Considering how we’ve heard how Marvel intends to reboot certain underperforming film franchises — the Fantastic Four and Daredevil being two that spring to mind — MTV has some interesting news about the Spirit of Vengeance himself. Namely, that a reboot is not in Johnny Blaze’s future.

“This story picks up eight years after the first film. You don’t have to have seen the first film. It doesn’t contradict anything that happened in the first film, but we’re pretending that our audience hasn’t seen the first film,” David Goyer told MTV. “It’s as if you took that same character where things ended in the first film and then picked it up eight years later—he’s just in a much darker, existential place.”

Goyer said he hoped that the next film — which will be darker and less over-the-top — would do the Ghost Rider franchise what Casino Royale did to reenergize the James Bond series. The thing I’m curious about is: will Nicholas Cage return? On the one hand, he wasn’t exactly hitting Leaving Las Vegas levels with the last film, but on the other hand, his recent financial troubles may make him a bit of a bargain for Marvel. What say you, Rama readers?

Peeeeeeee Pazow!

MGM has announced that Prince Planet, the old black-and-white anime, will be rereleased on Hulu and YouTube starting today!

The series — not too dissimilar to those of Captain Marvel or Prime, Prince Planet assumed an unassuming alter ego named Billy, but his powerful pendant not only gave him superstrength and invulnerability, but also had a lot of similar qualities to the constructs of the Green Lantern power ring.
“We are pleased the tech team here at MGM invested the time and resources in digital restoration services to bring this series to life for the new digital age,” said MGM’s Director of Worldwide Digital Media, Yaoshiang Ho, in a press statement.  “From fans of classic animation to anime connoisseurs, viewers will be able to enjoy “Prince Planet” on demand and online in a way they’ve never seen it before through MGM’s digital media partners.”

Prince Planet originally hit Japan in 1965, hitting the U.S. the following year for a 13-year run on TV.

What may be one man’s Sorrow can also be pretty darn lucrative — at least, if you’re Rick Remender and company.

Shock Till You Drop has reported that the Punisher scribe has made a big hit in Hollywood, as the rights to his Image series Sorrow has been optioned by Twisted Pictures, the company behind the Saw films.

The series, written by Remender and Seth Peck with art by Francisco Francavilla, is about a seemingly deserted town that had been the center of government nuclear testing. But when four travelers break down near the town’s border, they find out there’s something hidden in the shadows.

Sherlock Holmes is a character whose fame far outstrips the source material that birthed him. People seem to absorb Holmes lore via a sort of pop-cultural osmosis. You don’t have to read a word of Conan Doyle or even watch the movie adaptations to have Holmes indelibly etched on at least a tiny space in your brain. Like Tarzan, or even Superman and Batman, Sherlock Holmes is probably in your head whether you’ve made a conscious effort to put him there or not.

Holmes’ already prodigious profile is definitely on the ascendant these days. He’s featured in a comic series by Dynamite, TV hit House is, if not a straight adaptation, a definite riff on Holmes, and Holmes will even go head to head with zombies in the upcoming VICTORIAN UNDEAD. Most prominently in the zeitgeist, is second string Tarantino Guy Ritchie’s upcoming Sherlock Holmes film adaptation, a buddy action movie that threatens to bend the character out of all recognizable shape. With all of this Buzz floating around one of literature’s most enduring creations, it’s a good time to go back and look at the original legacy of a man who has a legitimate claim on the title “world’s first superhero”.

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He’s a genius, the voice of a generation, a connoisseur of fishsticks, a motherlovin’ lyrical wordsmith!

And now, Destiny herself has opened her doors to Kanye — and by that, I mean he is getting his own graphic novel. Via Midtown Comics, under the Independent section of their Graphic Novels:

THROUGH THE WIRE is a graphic memoir that illustrates the lyrics of twelve Kanye West songs to tell his story, from his decision to drop out of college to pursue his dreams in music, through his days spent folding chinos at the Gap while struggling at night to make a name as a producer, through the pivotal car accident that eventually set him on the course to stardom and the epiphany of realizing exactly who he had become.

