What is Brian Michael Bendis doing once he leaves the Avengers books later this year? A rumor that he was about to take over the X-Men books has prompted this response from the man himself:

You can take that as me sitting back and laughing my ass off. What I am doing after avx is so much more than this…

Guesses – answered, of course – later in the same Bendis Board thread include Marvelman and taking on some kind of editorial position. One of the more interesting reactions, though, was the suggestion that he is taking over the X-Books, but the “so much more” refers to what he’s doing: Either a full-scale reboot, or a Disassembled-esque linewide relaunch, both of which could be considered “so much more” than just taking over the books as-is. But, considering the X-Men books have already been relaunched less than six months ago, would it be smart to relaunch the entire line again so soon…?

If this report is to be believed, Marvel’s big Avengers vs. X-Men push will pay off in a big way:

It looks like Justice League is about to lose its streak of number one sales. Not only is Jim Lee away from the book for a few issues, but Avengers Vs X-Men #1 is coming through, and I hear from reliable industry sources that its orders are expected to top 200,000 this weekend. I can’t see any way that it won’t be a number one best selling issue, can you?

That is a great, great number for the book, giving Marvel its biggest hit since… Civil War, I think? If this keeps up for all twelve issues – and the interest is spread across the tie-in books – then it’s definitely the boost Marvel fans have been hoping for for awhile, in terms of sales, and a sign that the horse race for market supremacy is fully back on after a couple of slow months – not to mention a strong start to something that the publisher is saying will lead to “the most seismic shift at Marvel in a decade”…

Neal Adams considers the origin of Spider-Man, and what it meant to comics at the time:

A weakling kid is bitten by a radioactive spider and decides to become…a circus performer? Yes, that’s right, Peter Parker is more interested in using his “gift” to find a paycheck, not a damsel in distress.Until, with all his power, his weaknesses cause him to fail to save his Uncle Ben. Soft monsters as superheroes. Not sparkly-toothed-born heroes…but flawed monster heroes. Then came the incredible Steve Ditko. Was this man born to draw Spider-Man? A multitude will say “Yes.” Marvel had found a third creator who got it, who totally understood the concept: Flawed monster heroes. It was a new idea, born out of a touch of coincidence, a touch of history, a massive amount of brilliance of some of the greatest comic book creators since Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

The idea of Spider-Man as a “flawed monster hero” is one that’s particularly resonant, reminding us that – no matter how mainstream and cuddly that the character has become, Spider-Man started out not only as an outsider, but as a horror story made good. It’s a shame that that aspect of the character has become lost through familiarity, I think.

Marvel’s May solicitations contained this somewhat unexpected item among their Spider-Man offerings:

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: PARALLEL LIVES #1
GERRY CONWAY (w)
ALEX SAVIUK (a)
Cover by BOB LARKIN
• He’s Peter Parker: a shy, introverted teen whose life changed forever when a radioactive spider bit him.
• She’s Mary Jane Watson: product of a broken home, concealing her pain with an outgoing party-girl persona.
• They meet, fall in love and get married. This is their story.
• The classic 1989 graphic novel returns!
64 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99

Now, there’s no denying that Parallel Lives is a classic Spidey story, and one that a lot of current readers might not even know about. So on that end, a reissuing of the story makes perfect sense. But the timing seems conspicuous, especially since May will be just two months before The Amazing Spider-Man live-action film hits theaters, with Gwen Stacy as Peter Parker’s love interest and no Mary Jane in sight. (more…)

