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Hi everybody, Mich…ZZZT…ro….SZZZZZT!

We interrupt your normally scheduled Marvel News & Views by Michael Mallaro to give you this important message!

HA! That’s right kids – your standard dose of Marvel News & Views has been hijacked by Hatton.

Who’s Hatton?

James Hatton – Scourge of the Forum Boards
James Hatton – Lord over the Monday Night Rabble
James Hatton – Marvel Reviewer of the Gods!

Oh! THAT James Hatton – I thought you were talking about Iain Burnside…

Shut up.

So let’s get to the news!


AMAZON TRADE LISTS
As posted by Newsarama.

Look, I’ll be dead honest. I read through this and it didn’t do anything for me as far as witty commentary or even ANY commentary. There is a Hellcat book coming out. There is a Shanna ‘MAX’ book coming out, which I assume is the original story with boobies. Also a bunch of books that we knew would be traded up.

X-23: Ronin – if it continues as the middle between how she went from showing up in New York at the end of X-23, and a quiet creepy and altogether sexy teenage hooker at the beginning of NYx, then cool beans.

The main reason that this is news is it’s revealing a whole lot more about the trades of the next year or so than I’m sure Joey Q wanted us to know. Ahhh, breaking news. Yawn.


THE SECOND QUARTER COMES IN WEAK
As posted by Newsarama!

Marvel went and listed all the numbers that seem important to people that pay attention to that kind of thing. I’ll summarize it right now so you don’t have to sit and dissolve it all… they aren’t doing as good as last year. That means absolutely nothing to the comic book fan as a whole.

Last year Marvel had Spiderman 2. This year they have Fantastic Four.
Last year they had Punisher. This year they have Elektra.

Here’s some fun info though:

As is common with Marvel’s quarterly reports, the company listed its upcoming film slate. No shockers were named in the report, though The Punisher 2 was listed as being targeted for 2006, and Namor for 2007. Other films on Marvel’s slate: X-Men 3, Spider-Man 3, Iron Man, Luke Cage, Deathlok, The Hulk 2 and Wolverine. Projects in development, as listed by Marvel: Ant-Man, Black Panther, Captain America, Killraven, Nick Fury, Silver Surfer, and Thor.

Marvel character animated direct-to-video projects in development through it’s partnership with Lions Gate to develop, produce and distribute original animated DVD features: Four projects in 2D/3D format are in development with the first release slated for 2006. Titles include: The Avengers 1, The Avengers 2, Iron Man and Dr. Strange.

Wolverine movie, Thor movie, Silver Surfer movie. Okay, let the speculation begin on Thor right now. I’m going out of my way right now and saying that the only man that can play Thor is Gilbert Godfried.

Silver Surfer? Well that’s easy – Comic Nexus’ own Tim Stevens.


AN ANNUAL TRADITION RETURNS?
Posted over at Newsarama.

A few years back Marvel used to do these things called ‘Annuals’. They were about as useful as X-Men Unlimited. Meaning they were nice little throwaway stories that only in the best case scenarios did they actually mean anything. A MUCH longer time ago, Marvel would use that time to do huge interstellar crossovers… in the best of cases, annuals (called that because they came out once a year) were great once a year 60 page stories. In the worst case scenario, you dropped $4.99 on a piece of crap.

Hey Ultimate Spiderman is getting one! Now as the Ultimate Universe has done it’s best to keep everything in continuity (including most of the Ult. Marvel Team-Ups), to hear that an annual is also possibly going to change status quo – I’m all for it. 48 pages of Ultimate Spiderman with Ultimate Rhino, and possibly Ultimate Elektra (who is that on the cover?)

Totally there.


WOLVERINE #32 – MILLAR’S SWAN SONG
Posted in the depths of… Newsarama.

Again, if you are going to go read the whole article, why should I put a bit of a summary. The article includes some pages, so you should go look. Seriously. I have completely enjoyed Millar’s Wolverine run. It is WAAAAAAY unfocused as to where it places in continuity, for those who care about that – but it is a fun fun fun Wolverine story.

The last story seems to be taking Wolverine back to some of his war roots. From what’s on those preview pages, I hope that it doesn’t get colored. The stark black and white could set a trend in mainstream books to try and hook them up with some “Indy Street Cred”. I guarantee a colorist is going to screw all of that up.


WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE HOUSE OF M? Duh… HOUSE OF N
Over at the House of Newsarama.

Okay, I’ll quote this part:
“The core of our publishing plan for the next 18 months springs out of House of M and the events therein. Immediately after House of M finishes, you’ll see a number of projects, storylines, specials and one-shots that deal with the instantaneous ramifications of the climax of House of M while setting the stage for the big event of 2006.

So, spin spin spin doctor spin.

Now first we have to find out how much depth the ‘big end’ of House of M is. If it REALLY is as big as Joey Q touts (which Marvel hasn’t done in awhile) I’m going to go out on a huge limb and say… something REALLY cool will happen.

Anyway, it will be doing exactly what DC did, and we will be in that spot where Identity Crisis meets up with Infinite Crisis. The problem is I’m guessing that we will get caught up, once again, in huge continuity tie-ins. You will get suckered. You will buy into it.