The graphic novel, published by Simon and Schuster and drawn by Bill Plympton (yeah, I don’t know how he got involved with this, either), will be out later this week. It can’t be much more awkward than the ending of this. Or possibly this.

“I like to tell the history of Judaism through comics…When I was growing up, I never thought comics were connected to religion and culture”: That’s comics creator J.T. Waldman talking Judaism and comics in this profile in the religion section of the Pennsylvania Patriot News. The focus of the story is Waldman’s presentation on the subject with the clever title of “People of The Comic Book.” I wasn’t overly surprised to see the article spell Spider-Man’s name wrong (as “Spiderman”…come on, let’s get this in the AP Style Guide, already!). I was sort of intrigued when the article mentioned that “Waldman called Spiderman ‘a veiled story of Moses’” (they did mean Superman, with the infant in the rocket ship an analogy to the baby in the basket, right? Or are there parallels to Exodus I never noticed in the Spidey story? Is the radioactive spider analogous to the burning bush, and Uncle Ben is God and the Green Goblin Pharaoh…?). And I was pretty appalled when I saw that they got Waldman’s name wrong, calling him J.P. Waldman. It’s obviously too late to fix the print edition, but I don’t see any reason why the online version of an article has to have a pretty basic, embarrassing mistake like that up a few days after publication.

“I guess it’s truly time for me to forgive South Carolinians for firing on Fort Sumter. I hope, in 100 years or so, South Carolinians will forgive me for my own cheap shot”: Political cartoonist David Horsey talks at some length about the reaction to his cartoon mocking South Carolina.

“Early Buzz: Is Kick-Ass The Best Superhero Movie Ever Made?”: Yes, I’d definitely say that buzz qualifies as “early,” since the first trailer isn’t even due out until mid-month. I’m intensely curious about how they managed to make a whole Kick-Ass movie in the time it’s taken Marvel to publish just seven issues of the series. It’s not like artist John Romita Jr. is known for deadline blowing or drawing slow or anything, and yet Kick-Ass has been coming at about as regularly as Mark Millar’s Ultimates used to.

“Dropping a supernatural enemy into an environment that’s already so alien and strange is overkill, like setting a vampire movie on the moon”: Here’s the New York Times on Matt Phelan’s excellent The Storm in the Barn, which is covered as part of a round-up of various children’s books dealing with the Dust Bowl. Writer Jessica Bruder isn’t overly impressed, but then Bruder doesn’t think a vampire movie on the moon would be totally awesome, so I’m not sure whether I’d trust her opinion on anything else.

Find out more about Global Freezing here on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays or at ComicsByEgg.com.

“Rotten” is a surprise on many levels and not exactly what you’d expect from a comic that traffics in zombies. First off, it’s set in the Wild West of 1877. And it’s packed with a number of issues that parallel our own time like Americans forced to accept a president who has not been elected by popular vote. Or Americans being manipulated during a crisis. I sat down with “Rotten” creator, Mark Rahner, and began with this tongue-in-cheek question: “Is there room for ‘Rotten’ to address universal health care?”

With a chuckle, Rahner quipped, “Being uninsured today sort of leaves you as screwed as you would have been in 1877. And, by the way, when they have those historic reenactments, they never have displays of people who lost all their teeth by thirty.” He then adds, “You’ll see a lot more connections. In Issues 7 thru 9, for instance, we’ll have a story arc about the denial of evolution. It’s to my shock and dismay that this is still an issue for debate but it is. Science exists independently of whether or not you believe in it.” Any chance of a direct reference to Sarah Palin? Rahner doesn’t rule that out but he stresses that you won’t be getting an obvious pop culture fix like a lab mouse reaching for its next food pellet.

In the upcoming Issue 5, one of the characters delivers a wonderful Shakespearen quote: “Have we eaten on the insane root that takes the reason prisoner?” Very classy and all too relevant to 1877 or today. Rahner: “With something like that, it helps to stress that this isn’t a cliché Western. It also underscores the fact that if anyone thought that just with Bush gone we’ve returned to reason is mistaken. And that quote hits on the central theme running throughout this comic: Americans being manipulated during a crisis, when fear trumps reason.”

