Jim Cavalziel (The Passion of the Christ) suffers a whole
new kind of persecution when he stars as Number Six in the six-episode remake
of Patrick McGoohan’s classic 1960s show The Prisoner, which is set to air on
AMC in November.

Today’s SDCC panel on The Prisoner reboot featured Jim
Cavalziel as well as Prisoner co-star Lennie James (Jericho), AMC VP Vlad
Wolynetz, and miniseries writer Bill Gallagher. Alas, Sir Ian McKellan, who
takes on the role of Six’s nemesis, Number Two, was not present.

Gallagher characterized the remake as a “response,” and not
a duplication of McGoohan’s concept. (We don’t have to worry about Cavalziel
being overly influenced by McGoohan’s take on the role of Number Six; according
to a Wired interview, he’s never even seen the show. Maybe that’s worrying in a
whole different way.)

The panel premiered nine minutes of footage from the new
Prisoner, embedded below for your viewing pleasure, and of course, your judging. According
to official AMC tweeter, ThePrisoner_AMC, “The crowd … [went] wild after rover is
revealed in #ThePrisoner panel at Comic-Con.” Presumably, that was out of appreciative
nostalgia, not fear, because the Village’s security device is still a decidedly
unintimidating, giant white balloon. Watching the footage, it’s clear that the
premise has shifted quite a bit, although several scenes and bits of dialogue have
carried over and sound a bit odd voiced in American accents. The setting has
also moved thousands of miles from the cool, green precincts of Wales to a
considerably hotter, more arid enclave in Namibia.

Marvel Comics and AMC have also
collaborated on a Prisoner comic, which is being given away at San Diego.

Download a PDF of the comic from the AMC website.

Judging by the exhausted tweets and blog posts coming out of SDCC, it sounds like everyone there could use a Cup O’ Joe–which is good, because that’s what they’re getting as Joe Quesada, Jim McCann, Dan Buckley, Jeph Loeb, CB Cebulski and Steve Wacker revealed some of the biggest news of the convention. Special guests and announcements galore, all from the Marvel liveblog:

• Bob Gale is writing some Marvel.com Amazing Spider-Man stories in continuity — once every 2 weeks. You need to be a Marvel Digital Comics subscriber to read them
  
• Red She-Hulk will be appearing in Hulk, and is on the cover of #16.
• After Incredible Hulk #600, there are two Hulks, neither of them Banner, leading into World War Hulks.
• To kick off that event, John Romita, Jr. is doing a one-shot called World War Hulks Gamma, which kicks off with the death of “a major character.” It comes out in December.
• “We want to have digital plans, but not INSTEAD of, ” says Joe Quesada about a push towards digital comics.
• Within the next 6 weeks there will be news about the future of Marvel’s cosmic line of books.
  
• Thor is the next character to get a major push into the spotlight with the movie on the way.
• Dan Buckley said that there would be four or five Ultimate books a month, on average, beginning in January.
• Ultimatum #5 “should answer 90% of the questions that you may have regarding what we have been doing.” – Loeb
• Deadpool/Red Hulk with McGuiness on pencils, coming in August. Deadpool will be showing up in Hulk this fall.
  
• Joe Quesada revealed that the Dark Reign will last until December, but was otherwise mum.
• Charlie Huston and David Medina are doing 7 issues of a Marvel Knights Deathlok series.
  
• Quesada’s big announcement: Marvel has officially won the rights to Marvelman/Miracleman, and will be starting to publish stories featuring the character next year. It will be the CONTINUING adventures of the character, not a reboot. Mark Buckingham came on stage for the announcement. This is huge news, folks. Watch ComicMix for more.

For the blow-by-blow, and even more news, check out the Marvel liveblog. For more about the Marvelman announcement, don’t touch that dial, we’ll be following the story right here on ComicMix.com.

Just announced at the #cupofjoe panel in San Diego: Marvel Comics has acquired the rights to Miracelman. More details to come…

The room was packed for Viz Media’s Shonen Jump panel, which
took place at 10:30 am in Room 10. The company announced two new series: Mitsutoshi
Shimabukuro’s Toriko, about a “gourmet hunter” of the same name who apparently
tracks down the most dangerous and tasty beasts, which he sells to exclusive
restaurants; meanwhile, the metafictional Bakuman from Death Note creators Tsugumi Ohba
and Takeshi Obata promises to shed light on that most mysterious of arts,
producing manga. Both began running in the Japanese magazine Shonen Jump Weekly
in 2008 and are still ongoing.

