If you’ve ever read anything from Clifford Meth, you know he can be a ferocious writer, and ferociously talented. We like that sort of thing here, and that’s why we’ve published his stuff in the past. He’s compiling his columns and essays into a book, and you have a few hours left to pre-order it on Kickstarter:
Comic Book Babylon gathers icons HARLAN ELLISON, STAN LEE, ALAN MOORE, FRANK MILLER, JOE KUBERT, GENE COLAN, DAVE COCKRUM, WALTER SIMONSON and NEAL ADAMS into a conversation with CLIFFORD METH where anything goes. Among other stories, you’ll learn how & why X-Men co-creator Dave Cockrum became the first Marvel artist to receive a monetary settlement and lifetime royalties for his creations after years of suffering and virtual banishment… You’ll meet a well-known Hollywood film producer who doesn’t like to pay his writers (until someone squeezes his face)… You’ll read Harlan Ellison saying things no one else would publish…
This fascinating book collects Meth’s decades of comics columns and essays–some too outrageous to publish in their day–and adds never-before-revealed material. Everything is brought to life with sensational illustrations by the celebrated and beloved Marvel/DC artist MICHAEL NETZER.
What’s achieved is a startling look at the REAL villains and heroes of comics. Introduction by STAN LEE. Art by NETZER. Rants by METH. Join us!
To the surprise of few, Marvel announced on their website today that Robert Downey, Jr. would don the armor at least two more times. What’s interesting is that the two films he signed for are Avengers 2 and Avengers 3, the latter of which has yet to be given a formal green-light or spot on the Disney release schedule.
Downey has been handsomely rewarded for his early participation in the Marvel film universe, earning a reported $50 million for his work in the first Avengers film in addition to his salary from the first three Iron Man movies.
As the Marvel Film Universe continues, Phase 2 is well mapped out and with the claiming of two weekends in 2016 and 2017; Disney is clearly staking their territory for Phase 3. Speculation abounds as to what Phase 3 will be comprised of but with today’s announcement, it is increasingly clear the solo Iron Man series are done for now. Instead, other characters will fill the void with projected second sequels to Captain America, Thor, and one for Guardians of the Galaxy leading the way. Should Edgar Wright’s Ant Man succeed, that too would spawn a sequel. Meantime, an armload of other heroes and heroines are being eyed for the Big Screen.
At present, Marvel has not announced if Black Panther, Doctor Strange, The Inhumans, or Heroes for Hire are being seriously developed or merely teased. No one saw Guardians coming so the possibilities are really limitless.
Add into the mix the recently returned rights to films featuring Blade, Ghost Rider, and Daredevil and Marvel has an embarrassment of riches. All of which leads one to wonder when the saturation point will be felt. That could come as early as next summer when four Marvel films from three studios are released in four months, starting with April’s Captain America: The Winter Solider leading the way, followed by The Amazing Spider-Man 2, X-Men: Days of FuturePast, and Guardians. Sony has also just announced third and fourth installments of the current Spider-Man series of films with several plot threads added in the second film.
It has been speculated that Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD television series may be used as a launching pad for new film properties or television series. While the CW’s Smallville trotted out numerous spin-off possibilities from Aquaman to Booster Gold, none of them succeeded and there’s no guarantee Marvel will be any more successful, even with Joss Whedon’s intimate involvement.
DC Entertainment has finally succeeded with getting their cinematic universe off the ground with the smash success of Man of Steel. While its sequel is being fast-tracked for, most likely, a 2015 release, they’ll be playing catch-up well into the 2020s. By then, though, audiences may have been super-heroed out reminding one that Denny O’Neil always described them as “DC Misses the Boat Comics”.
Marvel Comics announced today Spider-Man: Family Business, one of Marvel’s new line of original graphic novels debuting in May 2014. And if you’re a big Spider-Man fan, you may note that the story seems a bit familiar. Spoilers follow…
From the moment the Black Avengers was announced I’ve been asked over and over again what I think.
I think a few things…
I think anytime there is a serious attempt to bring not just African American but any minority characters to the forefront is a good thing. I pitched a project a year ago and was told a black super team would never sell in Hollywood, so what’s the point in even doing the comic book?
I think I’d better not tell you what I wrote and then discarded about the person who said that. Give that a thought – me thinking I’d better not say something.
I think (well, I know) I really like Axel Alonzo and what he’s doing with Marvel. Let’s face it, a young black child who see a Marvel logo on a black superhero book is going to lose his or her little mind.
