Iron Man 3 has been getting all the Marvel movie attention lately, but Fox’s The Wolverine is less than three months away, with a release date of July 26. On Wednesday, a minute-long sizzle reel of footage (some new, some seen in previous trailers) surfaced online, first seen at last month’s CinemaCon. Here it is:

And in further Hugh Jackman-as-Wolverine news, X-Men: Days of Future Past director Bryan Singer tweeted a picture of Jackman in character — his back, at least — on the set of the 2014 film, great news for fans of Logan in brown leather jackets.

The dual teases of the mysterious Age of Ultron #10UC and Infinity at Marvel have put me in mind of the Malibu Ultraverse, of all things. It’s not just that “Ultraverse Comics” would fit the U.C. acronym – It won’t be, of course, it’s far more likely to be Avengers‘ “Universal Construct” name for Galactus, especially considering the “Hunger” image – but that the Marvel post-Black September relaunch for the Ultraverse started with “Infinity” issues.

The question of whatever actually happened to the Ultraverse characters is one that will likely never be publicly answered; Marvel officials point to unknown, undefined contractual issues as to not only why the characters will never be used again but also why they can’t say why that is, while the creators of the characters have expressed confusion as to what that might be beyond creator royalties due for each appearance. That, of course, has led to the urban myth that Marvel’s disinclination to pay said royalty is the contractual reason why the Ultraverse has stayed dormant for more than a decade despite Crossgen revivals and two attempts to bring back the Epic imprint.

With Marvel apparently getting back into the character-licensing business with Angela’s re-appearance at the end of Age of Ultron, this theory might finally be put to the test. After all, if the publisher would use Angela – a character that Neil Gaiman owns outright, unless he’s quietly given her to Marvel – wouldn’t that signal a willingness to use fan favorite characters, even if there was an additional fee involved?

Considering the X-Men: Battle of The Atom announcement made this weekend, it’s always good to see another character from Brian K. Vaughan’s Runaways return to comics after  Niko and Chase’s appearance in Avengers Arena and Victor Mancha’s return in Age of Ultron: Ultron, and who didn’t like Molly Hayes? Cute, adorable Molly… Hayes…

On one hand, Art Adams does tend to go for the buxom, hyper-sexualized women. On the other, seriously, we couldn’t have an adult Molly Hayes who wasn’t wasp-waisted and overly-generous in the breast department? Really?

(Also, will we ever see a full-on Runaways revival now that the team has been deconstructed like this? I fear my hopes of finding out where Kathryn Immonen was going with her sadly-aborted run on the book are set to be dashed at this rate…)

Given the initial positive reviews, it looks like the only people not looking forward to the release of Iron Man 3 are American musicians:

[American Federation of Musicians] members were outside the midtown Manhattan offices of Marvel on Tuesday handing out leaflets angry with the studio not using their members for Iron Man 3. The union was also on site at a Captain America: The Winter Soldier shoot in downtown LA on Olympic Blvd today and outside of the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood where the IM3 premiere is scheduled for Wednesday evening.

The problem is that Marvel uses European musicians to score its movies while also receiving tax breaks to make its movies in the U.S., according to the organization’s John Acosta: “Marvel is unfair to musicians because they take tax breaks from states but when it comes to doing a score for their movies, they outsource the work overseas,” he said. This isn’t the first time the AFM have managed to draw attention on this issue; they picketed Marvel and Disney last year in the light of the phenomenal success of Marvel’s The Avengers, as well.

Over at the Beat, Steve Morris asks an unexpected question: Are people bored by the consistently excellent quality of Waid and Samnee’s Daredevil?

Daredevil hasn’t had as much attention this year as it did during it’s first, but that’s for a fairly clear reason – it’s utterly rock-solid. Reviewers get bored of saying “yep, still great” every month, which is why books like Fatale and Daredevil tend to experience a little critical fatigue the longer they go on. I’d argue that Daredevil does suffer a little from being so dependable – with readers already aware of what kind of experience they’re in for when they pick up an issue, there’s little sense of recklessness at stake here. With a comic which rolls from being good-to-great, there are more errors and slips in the work, and that can make for a more entertaining read than something which never puts a foot wrong.

