The roll-out for the Bendis/Romita Jr. AVENGERS continues, with Spider-Woman!

Or so says a new Marvel teaser campaign. First poster above. So Cap has got a gun for good now? So it goes.

EDIT: You know I forgot to mention that the book is written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by John Romita Jr.

Do Marvel and DC really copy each other? It’s been noted that they seem to have a lot of ideas in common these days — Cap and Bats having similar seeming deaths and resurrections, similar zombie focused events followed by the dawning of new “lighty brighty” movements — Brightest Day and the Heroic Age. But is it really so? Over at Newsarama,
Troy Brownfield investigates the phenomenon in a piece called “From Blackest Night to Necrosha: Dispelling The Copycat Myth”, so you know he doesn’t quite buy i:

It happens every few months. A new storyline or new direction gets announced, and some fans will inevitably say something to the effect of, “Hey! Company M copied that from Company D!” or vice versa. Granted, there are probably going to be times at any level of entertainment when one story or real-life event inspires another. Several, even. However, there’s a certain point surrounding these kinds of assessments that fails to take one basic fact into account: it takes a loooong time from conception to execution before any issue of any comic hits the stands. We’re going to take a look at the notion of the Copycat Myth, including speaking with creators regarding their take on the idea.

Brownfield’s argument is that it takes so long to create a comic book – or God knows, an event — that such things can’t quickly be set in motion. Which makes sense as far as it goes. But then how do you explain this:

and this:

So you’re telling me that the new Avengers featuring Gorilla Man and the JLA featuring Congorilla is sheer coincidence? YOU expect me to believe that comic book writers love giant apes? Come on now. Next, you’ll be telling me they like Dr. Who.

Robot 6 had some good thoughts on the Heroic Age image by the way.

USA Today and Marvel announce the new Heroic Age era, or event, or change of direction, or Magic Kingdom-ing or whatever:

“Heroes will be heroes again,” says Marvel editor in chief Joe Quesada. “They’ve gone through hell and they’re back to being good guys — a throwback to the early days of the Marvel Universe, with more of a swashbuckling feel.”

The change begins with a relaunch of Avengers #1, which will reunite Iron Man, a reborn Captain America and Thor as comrades rather than foes.

Despite the timing of this and Marvel’s focus on women, Quesada says that this is NOT a Disneyfication of Marvel’s gritty, edgy characters:

Quesada says that Marvel’s return to “good guys” was in the works for two years, was finalized eight months ago and that the Disney takeover had no role.

“There is no sanitizing of the Marvel books at all,” he says, promising stories will remain “edgy” and contemporary. “Our philosophy here is to just keep telling good stories.”

Given Marvel’s long range planning, it does seem plausible that it’s just fantastic timing for a return to the basics.

Looking at the above graphic (click for a larger version) it does seem to be a return to the Licensing Era of Marvel when Iron Man was a good guy and Cap was alive. Look at it this way: With order restored, the cycle of destruction and change can begin anew!

Whatever it is.

Actually, it’s part of a Wolverine cover art auction for the Hero Initiative.

Via Occasional Superheroine.

As some of you may know, tonight is Conan O’Brien’s last night as host of the Tonight Show. The story has been little covered by the media, so we thought we’d end the week with a brief comics-related tribute via the pages of MYTHOS SPIDER-MAN, a 2007 Marvel miniseries which had a brief O’Brien appearance. Artist Paolo Rivera covered it on his blog, and today newly promoted Senior Editor Steve Wacker also bids CoCo farewell.

The moral of the story?

When you take that relocation package….make sure you really like the West Coast!

Vulture’s Claude Brodesser-Akner had the earliest confirmation that (500) DAYS OF SUMMER director Marc Webbhas been signed on for the Spider-Man reboot, which is expected to “focus far more on the private life of Peter Parker” — not only that but he’s wayyyyy cheaper than the Raimi team.