After the Black Avengers, can the Malcolm X-Men be far behind?
I think it almost makes up for Mark Millar’s black character, Tyrone Cash. A black scientist who, when he gains superpowers decides to give up the whole scientist thing and become a drug-dealing thug.
Yeah, I was pretty rough on Mark last week and again this week but that’s nothing compared to what I have in store at my annual standing room only Black Panel at the San Diego Comic Con.
I think what’s sure to be a hot topic on the web especially among black creators is rather or not just black creators should be the teams on the project.
No. I don’t think just black creators should do the Black Avengers.
However, if Mark Millar writes a story arc and Tyrone Cash shows up that would be the quickest way to destroy what looks like a noble undertaking on Marvel’s part. The smart play would be to have Mark write a story arc and deal with that horrible black scientist who gains superpowers and becomes a thug drug dealer.
No, I’m not kidding.
Yes, there are black thug drug dealers in the world (there is one due at my house in an hour… heh) but a scientist who gain superpowers and becomes a fucking drug dealing thug?
That kind of characterization would kill all the good Marvel’s doing with this project.
Lastly, Marvel said they wanted to do something like Dwayne McDuffie would do. Would do? Dwayne, Denys Cowan, Derek Dingle and myself did do it. In fact, the San Diego Comic Con is celebrating the 20-year anniversary of us doing it.
On June 4, Gazillion’s Marvel Heroes MMOARPG launched to the public. And I’m here to tell you that it’s a heck of a lot of fun to play, especially if you are a Marvel fan.
Marvel Heroes is a free-to-play PC game featuring a story written by Brian Michael Bendis (which begins with a set of prequel motion comics that you can watch here). I covered the basics of the game in my previous Marvel Heroes column, so I’m going to move right into my review here.
The Good Stuff:
One of the strongest pros in this game is, of course, the Marvel IP – and what Gazillion has done with it while designing the look and feel of the game. With five starting character choices and twenty-one Marvel heroes currently available, each with three to five costumes (although Spider-man has six and Iron Man eleven!), players can instantly play as a Marvel hero who looks and talks like he or she came straight out of the comics. If players are willing to spend money, they can play as non-starter heroes from the get-go, and equip the heroes with favorite costumes as well (heroes and costumes are also available as in-game drops, but they are rare). And people who get tired of one character have plenty of choices available if they want to switch things up.
The characters look like the heroes we know and love; the costumes are iconic; and each character has unique voice-over work, some of which is done by actors who have previously voiced the same character in other media or games (e.g. Steve Blum reprises his role as Wolverine). Through this voice work, the characters interact with the environment and other players in ways that fit with their comics personas. (One thing I like about the voice-over work is that sometimes, the lines actually make me laugh out loud.) Some of the heroes even have enhanced costumes, with special effects and separate voice-over work (for instance, Pirate Deadpool speaks in a pirate voice). There are also “artifacts” you can get that change the cosmetic look of your hero a bit, or that add to their powers. The game even has a few pets available – like Old Lace from Runaways! Favorite characters of mine so far include Deadpool, Jean Grey, Rocket Raccoon, Iron Man, Scarlet Witch, and Hawkeye; and Gazillion plans to continue releasing new heroes, with Human Torch , Squirrel Girl, and Emma Frost being three announced heroes that I’m looking forward to playing.
The powers available for each hero are also mapped directly from Marvel lore, and can be customized via power points to make your individual hero suited to different play styles (melee, ranged, tank, team support, etc.) while still feeling authentic. The powers can also look pretty darned cool, like for instance when Jean Grey goes into her Phoenix Transformation and flies around with a flaming phoenix around her. Her other powers even have a different (fiery) look to them when she’s using them while transformed. The characters also have lore-appropriate epic Ultimate Powers, which can eventually be unlocked at higher levels and are mostly awesome. (I love that Iron Man’s is called House Party and calls up other Iron Man suits, just like in the movie.) You can also customize hero performance through gear drops, which come with various affixes like defense, or +X to a power, or gain of spirit on use of a basic power, or a personal favorite of mine, freeze.
