Chad Nevett considers the end of Avengers Vs. X-Men, and how it ties into All-New X-Men and the all-new X-Men status quo in general:

The goal is the event was to get here. Sorry, a goal of the event was to get here. The story told in the event was a goal as well. But, ever since Bendis took over the Avengers titles, one of the major patterns in the Marvel Universe was that each event or new status quo seemed to exist to lead to the next, usually in an alternating pattern. Event A led to New Status Quo A, which led to Event B, which led to New Status Quo B, which led to Event C, which led to New Status Quo C, etc. There were stories in there and I enjoyed quite a few of them. But, there was also a general feeling of the events and new status quos not delivering all that they could, because part of their function was to produce what came next. That was something that I felt really hindered Avengers vs. X-Men where there was such a focus on hitting All-New X-Men #1 that the story being told didn’t match the story they were trying to tell. Cyclops needed to be in this role, so everyone ignores that he was right and they never gave him any credit, nor recognised their roles in driving him to extreme measures by the end. There was a sense that they failed to see that, by the end of Avengers vs. X-Men, Cyclops was the hero and Captain America was the villain who just happened to win…

That last line put me in mind, more than anything else, of Civil War back in 2006/2007; it felt, at the time, that Iron Man was definitely the “villain” of that event who again “just happened to win,” and that throughline was somewhat followed through and somewhat ignored in the many comics that followed (Certainly, Cap-as-martyr was a big thing afterwards, underscoring his role as hero-who-fell, and Iron Man seemed to be played up as undeserving ruler somewhat, at least through World War Hulk). It makes me wonder if, as Marvel continues to set characters against each other for these types of storylines, the way that “everyone” can win is that the loser is given the moral upper hand in some way…

Even as Thanksgiving leaves the American comic book industry in a Tryptophan haze, Mark Millar can be counted upon to tease some announcements:

Three movies? Secret Service is clearly one, but as to the other two… Has a Superior movie been announced yet? A Jupiter’s Children movie…? Expect details in the next couple of months, I’m sure.

Happy Thanskgiving, Americans (And everyone not in America, too; I just didn’t think you’d necessarily care one way or another). Normal service will be resumed tomorrow.

This is just great:

Yes, that really is the US Luge team modeling their X-O Manowar uniforms, as designed by Patrick Zircher. The uniforms will be making their public debut at this year’s International Luge Federation Viessmann World Cup, which begins this weekend in Austria.

(Thanks, Hunter!)

Forget the 100 Most Powerful People in Comics, Tom Spurgeon profiles the top 1o Least Powerful:

2. All Women In The Comics Industry Ever
Sorry, dozens of amazing artists, writers, publishers, retailers, journalists, teachers, administrators, institution heads, syndicate editors, and that person running maybe the biggest single-artist-based media empire in comics: there are multiple dudes editing new versions of old superhero books out here.

Go and see the whole list, if only because the illustration for #6 is hilarious.

We can now talk about Amazing Spider-Man #698′s big reveal, right…? Tell you what, let’s do it under the jump for those who have managed to remain unspoiled until now – which means that those of you who’re reading this on an RSS feed should really stop reading right now for fear of accidentally seeing something that you don’t want to. (more…)

So, depending on where you live in the US, New Comic Book Day is now Tuesday night… maybe? At least, that’s seemingly the takeaway from DC Comics’ letter to retailers yesterday in which it confirmed that its new digital partnerships mean that weekly digital release times will occur before direct market retailers are open for business on Wednesdays:

To better deliver on “Same Day Digital,” we are announcing a revised sales practice going forward – comiXology digital sales will begin at 3:00am Eastern on Wednesdays at the earliest, through our DCE/CX apps and websites, effective next week.

Keep in mind, total parity is proving impossible across all channels. Other eBook partners (Amazon, Apple, B&N) will still begin ingesting our weekly content early Wednesday morning. But these ingestions occur randomly and with less precision than comiXology’s – some weeks certain titles could release with any one of these platforms in certain parts of the country as early as 12:01am Eastern, but on other weeks (as we have learned already) we will be further back in their lengthy queues and our titles will release several hours later into Wednesday.

