Marvel News & Views

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Hey kids – welcome back to the Marvel column that shows up when it feels like. No that’s not true. We’re back on schedule now that I’ve moved into my new place, brought in the dog, put out the cat, got some chinchillas named Zuul & Gozer (who are about the cutest little bastards to ever exist in the entire world, got tongue lashed for not doing my column, ate some crow, and leapt to some conclusions.

So now it’s time to get to the news – and what a week for me to come back as San Diego ComicCon is in full swing, and sadly nobody from Nexus went this year. The last two years have been great experiences for myself and Danielle, but cash being what it was, we couldn’t find any other folks to tagteam up with us. So no SDCC this year. Next year though, we go, or else she’ll have my balls in a sling.

To the news!

Before we hit the big SDCC news and views – let’s get the Marvel Solicits done. I told you this was going to be a big column!
MARVEL BRINGS THE BOOKS
Newsarama

If this is your first time going through one of Hatton’s MNV’s – what you need to know is I’m not listing every single book, because god that would take forever – and how many of you DON’T know that Thunderbolts is coming out next month. I will list the stuff that seems to hold special warrented attentions – or generally, I think sounds neat. See that’s why it’s News AND Views, because I get to be a facist like that.

ULTIMATE POWER #1
Written by Bendis – and joining the Ultimate Universe with it’s first crossover into the Squadron Supreme’O’Verse – this could be great, or it could suck. First off you are taking characters that have been re-established by JMS and letting Bendis play with them. Next you are taking two worlds and combining them for just a little while. Ultimate Crossovers have generally rang false in my head and don’t come across as well as the core books they sit next to, so we’ll see. I’ll be checking it out, but only because I actually really have been enjoying Ultimate Fantastic Four lately.

ULTIMATE X-MEN #75
Ultimate Cable… this could be interesting. So far a few of the takes on Ultimate versions have been perfect, but others have left me dry. Each time they announce a new one, I froth a bit at the mouth, but also worry. My hope is this might tie back into the old bit about Ultimate Apocalypse and Ultimate Sinister as I enjoyed everytime they’ve appeared prior. Also the question arises as to whether Cable is going to resemble either his gun-packing Liefeldish days or his more reserved Psi-Op days.

SPIDER-GIRL #0 & AMAZING SPIDER-GIRL #1
Do you believe that this wasn’t an advertising ploy to get some hype for it? I’m not sure, but Spider-Girl is one of those books that just won’t die. The fact that the #1 is recieving a variant cover treatment means that they are going to milk it for all it’s worth. If it truly is the fans that brought this book back, then good. If it’s just a ploy, then I could arguably get grumpy about it, but won’t.

CIVIL WAR #6 (of 7)
We are coming so close to the big ending we can taste it. Something is going on with ‘File 42’ which leads me to believe that there might be someone else who has been pushing buttons from behind the scenes. Is it true? With the surprise of #3 it’s hard to even consider what the book will look like in 3 months let alone another issue.

CIVIL WAR #9 & #10
The betrayer among the Marvel heroes stands revealed, as war with Atlantis seems inevitable! And Speedball comes face-to-face with his accuser!

What does this mean!? Frothing now…

DOCTOR STRANGE: THE OATH #1 (of 5)
Not only is it written by Brian ‘I Kick Bendis’ Ass’ Vaughan, but is supposedly going to be leading up to Strange to being a part of a team in the future. (Roughly 5 months by my estimation). I’m thinking The New Defenders.

ETERNALS #5 (of 6)
The remaining Eternals have to fight for their existence and the nature of the cosmos is explained.
Of course it’s a Gaiman book that makes this claim. Few other writers would I accept that from.

NEXTWAVE: AGENTS OF H.A.T.E. #9
It should be noted that even the solicits for NEXTWAVE are insane:

his solicitation text will be in the form of haiku:
Nextwave fights Beyond
Who has hired Not Brand Echh,
ACTION, SURPRISES!
I hope you have a box of tissues handy, because I know you must be crying.

Just thought you might enjoy that.

ASTONISHING X-MEN #18
God I hope they can figure out how to not make Emma a villain again…. it just doesn’t make SENSE!

NEW X-MEN #31
Another New X-Men apparently dies in this book. Let me just address how fantastic Kyle & Yost are. They are on a 3rd tier X-Book that I’m sure does subpar numbers AT BEST and they continue to pile through with one of the best, most realistic, most well scripted comic books of the day. I can’t tell you people how much you are missing by not reading this book. It’s what the old X-Men used to feel like, just…. emoier… but without all those dudes in girl pants.

