Forgive me if this is old information, somehow I’ve yet to see this as a big announcement and thought I would inform others in case it slipped under anyone else’s radar.

Written by J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
Pencils and Cover by TOMMY LEE EDWARDS
World War II. America needs a super soldier. Only one man possesses the formula to create the perfect fighting machine from volunteer Steve Rogers. But when a deadly bullet kills Dr. Erskine along with his bodyguard, M.P. Ben Parker, Steve’s destiny—and that of the Marvel Universe—is changed forever.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Remember when Marvel sued NC Soft and Cryptic Studios, because they felt that the game “City of Heroes” included characters – and also allowed and encouraged players to create more, similar characters – that infringed on Marvel’s copyrights? Sure, the lawsuit was settled out of court long ago, but now Marvel’s making lemon meringue pie out of that lemon by teaming up with Cryptic (and Microsoft Game Studios) to make “Marvel Universe Online” – An MMO game for XBox 360 and PC using (surprise!) Marvel characters. While other articles go on and on with more discussion, analysis, and questions, that’s really all that they end up saying about it.

While this is an interesting newsbit, it raises more questions than it answers. For example:

• I can only assume we won’t be restricted to currently existing characters. While Marvel boasts a library of 5,000 characters, some of them – like, say, Turner D. Century – are simply God-awful. And yet, the issue is never addressed. Maybe we’ll just see a town full of dozens of Wolverines.
• On the technical side, they keep specifically saying it will be on “Windows Vista,” rather than simply saying “PC” in the articles and interviews. Does that mean it won’t work on XP? They won’t even hint at a release date, so maybe they don’t expect to be done until more people have Vista – or maybe not. With Microsoft, it’s really hard to give the benefit of the doubt.
• Aaaaand, let’s be honest – There’s really not a lot of information to go off of, other than it will exist in the future, they’re working on it, and they’re not allowed to say much about it. Lots of question marks, not a lot of actual info.

View the teaser trailer on Xbox Live Marketplace now, or right here.

The Ultimates 2 #12
Written by Mark Millar, art by Bryan Hitch

With all the excitement surrounding Millar’s other big book, it’s easy to forget the ever-sporadically scheduled Ultimates 2. After 23 issues and 5 years, Millar and Hitch’s run on The Ultimates finally comes to an end. What with its seemingly-random appearances on shelves at the comic shop, it’s easy to miss an issue, and with this one being the big finale (despite the big battle kind of being won last issue), I figure this is one that readers won’t want to miss.

And for those of you that are critical of the book, well hey, today’s a day for celebration for you too – The book’s over! Until the next volume anyway. So here’s hoping that Jeph Loeb and Joe Maduriera do enough to differentiate themselves from their predecessors, while still retaining the hard-hitting enjoyment and interesting characterizations that Millar and Hitch always brought to the table. (But maybe try to keep a tighter schedule though, eh guys?)

SuperHeroTimes has some nice pics up of the Icons wave 2 figures along with the variants. I have mirrored the images below. Wave 2 includes Venom and the Incredible Hulk. The variants are Grey Hulk and unmasked Venom. The wave has recently had many sightings so keep an eye out! I saw the Grey Hulk last week.

   

Today brings us a few bits of news on the X3 DVD release.

• The X3 DVD site has launched here.
• DVD to launch October 3rd
• Brett Ratner is working on a special edition to come out shortly after regular edition.
• Apparently Wal-mart will have an exclusive disc packed with the regular version that includes a 50 minute diary from Ratner on the making of the movie that Europe will be getting standard with their regular edition.

Marvel updated their site yesterday with a brand new Civil War trailer. It’s available HERE and it’s the perfect lead in for issue #4, which hits stands today. And while the idea of a video trailer existing for print media seems a bit off, the results remain badass.

Jon Favreau posted this somewhat crazed-looking image of him sitting with Peter Billingsley (Iron Man’s executive producer) at a table loaded with crazy huge guns onto his MySpace page. Obviously, this are at least related to the Iron Man movie, if not actual props. In fact, I kind of hope they are props, because man, who let them have all those giant guns?

Popcultureshock.com is the only place I saw it, so we’re mirroring it here: Preview pages for Civil War #4, pages 1 through 3. Er, and the cover. But I bet you could’ve figured that out without my help. Here’s a link to their previews page, and here’s our mirrored pages:

In related news, Christos Gage – who wrote the fantastic Deadshot mini for DC a couple years ago – will be writing an upcoming Civil War one-shot, Casualties of War: Iron Man/Captain America. As he describes it during his Newsarama interview, “This is the first time since it all started that they’ve met one on one, out of respect for their many years as friends and allies, to talk it out. We’ll reference incidents from Marvel history to show why each man feels as strongly as he does, and each will have to defend his position as he tries to convince the other to rethink his own.” It’s supposed to take place earlier in the series than issue 4. (Obviously.)

Gage’s previous work includes episodes of Law & Order: SVU and tomorrow’s new Union Jack mini, spinning out of his appearance in Captain America. Though the issue arrives in stores tomorrow, but SilverBulletComics got a preview copy and sicced their reviewers on it. Overall it seemed to get pretty good reviews, despite the scathing pair of two-bullet reviews. I’ll have to see for myself tomorrow if the magic he worked on Deadshot will hold up in the world of Marvel.