A new R-rated trailer for 300, a brief glimpse of the upcoming Watchmen movie therein, and just for fun, The WORD from last night’s Colbert Report, featuring the death of Captain America. All of that and more (not really, just that) after the jump!
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UPDATED – The direct links expired today at 9 PM, PST. Stick with the YouTube links now, kiddies.

The new Spidey trailer debuted a couple days ago at San Francisco’s WonderCon, and was featured during last night’s Heroes episode. To briefly summarize, it features a lot of Peter and Mary Jane’s love story, and a crazy badass fight sequence.

Today, finally, it’s available on NBC’s site, with the main site link right here. Or, if you’re looking to download directly, here are some direct links to the files:

480p HD Version (229 MB)

720p HD Version (285 MB)

Make sure you have Quicktime 7. Though it goes without saying, you won’t need Quicktime if you happen to stick purely to YouTube versions.

Because we can never have enough animated series starring Spider-Man, Kids’ WB! has just announced a brand new Spidey cartoon, tentatively named The Amazing Spider-Man, set to debut in early 2008.

So far we have Greg Weisman as supervising producer – whose previous credits include Gargoyles, one episode of Ben 10, one episode of The Batman, one episode of Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, one – you know, you get the idea (don’t forget one episode of Jem!) – and we also have Victor Cook as producer/supervising director – whose recent credits include Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron, W.I.T.C.H., and various episodes of Tarzan, Lilo & Stitch, and Buzz Lightyear. Hurrah for Disney?

The show will feature a 16-year-old Peter Parker, so I imagine this will be a ground-up telling of his story, much like the Ultimate books. In fact, if they’re smart, they’ll make Ultimate Spider-Man the series bible. I hear that book sells pretty well.

We’ll keep you updated with more news as it trickles in!

Newsarama has an interview up with Marvel’s Mark Millar addressing questions about the recent event Civil War. Toward the end of the interview he unloaded quite a shock…

NRAMA: Finally, before we let you go, what is interesting you/what are you working on outside the realm of comic book publishing?

MM: Like all my pals, the TV and movie people have come calling and even the computer game people (which is weird because games are for pedos and I have no interest).

Uh, what the hell is that supposed to mean, Mark? Are you a little bitter that video games have taken such a massive chunk of revenue out of your target audience?
If he dislikes games thats one thing, but this is kind of insane and I hope he didn’t mean that.

Dr. Strange: The Oath #5 (of 5)
written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Marcos Martin

This book clearly illustrates why Brian K. Vaughan is one of comics’ top writers today, and why it’s an absolute travesty that he’s going to be writing creator-owned stuff solely from now on. Dr. Strange is often criticised for being too powerful of a character. He waves his hands, and the problem is solved immediately. There’s no limit to what he can do, and so there’s no situation where he’s ever in real danger. Brian K. Vaughan not only slaps these misconceptions in the face, he also goes on to make you excited and eager to read about the guy’s exploits.

In this book, Wong is dying of cancer, and Dr. Strange went to great lengths to find a cure – but then the cure was stolen by a sorcerer who works at a pharmaceutical company who can’t afford for their business to be ruined. Throughout, one of the more surprising aspects that Vaughan has explored is Dr. Strange’s ruined hands – Strange got into sorcery because his hands were mangled in a car accident, putting an end to his days as a surgeon. Another side effect of mangled hands: It’s quite difficult to shoot the giant eye of a giant demonic being strangling your friends – even if it’s Hitler’s gun, which you stole from your enemy – when your fingers are unsteady and crooked. Oh, and Night Nurse has been hanging out with them the whole time which, I promise you, is pretty awesome and brilliant in itself.

What Vaughan does is take the core components of the character – previously a doctor, has ruined hands, now practices sorcery – and celebrates them in the midst of a compelling and exciting story. I’ve never read a Dr. Strange story that equals this one, and if you’ve got any sense whatsoever, you’ll scoop up all 5 issues of this mini when you hit the shop tomorrow.

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!
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