Marvel has released the cover for Avengers vs. X-Men #1, and as you can see, the Jim Cheung image is going for that superhero classic cover pose – The face-off:

What I’m more interested in, though, is seeing the clues planted in the AvX cover for the rest of the series: Wolverine and Beast are both on the Avengers’ side when the series launches? Well, now we have a better idea of who’ll be crossing sides at some point during the twelve issues, if nothing else…

Something from Axel Alonso’s last CBR piece stuck in my head all weekend:

For “cosmic” to matter, it has to be relatable. For Nova to compete with Spider-Man, Captain America and Wolverine — and we’d love him to — his story has to touch your heart and it has to be grounded in things you can recognize and understand. If the stakes of a Nova story only matter “out there” in space or on some far-flung planet, then no amount of good craft is going to help us reach an audience larger the hardcore cosmic fans.

I think what’s so odd about the statement for me is the idea that things can only be relatable if they’re happening on Earth. Surely a Nova story – or a Green Lantern story or whatever – can be perfectly relatable no matter where it takes place because the reader empathizes with the emotional journey/choices/situation of the characters, whether or not they’re human and living in a location that you can find on Google Earth? I can’t help but think that complaining that the stakes of a story only mattering “‘out there’ in space or on some far-flung planet” is kind of missing the appeal of a lot of sci-fi, not to mention storytelling-as-metaphor, which just seems odd considering Alonso’s history, as well as Marvel’s bread-and-butter of telling stories about people who can do fantastic things far outside the ability of its readers.

That said, it may explain why we’ve not really seen much of the Cosmic books over at Marvel in recent months…

This is interesting: After the trial on Fantastic Four #601, Marvel seems to be moving towards the “self-cover” format for its titles – wherein the paper stock for covers and interior pages are the same – with the following titles being switched to the format according to the most recent shipping update:

Another trial, or perhaps the start of a push towards a new format for Marvel books in general…?

If anyone was surprised to see Ariel Olivetti’s name mentioned as one of the creators working on DC’s newly-announced GI Combat, thinking that he was a Marvel exclusive artist these days, Rich Johnston found a particularly revealing interview with the artist where he talks about working on Iron Man 2.0:

The scripts were awful at the end, at first it worked well with the other story that Marvel was publishing… but later it went to hell. They invented an archivillian that made no sense. The scripts were backwards, the writer married in the middle, leaving everybody stuck, they put an replacement writer who was worse. The editor kicked the replacement writer off and he wrote the scripts. A disaster that thankfully ended.

In the penultimate issue I could draw ten pages and nothing more, because the script never came. So I had a week to deliver the rest and the script was not finished yet. And in the final issue I draw five pages nothing more. I got the script and they said, “How many pages you can do for next Friday?”. And we had five days, five pages. Because I color directly, How would you do it? It’s impossible. So they called in other guys and you will see for yourself. The last issues of Iron Man 2.0 are a disaster. There is one woman who is blonde, then in the other frame is a brunette. It is impossible that in a week all the artists could agree and say “Man, the blouse you have to draw is red, and the girl who was drinking tea, I did drinking beer. ”

Olivetti  went on to compare Marvel to McDonalds, and say “At one time Marvel worked like a little clock, but it melted down 2 or 3 years ago,” before suggesting that he was about to ask permission to leave his exclusive contract early due to lack of available work. This really doesn’t paint whatever happened behind the scenes on the book in anything close to a positive light, and makes you wonder whether the recent spate of multiple-artists-on-one-issue at Marvel is also down to later-than-ideal scripts…

DC is clearly continuing to revise its collection policies when it comes to pre-New 52 material. Not only does the latest round of shipping updates permanently cancel the final collection of Eric Wallace’s Titans run (and in the same week as his Mister Terrific series gets cancelled, too! Sorry, Mr. Wallace), but it also cancels the current orders for both Batman vs. The Black Glove Deluxe Edition HC and Legion of Super-Heroes: The Choice TP, with both to be resolicited at a later date. It’ll be interesting to see whether or not the content of both collections changes with the new solicits; if nothing else, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Batman vs. The Black Glove Deluxe Edition HC ends up being farmed out into two shorter collections – At 14 issues for $29.99, this oversized hardcover seemed like a surprisingly good deal.