The environments and enemies are also Marvel-specific in some pretty cool ways. We get maps like Hell’s Kitchen (accompanied by a cool Daredevil motion comic) which feel kind of dingy and shady and like Daredevil’s Hell’s Kitchen might; and maps like the Savage Land, which have dinosaurs (yay!). Other areas include the Jersey Docks, Madripoor, and more. The maps are randomized, which makes re-playing levels not overly monotonous. There are also fun side-missions, like an abandoned subway tunnel, or a convenience store, or a small island, that usually house a few enemies and sometimes a treasure chest. And then there are locations like the Hand Tower or Kingpin Tower that feel very authentic in design and end with a boss like Elektra or the Kingpin. (And I can’t explain why, but the fact that I can destroy Kingpin’s couch cushions on the way to the boss fight is a never-ending joy to me. Take that, Kingpin!) Enemies vary by location, so players will find themselves fighting AIM, Hydra, the Hand, the Maggia, etc.; as well as additional bosses, like Doc Ock, Venom, Taskmaster, MODOK, and more.
Everything about the game shows that Gazillion cares about the details of the Marvel universe and put a lot of thought into the design – up to and including the load screen tips, which sometimes address gameplay, but other times share facts about heroes and locations (and occasionally inform you that Deadpool is not standing behind you right now, which is always a relief). The motion comics are also part of the immersion – and are peppered throughout the game to move the story along. While I don’t love every single one of them, most are very cool and the introduction comic, the Madame Hydra fight comic, and the Taskmaster Institute comic come to mind as very enjoyable (the Taskmaster Institute one is the best).
Another area in which I think Marvel Heroes has done well is in the game’s accessibility to new gamers or new MMO players. For instance, I love Marvel and I love gaming. I have a comics collection that spans several shelves and is at least 3/4 Marvel, and I own an XBox and have played numerous games on it, including playing through Marvel Ultimate Alliance 1 & 2 an embarrassing number of times. However, until this game, I had never played an MMO-style game before, and hadn’t played a game on a PC in years. Marvel Heroes makes it easy to pick up the mechanics of gameplay during the prologue level (The Raft), and through interactions in player hubs, such as the crafting tutorial or the mission that sends you around Avengers Tower to “talk” to several non-playable characters and gain Marvel background information.
The game also makes teaming pretty easy – if you are looking to team up and don’t know anyone, you can try the chat window to talk to other players; or you can use the function that automatically puts you in a party. While in a team, there is a team “bodyslide” teleport feature, which transports you to the location of whichever team member you’ve chosen; and, of course, there is a team channel in chat through which you can talk to only your teammates.
Although this is not part of the actual game, I also think that Gazillion’s customer service is worth a mention here. Despite Gazillion being a relatively small company, I’ve consistently had good experiences with their community interactions and customer service. For example, during the launch of the game, there were a few problems that caused early access (for which users such as myself had paid) not to be available at the promised time. While that was disappointing, Gazillion addressed the issues with compensation for the delay, which, in my view, more than makes up for it. (Yay, a pet! I wanted a pet anyway.)
The Not-As-Good-Stuff:
Overall, I really like this game. However, there are a few issues that I think hamper enjoyability a bit.
One of these issues is the storage space (the S.T.A.S.H.) that you get for your heroes’ equipment and costumes; for XP, item find, and other boosts; and for crafting materials. The space allotted with the free game is pretty small and not organized into tabs or sections; and crafting materials, which you will need many of if you want to craft anything, don’t stack, and quickly fill up the available space. I realize that the small amount of storage space is deliberate, because Gazillion needs to make money, and people buying more S.T.A.S.H. space is one way they can do that – but I resent having to buy inventory space in a way that I don’t having to pay money if I want a new hero or costume, or a performance boost, or a cosmetic item (I have no problem with spending money for any of those things). They could have started us out with at least a little more space, or allowed us basic organizational tabs for crafting, gear, and other items. Also, while I received a S.T.A.S.H. storage tab specifically for the hero I purchased with my premium pack (Deadpool!) I did not get a tab for either of the Valentine’s Day special heroes that came along with that purchase and included costumes. So although I’m happy to have the heroes and costumes, unless I buy more tabs, four spaces in my general tab are always going to be taken up by costumes, which is a pain.
Another area that could use some improvement is in character balance – because although of course you don’t want playing Scarlet Witch to feel the same as playing The Hulk or Storm or Captain America, if one of these characters is noticeably overpowered at the same level as another hero who is very weak, the game can seem pretty skewed. I have seen some instances of this; however, I know that with MMOs, balance continues to be tweaked through and after game release, so I expect this will even out. In terms of balance, a few of the bosses could also use some work – particularly the Rhino, who just straight-up kills you if you’re standing in the path of his charge (hard to consistently avoid since he’s a world boss, so you’re always fighting him with a number of other players and their accompanying power effects, which can make it hard to tell you’re about to be run down). Again, though, I am guessing (hoping!) this may be adjusted as Gazillion works out some balance kinks, since I know this problem existed with Bullseye before and they adjusted that fight.
