Newarama reports that Ultimates 2 is finally heading to the printers, and that it’ll be in stores on May 16th. How late does that make it? 6 years? Anyway, there’s a massive 8 page spread in the book (take that, unweildly 3 page fold-out in JLA #7!), and you can click on the image to see it in all its gigantorness.

New Avengers #29
written by Brian Michael Bendis, art by Leinil Yu

New Avengers vs. Mighty Avengers

It’s been a big year for the Avengers, and between Mighty and New Avengers, Bendis has gotten plenty opportunity to write teams named Avengers. This Wednesday, Marvel’s two powerhouse teams come head to head, and lucky us, we get to see Leinil Yu show off his awesome pencils as the two teams duke it out.

Honestly, I don’t know what more to say about this. It’s New Avengers vs. Mighty Avengers. Either you’re excited already, or you’re never going to be. (Also, Leinil Yu is awesome!) Chell the preview below. Alright, I’m out.

David Goyer, most recently known for his work writing Batman Begins, is going to be putting his pen to work on a movie called “Super Max.” This seems to be a name of a supervillain jail, but the movie is focusing on one specific prisoner – a fella named Oliver Queen. (You may know him better as the Green Arrow.) The premise sounds awesome, but don’t take my word for it. Here’s Goyer’s description:

He’s Green Arrow for the first 10 minutes of the movie, and then he’s arrested and his secret identity is revealed … They shave his goatee and they take his costume and send him to prison for life, and he has to escape. It’s like ‘Alcatraz,’ and he has to team up with, in some cases, some of the very same villains he is responsible for incarcerating in order to get out and clear his name. Of course, tons of people try to kill him while he’s in there. We’ve populated the prison with all sorts of B and C villains from the DC Universe. For the fans, there will be all sorts of characters the hardcore comic book junkies will know, but they’re all going to be there under their human names and no one is wearing a costume, but there will be a lot of characters with powers and things like that.

Sounds like a fantastic premise for a movie, an excellent use of the DC Universe, and an interesting application of the character. Can’t you just imagine Ollie use a sharpened plastic fork and elastic from his underwear to impale a man 2,000 yards away?

Free Comic Book Day is in exactly one month – May 5th, 2007! (That’s the first Saturday in May.) It’s gotten bigger and bigger each year, and this year there are over 40 different books to choose from! That is, if your local shop orders them all.

Looking over the selection of books, boo to DC for just reprinting JLA #0 and issue #1 of the animated Legion book – Yet another year of DC participating in a totally half-assed way. (I guess some jeers go to IDW too for reprinting the Transformers Movie Prequel Comic #1, even if they’re actually pushing a movie here.)

Books to watch:

• Marvel – Amazing Spider-Man: Swing Shift – written by Dan Slott, art by Dan Jimenez
• Marvel – Marvel Adventures Three-In-One – featuring an Iron Man, Hulk, and Franklin Richards story (grab one to give to a kid!)
• Image – Astounding Wolf-Man #1 – new book from Robert Kirkman
• Antarctic Press – Pirates vs. Ninjas #1 – because it’s PIRATES VS. NINJAS
• Fantagraphics Books – The Unseen Peanuts – over 100 strips of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts that have NEVER been reprinted
• Rude Dude Productions – Nexus Special – Steve Rude picking up the reigns on his long dormant character
• Topshelf Productions – Owly & Korgi – Owly is a regular favorite of Free Comic Book Day fans
• Wildcard Ink – Gumby Special – because it’s Gumby!

Wanted, the movie based on the miniseries by Mark Millar, is supposed to start filming this month in Prague. (That’s in the Czech Republic, knuckleheads.) You might have heard of this, as Angelina Jolie was recently cast, and Morgan Freeman also stars in it. Obviously, neither of them are the title character – a gumpy white guy that finds out his father was a supervillain-type assassin and gets trained to fill his shoes. This is James McAvoy‘s role. It’s a fairly messed up book, burdened with one of the lamest last pages I’ve ever encountered (depending on your interpretation, it’s either Millar laughing at you for buying the book, or telling you to go out and be like the character). Oddly enough, it sounds like the film adaptation is removing most (if not all) of the superhero/supervillain aspects – perhaps the most endearing aspect of the story.

Anyway, all of that was to bring you up to speed, so you have some semblance of context for the little piece of concept art Bazelevs has treated us to. In their words, New American project of Timur Bekmambetov with the working title “Wanted@ is in progress. For right now the revisualization for the future feature is being made. CG specialists develop “art” and camera moves, objects, characters interaction, shots composing, animation – in a word, it is already seen now how the future featyre will look like. This work is being done for ‘Universal Studios”.

Ah, translations.

Madman Atomic Comics #1
written and drawn by Mike Allred

Mike Allred has an impressive comics resume, ranging from Spider-Man to the recent (and acclaimed) X-Statix, to the Bluntman and Chronic comic pages in Chasing Amy, and even to “The Golden Plates” – an adaptation of the Book of Mormon. Wait, really? Huh, really. Well, anyway, one of his most prominent works remains his creator-owned work on Madman. Having previously been published under smaller publishers, I’ve never gotten my hands on a Madman comic, despite being able to instantly recognize the character on sight. You have to admit – he makes for an intriguing visual.

As for who he is, Madman “was a hitman who was killed in a car accident, then stitched back together and brought to life by a pair of mad scientists.” I don’t know much else about the character, other than the fact that Bruce Timm admittedly used Madman as a direct inspiration for Freakazoid – “with comics open and referred to when developing the show.” And Freakazoid was pretty awesome, right? So, with a movie currently in the works, a hard-earned reputation for excellence, and a new issue #1, what better time to get acquainted with the character? The answer is NONE. So be cool like me – Gamble with a couple bucks and pick up the issue this Wednesday.

Textless preview pages after the jump…
[Read the rest of this entry…]

The latest Lying In The Gutters article (the popular comics-related rumor column that’s right far more often than not) has a little segment, all the way near the end, titled “ROBOTS IN DIS GUISE” where Rich Johnston has this to report:

“Transformers 2” is being prepped for 2009, as is a new cartoon series to spin off the upcoming movie.

The reason given to licensors as to why the robots look so different in the film is so that hardcore fans will stay loyal and keep buying the old toys, which they’re relaunching, even if they hate the new movie.

Licensing has explicitly stated that companies doing merchandising have to avoid doing anything too similar to the original Transformers line, so as not to mix the two separate and profitable properties.

That last comment is interesting, in that the Transformers Movie and original Transformers are being viewed as separate lines.

Also, gotta love the second statement about “hardcore fans.” Partly because of the businesslike flippancy, partly because of the accuracy.

Legendary Superman director Richard Donner recently teamed up with Geoff Johns to write a Superman story in Action comics – a story that came is still coming out at a glacial Civil War-like pace. This summer, Donner and Johns are teaming up again, to put out a 5-issue sequel to another nostalgia-ridden film property that Donner directed – The Goonies. The story picks up only a few years later for the characters, with the story centering on Sloth’s disappearance … on the exact same day those evil genius Fratelli brothers escaped from prison. Expect the book to be finished sometime around spring, 2012. (I kid, I kid.)

Wizard has the full story here.