Entertainment Weekly pimps coverage of ComiCon with a new image of Robert Downey Jr ready to fire some repulsor rays.

If you had told me 20 years ago, after the abysmal box office showing that was the original Transformers animated feature, that a Transformers film would outdo Spider-Man’s opening week gross, I would have said, “What, that weird kid that appeared in the comic book? So?”

Sorry, run that forward a little bit.

If you had told me five years ago, after Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man film made $400 million at the domestic box office, breaking records along the way, that a Transformers film would (so far) outdo that hot property the same year as the third installment, I would have laughed. If the best that the Aquaman property could hope for was to beat Spider-Man in a fictional scenario in the HBO series Entourage, surely in the real world a toy company’s property had even less of a chance.

Well, now Michael Bay is laughing. All the way to his gold-plated Camaro. (Goldbug?)

The Transformers opening 6-day gross of over $155 milion has beaten out Spider-Man’s $151 million, and so far it shows little sign of slowing down. Along the way, it garnered the highest opening Tuesday ever (by $12 million dollars — up 80% from now-second place), the third highest Wednesday ever (now fourth, thanks to Harry Potter’s new record-setting Wednesday premiere), and the title as the biggest opening week for a non-sequel in all of film history — the title which Spider-Man held until last Sunday.

Spider-Man is clearly not very happy about this development. Not content to leave the battle at the box office, our intrepid arachnid friend was last seen hurling himself into battle against the alien robot menace at the end of the first issue of the New Avengers / Transformers 4-part mini-series. Not since Transformers #3 — at the time a Marvel publication — have we seen these two clash. Guys, can’t we all just get along?

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New Avengers/Transformers #1
written by Stuart Moore, art by Tyler Kirkham

This book, of course, will be awesome. Stuart Moore is an excellent writer. I’m not the biggest Kirkham fan, but the preview pages I’ve seen are just what’s needed for this book, so no complaints there. It features the New Avengers prior to Civil War, which means we get Captain America alive, Iron Man in pre-douchebag mode, and Spider-Man all running around on the same team. AND Transformers. And I think Doctor Doom is the Marvel villain that’ll be hanging out with Megatron, which should be utterly fantastic, as he may well be my favorite Marvel villain.

What better way to celebrate the new Transformers movie and the 4th of July (actually the 5th, since most shops should be closed tomorrow) than a book about giant robots hanging out with superheroes and supervillains? The answer of course is THERE IS NONE.

Shortly after the fighting game X-men Children of the Atom, Capcom wasted no time in putting out more games featuring Marvel’s pantheon of super heroes. This game in particular is one of the more slept-on Capcom fighters (although not to the degree of Project Justice and Tech Romancer). Taking control of one of six Marvel heroes (Spider-man, Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, Wolverine, Psylocke) or one of six villains (Shuma Gorath, Blackheart, Juggernaut, Magneto, and Thanos and Dr Doom via use of a code), you must fight your way up the ladder to meet Thanos in a plot loosely based on 1992’s Infinity Gauntlet storyline.

The game play is similar to most other Capcom fighters, with six attack buttons, three for punches, three for kicks, each differing in speed in power. Special moves are done via quarter and half circle motions, as well as charging. However, since these are superheroes, don’t expect your garden-variety martial-arts maneuvers like in street fighter. Your fighter can jump up to several feet high, ‘normal’ attacks fire projectiles, special attacks can cause serious damage, and super moves take up the entire screen. It’s not as zany as in Darkstalkers, but you’re still not gonna see any of these moves in the next Street Fighter game. The main difference that sets this game apart from other Capcom fighters, although it isn’t much, is the addition of the Infinity Gems. They appear throughout the match, and grant your character special powers when you use them. Of course this regulates multiplayer games into bouts of “who can get to the gems the fastest” although an experienced player can destroy any newbie player who plays in that manner.

This game is often overlooked due to the fact that at the time of it’s release, it was just one of many 2-d fighting games. However, it was a Capcom fighter. Moreover, it was a good game based on a Marvel property. Capcom of course went on to use the engine to produce several more Capcom fighters, most important of which being the Marvel Vs Capcom games. This is still a good game to check out if you run across the arcade cabinet, even better if you can find a copy of any of the home ports. Also of interest is the SNES spin-off “War of the Gems”, which is a side scrolling beat-em-up in the vein of Capcom’s “X-men Mutant Apocalypse”.

With the animated Doctor Strange DVD approaching its release date (August 18th, available for standard DVD format preorder here, and in Blu-Ray format here), there’s a ton of information available on it already. Read on after the jump to find out details on the DVD extras, Steve McNiven’s art process, and about the next Marvel/Lionsgate animated film – Avengers Reborn!
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X-Men #200
Written by Mike Carey, art by Humberto Ramos & Chris Bachalo, cover by David Finch

Just look at that David Finch variant cover. Beautiful, no? I imagine that the gatefold variant we have showing will be wildly overpriced in your local shop, but if it’s not, that’s definitely the version I’d get.

As for the book itself, Mike Carey’s been writing some strong X-Men stories lately, if not as epic as Brubaker’s space opera in Uncanny. And with the arrival of last week’s Endangered Species crossover/prologue-to-the-real-crossover, this book is the big kickoff to not only that, but what may well be an important story for the upcoming fall crossover, Messiah CompleX. If you’re planning on following the X-stories for the next few months, this is a book you definitely don’t want to miss. And hopefully, if Carey’s previous work is a good indicator, we’ll even get some good storytelling out of it.

To be perfectly honest though, I really just want to own that cover. Awesome.

A reader over at Action-Figure.com wrote in to the site with the following message:

Adrian,

Thought you’d like to know: Toys R Us has received an RTV (Return to Vendor) order for the entire Series 1 release for Marvel Legends.

In black and white on the RTV order, the reason for the recall states “poor sales”.

Hopefully, this means Hasbro will get their act together and work on better quality product and pricing.

This order means that Toys R Us can’t mark the product down… they have to return the product as soon as possible. This is a major line for Hasbro to cross. Toys R Us is not responsible for the cost of the product.

Peace,
CC

If you are in need of completing the Annihilus wave, you had better do it soon. You may not have the chance in the near the future if you wait too long.

Its interesting to note that while some of these figures have really not sold well at all (Emma Frost, Banshee I’m looking at you!), others have been scooped up as soon as they hit shelves including Ultimate Iron Man, Planet Hulk, and Hercules.

KidsWB released a promo image for the Spider-Man cartoon debuting this fall. The show was previously going to be called The Amazing Spider-Man, but with the Spidey comic line getting stripped down to that one title, the cartoon’s name was just changed to Spectacular Spider-Man. I imagine there’ll be a comic book tie-in to the show of the same name, which would explain the change of the show’s name. Not like they’re about to change the book’s name, right?

Also, Wizard took a bunch of pictures at the New York Licensing Show which – while it doesn’t sound very interesting – resulted in some impressive shots. We’ve got a select few mirrored below – and be sure to keep an eye out for an old Amazing Spider-Man cartoon poster: