Monthly Archive: September 2009

Meanwhile, in ‘Superman’ movie news…

  • News
  • September 2, 2009

If you ever wonder why DC can’t catch a break in movies while Marvel’s going gangbusters, consider this piece from the New York Post about the producers of Superman:

MOVIE mogul Jon Peters has been ordered to stay 100 yards away from his “Superman: Man of Steel” co-producer, Brian Quintana — for allegedly threatening to kapow! him.

The battle between the producers flared up on Aug. 12 when Peters
was giving a deposition at a Los Angeles law office for a sexual
harassment lawsuit Quintana filed against him. According to a
transcript of the deposition, Peters shouted, “I am going to cross this
table and beat the [bleep]ing [bleep] out of you. I am going to kick
your ass.”

Quintana, 41, told Page Six that Peters lunged at him during the session, adding, “His lawyer had to hold him back.”

A police report Quintana filed Aug. 14 reads: “Mr. Peters
threatened to break my legs. I am afraid, nervous and anxious that Jon
Peters is going to hurt or kill me.”

Then, on Aug. 19, Quintana got a court order forbidding Peters from
threatening, assaulting or harassing him. A hearing is set for Sept. 9
to decide how long the order remains in effect.

Relations between the co-producers have been more charged than
kryptonite. As we first reported last year, Quintana filed a suit
claiming Peters sexually roughed him up and subjected him to
“continuous and pervasive sexual harassment,” including “multiple
instances where he was physically [and] sexually harassed by Peters.”

Peters’ lawyer, Joe Yanny, told us, “This
restraining order is ridiculous. Mr. Peters did not threaten Mr.
Quintana. He is trying to manipulate the system.” He said Peters “lost
his temper” at the deposition because Quintana was throwing kisses at
him. He also said Peters obtained a restraining order to prevent
Quintana from saying he was an “employee” of Peters.

Remember, if there isn’t a Superman theatrical movie in production by 2011, the Siegel estate gets millions. I wonder if DC can take it out of Peters’s scalp.

‘Lobo’ goes to Hollywood (really!)

  • News
  • September 2, 2009

Heidi has the goods:

Manly director Guy Ritchie is set to direct the LOBO movie… let’s start the campaign to cast defining artist Simon Bisley in a supporting role NOW! There’s gonna be so much bonus testosterone on this project that Megan Fox is gonna turn into a sprint champion. Warner Bros. has locked Guy Ritchie to direct “Lobo,” the live action adaptation of the DC Comics drama about an alien interstellar bounty hunter. Don Payne wrote the most recent script draft, and Joel Silver, Akiva Goldsman and Andrew Rona will produce.

In the meantime, expect a price bump in back issues of the book to the right.

Does Disney buying Marvel mean ‘Spider-Man: Turn On The Dark’ is back to Broadway?

  • News
  • September 2, 2009

The Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark may not be as dead as previously thought.

According to a report in Variety, the rumor mill is spinning with word that the financially troubled production will resume production this week or maybe next, with at least some folks being called back to work. The production stalled earlier last month due to “cash-flow” issues. There is no official word as of yet.

They’re saying there is no connection to production on the musical picking up again and Disney acquiring Marvel, but I don’t believe that for a minute. Disney has tremendous experience working on Broadway, including Julie Taymor’s previous adaption of The Lion King for Broadway.

No word yet on if the musical will open on time… it had been set to begin previews on February 25, 2010, and officially open in March.

50 comics facts about the Class of 2013

  • News
  • September 2, 2009

Every year, Beloit College puts together a list of facts regarding the mindset of the class entering college this Fall—the Class of 2013. Their list, as always, is well worth a read, but this is ComicMix, and we’re here to talk about comics, by gum.

So as we get ready to send them off to college, we wondered: what constitutes the comics status quo for them? What’s normal to these kids born in 1991 (he asks, knowing that being born in 1986 puts him in largely the same boat)? So glad you asked.