Mark Rahner, and co-writer Robert Horton, have both written professionally as movie critics. Rahner calls himself the more boisterous one and Horton the more thoughtful one which sort of parallels the main characters, Agent William Wade and his trusty aide, J. J. Flynn. “We often talk and act like our characters,” says Rahner. Given their backgrounds, these guys are quite capable of seasoning their writing with just the right movie reference. In No. 1, you’ll find references to “The Molly Maguires” and “Yojimbo.” In 4 – 6, you’ll find the spaghetti Western, “The Great Silence.”

Aside from movies, Agents Wade and Flynn, share a vibe with James T. West and Artemus Gordon from the TV show, “The Wild Wild West” and, maybe even more so, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. “It wasn’t something we set out to do but, the Holmes/Watson connection is there. The story is in Flynn’s voice. It can’t be Wade’s. It can’t be from his perspective since he’s right in the middle of it all.”

I talked to Rahner more about horror movies. He prefers his horror to be serious and to be about something like George Romero and his movies, notably “The Night of the Living Dead” and “Dawn of the Dead.” Getting back to the Holmes/Watson dynamic, Rahner suggested a classic horror movie with humor, “Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter,” which “has a roving heroic hunter of monsters with a sidekick. It’s by the same creators of the TV show, ‘The Avengers’ and has that same wit.” Rahner even likes the sendup of the zombie genre and satire on society, “Shaun of the Dead.” But, as for “Rotten,” it is not going to break out of character. As Rahner says, “We are getting back to the roots and making it serious and about something.”

With the brilliant art of Dan Dougherty, “Rotten” is the real deal all the way around. When asked about Dougherty, Rahner admits that it’s not easy to work with Mark Rahner. “Dan will ask if he can spread out on the page something and I’ll just say, no, we have too much to cover.” Whatever the case, the final result is a comic that just keeps growing creatively and continues gaining buzz. FHM recently suggested that it’s only a matter of time before “Rotten” becomes a movie. “We’ve thought about that. We were thinking it could be cool to turn it into something for cable.” Time will tell.

One thing is clear, you couldn’t find a better spokesperson for “Rotten” than Mark Rahner. He is a well-spoken, funny and personable guy. It’s no wonder that, as part of his work as a reporter at The Seattle Times, he creates some really cool videos that accompany his written stories. A couple of recent standouts are Rahner’s investigation of bacon-flavored mayonnaise and a tour of the locale for “Twilight,” Forks, Washington . “All that is time-consuming. It’s hard to do humor, especially satire, and rely on it reading well on video. If you’re a control freak, like me, and want to keep all your juvenile humor intact, then you have to do it yourself.”

“I never wanted to do an honest day’s work,” jokes Rahner when asked how he got his start. “Seriously, it’s really like it is for anyone else who has something they need to follow. At twelve, I was telling people I was a writer, no matter how absurd that may have sounded. It’s about discipline and hard work regardless of what talent you may have. The better the writer is, the easier he makes it look. I don’t know of any other profession where people can chime in about your work and tell you how much you suck.”

And what else lies ahead for Rahner? For one, he and Horton have a new project, a 5 issue mini series, H.E.L.I.X. that is set in the present day but is also part of the “Rotten” universe. “All the stuff we’re doing is connected to one universe. You’ll see names pop up from previous work and things that happen in one title, set a hundred years ago, will affect another title set today. In H.E.L.I.X., Rahner promises “an exciting and even repugnant story at a break-neck pace set in Seattle that involves stem cell experiments, sexually transmitted diseases, a race to the clock with two partners who hate each other and people who die in ways that are vomit-inducing.”

Stay tuned to all things “Rotten” and the rest of the work published by Moonstone. And check in on what Mark Rahner is up to at his site.