He decides, finally, that “[r]ather than getting bored at seeing high quality on a regular basis, this is a book we should continue to champion, even 25 issues in.” I’m not sure if anyone actually is bored by the book; I think that it’s just that people are writing about it less because we’re almost two years into a consistently solid run and so the novelty value has moved on to different, newer material. Not that two years is the benchmark; I feel that we’ve already stopped talking about Hawkeye and Young Avengers, two other top-level books over at Marvel right now, and they’re both less than a year old. Maybe people would rather complain than cheer about their reading, depressingly.

Is Age of Ultron the ultimate Marvel comics event? Jim Mroczowski makes the case for a yes:

And what about those tie-ins? So far, there have been what, three a month? Almost all of them are one-shots; maybe one title is doing two crossover issues in a row. So far, all of them have essentially been DVD extras for the main series. If you want to see the deleted scenes featuring Spider-Man, or find out the backstory about how Sue Storm got to that room, you can do that; if you don’t, you don’t. It couldn’t make less of a difference. They have been the most perfectly skippable, functionally optional comics in the history of Eventing. Most of them have a completely different writer and artist than the ongoing series and don’t intersect with the regular stories at all. Wolverine and the X-Men was two issues into an arc; Matt Kindt wrote an issue about robot war that relates in no way; next issue will be part three of the arc, like Kindt’s issue was a dream we all had. Considering half these books come out every two weeks now, it’s like they’re treating you to a little time off. Or treating you to a done-in-one Matt Kindt Wolverine story! Take your pick!

There is no better way to do this sort of thing. If you love Ultron and Events, that’s what you get. If you don’t, this won’t hurt a bit and will be over before you know it. It might as well come with a tank of nitrous oxide. Compare that to Avengers vs. X-Men; if you liked Cyclops stories but hated the Phoenix Five, you had yourself a bad year.

Quite when “It’s easily ignored” became the benchmark for event comics, I’m unsure. If that’s your basis for judgment, though, it’s a good case – Age of Ultron ultimately is entirely avoidable for now when it comes to the larger Marvel Universe. We’ll see if that continues to be the case in its aftermath; after all, the same could’ve been said for Flashpoint during its run back in mid-2011…

Michael Moran wonders what’s behind the trend for today’s superheroes to be anything but common men:

In part, the recasting of billionaires as supermen is down to the current trend for realism. Money Supermarket threw together some figures on how much it might cost to become a superhero. Batman came out at around $690,000,000. The price of becoming Iron Man was an even more impressive $1,600,000,000.

Now, those numbers are fanciful estimates rooted in the weird science of superhero world, but they’re probably in the right order of magnitude. Until we find a planet populated by creatures who can fly and shoot lasers from their eyes, or an interstellar police force armed with near-omnipotent jewellery, money is the only real superpower.

Of course, billionaires aren’t the only heroes of hit superhero flicks. There’s also The Hulk (scientist employed by the US military), Captain America (super-soldier created by the US military), Hawkeye and Black Widow (assassins employed by a US-dominated covert military force) and Thor (a god).

And that was just The Avengers.

It’s odd, when you stop and think about it: Marvel Comics dominates today’s superhero mythology in the mainstream, but the focus on characters who – with the exception of Spider-Man – are miles away from the once-dominant-within-Marvel focus on superheroes who were “just like you” is weirdly close to the DC heroes, who were either brilliant scientists, jet pilots, newspapermen or billionaires. Is it just more fun for audiences to tune into the adventures of characters who live fantasy existences in both of their double identities?

Corey Blake steps into the ongoing debate over a lack of superheroic material in this year’s Eisner nominations:

So what happened? Did Marvel and DC, and the superhero genre in general, just have an off year? Are Marvel and DC getting lazy after years upon years of ruling the roost? Are superhero comics not keeping up with the increasing growth and quality of other genres? Is the rest of the industry leaving Marvel and DC behind in being leaders in creative and innovative comics? Are movies and TV finally doing superheroes better than comics? Or did the Eisners just have stuffy superhero-hating judges this year?

