Today, Marvel presents a fuller look at beautifully rendered interior pages from ORIGINAL SIN #1 – the 8-part blockbuster event from writer Jason Aaron and artist Mike Deodato.
On the moon, the dead body of Uatu, The Watcher is discovered. His home destroyed. Looted of its valuable alien technology. His death sends shockwaves through the superhero community. The Watcher has borne witness to every event, every skeleton and every secret history of the Marvel Universe. Secrets that are now in the possession of the killer.
The manhunt is on as the Avengers, the X-Men, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and everyone in between desperately search for the Watcher’s killer – but with the killer in possession of all the skeletons in their closets, are they ready for their sins to be revealed?
As they unearth the motive behind The Watcher’s murder, they’ll uncover a shocking truth that will shake the Marvel Universe to its core. What did The Watcher see that made him a target? And it’s only a matter of time before more bodies start popping up…
I had a good conversation with Mr. Gold on the phone yesterday, as in Mike, editor and columnist here at ComicMix and a columnist over at Michael Davis World, as in Michael Davis who is also a columnist on this site. Did I ever mention that the comics industry can be a bit professionally incestuous?
Back to Mike, the gourmet of invisible doughnuts (here)—oh, and btw, although once in a while I’ve seen patients respond to anesthesia the way Mike did, I’ve never seen or heard of, and no one I spoke to at work has ever seen or heard of, anyone munching down on invisible donuts while in the ICU—I apologized for not warning him about just how miserable shoulder replacement surgery, and its immediate aftermath, can be. “I didn’t want to scare you,” I said. “Especially after seeing the X-ray you sent me. To be perfectly honest, Michael, my professional reaction was, “HOLY SHIT!” (In other words, guys, Mike had no shoulder left.)
Mike, surprisingly, at least to me, said, and with no malice at all, “Why not?” I guess better the devil you know, y’know?
This April, the weirdest mutant of them all takes center stage in his very own limited series! Today, Marvel is proud to present your first look at ALL-NEW DOOP #1 – from Doop co-creator and legendary X-writer Peter Milligan and blockbuster artist David Lafuente!
Building a sequel to the hit film 300 wasn’t an easy task, and Zack Snyder talks about the choices he made to get RISE OF AN EMPIRE on the big screen and Lena Headey shares what it’s like to play another tough (but flawed) character. Plus CONSTANTINE gets a cast and Marvel gears up for their 75th.
Let’s see now, where were we before we were interrupted?
Back in the Mesozoic Era, there was something called the print media. You remember the print media, don’t you? It was in all the papers. Well, one of the all the papers that print media printed in was Comics Buyer’s Guide; or CBG as those of us who didn’t want to type out Comics Buyer’s Guide all the time called it. CBG was a weekly trade paper about the comic-book industry. It wasn’t as big and important as Billboard or Variety or even as vital as that paper that gives positive reviews to every movie no matter how wretched, because studios have to get their pull quotes from somewhere. But CBG was ours and we loved it.
And I loved CBG more than most, because for over two decades I wrote a regular feature called “The Law Is a Ass” for it; a column that combined legal analysis and comic books.
Legal analysis and comic books? How did that unlikely combination come about? (more…)
As I write this, the Super Bowl XLVIII kick-off is still 36 minutes away.
I’ve been thinking a lot about football the last couple of weeks. It’s a showdown between the best offensive team, the AFC Denver Broncos, led by Peyton Manning, who has had what may be the greatest quarterback season ever while breaking numerous statistical records, and the NFC Seattle Seahawks, whose cornerback Russell Wilson is the *ahem* cornerstone of the best defensive team of the 2013 season.
It’s also the first Super Bowl in which the physical dangers and complications of the sport on its players have been as discussed and picked over as much as any debate about the game and who is going to win.
