Published on October 13th, 2012 | by Cosmic Comix and Toys

News Roundup – October 13, 2012

superior spider-man It’s the New York Comic Con this weekend and there has already been more news announced than I can fit here! Here’s the highlights and we will get the rest next week!

As reported last week, Dan Slott, Ryan Stegman, and Humberto Ramos will be launching a new Spider-Man book for Marvel NOW! called Superior Spider-Man. The catch? The costume will change slightly, and the book is going to be “darker and edgier.” This has prompted many fans to cry foul already since many do not see Spidey as a “dark character.” Well we might know a little more about why the new direction. It seems Slott teased that Mary Jane and Spider-Man would be getting back together; however, Peter Parker was not Spider-Man. So if it is not Peter under the mask, who is it? Slott also noted this new Spidey has retractable claws which much hint that Miguel O’Hara, Spider-Man 2099, might be the new Spidey. Could Peter and Miguel change places for a while with Peter being transported to the future? Is this a red herring? Honestly I love and miss Spider-Man 2099, but launching a new title like this without the main character in the costume feels like a temporary thing right from the get-go. I guess we will see what happens in the last few issues of Amazing.

Scott Snyder and Sean Murphy will be joining forces on a new 12-issue horror/science fiction/post-apocalyptic undersea epic for Vertigo called The Wake. I love both of these creators and cannot wait to see what they do next! The downside is that next year expect American Vampire to go on a bit of a hiatus as Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque get ahead on the series while both do some other DC work. (Hated hearing that.)

superman lee One of the worst kept secrets in comics: Scott Snyder and Jim Lee were announced on a new Superman book next year to coincide with both the release of the Man of Steel movie and Superman’s Anniversary as a character. The title of the series was not named (many think it will be called Man of Steel), but Snyder seemed really excited about it at the NYCC.

Image Comics had lots of interesting announcements. Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky will be working on a new book together called Sex Criminals. Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta, the previous FF team, will be working on a book called East and West. Hickman is also writing and drawing a book called FPN about conspiratorial psychiatrists who compete to see who can screw up their patients the most. Howard Chaykin will be working on a book called Midnight Of The Soul. One Horse Trick will be a new book by Paul Pope. Jim McCann and Janet Lee are working on a book called Lost Vegas, a four-issue heist story that takes place on a casino strip in space. Three will be a new book from Kieron Gillen and Ryan Kelly about the Spartan soldier and their Helot slaves.

After the first arc by Stuart Immonen, Ultimate Spider-Man artist David Marquez will be illustrating an arc on Brian Michael Bendis’ All-New X-Men series. I am hoping the time displaced X-Men change the future and makes Cyclops less of a jerk.

Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie will be launching the new Young Avengers book. Kid Loki, Wiccan, Hulking, Kate Bishop, Marvel Boy, and Ms America Chavez will be on the team. Loki will bring the team together though they might not realize it is part of his plan!

Joshua Hale Fialkov, writer of the excellent I, Vampire, will be writing a book called The Devilers for Dynamite. I am looking forward to this one. DC should have been smarter and given this guy another book. Just saying.

Ramon Perez and Nick Bradshaw will be rotating art duties on Wolverine and the X-Men. Chris Bachalo has moved on to a new, unnamed project.

DC will launch a new cosmic series in January called Threshold and will feature a number of cosmic DC characters. Keith Giffen is writing the series with art by Tom Raney. I actually am looking forward to this one. Expect to see Blue Beetle, Omega Man, Starfire, Star Hawkins and others. Also, there will be a backup each issue drawn by Scott Kolins featuring Larfleeze, the Orange Lantern!

Nick Spencer and Luke Ross will be relaunching Secret Avengers for Marvel NOW! in February. The characters appearing in the book will be Hawkeye, Black Widow, Nick Fury Jr, Agent Coulson, Mockingbird, Winter Soldier, and others. The twist is that each of these characters will not know they are on a team, and are activated through a secret word. Should be cool!

Jeff Lemire will write and illustrate a new limited series for Vertigo called Trillium, which is a love story about the end of the universe. It will run ten issues.

Artist Ethan Van Sciver will be taking over the art duties on Batman The Dark Knight with David Finch leaving for the new JL book. Writer Gregg Hurwitz will stay on as the writer.

Andy Diggle is going to be a busy writer. Not only is he taking over Action Comics in March with Tony Daniel, but he will also be writing the third arc to Robert Kirkman’s Thief of Thieves!

Although we do not know what kind of book it will be, we do know that artist Marcos Martin left Marvel to pursue creator-owned comics. Martin is teaming with Brian K. Vaughan on this unnamed project. And after Vaughan’s Saga I really cannot wait to see what he comes up with next.

Paul Cornell is leaving Demon Knights with issue number 16. Writer Robert Vendetti will be coming on to take over as writer. Why is this important? Vendetti is the writer on X-O Manowar and that book has been extremely well written, so I am excited to see what he will do with this series. Bernard Chang will stay on as the artist.

Matt Wagner will be writing The Shadow: Year One for Dynamite in 2013. I do love Wagner’s work on pulp heroes.

Dynamite is creating a line of crime comics. Garth Ennis will write the first crime comic called Red Team with artist Craig Cermak, and writer Andy Diggle will be writing the second crime book. Diggle is all over the place it seems! Dynamite should go after Ed Brubaker for a third writer. This would be right up his alley.

Speaking of Dynamite, writer Mark Waid will be taking over the Green Hornet series there. Between DD, Hulk, and now Green Hornet (on top of his digital only comics) Mark Waid is another writer keeping himself very busy between multiple publishers.

Savage Wolverine launches from Marvel NOW! with Frank Cho writing and illustrating the title. The first arc will be set in the Savage Land. This is an interesting creator/character matchup to say the least.

Grant Morrison is writing a new six-issue mini-series for Legendary Comics called The Annihilator. The writer claims it is a twist on the story of Faust where a man with a brain tumor has to beat writer’s block to save the world. Yup, that sounds like Morrison alright.

Deathstroke Arrow Writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning will be writing a new Battlestar Galactica series for Dynamite set in the original series continuity.

Kevin Smith has all but two issues left to write for Batman Widening Gyre 2, and the series will take place in the old DCU continuity to stand with the first one. Walt Flanagan is once again illustrating the series.

Deathstroke is coming to Arrow in November and the first image of the character has him looking extremely close to his comic version. I am sorry to hear that Arrow’s world will be without those with superpowers; nevertheless, they are bringing in a number of character from the comics.

Valiant Entertainment is branching out into movies already! The company has tapped J. Michael Straczynski to write the script for a Shadowman movie! I think this is excellent news. I hope everyone has been giving the new Valiant comics a chance. They have been pretty good.

Ed Brubaker has an espionage thriller TV series in development at NBC, and is also working on a film adaptation of the “Coward” story from his Criminal series.

NBC has also picked up Oni Press’ The Sixth Gun to be developed for the network. That would make a really cool TV series!

Grant Morrison is teaming with Master MC, the RZA of Wu Tang Clan, to adapt Morrison and Darick Robertson’s Happy! comic. That is one crazy team up!

It looks like both Harry Osborn and Mary Jane will be appearing in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. It looks like right now actress Shailene Woodley is the frontrunner to tell Peter that he has hit the jackpot. We’ll see if she stays the frontrunner.

-SJD