That line about “is the rest of the industry leaving Marvel and DC behind in being leaders in creative and innovative comics?” sticks with me because, well, have superhero comics from either publisher really been leading the way in creative and innovative comics for anytime in the last… what, decade, at least? That’s not to say that either publisher haven’t been putting out good – or even great – superhero fare during that time, but… am I alone in thinking that the place to look for material that pushes the boundaries of the medium isn’t necessarily the New 52 or the Marvel Universe? That’s not what they’re there for, surely? Aren’t they primarily focused on fulfilling expectations of the genre and the fanbase, and generating interest in the characters and concepts each universe contains, instead of innovating or pushing comics forward?

Paul O’Brien on Guardians of The Galaxy #1′s amazing sales:

Who would have believed that we would live to see the day when the words “GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY is a real priority for Marvel right now” could be uttered with a straight face?

But this is that day, for GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY is a real priority for Marvel right now. It’s also one of the more striking examples of the company’s recent policy of putting big name creators on C-list properties – and one where it really does seem to be paying off.

Even allowing for the inevitable raft of relaunches, this is a huge number for a first issue. The last Marvel title to hit a larger number on its first issue was – well, okay, it was UNCANNY AVENGERS. But after that, you’ve got to go all the way back to April 2008 and SECRET INVASION #1. Sales like this do not come along every day. It’s a testimony to what can be achieved when a publisher really sets about convincing readers that it’s taking a property seriously.

Breaking: Marvel Studios announced plans for movies “starring whoever’s getting their own books in Marvel NOW! Phase 2.”

I do wonder how much the movie plans have factored into interest for this book; A Bendis/McNiven title was always going to do well, despite the property – See Johns/Reis on Aquaman, over at DC – but 200,000+? Even with the many, many variants, that’s stunningly impressive. Does having a movie forthcoming for these characters give the Guardians a legitimacy with fans that they hadn’t previously enjoyed? And if so, how repeatable is that phenomenon? If Marvel announced a Captain Marvel movie today, would there be a sales bump for the (great) Kelly Sue DeConnick book?

Comedian (and sometimes comic book writer) Patton Oswalt is guest-starring on NBC’s Parks and Recreation this Thursday, playing a concerned citizen invoking a filibuster rule to stop a city council vote. His filibuster, detailing his character’s take on 2015′s Star Wars: Episode VII, takes an interesting turn — like, X-23 versus Robot Chewbacca interesting — and the show has released the unedited take of Oswalt’s nearly nine-minute improvisation. Hit the jump to see it in full.

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Marvel’s latest attempt to find a use for its Epic brand name – Remember the short-lived revival as a creator-outreach imprint? That went well – is a truly unusual one: A line of what is essentially color versions of the Essentials volumes, released entirely out of order and seemingly randomly, according to David Gabriel:

This will be like starting a giant puzzle on your shelves (for those that like this sort of thing). So for example Iron Man Epic Collection ‘Vol. 10′ appears one month telling the stories from 1982, the next volume might be ‘Vol. 5′ presenting the stories from Iron Man #47-67, and so on across our biggest character lines.

For years, people have been making jokes about publishers releasing comics out of order, and now it’s actually happening. I’m torn on this announcement, though; on the one hand, in theory it means that rare and un-reprinted issues of a run now stand a chance of seeing print again, albeit with a somewhat hefty price tag ($40 per volume!). On the other… Well, I’m cynical about the chances that all of the projected volumes of each run – Gabriel estimates 20 volumes per title – will actually see print given the history of Marvel’s collected editions, or that earlier (later) volumes will stay in print throughout the lifespan of the Epic imprint. What are the odds that, three years from now, we’ll have Iron Man Epic Collection volumes 10, 5, 17, 8, 1 and 13 but nothing in between?

Marvel may own Marvelman now (Well, some version of the character, at least), but it turns out the publisher could’ve made everyone’s lives a lot easier and bought the U.S. rights to publish Alan Moore’s run on the character way back when:

Shooter said, ‘We can’t do Marvelman,’ and I said, ‘But you ARE Marvel!’ He said, ‘Yeah, but the trouble is if his name is Marvelman, he represents the entire company. It would be like if this character was called DC Man, he’d represent DC. We couldn’t have a figurehead character who’s involved in a bizarre sexual triangle with the wife who’d rather sleep with the Greek God superhero than the forty-year-old pudgy secret identity and all this other stuff. Besides, he’s British, so how could he represent us?’ So he didn’t want it either.

