Don't Panic By Blair Marnell & John Voulieris Welcome back to another edition of ATR. News and rumors, you know the drill. As promised, here’s the Toronto Comicon report, courtesy of John Voulieris: John Voulieris: Just got back from the PARADISE COMICS TORONTO COMICON. It was my first big convention and I had a blast. Before we get into the news and rumors, Id like to thank Kaare Andrews for splitting the cab fare with me, Adi Granov for that great Iron Man sketch, Phil Jimenez for the free copies of Otherworld #1 and #2 ,Brian Bendis for being so gracious and taking the time to talk, and Warren Ellis for a GREAT 2 hour Q&A that had the whole room laughing out loud! Here we go: You Realize Of Course, This Means War Bill Willingham (Fables, Robin) confirmed that he will be writing the 4-part Detective Comics / Batman crossover that is entitled War Crimes. It will tie up the loose end from the War Games crossover and deal with all the consequences of that story arc. This Has A "War, What Is It Good For?" Factor of Nine Out of Ten
House of Bendis Brian Michael Bendis dropped a lot of little tidbits during his 2 hour Q&A session and kept the crowd entertained. Some highlights:
Norman, How Could You? J. Michael Straczynski surprised everyone and popped up at the Bendis Q&A session. He mentioned that he has completed three Fantastic Four scripts, and also dropped this interesting piece of information about the “Sins Past” storyline. Turns out JMS wanted Peter Parker to be the father of Gwen's kids but editorial nixed the idea. The powers that be felt that it would age Peter Parker too much if he had two adult kids running around. It was then decided by the whole creative and editorial team that Norman Osborn would be the father! This Has A "Paternity Test" Factor of Nine Out of Ten
Iron Artist Adi Granov - the current Iron Man artist - stated that #6 (the end of the initial arc written by Warren Ellis) would be his last issue as well. Adi needs more time to complete his work than a monthly schedule allows. Marvel is quite happy with sales on Iron Man and wants to tailor a new project to Adi taking his lead-time into account (a mini series or graphic novel perhaps). Adi mentioned to me that Brian Michael Bendis has expressed interest in working with him, and that he would love to do more work with Warren Ellis. This Has A "I Think His Art Is Worth The Wait" Factor of Ten Out of Ten
Bad Signal Warren Ellis kept the crowd entertained during his two-hour Q&A session with tales of Garth Ennis' stag weekend, his phone calls with Alan Moore and other tales we can not print on this website. Some newsworthy items:
Thanks again to the PARADISE COMICS TORONTO COMICON organizers for a great time! John Voulieris Thanks, John. And great work! We now return you to our regular Rage lineup.  UltimatumWe’ve known since Wizard World LA that Brian K. Vaughn would be writing an Ultimate annual for Marvel, and a recent item on Wizard’s website gave away Tom Raney’s involvement. What we didn’t know, was the scope of the project. It turns out that all four of the ongoing Ultimate titles will have annuals, which are currently scheduled for August. And here’s a quick peak at what’s in store…  The Ultimate Spider-Man Annual is written by Brian Bendis, drawn by Mark Brooks and has a cover by Mark Bagley. The annual is rumored to introduce Peter’s new girlfriend, who is someone Ultimate Spider-Man readers should be familiar with.My guess would be Felicia Hardy, but that’s just a shot in the dark… The Ultimate Fantastic Four Annual features the first appearance of the Ultimate Inhumans, and yes, that is Crystal on the cover, as drawn by incoming Ultimate Fantastic Four artist, Greg Land. As for the annual itself, Mark Millar and Jae Lee are the creative team onboard.  The Ultimate X-Men Annual is by Brian K. Vaughan and Tom Raney with a cover by Stuart Immonen. The story follows Ultimate Rogue and Gambit as they take on Ultimate Juggernaut in Ultimate Vegas.I can’t believe I just typed that. And finally, the Ultimates Annual is by Mark Millar and Steve Dillon, with Ultimates co-creator Bryan Hitch supplying the cover. The Ultimates Annual is said to feature Nick Fury's OTHER superteam. No, I don’t know what that means… This Has A “Storming The Triskelion” Factor of Ten Out of Ten
Jock Rocks - Updated! Over at the Isotope Virtual Lounge, Jock has posted an advance look at his covers from an upcoming Batman/Detective Comics crossover.     The issue numbers that Jock mentioned were Detective Comics #809, Batman #643, Detective Comics #810, and Batman #644, which may mean that David Lapham’s run on Detective Comics may be accelerated to pave the way for the crossover. However, that’s not clear at this point. The issues referred to here are likely from the War Crimes crossover that John mentioned in his Toronto Con report. Later in the thread, Jock gives an interesting look at his cover design process. And for more Jock goodness, check out this link. This Has A “Mystery Villain” Factor of Nine Out of Ten
Night Writer Jeff Parker (The Interman) has been picking up some Marvel work as of late. He’s already writing Spider-Man Adventures #4 for the Marvel Adventures line. And according to his blog, he’s also writing the Vampire By Night backup story starting in Amazing Fantasy #10, with Italian artist Federica Manfredi. Parker also confirmed that Nina Price (the vampire in question) WILL be related to Jack Russell, from Marvel’s classic Werewolf By Night.  This Has A “Howling At The Moon” Factor of Eight Out of Ten
Attack of The Clones A sharp-eyed ATR reader pointed out something interesting about the recently released Official Handbook of The Marvel Universe: Spider-Man 2005. Among this year’s character profiles, some familiar names pop up: Mendel Stromm, Jackal, Kaine and Ben Reilly. Do you see where I’m going with this? Out of all the Spider-man characters they could have chosen for that book, they used four of the key figures from the Spider-Clone storyline. Which is more than a bit surprising, considering that Marvel has basically been ignoring the events of that story for a long time. So, what does it mean? Could be nothing, or it could be something… After all, we are coming up on the tenth anniversary of the Clone Saga and Marvel has been promising something big for the Spider-Man books later this year, following the House of M crossover… This Has A “Maximum Clonage” Factor of Five Out of Ten
