Marvel

Twitter and Tumblr prove what they are made for as artists tweeted their versions of Marvel characters as kitty cats, and Agent M hosted the results. I'm in yr meme, being cute. So cute we can't link to just one!

So it seems that Daredevil is going bye bye for a while -- DAREDEVIL was supposed to "end" with issue #512, with the Man Without Fear all caught up in the events of SHADOWLAND. Now it turns out that the title will start up again with issue #513 -- but starring the Black Panther. Author David Liss (A Conspiracy of Paper) will write the relaunch, with art handled by Francesco Francavilla. Solicitation copy suggest that taken from his natural setting and sundered from the doodads and moolah that come with being king of Wakanda, Black Panther will find himself having very different adventures in Hell's Kitchen.

by Paul O'Brien The big launch for July is the new ongoing X-MEN series, which duly makes its debut at the top of the chart. Also this month, as the X-books' "Second Coming" crossover ends, the Daredevil-centred SHADOWLAND event begins. The Young Avengers return in AVENGERS: THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE. And from the Icon imprint, there's the debut issue of Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev's SCARLET. Needless to say, Marvel were once again the top company in the direct market, leading DC by 43% to 35% in terms of unit share, and 39% to 32% in dollars.

Yet another step towards complete digital distribution as Marvel and Graphic.ly announced a deal to sell Marvel Comics via graphic-ky's desktop application. Single issues will be available via both digital download to desktop and some mobile devices, including such titles as Iron Man; Kick Ass; Amazing Spider Man; Captain America, and Astonishing X-Men. While comics have been getting establish on handheld devices, selling them via a stand-alone desktop client has been having a harder time getting off the ground; this should change that. Desktop downloads have the advantage of being readable when offline of benig able to be shared among devices.

They said it couldn't be done. Arising from a shambling mess of over-spending, poor planning, and bad management, against all odds the Spider-Man musical -- and its titanotheric top line of talent, including theater heavyweight Julie Taymor, guitar god Edge and immanence manifest Bono -- are actually coming to Broadway. Earlier in the week, the very first perplexing set concept art emerged, which you can see above. And today, Friday, a song from the musical will be performed for a mass audience for the first time, when Reeve Carney, who plays Spider-Man, sings one of the songs on Good Morning America. If you happen to be up and about at 7 am, you can even watch the taping.

There's a new Spider-Man franchise underway and it stars young Brit actor Andrew Garfield as the webslinger. But who is this man and will he be able to fill the tights and heavy eyewear of Tobey Maguire and Nicholas Hammond before him? Doing the rounds to promote his new film NEVER LET ME GO, he opened up for the first time about playing Peter Parker, and even if it's just his press agent telling him what to say, as is so often the case these days, Garfield has sold it beautifully:

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' INCOGNITO is back, with a new miniseries, INCOGNITO: BAD INFLUENCES, and of course Phillips has provided a stunning cover for the first issue. The book is on sale on October 6.

Marvel has a big writer's summit going on this week, and they celebrated the creative process with cake, as this picture by editor Nate Cosby proves. Does the tribute to Daredevil have anything to do with his regular book ending in November? Only the dessert bar will tell. Brian Bendis had more from the summit in a message board posting:

the superpowered nanny for Luke Cage and Jessica Jones' baby was voted on and unanimously decided by the entire Marvel editorial team and the attending creators. their first appearance will be in new avengers number seven.