Hell, over in Spiderman: The Other, Peter loses a body part… we’ll see whether they are willing to screw with us.


FANTASTIC FOUR CD/DVD? SWEET!
Because everything so far came from… Newsarama.

“The latest instant comic collection from Graphic Imaging Technology was released just about the time of the Fantastic Four movie. Enjoy the film? Why not fork over some more bucks and get every single FF adventure from 1961 to December, 2004? That’s 550 comics, 20,000 pages, on one very friendly package.”

Look – I keep seeing these damn collections over at the various conventions. I keep skipping over them. Why? Because I’m an idiot!!!

These collections are so useful! Here is a small list of things you can do with these things that you may not have considered:
1) Screen save them and put in your own captions!
2) Draw wacky mustaches on Reed
3) Cut and paste them, and print them up to make paper dolls
4) Print them out and try to sell them as if you wrote them
5) DVD = Frisbees.


GO GET YOUR POPCORN!
This movie brought to you by the letters C B R

***X-3***
“According to IGN’s FilmForce, the role of Kitty Pryde has been given to actress Ellen Page. They note that the filmmakers have yet to cast Warren Worthington Jr, the Angel’s father. “

Sure… I’ll buy that.

***X-3***
“Finally, Ain’t It Cool News has a rumor that Xavier’s students will get a field trip to the Rock. Without capitalization, one of their scoopers wrote, “i work on alcatraz island out in the san francisco bay, and we have film crews out all the time, from the travel channel to bbc and more, so we hardly ever pay attention to them anymore. but today a film crew was out, and they were taking lots of shots of the city from the island. the clapboard read ‘x-men 3,’ not sure if they’ll be out again tomorrow, if they are i will try and et some pics. i didn’t see anyone but crew, so i am guessing this is all second unit stuff. would love to see wolverine claw his way off the rock!””

(Look, I’m sorry I quoted a big thingie… but all of that was for this joke)

I trust any rumor that has no punctuation.

THANK YOU ALL! Try the veal.

Okay, that bulked up this whole column a bit.


NOW ONTO COMIC BOOK MINI-REVIEWS THAT SHOW THAT I’M A MARVEL ZOMBIE!

AMAZING SPIDERMAN #522
As I wrote in my review of this – this is JMS. People who have been in through the ‘Spider-Totem’ story, and people who have remained in and loving through the ‘Gwen Stacy = Slut Madonna’ story, enjoy this issue. I, in fact, enjoy this issue. It’s not JMS’ best, but JMS being average is better than so many other things.

BLACK PANTHER #6
This is from my roommate Chris:
That book is so awful… the first issue was so excellent, and since then it’s gone down. There is nothing interesting, there is nothing great. When Christopher Priest wrote Black Panther… a great writer can change everything, but make it seem as nothing has actually changed. He extrapolates the great, and screws with it. Hudlin has wiped away everything Priest has done, but all he is doing is retelling the origin and not doing anything interesting with it.

FANTASTIC FOUR #529
Another book I reviewed! Hey, go read those instead of this… the fact is if you don’t want to read my whole spiel – this book is a wholly neat concept, but has some dramatic flaws.

NEW X-MEN #16
Another House of M Tie-In, proving further that the tie-ins are so much more enjoyable than the actual title. It made me really enjoy New X-Men again, as well as Uncanny of all things!

NIGHTCRAWLER #8
Aguirre-Secasa is sadly being lost on a book like Nightcrawler. That is kind of a mean thing to say, but I think he could be writing a core X-Title and making me love it. He has made me entirely forget the Draco story from Austen, and is now giving me some great history of Nightcrawler to boot. To see Amanda in the Nightcrawler suit made me giggle like a sexy schoolgirl.

PULSE #10
Fun! It’s got Hawkeye being pretty damn fun, and a nice take on where the world is in perspective to the Daily Bugle. A great tie in with the Pulse newspaper that you could get for 50 cents. If you are enjoying House of M, you will enjoy this.

RUNAWAYS #6
The origin of Victor is revealed! A great issue, although it is starting to follow along the pattern of ‘Good Runaways almost lose – Bad Runaways finish the fight’. There is another faction revealed in this book though, and if I have my guess – it’s going to be a gift to those who read the first series. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then you are missing out on some of the best comic work that’s come out of the last two years.

X-MEN #173
The Milligan jumble continues on. He does away with McKeever’s Mystique book in one page, but thankfully is trying to clear up everything negative that’s gone on with Polaris for the last year. I’m completely torn and mixed on what he is trying to accomplish, but being the X-O-Phile I am, I’m going to remain loyal. Oh, and Foxx not being who Foxx was… fine, but don’t screw with McKeever man… that’s just wrong.


IN CLOSING!
That’s it folks! Nothing more to see here. Hope you all enjoyed this fill-in here at Marvel News & Views. If you are chomping at the bit that you didn’t get to hear the loving voice of Mike in his beautiful lime-green script… I’m sorry.

The fact is, he’s somewhere in Europe right now, enjoying pina coladas in front of the Kremlin.. er … crap, geography was my worst subject.

Until next time, stay frosty.