12:01am Eastern is, of course, 9:01pm Tuesday night on the West Coast.

It strikes me that DC’s new digital partnerships may be the game-changer that many expected ComiXology day-and-date releases to be in the first place. Whereas historically, we’ve seen direct market sales go relatively unaffected by day-and-date digital – with signs, perhaps, that it supports physical sales – that was with the digital copies being made available after most direct market retailers open for business on Wednesday. Now, DC titles will not only be available digitally before DM retailers can offer them – Perhaps long before, if big box partners like Amazon or Barnes & Noble put them up at midnight – but they’ll also apparently be available as fully returnable product through certain vendors. That’s kind of huge, isn’t it…?

It’ll be interesting to see what effect this has, not only on DC’s direct market orders, but the publisher’s relationship with direct market retailers in general, over the next few months… Not to mention whether or not it’ll make a significant bump in DC’s digital sales. Developing, as they say.

Best news of the day, from an interview with the great Brendan McCarthy:

It might be a good idea for IDW to plan the release [of a Zaucer of Zilk collection] for around the time of a forthcoming 220 pages Best of Milligan & McCarthy collection, which is due out September 2013. Expect a big announcement on that from a major comics company soon. It will include pretty much all the classic ’80s material from Peter Milligan and myself: Paradax!, Rogan Gosh, Skin, Freakwave, etc., plus some early, archival snippets from The Electrick Hoax and Summer of Love. As most of our stuff has been out of print for the last 20 years, it will be a good chance to read and collect some of the best historical strips from the ’80s U.K. comic explosion.

As someone who grew up on Rogan Gosh and Skin, as well as half-forgotten chapters of Summer of Love (and Sooner or Later, which probably belongs to 2000AD and likely won’t be collected in this book, sadly enough), this is amazingly good news. For everyone else: Trust me, people. This is great, great news. Milligan and McCarthy’s collaborations remain some of the most fun comics ever made.

The seventh consecutive Marvel NOW! “Next Big Thing” conference call is all about the December-debuting new volume of Thunderbolts, with series writer Daniel Way and editor Jordan D. White on the line. This page will be continually updated, so keep hitting refresh. New art from the series is here.

“These are the characters who absolutely do not mind getting their hands dirty,” Daniel Way states, comparing the book to Uncanny X-Force for the rest of the Marvel Universe.

Way says that the cast, as a unit, is more dynamic that he expected. “You definitely catch a glimpse of it in the first issue,” Way continues, saying that every character’s moral compass is different, and leads them on a unique path — sometimes a collision course with another character.

(more…)

USA Today spoils another comics story – Except this time, it’s a story about comics, as it reports on the Top 100 Most Powerful People in Comics list that appears in the first issue of Avatar’s Bleeding Cool Magazine, launching tomorrow, and gives away the top 10 in its entirety. I won’t be equally cruel for those who don’t want to know the complete rankings, but I will give you the top three under the jump… (more…)

I entirely missed this when it was announced last week, but the CBLDF is offering a pretty good deal right now if you’re looking for holiday gifts for the comic fan in your life (even if it’s yourself):

Celebrate The Spirit of Giving this holiday season by gifting signed and personalized graphic novels by famous authors from Comic Book Legal Defense Fund!  When you support the CBLDF’s Spirit of Giving drive between now and December 12, The Will & Ann Eisner Family Foundation will make a contribution of $2 for every donation and gift order placed on the CBLDF’s website. In addition, they will contribute $10 for each new membership and $5 for every renewing membership made from now until December 31!

Creators who’ll be available to personalize books include Jason Aaron, Chris Burnham, Cliff Chiang, Howard Cruse, Evan Dorkin, Rebekah Isaacs, Chip Kidd, Paul Levitz, Larry Marder, Terry Moore, Dave Roman, Jeff Smith, Raina Telgemeier, Brian K. Vaughan, and Brian Wood – Oh, and some guy called Alan Moore, apparently. A full list of what books are available and how to participate can be found here. The offer’s only good until December 5, though, so get moving.

