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.

Day 3 seems to be grinding to a halt, and it’s turned out to be a little bit of a lighter news day for everyone. Here’s the bullet points:

• Brian K. Vaughan’s Ex Machina will end at issue #50, putting the series at about its halfway mark.
• Here’s an interesting recap of George Perez‘s panel, where he shares interesting stories, like how he stayed up 72 hours straight to get the original Crisis penciled and finished.
• Sci-Fi channel and Virgin comics have established a partnership, presumably to get shows into comic form, and comics into show form.
• Sci-Fi also had a panel dedicated to Battlestar: Galactica, revealing there would be a direct-to-DVD movie, which will actually later air on Sci-Fi. Surprised it isn’t the other way around, but whatever works, I guess. (Thanks to Crazy for pointing this one out.)

If anything more comes in, I’ll be sure to update, but today seems to have petered out a bit. Just for fun, here’s a recap of yesterday’s biggest headlines –

• Marvel and Top Cow Comics are both currently working on a digital distribution plans for their comics.
• Marvel announced a Halo ongoing comic, to be written by Brian Michael Bendis, with art by Alex Maleev.
• Ultimate delays – Ultimates #13 should be out by May or April (I’m betting not before May), Orson Scott Card is still working on Ultimate Iron Man 2, no release date yet for Ultimates 3, Ultimate Wolverine/Hulk has a completed script for 3 – and almost one for 4.
• Avengers/Transformers update! Extended details (cast lists, synopsis, etc.) can be found at Newsarama.
• On the DC side, Dan Didio got flustered and admitted that the Red Robin and Flash in the recent teaser image are Jason Todd and Barry Allen. Everyone else on the panel got mad at him, so this must be pretty important.

Day 2 of the New York Comic-Con isn’t quite over yet, but a lot’s happened already. All that, and there’s a couple tidbits leftover from yesterday that happened a little later in the day. Want to know more about the Avengers/Transformers book? How about the future of producing and selling comics digitally? Or maybe who’s working on the new Halo ongoing? It’s a bit less concise than yesterday, so read on for more!
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Theres a fair number of Marvel fans and a fair number of Transformer fans around here. Both should be pleased to hear this: The long rumored crossover book between the Avengers and Transformers is a reality.

Comics Continuum reports:
“Stuart Moore and Tyler Kirkham are the creative team for the Transformers/Avengers crossover between IDW Publishing and Marvel. Look for more on that book soon here in The Continuum.”

Direct and to the point. No word on whether this is a “team-up” or a “versus” or what. This is of course, not the first time Transformers have found their way into the Marvel Universe. The original comic series was published by Marvel, and issue #3 guest starred Spider-Man.

Thanks to Shiv’kala for the tip.

The New York Comic-Con reached the end of its first day, and there’s been a flurry of newsbits, largely focusing on World War Hulk for Marvel, and Countdown for DC. Here’s the rundown:

MARVEL:

• World War Hulk will bring us a number of minis including World War Hulk (this being the main series)…
• World War Hulk: X-Men, written by Cristos Gage, art by Andrea DiVito – In it, the Hulk hunts for Professor X, despite (because of?) the fact that Xavier wasn’t there at the meeting where they decided to boot the Hulk to space.
• World War Hulk: Frontline – This will be very much like Civil War: Frontline, only I imagine the quality-of-storytelling gap between the two won’t be nearly so vast this time around. Again, it will be written by Paul Jenkins with an army of artists at hand.
• World War Hulk: Gamma Corps & World War Hulk: Young Avengers are also announced, but lacking details.
• The new Thor series will launch in July of this year. JMS is still on as writer, with Oliver Coipel on art.
• As has been announced previously, a New Warriors book will be coming out, starting in June. Writer will be Kevin Grevioux, art by Paco Medina.
• MarvelousNews.com has images up of Spider Man 3 movie figures, Fantastic Four 2 movie figures, Spider-Man 3 Minimates, Marvel Zombies Minimates, Marvel Legends Icons Wave 2, and the Hasbro Marvel Legends Wave 3. Not pictured are the previously announced X-Men III Colossus, WWII Captain America, WWII Bucky, and a Hydra Soldier.

DC:

• There’s really only 5 big points to hit on from the DC panel from today, and they can all be capsulated in image form. Images mirrored from Newsarama’s coverage.

• There’s minimal to report at the moment – just lots of room to speculate – but Warner has hired Kiernan and Michele Mulroney (who and who?) to write a script for a Justice League movie. I wonder, if they actually get those Wonder Woman and Flash movies out the door, are the leads (like Brandon Routh and Christian Bale) going to be up for parts in it? I’d imagine the budget couldn’t allow for it, but it’s fun to think about. Ooh, but if we’re lucky, maybe we’ll get Giffen, Dematteis, & Maguire’s Detriot League! (Dare to dream, friends, dare to dream.)
• In case you missed that animated Invincible Iron Man movie, you have a chance to see it for free on Cartoon Network on Saturday, March 3rd.
• Again we turn to Cartoon Network, which will be premeiring the second Hellboy animated feature, Hellboy: Blood & Iron on Saturday, March 10th. I missed the first one, but hopefully I’ll be a little more on-the-ball for this one.

The Brave & The Bold
written by Mark Waid, art by George Perez

The name might sound more like the title of a soap opera than a comic book, but those that know, know that “The Brave & The Bold” is a proud, longstanding DC tradition. Similar to Marvel’s “Marvel Team-Up” (which has a name that’s a bit more to the point), the book will feature a pairing of DC characters, working together to do superheroic things. The plot is going to spin larger and larger, bringing in new people to help out in some areas, and leaving other people to work on others, but the starting point is a mystery that Hal Jordan needs help to solve – so he turns to Earth’s greatest detective. Something about him finding a corpse in orbit, I think. I can’t remember now.

With the DC-tastic Mark Waid on writing, and the legendary George Perez on art, this book is a must buy for any one that has even a passing interest in superheroes. I’m not as dedicated a fan of DC as I am of Marvel, but I fully anticipate this being one of the best books in a while, based on the skills of the creative team alone. If they can even live up to half their proven potential, this book should be a must-buy every single month.

Newsarama just broke the news that Rich Johnston’s Lying In The Gutters has been talking about for weeks now: After we reach issue #52 of DC’s wallet-devouring “52” series, the new book “Countdown” takes over and counts down back to Zero. Or to One. I’m not sure, but going to Zero would give them another even 52, and my feeble mind likes symmetry.

Regardless, you can see the mirrored image from May Previews right at the beginning of the post. And as far as the writing team, it looks like Paul Dini’s heading up the writing staff, with Keith Giffen still chained to the table to provide page breakdowns. The books start arriving in stores on May 9th, at which point DC will no doubt celebrate by using money for toilet paper and setting their most loyal fanboys on fire.