Looking over the Marvel solicits for May, I find myself thinking about the impermanence of creative teams at the Big Two these days. DC’s New 52 has already taught us that artists can change at a moment’s notice, and that writers will swap out within a few months if sales aren’t great, but there’s something about this month’s Marvel solicits that underscore just how interchangable creative teams seem to be, these days: The familiar writers of Marvel Universe: Ultimate Spider-Man #1 (Dan Slott, Ty Templeton and the Man of Action team) are gone by #2, it seems, replaced by Eugene Son & Jacob Semahn (presumably writers on the show itself), for one thing; regular Avenging Spider-Man writer Zeb Wells is mising from the book for a second month, with launch artist Joe Madureira having been absent from the book for five issues now. All manner of books have fill-in artists, including books that are less than six months old, like Scarlet Spider and Defenders (I’m amused by the Daredevil #12 solicit welcoming “new artist, Chris Samnee,” who’s immediately replaced with the double-shipped next issue by Khoi Pham; Samnee’s a great addition to the Daredevil team, but announcing him as the new artist before immediately revolving him back out just reminds me of the fact that Daredevil – which launched with a team of two revolving artists, will have had five different art teams contributing to the first twelve issues of the series), and even Rick Remender is suddenly co-writing Venom – with Cullen Bunn, which is a pretty damn great writing team, really – without any warning.

Seeing changes like this isn’t surprising anymore; in fact, it’s beginning to seem like the norm, making the appearance of Invincible Iron Man‘s Matt Fraction and Sal Larocca (doing two issues in May) feel all the more impressive for the longevity of the pairing. Remember the days when most super-hero books had a regular writer and artist?

If you’re thinking “Is that an unprinted page of Frank Miller/Klaus Janson art from their Daredevil run?” then the answer is yes:

The page comes via Tom Brevoort’s uber-amazing Marvel Age of Comics Tumblr, where he explained:

Here’s an unprinted page by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson from the two-part angel dust story that was originally intended for DAREDEVIL #167 and #168, and which was rejected by the comics code. The story eventually saw print, retooled, as DAREDEVIL #183 & #184, but this page fell by the wayside.

For those who like seeing scans of original art and/or Marvel ephemera, I can’t recommend that Tumblr enough.

Judging from this interview with Tom Brevoort and Nick Lowe, Avengers vs. X-Men might be more truthfully titled Avengers and X-Men vs. X-Men and Avengers, as Brevoort explains:

There’s nothing that even says that characters — especially characters like Wolverine, Beast and Storm, who just joined the Avengers — will choose one side and remain on it consistently… It’s obviously easiest to see how the X-Men among the Avengers’ ranks might have divided loyalties. What may not be as apparent is how certain members of the Avengers might have greater sympathy with the X-Men’s position, or greater confidence in what Cyclops believes. I tend to think of characters such as Hawkeye, Iron Fist and Luke Cage as guys who’ll naturally root for the oppressed underdog against the majority or “the man,” so there may well be some points where each or any of them need to spot-check what they’re doing and why.

By the same token, the X-Men, as I mentioned earlier, are already fragmented, and this situation may cause them to fragment even further — not everybody in either X-camp is so totally supportive of either Wolverine or Cyclops that they wouldn’t exercise their own judgment and own sense of morals if it came down to it. Even among the Avengers, there may be characters who are taking a sidelong glance at the mutants standing right next to them as the situation gets real, wondering if their loyalties can be completely trusted.

On the one hand: It makes more sense, from a story perspective, that the battle lines aren’t as clear as “This team versus that team.” On the other hand, it does make all the Are You an Avenger? Are You an X-Man? branding (and, kinda, the title of the book itself) seem somewhat ridiculous if Marvel’s own editors are saying that Avengers vs. X-Men is an overly simplistic and not entirely correct way of looking at the conflict two months before the series even begins.

Great moments in not-staying-on-message: Brian Michael Bendis in this week’s Axel-in-Charge column at CBR, talking about the genesis of Avengers vs. X-Men:

There’s a lot of ways that could go wrong. So Axel, Tom and the guys smartly said, “Let’s get together — just the five writers and the three editors with Nick Lowe.” They all came to my place in Portland, and I stuffed them full of donuts — as was reported last week [Laughter]. And we went there with not much more than “The Phoenix would make a really good MacGuffin for this.”