Todd Allen continues his look at Marvel’s surreal collected edition policies over at The Beat, but the must-see comment comes from Charles Vess in the comments:

It would be nice if they actually paid the creators whose work they are reprinting. A year after their Warrior’s Three collection which featured a cover and over 100 pages of my work I received one (!!) comp copy and no word of any sort of reprint or royalty fee. Of course it might not have sold very well. Now I see that they are cobbling together 3 or 4 Spider-Man GNs into one enormous, hideously produced, hardcover. My long ago GN ‘Spirits of the Earth’ which I wrote/drew/painted is one of them. We’ll see what they do about that one. In contrast, DC provides 25 comp copies and a royalty check sent ever 4 months. Hmmm… now who would you work for?

Ouch.

And also: This seems almost unbelievable, right? I’m not the only one who reads that and thinks “Oh, that must be wrong,” surely – I’m not meaning to call Vess a liar, because I firmly believe that he’s telling the truth, but Marvel doesn’t pay reprint royalties or even give creators notice that they’re reprinting their work?!? That just seems breathtaking. Even if that’s only the policy on work of a specific age… I am genuinely stunned. That’s appalling.

If you looked at the list of top-selling collections and OGNs yesterday and thought, “Wait, where’s Marvel?” then this Publishers’ Weekly piece might answer your question in a depressing way:

The problem is that Marvel is inconsistent in what they keep in print. A series with 8 volumes in it will frequently have two or three of the middle volumes out of print. Some titles that should be evergreen sellers, like Secret Wars, will be randomly out of print. To compound the frustration felt by retailers, when titles come back in print, they sometimes are reprinted in a different format entirely… The 10-volume Essential Amazing Spider-Man has volumes 5, 7, 8 and 9 out of stock and the 8-volume Essential Fantastic Four only has volume 8 in stock.

“They’re a publisher that publishes their trade books like they’re periodicals” says [Chicago retailer Eric] Kirsammer, who adds, “They don’t really have a backstock. I’ve been told by Marvel they don’t.”

According to DC Editor-in-Chief Bob Harras, just because OMAC, Hawk & Dove, Men of War, Blackhawks, Mister Terrific and Static Shock are ending with #8 doesn’t mean that we’ve seen the last of those characters:

[T]hose characters that are not going to be in their own titles will be appearing in other books as well. We are definitely dedicated to diversity. That’s not going to stop now. That’s an ongoing part and parcel to what we do.As I said earlier, those characters are not going away. They will be appearing in other books.

Some of those other books seem relatively easy to predict: Mister Terrific, after all, was launched in the Justice League family, and so will presumably turn up in that book at some point, and both Static and Hawk & Dove have histories with the Teen Titans franchise, and so might show up over there in the future (Dove, of course, is also a co-star in Justice League Dark right now, so it’s not impossible that Hawk might join that cast as well). But what about OMAC, the Blackhawks or Sgt. Rock? OMAC, perhaps, might end up in Frankenstein considering their recent crossover, but as for the latter two, I’m stumped. Are there other New 52 books that need these characters – and if so, what are they?

Notice anything missing from the DC section of Diamond Distributors’ list of books to be released next week…? Here’s a clue: It’s been the top-selling book for the last few months, and an embarrassing – but not necessarily surprising – choice for the first New 52 book to miss a scheduled ship date. Yes, Justice League #5 has been delayed according to current shipping updates, fulfilling every naysayer’s expectations since Jim Lee was announced as the series artist.

The book is apparently only slipping a week, but given its third week placement in DC’s monthly schedule, that makes it perilously close to slipping a calendar month in future. Lee is also off the book for #7 and #8 (Gene Ha is filling in with #7, #8′s artist hasn’t been revealed yet, I don’t think…?), allowing the book to get back on time if #6 stays on the later schedule, but nonetheless: the flagship of the line shipping late is sure to cause some red faces over at DC – and if it manages to slip into another month altogether, it’ll also impact the publisher’s bottom line. What is the likelihood that we’ll see some unannounced fill-in artist helping Lee with #6 to ensure that doesn’t happen?

