10 Thoughts on Marvel and DC Comics News (Movie Trailers, DC Killing Minorities Again, Launching New Titles, Flashpoint and Feat Itself)

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1. The Green Lantern Movie Prequel Creative Teams are announced.

The big two, the Hal Jordan and Sinestro, are done by Geoff Johns, while the Kilowog one is being handled by Peter Tomasi. I kind of hate the GL preview trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8ZPg8uaoR0

… but with those creative teams, I’ll be checking out these comics. That’s got to be a win for the movie, along with the fact that anyone who enjoys the movie will get comics by those books real creative teams and, if they care, be able to tell if they’d like to try out the monthlies. If this is made explicit to customers, it could be a coup for DC. Of course, I fully expect them to mess this up, just like they messed up…

2. Nick Spencer to take over Secret Avengers with the Fear Itself event, along with Iron Man 2.0.

It’s absurd how much better at launching books and making talent Marvel is than DC. Spencer was clearly a breakout talent after the Jimmy Olsen Action Comics backups and had great buzz. DC wanted to put him on a low selling book after that, Supergirl, and let him try reviving a property. This might garner critical acclaim, but would fail to sell and leave Spencer in much the same boat as a Andy Diggle after Hellblazer and Adam Strange. Marvel, meanwhile, launched an Avengers book, a hot franchise, with a superstar writer, Ed Brubaker, and then is transitioning that book to Spencer during a crossover when the title will be pulling extra tie-in sales anyway. This is akin to Parker, coming off Atlas, getting Thunderbolts and Red Hulk. If the book is selling, transitioning to the next big writer just grants credibility and a top seller on that guys resume. Great move and Secret Avengers, a book I would be dropping, is now atop my must read list.

3. The X-Men First Class Trailer is Out

I want to know how the trailer for this supposed mess looks so much superior to Captain America and Green Lantern? Hell, it looks right on par or better than Thor. Maybe First Class won’t be the abortion we all feared.

4. DC Finally Solicited Flashpoint #1

… And it sounds an awful lot like Age of Apocalypse, but with Flash and not Bishop as our Point of View character. I love AoA, but too many of these promised changes are with characters and creative teams I don’t care for. I’ll be buying these based on creative team. Milligan’s Suicide Squad? I’m there. A lot of the others… not so much.

5. Spider-Man to replace dead Fantastic Four Member

I’ll skip naming the dead character, just in case, but Spidey joins the “Future Foundation,” which is what the FF must become to avoid Galactus eating the planet, which is to avoid the remaining Earth heroes later killing him, as seen in Mark Millar’s run and recent issues of Hickman’s FF. Since science and superheroics are needed, Spidey is a logical choice, and he adds some potential sales to the relaunch of what has been Marvel’s best book.

6. Cowboys and Aliens Trailer is Amazing!

Of all the comic properties receiving movies, this is easily the one I have least reservations about. Cowboys and Aliens, based on Fred Van Lente’s comic, is amazing. Between his Taskmaster, Spidey work, and Hercules, its amazing Marvel haven’t done more with Van Lente, despite my praise of him earlier. My best is Cowboys and Aliens changes that and fast.

7. Bendis and Maleev on Moon Knight

Sure, this has been known since NYCC, but, hey, the book looks ready and there’s a cover in the link, so I get to talk about it. Despite Bendis’ absurd success with the core Marvel titles, he just isn’t Mark Millar at launching new books. Scarlett, for all its critical success, doesn’t have the buzz of a Kick Ass or Nemesis. I hope this changes that fact, as, although I’m not a huge Moon Knight fan, I get his backstory and he’s a character with a lot of interesting potential, although he isn’t easy to write. Still, I love Bendis on street level stuff, so this is worth a shot for me.

8. Dan Jurgens returns to Booster Gold for Flashpoint.

Well, I’d dropped this when Jurgens left, as the later team just wrote Booster as too goofy, too often ignoring his character development, Jurgens is the one responsible for much of that development, so I assume I’ll go back to enjoying this. I’m not interested in Flashpoint, as I said above, but this is a creator I like enough to ignore that.

9. Aquaman lost a hand again in Brightest Day.

I know people care judging by how many people have asked me about this, but I cannot for the life of me fathom why. His hand is constantly cut off and regrown. Having a character remark on that when it happens certainly doesn’t make that more interesting to me. Wake me when Peter David is back.

10. DC Might have Jaime Reyes, the Blue Beetle.

Say it ain’t so, guys. The character was a breakout of the Brave and Bold television series that DC decided to shunt into team book after team book, despite a solid following and potential for growing an audience. His book was excellent and pushing it in trades, particularly in the smaller Manga sized one, likely would have yielded huge dividends. I strongly hope DC didn’t just kill off such a promising character for familiarity’s sake and isn’t offing yet another minority.

Glazer is a former senior editor at Pulse Wrestling and editor and reviewer at The Comics Nexus.