Tagged: X-Men

More on Marvel’s subscription service

More on Marvel’s subscription service

In an interview between ICv2 and Marvel president Dan Buckley, the following exchange takes place:

Do you plan to put up all new issues of the titles that are on the "Current Favorites" or "Young Reader Series" lists?

No, we do not plan on putting up the new issues of "Current Favorites" nor do we plan on keeping complete runs of top selling trades like Astonishing X-Men up on the site for prolonged periods of time.

Did you catch that? We don’t plan on keeping complete runs up for prolonged periods of time. In other words, they plan to remove titles after you’ve already paid for your subscription. If those titles are too successful, you should go out and buy the trade in addition to the money you’ve already paid for the subscription. Nice.

And from our earlier article about Marvel’s new online archive, we quoted Marvel president Dan Buckley from USA Today saying "We did not want to get caught flat-footed." What he should have said is that Marvel didn’t want to get caught flat footed with the Internet again.

Marvel has never been the fastest company to adopt to the Internet. They weren’t the original registrants of marvel.com, for starters. That had already been registered by a software company in Washington by 1995, and later had to be acquired by legal manuverings. Nor were they the original registrants of what the obvious fallback name was, marvelcomics.com.

I was.

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Countdown Still Counting Down…

Countdown Still Counting Down…

In a week with the near future of TV up in the air and Broadway all but dark, we have a few bright spots to share here at ComicMix Radio. As usual, there’ s a big stack of new comics and DVDs landing in the stores this week, plus:

• Sean McKeever tells us why Countdown is still exciting every week
• Break your piggy bank if you want to see Marvel Comics online
• Another Messiah Complex sell out for the X-Men
• NYC’s National ComicCon is days away and we talk to one of the celebrity guests. Farscape fans will be happy to know that Gigi "Chyanna" Edgerly is taking her career farther than ever.

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This one is a biggie!!

Power!, by Dennis O’Neil

Power!, by Dennis O’Neil

So you wanna be a superhero. Okay, where are your powers going to come from?

For years – nay, hundreds of years; nay, thousands of years – the brief answer was: From out there. Somewhere. The first superbeings in popular culture (the only kind there was, back then) were either gods, or pals of gods, or imbued with magical abilities, the origins of which weren’t necessarily clear or important. What was important was…wow! – look at what he/she/it can do! And so much the better if it, whatever spectacular thing it is, is being done for reasons I approve of.

That’s still what’s important. But our minds seem to be wired to want reasons for what we see, which is certainly why there’s science and may be why there’s art and civilization. But, oddly, once a reason is supplied, many of seem to be satisfied and require nothing further. The great cosmic snortlefish created the oceans? Swell, now I know why there’s all that water and what’s for dinner?

By the time Jerry Siegel got around to thinking up Superman in the summer of 1934, magic wasn’t terribly fashionable and it had long since become divorced from religion. But science…ah, science was going to deliver us and besides, it was real. And Jerry was a reader of science fiction, which, in those happy days, at least claimed to be rooted in physics and chemistry and astronomy and stuff like that. So it was natural, maybe inevitable, that he would give his übermensch a science rationale. Guy comes from another planet, sure – that’d be why he could be so powerful. Makes sense. Made sense to Jerry in 1934, probably would have made sense to me when I was the age Jerry was when he created Superman, if I’d thought about it.

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Legos, Peter David vs Howard Stern and Free Links

Legos, Peter David vs Howard Stern and Free Links

In case the change in weather hasn’t hit your area yet, let us remind you that pages of the calendar are flying by as fast as in a one of those old Hollywood movies and those holiday are rushing closer. That being said, keep in mind a lot of our links do make way cool gifts!

• After existing since 2005 as a digital edition averaging over 100,000 downloads per issue, TwoMorrows will be taking BrickJournal into the print world. The print edition will debut in February 2008 with a new #1, and will be offered in the December issue of Diamond Distribution’s Previews and will be carried at newsstands and bookstores nationwide, as well as on the publisher’s website. Meanwhile, the latest issue (#9, the last digital-only edition) is available now as a free download here for anyone to sample.

• Just in time to drop under your tree, Museum Replicas Limited has their limited edition prop quality Magneto Helmet . Created from the actual 20th Century Fox prop, used in the motion picture X-Men 3 – The Last Stand, based on Marvel’s ever popular Superhero franchise, the helmet is full steel construction, has a leather padded lining and a polished enamel finish.  If the quality doesn’t have collectors everywhere clamoring for one, the attractive display stand, certificate of authenticity or the 2,006 piece limited edition run, will. If you just want to drool over the thing, go here.

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Close Encounters of the Third Help!, by Ric Meyers

Close Encounters of the Third Help!, by Ric Meyers

But first a digression. I went to see American Gangster the other day (engrossing, well done, I’d give it a solid 8 outta 10), which included previews for the upcoming movies Wanted (Mr. & Mrs. Smith meets The Matrix) and Jumper (X-Men ripoff), both of which were absolutely chock full of cgi making the characters do all sorts of incredible, impossible things amid carnage which would turn normal men’s biology into strawberry jam.

   

As I watched dispassionately the following motto came to mind that I wish were put on billboards and t-shirts and those inspirational posters that they sell in airline mail order catalogs, to be seen in every studio, producers’ and executives’ office:

   

“When nothing is impossible, nothing is interesting.”

   

Just wanted to get that down on record. Now we return to this week’s DVD Xtra column, already in progress.