Axel Alonso, four paragraphs later:

Understand: We’d backed off doing an “Avengers Vs. X-Men” several times before because we didn’t have the right set-up or inciting incident. If we were going to have the world’s two biggest super teams go toe to toe, it had to be over something that mattered, not a McGuffin, and there couldn’t be a clear-cut good guy or bad guy.

More an amusing attempt to save face for those potentially horrified at the Phoenix not being given the “appropriate” respect than anything else, I have to admit that I’m hoping that Bendis is the more honest of the two here: I want the Phoenix to be a MacGuffin, because I feel like the classic Marvel intra-hero slugfests are all MacGuffinned-up, with the inciting incident being something that can be easily left in the background until everyone decides to team-up and save the day. In a story like this, don’t you want less talking and more punching, ultimately?

Sean Murphy recounts the curious fate of his Wolverine ABC sketches:

Last year I drew the Wolverine ABCs.  When it was done, I printed out around 200 sketchbooks of them to hand out to industry friends.  I knew enough about copyright law to know that I was in the gray area, even though they were only meant to be given away as gifts.  I also gave them to people and editors who worked at Marvel–clearly I wasn’t trying to hide what I’d created.  Because I was a pro and because I wasn’t selling them, I figured I’d be fine.  After three conventions of EVERYONE telling me I should sell them, I broke down and sold some.  At the last show that season, I sold the remaining 40 copies or so.

Then Marvel called.  I explained that I didn’t have a warehouse of sketchbooks, I only made around 200 (or close to that) and mostly I gave them away.  I explained how none of the Marvel editors complained when I handed them one, and my lack of hiding the ABCs should show the innocent nature of my endeavor.  I even offered to sign a Cease and Desist, and pay them the money I made selling the last 40.  But Marvel wanted the rights to the ABCs–they wanted to own them and pay me nothing.  I wasn’t willing to do that, so I got a lawyer.  And we eventually came together and agreed to drop the subject if I simply removed them from my site and promised not to make any more sketchbooks.

He goes on to say “My mistake was thinking that it was no big deal … because most people in comics don’t think it’s a big deal.  But most people haven’t dealt with Marvel like I have, and that’s what fueled my involvement in this entire issue. I know people think I’m overreacting–I don’t care… I’m changing my sketch policy because I’m imagining the worst-case scenario.” It puts a new spin on Joe Quesada responding to concerns about the Gary Friedrich lawsuit affecting artists’ sketches by saying “Marvel is not looking to make any new policy announcements through this lawsuit,” when you learn Marvel was looking to claim ownership of sketches earlier, doesn’t it…?

How concerned is Marvel about leaks from the upcoming Avengers movie? Spoilers (or anti-spoilers, maybe?) under the jump give you an idea of what the answer is. (more…)

How big will Marvel’s Avengers vs. X-Men advertising blitz be? According to SVP Sales David Gabriel, pretty damn big:

This is the biggest marketing investment that we’ve ever put into a series or an event. You’ll see that online, through social media, and there’s going to be a radio and television component as well… [The Sales Department is] actually treating every issue as an event, because there’s a different fight going on in every issue, and I’m told that they are pushing every single issue through all twelve issues. The story itself has three acts, and each of those acts has a natural marketing hook to it, so they’re pushing those as well.

According to Gabriel, Marvel’s sister Disney subsidiaries ABC and Disney XD are two of the television networks being considered for advertising. The idea of different advertisements for each of the twelve biweekly issues seems particularly impressive, if it ends up happening. Here’s hoping it all pays off for everyone involved.

David Brothers has an astonishing post about the source of Marvel bootleg scans that is a must-read, as he and David Uzumeri put the evidence together and come up with a pretty convincing case for the source being Marvel itself:

Taken all together: There are covers that differ from any legit cover. Pages that are pitch-perfect. DPI that matches across the board. Recap pages that occasionally vary in size, just like they do in official Marvel electronic review copies. Every Marvel comic is available early and all at once on the scan site du jour. DC comics appear in a trickle after 2pm EST. By 7pm EST on Wednesday, every big two comic is available for download, but well before that, Marvel’s entire line-up for the week is ready to go.