  1. The guy who did the above strip had already ended his daily strip and retired by the time these freshmen started reading newspapers.
  2. There has never been a Miracleman (or Marvelman) comic published in their lifetime.
  3. They have no idea who Don Thompson or Carol Kalish were.
  4. Gambit has always been on the X-Men.
  5. Spider-Man was always married to Mary Jane… until One More Day.
  6. There wasn’t a DC multiverse until the end of Infinite Crisis.
  7. Wally West was always the Flash, and his first sidekick was Impulse.
  8. Adam West has never been Batman—he’s best known as the mayor on Family Guy.
  9. Wolverine never wore a brown costume, and has always had a solo book.
  10. Barbara Gordon has always been in a wheelchair.
  11. Sandman has always been that pale-skinned goth guy with the hair.
  12. Batman has had three Robins: Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Damian Wayne.
  13. Lex Luthor has always been a businessman.
  14. Image Comics has always existed.
  15. So has Wizard Magazine.
  16. New Mutants was a short-lived series from 2003-2004, until the recent relaunch.
  17. Hank McCoy’s always been blue and furry.
  18. Elektra has always been dead.
  19. Frank Miller is the guy who did Sin City, and he never worked with Klaus Janson.
  20. There’s never been a character named “Streaky the Supercat.”
  21. The only composite Batman-Superman was a giant robot.
  22. The original Dove has always been dead.
  23. Thanos has always been searching for the Infinity Gems, so he can impress Death.
  24. Death has always been a goth chick.
  25. Jim “Rhodey” Rhodes has always been War Machine.
  26. S.H.I.E.L.D. has always stood for Strategic Hazard Intervention, Espionage Logistics Directorate.
  27. Kyle Rayner has always been a Green Lantern.
  28. Starman has always worn goggles and a leather jacket.
  29. John Romita. Jr. has always been known as a regular penciller for Amazing Spider-Man. John Romita, Sr. never was.
  30. Ghost Rider was Danny Ketch.
  31. Jean-Luc Picard was the first captain of the Enterprise.
  32. Cerebus the Aardvark was always a classic.
  33. Grendel has always been a Dark Horse title, except for that DC crossover.
  34. Cassie Sandsmark was the first Wonder Girl.
  35. Roy Harper was only known as Arsenal up until the current volume of Justice League of America.
  36. There’s never been a First or Eclipse Comics. Comico only did some of those soft-core Elementals books.
  37. There were originally four Justice League titles on the stands.
  38. The original Teen Titans were comprised of a de-aged Atom (Ray Palmer), Risk, Argent, Captain Marvel, Jr., Omen, Prysm, Fringe, Arsenal, and Joto.
  39. Julia Carpenter was the original Spider-Woman.
  40. The two Avengers teams were the East Coast and West Coast branches. None of this New, Mighty, Dark, Pet, and Caramel Covered.
  41. There’s always been a comic called Love and Rockets.
  42. The superhero cartoons of choice were Darkwing Duck and Fox’s X-Men. For live action, it was all about the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.
  43. Kraven the Hunter has always been dead.
  44. Northstar has always been out of the closet.
  45. Kevin Conroy has always been the animated voice of Batman.
  46. Jim Shooter was the guy behind Valiant, then Defiant, and then he wrote the Legion for a while. Wait, he was at Marvel, too?
  47. Phoenix is Rachel Summers, not Jean Grey.
  48. Karate Kid was Ralph Macchio, and Ralph Macchio was the guy editing X-Men.
  49. There have always been Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novels.
  50. Disney never had a major successful comic book franchise.

What’s yours?

(Alan Kistler and Glenn Hauman contributed to this list.)

Who makes money when Disney buys Marvel?

  • News
  • September 1, 2009

Well, if I’m reading these stock forms correctly, Avi Arad’s stock holdings jumped about $10 million dollars yesterday with the stock bump.

