UPDATED – The direct links expired today at 9 PM, PST. Stick with the YouTube links now, kiddies.

The new Spidey trailer debuted a couple days ago at San Francisco’s WonderCon, and was featured during last night’s Heroes episode. To briefly summarize, it features a lot of Peter and Mary Jane’s love story, and a crazy badass fight sequence.

Today, finally, it’s available on NBC’s site, with the main site link right here. Or, if you’re looking to download directly, here are some direct links to the files:

480p HD Version (229 MB)

720p HD Version (285 MB)

Make sure you have Quicktime 7. Though it goes without saying, you won’t need Quicktime if you happen to stick purely to YouTube versions.

Dynamo 5
written by Jay Faerber, art by Mahmud Asrar

When Captain Dynamo died, his widow discovered he’d been unfaithful. Now, as his enemies descend on his unprotected city, Captain Dynamo’s widow rounds up his five illegitimate children, each of whom have inherited one of their father’s super-powers.

Kind of sucks to be Captain Dynamo’s widow. Not only does she find out about her husband’s infidelity, she also has to hunt down his illegitimate children, and then she has to flaunt his infidelity in her own face by sending out these children to follow and fight in his footsteps.

Honestly, it’s tough to say too much more about this book, as I’ve never read Faerber’s popular Noble Causes book, which this spins indirectly out of. All I know is that it successfully (financially as well as storywise) deals with family in the superhero context too. And honestly, the idea of these kids being asked to avenge a father who wasn’t there for them has my interest piqued all on its own. I’m definitely onboard for the first issue, and you should be too.

Today’s the big finish for WonderCon, and the upcoming animated DVDs from DC were the highlight of the day. Read on, OR ELSE…

DC:

• Superman/Doomsday is due to release on September 18th, 2007. Superman will be voiced by Adam Baldwin, Lois Lane gets Anne Heche, and Lex Luthor is James Marsters.
• The next film to be released will be DC: New Frontier.
• The third animated feature they’re working on – Teen Titans: The Judas Contract – is in pre-production, and will have a different animation style from the recent Teen Titans cartoon. They’ll also stick more tightly to the comic, to differentiate themselves from the similar arc on the series.
• Each movie will have its own ‘pocket’ continuity, where they’re not beholden to each other, or to the previous cartoons. Also, the movies will have more freedom in what they can do (read: they’re going to corrupt our youth with violence), as they aren’t made specifically for TV.
• The DVDs should have a decent amount of special features, like behind-the-scenes featurettes and other extras and games.
• After these three, they’re looking to do films for Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Catwoman in the future. (The OTHER Big 3 of DC, right?) Bruce Timm’s wishlist for the future includes: The Question, Jonah Hex, New Gods, Kamandi, and Challengers of the Unknown.

IDW:

• For Transformers books, we have an upcoming Spotlight on Kup and one for Galvatron, a Megatron Origin mini, and two “Best Of” books – one for Don Figueroa and one for Simon Furman.
• There will be a Star Trek: Original Series mini which will have two versions of each issue – one in English, one in Klingon. And I was just wondering what could be nerdier than merely mating Star Trek and comics…

GROO THE WANDERER:

• Like we said yesterday, the prognosis on the Groo/Conan crossover looking good.
• Also, Mark Evanier has completed a script for the “Groo the Wanderer” movie, and Sergio Aragonés has completed some art, but at the moment it’s still tied up in negotiations.

Well, in case today’s news updates don’t tip you off, Marvel & DC handed WonderCon the crap end of the stick when it came to breaking the news, compared to NYCC. Thank God for the smaller publishers! And hey, they’re previewing the 300 movie tonight, ain’t that’s pretty sweet too. Hey, here’s the news!

DARK HORSE COMICS:

• New books include an Abe Sapien book, reprints of Matt Wagner’s original Grendel issues (to celebrate the 25th anniversary), a new Grendel book, and, awesomest of the awesome…
• A possible GROO/CONAN crossover. SO AWESOME.

SLAVE LABOR GRAPHICS:

• They’re working on a downloadable-comic plan, and talking about a 69 cent ‘cover price.’ Not a bad pricing scheme.
• Gargoyles #3 has been done for THREE WEEKS. The holdup? Disney. Issues 4-6 will have fill-in art to catch up, which is just sad.