This is just spectacular – The Periodic Table of Comic Books, which tracks uses of particular elements in comic books. It’s the work of University of Kentucky chemistry professors John P. Selegue and F. James Holler, and it’s filled with all manner of wonderful (and somewhat hilarious, albeit unintentionally so) Golden and Silver Age work, especially a lot from – as you’d expect – Metal Men and Metamorpho. If only they’d had this when I was a kid, I might have been better in science class…

(Via.)

How long has Age of Ultron been in development? Well, we had a prologue appear in April of 2011 (and a second prologue show up in September of that year). We know that Bryan Hitch finished the art for his half before he started on America’s Got Powers (which launched this April), and also that it doesn’t reflect current Amazing Spider-Man/Superior Spider-Man continuity when it launches, although it will apparently catch up at some point. But an easier way to check may be to look at this double-page spread released to CBR and see what’s out-of-date:

So, let’s see: Xavier’s alive, Hawkeye’s in his old costume, Carol Danvers is a Ms. instead of a Captain Marvel, Bucky Barnes is Captain America… But, wait: There’s more going on on that wall that just old continuity, because said wall also features characters that (a) have been dead for awhile and (b) Age of Ultron writer Brian Michael Bendis himself killed off: Sentry? Ares? There’s also a mention of Rom, weirdly enough. So is this artwork that’s been lapsed by current events in Marvel continuity, a tease that part of Age of Ultron takes place in an alternate timeline, or something else altogether? It’ll take until the start of the event next year to get an answer – but it’ll be interesting to see how much of the above spread gets corrected/altered in the coloring/lettering process before it sees print, too.

Age of Ultron has been teased at Marvel Comics in one form or another for more than two years — including the timeline in Avengers #5, Avengers #12.1 (re-released this past Free Comic Book Day), 2011′s Marvel Point One one-shot and just this past Friday with a binary code that translates to “Age Of Ultron.”

It looks like full details of the project — which we know involves writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Bryan Hitch — will be revealed today around 3 p.m., during Marvel’s latest “Next Big Thing” conference call with the comic book press. We’ll be on the line covering the conference live as it happens, and this page will be continually updates with the latest — so keep hitting refresh. For new art from the project, head over here.

On the line: Writer Brian Michael Bendis and executive editor Tom Brevoort. Age of Ultron is a 10-issue limited series, shipping between March and June. Bryan Hitch will be drawing the first five issues, and the second five will be drawn by Brandon Peterson and Carlos Pacheco. “There will be a very cool reason for the artistic shift,” Marvel marketing’s Arune Singh says.

“Age of Ultron is about Ultron finally fulfilling his destiny, accelerating his intelligence and taking the Earth,” Bendis says. “The Marvel Universe has been taken by Ultron. There has been a shocking amount of devastation and casualty.”

(more…)

Pádraig Ó Méalóid finishes his three-part series about Alan Moore, Marvelman, plagarism and Superfolks with a look at the origins of the rivalry between Moore and Grant Morrison, and it’s hardly the most flattering portrait of either creator:

Yes, I have a lot of sympathy for Alan Moore about the things that were being said about him, but I think that it’s pretty obvious there was more than an element of the japester, the trickster, about Morrison’s writing, in particular the piece he wrote about Superfolks in his Drivel column in Speakeasy in 1990, which he makes all the more obvious in his end piece. I’d also like to point out that that was over twenty years ago now, a long time to have something like that hanging over you, and this applies equally to both of them: Moore is still having it used as a stick to beat him with, and Morrison may wish that a not-terribly-serious piece he wrote as a young man, and which has cast a much longer shadow than anyone could ever have expected, would simply go away.

The moral of this story? Everyone seems to have long memories, especially magicians.

Last week Image Comics poked a little fun at Marvel for their frequent use of their Marvel NOW! teaser images, and this week it’s Marvel’s turn to have a little fun with the marketing efforts of a publishing rival.

