Tagged: Spider-Man

Jeph Loeb Talks Ultimates 3.2

  • News
  • January 22, 2008

With the second issue of Ultimates 3 set to hit shelves this week, series writer Jeph Loeb spoke with ComicBookResources about what’s to come for  Marvel’s modern-day Avengers and provided a peek at some of the interior art for the issue.

According to the preview art, the tragic events of the second volume of Ultimates might have taken their toll on the psyche of the superteam’s sharpshooter, much to the frustration of Spider-Man.

“I wouldn’t put anything past Hawkeye at this point,” Loeb remarked. “As a far better writer than I once put it, ‘A man without Hope is a Man without Fear!’”

 

 

Spider-Man’s Marriage Annulment: The Headlines

  • News
  • January 18, 2008

Over the last few weeks, more than 80 percent of the stories in my long list of news feeds have somehow involved the mystical annulment of Spider-Man’s marriage. The Merry Marvel Marketing Machine is hitting on all cylinders, it seems, as the coverage from mainstream media has been overwhelming.

Over at The Beat, Heidi MacDonald assesses the hits and misses in mainstream media’s coverage of the event – at least as far headlines go – as well as some thoughts about how the rationale for the split has been presented by Joe Quesada and Co.

"… bringing the comics Spidey back in line with other media Spidey’s was the main factor. To be honest, there’s a lot to be said for this ‘core concept.’ It wasn’t until we were researching an earlier post that we remembered that Superman and Lois are STILL married."

One More Day Too Many, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • January 7, 2008
Damn. They blew it.
 
Pulling off those universe-shattering “everything you knew yesterday will be wrong tomorrow” budget-busting bookshelf-breaking crossovers is a bitch. Few of them prove to be worth anybody’s effort, most of them are contradicted within a few weeks of their conclusion, and there have been way, way too many such “events” for any of them to be actual events. 
 
Marvel’s Civil War was different. For one thing, it was actually about something – it took on issues and concerns that were metaphors for what has been going on in the so-called real world. For another, it had at least three really, really interesting story-threads: the devolution of Tony Stark’s humanity, the death of Steve Rogers (as opposed to the death of Captain America, which didn’t happen), and the outing of Spider-Man and the resultant impact it had on Peter Parker, his career and his family.
 
I was left with a degree of personal involvement that had been much greater than previously. Marvel had instituted real change, and while we all know change is a constant and that at some point some of it would be contradicted eventually – somebody, at some point in the future, will probably resurrect Steve Rogers, although I hope not – the “event” ended with my being more curious about what would follow than any other such mega-crossover. Silly me.
 
O.K. Now we get to the spoilers, so if you haven’t read the last few Spiders-Man, and you haven’t seen any of the covers or house ads, and you haven’t listened to the hubbub at your friendly neighborhood comics shop, and you’d temporarily gone deaf and blind after seeing Alvin and the Chipmunks, you might want to stop right here. Or you can view this as a public service. And now, back to our regularly scheduled rant.
 

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We Are Family, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • December 15, 2007

family_clean12-4183176The holidays! That glorious time of year, so beloved by People of Faith, who celebrate not only their respective religious holidays but also their prized Family Values! A love of family, they say, is what separates the Godfull from the Godless. Atheists and agnostics do not have family values.

Humbug.

Family is pretty much the definition of primal. Children are, traditionally, the result of sexual activity, which is something animals do (plants, not so much). Our relationships with our parents, or at least our mothers, define our existence, as mammals and as humans. We yearn simultaneously for closeness and independence, approval and self-reliance.

More recently, family is a social construct that facilitates pacing on property, so that parents can leave their possessions to their children instead of to the Church or the State. And when property is involved, so is greed, envy, revenge, and other emotions that make stories fun to read or watch (living this stuff is way less interesting). From the Greeks through Shakespeare, the Tales of Genji and more, blood and money make families tick.

Families are the font of comedy, too. What would comedy be like without guilt, and what kind of guilt would there be if we didn’t have families? Or fear and resentment?

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Spider-Man toys: It Takes a Donald Trump…

Just a little over a decade ago, you were wishing for Santa to bring you as MegaZord or maybe even your own Pink Ranger. Now, a new comic brings you that same morphing-style action for grown ups as ComicMix Radio digs up an indy gem called Code Name Power... plus

• What are the Top Award Winning toys this season – and why isn’t there a super-hero to be found on the list?

• Spider-Man toy collectors need to start seeking financing now

• 2008 will be a great year for the Browncoats!

Okay. Stop humming the Power Rangers theme and Press The Button!

Superbad Tiger Gate by Ric Meyers

  • News
  • December 2, 2007

The third of my favorite summer ‘007 films, Superbad, is arriving as a “2-Disc Unrated Extended Edition” this coming Tuesday, with too many special features for its own good. The best of the many extras are the ones which share the raunchy, soft-centered, spirit of the film itself. The ones I could’ve done without are the ones which feign outrage, anger, or disgust.

This “unrated” DVD edition allowed director Greg Mottola to return the trims he originally needed to satisfy the ratings board’s “R”. So the unrated Superbad is about four minutes longer, with some gestures and expletives returned to their original positions of glory. Naturally this film — along with the growing oeuvre of producer/writer/director Judd Apatow’s Apatow Company (The 40 Year Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, Knocked Up, Walk Hard, etc.) — has plenty to play with, since all his movies use their garrulous scripts as a jumping off point for their casts of expert improv-ers. That allows the filmmakers to cherry pick their favorite, funniest, takes, and leave the rest for the DVD extras.