BOOM! STUDIOS:

• Amidst numerous new books launching, Giffen & DeMatteis’s Hero Squared will end at issue #9. My wretched eyes quiver in sorrow!

Well, it’s another weekend, so I guess that means it’s time for another comic convention.
…Really? Ok, I guess so. Here’s the news –

DC:

• Based on a little anecdote (A fan asked that they keep their weekly series the same price, and Didio put 50 cents on the table, saying “I’ve got your first one covered”) it sounds like Countdown gets a 50 cent price hike. Nice.
• Green Arrow ends at issue #75, with Green Arrow proposing to Black Canary.
• There’ll be a Black Canary miniseries running at the same time as this summer’s Green Arrow: Year One.
• WWIII will be “Black Adam versus everybody.”
• A Metal Men miniseries is coming.

More news as it comes…

Source: Newsarama.com

Because we can never have enough animated series starring Spider-Man, Kids’ WB! has just announced a brand new Spidey cartoon, tentatively named The Amazing Spider-Man, set to debut in early 2008.

So far we have Greg Weisman as supervising producer – whose previous credits include Gargoyles, one episode of Ben 10, one episode of The Batman, one episode of Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, one – you know, you get the idea (don’t forget one episode of Jem!) – and we also have Victor Cook as producer/supervising director – whose recent credits include Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron, W.I.T.C.H., and various episodes of Tarzan, Lilo & Stitch, and Buzz Lightyear. Hurrah for Disney?

The show will feature a 16-year-old Peter Parker, so I imagine this will be a ground-up telling of his story, much like the Ultimate books. In fact, if they’re smart, they’ll make Ultimate Spider-Man the series bible. I hear that book sells pretty well.

We’ll keep you updated with more news as it trickles in!

Dr. Strange: The Oath #5 (of 5)
written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Marcos Martin

This book clearly illustrates why Brian K. Vaughan is one of comics’ top writers today, and why it’s an absolute travesty that he’s going to be writing creator-owned stuff solely from now on. Dr. Strange is often criticised for being too powerful of a character. He waves his hands, and the problem is solved immediately. There’s no limit to what he can do, and so there’s no situation where he’s ever in real danger. Brian K. Vaughan not only slaps these misconceptions in the face, he also goes on to make you excited and eager to read about the guy’s exploits.

In this book, Wong is dying of cancer, and Dr. Strange went to great lengths to find a cure – but then the cure was stolen by a sorcerer who works at a pharmaceutical company who can’t afford for their business to be ruined. Throughout, one of the more surprising aspects that Vaughan has explored is Dr. Strange’s ruined hands – Strange got into sorcery because his hands were mangled in a car accident, putting an end to his days as a surgeon. Another side effect of mangled hands: It’s quite difficult to shoot the giant eye of a giant demonic being strangling your friends – even if it’s Hitler’s gun, which you stole from your enemy – when your fingers are unsteady and crooked. Oh, and Night Nurse has been hanging out with them the whole time which, I promise you, is pretty awesome and brilliant in itself.

What Vaughan does is take the core components of the character – previously a doctor, has ruined hands, now practices sorcery – and celebrates them in the midst of a compelling and exciting story. I’ve never read a Dr. Strange story that equals this one, and if you’ve got any sense whatsoever, you’ll scoop up all 5 issues of this mini when you hit the shop tomorrow.

CBR is reporting on a new series featuring independently owned creations – from Savage Dragon to Shi to Madman to Cerebus – called “War of the Independents.” A cursory glance at the accompanying image tells me … well, it tells me there’s going to be dozens of characters I don’t recognize. Is that Captain Canuck in there?

The inspiration comes from artist Dave Ryan, who explains that having just survived Infinite Crisis and Civil War, he figured he’d never seen a similar sort of story featuring independent characters. The story he has planned is going to focus on “the villains Kain and Orcus trying to create a reverse tower of Babel to open the gates of Hell and destroy the Earth.” Not a terribly well-thought out plan, if you ask me – where will they live then? The moon?

As for when we can expect to see this, according the article, these villains are going to be introduced in Ryan’s Penance book in March 2008. So we may not be seeing this for a while, unless that ’08 was a typo for ’07. In the meantime, I’ll just oscillate between being worried and excited about seeing another potential train-wreck of a crossover.