Today’s Marvel Next Big Thing call has revealed that Captain America and Bucky is to undergo a revamp and become Captain America and Hawkeye for a storyline before bringing on a new co-star in future arcs… which makes me realize that Marvel’s real Next Big Thing is stealth team-up books. Not only do now have Captain America and, but November saw the launch of Avenging Spider-Man – which is a Spider-Man team-up title to all intents and purposes – and we already have X-Men, which is as close to an X-Men Team-Up as we’re likely to get anytime soon.

I’m actually a really big fan of Team-Up books when they’re done right (I was even tempted by Deadpool Team-Up numerous times, but could never get over my intense disinterest in Deadpool as a character. Sorry, everyone), so I find myself more taken with this trend that you might expect. I admit to preferring shorter team-ups than the six-issue arc model (in part because it means more team-ups on an annual basis, which generally produces more likelihood of obscure characters being dropped into the mix; I want to see Spider-Man and Nighthawk Team-Up, dammit), but Avenging, at least, seems fast enough on the changing of co-stars for now. But what character will get their own team-up ongoing next, I wonder…? I mean, surely Wolverine could do with one now that that franchise has lost both Daken and X-23 as ongoing titles…

Looking at the top 10 graphic novels of last year is a fascinating peek at an alternative comic-reading audience to the direct market single issue one we’re all more familiar with: Six volumes of Walking Dead? And what’s interesting is seeing that it’s the three most recent volumes and the first three, suggesting two different sizable groups – Clearly, the AMC show is bringing in newcomers to the comic itself, which is great. Also, note the almost complete lack of superheroes, with the exception of the OGN Batman: Noel; is this a sign that superhero readers prefer the single issue format, perhaps? (Also, clearly there’s an audience out there for superhero OGNs, too; I wonder if next year’s chart will feature appearances by Marvel’s various Season One books?)

What’s worth remembering is that this is just the Diamond book chart – Publishers also use other distributors, so this is a potentially misleading idea of where the book market actually is. Don’t both DC and Marvel have additional distribution outside of the direct market? I wonder if that information would significantly change the idea of what sells and what doesn’t? I guess we’ll have to wait until the Bookscan numbers for the year get revealed.

The news that Hostess is to file for bankruptcy should send nostalgic shivers down the spines of superheroes worldwide, given the multiple crimes the company’s snack foods helped prevent in the 1970s and ’80s; from 1975 through 1982, ads for Hostess Fruit Pies, Twinkies and other products appeared in both Marvel and DC comics, each one an original one-page strip featuring a superhero from that publisher’s stable using the “tasty snack” of choice to distract criminals, monsters and other ne’er-do-wells from destruction, thievery and other unfortunate rampages against society. For those who haven’t seen them, the strips were variations on a theme, all written to the same basic formula but weirdly enjoyable for that very reason, reducing characters to stereotype and snack-obsessed mindsets; there’s a selection available here for you to sample them for yourself. Of course, for those of us who grew up reading these strips, the very name “Hostess” has a very specific nostalgia, not so much for the snacks themselves, but the ads, and the kinds of comics that they appeared in. Remember when comic book ads weren’t just for more comics and the occasional movie or TV show…?

The news that Walt Simonson is not only returning to Marvel, but drawing Brian Michael Bendis’ last arc on Avengers, makes me think about Marvel’s talent management vs. DC’s. For whatever reason – I’m tempted to say “The fact that there’s little else to work on, there” – Marvel has a tendency to use big name creators on big name books, as opposed to DC, where the same creators often work on smaller, more personal, projects. It’s not just Simonson – who, in his time at DC, bounced around titles like Wonder Woman, World of Warcraft, DC Universe: Legacies, JSA Classified and his Orion series that still really, really deserves to be collected thank you very much – but consider Warren Ellis, who went from barely touching the DCU when he was under DC Exclusive (His footprint was, what, one JLA Classified arc?) to writing Ultimate Fantastic Four, Astonishing X-Men and Iron Man for Marvel as well as Nextwave, newuniversal and Secret Avengers; Andy Diggle, whose DCU work consisted of, I think, Green Arrow Year One before jumping ship to Marvel and Daredevil and Thunderbolts; or Brian Wood, who didn’t work on any DCU characters before going to Marvel and starting Wolverine and The X-Men: Alpha and Omega.