And To Sum Up:
I am really enjoying Marvel Heroes. I think it’s had a strong start, looks great, and has a lot of cool features. I do see some potential for improvement with the aforementioned issues, and perhaps by adding, e.g., achievements to the game and the like, but given that we know Gazillion intends to keep adding characters and other features to the game as time goes on, I have high hopes for this to continue to be a fun place to play for quite some time.
So if you like gaming (or you don’t know if you like gaming but would like to give it a try), or you like Marvel, or you like both, check out Marvel Heroes!
Kelly Sue DeConnick posted this on her Tumblr this morning. Reading the question I was saddened and angered but not surprised.
In industries that have a history of being a boys club, it’s not unusual to assume females are there either because of sleeping their way in or being the token female and therefore inferior to their male colleges. I am incredibly lucky to work in a technology company with a female CEO where being a woman is not looked down upon. I don’t have to worry about bout being thought of as a second class citizen because of my gender. Sadly, this is not true of all companies or all industries.
While I do not work in the comic book industry, I do spend a lot of time hanging out at my local comic shop House Of Secrets and I work programming magic for ComicMix on occasion. Both of these places were so welcoming to me when I took my first step into the world of comic books. I feel blessed to know all of the awesome people who work there.
Over the past year or so, as I dug myself out of a self-imposed hole of isolation, I started noticing a trend. I became aware that even though this is 2013, even though my mother and my grandmother fought this fight, it is still vitally important to stand up for myself and my gender. Somehow in 2013 I had to take stock of all the things I took for granted and take up the mantle of feminism. And I thought to myself ‘Really? This is 2013, right?’ We already fought for the right to vote, work and have a family or not when or if we felt it was right.
Yet here we are, still underrepresented in pay, out numbered in many professions (comics, technology, science, engineering, the list goes on) and less likely to be in the top jobs in whatever field we are in. It pains me that we have to resort to asking people to think of their daughters or their sisters to have the empathy to understand what is happening instead of just expecting them to treat human beings as human beings. Things like this seem to happen everyday, and I don’t know what to do to fix them. So I do what little I can.
First, if you are a woman in tech, comics, or any field just drop me a line. If nothing else, I can be your own personal cheerleader. Second off, to Kelly Sue, I’m sorry some asshole assumed you married your way in to Marvel. Your writing alone shows how terribly wrong he is. That said, I kinda want to be you when I grow up :). Your writing has proven to so many women that we can stand out and be awesome in whatever the hell it is we do and that should outshines any trolls.
I was helping out at House of Secrets the other day and a girl came in looking for Buffy season 9 vol. 1, which was sold out. I told her if she wanted an awesome female doing awesome things to check out your Captain Marvel TP. We discussed feminist comic books, and how amazing it is that they even exist. We agreed if women like us who are amazing at our jobs and proud of it don’t stand up, mentor other women, and keep the torch burning, everything our mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers fought for can disappear in an instant it seems.
And now that I’ve had my ‘I am woman here me roar speech’ we now return your regularly scheduled posts of dinosaurs covered in glitter and the like.
Shout! Factory has released a Blu-ray edition of the 1990 Captain America movie, a year after a DVD of the much-maligned film was released as a part of MGM’s Limited Edition collection. They deserve kudos for a nice, clean transfer but clarity and high definition cannot help a really weak story hampered by a low budget production.
The film had actually been announced in the early 1980s from Cannon Films but in the intervening years, the studio folded and the right shifted a bit before Menahem Golan mounted it under his 21stCentury banner.
The movie languished in development until the rights were about to expire so director Albert Pyun urged Golan to let him take a crack at getting the film made for about $6 million. Marvel actually approved the script that was shot and Pyun loved its take on America’s fascination with heroism. If only some of that love found its way onto the screen.
The movie was shot in 1989 but wasn’t released theatrically and was finally dumped on video in 1992, where it was met with derisive laughter from comic book fans.
The horrific script from Stephen Tolkin (from a story by Tolkin and Lawrence J. Block) pays lip service to the source material and leaves you scratching your head at the shoddy story construction and utter lack of characterization. Significant changes were made, none of the better starting with giving Steve Rogers polio as an excuse to keep him from enlisting. Then there’s the Red Skull (Scott Paulin) now an Italian fascist, which never made sense. On the other hand, both this film and the current blockbuster made the unnecessary dramatic change in linking Cap and the Skull by having them both be products of the Super Solider formula.