This season also saw the NFL going over the top in its security efforts, this year dictating what size pocketbook a woman may carry into an arena – and also offering “official NFL team logo clear plastic tote bags at all club merchandise outlets for only $9.95.” In other words… a baggie! Also in 2013: the wide-spread discovery (I didn’t know, did you?) that the NFL is considered a non-profit organization by the IRS (!!) and efforts to end this status, including numerous on-line petitions and the Properly Reducing Overexemptions for Sports Act – or PRO Sports Act – bill by Senator Tom Coburn (OK, R) and Senator Angus King (MA, I)
I love football.
I love football because of its personal memories for me. My dad taking me to Yankee Stadium for the first time to see the Giants play the Colts because my mom had to stay home to take care of my sick brother and him explaining the intricacies of the game and coming home to discover that I was even sicker than Glenn, with a 103° temperature. My father pointing out Richard Nixon (pre-Presidency) sitting only a few rows behind us. The family driving down to Princeton to watch the annual Jaycee pre-season game between the Giants and the Eagles. Being jealous of Glenn because he shook Hubert Humphrey’s hand as the Vice-President walked into Yankees stadium to watch the Giants take on the Redskins. Driving up to Yale for the games while Giants Stadium was being built. Tailgating with my brother on a frozen day to rival this year’s winter, when we were almost alone in the stadium’s parking lot, which was an icy, snow-swept tundra with gale-force winds, and determinedly grilling steaks and hot dogs anyway. Taking Alixandra to her first Giants game and having to stand in the tunnel because she was afraid of the rain. Being at the 1986 Giants-Niners NFC championship game with Glenn, watching Mark Bavaro continuing to step forward with five or six Niners on his back. Harry Carson running for his first defensive touchdown and Lawrence Taylor covering him, and after the game, listening to the post-game report, Taylor replying, when asked by Giants sportscaster Bob Papa what Taylor said to Carson as the two ran downfield, “Harry, you sure do run slow for a black man.” (Please, no letters.) The Giants winning their first Super Bowl against the Broncos under Bill Parcells.
So many memories. I could go on and on and have enough for another month of columns.
I love football for the game itself. The beauty of the running backs sprinting downfield, evading the secondary. The splendor of catches made in three or even four man coverage. The excitement of 4th and goals. And yes, for the sheer physicality of it.
And, yes, I love football for the sheer physicality of it.
When I heard that Junior Seau had committed suicide, I was shocked, as was every sports fan. Listening to the news, I flashed back to the first issue of NFL Pro Action, which I had edited for Marvel. That issue included an article, entitled “Pumped!” featured the San Diego linebacker demonstrating some of his upper body workouts. The last paragraph read:
“Lifting weights helps your confidence – knowing that you went to the weight room, sacrificed your time, and concentrated on your strength. When you’ve done this, you have an edge. When I hit the field, I feel confident that if there is a big guy coming after me, I’ll be equipped to take him on. It’s a mental edge, but it helps me gain leverage. If you don’t have that confidence on the field you should be there.”
He started the Junior Seau Foundation in 1992. Its mission is “to educate and empower young people through the support of child abuse prevention, drug and alcohol awareness, recreational opportunities, anti-juvenile delinquency efforts and complimentary educational programs.”
Seau played 13 seasons for the Chargers, later playing for the Miami Dolphins and the New England Patriots. He retired in 2009. He was All-Pro ten times, played 12 times in the Pro Bowl, and made the NFL 1990’s All-Decade Team, and the Chargers inducted Seau into their own Hall of Fame.
And on September 16th, 2012, three months after his death, the Chargers retired Number 55, Junior Seau’s number, in an opening game ceremony.
The words I quoted above were spoken by a man who loved his profession, loved the game, loved being able to play, and loved being able to give back. And later, when it was announced that the cause of Seau’s death was really the chronic traumatic encephalitis (CTE) brought on by his years of playing football, I wondered if, given the choice, if Seau had known the danger and what lay before him, if he would have chosen to play the game for the love of it anyway.
Not the money.
Not the fame.
For the love of the game.
I wonder if it’s worth it.
The two-minute warning for the first half has just gone off. Seattle leads by 22 to Denver’s big, fat donut hole.