However, the star attractions of the panel were Hiroyuki
Takei (Shaman King) and Stan Lee– yes, THAT Stan Lee, not some Japanese guy with the same name– co-creators of Shonen Jump’s new manga,
Ultimo, which is making its English debut in the July issue. The story concerns
two robot boys, one who champions ultimate good (Ultimo) and one representing
ultimate evil (Vice) battle it out in contemporary Tokyo to determine which
force is supreme.

According to Takei, he’s already “vaguely” decided which
robot will win. He based the character design of the robot boys’ creator,
Dunstan, on Stan Lee himself. Apparently, he was quite nervous about showing
sketches of Dunstan to Lee, but Lee claims that he didn’t even see the
resemblance at first.

Lee noted that he’s really having fun working on a project that’s
such a departure from American comics, while Takei spoke about the challenge of
creating a manga that pleases both Japanese and American audiences. The
difference in approach is perhaps exemplified by the two creators’ answers
about what readers should “take away” from the manga. Takei said that Ultimo was
about “good and evil,” while Lee said that it was “all about selling a lot of
copies.”

The streets have erupted in violence and the safe haven that mutants thought they’d found is in turmoil. The Dark Avengers have put Daken in Wolverine’s place, and there’s an all-out war tearing through space and time with a certain red-haired green-eyed girl at the center of it. In other words, it’s another Wednesday in the life of the X-Men.

 X-Men group editor Axel Alonso was joined by panelists include Matt Fraction (Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Utopia), Craig Kyle and Chris Yost (X-Force), Marjorie Liu (Dark Wolverine), Daniel Way (Deadpool), Jason Aaron (Wolverine: Weapon X), and several special guests to share the news about what the future holds for Marvel’s band of merry mutants. Marvel’s got their own liveblog going, and here are the highlights:

• Daniel Acuna joins X-Men: Legacy as the ongoing artist.
• Magneto is back in the upcoming Nation X storyline, presumably in Uncanny X-Men.
• Necrosha is an upcoming crossover between X-Force, New Mutants, and X-Men: Legacy featuring the evil priestess Selene, led into by a one-shot. Starts in October. 16 million mutants promised to return, but it’s not an M-Day fix or reversal. “Suck it, Blackest Night,” quoth UXM scribe Matt Fraction. CBR has more about the crossover here.
• On a note very near and dear to my heart — the cover to New Mutants #6 features Magik hugging someone who looks very much like the long-dead Doug Ramsey. Of course, he looks like a zombie, but we take what is given.
• Daken’s sexuality is brought up, only to be met with a resounding “shrug” from the panelists. “When you see him involved with women and men, it isn’t about sexuality, it is about power and manipulation,” said Marjorie Liu.
• X-Statix mascot Doop will be returning, though no word on how, when, or in what title.
  

Point your X-browser over here, X-fans, for more X-bloggage.

The catch-all for all the off the cuff comments and interesting comments we’ve been hearing in the halls, following on Facebook, and tracking on Twitter.

Fernando Borrego: Only at comic con: bill nye gets a bigger ovation than nick cage

Chris Gore: Saw a guy at Comic Con wearing an NFL cap & called him Faggot!  Revenge for the 10,000,000 times I was called FAG in high school.  Win!

Bonnie Burton at the i09 panel: Pirates are the new vampire zombies!

BrianTruitt: Biggest irony of #sdcc: the one place you don’t have to stand in line is the bathroom.

paplikaplik: That lady’s trying to fit 200 lbs of Wonder Woman into a 90 lb costume.

mordantkitten: Damned if I haven’t found a way to sleep in line. Hee!

germainlussier: never seen hall h this full or full of females. its like a boy band concert.

ACED Magazine: Zoe Saldana has a
girlcrush on Megan Fox-but doesn’t know why casting decisions are made
by 65-yr-old men who want to see 25 year old girls rather than by looking to input from the younger generation who might want to see something different.

Paul Kupperberg “is 3000 miles away from Artists Alley and thinks the view from here is just fine.”

Geoff Johns, on the Green Lantern live-action movie : “I think the Green Lantern mythology has the potential to be one of
the biggest franchises in the world, superhero or otherwise. It’s as
epic as Star Wars and as deep as Lord of the Rings.
I think it could rival every other superhero out there if explored,
supported and executed right. … I think the success of films like Iron Man and The Dark Knight has shown us that good comics films can rule the screen. … I have immensely high hopes for Green Lantern.”

And finally, a tweet from Mark Evanier: “I’m at the con. Where the hell is everyone? The place is empty.”

(Thanks to Kim Kindya, Jenifer Rosenberg, Martha Thomases, and everybody else sending in their favorites. Photo by cranberries.)