Nuke the Fridge is reporting that Blade: Trinity’s Jessica Biel is in talks for the upcoming Thor film.

Here’s the highlight of what they have to say:

Reportedly if cast, Biel will play the love interest of “Thor.” The most probable love interest for “Thor” would more than likely be “Jane Foster,” a nurse and girlfriend of “Thor” alter ego Donald Blake. But the problem is that our source was not sure of the character’s name, but seemed to believe it was the same female character from the animated “Hulk vs Thor.” If that is the case, since “Jane Foster” was not in the animated movie, Biel is more than likely playing either “Amora, The Enchantress” or “Sif.”

Granted, at this early stage in the game, everything is still rumor, and even if Biel is in talks, they could fall through at any point. While I know a lot of sites are betting she’d play Sif, I really can’t imagine her going brunette. And remember that in Blade Trinity, her battle preparation was uploading songs to her iPod.

Thoughts?

By the beard of Odin! Can this be true?!

Comixtreme has reported that Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski will be concluding his epic run of Thor in September, with Thor: Defining Moments Giant-Size #1.

This book was not in last week’s previews, but Comixtreme says that this new solicit — which will be in July’s issue of Previews — declares that Defining Moments will be Straczynski’s bow from the series.

This may signal a shift for Straczynski, who ended his exclusive contract with Marvel in February of 2008 to pursue some writing opportunities with DC Comics. Thor, while critically acclaimed by many, has also been a perennially late title, so a creative shift may put the book on a more frequent schedule.

Artist Sean Phillips (Incognito, Criminal, Marvel Zombies) has updated his blog with all illustration of the decadent Fu Manchu. This is the latest in a line of genre illustration Phillips does to introduce the essay extras Jesse Nevin has done for Criminal Incognito.

I’m loving his crime books with Ed Brubaker — but how much for some Fu Manchu action?

Need something emblematic when you’re reading about Niko, Chase, and company? Look no further!

Marvel editor Nick Lowe has put together a theme song for the cult series, which is now on Marvel.com. MTV has a music video for the whole thing, which you can see above!

The always-excellent (and effervescent) illustrator Michael Cho has updated his blog with a new illustration of Marvel’s armored icon, Iron Man. Cho has a long history drawing Iron Man — while not professionally for a Marvel comic (yet), he admits to frequently doodling Tony Stark — and even has a seperate blog chronicling his drawings of Iron Man, and others.

Let me ask you this, readers — would you like to see Michael Cho do an Iron Man strip for Marvel?

Comics Nexus has just unveiled the latest of Neill Cameron’s A-Z of Awesomeness series, which has some pretty hilarious comic-related alphabetery (see what I did there? I made up a word, and it rocked).

That’s not to say that this is the best letter — they’re all equally the best. Well, the Inebriated Iron Man (for the Letter “I,” or as some lazy people type, the lower-case L) is sick and wrong, but also funny. As is Hagar’s actions to Hello Kitty. As is the Letter J.

[A tip of the hat to Manolis Vamvounis for introducing me to this debauchery]

OK, I know it’s a cliche for comic fangirls to have crushes on Gambit, but in the interest of full disclosure–well, you get the picture. Especially in the wake of the luscious Taylor Kitsch in the Wolverine movie, my lust has been rekindled.

Marvel decided to toy with my emotions further on this one and have Mike Carey write Gambit’s origin story. Mike Carey! I think I may have squealed out loud when I read that. It takes a lot to make me buy superhero books, but an origin story for a character I dig, written by a writer I love? Sign me up.

The only downside? Is this really the only issue we get, guys? I mean, really? You finally give us a Gambit origin story, and it’s only a one-shot? That’s such a tease.

It reflects in the comic, too. It’s not so much an origin story as a selection of flashbacks, unfinished stories-within-a-story that don’t really add up to anything. Each little section of this comic could’ve been a full book–or several books–in itself. Instead, we get a bunch of setups without any payoff, never a complete story.