Warner Brothers’ WB Kids imprint is doing what Disney doesn’t: this holiday season, they’re adding to their extensive animation/home video catalog and taking some great old material out of the vault instead of putting it in.

For example, Tom and Jerry Greatest Chases Volume 3 hit the shelves on October 13. While this particular video used to be available on VHS, this is consumers’ first opportunity to own it on DVD and fans (as well as parents who hate the insipid, hyper-stimulating brain candy that passes for kids’ entertainment these days) can pick it up and relive some of the pair’s most popular and wild animated shorts. The disc contains 14 animated shorts, including “The Pecos Pest,” “Blue Cat Blues” and “The Night Before Christmas,” with the added benefit that if your kids (or you) like one or two much better than the rest, a DVD doesn’t wear out when replaying the track, the way videotapes used to.

In terms of preserving the feel of our childhood, there’s little more authentic than Warner’s collections of Saturday Morning Cartoons. Saturday Morning Cartoons 1960’s Volume 2 and Saturday Morning Cartoons 1970’s Volume 2 both hit on October 27, and are available at http://www.kidswb.com as well as at your local Wal-Mart. Featuring everything from Droopy Dog and Porky Pig to Magilla Gorilla and Sealab (the original, not the [Adult Swim] version), it’s like a mix CD you find deep in the recesses of you glove box from five years ago—even if Shazzan or Wally Gator haven’t aged as well as some of the other characters, the whole package feels like home in a way that’s as real as it is hard to quantify.

There’s a nice variety on each disc, with 13 episodes on the ‘60s collection and 12 on the ‘70s collection. Of course, there’s also the incentive to buy these in the form of the words “Volume 2,” which to me suggests that strong sales will encourage Warner Brothers to release more volumes in the future. With a little luck, we’ll start to see more of this stuff available in standalone boxes, like what Hanna-Barbera put out a few years ago. They started out with The Flintstones and The Jetsons (while Warner Brothers owns, and has similar collections for, Looney Tunes) and worked their way down to things like Top Cat by the time all was said and done.

One of the charms of a collection of old comics (like Dark Horse’s upcoming Casper the Friendly Ghost 60^th Anniversary Special hardcover, available on November 18) is the establishing stories. These days, it’s just kind of assumed that you know who most mainstream characters are. Even characters like Magog—whose promotion from Justice Society of America also-ran to titular anti-hero had fans and critics scratching their heads earlier this year—had a pretty healthy amount of development and exposition prior to Magog #1.

The reprinted first story of Casper the Friendly Ghost, however, needs to balance giving us an establishing tale with avoiding an origin story (cherubic children dropping dead to make cute, cherubic ghosts wasn’t really in the Harvey Comics style).

That said, almost immediately in the first story, Casper befriends a Richie Rich-looking prince, who is being sought by a huge and axe-wielding executioner. In the employ of the king’s brother, he has already slain the boy’s father when he enters the story looking to kill Casper’s new friend. It’s a little dark for today’s trauma-conscious kids’ publishing market, even if it does end happily and see citizens in the streets cheering the boy’s ascension to kinghood.

A downside to collectors looking for “a Casper collection” but a boon to Golden Age purists, this book reprints the first and sixth issues of Casper’s original, ongoing comic at Harvey. So, in keeping with what was common in comics at the time, this book is full of other characters printed in Casper’s original title, like the Huey, Dewey and Louie-like mice facing off against a menacing cat in “Herman” and Paddy the Leprechaun, whose villain Gambeen could have been a template for The Smurfs’ Gargamel. Baby Huey, one of the best known Harvey backup characters, also makes an appearance in the collection.

Each of Casper’s early appearances acts as though you’re totally unfamiliar with the character or the concept, giving him a page of three dedicated to an establishing beat that tells the reader why and how he came to be leaving ghosting school in favor of seeking friends among the living.