And Issac Perlmutter’s stock holdings went up about $282 million, with his total holdings worth about $1,391,049,355. Put another way, when they say that Disney bought Marvel for four billion dollars, over a third of it goes to Issac. And since this is a 60% cash/40% stock deal, Issac pulls in $830 million in cash.

Yowza. That’s a lot of variant covers.

Disneyfication Wave, Plus One Day

  • Uncategorized
  • September 1, 2009

Share photos on twitter with TwitpicSo Disney is buying Marvel. By now, that’s old news– in Internet terms, anyway.

How big a deal was it? I don’t think Marvel sent out a single press package today hyping their comics. Usually, we get two or three of them a day.

The Beat has an excellent roundup of what we do and don’t know by now. But they don’t say much about other reactions. So what does the Internet think? Twitter, as might be expected, has gone crazy with the #disneymarvel and #disneybuysmarvel hashtags. Reactions can be broken down pretty easily into three categories, in order of increasing rarity:

People Trying to Be Comedians

poohbear151: So is everyone ready for the spider-man/fantastic four/x-men/high school musical crossover event? 

smmEBob:  Buzz Lightyear and the Guardians of the Galaxy

Grimloche: Finding Namor

Professionals Trying to Be Comedians With More Success

Brian Reed (Writer, Ms. Marvel): “Face it, Tigger, you hit the jackpot!”

Stephen Wacker (Editor, Amazing Spider-Man): Y’know I never thought Cinderella and Prince Charming shoulda gotten married…hmmm.

Jason Aaron (Writer, Punisher Max): Can now officially have the Punisher target the entire cast of “Hannah Montana.”

Jeff Parker (Writer, Agents of Atlas): Please, will someone draw MODUCK (NOTE: Ryan Dunlavey did, as did Chris Samnee.)

Warren Ellis (Writer, Astonishing X-Men): so I got this phone call from Joe Quesada and it was just the sound of him rubbing himself with money and now I am confused

(Broken Frontier has a strong round-up of other professional’s reactions in somewhat longer form.)

People Who Might Actually Know What’s Going On

C.B. Cebulski (Marvel talent liaison/editor/writer) Allow me to reassure you right now, guys, that Marvel’s going to continue to produce great comic books the way we always have.

Joe Quesada (Marvel Editor in Chief) If you’re
familiar with the Disney/Pixar relationship, then you’ll understand why
this is a new dawn for Marvel and the comics industry.

Marv Wolfman: Because I was both the Editor-in-Chief of Marvel as well as one of the
two founding editors of Disney Adventures Magazine, I’ve already gotten
numerous phone calls, including one from Forbes Magazine, asking what I
think about Disney buying Marvel. The easy answer is – nobody knows.
Certainly I don’t.

We’ll keep more stuff coming– we don’t think this story is going away any time soon.

Jack Kirby draws Mickey Mouse as Disney gets Marvelized

  • News
  • September 1, 2009

In a case of incredibly lucky timing, Craig Yoe, the author of Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster, The Art of Ditko, The Complete Milt Gross Comic Book Stories and Life Story, The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers, and The Great Anti-War Cartoons, has started blogging again on Super I.T.C.H. (International Team of Comics Historians) with a well-timed piece: Jack Kirby’s drawing of Mickey Mouse:

Back in 1991, I did a coffee table art book “The Art of Mickey
Mouse”, I got artists from around the world to do their interpretation
of “The World’s Favorite Mouse.” One of the first people I called was
Jack Kirby. He and his wife Roz were very excited about the idea. He
sent me two drawings, as I recall, and I chose this one. I colored it
“animation style,” with the black line on an overlay and  the
background colors underneath. Jack’s contribution was part of a touring
exhibit of art from the book throughout Japan. So, Marvel is called by
some fans “The House that Jack Built” (not, in my opinion to take
ANYTHING  away from the brilliant genius Stan Lee’s more than vital
part.) And here’s Jack doing Mickey! Is this weird, or what?

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