It’s pretty clear from this evidence that there’s a leak somewhere along the supply chain. Someone’s getting access to a PDF, or something, and dumping it to JPG before releasing it to the net. Converting a PDF to a series of JPGs is simple in Photoshop, and once you set up a good action to save the images, this is something that takes no more than five minutes to do, RAM and size of PDF depending.

There are multiple visual “smoking gun”s as part of the post for those who need more convincing, as well as more evidence for Brothers’ conclusion. It’s a wonderful piece of work , and a warning to both Marvel and the bootleggers that someone out there is paying attention.

Update: The post has been updated with Uzumeri’s realization that the leak is a security leak, and not a person; he’s tweeted that “it was just a regular IT security issue and the hole’s plugged.” Seriously, Marvel, you owe these two something for their detecting prowess here.

When is the right time for a full-scale DCU crossover?

Reading Bob Harras write about the “world-building” of DC’s New 52 via small-scale crossovers got me thinking about the way that DC is approaching linewide continuity since the New 52 reboot last September; we started slowly, with occasional mentions of things happening in other books, and then moved to guest appearances around the third issues, and it looks like we’ll be getting mini-events by the ninth issues. As a reader, I’m enjoying this approach; it simultaneously makes the line seem more coherent and also more filled with possibility and potential, because of the different nature of the events (The DCU is somewhere with Owls, the Rot and an alien invasion? Happening at the same time?!?), but it does make me wonder when we’re going to see the first line-wide storyline.

After all, it has to happen sometime, right? But… maybe it doesn’t, or at least, not anytime soon. Consider Marvel’s crossover approach: Avengers vs. X-Men may be getting all manner of hype right now, and it may end up changing the Marvel Universe forever afterwards, but in terms of a publishing plan, it’s actually much smaller than last year’s Fear Itself, and arguably the most successful (critically, at least) crossover at Marvel last year was the smaller-scale Spider Island. Not that “family” crossovers are anything new over there, of course; look at Shadowland, Second Coming, or Messiah Complex, for example. I wonder if the smaller footprint of AvX is purely a reaction to financial realities in the marketplace, or whether there’s also a need to move away from line-wide events judging by reader feedback…?

Here’s an entirely random question: What’s with the timing of Marvel’s new Avengers launches, in regards to the movie? Common wisdom – which, as we all know, may be a tautologous phrase – would suggest that you’d release a new #1 to coincide with the movie’s release (It’s what happened with Invincible Iron Man, The Mighty Thor and Captain America, I seem to remember…?), but when Marvel’s The Avengers hits theaters in May, Avengers Vs. X-Men will already be on #2 (Its third issue, remember; there’s #0 next month) and Avengers Assemble will similarly be at #2. Considering the risk of both launches selling out, that either means that Marvel will have an aggressive overprint/reprint policy in place for both titles – as they undoubtedly will – or whatever new audience might find itself in a store as a result of the movie won’t be able to find the two big entry points into the Marvel Comics Universe that are, in theory, aimed directly at them.

But thinking more about this, I wonder if the March and April (ish) launches of Assemble and AvX are actually timed to take advantage of the anticipation and advertising for the movie, rather than the movie itself; as awareness for MtA grows, so will – in theory – demand for the new books. Pushing AvX before the movie is actually released cuts down on the possibility of backlash based either on the amount of hype facing moviegoers or if the movie somehow, inexplicably, opens below box office expectations or turns out to disappoint fans (Not that I think either will happen, I should add). Maybe April is going to be as good as it gets for Avengers, in terms of excitement and awareness, and Marvel is being smarter than the average bear in placing AvX there. If nothing else, it’s better than the delayed Green Lantern prequels from DC last year, which saw the final release months after the movie had come, disappointed audiences, and disappeared from the big screen.