Given the current status of Captain America as Marvel’s heart and moral conscience, could Marvelman represent the entire publisher these days? Turns out, the character’s name was also the reason DC didn’t purchase the rights when it had the chance the other day, according to Dick Giordano:

DC Comics publishing something called Marvelman; are you crazy? Do you know the problems we have with Captain Marvel, and you think we’re going to do Marvelman?! I couldn’t touch it. I love it but we couldn’t possibly do it.

The comics industries we could have had…! Just imagine.

Hey, kids! Remember Avengers #12.1, the Brian Bendis/Bryan Hitch prologue to the current Age of Ultron story that got reprinted the following year as Marvel’s Free Comic Book Day issue? Well, turns out that – if you missed that 30 page story the first two times around, you’ve got a third chance to read it… Well, part of it, at least:

AGE OF ULTRON #10 (OF 10) is now 34 pages in length. 8 of those pages are being repurposed from AVENGERS #12.1.

That’s from the latest shipping update from Marvel. Three things jump out:

1. Presumably “now 34 pages in length” means the story, not the actual issue – Unless Marvel is announcing that it’s gotten shorter than its original 40 page solicit, which admittedly isn’t impossible. But we didn’t know the length of the story before, did we? Is it longer now?
2. Well, now we know what Bryan Hitch is drawing in the issue, I guess. Or not drawing, seeing as he did this work two years ago at least.
3. Eight pages “repurposed” from Avengers #12.1? I wonder what eight? There’s no one scene in the issue that runs exactly eight pages, after all. If pressed to guess, I’d go for the end of the book when Ultron appears and disappears suddenly because he’s “not ready” for the confrontation with the Avengers, but I guess we’ll see in June.

Reprints aren’t a new thing to Age of Ultron, of course; the preview of the series that appeared in 2011′s Point One issue turned out to be – unlike every other strip in the issue – not a standalone, specially-produced prologue, but seven pages from the middle of Age of Ultron #1. When Age of Ultron #1 was finally released, there had been some minor alterations made in terms of coloring, lettering and switching the orientation of a panel, but essentially, a quarter of the book was a reprint of work that had originally appeared two years earlier. Still, it is a series (partially) about time travel, so such deja vu might even add to the experience of reading it.

This news about the final issue, though… The more we learn about the final issue of Age of Ultron – That Joe Quesada will be drawing an epilogue introducing Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane’s Angela to the Marvel Universe, that the artist count for the book keeps rising (The issue was originally solicited with Brandon Peterson, Carlos Pacheco and Joe Quesada as artists; Bryan Hitch’s name was added afterwards, and then Tom Brevoort promised “a couple of other surprise guys” would also be contributing), and now that just under a quarter of the story will actually be a reprint of some kind of a two-year-old prologue to the series that doesn’t fit with any of the time periods featured in the series to date – the more surreal it seems to become. Will it read like the patchwork it’s beginning to sound like, from the various bits-and-pieces of information we’re learning? Will there be method to the madness when all is said and done?

Winter Soldier #19 may be the final issue of the series, but that might be because we’re headed towards a Marvel NOW! relaunch. Here’s Tom Brevoort’s response to someone asking why Marvel would cancel the book a year in advance of the movie with his name in the title is released:

Still, if you think we’re finished with the Winter Soldier, as both a character and a title, you’ve got another think coming in the months ahead.

We know that Marvel NOW! Phase 2 is due, and it would only make sense that we’re due a high(er)-profile Bucky book ahead of his big-screen spotlight. I wonder if there’s a way to get away with actually titling the new book Captain America: The Winter Soldier…?

While the Age of Ultron: UC solicit will grab a lot of attention in the latest Marvel solicits, I’ll suggest that the solicit for Indestructible Hulk #11 might be the one that’s really worth paying attention to:

“TIME TO SMASH” PART 1!
• Spinning out of the events of Age of Ultron!
Hulk’s sent on his most dangerous mission yet, working for a secret subdivision of S.H.I.E.L.D.!
History’s breaking–and only the Hulk is strong enough to hold it together!

