Ain’t It Cool News is reporting that the dream team casting for Jon Favreau’s Iron Man has just gotten sweeter. Shooting a cameo appearance is the Academy Award nominated star of Pulp Fiction, Samuel L Jackson in the role of Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD.

The hot rumor is the role will be expanded upon in future marvel movies (Incredible Hulk, Captain America) and eventually lead to the full on Avengers movie. Wow, what a great idea of getting casting now for a role years down the road.

This casting is of course as perfect as casting gets, as Ultimate Marvel Nick Fury was completely based on Samuel L Jackson, and Sam has said in the past he wanted the role.

Between last weekend’s conventions in Philadelphia, PA and Charlotte, NC – not to mention the books that hit the stands this week – there’s been a veritable onslaught of comics news. To get your rundowns on the news from the cons, from details on the “Messiah CompleX” X-Men crossover, to the new writer on JLA (hint: try the mastermind behind the JLU animated series), to your quick ‘n dirty recap of what insanity has happened to The Flash, continue on after the jump.
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Starting in what seems to be August, Marvel will be canceling Spectacular Spider-Man and Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, cutting back to the one core title: Amazing Spider-Man. However, we can rest assured that Marvel isn’t content to allow Spider-fans to retain their cashflow – instead, now Amazing Spider-Man will begin coming out three times a month.
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There is this crazy internet rumour saying Galactus in the new Fantastic Four movie will be nothing more than a giant cloud.

Geek Monthly has posted an image from a new TV ad for Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer, which clearly shows a shadow being cast over Saturn in the shape of Galactus’ helmet. Could we have been worrying for nothing? Is he going to resember his comic form? Or is it just a cloud shaped like Galactus?

I guess we still won’t know until the movie is actually out, but this little image gives us some hope that we’ll still see a man the size of a planet in a funny purple hat.

As part of Spider-man week, Marvel.com has posted a video of Ralph Macchio at the New York Public Library describing the life of a comic book from start to finish. Its a pretty neat clip, so I’ve included it below:

Haha! I made a punny title.

…er, anyway, DST and Art Asylum…actually, DST just acquired Art Asylum, so just DST…will be offering a box set of Marvel Minimates based on the highly popular Marvel Zombies series. The set will feature Colonel America, Spider-man, Hulk, Luke Cage, Wolverine and finally revealed, the disembodied head of Zombie Wasp. These figures are due for release in late September and the set should retail for about US$19.99.

Criminal #6
written by Ed Brubaker, art by Sean Phillips

Captain America #26 comes out this week, following up on his almighty death from last issue. Last week was the closing (of sorts) to the year-long “Rise & Fall of the Shi’ar Empire” in Uncanny X-Men. Daredevil dares to be a devil. Or so I presume. What do all of those books have in common with Criminal? Writer Ed Brubaker.

This guy is in the absolute top tier of comic writers today, and while he’s banging out some popular hits on the mainstream Marvel titles, what’s slipped under too many radars is that he’s been writing one hell of a book in Criminal. The first five issues were a single storyarc, and they were simply fantastic. The story started about a heist that went bad, and then it went worse, and then it went even worse. I cannot recommend these issues enough, and if you haven’t read them, you can buy them now for real cheap in trade paperback.

This week, we begin a new storyarc with a new main character. Phillips and Brubaker are starting (almost) over from scratch, so if you skipped the first 5, then forget it, it’s fine – you have a second chance to start fresh with this book. Here’s the promo text:

Twenty years ago, Tracy Lawless traded the crime-ridden streets of the city for a life in the military, and it’s a decision he’s rarely regretted. But now he’s walking out of the deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq and back into the world he grew up in, to find out who killed his brother Rick, and why. But truth is one of the few things uglier than family history, and the only thing Tracy has in his favor as he unravels the twisted strands of the criminal life his brother led, is that no one knows who the hell he is. And what they don’t know, just might kill them