented at the Cowen & Company 37th Annual Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in New York earlier this week. You can find a link to his presentation, which includes audio and his slides, here (it was at 1:05 p.m. in Holmes 2).

During the presentation, he gave an overview of Marvel -- which he called a "cash machine" -- and the various ways it makes money, from publishing and licensing to the more recently added Marvel Studios division. One of the more interesting portions that's probably most relevant to those of us who buy comics came when a comic fan in the audience asked about the recent cost increase on some of Marvel's titles. You can hear it after the formal presentation ends in the link above.

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Six by 6 | Six comic-related 'mom' moments

Martha Kent

Behind every good man is a good ... mom. Comic books may not always be kind to moms -- just ask Martha Wayne, Mary Parker or Lara-El -- but the moms who do survive their children's origin stories go on to do some pretty incredible things. So in honor of Mother's Day, here are six comic book "mom" moments, where mothers really stepped up to the plate for their kids.

1. Martha Kent knits Superman's costume: I'm not totally 100 percent sure if this is still considered to be in continuity or not, but it's something I always accepted -- that Ma Kent, Superman's adoptive mother, made Superman's costume. That's probably because of my earliest exposure to the character (beyond the Superfriends cartoons, anyway) -- the reruns of The Adventures of Superman I used to watch as a kid. The first episode saw Ma Kent sending Clark off to Metropolis with a suit made from the baby blankets in the rocket that brought him from Krypton to Earth, with the idea that the fabrics wouldn't tear. When John Byrne rebooted Superman in the 1980s, he kept that element, sort of; in Man of Steel, Ma Kent makes Superman a skintight costume out of ordinary Earth fabric, so it will have "near invulnerability through its close proximity to Superman's aura." In any event, a good superhero needs a good costume to wear while fighting evil, and Ma Kent more than stepped up to the job.

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The Fifth Color | The Little Things

Secret Invasion: Requiem

How do you want to be remembered?

Seriously, take a moment. It doesn't have to get all maudlin, just think about what you want others to be thinking about when you've gone where all the Jean Greys go. You don't even have to dwell on it, though it sort of puts things in perspective for a moment. Whether that's wanting to be remembered for some great accomplishment or boon to society or just that you had a great .sig file in your email, people will remember you.

When the House of Ideas recently splattered the winsome Wasp on the windshield of Big Event Comics (in two universes, no less!), they published Secret Invasion: Requiem for fans to remember her by. This over-sized issue has a story weaving two reprints together as a something of a memorial to the now kind-of-deceased-mostly-tornado-ed founding Avenger. This is the legacy all heroes should leave behind, the idea that what you did and who you are can live on through the ages as a requiem, a prayer in your honor for the Great Beyond.

Man, that sounds so pretty, and it would have been awesome if that's what we got for the fallen Janet Van Dyne. Looking at how the House of Ideas chose to pull all that off, it's the worst titling of a story since Dark Reign - Avengers: the Initiative Disassembled #20. This has nothing to do with the Wasp and everything to say about ... the Wasp?

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NYCC | Young Avengers vs. Young Masters of Evil

Young Avengers?

Marvel announced this weekend at the New York Comic Con that Paul Cornell and Mark Brooks are working on a Dark Reign: Young Avengers mini-series, set to debut this May. In the book, Patriot, Stature and the rest of the crew run into a new group of super-folks calling themselves the Young Avengers, and chaos, naturally, ensues.

"This is a bit of a dream project for me," Cornell writes on his blog. "It's basically the Young Avengers running head on into a new group of, well, are they heroes or not? At any rate, they've stolen the Young Avengers' name. Our heroes are put in the same place as the original Avengers were put when they themselves appeared, how do they react to these new kids who don't really know what they're doing: fight; mentor; feel attracted to? How about varying degrees of all three?"

But fans looking at this new crew of teenage malcontents will recognize some of the names as not Avengers, but their archenemies, The Masters of Evil. Back in 2006, original Young Avengers writer Allan Heinberg said he wanted to introduce a Young Masters of Evil in his second season of the book. He added they'd have ties to the originals "in the same way the YA have ties to the Avengers." Heinberg's second season of Young Avengers obviously never happened, as he became busy with Grey's Anatomy. But it's nice to see the idea didn't die and has been picked up by the very capable Paul Cornell. And it seems a natural tie-in to the themes introduced in Dark Reign, particularly Dark Avengers.

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Towards a modern superhero canon: JLA/Avengers

Grumpy Old Fan

[This is my third installment of a periodic series of posts. Background on the series is here; and the second installment is here.]

What do you do when handed the Holy Grail of mainstream superhero comics? How should you manage the scores of characters and decades of fictional history which it involves? Most importantly, how will you ensure that what makes it into print actually satisfies readers, from easily-overwhelmed rookies to expectation-stuffed fanatics?

Writer Kurt Busiek and artist George Perez made JLA/Avengers a love story.

SPOILERS FOLLOW…

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