So, in addition to some deleted and extended scenes, there’s also a legitimately funny gag reel, followed by what they’re calling a “Line-O-Rama” – which shows the various, different, improvised retorts the actors used on subsequent takes of the same scene. The first of admittedly interesting, although totally superfluous, features, is “Cop Car Confessions,” where the filmmakers put a variety of guest stars (from Saturday Night Live, The Office, Live Free or Die Hard, and the Upright Citizen’s Brigade, among others) in the back seat of a police cruiser driven by Superbad’s cop characters (co-writer/producer Seth Rogan and SNL’s Bill Hader) and let everybody riff. (more…)

Shopping Bag People, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • November 24, 2007

As you read this, the shopping malls are jammed. Many opened in the dark, with special sales to attract the first shoppers. The news programs will have stories about how many people got trampled trying to buy an item marked down a lot, and perhaps a heartwarming piece about a child who buys something for a poor family.

It’s the holidays.

Most of the world’s religions, major and minor, celebrate the passing of the Winter Solstice when the days stop getting darker and the light begins to return. It is a hopeful time. Whatever your traditions, you probably enjoy gathering with family and/or friends, eating and drinking, celebrating the return of the sun.

In the United States for most of the last century, the holidays are also the time to balance the books. Stores that might lose money all year count on the fourth quarter – October through December – to turn a profit. The day after Thanksgiving is dubbed, “Black Friday,” because that’s the day the red ink should stop. (more…)

ComicMix Goes National, Part 1

  • News
  • November 19, 2007

It’s always nice when a convention takes place in your own backyard, a mere express bus or train journey away, and despite the weather turning chillier this is a great time of year to be out and about in NYC.  Michael Carbonaro has been running his bimonthly Big Apple comics and media expos for at least a dozen years now, and every November he gathers industry luminaries and showbiz greats together in his signature extravaganza, the National.  Naturally, ComicMix was there this year, and although I could only make it on Saturday I snapped plenty of photos and talked to lots of friends!

ComicMix Media Queen Martha Thomases knows how to keep her hands busy at the booth; the pink cashmere layer in her latest knitting endeavor felt absolutely gorgeous!

Here was the view of the left side of our row, with Bob McLeod in the foreground, then my husband Robin Riggs (I shuttled the few feet between the CM table and our location for much of the day), then Scott Roberts, and in the background Rodney Ramos.  More on those two below.  In fact, more of everything below! (more…)

More on Marvel’s subscription service

  • News
  • November 13, 2007

mighty-marvel-money-5896004In an interview between ICv2 and Marvel president Dan Buckley, the following exchange takes place:

Do you plan to put up all new issues of the titles that are on the "Current Favorites" or "Young Reader Series" lists?

No, we do not plan on putting up the new issues of "Current Favorites" nor do we plan on keeping complete runs of top selling trades like Astonishing X-Men up on the site for prolonged periods of time.

Did you catch that? We don’t plan on keeping complete runs up for prolonged periods of time. In other words, they plan to remove titles after you’ve already paid for your subscription. If those titles are too successful, you should go out and buy the trade in addition to the money you’ve already paid for the subscription. Nice.

And from our earlier article about Marvel’s new online archive, we quoted Marvel president Dan Buckley from USA Today saying "We did not want to get caught flat-footed." What he should have said is that Marvel didn’t want to get caught flat footed with the Internet again.

Marvel has never been the fastest company to adopt to the Internet. They weren’t the original registrants of marvel.com, for starters. That had already been registered by a software company in Washington by 1995, and later had to be acquired by legal manuverings. Nor were they the original registrants of what the obvious fallback name was, marvelcomics.com.

I was.

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Power!, by Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • November 13, 2007

So you wanna be a superhero. Okay, where are your powers going to come from?

For years – nay, hundreds of years; nay, thousands of years – the brief answer was: From out there. Somewhere. The first superbeings in popular culture (the only kind there was, back then) were either gods, or pals of gods, or imbued with magical abilities, the origins of which weren’t necessarily clear or important. What was important was…wow! – look at what he/she/it can do! And so much the better if it, whatever spectacular thing it is, is being done for reasons I approve of.

That’s still what’s important. But our minds seem to be wired to want reasons for what we see, which is certainly why there’s science and may be why there’s art and civilization. But, oddly, once a reason is supplied, many of seem to be satisfied and require nothing further. The great cosmic snortlefish created the oceans? Swell, now I know why there’s all that water and what’s for dinner?

By the time Jerry Siegel got around to thinking up Superman in the summer of 1934, magic wasn’t terribly fashionable and it had long since become divorced from religion. But science…ah, science was going to deliver us and besides, it was real. And Jerry was a reader of science fiction, which, in those happy days, at least claimed to be rooted in physics and chemistry and astronomy and stuff like that. So it was natural, maybe inevitable, that he would give his übermensch a science rationale. Guy comes from another planet, sure – that’d be why he could be so powerful. Makes sense. Made sense to Jerry in 1934, probably would have made sense to me when I was the age Jerry was when he created Superman, if I’d thought about it.

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