At Marvel.com, you can now read comics online! From the AP story:
Marvel is putting some of its older comics online Tuesday, hoping to reintroduce young people to the X-Men and Fantastic Four by showcasing the original issues in which such characters appeared.
It's a tentative move onto the Internet: Comics can only be viewed in a Web browser, not downloaded, and new issues will only go online at least six months after they first appear in print.
Still, it represents perhaps the comics industry's most aggressive Web push yet. Even as their creations -- from Iron Man to Wonder Woman -- become increasingly visible in pop culture through new movies and video games, old-school comics publishers rely primarily on specialized, out-of-the-way comic shops for distribution of their bread-and-butter product.
I'd love to weigh in on the service, but it seems like Marvel failed to anticipate the traffic this would generate, as their site is either timing out or throwing random SQL errors. I can tell that it's a subscription service, however, not a free one. It looks like you get a certain number of free samples, but membership is $9.99 per month or $59.88 annually. I certainly hope they beef up their server capabilities before too many people buy in.
If you'd like to try to check it out, visit Marvel Comics Unlimited. Let us know what you think!
According to IMDB.COM:
Tobey Maguire has confirmed the upcoming Spider-man 3 will be the last time he plays the superhero on the big screen. Co-star Kirsten Dunst has also said she feels the third film will be the last in the popular franchise. Maguire says, "To me it seems like this is a natural point for the team to break up because we have a lot of story conclusions that were going along for the main characters for the first two movies and we kind of tie almost everything up for the third movie. "It feels like a trilogy to me and it feels like the end." But moviemaker Sam Raimi isn't so sure that it's all over for the web-slinging movie hero. In a recent interview, the director stated he's seriously considering a fourth film. He explains, "I love Spider-Man and I love working with Kirsten, Tobey, James Franco)... I just have to make sure that when I'm done with Spider-Man 3, I'm really still fascinated with the character. At this moment I'm fascinated with him." But Raimi insists he couldn't imagine making a fourth installment if Maguire didn't sign on for it. He adds, "I couldn't imagine it."
Hey! According to this panel from Civil War #7, the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier runs on Mac OS X. And Deputy Director Hill (goofing off reading comic books sites at work notwithstanding) browses using Safari.
So, do the engine turbines run as a desktop widget? Can I get little widget trackers that tell me where tagged superheroes are? Because that would be awesome.
I hope this is wrong, but the image is kinda convincing. I'm quoting this from an Amazon post I stumbled upon:
*This book reveals the secret history of Iron Man. I cant reveal how I got it because it may cost me my job (and no, I dont work for Marvel)
SPoilers ahead
We learn that Tony stark was never in the iron man suit!! From the beginning Steve Rogers was Iron MAN and Stark was just the public image/persona. Rogers was never frozen after WW2, It turns out that was his clone, part of the super soldier program (I guess they had cloning tech back in the 40's). I'm guessing Stark and the Real Steve rogers will reveal this to the cloned Rogers at the end of CW.
Whoever OKed this stupid retconn should be fired. The art was pretty good though, Zircher does classic superheroes right.*
This is almost certainly bullshit, but hey, with all the whacked out stuff they've been doing, who the hell knows?
-Joshiebear
Newsarama just finished revealing the lineup for the (New) New Avengers
today. Thought I'd pass the info along for anyone who hasn't been following
it. Without further Ado...."Ronin, Echo (yeah, Ronin is someone else now.
Cap? Hawkeye? We shall see!), Spider-Woman, Dr. Strange, Wolverine, Luke
Cage, Iron Fist (HEROES FOR HIRE! WOOOO!) and Spidey. Sounds like a pretty
cool book to me! Can't wait!
-Joshiebear
It seems that there is still hope for not only another X-men movie, but for Gambit appearing in it as well. This is straight from IMDB:
Lost star Josh Holloway is being tipped to star in the next X-Men movie as fan favorite Gambit. Holloway, who plays Sawyer on the hit TV show, was set to star as Gambit in X-Men: The Last Stand but pulled out because of TV commitments. But it's reported the model/actor will star in the next installment, which will not feature many of the film's original stars, including Hugh Jackman, Sir Ian McKellen and Halle Berry. The film's producer Lauren Shuler Donner tells Moviehole, "Remember in Lost? There was a guy in there that was the perfect Gambit, the guy with the straight hair, good-looking, the bad boy… Sawyer. The reason we didn't use Gambit was because in a sense his persona is a bit like Wolverine in that he's got attitude and his power is not quite as exciting as the others. That's why we went to Nightcrawler on 2 because he looked different than everybody else and he had a great power. So yes, I think we would weave Gambit within our story, (but) it wouldn't be The Gambit Movie." Gambit possesses the ability to charge objects with energy, causing them to explode.
Here's hoping that it's better than X-men: The Last Stand....so I wonder what the fourth installment will be called?
X4: Fo' Real The Last Stand, We Mean It This Time!
X4: Look Girls, It's Gambit!
X4: We Really Should Have Stopped At 2!
X4: Hey, Remember Superman 4?!!
X4: The Search for Xavier.
X4: No More Mutants!!!
X4: The New Class (I have never seen Save By the Bell after Screech left!)
X4: This One's for Morph!
X4: Can We Really Risk Not Having Wolverine In This Movie?
X4: You Know Your Ass is Going To See It Omar, So Quit Frontin'!
High hopes as far as the schedule, not story mind you. Seems Amazon.com is already soliciting all the Civil War trades. With the main trade scheduled to come out in March. Not sure how accurate this list is, but you can check it out yourself.
News from Joshiebear!
The character is enjoying a solid resurgence in popularity thanks to the ongoing series by Charlie Huston and David Finch, and now, according to * Variety*, Moon Knight may be headed to television.
The trade today reported that Marvel Studios has joined with No Equal Entertainment – a Vancouver-based production company – to develop a live-action television series based on Moon Knight.
As Variety explains it, the series "will follow soldier of fortune Marc Spector as he becomes the titular vigilante after an encounter with the Egyptian god of vengeance and moon deity."
The character first appeared in Werewolf by Night #32 in 1975, and was created by Doug moench and Don Perlin.
Issue #6 of Moon Knight is due in stores on November 15th.
Did anyone else notice that Marc Spector was mentioned in the Blade pilot?
-Joshiebear
Brian Hibbs, owner of Comix Experience and regular author of The Savage Critic has an opinion about Marvel's Civil War delays that he'd like to share with you:
Look, man, this is fucked up.
CIVIL WAR has been one of the few legitimate home run hits that Marvel has had -- it is both connecting with the core Marvel reader, but it is directly and specifically bringing "back" "Lapsed" readers, and new faces to their core properties.
To have the schedule slip this badly is, flatly, unconscionable.
History shows us that when books like this start to slip, they end up with a cascade effect. I laughed when I saw the projected dates for #6 & 7 as being back on a monthly schedule after #5's big-ass delay -- that seems... unlikely? improbable? pure fiction?
Read the full post here.
So here's the thing - do you know how you, as readers, can tell Marvel (and DC, when appropriate) that late books are not acceptible? You can't just not pick them up - your local retailer has already ordered them and payed for them by that point, which is all that matters financially to the publishers. You have to remove these books from your reserve folders, and you have to tell your retailers that you don't want them, so they don't order them in the first place. Until the big two actually feel the pain of decreased orders, this is going to remain the business-as-usual policy at both. No amount of fan-bitching matters if you still pay for the damn books.