It’s interesting to see that by the sixth issue of his series, Casper had already become an animation phenomenon (as the cover reads “Paramount Pictures’ famous star” above Casper’s name). It’s a merchandising tie-in worthy of G.I. Joe or Transformers. By then, the whole issue was Casper’s, although they still retained the original format of short, barely-longer-than-strip stories. That’s something that, by and large, Casper’s publishers would continue to do for years—although writer Todd Dezago’s upcoming Casper & the Spectrals miniseries for Ardden Entertainment will actually see the character (along with Wendy and Hot Stuff, a couple of Harvey’s other most popular properties) translated into a format that comic book readers are a little more familiar with.

Perhaps the greatest power—and danger—a huge fan of anything holds is her ability to be blinded by her adoration, losing all common sense, heaping compliments and rave reviews where none should go. And perhaps because I fear the real human potential to worship something beyond reason, I have a short list of things that have really withstood the test of time and will likely always blind me with delirious appreciation. I thought it would be wise to start my time at @Newsarama with a full disclosure of these biases. The shortness of this list does not mean I do not celebrate the genius of many, many, (perhaps too many?) things I have seen, or read, or experienced, but these and these alone blind my critical mind to the point of total idiocy and leave me immobilized with childlike wonder no matter how many times I’ve experienced them:

1) “X-Files” season 6 stand-alone episodes.
2) The running mindtrip of the 13^th floor in Louis Sachar’s “Wayside School” series that blew my mind in 3^rd grade.
3) “Werewolf Bat Mitzvah”
4) Corn-on-the-cob at summer fairs with that one spicy Cajun spicy salt on it
5) Alan Tudyk

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“Strip away the Hollywood glamour and shows like Comic Book I-Con are what the hobby are all about: Passionate fans and creators talking about the comics they love”: Joe Lawler of the Des Moines Register has a nice little write-up on Comic Book I-Con, which goes down today in Altoona, Iowa.

“What’s the most stupidly ambitious aspect of “XKCD Vol. 0,” the book based on the wildly popular yet still very underground webcomic”…?: Here’s an LA Times blog post profiling the plans for Randall Munroe’s XKCD hardcopy collection.

“These cartoons radicalized me, an impressionable young person, against the idea of conflict and the then-current Vietnam War”: That’s Craig Yoe in a feature story in The Oregonian, talking about the work collected in his new The Great Anti-War Cartoons from Fantagraphics. There are some real jaw-droppers used to illustrate the piece, so be sure to check it out. (A slideshow can also be seen here).

“Batman at 70″: Here’s a neat Toledo Free Press feature on Batman turning 70, and the way the city’s downtown library is marking the occasion.

Seattle vs. South Carolina cartoon battle: Seattle Post-Intelligencerpolitical cartoonist Dave Horsey drew a cartoon that was less-than-flattering in its depiction of South Carolina, and Palmetto Scoop cartoonist Mike Beckom responded with a cartoon making fun of Yankee unions. Alan Gardner will tell you all about it at The Daily Cartoonist.

As noted at Comics Alliance and elsewhere, Scott Kurtz is not someone that you invite to an event lightly. We did a little digging, and were able to find a few other responses that Mr. Kurtz has written to invitations over the years.

From: Maddy Palmer
To: Scott Kurtz

Dear Mr. Kurts,

I hope you are well. I like your comic. I am celebrating my fifth grade graduation this weekend. Since you are my favorite webcomic guy, I would like to invite you to come. I have one extra ticket since my parents are divorced and Daddy is in Haiti with his secretary. The event will be at Abraham Lincoln Elementary in Urbana, Illinois. Can you come? I love PvP.

Thank you,
Maddy

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Ready for news on some over-the-top costumes and violence grounded in the all-too-real world?

KICK-ASS. The movie site — IamKick-Ass.com — is now up via Lionsgate, and a trailer will be out in 8 days. The film — based on the Mark Millar/John Romita Jr. comic of the same name — is due out April 16.

[Hat tip to Tim]

Cartoon Network is going live-action, and it’s taking Paul Dini with it.

