Or - “Has It Been Ten Years Already?”

As a long-time comics fan, I have found that certain bigs of comic lore tend to keep recurring every few years…  Phoenix is reborn!  Spider-Man’s life will never be the same again!  A foe strong enough to defeat Superman!  A new headquarters for the Justice League!  And, most germane to this situation, the founding Avengers return to action!  I remember a conversation with my co-worker Dusty around the time that Kurt Busiek relaunched the Avengers post-Heroes-Reborn, wherein he opined that Captain America, Iron Man and Thor ARE the Avengers, and everybody else isn’t what he reads the title for.  Apparently, Marvel editorial agrees, and this is the issue that proves it…

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Following the events of Brand New May, Mayday Parker’s life is in a complete turmoil as friends are now enemies, and her foes are…well… still foes, but a few come to her aid.

Marvel has sent Major Spoilers a sneak peek of Amazing Spider-Girl #25, that you can see after the jump.

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Last night during ESPN2’s Bricktown Showdown, Marvel debuted its new Embrace Change ad to promote Secret Invasion.

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are teaming to bring a new noir-ish superhero tale from Marvel called Incognito.

“Incognito is a project that I’ve been waiting to do for some time now,” said Brubaker. “Where Sean and I previously explored a good guy pretending to be bad and losing sight of the difference, Incognito is the flipside.  The story of a bad guy forced to be good, and what happens when he starts to go stir-crazy from the monotony of normal life.  It’s a dark look at good and evil and pulp and noir all in one hard-hitting package.”

Marvel  has sent Major Spoilers a sneak peek of the issue that arrives December 10, 2008.

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Marvel Comics has sent Major Spoilers the cover images and solicitation information for titles arriving December 2008.

SECRET INVASION: DARK REIGN
Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS
Pencils & Cover by ALEX MALEEV
Variant Cover by CLASSIFIED
These solicits are classified until the release of Secret Invasion #8.
Pick up the free Marvel Previews: Dark Reign Edition in-stores the same day as Secret Invasion #8.
32 PGS./One-Shot/Rated T+ …$2.99

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If you missed out on Deadpool #1, featuring the title character battling Skrulls, you are in luck, as Marvel announced the sold-out issue is going back to the printer.  The re-print will feature a new cover with interior art from Paco Medina.

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Well of course he has - but not in the way you are thinking (although you are probably right there too), rather Marvel has announced Amazing Spider-Man #571 has sold out at the distributor level, prompting the company to go back to print.

The new cover features interior art from John Romita Jr.

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Or - “I’m Thirty-Seven, I’m Not OLD!”

Heh.  Monty Python reference…  Aaaaanywaaaay, I’ve been thinking lately about my reviewing habits, and I’ve decided to break out of any possibly dogmatic way of thinking/reviewing/purchasing and see about what’s happening with books that I wouldn’t necessarily purchase for my own enjoyment.  There’s an inherent trap in only reviewing what you already love, putting you the position of either explaining why you already enjoy something, or worse, defending something you still love that isn’t as good anymore (read any of my recent Birds of Prey reviews for an example of the latter.)  I’ve decided that the place to start our tour of things I usually won’t pay money for is the character emblematic of what went wrong with comics in the 90’s: the mutant cash machine known as Logan.  Admittedly, he’s much more attractive to me as a character now that I know he used to be a prissy mama’s boy in a nightshirt who cried when his claws first came out.  (But it shall be noted that under no circumstances will I be using the term “Wolvie.”)  Mark Millar and Steve McNiven (the men responsible for ‘Civil War’) have decided to give us what could be described as Wolverine’s own ‘Dark Knight Returns,’ proving once again that the future ain’t what it used to be.

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Eva Longoria was seen leaving Marvel Studios with a stack of reading material.  Is she being prepped to play the Wasp in the upcoming Avengers movie?

via Flawed Hollywood

Or - “THE 3-D MAAAAAN!”