   

I’m a happy camper. Creeping into stores on cat feet or ninja paws this week is a movie I’ve been waiting to appear on DVD for years. It was one of my absolute favorites as a kid (in fact, through only slightly some fault of my own, it wound up being the movie I’ve seen the most through the years), and, while its predecessor (A Hard Day’s Night) got a swell special edition two-disc set via Miramax in 2002, this one has languished in limbo until now — and, to top it off, needed the Beatles’ record company to make it a DVD reality.

   

It is, of course, Help!, the music-filled, Goon Showish/Monty Python-esque film farce MTV has officially credited as being its inspiration. Now, thanks to the Beatles’ Apple company (not to be confused with the like-named company on whose computer I presently type these words) and Capitol Records, Help! has now got a lovely two-disc special edition of its own.

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Wrestling And Killing… Batman?

Wrestling And Killing… Batman?

Like the medium or not, you do have to admit that there are a lot of similarities between pro wrestling and comics. In years past, there hasn’t been a successful bridge between the two, but creator Mike Kingston is taking a totally new approach with his Headlocked series. ComicMix Radio talks to Mike about his project and his love of both wrestling and comics, plus:

• Fox waves the white flag & shelves 24

• A new X-Men story line heats up with a sold out comic

• ABC is going with Lost … no matter what

• Oh yeah, and they are killing Batman again?

Press The Button, or you get a chair to the head, ya jabroni!

Happy 35th birthday, Rebecca Romijn!

Happy 35th birthday, Rebecca Romijn!

On this day in 1972, Rebecca Romijn was born in Berkeley, California. After a successful career as a swimsuit and lingerie model, she made the transition to acting, appearing in such movies as Femme Fatale and Rollerball, as well as The Punisher and all three X-Men films as Mystique.

Currently, she’s appearing on Ugly Betty as a– well, never mind, it’s too preposterous. And I’m saying that after watching her do backflips in full-body blue makeup.

Happy birthday to a woman many have referred to as the Jolly Blond Giant. I don’t know why, she seems like a nice normal height to me…

Manga Friday: Superpowers

Manga Friday: Superpowers

Only two books for Manga Friday this week; the deadline crept up on me and found me with a smaller “read” pile than I expected. But they’re both pretty good, and both are brand-new, which may make up for it.

First is Alice on Deadlines, which is the first time I’ve hit a concentrated dose of that Japanese-comics staple, the panty shot. Lapan is a Shingami — essentially an angel of death, or one of a legion of Grim Reapers, or something in that line of work. He and his co-workers travel to Earth to bring back dead souls who don’t come on their own, which sometimes requires a lot of “persuasion.” Lapan is also a fine example of that stock manga character, the horny creep. (We first see him absorbed in a dirty magazine at his desk.)

And, on the other side, Alice is a voluptuous young woman — presumably in high school. She’s terribly normal and average, except for being gorgeous (and it looks like all the other students of her all-girls school are also gorgeous).

Due to a mix-up, Lapan ends up in Alice’s body instead of the skeleton he was supposed to inhabit. And Alice is bounced into the skeleton. Wacky hijinks ensue, mostly involving Lapan-in-Alice’s-body trying to find a quiet place to fondle himself, and falling all over the other students. Along the way, the two of them do manage to take care of a few shishibitos (souls that cling to life instead of moving on, and which sometimes manifest magical abilities).

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Mark Millar not doing Superman movie

Mark Millar not doing Superman movie

When Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris (screenwriters for X-2: X-Men United and Superman Returns) stated that they would NOT be writing the new live-action Superman sequel, Warner Bros. Pictures announced they would be looking at new pitches. Mark Millar (Ultimates, Civil War) was immediately vocal in his desire to take on the task. “I want to revamp Superman like Hillary wants thin ankles. Revamping this franchise is what I as given fingers for and so, invited or not, I’m putting my plan together now. I’ve been asked to work on half a dozen screenplays lately, but this is the only one I have ever truly wanted. As most here know, I have literally hundreds of pages of notes and sketches just waiting for this opportunity. This would be my dream gig and, as a fan, I know exactly what this project needs to work. This has to be Superman for the 21st Century, keeping everything we adore, but starting from scratch and making the kids love it as much as the 30-somethings. I would honestly write this thing for free.”

Sadly for Millar, it looks like it’s not going to happen. A couple of days later, he made the following statement: “I spoke to some friends at DC and they explained this has happened with a couple of big Marvel writers in the last couple of years and I absolutely respect that. It’s a business after all and to have a guy writing ‘Fantastic Four’ … which would be mentioned in every article about a Superman movie is not only an insult to their own writers, but makes bad business sense. I have nothing but respect for the DC high-ups and, though obviously disappointed, can absolutely appreciate their position. They’re the custodians of these properties and they obviously know what they’re doing.”

Who will write the new film and whether or not he’ll be an established comic book writer remains to be seen.

Yep. We can be Heroes…again

Yep. We can be Heroes…again

Our top of the week Broadcast covers a lot of ground starting with our rundown of the newest comics and DVDs to hit the stores, including:

• A new zombie variant for Ultimate X-Men

• A second printing variant for the Green Arrow Black Canary Wedding Special

• A new Ride one-shot from Image, plus a look ahead to the future of the series from the creators

• A new DVD collection of the Angel series

Plus News Updates on:

Captain America‘s return and costume make-over

• The American Girls jump into video gaming

Heroes gets yet another graphic novel

And much more of the usual fun… including a trip back to what was on our pop culture on this day in 1988!

Jump right in & Press The Button!