san diego comic-con, part 2

So I'm back with Part 2 of my Comic-Con Adventure (a week later). Which has nothing to do with my adventure at all really, but more my reactions to all the news that came out of the show itself.

Part 1 was a rundown of the show itself. Click here.

BIGGEST NEWS OF THE CON

MARVEL vs. DC!
FINAL CRISIS vs. ASTONISHING X-MEN!
GRANT MORRISON vs. WARREN ELLIS!
J.G. JONES vs. SIMONE BIANCHI!

The winner:

Warren Ells & Simone Bianchi on ASTONISHING X-MEN

Grant Morrison writing the we-knew-it-was-coming Final Crisis mini is nowhere near as surprising as Warren Ellis doing the flagship title for the X-Books. Even though this is a long way off (Warren himself said that it was announced rather early, he doesn't start writing for another month), it's still a pretty exciting turn of events. Just reading Ellis talk about Nigeria proves to me that he will bring an interesting take to the X-Men. This will be well after the Messiah Complex crossover, so there should be a wide open and clear landscape to work with. Simone Bianchi is a really talented artist, who deserves to have something more interesting to draw than the Jeph Loeb's Wolverine. UGH. (I wanted to get a sketch from him at con, but that line was ridiculous.) And even though Final Crisis isn't as interesting to me, the creative team itself miiiight get me to take a look. Morrison is good, and its really exciting to hear that the talented Jones will do some more pencil work. WANTED was what, three years ago now? His covers are good, but his art was so dynamic with choice of "camera angles" that it was sad that he kind of stopped. Should be fun.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN CREATIVE TEAMS ANNOUNCED

They announced the creative teams for the three times a month AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. Now, apparently these writers and artists won't always match up, but for their first arcs, here they are:

Dan Slott & Steve McNiven
Marc Guggenheim & Salvador Larroca
Bob Gale & Phil Jimenez
Zeb Wells & Chris Bachalo

Writers:

Slott of course is PERFECT for Spider-Man. Exciting.
Guggenheim (for me) has only written that average Wolverine Civil-War story, but I'm open minded.
Bob "Back to the Future" Gale wrote a Daredevil story I read long ago, and I remember it being pretty good.
And Zeb Wells has never done anything I've been excited about, but he appears to have his fans (at least at Marvel).
So a YES, maybe, maybe and not really. Which is not the greatest odds, but we'll see.

Artists on the other hand:

Steve McNiven is just flat out amazing (no pun intended), and even though I eventually want him to draw X-Men for a healthy run, I'll take a little Spider-Man for now:

Salvador Larroca is another pretty good choice for Spider-Man.
Phil Jimenez is my least favorite of the four, but he does some really good work when he is on.
Chris Bachalo, I love. And I think his art is pretty damn perfect for Spider-Man.

The verdict is definitely out on how the storylines amongst the different writers will flow from one to the next. And it still stinks of a little too much editorial input than I would like, but I've wanted something to be done for the Spider Books for a long time, so I can't bitch about it too much. One things for sure, its gonna look nice.

JEPH LOEB AND MARVEL ANNOUNCE ULTIMATUM

And how we should make sure we read ULTIMATE POWER #7-9 first, and then ULTIMATE ORIGIN and then come back for ULTIMATUM which runs through ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR and ULTIMATE X-MEN for six issues.

(ultimates vol. 3 cover)

This is odd news for sure, but I'll get to that in a minute. I've been really frustrated with the current state of the Ultimate Universe and I'm happy that someone is finally addressing the obvious fact that this truck has lost a couple of wheels in the last couple of years. Unfortunately, the universe has stumbled into something shitty, and the fire that this imprint had when it started is almost completely gone.

Now its not ALL bad. Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimates (when it is published) are pretty good comics. The adventures of young Peter Parker is nothing like the "married guy" in 616, and although the Ultimates appear to be the Avengers on the surface, the Ultimate version has a completely different attitude and makeup. Hell, this one even has a Captain America now! Obviously, these two books share being removed enough from their 616 counterparts to be worth their own book. (And yeah Tom Brevroot and Joe Quesada, I'm using 616!)