Webb, whose (500) Days scored a Golden Globe nomination and whose name seems to have predestined him for this job, has long been a favorite of Columbia chairman Amy Pascal. We’re told that last year she very nearly hired him to direct the adaptation of Michael Lewis’s Moneyball after she pulled the plug on Steven Soderbergh three days before shooting. She ultimately chose Bennett Miller (Capote), thinking that Moneyball might be hurt by Webb’s whimsical style, but she views him as a latter-day Cameron Crowe for the economically and socially angsty Generation Y, and thinks he’d be perfect to explore the conflict within Parker.

Splash Page caught Webb on the Golden Globes carpet, holding an umbrella as is this year’s fashion, and Webb, whose background is in videos for bands such as Green Day, waxed enthusiastic about Ultimate Spidey, so he’s quickly learning the territory. Deadline has the PR:
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Earlier in the week, Comix Experience retailer Brian Hibbs mentioned that a leaky toilet had flooded his store, and all but demolished his stock of Marvel Comics.

His subsequent post, A Very Public Thank you to Marvel Comics shows that Marvel DOES listen…Hibbs was contacted by Marvel sales honcho David Gabriel and asked what was destroyed:

I gave them a list of stuff that I thought I should actually replace, in “appropriate” quantities (ie, I didn’t mention completed mini-series that I still had on the rack, I didn’t list anything b-list or under, and I only specified what I thought I might sell in the next 6 or so weeks, rather than what I actually lost — which was a truly larger number of books), and I’ve been told that I’ll have my whole list sent to me, for free, with free and expedited shipping so I’ll have it by Friday.

Marvel did not have to do that, they were under no obligation, and, frankly, since we joust so much I am not entirely sure that I’d've done the same thing in their position. But they did, and that’s awesome, and they deserve some public props for that, so here they are!

Considering that Hibbs is a vocal critic of Marvel — and even sued them once — this is a classy move.

From the moment Marvel sent out its DC-tweaking press release late on Wednesday afternoon, Siege-for-Lanterns is Topic A at BarCon and in private chatter.

Why? Why did Marvel turn the clock back to 2001-2, when Nü Marvel under Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada delighted in playing Scut Farkus to DC’s Ralphie at every opportunity — calling DC AOL Comics, and so on. Jemas also delighted in getting hostile with retailers. But in 2010, things with Marvel seem so be going pretty smooth with that whole Disney thing and all, so why now? Why such an aggressive in your face move here and now?
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NY Mag’s Vulture blog’s Claude Brodesser-Akner has a lot more details on why the Raimi version of SPIDER-MAN 4 will never be. Basically, after seeing AVATAR, Raimi wanted to bringing more state-of-the-art SFX, which wouldn’t really have been ready by the 2011 release date. Also, the script had some problems, as the studio saw it. Here’s what WOULD have been with the Malkovich Vulture storyline:

Condensed, it went something like this: Peter Parker gets over MJ, finds a new girl, falls in love. But: Peter also discovers her father is actually the Vulture, a naughty green guy with wings to be played by John Malkovich. Peter is torn between the love of his new lady and taking down the Vulture. Being a Spandex tight-ass, he decides to take down the Vulture, and kills him. This patricide goes down poorly with Peter’s new fiancée, and she rejects him. Despondent, Peter decides to abandon his superpowers, and Movie No. 4 ends with Peter Parker throwing away his Spider-Man mask, and audiences wondering if they are watching Superman II.

Sony’s execs didn’t much care for this dour story line, and its consumer-products division especially detested the villain who, let’s face it, is pushing 60. (But hey, John Malkovich, from one Vulture to another, we think you look great! Really!) Columbia’s toy partner, Hasbro, also worried that suggesting its main character was packing it in might hurt future toy sales. And these days, toys are a key revenue stream, and demand far more forethought than that given to the scripts of $200 million movies. “This is piecemeal, old-school Hollywood mentality,” says Jeff Gomez, President and CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, which advises studios on how to define their franchises’ universes and mythologies for maximum toysploitation. (Past clients: Pirates of the Carribean, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and — wait for it — Avatar!) “Spider-Man belongs to a millennial generation that demands continuity, and that requires long-term and careful design. None of that has existed for Spider-Man since the second movie.”