It’s even sadder because the art is truly beautiful, lush settings, closeups so real you could reach through and touch them, and yes, a shirtless fight scene (thanks, guys). What I wouldn’t do for several more books with this creative team working on this character…

If you’ve been following the recent goings-on in the Marvel Universe, then you know the score: Norman Osborn, having “singlehandedly” saved the Earth from the Skrull invasion, is now officially the man in charge of keeping the American citizenry safe and secure from danger, with the help of his own brand of Avengers. This major change to the Marvel U’s status quo, dubbed Dark Reign, has had one major inherent flaw from the very beginning: Osborn is formerly and publicly known as the villainous Green Goblin, and his Avengers are a team of felons, murderers and psychopaths secretly posing as bonafide heroes.

Ronin, leader of the underground band of Avengers, publicly called out Osborn on national television in New Avengers #50 and reminded the general public that maybe having a known whack-job in such a high position of authority isn’t the best idea in the world. This bold move forced Osborn to respond to Ronin’s charges in a sit-down TV interview in Dark Avengers #5. Did Osborn, and by extension Dark Reign mastermind Brian Michael Bendis, succeed in explaining away the huge gap in logic that put a murderer like Osborn in charge? Your mileage may vary, but I’ll tell you what I thought about it after the jump.

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Wow, is it that time already? Sometimes, you have to give a shout-out to the men who have raised us. But in comics, sometimes having a dad isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. For every Luke Cage, we get a Magneto — because villainous fathers have always been a time-honored trope in the comics community. So with that in mind, we at Blog@ decided to take a look and create a light-hearted, sometimes tongue-in-cheek (and obviously subjective) look at the top ten best and worst dads in comics!

The Top 10 Best Dads in Comics: With parental fatalities often being the impetus for superheroics, it’s tough to find a good dad in comics. But the good dads are often the best, even if they’re no longer with us. Let’s take some time to tip your hats to these great men in sequential art.

10. Ted Knight: Ted shows that it’s never too late to connect with your kids. Somewhat estranged from his son Jack until his son David is killed, Ted soon establishes a bond with his son through advice and adrenaline. While Jack first was all about himself, now he’s a hero, partially because of circumstance, but mainly because of the interaction he has with his dad.

9. Mr. Fantastic: While Reed Richards is a bit of an absent-minded, albeit good-hearted, space case, it’s clear how much he loves his kids. It’s one of the reasons he’s pushed himself as hard as he can go, to support his children, and while he can sometimes be a little distant, when push comes to shove, you know Franklin and Valeria come first to this super-stretchable polymath.

8. Wally West: When he had to make a work-related trip, he took his kids along for the ride. This might be a glib way of looking at Infinite Crisis, but that’s pretty much what happened — during his battle with Superboy-Prime, Wally was being sucked into another dimension. But he brought Jae, Iris, as well as his wife Linda along with, and raised his kids — despite their superspeed aging — in that parallel world. He has since fought the Speed Force itself — taking a hit on his own limitless speed — to save his children from its shackles. This guy? A great dad.

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May proved to be a Crisis that wasn’t limited to the pantheon of DC Comics, as comic book sales plummeted by double-digit percentage points.

ICv2 reports that comic book sales dropped 19 percent in May from the previous year, with graphic novel sales dropping 13 percent. The overall drop totals at 18 percent. Here’s some more details:

A lack of potent #1 issues as well as the absence of Dark Avengers certainly didn’t help comic sales this May, a month in which no single title even came close to breaking the 100K barrier.  In contrast in May of 2008, which boasted seven titles over 100,000, comic sales were boosted by Final Crisis #1, Avengers/Invaders #1, Invincible Iron Man #1, and Giant Size Astonishing X-Men #1, all of which made the top ten along with 4 Secret Invasion titles and two issues of Batman RIP.  The paucity of big event titles and strong #1s, the continuing deep recession, and the financial drag of higher cover prices all worked together to help produce the steep decline in comic numbers in May.