The Gotham City Sirens and Streets of Gotham writer has also been working on a live-action series called Tower Prep, which Variety announced today has been ordered by Cartoon Network. (Perhaps no coincidence — Cartoon Network is owned by DC Comics’ parent company, Time/Warner.) This series, along with Unnatural History, will be the first live-action series — but after the high ratings the live-action Ben 10 movie made, it makes sense for the company to get lightning to strike twice.

Tower Prep is about a rebellious teen who wakes up one day trapped in a mysterious, inescapable prep school. By teaming up with his fellow students/inmates, this series looks like a long term caper.

What will this mean for his comics writing, however? I know that there was a brief skip in his Batman titles, with Scott Lobdell and Chris Yost filling in for Sirens #3 and Streets #5. That said, (A) I don’t know how many episodes other than the pilot that Dini will be writing, and (B) Dini has proven through his work on Countdown and Detective Comics that he is built for speed. More info to come when we get it!

Okay, maybe not the whole universe — just the world of Wizard.

Comics Alliance has reported that Scott Kurtz has done more than just throw down the gauntlet with the convention/magazine company — Laura Hudson likened it to the Daken versus Punisher battle, in which Frank gets literally cut to pieces. I’m not sure if I entirely disagree.

Here’s some highlights from the PvP creator, who Wizard unfortunately called “Kurt”:

Your conventions are total horseshit, so it’s wise to stop branding them with the name Wizard. But no amount of polishing is going to make me want to attended any of the 5 turds your company is going to crap out in 2010, especially when you schedule them against other shows in some bullshit dick measuring contests that serves no other purpose but to fracture an already dying industry that I have nostalgic ties to.

Remember Mike Wieringo? Remember how you guys only cared about him when he was the “hot artist” for a window of time and then you quickly forgot his name despite the fact that he was producing some of the best work of his career on Fantastic Four with Mark Waid? And then remember how after he died you had the balls to name one of your panel rooms the Mike Wieringo room? I will eternally hate everyone associated with your company for that. For eternity. For Jack Kirby’s version of Eternity where the concept is embodied as a giant man made up of the universe. That’s me, hating you for the Mike Wieringo thing. Forever.

Whether you agree with Kurtz or not, these are definitely some harsh words, especially regarding an invitation to next year’s Anaheim Comic-Con — already controversial, since it’s scheduled on the same weekend as competitor Reed Exhibitions’ C2E2 in Chicago. What say you, Rama readers? Give us your thoughts!

Despite some advances in gay and lesbian comics — one could make an argument about Batwoman or the Question, or recent developments with Rictor and Shatterstar — it’s a topic that doesn’t always get a lot of in-depth examination. What about the history of other GLBT characters in comics?

Well, we have an answer for you, as our very own Brian Andersen has sent us a link to The A-Z LGBT Comic Book Character Superlist — “an alphabetized listing of over 260 LGBT characters from comic books (including superheros, supervillains and supporting cast characters).”

Right now the profiles are fairly short — but they do also link to articles on Wikipedia, Gay League, and Pink Kryptonite. Give the site a look.

The Hero Initiative has sent us more images of its Wolverine project, in which artists take on the Adamantium Avenger on a blank cover for Wolverine: Weapon X #1. But check out this awesome cover by Josh Medors here:

Medors, who has been battling cancer for several years, is a prime example of how the Hero Initiative can help creators in financial and medical need. The piece is currently on auction now on eBay — as are many other products from Hero — and you can bid on it here.

So that someone could spend a day of his life hastily assembling an Archie story filtered through Jack Kirby’s New Gods comics. That someone was Adam Prosser, and you can read his whole story in all its shouty, punch, funny hat-wearing glory here. (Thanks to Johanna Draper Carlson, from whom I totally, shamelessly stole this link).

Doom Patrol #4 hit this week from DC. In this Blackest Night crossover, dead members of the second incarnation of the Doom Patrol (from the “Showcase” issues in the ’70s and the pre-Morrison ongoing of the ’80s) rise and attack the original members. However, one significant change has been noted. Josh Clay, aka Tempest, has always been a “blaster”. That is, his power set involved the ability to shoot energy blasts, and the ability to fly derived from said blasts.

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