And I wonder if all players down on that field and watching in the stadium or at home or at a local sports bar, are wondering, will wonder, if it’s been worth it.
So there it was, that kind of news item. We might once have seen something like it – a second cousin? – in the comics fanzines hobbyists published now. I find stuff like it virtually every day in Yahoo’s news section. This particular item speculated that Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which is, as you must know if you access this particular website, a television series broadcast on Tuesday night on ABC stations, is playing a long game. (Where do I collect my tortured syntax award?)
It is maybe also common knowledge among you aficionados that the program is a disappointment in the ratings. Not doing too well, there on Tuesday night. We can speculate, as some already have, that viewers may feel that they have been prey to the old bait-and-switch gaff, promised one thing and presented with another. The TV honchos make a big deal of the show’s comic book origins, even including the word “Marvel” in the title, and prefacing every episode with the same montage of comic book images that precedes Marvel’s movies. So it’s reasonable to expect the kind of entertainment Marvel is most associated with, superhero stories. (If you’re a Marvel fan who cherishes the memory of Millie the Model, well… bless you!) But instead of superheroes, what do they give us? An action show. No flying, no awesome feats of strength, no grotesque superfoes, not even the odd cape or mask, Just, you know, fights and guns and car chases and stuff.
Not a bad action show, actually. Decent acting and dialogue, and stunts that seems to me to be a bit better than what’s usually found on the tube. And the plots are often flavored with science fiction, which could partially justify the superhero connection.
But, at the end of the hour… no superheroes. Wonder what’s on the Comedy Channel?
So they’re playing the long game? I interpret “long game” to mean that they’ll take their time, and ours, introducing characters and plot elements that will justify membership in the superhero club.
Comics got there first.
Twice, in my years behind editorial desks, the long game question arose, though we didn’t call it that. In one instance, a previous editor had promised the writer a five-year story. Awkward. I didn’t want to disappoint the writer, a good guy, and I may have been reluctant to make my predecessor a liar. But I doubted that any comic continuity of that era could be stretched so far. That’s the kind of decision editors are paid to make and sometimes the job can be a bitch.
We struck a deal. The long storyline could continue as long as sales remained above a certain number. Lagging circulation got the title cancelled and I was off the hook, and I hope the writer bears no ill memories of the incident.
The second long game was not being played on my turf, exactly, but because I was a big honkin’ group editor I had to notice it. If memory serves (and won’t that be the day?) the scripter planned to reveal certain crucial story elements several years into the run. The book didn’t last that long. Not even close.
The lesson we can take away from all this is that the long game won’t work unless you build an audience. Give ‘em solid reasons to keep coming back, episode after episode. Promising something, even implicitly, and then putting it on indefinite hold is not a good strategy.
Last Wednesday, Vince McMahon announced the launching of the WWE Network. Suffice to say it was well received by his hardcore fans just as he’d hoped. To use a bit of hyperbole – which all things considered, seems apropos – the self-made millionaire stands to become a billionaire with the launch.
It’s many things, but above all else, it’s a stroke of genius in the modern era of content delivery. Comic companies might want to take note… but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The WWE Network would appear to just be Netflix for hillbillies, but truly those who aren’t in-the-know, and quick-to-judge are missing out the insane deal the WWE is offering. For $9.95 a month (purchased in six month blocks, with a potential discount for year long subscriptions forthcoming), users get access to every pay-per-view since 1985 from the WWE, as well as rival companies WCW and ECW. They also get access to newly created content like countdown shows, reality shows, and plenty of documentaries and retrospectives.
Oh, there’s more. Users get every pay-per-view coming out. At present, purchasing a pay-per-view from VinnyMac sets you back 45-60 dollars, depending on the event, and the quality – SD or HD.
Do the math, kiddos. If the WWE just offered you the pay-per-views at ten bucks a pop, you’re saving anywhere between $440 – $620 a year. But if someone were to offer you an 83% discount, and you were even just a normal fan, certainly you’d find that to be worth considering. Add that insane discount to an increase in content, somewhere around 1900%, and now you’re starting perhaps to see why this is a big deal.