So there you have it. Would The Beat have enjoyed this somber exploration of the superhero’s responsibility? Maybe. Would Hollywood execs? No chance in hell.

A LOT of comic book news is being announced this week, here’s a quick guide:

§ Paul Levitz will be writing not just the Legion in ADVENTURE COMICS, but a whole new Legion of Superheroes title:

Then you got to watch me do a bunch of terrible things to people! We killed characters in that time, we screwed around with their love lives… We had what might have been arguably the first extra-marital affair going on in mainstream superhero comics… All of those things provides you enormous ammunition as a writer. I lead off the new run by destroying the homeworld of one of the characters.

§ Likewise, Gail Simone and Ed Benes are relaunching BIRDS OF PREY:

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WHOA. Marvel has just announced that they will accept trade-ins of retailers’ unsold copies of Blackest Night tie-ins for copies of a Siege variant edition.

You read that right. Marvel will give you a copy of their event comics for the covers of unsold copies of DC’s event comics.

The DC comics involved were all part of DC’s Lantern ring promotion — retailers had to order Blackest Night tie-in books at high levels in order to get collectible Lantern rings. Some folks thought the levels were too high.

Our email and AIM are already lighting up with “WTF??!!??”

PR below:

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Well, we’ve all had 24 hours to come to grips with the fact that he’s gone…John Malkovich’s Vulture will exist only in the cinema of the mind, along with the version of Jedi where Lando dies, and the last reel of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS. In the past day, there has been enough internet comment on the matter to fill the Library of Congress and precious little actual info, so it’s kind of dizzying to try to even get a handle on it, but here goes.

As far as popular opinion goes, it seems to be leaning towards the “we want a reboot” faction. And truth be told, as much as we loved Raimi’s version of Spider-Man, there’s a lot to be said for three and done. Charlie Jane Anders at io9 presents the pro-teen agenda:
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Disney, which has been a major player on Broadway since Beauty and the Beast and on with The Lion King, Mary Poppins and many others, has

UPDATE: Well, another source, the NY Times Arts Beat states that Disney WASN’T the white knight here, and Spidey got it together on its own.

Another executive involved with the musical said on Tuesday morning that, contrary to another rumor, the producers have been able to capitalize the show without receiving any money from Disney, which recently acquired Marvel Entertainment, which holds the rights to the “Spider-Man” story. A spokesman for Disney Theatrical Group on Tuesday referred questions about the musical to the production team.

So there you have it. Although it makes all the sense in the world for Disney to help salvage this wreck, they aren’t taking credit if they did it. For now.

stepped in to get Spider-MAn the Musical back on track, Michael Riedel at the New York Post reports.
Spider-Man Turn Off The Dark, which one wag dubbed “The Avatar of musicals” due to its ambitious staging demands, has had a rocky road. With superstar director Julie Taymor, and superstar composers Bono and The Edge on board, it seemed like a surefire hit, but monetary mismanagement, and Taymor’s divided attention with her movie career forced the planned February launch to be scuttled as the show became a financial black hole, blowing through some $52 million and needed four years of full houses just to break even.

However, a new producer has helped get things in shape, and now Disney has stepped in to provide financing– they previously worked with Taymor on the groundbreaking Lion King show, and even if the show will have a hard time making money, letting this high profile venue for Disney’s shiny new characters become a legendary Broadway failure would be a bummer all around — so the Mouse had a lot of reason to play white knight this time out.

The show is now slate to open in fall 2010. Casting includes newcomer Reeve Carney as Spidey, Evan Rachel Wood as MJ and Alan Cumming as the Green Goblin. Tickets already purchased for February can be refunded or exchanged.

Nikki Finke’s money was well spent on Variety’s Michael Fleming as they have unleashed a huge scoop: SPIDER-MAN 4 will be a complete reboot of the franchise, and both director Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire are gone. PR is in the jump but this is huge. According to the story, Raimi felt he couldn’t make the summer release date with the script in such disarray.

This seems kind of inevitable — although Raimi had led the franchise to box office platinum, his quirky, character driven style wasn’t something that modern day studio heads readily understood. On paper the Vulture sounds like a boring villain — but could it have been any worse than Venom? Really now?

