Author: Robert Greenberger

Matthew Sturges talked with Comic Book Resources about Run!, the series replacing Blue Beetle on his schedule. The unscheduled title spins out of events from Final Crisis and will focus on the villains.  Sturges previously worked with DC’s foes during Salvation Run and he addressed the possible connections.

“No, it’s not connected to Salvation Run in any way,” he explained. “A friend of mine half-jokingly suggested the tagline, ‘This time there’s no salvation,’ which actually works well on a couple of levels. It’s also not connected to The Flash, which is something that people might have guessed, given the title. What I can say is that it’s part of the Final Crisis aftermath. It shows what happens to one of the characters from Final Crisis after the dust settles, and his rise from being a complete nobody to being one of the most powerful super-villains on Earth.

Sturges, who also cowrites House of Mystery with Bill Willingham, went on to say, “It’s very different in tone from a lot of things I’ve written before. It’s very fast-paced, very action-oriented. It’s ruthless, both in terms of pacing and subject matter. Our protagonist is not a nice guy, and the narrative definitely makes the most of that. What you’ll find in this book is a lot of the wicked kind of stuff that I would have done more of in Salvation Run, if I’d had more room to play around. I sharpened a lot of metaphorical knives writing Salvation Run that I never got a chance to stab anybody with.”

He says he likes writing heroes and villains, and having worked with both, he said, “I’m a fairly paradoxical person; part hopeless romantic and part die-hard cynic. When I’m writing Blue Beetle, I have to fight to keep things from getting too ugly and too negative, and when I’m writing Run!, I have to fight to keep things from getting too nice. One great thing about bad guys is that, like the jester in the king’s court, they get to say the things that the good guys aren’t allowed to say. They get to make the tasteless jokes, mock people, and revel in absurdity; all of which lends itself to snappy dialog and funny moments. That’s one of the things that makes writing Jack of Fables so much fun, by the way – he’s a villain who, in his own mind, is the romantic lead. He’s the perfect character for me to write.”

The miniseries will be illustrated by Freddie Williams III (Robin). “I’ve been dying to work with [him] since I first saw his work on Robin a couple of years ago,’ Sturges gushed. “He’s just the right guy for the job.

After Run!, the writer will work on a new DCU project the details of which he refused to divulge.

Maddie Blaustein, known to a generation as the voice of Pokémon’s nemesis Meowth, passed away at age 48.  Aaron McQuade said she died in her sleep after a brief, undisclosed illness.

Born Adam Blaustein, she broke into the comics field as Jim Owsley’s editorial assistant at Marvel Comics in the 1980s before leaving to go freelance. Blaustein went on to write several issues of Milestone’s Static before joining DC Comics as a production artist/photographer.

Blaustein, a transgender individual, evolved into Madeleine while building up an impressive voice over resume for English-language anime adaptations including Solomon Moto on Yu-Gi-Oh, commercials and radio. She was also a very active participant at Second Life.

After leaving DC Comics in 2006, Blaustein joined Weekly World News as its visual artist, creating the elaborate photos to accompany its stories.  We worked alongside one another at the company and she loved the challenge the stories posed her.  After the paper folded in August 2007, Blaustein freelanced until her death.

Aaron McQuade, who profiled Maddie for The Advocate, wrote on his blog, “Maddie once told me the story of how she was inspired to fully transition from male to female (and to come out to her co-workers as transgender) by an episode of Pokémon. In the episode ‘Go West, Young Meowth’ her character travels to Hollywood to make it big. There, Meowth falls in love with another Meowth, who spurns his advances. He decides to learn how to speak and to stand upright in order to impress her – but she rejects him for being a “freak.” Meowth was a human trapped in a Pokémon’s body.”

Top Cow Productions, Inc. announced Wednesday that fans who have been clamoring for the return of the Hunter-Killer series and anticipating more Cyberforce will finally get their wish when the publisher launches Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer, a monster crossover limited series set to debut in July.

Eisner-nominated writer Mark Waid (Amazing Spider-Man, Kingdom Come), who co-created Hunter-Killer with Top Cow founder and CEO Marc Silvestri in 2005, will pen the story. Providing art will be rising superstar Kenneth Rocafort (Madame Mirage, Astonishing Tales), who drew the final four issues of Season 1 of Hunter-Killer.

“I can’t wait to work with Kenneth again,” raved Waid. “He blew my mind when I first saw his Hunter-Killer pages during the first run. To be brutally honest, it’s rare that I see a new artist whose work doesn’t feel redundant or a clone of something else already out there. Kenneth’s energy knocks me out.”

“This is a dream come true to draw one of my favorite teams of all time, Cyberforce,” said Rocafort, who was a fan of Top Cow books well before he started drawing for them. “And to combine that with the characters of Hunter-Killer, which I love to draw, and working with Mark again, this is an exciting project for me.”

Cyberforce is a team of unique individuals granted with superhuman abilities via cybernetic implants created to be the pawns of a corrupt and evil corporation. Having defeated their creators, they united to fight the battles no one else could. Hunter-Killers are a group of Ultra Sapiens—a genetic super race living in secret because they are walking weapons of mass destruction—who monitor and police their own to ensure the safety of planet Earth. Details of the crossover storyline are being kept under wraps for now.

“The past two summers, we’ve focused on the more supernatural aspects of our universe with First Born and Broken Trinity,” said Rob Levin, VP Editorial for Top Cow. “Next summer, we’re going to shine a light on our tech-based heroes. Mark Waid is one of my favorite writers out there. And Kenneth…that guy is unstoppable. The work he’s doing is going to melt eyeballs, and dare I say it, crack the Internet in quarters. Quarters!”