Tom Brevoort responds to complaints about Hawkeye’s recent costume change in Avengers:

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I switched Hawkeye’s costume (to one that he was already going to be wearing in AGE OF ULTRON) because it would create some consistency with the way he was going to be depicted in the film. I don’t really see anything wrong with that. By my count, Hawkeye has had at least half-a-dozen costumes over the years (remember the one with the skirt, headband and shirt-open-to-the-navel?) so this is merely another one. And it makes sense, when more people are going to be aware of that character than at any other time in his history to make it easy for those potential readers to draw a connection. This is hardly the first time such a thing has happened, nor will it be the last. So long as Hawkeye is Hawkeye, talks like Hawkeye, acts like Hawkeye, I don’t see where the problem is.

I have to admit, I’ve been somewhat taken aback by the upset over the costume change – or, maybe, I should say, by the idea that changing the character’s costume somehow changes the character; I’ve seen countless message board posts complain that Marvel has “stopped Hawkeye being Hawkeye,” which just seems somewhat insane, especially considering the numerous costumes that the character has had in the past as Brevoort points out. It seems even more of an overreaction when you consider that Hawkeye wasn’t Hawkeye until recently; he was Ronin, in a completely different costume, with a different name, divorced from his bow and arrow gimmick and in so many respects less “Hawkeye” than he is now. Where was the outrage then?

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not the biggest fan of the new look, but if there’s one thing that history has taught us, it’s that the “classic” Hawkeye outfit will be back sooner or later, movie or no movie. If people really need to be upset about Marvel changing characters in order to match their movie versions, then that whole rumored “new Nick Fury” thing coming out of Battle Scars is probably more worthy of attention…

So those definitely look like Skrulls in that Avengers movie toy tie-in… but Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has said that the movie will definitely not feature Skrulls. What’s going on? Well, the answer may revolve around legalities and, fittingly for shape-changing aliens who’re known for invading things secretly, disguises. The Skrulls, you see, originally appeared in a Fantastic Four story, which legally means that their movie rights are held by Fox as part of its Fantastic Four license – at least until such rights revert back to Marvel, whenever that will be – so they can’t appear in Avengers… kinda sorta.

After all, Marvel has another Skrull race not called Skrulls, thanks to The Ultimates. Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch introduced the Chitauri, a race of shape-changing aliens who were known on some worlds as “Skrull” in the first volume of their run, remember? And these guys are definitely not part of any Fantastic Four licensing deal… Considering the various cues Marvel’s movie universe has taken from the Ultimate line to date, it’s not too much of a stretch to guess that we’ll see a Chitauri invasion force in the movie, and if they happen to resemble the Skrulls quite a bit…? Well, come on: Alien shapechangers, am I right? Who knows what crazy ears they like to grow for fun.

In light of the ruling in the Gary Friedrich/Marvel lawsuit, Steve Bissette has shared some advice from Jean-Marc Lofficier for artists:

This is the first time Marvel is using convention sales of copyrighted Marvel characters as a “weapon”. They are of course perfectly entitled to do so, legally speaking. But it does mean that, from now on, all of you here who draw sketches of Marvel characters for money at conventions or sell sketchbooks containing pictures of Marvel characters are on notice that you might be sued (usually for triple the amount you made) should Marvel decide to go after you.

My legal advice to you guys is simple: STOP and destroy all sketchbooks for sale with copyrighted materials in it. I’m serious. You’ve just been put on notice by this case… Based on the GHOST RIDER case, it is, in my opinion, only a matter of time until Disney, now aware of the issue, sends one of their young attorneys with a stash of blank C&D letters at conventions and start handing them out to everyone selling Marvel sketches without authorization.

Receiving that letter will oblige you to hire a lawyer and even if Disney lets you off the hook (which they probably will), you might be out of a couple of grands by the time the process is over — or you run the risk of being stuck with a $15K bill if you fight them.

