Wolverine and Magneto review the disastrous DVD release for the latest in the X-Men movie series by talking about some discs accidentally containing extra scenes, Fox’s double dipping plans and the already released European DVD with all the features we should have gotten in the first place.

Listed below are the special features we’re missing:
– 11 additional deleted scenes
– ‘X-Men: Evolution Of A Trilogy’ featurette
– ‘X-Men: The Excitement Continues’ featurette
– ‘X-Men Up Close’ interactive gallery
– ‘Anatomy Of A Scene: The Golden Gate Bridge’ featurette
– Pre-viz animatic gallery
– Brett Ratner’s production diary
– Character gallery
– Concept art gallery
– Models galleries
– Storyboards
– Vignettes
– Blogs
– Easter egg

Thanks to forum member spooie and powet.tv enemy Dave for educating me on some of these problems and for the sexy Janine for running into a wall for me.

Marvel’s got a bunch of news that came out today – after a slow, slow, slow week – so here’s the roundup’s rundown:

• Marvel: Ultimate Alliance finally ships this week. Just to remind us that it’s happening, here’s a slick new trailer for it! I’m looking forward to this game. And the trailer looks pretty good too.
• To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Heroes Reborn nonsense and the Onslaught mess that spawned it, Marvel’s putting out a mini starting in November called “Onslaught Reborn.” In true celebratory fashion, it’ll be written by Jeph Loeb and drawn by Rob Liefield, as they both played a large role in the original Heroes Reborn launch. Here’s the new trailer!
• And, just because Marvel trailers are all the rage today, here’s the one for the upcoming Guiding Light crossover. It made me laugh a lot. Probably wasn’t supposed to though.
• There’s been a lot of photos shown online for the wedding scene on the roof for the Fantastic Four 2 movie. But the newest set of photos looks pretty interesting, largely because they show Jessica Alba stopping a helicopter with some sort of invisible powers! One of which is mirrored here.
• Lastly, Rich Johnston confirms that Stuart Immonen is the new artist taking over on Ultimate Spider-Man, following Mark Bagley’s insane stint of 110 issues. Please note – none of those issues shipped late, he all too often shipped more than 12 issues in a year, and they all looked fantastic. Immonen, you’ve got big boots to fill.

ACADEMY-AWARD(R) NOMINEE TERRENCE HOWARD SIGNS ON TO MARVEL STUDIOS’ IRON MAN

Joins Robert Downey Jr. in Super Hero Action Adventure Film Being Directed by Jon Favreau and Distributed by Paramount

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Regardless of what you may think, Spider-Man 2099 was kind of cool.

Being a newcomer to comic stores in the early 90s, I was all-in with the 2099 univese. Doom, Ravage, Punisher… I found a new Marvel Universe was starting up right there in 1992 and I could get in on the ground floor. I’ve got this problem with not wanting to get into a book in the middle of a story that goes on to this day (still having trouble with DC after Crisis, and Civil War scares me), but with new characters, I could know everything about them as it happened.

Spiderman 2099 was the first book to come out, and lasted the longest, well in 1996 with 46 issues. Read all about him on his Wikipedia entry. He was without a doubt the coolest of 2099, because his powers were more spider-like, and even as a lad his origins of being screwed over by corporate America resonated with me. He was truly the champion of the working man! Since getting to know Miguel O’Hara, I’ve become a lot more comfortable with generational roles in comics and other tales, and rather like the idea that there will be a Spider-Man 2099 or a Batman Beyond long after today’s heroes are gone. It further humanizes Peter Parker today to know that he won’t always be there and someday someone will take his place.

I bring all this up because ToyBiz/Marvel are about to release a new toy of him in the Spiderman Origins line. This appears to be a long awaited proper release, as ToyBiz previously made a toy of Spidey 2099, but it was a K*B Toys exclusive recolor of the “black suit” Spiderman Figure at the time. This was around December 2000, if I recall correctly, and predated a lot of the Marvel Legends we so love today. The new toy is shy on molded details, but has a lot of the movement we’ve grown accustomed to and a great paint deco.

I of course, am holding out hope for an all 2099 Marvel Legends series, but thats another one for the Marvel Legends Wishlist.

When the new Ghost Rider trailer was released, apparently a lot of fans assumed that what we saw in it was the full transformation of Johnny Blaze into the Ghost Rider, despite the quick cutaways that likely suggested otherwise. Well, the writer/director Mark Steven Johnson immediately hit the internet – most specifically at the SuperHeroHype boards – to say this:

I just wanted to say thanks for both the kind words and the criticisms on the new trailer. It all goes towards making a better movie. There’s a couple things I thought I’d mention that might help explain what you’re seeing. First, the TRANSFORMATION. Ghost Rider is a PG-13 movie, albeit, a very intense PG-13 movie. The MPAA governs the movie trailers as well. And one of the rules is that you can’t show people on fire in a PG-13 trailer. Obviously, this presents a problem for us. So for the fans who have wondered if that’s all there is for the transformation — God no. Not by a long shot. But that’s all we can show. In fact, we had to cut many shots out of the trailer for being too intense or horrific. … Second, the VOICE. The voice of Ghost Rider can’t be judged on an internet trailer. There are multiple tracks of animal growls, fire, rusty chains, etc. mixed into Ghost Rider’s voice. But all of those tracks have to be terribly condensed into a trailer like this and so all you can really hear is a deep, raspy voice. Trust me, GR’s voice will rock the movie house.

