Tag: Marvel

Variety confirms that Cobie Smulders is the front runner for the role of SHIELD agent Maria Hill in Joss Whedon's Avengers movie. Smulders is a Whedon favorite (he wanted her for his Wonder Woman movie) and Hill is a perfect Whedon-type character so the handwriting has been on the wall for this.

It's not a great month for Marvel. In fact, it's one of those rare months when DC had the largest share of the direct market, beating Marvel by 33% to 32% in dollar terms (though if you prefer the unit share, Marvel lead by 39% to 37%). In part, it's because DC's new Batman titles are doing very well - but as we'll see, it's also the case that Marvel just don't have any really big titles out this month. There are a couple of new ongoing series this month - WOLVERINE: THE BEST THERE IS and HEROES FOR HIRE. Following the Shadowland crossover, DAREDEVIL reinvents itself as BLACK PANTHER. And there's just one new miniseries - ULTIMATE COMICS DOOM. And that's it, so far as new books.

July's Captain America film starring Chris Evans just got its first poster. Looks gritty.

A news teaser campaign rolls out. Of course, the temptation to answer "a cult 1999 film starring Janeane Garofalo, Ben Stiller, Paul Reubens, Eddie Izzard, and William H. Macy and created by Bob Burden" is irresistible. If only...

Okay, so a member of the Fantastic Four died in FF #587 -- a comic which would normally be on sale tomorrow, Wednesday, like usual, but went on sale early at selected retailers. At the same time, a story hit the wires, NPR and just about every other media outlet with a "DEATH IN THE FAMILY" type story, effectively spoiling what had been a pretty well kept secret until then. Twitter was fluttering from the moment the stories hit. Whether you were outraged or shrugged your shoulders at the spoilage it was yet another example of a Big Two publisher planting a major media story and having no good option for timing. This also happened, famously, with the death of Captain America, the death of Batman, and surely many others stories we are too jaded to remember.

An AP story flooded the wires with a total spoiler on the death in this week's FANTASTIC FOUR #587. We blanked out the name here but click on the link if you MUST know:

TAKIO is definitely something different from Brian Bendis and Michael Oeming: a kids' story. Set in a family where two squabbling sisters learn to...

Geoff Boucher got to ramble around the X-MEN: FIRST CLASS set yesterday, and hear about Matthew Vaughn's anxiety about getting it finished, and James...

A few set photos floating around this afternoon are of interest for various reasons. ¶ A fan on the street snapped a shot of a...

Poor Emma Stone. As lovely and charming as she is, she did not know that by answering some nerdy question on the red carpet she was stepping into a hotbed of fannish research. While everyone went all Zapruder inspecting the bulges on Andrew Garfield's wrists in the recently released look at him in Spider-garb, she innocently answered the burning question:

A fine infographic chart which, if not for the initiated, still lays out mutant heredity in an elegant way.

This grainy scan from tomorrow's EW is running around the internet. We smell something, and it smells like THE ROCKETEER.