“History’s breaking” is a particularly interesting thing to say – Not just in light of Age of Ultron, but also Bendis’ All-New X-Men. It’s been amusing to me that a relaunch called “Marvel NOW!” had such stock in time-travel, but I always wondered whether that was coincidence or intent. In light of Age of Ultron, I’m beginning to suspect the latter, and with this solicit, I’m starting to wonder whether this is all leading…

With Age of Ultron hitting the midway point this week, it’s maybe a good time to look at the series so far and consider the structure of the story. Maybe it’s just me, but there was a feeling that – due to the events at the end of the issue that I won’t spoil – this issue was in many ways the actual start of the story, and that everything prior to this had been prologue, and that’s oddly fascinating to me.

Certainly, the first five issues seemed to have little happening in the overall story, being more concerned with scene-setting and world-building, something that seemed curiously inconsequential considering the seemingly impermanent state of the world in question. By making such a dramatic swerve at the halfway point – The future issues will take place in different locales (temporal, if not physical), with a different mission statement and, we can but hope, more of a level or urgency – it’s hard not to wonder what the point of spending so long establishing the ruined Ultron world was.

Also, considering how well the tie-ins have done the same job – Avengers Assemble #14AU sets the scene far more effectively than the first four issues of the main book, for me, giving us an emotional “in” that the Bendis/Hitch team had failed to do in my opinion – it’s a question that feels more worth answering, and more confusing, than otherwise. The storytelling choices of Age of Ultron have been very deliberate: Not showing how the takeover happened, the pacing, the fragmented build of the story to date. But why were they made?

What happens in the second half of the series is crucial, of course; whether it mirrors, or builds on, the storytelling choice of the first half or not. When the “different artists at the midway point” structure of the series was first announced, I worried that it would mean that the second half would feel like an entirely different book. Now, I find myself torn on that – On the one hand, that would feel like the first half was even more of a waste of time, but on the other… I think I’d want a different book, based on the evidence of the first five issues. Is that just me?

I’m amused at the newest addition to Marvel’s Fearless Defenders. Here’s Cullen Bunn explaining how she ended up in the book:

I liked the thought of raising a character from the dead, but I was immediately met with a couple of problems. Firstly, the character had to fit what I was planing for the book. Secondly, when I went through all my old issues of the “Official Marvel Universe Handbook: Book of the Dead,” all the characters who were listed as deceased had already been returned to life! My short list had four characters on it, and there were a couple I was certain would be resurfacing in one way or another in other books. Ellie called me with the suggestion of Hippolyta, and I thought she could bring something interesting to the series.

Yes, now the Defenders feature Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons. AKA, I kid you not, “Warrior Woman.”

Between this and Avengers‘ starring role for Hyperion, I feel that Marvel just needs to bring Nighthawk back to complete a trinity of some kind. I wonder what Marvel’s reaction would be if DC’s versions of Thor, Hercules and Loki started making appearances throughout the New 52?

Here’s Sam Humphries, talking with our very own Albert Ching about Hank Pym’s role in Avengers AI:

Hank Pym is a fantastic character to write. It’s a little difficult for me to talk exactly about Hank, because a lot of it comes out of the end of Age of Ultron, and the Age of Ultron epilogue that Mark Waid is writing. Both of which I’ve read, and both of which are great. The Age of Ultron has got an incredible crescendo, and that leads right into what we’re doing.

Waid’s epilogue is great, because Waid loves Hank Pym so much. Waid really, really has this deep, genuine affection for Hank Pym the same way that he does Daredevil and Superman. Waid has this ability to tap deep into these classic characters in a way that nobody else does. Talking about the end of Age of Ultron, and the epilogue, and the beginning of Avengers A.I. with Bendis and Waid was fantastic for me. It was amazing. I wish both of those guys could re-define my characters before every book I do, because they’re razor-sharp at this.

All of which is a long way of saying that I can’t really say what my take on Hank is, other than I think this is a take that is firmly rooted in Hank’s history. It in no way ignores what came before, but I think it’s also a bit of Hank coming into his own.

How many times has Hank Pym come into his own?