There’s almost certainly more to it than Marvel offering (a) a lot of money and (b) not a lot of choice of available projects to creators; in Wood’s case, at least, we know that he had pitched for DCU work and not landed the gig, and for all we know, Diggle and Simonson were in similar boats (Somehow, I doubt that Ellis falls into the same camp), but I find the disconnect interesting. It feels like it’s only recently, with Jeff Lemire and Scott Snyder’s lead, that DC has really become comfortable with using “Vertigo creators” in their DCU books, and so perhaps that also contributes to the weird discrepancy. But it ends with interesting results, such as this Simonson news, which Marvel can easily play as “Comics Great Walter Simonson Returns To Superhero Comics!” without that much fear of contradiction.

Mark Millar is explaining where his head is at this year:

I prefer the Millarworld books to just be radical from an idea point of view. Nobody’s ever seen a superhero comic like ‘Kick-Ass’ before, and I want the Quitely project and the Dave Gibbons project to each be very unique and very new. People just want something different. You can see it in the charts. I feel creator-owned is where people’s interests are shifting. The vast majority of what I’m picking up comes from Icon and Image and, as we saw with ‘Nemesis’ or ‘Kick-Ass 2′ or whatever, these things can hit the top ten or top twenty, even in the middle of massive events or company-wide relaunches. we did 125,000 copies of ‘Kick-Ass 2′ #1 over five or six printings. The appetite for something new is enormous.

This seems to be the same feeling for 2012 that Image Comics seems to be tying into with their new ad campaign, the idea that this will be the year where readers look for new ideas and new characters. I really hope that’s the case, but in a year when Marvel are going to be pushing Avengers Vs. X-Men and DC likely has a second wave of New 52 in the wings, I have suspicions that old ideas will end up doing just fine…

I missed this post by Brian Wood at the end of last year, but he’s possibly noticed a quiet trend for 2012 comics: Food comics. Wood talks about Ryan Kelly’s upcoming food-centric webcomic Cocotte and mentions that he had pitched his own food comic to Vertigo earlier:

My own culinary series, called STARVE, is something of a casualty.  Created for Vertigo almost two years ago, it hit too many of the same notes as that Anthony Bourdain book they got going on, and so it was ultimately not approved.  Another publisher, an indie one, also passed for similar reasons.  I guess there is a real glut of food comics coming.  STARVE now sits in limbo.

The Bourdain comic is, for those who don’t know, Get Jiro, the graphic novel co-written by the celebrity chef/writer (with novelist Joel Rose) and drawn by Langdon Foss that’s due this year. But I feel like this food comic trend, if it’s real, has been en route for some time; in addition to the various food manga that’s been around for awhile now, haven’t recipes been showing up in Scott Pilgrim and King City in the last couple of years…? Clearly, this has been a slowly building zeitgeist. What’s next? Mixology comics?

Discussing the upcoming Supercrooks, Mark Millar gives away the secret to his success:

We’ve got two underground cage fighters, because I love the idea of fight clubs for supervillains. You’ve got this idea of wrestlers with super powers fighting illegally and using their powers against each other. These two brothers are in there. Then, you’ve got the main character’s girlfriend, who is pissed off because she doesn’t want him to be a villain anymore. She’s an ex-supervillain who’s trying to go straight, and he hauls her back in for one last job. Then there’s his best friend who became a real estate guy because he was fed up with the superheroes taking him to prison so often. It’s a bunch of guys who were trying to go straight getting back together for the biggest job of their careers. I love that idea, which we’ve seen in crime heist movies before, but never seen it done with superheroes.

