After watching, be sure to read beyond the jump for the lengthy show notes!

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Interviews:

• Kurt Busiek talks about his current run on Superman, which is an excellent, excellent read. I typically find Superman dull and uninteresting, but Busiek’s doing a bang-up job on the series, and with only 3 issues out so far, there’s plenty of time for you to get on board. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. (I mean the book. Interview’s good too.)
• Brian K. Vaughan talks about the Dr. Strange mini that starts tomorrow, which sounds strangely interesting. This man can virtually do no wrong when he puts his pen to paper, so to speak, so I have no intention to miss this one.
• Gregg Hurwitz will be writing Marvel’s upcoming Foolkiller book for their MAX line, which I guess we can all preview in tomorrow’s MAX preview book. The interesting part of the article is in the middle, where he says, “I was doing a book signing in Florida with Brad Meltzer and I mentioned to him that I had always loved the Punisher. He put me in touch with Marvel Executive Editor Axel Alonso and things clicked, which led to Foolkiller.” Looks like Brad Meltzer might be opening a lot of doors for authors to break into comics.
• Marv Wolfman is writing Nightwing, starting TOMORROW. It was going to be a 4 issue stint, but now he’s on for a longer haul, thank goodness. There’s preview pages too! Go look!
• Everyone’s talking about Ed Brubaker‘s book Criminal, which hits tomorrow. In fact, we’ll be talking about it in a second…

Poking around the Newsarama forums, I came across a thread that revealed this image from a recent issue of Wizard, featuring the cast of C.B. Cebulski and Karl Moline’s upcoming Loners book:

From left to right, the characters are:

• Penance (former member of Generation X, insanely convoluted backstory)
• Darkhawk (awesome!)
• unknown (speculation suggests she’s a legacy character for the Silver Samurai, but nothing confirmed at all)
• Turbo (formerly of The New Warriors)
• Ricochet (formerly of The Slingers, a group that used suits and identities that Spider-Man briefly used when he was accused of murder… ah, the 90’s)
• Phil Urich (former good Green Goblin, now retired)
• Julie Power (formerly of Power Pack)
• and some sort of Spider-Girl (appearance matches May Parker in Spider-Girl, but it’s more likely Mattie Franklin – though I also staked her out for Omega Flight… maybe Arachne is the one on Flight?)

Marvel’s really repopulating the Marvel U with its female spider ladies, isn’t it? Ridiculous. Maybe they’re throwing them all against the wall to see what sticks. Anyway, Wizard has an old article on this, where they’re showing some concept art. Here they are, mirrored for your enjoyment:

Turbo	Seems to be Silhouette, the new Scorpion, and Jubilee	The UNKNOWN GIRL	Some more Turbo	Looks like Turbo mask concept sketches

Holy Hannah, there is a crapload of Marvel news overflowing the news sites from all the info blabbed at Baltimore’s Retailer Summit. Let me cut straight to the talking points, most linked to full-length articles of their own. There are some serious whoppers (Thor! Whedon! Mary-Jane’s tombstone! Last of the Mohicans?) in here, all the way to the end, so please please please read through, at least until you reach Marvel’s Guiding Light crossover. (Am I kidding? You’re dying to know, aren’t you. Because I’m probably not. Read on after the jump.)

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Issue #180 of Wizard is going to give a preview of The Mighty Avengers, the upcoming second Avengers book that’ll be done by Bendis and Cho. To promote their promoting of a book (a promotion of a promotion which I, myself, am now promoting), they’ve got an image up to show off the lineup:

 So clearly, this title’s gonna be for the Pro-registration heroes, regardless of whether or not registration is here to stay:

• Ms. Marvel, Wonder Man, and Iron Man are all deeply entrenched in the Pro side.
• Black Widow works for the government.
• Yellowjacket – ex-husband and longtime matched pair with the Wasp – has also been prominently featured on the Pro side.

The only puzzler is Axe Man. Based on other interviews, this must be Ares. But why’s he here? I guess it’d help if I’d read his miniseries. Heard it was decent.

Speaking pragmatically, one the one hand, he makes a good counterpart to Thor. But on the other hand, why isn’t Thor on this team? I guess that means him and Spidey are jumping ship together. Quitters. Anyway, keep your eyes on the news sites tomorrow night, as there’ll no doubt be more news busting down the doors during an otherwise quiet week for comics.

Alan Moore, comic book legend responsible for a long list of classic comic work – most recently spotlighted for V For Vendetta – was actually wrangled into an interview by Wizard Entertainment. This is a strange decision by a creator normally viewed for giving mainstream American comics the cold shoulder, as Wizard is generally all about mainstream American comics. Regardless, the interview exists.

Moore speaks largely – but not solely – about his upcoming controversial work Lost Girls (art by Melinda Gebbie), which features “Alice in Wonderland’s Alice, Peter Pan’s Wendy and The Wizard of Oz’s Dorothy meeting as adults and sharing erotic experiences.” If that sounds strange and almost creepy, well, that’d be why it’s controversial. Planned release is allegedly for the 28th of this month, but as always, there’s no telling when it comes to the world of comics.

As an aside, early chapters of Lost Girls were initially published in the Taboo anthology magazine, which were reprinted in the mid 90’s as two separate volumes. The Lost Girls: Book One and Books Two listings on Amazon.com are available here and here, respectively.

Read the full (but brief) interview on WizardUniverse here.

Read Newsarama.com‘s two-part interview from May here and here.

The Lost Girls Collected listing on Amazon.com available here. (It includes a fairly detailed review/discussion in the Editorial Review section. Book not available for purchase yet.)

More detailed information available at the Wikipedia entry for Lost Girls.

2006.07.11 13:41 EST: Huge news for Marvel Legends fans! ToyFare has gotten their hands on a picture of one of the new figures along with a listing of the rest of the assortment, which is sure to be on display at next week’s San Diego Comic Con.

From the Wizard site:

The first series of Marvel Legends to be released by Hasbro, who takes over the Marvel license from Toy Biz in January, will feature Planet Hulk [pictured], Banshee, Hercules, Movie Beast, Emma Frost, Ultimate Iron Man, and Annihilus as the build-a-figure! Check out ToyFare #109, on sale Wednesday, for more images of the figures, as well as images of movie Ghost Rider toys and new Spider-Man figures from Hasbro!

 

 
It looks like build-a-figures are here to stay as they clearly have gotten collectors to buy entire waves far more eagerly. Of note, is the presence of Ultimate Iron Man, not to be confused with the Modern Armor Iron Man of Toy Biz Wave 8. I’m sure his presence is due to the impending movie release. Rememer that there are still a few more waves of Toy Biz figures to go before these ever see the light of day.

Let the speculation on variants begin.

[Update – Crazy: 2006.07.12 12:33 EST ToyFare has posted a picture of Banshee on their forums after great speculation on the quality of the line based on the Hulk figure. They also reminded us that these were very early prototypes so some results may vary. I added the Banshee picture next to the Hulk above.]

[Update 2 – Crazy 2006.07.13. 12:00 EST I found some scanned in pages from the latest ToyFare that reveals the line up. The images came from here. Images added above. Again.]

Sony BMG has acquired the rights to release cult favorite Transformers The Movie on DVD.
Details are scarce but they do promise “never-before-seen footage, exclusive interviews, interactive games and collectible packaging” so one can only assume they’re going to try one-up the old Rhino release from 2001, which like the entire 84-87 series is currently out-of-print.

Fan demands have been high for a more in-depth DVD release, and hopefully this one fits the bill.

Full press release and promo image after the jump…

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