The Marvel Universe has a lot of dark corners, filled with characters that somebody thought were awesome at one time, but have become somewhat embarassing in retrospect.  The Texas Twister.  The Collective Man.  Hammer and Anvil.  Deathlok Mark II.  But my favorite heroes are the ones with no chance of being considered mainstream cool, guys like The Mimic, It the Living Colossus, and the breakout star of the Initiative.  With a costume so ugly that Crazy Quilt isn’t sure about it, The 3-D Man’s only real moment of glory came against the alien Skrulls back in the ’50s.  With the You-Know-Whos invading secretly, this may be the 3-D Man’s chance to prove himself once again relevant and awesome.  If you’re smirking to yourself right now, you may want to remember this: until a couple of years ago, my list of lovable, unsalable losers included both Nova and Star-Lord…

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Exclusive interview: Stephen King talks about “N.”

Master storyteller Stephen King presents a revolutionary new form of entertainment: his short story “N.” brought to vibrant life through a series of 25 graphic video episodes available at www . nishere . com. The original series tells the story of a psychiatrist who falls victim to the same deadly obsession as his patient—an obsession that just might save the world!

Drawn by award-wining comic book artist Alex Maleev, and colored by famed comic book colorist José Villarrubia, the episodes were adapted by Marc Guggenheim, co-creator of the ABC-TV series “Eli Stone” with creative oversight from Stephen King.

via MySpaceTV

Marvel has announced, fans of the X-Men: Evolution aniamted series can watch the first two episodes for free at the Marvel website.  Marvel will update its website every Monday with new episodes from the series.

Of watch the first episode right here.

via Marvel

At the Diamond Comic Distributors’ retail summit, Marvel announced the next major event will be titled Dark Reign.  The series announced by Brian Bendis will follow the after effects of Secret Invasion that will feature a complete change to the Avengers titles.  Bendis will leave Mighty Avengers with issue #20 and launch the new Dark Avengers.  No team replacement for Mighty Avengers has been announced.

Marvel also announced Ultimate Avengers by Mark Millar for release in early 2009, Amazing Spider-Man #600 that will ask the question, “What really happened at Spider-Man’s wedding?”, and Marvel Noir, a new black and white line that will feature the X-Men, followed by Spider-Man and other Marvel characters.

More news on these series when we get our daily e-mail from Marvel.

via Newsarama

Or - “When They Said, ‘Get A Life,’ I Should Have Said ‘&$@$ YOU!”

So, for those of y’all who were not aware I DO have things on my weekly schedule that are NOT comic-related.  Not many of them, granted, but they do exist.  One of them is my day job, overlooking (I almost typed overworking) twelve awesome telephone service representatives in their day-to-day quest to resolve issues for our beloved customers.  August was a rough month for my guys (nicknamed “Team Ramrod”) and has required me to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about AHT, IR, BP, SV, and other meaningless initials.  In any case, I’m officially back to let you know I can really shake ‘em down, with another smorgasboard-orgasbord-orgasbord of comicky goodness, all wrapped up in heavy weapons and pop-culture references. Yeah, I missed youse guys, too.

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File this under Rumors We Hope are True.  According to Deadline Hollywood Daily, Both Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire are returning for a fourth and possibly fifth installment of the Spider-Man franchise from Marvel and Sony.

It’s been a difficult road trying to get any news on if the two would bring their talents back for another installment, so the studio is contemplating shooting a fifth movie at the same time as number four just so the studio has a flick ready and waiting in the wings.

Sony is taking its time officially hiring the movie’s villain since principal photography doesn’t start on Spider-Man 4 until next fall because of the recently postponed May 2011 release. I am told, however, that “once you find out who the villain is, you’ll know who’s playing it.” That should lead to speculation that Dylan Baker’s character of Dr. Curt Connors will ultimately turn into The Lizard as he did in the comic books.

I think it’s about time Connors got his moment in the sun, but would that be a villain that could carry two movies back to back, or would we see the eventual pairing of all past villains into a watered down form of the Sinister Six?

via Deadline Hollywood Daily