We can not say the same thing about Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men. In fact, Ultimate X-Men has devolved so far from Mark Millar's original take, that it has become a really bad 616 version, which we definitely don't need. Ultimate Fantastic Four boasts a younger version of the Richards family, but really, there is not too much that separates them from what we get in the real book. And unfortunately, as hard as Mike Carey is trying, that is hurting the title. It comes across as just another Fantastic Four book.

So the Ultimate Universe needs a face lift. This is where the news is odd. Enter: Jeph Loeb.

I'm not a big Jeph Loeb fan. Until the recently disastrous Wolverine run coupled with Fallen Son, I never really had anything bad to say at all. In fact, I've only read him a couple of times here and there (some SUPERMAN/BATMAN, DAREDEVIL: YELLOW, SPIDER-MAN: BLUE) and those were all mostly good comics. And although I have not read them, everyone that has speaks well of BATMAN: THE LONG HALLOWEEN and SUPERMAN: FOR ALL SEASONS. Point is, he has and can do good comics. So I'm open minded about this, and what especially excites me is that he gets that this is the Ultimate Universe. That anything can happen. He seems prepared to have fun and make some changes. And shit, maybe he will. And if we're lucky, it will be good too.

(Recently there have been rumors of there being a real big shakeup with both the Fantastic Four and X-Men titles being canceled. I'm all for it. Lets mix this thing up a little.)

SMALLER NEWS BITS

Mark Waid becomes EiC over at BOOM! Studios. This is big news to some, but I don't pick up any of their books and I haven't read anything Waid has written in quite some time, so I'll take a closer look at their offerings from now on, but this is almost non-news to me.

The Knaufs are writing an ETERNALS series. I'm game. I feel like the Knaufs keep getting fucked over by crossovers with Iron Man (Civil War, World War Hulk) but there is a real nice take on Iron Man going on underneath all of the noise. This could be really good.

Terry Moore and Humberto Ramos on RUNAWAYS:

FUCK. And YEAH. See this is putting talent where it should be. Terry Moore has a bit to prove as far as Super Hero action goes, but he has absolutely nothing to prove as far as character goes, so this should fit well. And as much as I bitch and moan about Humberto's art over on X-Men, its only because I feel its miscast there. BAM! This is the perfect book for his style. Nice job Nick Lowe.

Darwyn Cook is leaving THE SPIRIT with #12. I probably will be too.

Peter Pan, soon to be in public domain, will be in Fables next year. I kinda hate Peter Pan, but I want to see how Willingham will use him.

Vertigo's THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER looks pretty bad ass:

The writer, Josh Dyasrt went to Uganda himself and did a bunch of research about the area and the conflict that is raging there. I'm excited for this.

Todd McFarlane's big announcement is that he will be doing covers. LAAAAAAME. Fucking draw something already Todd. (I wouldn't bitch if I didn't want it that bad.)

Greg Rucka announces his new series. STUMPTOWN:

I'm always happy when Rucka does something non-super hero in black and white. This time we get a female private eye, getting involved in some private eye shit. I'm in for sure. Especially on the heels of the kick ass "final issue" to Queen & Country.

The other book that grabbed a testicle was Rick Remender and Mat Broome's THE END LEAGUE:

Remender is pretty good, and I was a fan of Mat Broome back in his X-Days, and I'm kind of scratching my head because I haven't heard his name in a good long while and he's getting pretty good.

Simon Oliver comes on for an arc of GEN 13 after Gail Simone. Oliver has been doing the mostly good, always entertaining EXTERMINATORS and I can't wait to see what his super hero comic "sounds like."

And while on the subject of Wildstorm, they announced the Christos Gage penned WILDSTORM: ARMAGEDDON mini-series. I'm not too excited for this, but again, just happy that the Wildstorm characters are getting some play while Morrison writes a page a week on Authority and Wildcats.


There were other bits here and there, but these were the things that caught my eye. Lots and lots of things on the horizon, and hopefully some good comics because that's what we are here for, right?

Part 3 soon, once I get my sketches all scanned.