Obviously there are plenty of folks scoffing at the financials of all of this. With an 83% discount on a product, WWE’s PPV buy-rate profits will appear to tank. Vince and family are of course looking for volume profits to achieve the balance. In addition, newly minted subscribers will now be marketed to (in essence) exponentially more than they ever have in the past. This of course creates new advertising revenue streams. Imagine having an audience with decades of trend data sitting in wait, where your product can be hocked to them every single time they decide they want to indulge in their vice. This is internet ads the way companies dreamed they’d exist. Paint me impressed, at very least.
In covering the announcement, Gizmodosaid“…[T]hink about what you’d rather pay for: Netflix and its vast but unpredictable movie library and unproven original series? Or the entirety of [thingyou love]?” Truly, as I’d said: this may very well be the way to save our always-in-a-state-of-dying medium of comics.
Marvel and DC have set to revolutionize content delivery in the digital realm many times over. They’ve offered subscription services in the past (and may still do) and never once have I heard from fellow comic fans “this is how it’s done!” Instead, too many apps produce access to the same material, forcing fans to choose a vehicle, and then commit to it. Same as iTunes vs. Amazon MP3 vs. Rhapsody, etc. Vince McMahon chose instead to Spotify his industry-leading content library. Could any of you imagine a service that for the price of your books perhaps for a single week… granting you access to decades worth of content, as well as keeping you current on your favorite titles for the month? Could you fathom a service that could be easily accessed on your tablet, desktop, laptop, and/or phone? And dare I dream… what if that service gave you Marvel, DC, Image, IDW, Boom!, Avatar, the works…?
A boy can dream, but a man faces reality. Warner Bros. and Disney have no need or desire to combine their libraries of printed materials. Nor could they ever negotiate a way to create a subscriber base, and split profits. And they certainly wouldn’t give a rat’s patootie about any smaller publisher, even if say they made The Walking Dead. Instead, our comic books (both in print and digital) will continue to be a publisher-to-publisher game. ComicXology, Graphic.ly and other providers will continue to create proprietary filetypes that prevent the average user from controlling their ala carte purchases in a single easy-to-manage collection. The key of course falls back on the broad shoulders of you-know-who.
When Vince McMahon created Wrestlemania in 1985, he officially buried the original independent scene of professional wrestling. Over the next 20 years he slowly but surely eliminated his only competition. Over the next 10 years after that, he spent his profits slowly building and secretly digitizing the libraries of not only his content, but that of his antagonists. Nearly a decade after that, he’s set to launch a single product to unite every fan he’s gained and lost throughout those 30 years.
I, for one, can’t wait to sign to up. While my recent return to the comic shop has proven that industry still trips over itself with the sins of the past I can at least enjoy one publicly mocked genre in peace, and personal profitability.
The opening sequence of the new Marvel One Shot, All Hail the King, has been released by Disney. After the events of Iron Man 3, Trevor Slattery (Sir Ben Kingsley) is locked up in a high-security prison. He has gained widespread infamy and is the subject of an in-depth profile for a documentary film.
Directed by Drew Pierce and starring Sir Ben Kingsley and Scoot McNairy, All Hail The King will be available on Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World releasing in 3D and HD Digital February 4th, 2014 and on 3D Combo Pack (3D Blu-ray™, 2D Blu-ray, Digital Copy), Single-Disc Blu-ray, DVD and On Demand February 25th, 2014.
I won’t lie to you… I never thought this day was coming.
I never thought Marvel Comics would be able to untangle the legal Gordian knot that was the history of the character originally known as Marvelman when they announced they’d secured the rights from creator Mick Anglo nearly five years ago. With all the people involved, all the hands through which the rights had passed, actually and allegedly, it seemed insurmountable. But Marvel took its time, with the patience of a father untangling the box of Christmas lights, and now here we are, a couple weeks after Christmas, but given a wonderful and shiny present.
