Tag: Marvel

We're not savvy enough on the West Coast operations of Marvel to know what was behind this, but it's fairly safe to say that Disney cares much more about Marvel Studios than Marvel Comics. Implementation of the Disney-Marvel relationship has been an odd one -- on the one side, you have a corporate juggernaut who wants to reach the boy market for toys and toons. On the other, you have a company that is very much still led by chairman Ike Perlmutter, who, by some accounts, is Disney's second biggest shareholder after Steve Jobs. Marvel Studios is known for knowing the value of a penny -- something Disney also knows. But whereas Disney has controlling costs down to an art, Perlmutter has it down to a science. The relationship is still evolving.

Despite what seemed like a logical timeline, Disney did not reveal the identity of two mystery Marvel movies planned for Summer 2014 at this weekend's D23. A mystery Pixar film was shown to be “The Untitled Pixar film about Dinosaurs" and “The Untitled Pixar Movie that Takes You Inside the Mind.” Well, fair enough. The only Marvel movie touched on was THE AVENGERS -- Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner and Chris Hemsworth all showed up to wave to the crowd — however, and a no cell phones policy meant that no pictures or leaked footage got out.

We don't need us to tell you that it's tough times in the heartland of America these days. Slowing manufacturing, a recession that never really ended in some places, and a recovery that has failed to ignite. Luckily, one thing has come to the Steel belt to liven things up -- superhero movies. With Batman filming in Pittsburgh, Superman in Chicago, and now The Avengers in Cleveland (standing in for NYC? Ooooooookay) it's been boom times for photographers. Here's the latest Avengers leaked photos, showing Cap and Thor battling mocapped Hydra or someone goons.

This clip is way better than anything in the first Ghost Rider movie, including the last shot of Ghost Rider weeing flame. No one tell Anderson Cooper.

Yes, yes, I know. June? It's August. This column is horrendously late. The July sales are already out. So I'm going to focus on the big events this month and otherwise keep the commentary pretty brief. Then we'll be back on track, the sun will shine, and everything will be lovely.

The big news in June is, of course, the death of a Spider-Man. (Don't worry, they've got a spare.) FEAR ITSELF continues to sprawl across the Marvel Universe line, and there's also the first issue of a new GHOST RIDER series.

As normal, Marvel had the largest share of the North American direct market, leading DC by 43% to 33% in unit share and 39% to 28% in dollar terms.

In the new Axel-in-Charge feature at CBR, Axel Alonso announced that the most senior editor at any comics company anywhere is retiring:

Via this morning's teaser it turned out that November FF tease from Marvel was actually FF #600! Color me shocked! The lineup has been given as: However, Hickman earlier tweeted:

Heads up: For various reasons, one name has been left off the teasers for FF600. @mingdoyle is also going to be joining us. #stoked!

Doyle's name was on a recalled teaser image earlier, as we noted. Good to hear she's actually on board the book. But is that Human Torch flying merrily on the cover a ghostly echo of a departed friend? Or...is he still alive? Worra worra worra

Marvel sent out another one of their teasers earlier today which got people talking a little. While the news that Greg Pak and Mike McKone were taking over writing and drawing duties of ASTONISHING X-MEN with #44 in November was notable enough, the idea that Scott and Ororo -- who are in pretty tight relationships with others at this time -- might be locking lips is positively TMZ territory! Pak explained:

B-but...you died!! Marvel continues to release teaser images for a November FF event, and the latest image shows the Human Torch in a variant cover by Joe Quesada.

With Disney's D23 Expo coming up in a few days, the Mouse is priming the pump for some possible Marvel-related announcements. At the Television Critics Association press tour, ABC president Paul Lee confirmed that the AKA Jessica Jones and Guillermo del Toro=produced Hulk pilots are still in the works, saying both were being "aggressively" developed. He also dropped some arcane hints about...Castle?

Based on what we know of publishing data, August 8th, 1961 was the day FANTASTIC FOUR #1 arrived on newsstands. Tom Brevoort sent out a birthday tweet. Although there's talk of boycotts and justified anger over Marvel's shoddy treatment of some of its greatest talent over the years, we should still mark this day. Pairing the protean storytelling of Ditko and Kirby with the breezy populism of Stan Lee created some of the greatest adventure comics that have ever been, and we suspect they'll be read for another 50 years.

Marvel just sent out another one of its mystery teaser campaigns, with the above graphic and the tag "Coming in November 2011." Of late the FF has of course been renamed and renumbered Fantastic Force, in the wake of Johnny Storm's death. However, there had been some speculation that Marvel wouldn't pass up the opportunity to publish FANTASTIC FOUR #600 in what would have been the original numbering. Since two issues are shipping in October, the timing is right. Or it could be the return of Johnny, aka the Human Torch.