The top three comics of May 2009 were New Avengers #53 (94,367 copies sold), Battle for the Cowl #3 (89,170 copies sold), and Wolverine #72 (87,075 copies sold).

This drop is the largest ever reported by ICv2. In addition, April 2008 and 2009 both had five weeks of shipping, whereas May had the typical four.

With the news of Steve Rogers’ return hitting the blogosphere, we at Blog@ decided to take a look at some of the winners and losers when it came to Captain America: Reborn.

WINNER: Sharon Carter. Sharon has been through the wringer the past two years of issues, going through mind control, kidnapping, and even the loss of her unborn child. But the worst part for her has been the guilt — knowing that she killed Captain America. But as we’ve seen in Captain America #600, the rumors of her causing Steve’s demise have been greatly exaggerated — and this frees her from the prison of her own making.

WINNER: Tony Stark. This is a character whose greatest struggles have been defined by guilt — whether its retreating to the bottle when SHIELD tried forcing him to create weapons, or hunting down armored heroes and villains to stop the proliferation of his Iron Man tech. But his current run from Norman Osborn — complete with the eventual erasure of his mind — stems from his guilt over Steve Rogers’ death. Heavy was the head that wore the crown, but with Steve Rogers’ return, the cracks in the Iron Man’s armor might actually shrink.

WINNER: Clint Barton. The one-time Hawkeye had been given the reins of Avengers leadership by Luke Cage, finally cementing the dream Clint had had way back in his first appearances in the series. But is Ronin really leadership material? The Magic 8 Ball points to no, and Steve’s return might mean that Clint can finally stand down and do what he does best: snipe the leader.

WINNER: Barack Obama. He’s a one-man comics bailout machine! If there’s anyone appropriate of welcoming Steve back, I think it’d be this guy. I smell a variant cover coming on! (I kid because I love.)

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Ahhh, the 90s. A time of screaming mouths, big hair left over from the 80s, more feral mutants than you could shake a stick at, and of course, big guns and bigger shoulder pads.

Skottie Young brought up the 90s over the weekend on his Twitter account, focusing on how people look down at the era and disparage everything about it. I couldn’t help but not only agree, but also look back on the era of comics I grew up with.

I love Cable, I love X-Cutioner’s Song, which was going on when I got into comics, I flipped out when the X-books were “canceled” bringing about the Age of Apocalypse. There were Spider-men, who seemed to double more than Multiple Man. An AIDS analogue struck mutants across the globe. Batman was broken, Superman died, and of course, Hal Jordan went insane with evil power.

Man, I loved 90s comics, especially early 90s. That’s when I first really got into the books that have now become a major part of my life. For me, it started with a crossover issue featuring both Spider-man and the X-Men, which my mom bought at a grocery store, knowing I loved the brand new X-Men: The Animated Series. I was amazed by the range of stories that could be told in these little magazines. Plus, it was easier to enjoy over and over again.

I didn’t become a real “collector.” I kept my comics, but I wasn’t obsessed with bags and boards or any of that. I wanted them easy to access and easy to read. My ultimate favorite storyline was definitely Age of Apocalypse. I was already a fan of the idea of alternate worlds in all forms of media, and here was one with my favorite characters of the time. The re-inventions of these characters were so cool, from new costumes to new alliances, and even some that were almost completely different, like Nate Grey, Cable’s double from this reality. I read the story in its entirety about 6 times as a kid. I’ve since gone back and re-read it at least 4 or 5 more. A lot of it was over-the-top, and even downright silly, but even now (I last read the story last year) it still strikes me as one of the most fun experiences I’ve had reading comics.

Are these the best-written or best-drawn stories ever? No, and some of them are downright goofy. But there’s no need to look back on them with anything less than fond remembrance. It was a time of decadence in ways different than the decadence of today, but not necessarily in worse or better ways. There’s no need to say “90s superhero comics suck,” even if they weren’t exploring the same range of emotion or realism as some books today do. But hey, I’m just a non-jaded comics fan.