He speaks more on other points, but those are the two I found most interesting.  And today he lives up to his word on the first one, showing us the full transformation of Blaze (Nic Cage) into Ghost Rider (flaming skullhead), available HERE.  Trust me, you want to check this out.  It’s good ‘n creepy.

Ultimate Power #1
written by Brian Michael Bendis, pencils by Greg Land

Here at last, it’s the big crossover between JMS’s Squadron Supreme and the Ultimate Universe! It’s a 9 issue series – which is supposed to take place between Ultimates 2 and Ultimates 3 – and it’s being divided into three sections: Issues 1-3 will be written by Bendis, issues 4-6 will be written by J. Michael Straczynski , and issues 7-9 will be written by Jeph Loeb. Er, I guess Greg Land’s onboard for the whole thing.

If you read Squadron Supreme or the Ultimate books, this book is something worth keeping an eye on – At the end of the series, someone from the Supremeverse will end up in the Ultimateverse, and vice versa. Granted both universes have their set of crap characters, but I can’t imagine someone like Ultimate Longshot in the Supremeverse being the gimmick they’re selling. And heck, even if it is, it should still make for an interesting read.

The story kicks off with Reed Richards trying to find a cure for Ben Grimm, and accidentally opening up a connection between the two universes – You’d think after the Zombie fiasco, he’d know better than to poke around like that, but thank God he doesn’t yet! Anyway, while the premise is a somewhat tired story concept in the normal Marvel U, I couldn’t help but notice this page in the previews –

I was moderately interested in the book, but not terribly, until I saw that. This puts a whole different pressure on Reed to find that cure, and while some of the work from these writers has been hit or miss for me lately, I find myself looking forward to this book a LOT.

This is gonna be one meaty issue of awesome. Not only do we get the first part of the last leg of Planet Hulk – Allegiance: Part 1 – but we also get a back up story with pencils by the awesome Gary Frank, fresh off his stretch on Squadron Supreme:

This back up story – which will also be written by the main story’s writer, Greg Pak – deals with events from Civil War (specifically, supposedly involving some new info about the Thor clone), and the Illuminati’s role in punting the Hulk into space, and ALSO someone finds out what happened to the Hulk. Gasp!

The super-duper-special anniversary issue will also include reprints of The Incredible Hulk #’s 3, 152 and 300. Issue #3 was chosen because it’s a story where the Hulk tore up Manhattan, which led to Dr. Strange exiling him (actually to space, according to the cover). #300 is a story … well, it seems to be one largely about the Hulk beating the crap out of stuff. Greg Pak hints that it might or might not be a teaser of World War Hulk, but more topically, it touches on the ideas of exile and of the Hulk being a monster. #152 is a story where the heroes of the Marvel U put the Hulk on trial, and try to decide whether the Hulk is hero enough, or too much monster. I’d say the connection’s only marginally less obvious than it is with issue 3.

Also, here’s some unlettered pages from the main issue. Art chores are by Carlo Pagulayan, who did the first arc, and he’s splitting this last arc with Aaron Lopresti, who did the second arc.

Sources – Pak’s interview at The Pulse, Newsarama.com, Marvel.com

Updated – Previous articles indicated it would be issue #143 in the issue, but instead it’s issue #300. Sorry folks. On the upside, it makes previously confusing comments in other articles make a lot more sense, now that we know this. Also – We’ve added new images from the upcoming issue #100, both for the issue, and for Gary Frank’s pages.

Also, the issue will hit stands on November 1st, and it’ll cost $3.99.  I can’t wait!

The title says it all. According to Fwooshnet.com, an excellent source for all your Marvel Legends needs, Toy Biz has cancelled all remaining products for 2006 in Canada and International outlets. This is no small announcement. The Fwoosh lists the following products that this affects:

• X-Men 3 – Series 3
• Marvel Legends boxed set – House of M
• Marvel Legends – Series 14
• Marvel Legends – Series 15
• Marvel Face Off – Series 2
• Marvel Masterworks – Series 2
• Marvel Showdown – Series 4
• Marvel Icons Series 2
• Marvel Icons Series 3
• Spider-man Rotocast figures
• Spider-Man Series 18

If you have any of these pre-ordered somewhere, you should check to make sure that it is still valid.

If I can dig up any more information on this, I will make sure to share it.