It’s that last line that’s the most important, and the idea of selling people something by going “It’s this thing you’re really familar with… but with superheroes!” Where Millar succeeds in his high concepts, I think, is by presenting things that readers are comfortable with, with one major change – normally one that is also very comfortable for readers (Civil War is “It’s post 9/11 America – with superheroes!”, Nemesis is “It’s Batman – as a bad guy!”, Kick-Ass is “It’s superheroes – but they’re fanboys!” and so on), something I hadn’t really realized until he explained Supercrooks as this movie we’ve seen countless times before, and then added “with superheroes!” at the end. It’s kind of genius, in a way, and I look forward to seeing if I have similar success with my own pitches to Hollywood, which will include “It’s a romantic comedy starring Katherine Heigl – but she’s a superheroic ghost!”, “Have you ever seen Drive? Well, this is just like that, but the car can talk like in Knight Rider,” and “Think Star Wars, but it all takes place on Earth and in feudal Japan.”

The news that Batman and Detective Comics will be gaining back-up strips to accompany Action Comics, All-Star Western, Men of War and Justice League in DC’s “$3.99 for 40 Pages Club” makes me think of how shortlived the “Drawing The Line at $2.99″ experiment really was for DC – It only launched last January, and lasted just eight months before The New 52 reinstituted the $3.99 price point. Now, we’re seeing more books being “upgraded” to the format, along with back-ups, which makes me wonder whether DC is admitting that the $2.99 pricing isn’t inherently more attractive to the mass audience despite a vocal minority saying otherwise? After all, both Action and Justice League have been top-sellers since launch even though they cost $3.99… If Batman and Detective continue their sales dominance with the new pricing, how long before even more DC books go to this format? How many New 52 books will be $2.99 and 20 pages by this time next year…?

In case you’d rather watch the Avengers save the world than fight the X-Men, Marvel has come with something for you to like… literally: an Avengers Facebook game. Avengers Assemble, created by Marvel and fellow Disney subsidiary Playdom, will allow players to create their own characters to join Earth’s Mightiest Heroes alongside all manner of familiar faces; according to Marvel’s VP of Games Production TQ Jefferson, there will be more than 100 characters throughout the game to offer easter eggs for longtime fans:

You don’t need to know 75 years of Marvel continuity to understand what is going on, but if you do, those elements are in there.

According to USA Today, the game should be launched within the next three months, just in time for the ramp-up for May’s big movie.

Well, this is just plain lovely. Chris Ryall previews Darwyn Cooke’s next Parker book for IDW:

To anyone who loves comics and hasn’t picked up Cooke’s two Parker adaptations to date, The Hunter and The Outfit, you are missing out far more than you could imagine. Just amazing stuff.

Ignoring that fact that the new six-issue mini spinning out of the twelve-issue mini Avengers vs. X-Men is called AvX:Versus, making the full title of the comic Avengers Versus X-Men Versus (It’s just like “DC Comics” actually being “Detective Comics Comics” if you think about it too much), I have to admit kind of loving the idea behind the series, which seems to be “Avengers vs. X-Men might not have enough fights in it, so here’re six more issues of fights so that no-one feels like they’ve missed out.”It simultaneously makes me wonder what is going to be in the twelve issues of Avengers vs. X-Men if there isn’t going to be enough space for fighting, and reminds me of the awesome structure of Steve Englehart’s Avengers/Defenders War, which took great pains to show each member of each team squaring off against their counterpart so that everyone got to see their favorite in action (I can but hope that each chapter starts with the logo for the starring characters).

For years, comics have seemed to be moving away from what used to be called “slugfests,” in favor of more complex stories and a somewhat nervous attempt at literate legitimacy, so Versus seems both a surprise and a welcome blast from the past. Is it too much to hope that Englehart himself will be rescued from relative comics obscurity for a chapter within this anthology series…? Probably. I’m still somewhat on the fence on the main series – I mean, it’s really Civil War 2: This Time It’s Schism, isn’t it? – but this seemingly gratuitous, punch-happy spin-off? Potential guilty pleasure of the year.