By Jimmy Palmiotti

This week, a bunch of movies, a tribute or two and some more silliness… as expected. Amanda and I had the pleasure of taking a full day off and hanging with two of our favorite people, Billy Tucci and his stunning wife, Deb. We went out to the beach, drank a few too many drinks, had some nice meals and got to swim for a bit… a perfect summer day in my eyes, with perfect company. We spoke about how excited I was that Billy was going to finally illustrate an issue of Jonah Hex for Justin and I. It’s what I love about comics… getting to work with friends on a project. As for the rest of the week finished the translation on the first TORPEDO book for IDW and I got to tell you, I forgot how wonderful these books are. It was a real treat to be included in this event.

And last… got time finally to catch up on some movies,  Some good, some bad… and all featuring an opinion from me… I would love your feedback on these reviews, so don’t be shy. Anyway, here we go…

UP: Well, forget it is animation and understand that most movies with animation are written 50 times better than live action any day of the week. This movie was funny, silly, sad, and heartbreaking and didn’t have a boring minute in it. Run to see it… and personally, while watching it in 3-D… I forgot it was 3-D, so I think its cool to see it in regular 2-D as well. I will not ruin a thing other than to say I laughed my ass off watching it and to its credit, the theatre was filled with kids, and they didn’t talk a bit during the entire film, which is amazing if you ask me.

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Comic book fans, to paraphrase the old Bob Kane comic, are a superstitous lot.

Change — at least of the big, sweeping characterization variety — doesn’t come without vitriol, unless it is carefully built up and covered with in-universe logic. Legacy characters like Kyle Rayner and Connor Hawke — who burnt up the charts in the ’90s upon their release — have since been retconned, with the sterling sentinels of the Silver Age reassuming their heroic mantles.

So what happens if a death sticks, and readers are satisfied that a new hero has taken on the reins?

Because that may be what has happened with Ed Brubaker and Captain America.

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Superpovoir, a French comics news site, has reported that with Astonishing X-Men #31, Phil Jimenez, currently of Spider-Man fame, will be taking over art duties for Simone Bianchi.

Jimenez has been well-known for taking some high-profile assignments, including Infinite Crisis, the Barack Obama cover of Amazing Spider-Man, as well as part of the current “American Son” arc in Amazing Spider-Man. His last work on X-Men was with Grant Morrison, during the Planet X storyline in 2002-2003.

UPDATE: The Superpovoir site has since taken this off their web page, and the Google cache no longer works.

If this is true, I think Marvel might love the ’90s a little bit more than I had thought.

The French comic book site Superpouvoir has reported that in September, Marvel will be taking a blast to the past, with a series revisiting the Clone Saga:

SPIDER-MAN: THE CLONE SAGA #1 (of 6)
Written by HOWARD MACKIE & TOM DEFALCO
Penciled by TODD NAUCK
Cover by PASQUAL FERRY
You’ve been asking for it…and now it’s here: THE CLONE SAGA!!! Marvel’s most controversial event of all time returns with a vengeance, presenting the Clone Saga as it was originally intended to be told! From the minds behind the crossover that changed comics forever and the artist that introduced Spider-Man to President Obama, it’s six issues of twists and turns that will shock fans old and new alike! Be here as Peter Parker’s worst nightmare begins again…now with an ending you have to see to believe!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

That said, this is still a rumor, as Superpouvoir has cited Marvel’s web site as their source, and my run-through of the site has found no such announcement.

On the one hand, a Clone Saga series would be taking a similar route to this month’s X-Men Forever, in which Chris Claremont took us back to 1991 to continue X-Men as he would have completed it — and Marc Guggenheim did get a lot of ears perking up when he teased Ben Reilly’s return (or at least someone named Ben Reilly) in an upcoming Amazing Spider-Man arc. On the other hand, the Clone Saga was so divisive that many creators have tripped all over themselves to not just forget Ben, but to bury Ben, bury the books, bury the shovel that they used to bury Ben and the books, and then forget where they buried all that stuff.

