Tag: Marvel

The past year has seen an unusually large number of Sherlock Holmes adaptations, both in comics and on the screen, but not all Holmeses are created equal. Last night, British viewers got to see the last episode of Season 2 of the BBC's wildly popular starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, and Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows starring Robert Downey Junior and Jude Law is still doing well in theaters a month after it opened. So if you're in a Holmesian mood and wondering what to read next, here's run down on the Holmes adaptations which have come out or had new installments in the past year. Varying from inspiredly odd to unreadably awful, don't go to the comic store without reading this first!

The actual Jim Cheung cover to AVENGERS vs. X-MEN #1, this April's big cross-fight event, has just been revealed.

Perhaps not wanting to be left off the second wave chatter today, Marvel has announced a slew of second printings for books like SCARLET SPIDER and DEFENDERS. And some new covers, as well.

Fight! Marvel is releasing a series of teasers for Avengers vs X-Men, the big slugfest for 2012, and we're pleased to EXCLUSIVELY present this one by the great Alan Davis .

The biggest superhero brawl in the history of the Marvel Universe begins this April in Avengers Vs. X-Men #1!   Which team will reign supreme? Join the conversation on Twitter with #AvX!

From the moment Disney purchased Marvel, people were drawing a line between their Disney XD channel -- an attempt to lure more of the lucrative audience of young boys -- and the Marvel characters. Marvel animation has been running non-stop on the cable channel ever since, but in April, the Marvel Universe programming block will roll out with the new Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon as the tentpole. Produced by Man of Action — Joe Casey, Joe Kelly, Duncan Rouleau and Steven Seagle—the creators behind Ben 10 and Generator Rex, with input from Jeph Loeb,joe Quesada and Brian Michael Bendis, the show does not lack for comic book bonafides. Plus, it's got JK Simmons reprising his lifetime role as J. Jonah Jameson. Soundboard that.

A new poster for the Avengers film has been circulating -- this seems to be the "Ultimate Avengers Movie" version.

Bryan Hitch, the king of widescreen comics, is announcing the end of his Marvel run of nearly ten years -- or at least that's what he's tweet hinting:

In two days time, an amazing decade at Marvel closes for me. What a wonderful time to have joined the party. Very proud and honoured.

For the last month, Hitch has been counting down to a purported huge announcement -- he has only five days to go, so January 3 will be the big day -- coincidentally, the day that Hitch's frequent -- Ultimates, Authority-- collaborator Mark Millar also has an announcement planned. Hm.

Marvel has won a four-year legal battle over who owns the rights to Ghost Rider. On Wednesday a judge rejected the claim by writer Gary Friedrich, who co-created the character in 1972's MARVEL SPOTLIGHT #5 along with Roy Thomas and Mike Ploog.

Stopping digital piracy has become a full-time obsession for most major entertainment companies; but the Stop Online Piracy Act now wending its way through Congress is probably not the way to do it -- a far too broad law that would give lawmakers powers to stop just about any activity they don't like via cutting off funding to the site and other zero tolerance measures. Although aimed at hard-to-stop foreign websites that recognize no copyright laws, opponents say the bill goes way too far in allowing copyright holders to choke off stuff they don't want with an arsenal of tools.

Marvel Executive Editor Tom Brevoort has opened up some kind of secret vault where artifacts from Marvel's history have been stored; and just like anyone else would do, he's putting them on Tumblr. For instance, here's the origial last page of AVENGERS #1 with Tom's annotation:

With FEAR ITSELF wrapping up, Marvel had several major releases in November - the POINT ONE one-shot, the relaunches of UNCANNY X-MEN and FANTASTIC FOUR, and the first issue of new ongoing title AVENGING SPIDER-MAN.

We've also got the epilogue of FEAR ITSELF, the start of BATTLE SCARS, and a bunch of other "Regenesis" tie-ins from the X-books.

Marvel found itself behind DC for the third straight month in November, though the gap is growing closer. DC led by 40% to 38% in unit share, and 35% to 33% in dollars. And of course, it should be remembered that DC's extra sales don't appear to have come at Marvel's expense; if DC's relaunch has brought any new or lapsed readers into the market, then in theory, that's good for other publishers too - it brings them into everyone's potential market.

Thanks as always to ICV2.com for permission to use these figures.

5. POINT ONE
11/11  One-shot - 113,352

Marvel's top selling comic of the month! Or is it? This book was massively overshipped, with retailers receiving twice the number of copies they'd actually ordered, at no extra cost. Those copies are presumably included in this number - that certainly appears to be Diamond's standard practice, given the odd sales spikes that we've seen when this strategy has been used before.

If that's the case, then the actual orders of this book would be 56,676 - which would have placed the book at number 29 between AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and AVENGERS. Considering the solicitation ("You CANNOT miss this. Catch a tease of the biggest change to the Marvel Universe in over 35 years!") that number would surely have been disappointing, even allowing for the six dollar price tag. The wisdom of pricing a teaser book that high must also be open to question.

Via their Facebook page, the upcoming Spider-Man reboot movie posted some stills. Surely Jim Carrey is very excited now over this still of Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, as well as Captain Stacy and Peter Parker in action. Is it just us or has this Spidey reboot hype kind of gotten lost in the Batman/Avengers shuffle?