Again, I emphasize: this is sound business practice for Disney; NOT doing it entails risks far greater than doing it. They have gone after children’s nurseries before which had Mickey painted on their walls for the same exact legal reason. And that was far more time consuming and bad PR-wise that going after some comic book guys at artist’s alleys.

This kind of thing has been rumored almost since Disney bought Marvel three years ago; that the company, known for being so protective of its property, would eventually go after artists doing commissions and the like. The Friedrich ruling certainly feels like a move in that direction, although it’s possibly worth bearing in mind that Friedrich did launch legal action first, but it’ll be interesting to see how (if at all) Marvel deals with the fallout of this decision and the nervousness and bad PR its brought with it.

First, I want to clarify that we do not do “crossover” events. This is [an] important distinction. I was here in the ’90s when “crossover” events were the norm, which is when you make a reader buy four or more different titles in a specific order to get the whole story. “Galactic Storm” is the example that jumps out from my memory banks.

We do line-wide editorial events. These events usually involve a core book like “Civil War,” “Secret Invasion,” “Siege,” etc. that could be read on their own for the complete story. Other books in the line will then use that event to develop “tie-in” stories which could be “in line,” a new miniseries or one-shot. Sorry to go off on a tangent but this is a very important distinction because we are not requiring the fans to buy into three or four other ongoing series to get the main story.

That’s Marvel publisher Dan Buckley, correcting a reference in a CBR interview to “crossover events” while apparently forgetting things like 2007′s Messiah Complex and 2010′s Second Coming, both of which required fans to buy into multiple ongoing series to get the main story, as well as the upcoming “Omega Effect” storyline, which requires fans to buy three ongoing series to get the complete story. But what’s in a term? You say “potato,” I say “starchy tuberous editorial event,” after all.

(More seriously, I look forward to the “very aggressive marketing campaign” for AvX; Buckley describes it as “the biggest marketing campaign in Marvel Comics history and something [that] will, without a doubt, bring new readers to stores,” suggesting that Marvel has learned from the successes DC had with its New 52 mainstream promotion. Here’s hoping Marvel has the same success with its efforts.)

This is just horrible:

The final judgement has been handed down in the long running Gary Friedrich vs Marvel (Ghost Rider) case, and now we know the full amount that Friedrich owes Marvel.  That’s right, Marvel, a company that stands to make millions of dollars from the upcoming Ghost Rider II movie, and is paying Nicholas Cage millions to portray a character that Friedrich created, now wants money from Friedrich – in specific $17,000.

Essentially, Disney/Marvel counter-sued Friedrich over ownership of Ghost Rider, demanding all moneys he had made from selling prints of the character at conventions and the like, and won, so now Friedrich – who, by his own accounts, is unemployed and has no assets – finds himself owing the corporation that he believes stole his creation $17,000 with no way of paying. It’s one thing for Marvel to reassert itself legally as the owner of the character, but demanding $17,000 from someone who’s essentially penniless? That just seems cruel, and maybe worse for Marvel, something that can only lead to bad publicity for the company (and at a time when its treatment of Jack Kirby and the Kirby estate is getting some mainstream media attention, too). The sooner the decision is made to waive the “debt,” the better.

Considering the accusations that Avengers Vs. X-Men has been facing since its announcement that it’s little more than a second attempt to do Marvel’s 2006 mega-hit event series Civil War, you’d have thought that the publisher would do as much as possible to play up the differences between the two series – Make a bigger deal about the fact that this story is about the survival of the human and mutant races instead of a political argument, say, or the round-robin creative teaming of some of their most popular writers – instead of release a preview cover that makes it look as if AvX will bring Captain Marvel back from the dead… just like Civil War did.

On the plus side, it’s unlikely that plans will change again so that this return of Mar-Vell – if it actually happens – will be retconned into being part of a secret invasion by alien shapechangers, but still, it’s such a weird coincidence that I can’t help but suspect it’s some kind of fake-out. After all, it’s not even been a couple of years since Mar-Vell last came back from the dead. Give the guy a break already.