Agent Six Michael Oeming has created a short film based upon his Six one-shot, which was released by Image last year. In his announcement, Oeming described the origins of this project:
This Has A “Dream Walker” Factor of Eight Out of Ten
Rome Is Byrning It’s no great leap to say that John Byrne attracts a great deal of controversy, largely of his own doing. From his message board, it’s not uncommon to see him make an offensive off-the wall comment or get into a fight with another creator… Really, it just gets old after a while. And easier to ignore. However, this one… this one shouldn’t be ignored. Byrne’s really outdone himself this time. In a thread about the proper use of comic terminology, a user posted the following message:
John, you cannot possibly be that ignorant to believe that people who use racial slurs do so without any negative intent or connotation. If you do indeed believe that, I strongly encourage you to seek some counsel and educate yourself on the matter, if you don't want to take my word for it. I've only been black and lived in this country for, oh, my entire life, so I may not be aware of how things really are out there... We spend an awful lot of time on this board dealing with the issue of respect, as it pertains to comic book characters, comic book terminology, reverence for creator's original visions, nicknames for comic book characters, etc. People tread lightly on eggshells out of fear of upsetting you and your many rules for how seriously this wonderful hobby of our should be taken, both by us within it and by those civilians outside of it. How about we extend that same measure of respect to the people who participate in this board? We're supposed to take your word for how things should be in the industry, how characters are supposed to be treated, etc because of your years of experience. How about you extend me the same courtesy on this issue? This isn't about political correctness, or "looking for something to be offended by." It is simply a matter of consideration and manners... There were an infinite number of comparatives you could have chosen to illustrate your point about correct comic book terminology. The fact that you chose the one you did...why? I think we get your point. They are balloons, not bubbles. Fine. Your comparative example sucked. Just as you ask us not to use terms that bother, offend or piss you off, I'm asking you publicly to not use racially insensitive terms and epithets on the board as well. Or is that something you would have a problem with?
This is not even considering Black people who themselves use the word. We cannot, surely, imagine that it is used in that context as a racial slur? "Nigger" is -- like so many others -- a word with a complex etymology and an even more complex pattern of use. You know, for sheer outrage, I never thought Byrne would top his Jessica Alba and Christopher Reeve comments… But he found a way. This Has A “Byrned Again” Factor of One Out of Ten
Crashing The Borderline One of our overseas correspondents has dropped us a line about the final fate of Phil Hall’s Borderline Media, which put out the online Borderline comic magazine a few years back, which boasted over a million downloads. According to the report, Borderline Media was officially dissolved on April 12th of this year. This Has A “PDFland” Factor of Three Out of Ten
The Main Man’s Reality Rick Remender (currently making waves with Sea of Red) has posted a Lobo miniseries pitch he made with Tony Moore (The Walking Dead) to DC a while back. The proposal was called Lobo: Reality Bites, which as you might expect, poked fun at the Reality TV craze, as Remender elaborates: 
The Main Man is apprehended after beating a reality television film crew to death for following and filming him (without express written permission of course) for a new show "Czarnian sociopath gone wild". Lobo, in a weakened state from the bender of his life, is brought in (by an elderly, and blind Green Lantern) to the home world of the aforementioned film crew. Lobo finds himself on a planet where every action is filmed and used for broadcast on reality TV throughout the galaxy. In a court run by the Judge Judy of the Burnett Star Belt, the sitting judge, a firm believer in creative punitive measures, knows Lobo would scoff at nearly any sentence handed down. After a pay off from show producers, the judge decides to sentence Lobo to 12 Gorgonian life cycles (roughly 700 years) on the reality television circuit. But there is a catch, given Lobo's leaning toward violence, the judge orders Lobo be injected with some kind of explosive nanotechnology to keep him from hurting other show mates. Each time he hurts anyone he is to have a limb blown off his body. This will force Lobo to deal a much more creative brand of havoc on the club kids he is forced to live with on "The Real World- Quintelsintary 4". The series would have endless hilarious situations as we take Lobo from show to show (Joe Psychopath, Road Rules, Lobo-Survivor, Star Dates, American Idol) parodying popular reality television with one new twist… Lobo.
Man of Steel? The talented photoshop artists at SomethingAwful.Com have struck again, and this time their target is the first Brandon Routh as Superman pic, which is seen below.  First, there was a more conventional take on the costume:  Then things started to go a bit mad:  This one’s my favorite:  You can check out the rest of the craziness here. This Has An “It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane” Factor of Eight Out of Ten
Alright folks, that about covers this week’s column and the first update. Thanks again, John. If all goes according to plan, we should have one more update this week, that will shed some light on a TV series which is soon to return to comics, but you’ll just have to wait a few centons to know more… See you soon… Later, Blair PS If anyone has any rumors, stories or news to share, please email me at blairm@silverbulletcomicbooks.com. Thanks to everyone who has been sending stuff in. It’s greatly appreciated. |