But boy, having this cover…

What do you think, True Believers?

One of my favorite super-comics this week was the cumbersomely titled Miss America Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1, one of those one-shots Marvel’s been putting out fairly frequently this spring in which a brand-new 22-page story featuring a Golden Age character is paired with some reprints of actual Golden Age material.

Captain America, Namor and The Human Torch have all had their turn in the spotlight, and the previous issue featured a Namor/Torch/Toro/Electro/Angel/Ferret team-up. All of these were characters I was fairly familiar with, with the exception of The Ferret (who was in the Marvel Mystery Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1, maybe the best of the lot), but Miss America was a character I was completely unfamiliar with.

Well, it turned out her comic was pretty great too; Jen Van Meter wrote the story and Andy MacDonald drew it, and like each of the previous ones it featured some of the strongest super-art on display that particular Wednesday. Curious about Timely/Marvel’s Miss America, I poked around The Grand Comics Database to learn a little more about her, and I saw that she had her own single-issue long comic book in 1944, and her costume appeared on the cover of a Miss America Magazine, which appears to have been a romance comic.

And then I realized I actually had read a Miss America story before, and just a few years ago—I just didn’t realize that the Miss America in the 70th Anniversary Special was the same heroine was the same Miss America who appeared in X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl, a 2006 Marvel Knights series by Peter Milligan, Nick Dragotta and Mike Allred.

Let’s take a closer look, after the jump!

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Is this town really big enough for another webslinger?

While I was checking out Marvel’s interview with card-carrying Spider-Man brain trust member Marc Guggenheim about Amazing Spider-Man #600, one thing really stuck out at me:

“Who says it’s just one thing?” queries Guggenheim in return. “How about reintroducing a character whose last name is ‘Reilly’? How about the introduction of a new villain who will play a pivotal role in the upcoming series arc, ‘Who Is Ben Reilly?’”

Forget Bucky and forget Barry Allen: Ben Reilly is like a can of worms stuck inside a barrel of gunpowder. Or worse yet: a clone of Peter Parker.

Ben (who took his uncle’s first name and his aunt’s maiden name) represented the Clone Saga, and the outrage that many Spider-fans felt when it was revealed (and later retconned) that the Peter Parker we had been following for decades was really a clone. Following this revelation — and the fact that Mary Jane was pregnant with a baby — Peter was swiftly depowered and had to make way for a newer, blonder Spider-Man.

Now, this story could mean many things — it could mean he is returning, or that another character is acting out in his name. Or it could simply mean that someone has remembered Ben even existed (something that Marvel had previously avoided, even going so far as to making “clones suck” jokes for much of this decade) — in this case, it could be Norman Osborn, whose return was punctuated by impaling Ben on his Goblin Glider in Spider-Man: Revelations. Thoughts?

Our very own Lan Pitts has made an Iron-ic discovery for Iron Man 2:

Take a look here with Mickey Rourke as Whiplash. Interesting enough though, they made him Russian (hence the Russian prison tattoos and the rumors about him playing Crimson Dynamo). Mr. Comeback Kid has also stated that his dialogue in the movie is more than half in Russian. Talk about dedication. We’re not quite sure what’s going on in the picture, it sort of seems like a weapons display. Him being in his prison attire maybe we are to assume he’s used as a guinea pig for the weapons. He looks pretty damn gangster.

[Link via USA Today]

Marvel has announced that Activision has released a fun online minigame for those who just can’t wait to get your Civil War on!

With Civil War Online, you can put together teams of four heroes, to play on an online board, with the outcome of these individual battles being tallied out for a global count. Based on my current count, it’s looking like the Anti-Registration heroes are enjoying a lead of about 23.

This will reflect at least some of the storyline for the upcoming game Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: Fusion, which will chronicle the struggle between Captain America and Iron Man over the Superhuman Registration Act. This next-gen systems game is due out in the fall.