HYPE!

By Todd Allen

--I learned something new today. Remember how Watchmen started out as a treatment for the Charlton characters DC had purchased? Come to find out out, DC didn't purchase the rights to all the Charlton characters and Dynamite now has the rights to Peter Cannon/Thunderbolt. As in, the prototype for Watchmen's Ozymandias.

You may have seen the ad here on The Beat, but just to explain what's going on, Viper Comics has made WORLD WAR HACK free to read via iTunes for 24 hours only.

There are some comics that really should have digital editions. American Flagg! is a 15 minutes into the future classic of dystopian (not _quite_ cyberpunk) science fiction that put Howard Chaykin into the spotlight with First Comics in the early 1980s. A political satire featuring military industrial complex taking over, government regulation of cable television, the outlawing of sports (leading to an underground basketball league), subliminal messages, a talking cat,some Nazis, and a fair amount of sex, Flagg! is a hugely influential book.

Thun'da is a bit of an oddity from the tail end of the golden age (1952). On the surface, it's a variation on the Tarzan mythos, with a bit of a cold war spin. It only ran for six issues. On the other hand, the first issue was one of legendary painter/illustrator Frank Frazetta's comic projects. It also was tapped for a movie serial starring Buster Crabbe. According to comics.org, Gardner Fox was the scripter on the first issue, adding a little most historical flavor to it.

Dynamite has landed a new comics license in Pathfinder. Pathfinder, if you're not current on role-playing games, is a sort of spin-off of Dungeons & Dragons. Essentially, the D&D 3.5 rule set is available for licensing via a "Game System License" and Pathfinder jumps off from that point. Tor talks about Pathfinder as being like D&D "3.75" and an alternative to the latest rule revisions to the mother ship.

The Freedom Fighters don't appear to have formed in the "New 52" DC universe yet, but darned if Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray aren't hovering over the characters. Palmiotti & Gray wrote the pre-relaunch Freedom Fighters comics, the post-relaunch The Ray and now will be writing Phantom Lady. Not just Phantom Lady, either. Freedom Fighter alumni Dollman will also be part of what appears to be a fairly major reworking of the characters.

Hawkeye is an odd character, if you look at his publishing history. He's been a staple of the Avengers since the title's earliest days. In fact, you could probably argue that the core of the Avengers were the Vision and Hawkeye. Characters that you read in Avengers and not solo books. When they wanted to spin-off West Coast Avengers, Hawkeye was the centerpiece of the spin-off. When they launched Solo Avengers, Hawkeye was the regular feature. You had Hawkeye mini-series in '83, '94 and '03. More recently, you had Hawkeye & Mockingbird and Hawkeye: Blindspot. You even had an Ultimate Hawkeye mini-series. Hawkeye is similar to Doctor Strange. Whereas Doctor Strange limped along in a lower selling cult title for several years, with occasional team book stops (usually variations on The Defenders, Hawkeye has been a staple of several popular team books (Avengers, West Coast Avengers, Secret Avengers... and an early stop over in The Defenders), but his solo efforts just haven't gotten much traction.

We really don't link to our comics coverage over at PW Comics World as much as we should, so we are here to remedy that, especially when an issue as jammed as this month's comes out. Some highlights:

Brian Wood used to be known as a Vertigo writer. Axel Alonso used to be known as a Vertigo editor. When Wood's time at Vertigo ended, did you think Brian and Axel might have a chat? Maybe.

Being announced at Wondercon right now: what's going on with Avengers Academy and the Avengers Vs. X-Men Event.

Spinning out of the Spider-Man panel at Wondercon, we have two announcements: the next Spidey arc (and villain) and a Punisher mini-series that's a bit different from the monthly.

Steve Gerber died in 2008. Four years later, his final Man-Thing story is coming out. Doubtless, this would have gotten a sardonic retort from Gerber, so let's all pause a moment and let you imagine it. Felt good imagining that, didn't it?