The reboot will take Peter Parker back to high school so we’ll get  a new origin, a new Mary Jane…it’s a….brand…new…day. Movies are taking after comics and redoing origins less than 10 years after the original. Sad.

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All sorts of mini news bits on various comics movie projects this morning.

¶ John Malkovich has replaced John C. Reilly in RED, the all-star adaptation of the Warren Ellis/Cully Hamner miniseries. Bruce Willis plays a retired black-ops agent who is too old for that shit and has a squad of younger-high tech assassins out to get him. These assassins must be so young that they never saw films such as the DIE HARD series, THE LAST BOY SCOUT, ARMAGEDDON, or SIN CITY, or else they would know going after Bruce Willis is a death sentence. Along for the ride, an Award-wørthy and mostly Medicaid-eligible cast, including Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Mary-Louise Parker, Julian McMahon, Richard Dreyfuss, Ernest Borgnine, and Brian Cox.

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Posted exclusively at Comics Alliance, it’s by Jill Thompson, and as far as we’re concerned, it’s another winner. Click the link for more thoughts by editor Jeanine Schaefer and Laura Hudson at the — kinda amazing — level of controversy the original GIRL COMICS announcement er, engendered:

“I think the name is polarizing for two reasons,” said Schaefer. “One, because in order to talk about women in comics you more often than not have to make one gender the ‘other,’ and inevitably someone feels misrepresented. Two, because ‘girl’ is a bomb of a word that for many women has been wielded against them to cause a lot of damage both mentally and professionally, and people seem to be unsure if this is another case of the weaponized word or not.”

Nikki Finke clears up some rumors that have been leaking out lately and finds that Spidey 4’s February start date has been canceled, jeopardizing its planned May 2011 opening.

Spider-Man 4 was supposed to start filming in February, and star Tobey Maguire echoed that repeatedly in publicity appearances for Brothers. Then it pushed to March. Then late March/early April. And now there’s no date at all, according to my Sony insiders who emailed me: “Some decisions have been made over the holiday about Spider-Man 4. We will be extending the production hiatus on the film. The studio is firmly committed to this franchise but, for us, the script must come first. We intend to notify members of the crew immediately. As you know, Alvin Sargent is currently working on the screenplay. When we have more news, we will keep you posted.”

The delay is due to script trouble: director/auteur Sam Raimi reportedly “hates” the current version by Jamie Vanderbilt, David Lindsay-Abaire, and Gary Ross, and veteran Alvin Sargent is working on a new polish.

There had been some chatter on the net that Raimi and the studio have been clashing over who would be the villain in the film — Raimi wanted the Vulture and the studio wanted a more contemporary foe. The fans seem to want The Black Cat in the movie—and every hot starlet has been rumored for the role —but how Raimi feels about Felicia Hardy is anyone’s guess.

One thing’s for sure, when Raimi is forced to use a villain he doesn’t like, the result is stinky..
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Marvel has been running a promotion where puzzle pieces of the above promo art for “The Year of Spider-Man” — like when ISN’T it the Year of Spidey — have been released over time, with many comics news sites playing along. We didn’t, because the sight of MJ in a wedding dress hurls us into a flashback of endless whiny message board postings. We did note one thing about the art by Pasqual Ferry:

Spidey is managing a kind of reverse, double-back gainer male version of the brokeback pose where you can get a good look at his butt and his package. Anatomically it’s very possible, but really a fine example!

For a more serious analysis of the foreboding image, try Caleb Goellner.

Both Kevin Melrose and David Pepose note that the March solicitations state that Marvel will be ceasing publication of its last two Marvel Adventures titles — MARVEL ADVENTURES SUPER HEROES and MARVEL ADVENTURES SPIDER-MAN — in their kid-friendly line of all-ages comics. However, it appears that it’s just paving the way for a revamp. Melrose notes:

Paul Tobin, who writes both books, acknowledged on Twitter that “it’s a ’stay tuned’ sort of announcement.” Meanwhile, a company spokesman would only say that “Marvel has some exciting announcements relating to the future of Marvel Adventures.”