CRIMINAL #1
This is Ed Brubaker’s Icon book. Noir and a conjob book. I’m in … I’m so in.

And that is the solicits this month. Not a bad list, but not as fufilling as I really wanted my first news article back to be. Oh well, they can’t really all be gems. Let’s get to the news now, and not just me prattling on about comics, because Stan knows that I hate doing that…. sure I do.

CIVIL WAR RHYMES WITH SOMEONE’S NAME
Newsarama

I’m putting this in mainly because after you read Civil War #3, it’s a nice companion piece. There were one or two questions I had about, specifically, the way Spidey acted – and I can see Brevoort’s reasoning. It has lots of mega spoilers if you haven’t – including the cover of the NEXT issue of Civil War which I won’t post here due to said same spoilers.

That’s all on that one.

POWERS & KABUKI GOIN OL’ SCHOOL
Newsrama

For those who don’t know – Powers is one of my favorite books of the last few years. It’s comic book. It’s cops. It’s Noir. It’s superheroes. Is Frog. Is Singing. Is Dancing.

It’s a damn good book, and Danielle, my lifepartner in crime is just as high up on Kabuki. So what the geniuses of Brian Bendis and David Mack are doing is that they are going to be releasing the books every day for free on Newsarama. Much like a webcomic.

So if you’ve never read ‘WHO KILLED RETRO GIRL?’ now you can, at the pace of one comic every 23 days. One trade paperback every 150 days (roughly). Along the way they are going to give out a bunch of online freebies such as alternate panels and scripts and stuff.

I’ve read all of this stuff already, but I can’t say that I won’t go back and read it again – it really is that damn good.

FINALLY HATTON TALKS ABOUT SAN DIEGO
Now there’s a few panels that address Marvel Directly – so I’m going to go through them and give you the bullets with reactions. It’s just that simple kids.

CIVIL WAR PANEL
* Straczynski said that as the story progresses, Peter Parker will begin to seriously realize that he may have joined the wrong side.

Not to be altogether silly – but hasn’t this been the obvious thread of the entire damned story. Is there ONE person who is going to go ‘OMGZORZ!!!1!’ when Peter shifts sides and back’s Cap at a crux moment?

Showing the slide for the upcoming issue of New Avengers with Iron Man, McCann noted, “If you think Iron Man is being a jerk right now, just wait…”

And this right here is my problem with Civil War. Iron Man is the villain. He’s not a bad guy persay, but he is the villain, and there isn’t really a way to make him look like a good guy now. So I guess if you can’t beat em’….

* Talking about Wolverine’s Civil War tie-in issues, Guggenheim explained that Logan is focused on tracking down Nitro, who kicked off the whole mess, but will find that the conspiracy behind the explosion in Stamford is a little more complicated than he would have expected

May I state for the record that I have not once considered why the New Warriors were in Stamford to begin with? I feel like such a tool.

* Speaking about Civil War: X-Men, Hine said that the mutants decide that they’ve finally had enough. “It’s an opportunity to bring back a lot of popular characters,” Hine joked, “Like Micromax, and Sabra, and some brand new Sentinels.”

I thought they said popular characters!? Oh whatever, that joke was to easy. Where’s good ol’ Rusty and Skids these days….

* Concluding the slide show, and after a few teaser slides, Quesada made the official announcement about the Mighty Avengers, the second Avengers book to go along with New Avengers, by Brian Bendis and Frank Cho.

“It’s going to be crazy action,” Cho said, “With a lot of chicks!”
Hmm – another Avengers title. Both being written by Bendis? That’s kind of insane. It’s got Cho art, so yeah there will be breasts aplenty, but I can’t imagine what this is going to be about post Civil War. Maybe it will be an Iron Man team and a Cap’n Team. Either way – I’m intrigued.

SCREW YOU HANGING AT THE SPAWN SPOT N00B!!!!
Newsarama

What I originally thought was going to be a graphic novel has actually now spawned off (HA! Oh spawning jokes..) into a monthly coming with a joint union between Marvel and Bungee.

There’s a huge amount of art available – yet they aren’t discussing the art team, so I can only assume that this is art from the graphic book. Here you go – a taste:

THE END MY FRIEND

So there we go kids – I’ve left out a little bit of info, but for the most part it’s stuff that is a bit on the side. The Pete Wisdom MAX Series – The Ultimate Alliance game. All fun stuff that we can talk about in the weeks to come.

I HAVE TO MAKE YOU THIRST FOR MORE!

So that’s that folks – and we shall see you next week.

It’s good to be back.

Thanks,
James Hatton