There’s Matt Salinger as Cap/Rogers who is anything but the American ideal and fairly wooden in performance, perhaps because they give him nothing to work with. His first mission leads to the rocket that sent him to an icy sleep in Alaska. He’s found and inexplicably breaks free and rather than ask his rescuers anything, he runs all the way to Canada. There’s little time spent on his cultural isolation and his interactions with others is laughably minimal.
He makes his way back to Venice where he finds the love of life, Bernie Stewart (Kim Gillingham), an old woman, married and mother to Sharon (also Gillingham). He and Sharon then begin running around the world (without cash or passports or any hindrances) in search of the Skull, who apparently heads up an international cabal that directs the world’s affairs. Their current target is President Thomas Kimball (Ronny Cox), who as a boy actually saw Cap in action and has remained fixated on him ever since. He is targeted for his global environmental initiative which inexplicably would hurt the cabal’s interests.
The action is meager, the plotting a joke, the dialogue is flat, and at no time does the script allow the characters breath and expand, absorb the impact of what has been said and done. Fine character actors like Ned Beatty and Darren McGavin are utterly wasted here with nothing to do.
The film is supposedly about hero worship hence Kimball and Beatty’s boyhood fascination with Captain Midnight while the film also has references to the Human Torch and Superman which are oddities. Another missed opportunity is the relationship between the Skull (Scott Paulin) and his adult daughter, Valentina de Santis (Francesca Neri), who is dispatched as his assassin. She and her team of well-groomed killers are more joke than threat.
Much as the film looks better than it has since release, it also sounds pretty good, too. The lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix makes you long for a proper soundtrack. Shout! deserves brownie points for getting Pyun and Salinger to review this project for a 20 minute bonus feature, new to the disc. Both are fairly honest in their assessment that the film didn’t work although Pyun felt it would have been better with a bigger budget but trust me, it all starts from the story which was weak to behind with.
I caught the movie musical version of Les Miserables recently (and I will thank my brain to stop playing snippets of the soundtrack over and over and over again) and was struck by a line sung by the hero, Jean Valjean, late in the story: “To love another person is to see the face of God.” That line has always pierced me (I’ve seen the stage version of the show several times).
I was raised Roman Catholic but I am now a Practicing Agnostic by which I mean that I don’t know that there is a god but I don’t know that there isn’t, either. Lately, I’ve come to accept the possibility of something like a god out there without subscribing to any of the versions that different religions put out as the One True Version. Even within Christianity, there’s no one vision of Jesus. There are wars over that vision; my Jesus can beat up your Jesus. Within the Moslem community, Sunni makes war on Shi’ites and vice versa. And so on.
In each case, the face of god reflects the belief of the believers and the society out of which that face was carved. Is one truer than another? Not for me. Look, I like the Bible (mostly). The stories in it are the tradition with which I was raised and that means something to me. Do I accept it as the literal truth? No, any more than I accept the Norse gods or Marvel’s version of them as “truths.” Walter Simonson’s depiction of Thor as the Frog of Thunder enchanted me, but I don’t worship it.
One of my proudest achievements in writing comics was the run that Tom Mandrake and I did on The Spectre over at DC. In it, I explored the issues of redemption, of divine punishment, of good and evil that were rattling around in my soul. Even though I was no longer a practicing Roman Catholic, my quibbles were more with the practices of the Church than the beliefs. I was able to explore theological questions I had about those beliefs.
I don’t think I could write The Spectre today as I did back then. I’m not the same person; I’ve changed. I don’t have the same beliefs as I did then so the theological questions and quibbles I had when I wrote the Spectre are no longer relevant to me.
How people see God tells me less about God than it does about those people. Stern, capricious, loving, aloof – these can all be faces of God. God is a reflection of that God’s worshippers and it changes over time. Take a look at all the portraits of Jesus over the years – he’s morphed from a Jewish rabbi into the blonde haired, blue eyed Jeffrey Hunter in the movie King of Kings. I’ve seen striking images of Jesus as a black man; strong and necessary images re-interpreting Jesus as part of the African-American community. Latino as well. Asian. Female. Why not?