I ask that seriously; the character seems to be one that just never works for fans, and undergoes constant revision. It’s always been the case, all the way back to his first appearances fifty years ago. He was Ant-Man, then Giant-Man, then Goliath. Back then, the character didn’t evolve, but his costumed identities did. Goliath, Yellowjacket…

Hank has no central personality traits that the creators who handle him can seem to agree on, and that’s plagued him throughout his existence – It’s also, I’d argue, why his hitting Jan has become the defining fact of his character despite numerous attempts to rehabilitate him; at least it’s something unique that people remember about him outside of “he messes with his size a lot and created Ultron.” But even since then: We’ve seen him suicidal and then come to terms with his position in life, then come to terms with it again and reclaim former identities to express that, and then again and again. Is he the (somewhat jerky, infallible) Scientist Supreme, still, or a (sensitive, emotionally aware) teacher at Avengers Academy?

I’ve said it elsewhere, but I suspect that the Hank Pym we’ll see post-Age of Ultron will himself be an artificial intelligence of some sort, giving him yet another reboot and attempt of definition. Either way, it’ll be interesting to see if the makeover he’ll get in Age of Ultron and Avengers AI is something that will actually stick, or whether we’ll see yet another redefinition of Hank Pym a couple of years down the line, as Marvel Studios prepares to release its Ant-Man movie.

Quick: What does Avengers mean to you, outside of it being the name of multiple Marvel superhero comics and an uber-successful movie?

We’re at, what, eight Avengers books right now? Avengers, New, Secret, Assemble, Dark (soon to be replaced with AI), Arena, Young and Uncanny… Plus, of course, A+X and whatever event series that are going on at the time. Let’s call it eight, to be charitable, and say that A+X doesn’t count because the title doesn’t actually contain the word “Avengers.” Now, think about what links all of those titles together, thematically.

It’s definitely not the old “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” idea anymore – Although, let’s be honest, that hasn’t been true since Hawkeye was allowed into the team way back when. It’s not that it’s one massive organization of superheroes dedicated to saving the world, as was the case even as recently as the Bendis era. The presence of Arena and Young really complicates matters in terms of definition, because technically, no-one in those books even is an Avenger.

It makes sense, from a business standpoint, to leverage the Avengers name as much as possible – It was a massive movie, and is definitely Marvel’s most successful/most familiar brand these days, and adding it to any title genuinely seems to legitimately provide a sales bump (See Thunderbolts‘ change to Dark Avengers last year). But long-term, it does damage to Avengers as a brand, because it makes it meaningless.

These days, Avengers seems to just translate into “superhero,” with the term becoming generic outside of that. And the more that fans realize that, the less valuable the Avengers brand is going to become.

Abhay Khosla explains why Angela’s appearance at the end of Age of Ultron makes more sense than at first glance:

Gaiman claimed to have created Angela, and, after the dust of the various ensuing lawsuits cleared, Neil Gaiman indeed owned at least 50% of Angela. So, this month, he’s turned around and licensed Angela back to Marvel comics. The company Todd McFarlane had made a big whole point of quitting in the first place. Marvel Comics had famously stolen all of their good characters from Jack Kirby, back in the 1960s; stole some other stuff, too, though– Blade from Marv Wolfman; Howard the Duck from Steve Gerber, etc. But gosh, it had been a while. It had been too long– too, too long.

Good news, though: Marvel can now say not only that they have their hands on an Image comic character, but that best of all, it’s against the obvious wishes of one of its co-creators, too!

Yay! Neil Gaiman has finally struck a real blow for… revenge?

This is all in the context of a Marvel comics crossover named The Middle-Age of The Ultron, which I think is about an evil robot, wearing a leather jacket and hitting on high-school girls at Denny’s? The crossover is only about half-over, but the Wall Street Journal or JAMA or whoever have already reported that the top-secret, ultra-secret, “no-one will guess” secret finale three or four months from now is, apparently, that an angel from heaven in a metal bikini will show up to hunt the 1990s Image Comics character Spawn? Sure, sure: exactly how a Marvel comic about a g-damn robot should end.

The crossover is written by Brian Michael Bendis, as is a subsequent issue of the new Guardians of the Galaxy series which will be co-written by Gaiman, and is said to feature Angela. Fun-fact: Bendis himself started his work-for-hire comics career working for Todd McFarlane … before also having a falling-out with McFarlane.

I hadn’t made the “Writers who’ve fallen out with Todd McFarlane” connection between Bendis and Gaiman before, but, great! I totally can see what they have in common that’ll make them such great collaborators now! I can only hope that the writing credits for that arc of Guardians read “The Todd McFarlane Revenge Squad.”