News Roundup – September 29, 2012

Stan Lee’s health had been a concern the past few weeks given that he had canceled a number of appearances. Straight out of the horse’s mouth, Mr. Lee explained he was having his own superhero origin. “Now hear this! Your leader hath not deserted thee! In an effort to be more like my fellow Avenger, Tony Stark, I have had an electronic pace-maker placed near my heart to insure that I’ll be able to lead thee for another 90 years.” Man, everyone wants to be like Iron Man! Pretty soon Stan will be fighting bad guys instead of just doing cameos in these Marvel movies!

Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore have reached a settlement over the dispute in royalties and rights owed Moore for The Walking Dead. The details of the deal were not made available, but this will make TWD fans happy. Lawsuits like this one could have ended poorly for the comic and TV show in general.

Hiroaki Samura will be bringing his long-running Blade of the Immortal to a close in February after 19 years. Dark Horse publishes the series in the states and the 25th Volume was recently released.

Kieron Gillen noted this past week that the third Phonogram comic, entitled Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl, has been pushed back to the latter half of 2013. My guess this has a lot to do with the rumored Young Avengers that Gillen and Jamie McKelvie might be doing. I love little Loki, but not enough to delay a new Phonogram. Color me disappointed.

Although not really news, I have to congratulate DC Comics on managing to provide two extreme examples of trolling in their Zero Issues last week, both courtesy of Scott Lobdell comics. The first was the complete bastardization of Tim Drake’s origin that had Batman seeking him out instead of Drake saving Batman from the self-destructive behavior he exhibited following Jason Todd’s death. (Thanks for taking away what made the character grand to begin with.) There is also the suggestion that “Drake” was the name Tim got after his parents went into Witness Protection. Lame. Lobdell gave an interview at CBR explaining his Tim Drake choices. And the second instance of trolling was returning Oracle to the DC52 in Superman #0. Instead of Barbara Gordon in a wheelchair using her computer skills to help heroes across the globe, Oracle is a horrific looking alien monster. Way to stick it to the fans calling for her return! (Note: Sarcasm.)

Tyler Kirkham is going to be the new artist on Teen Titans (he just did the Zero Issue) following Brett Booth’s departure. I guess it is an all right move, but I hope a writer change comes with it. That book is a mess.

Bleeding Cool is reporting the rumor that current Marvel artist Paul Pelletier is moving to DC Comics to work on a project with Geoff Johns. I wonder what it could be. The site also thinks that Brett Booth is moving to Nightwing and Eddy Barrows will be taking over Superboy.

Artist Yildiray Cinar will be the fill-in artist for two issues of Earth 2 starting in December.

We already knew that Andrew Garfield would be returning to the sequel of Amazing Spider-Man, but there had been concern that director Marc Webb would not be back due to a previous commitment with another studio. It turns out the deal is done and Webb is going to come back to direct. Oddly enough Emma Stone’s return is pending. Can we dare hope for the Green Goblin to be involved and for someone to die at the certain bridge? Better start casting Mary Jane quickly.

The Dark Knight Rises will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on December the 4th.

And finally, probably the most interesting news this past week in regards to comic book films, is that Mark Millar has been hired to consult with 20th Century Fox for both the Fantastic Four and X-Men franchises. That means that Millar will offer both franchises future creative directions. This is very good news indeed. Millar is definitely an idea man.

-SJD