Marvel has just solicited to retailers an Uncanny X-Men #1 “Deadpool 53 State Birds” variant cover for the Brian Bendis-written February debuting series. While it appears to be actually only one cover and not really 53 of them, the variant is obviously a satirical dig at the 52 “State Flag” variant covers DC is offering that same month for the debut of Geoff John’s new Justice League of America ongoing series.

The issue is scheduled to go on sale on February 13th. The cover image doesn’t appear to actually exist yet.

Hawkeye #7 won’t be the comic you were expecting, if you’ve been paying attention to the solicits. Instead, it’ll be something potentially even more interesting; here’s the updated solicitation info:

HAWKEYE #7 has a new creative team and solicit text. The previously solicited creative team and story will now be featured in HAWKEYE #8 (DEC120693, $2.99, FOC 02/04/13)

Matt Fraction (W)
TBD (A)
“We’re pushing the next story back by a month to make room for a two timely stories about Hawkeye and Kate Bishop dealing with the ramifications of a hurricane that hammers the east coast. With lovely art by the Eisner Award Winning artist Steve Leiber and newcomer Jesse Hamm, it’s a perfect pause before the next Fraction/Aja mini-opus begins….featuring the reveal of a villain that I can promise you no one sees coming.”

I have to admit, I wouldn’t immediately have thought of Steve Leiber as a potential fill-in for Aja, but it makes a lot of sense – and I love the idea of using Hawkeye to respond to the devastation that Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy brought to the New York area; it feels very fitting and appropriate. Color me anticipating this issue a lot.

When you’ve got a co-star of the third highest-grossing film of all time hosting your show, you might as well take advantage of it. Thus, the Jeremy Renner-hosted Saturday Night Live last night unsurprisingly featured an Avengers sketch, complete with Jason Sudeikis as a quip-tastic Iron Man, Taran Killam as Captain America, Bill Hader as Thor, Bobby Moynihan as the Hulk, Kate McKinnon as Black Widow, Jay Pharoah as Nick Fury, Vanessa Bayer as Maria Hill, and, yup, Renner reprising, sort of, his role as Hawkeye, justifying his place on the team. Perhaps the most superhero-heavy SNL skit since Superman’s funeral back in 1992 (“Hulk not good with words”).

So, yes, Maria Hill was depicted on Saturday Night live. Not quite “bus stop ads prominently featuring Tomar Re” surreal, but still kinda crazy. Here’s the clip:

Marvel’s final “Next Big Thing” press conference of the week focuses on the January-debuting Morbius, The Living Vampire, with series writer Joe Keatinge and more on the line. We’re covering the call line and this post will be continually updated, so keep refreshing the page. For new art from the series, head over here.

Keatinge starts off the call by reminding the participants that the story actually starts in December’s Amazing Spider-Man #699.1, also written by him, which acts as a prelude to the ongoing series. As far as the series itself, which sees Morbius on the run after escaping from The Raft, Keatinge states that it’ll be something different for Marvel — and examine what kind of horrors exist in the Marvel Universe other than classic monsters.

“He’s not a villain, and he’s not a hero, and he’s continually trying to do right, but it always goes wrong,” Keatinge says, because of the character’s bloodlust. “Things quickly get derailed.”

(more…)

San Francisco retailer Brian Hibbs considers the cost of the low-selling Marvel and DC titles:

What’s needed now are firm hands on the rudder of the “big two” designed to steer their courses away from the shoals of irrelevancy that they are current steaming the truest value of their universes towards. Smaller, tighter continuities, I think, are the way forward — both companies should immediately cancel any title that gets orders for an average of fewer than ten copies-per-store; I suspect that average is about the 30k mark on the reported Diamond charts.

Further, they need to stop launching books which are clearly losers-on-paper. The chances for, say, DC’s newly announced “Vibe” series to make it to issue #13 would seem to me to be somewhere between slim-and-none — it’s hard to picture a scenario where it launches above 30k with issue #1, which means it’s likely to be down to 20k before issue #4. Why do that? Why waste the creative, publishing, distribution, and, yes, retail resources to publish a title that the market is statistically likely to reject before it even arrives in stores?

Lots of worthwhile stuff in the essay this month; go read.