I’m not trying to tell anyone that their version of God is wrong; I’ll leave that to Bill Mahr. My doubts are my doubts. However, I have issue when someone tries to tell me I have to think, act, or believe as they do because that’s the truth. That’s their truth and I accept it for that but it’s not my Truth and I don’t accept it as the universal Truth many of them claim it to be. One person’s religious beliefs do not trump another person’s rights. Your God is not my God.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ve just seen the Flying Spaghetti Monster drift by my window. I may have just become a Pastafarian.
The Original Volume in “The World’s Greatest Superhero Novel Series” is back in an “Anniversary Edition!”
White Rocket Books proudly announces the release in trade paperback format of a newly revised and updated edition of Van Allen Plexico’sSENTINELS: WHEN STRIKES THE WARLORD, the original adventure in the famed and very popular cosmic superhero saga!
Originally appearing in 2008 from Swarm Press, When Strikes the Warlord has only been available as an e-book or as part of the Grand Design Omnibus for over a year. Now White Rocket brings it back into print as a stand-alone trade paperback, with all the original interior artwork by famed series artist Chris Kohler.
When Strikes the Warlord gets the Sentinels saga off with a bang, as teenaged college student and “science nerd” Lyn Li is attacked by shadowy members of the US Defense Department. Teaming up with beloved but mysterious national hero Ultraa and renowned inventor and billionaire Esro Brachis, she enters a new world of androids, aliens, cosmic space gods, interdimensional conquerors, and more. When at last they all clash atop the Warlord’s floating city, the existence of the universe itself is at stake!
This new edition has been meticulously re-edited by the author. Says Plexico, “Because this book is the entryway for many readers to discover my work, I’ve always wanted it to be as strong of a presentation as it could be. This new Anniversary Edition from White Rocket allowed me to tighten things up in many places—but not one bit of the overall story has been changed!”
The Kindle edition has also been updated to match the Anniversary Edition paperback.
“I’ve already bought the next Sentinels book! Van’s got me hooked!” says Percival Constantine, author of Fallen.
“Spectacular. Action-packed. Imaginative and wonderful,” adds Pulp Fiction Reviews. “If you grew up loving the Avengers comic books from Marvel, these books are for you in a big, big way.”
White Rocket Booksis a leader in the New Pulp movement, publishing exciting action and adventure novels and anthologies since 2005, in both traditional and electronic formats. White Rocket books have hit the Amazon.com Top 15-by-Genre and reached as high as #2 on the New Pulp Bestsellers List, and have garnered praise from everyone from Marvel Comics Vice-President Tom Brevoort to Kirkus Reviews.
SENTINELS: WHEN STRIKES THE WARLORD is a $14.95, 6×9 format trade paperback from White Rocket Books. (Other volumes in the series are available in two omnibus paperbacks, and each is a $2.99 or $3.99 e-book for Kindle and other e-readers.)
OK, folks. It’s official. The zombie thing has gone on way too long. Time to stomp them back into the ground and move on.
Truth be told, and with all due respect to George Romero and Robert Kirkman, I was never much of a zombie fan. There’s not a lot you can do with the buggers, and even by stretching the rules and applying our contemporary wussification of the monster legends… there’s still not that much you can do with them.
There have been zombie stories that I’ve enjoyed, particularly Stan Lee and Bill Everett’s classic “Zombie!” from Menace #5, July 1953. Twenty years later this inspired something of a revival with Marvel’s black-and-white magazine Tales of the Zombie. Or, in other words, it took two decades and the combined talents of Roy Thomas, Steve Gerber, John Buscema and Tom Palmer to finally come up with a worthy sequel.
This is not to say that all subsequent zombie stories sucked. Not in the least. But the massive proliferation of zombies throughout our mass media has, you’ll forgive the expression, choked the life out of the concept. By definition, zombies have no personality and not all that much to say. Their diet is really boring: only in St. Louis can the population stomach so much brain meat.
(I’ve eaten brains… once. Once. Believe me, it sounds better than it tastes. To quote musician Steve Goodman, “Even the cockroaches moved next door.” However, it is more palatable than goat’s head soup.)
As we continue to sashay through the 2013 convention season, it is tedious to see that so many cosplayers have chosen this motif as the subject of their craft. It doesn’t take long to glaze over the horde; if you’ve seen one hundred zombies, you’ve seen them all. And by the time my second show of this year’s convention season concluded, believe me, I have seen them all.
Marvel Comics announced today Spider-Man: Family Business, one of Marvel’s new line of original graphic novels debuting in May 2014. And if you’re a big Spider-Man fan, you may note that the story seems a bit familiar. Spoilers follow…
