A few recently surfaced newsbits regarding the Fantastic Four sequel:

• Beau Garrett will be playing Frankie Raye, a character that (in the comics) ultimately offers herself to be a new herald for Galactus, much like the Silver Surfer was before being kicked to the curb for turning his back on the big purple jerk. Prior to taking the role of herald, she’d had a relationship with Johnny Storm, which is confirmed as a story angle for the movie.  The former is generally undiscussed at the moment, but conveniently enough, it’d fit nicely with the story.
• Some set images surfaced HERE on the Hollywood North Reporter message boards, courtesy of memeber “seven.”  Images mirrored for your pleasure:

 

• IESB.net recently spoke with Chairman of 20th Century Fox Tom Rothman. Technically, it’s an interview, but there’s some interesting nuggets in there about the Silver Surfer in the sequel: “I will say this, we are investing a tremendous amount of money, time and care, to make the state of the art CGI Silver Surfer, to make him as great as modern technology can make him. And, the only thing that I would say is that the real, the ultimate pay off of that level of investment and doing it to its fullest possible extent, would really come if we are able to make future films. … We’re certainly putting everything that the business has to offer behind it in the hopes of doing that, in the hopes that the Silver Surfer has a long life. … I will tell you that the first teaser that we are going to put out of the movie, which will be very early in the new year, the first teaser will definitely reveal the Silver Surfer. So people won’t have long to wait to judge how well it is done.”

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

The news just hit – Robert Downey Jr. has been cast to play Iron Man. While I’m typically hesitant to put stock in what AintItCoolNews has to say, Reuters has already got an article running on it too. As Marvel Entertainment’s first independently produced film, it sounds like they’re doing a pretty good job with picking and choosing the people involved.

According to the article:

Marvel president of production Kevin Feige said the filmmakers looked for the best actor to embody the character.

“The Marvel characters are not just about how high they jump or how fast they fly, they’re about their character flaws,” Feige said. “They’re about their inner demons. They’re about the struggles that they go through between being a man and being a hero.”

Downey, who has battled his fair share of inner demons, worked hard to get the role, getting in shape and even growing a goatee like the one Stark sports in the comic books.

The whole article can be found here.

A new Villains trailer is available for the Marvel Ultimate Alliance game RIGHT HERE, and it’s actually pretty sweet.  It showcases a large number of villains, lists off some of the heroes, and shows off some of the battle locations in the process.

While all the heroes that flash by super-fast at the end are already listed on the official site, many of the villains shown are not, so here’s a rundown of who made an appearance:

• Doctor Doom
• Loki
• Fin Fang Foom (incorrectly spelled as FING Fang Foom)
• Blackheart (Mephisto’s son)
• Mephisto
• Mandarin
• Ymir (a frost giant, one of Thor’s enemies)
• Ultron
• Kurse (another Asgardian enemy of Thor’s)
• Ulik (a rock troll, ANOTHER Asgardian enemy of Thor’s)
• Arcade-Bot (presumably a robot of Arcade’s)
• and Galactus

So clearly, the game’s going to spend a decent chunk of time dealing with Asgardian problems, which hopefully means we’ll actually be in Asgard.  This is some good thinking, as it can lead to some scenarios and scenery which will be completely unique from not only the rest of the game, but from other comparable games (like X-Men Legends, or the upcoming Justice League Heroes). By the way, if you’re too lazy to poke around their site yourself, you can find a full listing of currently revealed heroes and villains after the jump.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

The biggest news: Microsoft Partners with Peter Jackson. Not only is PJ producing the forthcoming Halo movie, he’s also developing a brand new game with his new Wingnut Interactive development company. In addition to the brand new game, he’s scripting a new Halo game with Bungie. A Halo game that is not Halo 3, but a brand new entry in the series.
Further, theres the long rumoured, much anticipated HALO WARS. Its an Xbox 360 exclusive Real Time Strategy game set at the outset of the war with the Covenant, back when Master Chief was actually a Master Chief of a group of highly trained SPARTAN warriors and not just a clever name. Read more direct from Bungie here.

Also, DOOM available on XBLA. Right now. Seriously. Doom 1. Full game, multiplayer, everything. Download it, play tonight.

Guitar Hero 360 is coming next year. Downloads are promised, but that white Explorer guitar is only a prototype.

For reasons unknown, Microsoft is allowing Rare to make another Banjo game.

We’ve already shown you Marvel Universe Online, but may I say this game looks like it may just cure the blues for folk like me who are bummed only 24 playable characters are in Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Let’s just hope Cryptic tries to grab hold of the X-Men Legends audience with great gameplay.

Thanks to SparkStalker for links!