When There Is No More Room In Hell, The Dead Will Wait In Line For Marvel’s One Men’s Room: New Marvel Teaser Poster Released

It’s been a little while since Marvel dumped out one of their recently ubiquitous, one-word teaser posters to hype an upcoming new title, but a new one entered the wild yesterday, following a tease at a retailer’s breakfast yesterday… and as an aside: why does Marvel seem to have so many breakfasts for retailers? It was a retailer’s breakfast at New York Comic Con where Marvel teased The Superior Spider-Man, and it just seems… weird. I know that the owner of my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to consider making their establishment the first stop on my comic store / local bar routine, would much prefer a retailer’s cocktail hour. Or at least I presume that he would, considering that every time I leave his store, I hear him mutter, “Christ, I need a drink.” But I’m getting a little off point here.

The point is that there is another intriguing teaser poster for some new Marvel book coming this fall. And the bad news is that, like all the other teasers preceding it, it gives almost no information on the actual book – including no creator names.

But the good news is that Marvel apparently got Ike Perlmutter to sign off on the budget for a couple of additional words for the teaser! Which you can check out after the jump.

Stan Lee Explains How Popular Movies Should Have Ended, Avoids Telling Kids To Get Off His Lawn

Good news, everyone! Stan Lee is feeling better – so much so that he’s teamed up with the crew at How It Should Have Ended to let us all know how some of the most popular movies should have actually ended. Check out his take on Inception, Batman Begins, Star Wars, and its prequels, explained to us as only Stan can. Welcome back, man!

Via The Mary Sue

First Step Into Scatterlands: Warren Ellis Debuts Daily Webcomic

A few weeks ago, Warren Ellis teased some kind of a new comics project, named Scatterlands, with Super Dinosaur artist Jason Howard… and he did it without mentioning any further detail about what it was. Oh sure, he had previously Tweeted that he missed doing a free Web-based project like FreakAngels, but as a teaser, that really didn’t mean anything. After all, the man has also Tweeted about the gastronomic delights of the common infant, occasionally combined with the pastime refreshment value of Col. Werner Von Braun’s Old No. Nein! Stuttgart Slurpin’ Partially Gelatinous Booster Fuel. So it’s best to take Ellis’s 140-character pronouncements with a grain of salt. At least, I sincerely hope it is.

However, in this case, those announcements were at least semi-accurate, because Ellis has announced the nature of the Scatterlands project: it will be a Web-based, daily, single-panel comic strip, with new panels every weekday.

And by “it will be,” I mean that “it is.” The first panel debuted today on Ellis’s Web site.

So whaddya got in store for us, Warren?

Ender’s (definitely not) Gay-m – Updated!

Back!  After only a year absence!  Thank heaven for prison overcrowding, that’s all I’m saying.  Also, Skullfish!  Call me!  What we had was magical! – Lance

UPDATE: DC responds – “As content creators we steadfastly support freedom of expression, however the personal views of individuals associated with DC Comics are just that — personal views — and not those of the company itself.”  Translation – “Card already cashed the check, so we’re damn well going to use the stuff he wrote.”

—————————–

Anyway, in their ongoing effort to make comics inclusive, DC has hired noted gay rights enthusiast Orson Scott Card to write Adventures of Superman.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’ve read a lot of Card’s work.  Ender’s Game is a sci-fi staple and deserving of a place in any classics bookshelf.  It was real eye-opening when I learned that Card is just a bit homophobic.  And by a bit, I mean extremely.  And by extremely, I mean he looks at Westboro Baptist and sneers, “Amateurs…”

Card’s a talented writer, and I don’t blame DC for trying to bring in a name.  Plenty of other books have boosted sales by hiring big name as writers.  The results are… inconsistent (I’m looking at you Bourdain), but hey, it puts eyes on pages.  And if Card is writing fiction, his personal beliefs don’t necessarily have to be relevant.

That said, Superman represents what’s best in all of us.  He fought the Klan in the 1940’s. He protects the weak from the strong.  I like to think that he wouldn’t tell Batwoman or Alan Scott to get lost because they’re sinners.

Maybe the Card is capable of writing a brilliant Superman story that lets me forget what a tool he is.  I’m not real optimistic though.  Still it will be refreshing for Superman to finally tell Jimmy Olsen to sack the hell up.

The Card-authored Adventures of Superman #1 drops online on April 29 and in print on May 29.

Blackest Night: Everyone Quits Green Lantern

DC’s been releasing their May solicits over the past few days… with one exception: they’ve been holding back their Green Lantern solicitations. Which has led to a certain amount of anticipation, at least here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, because some of the best crossovers and events in DC Comics over the past several years have come from Green Lantern writer Geoff Johns in those books.

So we’ve been waiting for what Johns had planned starting in May with bated breath, with images and memories of classics like The Sinestro Corps War, Blackest Night and Brightest Day dancing in our heads. What would it be? Another big crossover? Rainbow Lanterns? A new Lantern oath involving the prominent use of the word “sack”?

Turns out, not so much. It seems that Geoff John’s next big plan for Green Lantern is to, well, quit the book.

And apparently it was such a good idea that every other writer on the Green Lantern books has made the same plan. That’s right: everyone is leaving the Green Lantern books.

Um… what the hell, Geoff?

Apocalypses For Everyone! Age of Ultron Motion Comic Trailer Released

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there has been a minor snow event that has affected the Greater Boston area over the past day and a half or so. Some refer to this event as Nemo, but the locals have taken to calling it a minor apocalypse.

As such, we are engaged with the normal activities of digging out from more than two feet of snow. Those activities being comprised of mainly cursing the Home Office building management for taking a whole two hours during blizzard conditions to come dig us out, while frantically compulsively our beers to make sure we can survive for 24 more hours, and finding to our horror that the count seems to drop by one every ten to fifteen minutes.

Therefore we don’t have a lot of time for comics writing today, but we do have one item: Marvel has released a motion comics trailer for their spring event crossover, Age of Ultron, the main ten-issue series of which is being written by Brian Michael Bendis and drawn by Bryan Hitch, Brandon Peterson and Carlos Pacheco. Supposedly Hitch has done the bulk of the art for the project, and he swears that his pencils are all completed and submitted… and we will know if he is telling the truth if issue 10 comes out sometime in 2015.

Either way, you can check out the trailer after the jump… and if you’ll excuse me, I need to put together a “Free snow, just haul away” ad on Craig’s List, and make some more beer safe for the neighbor kids by turning it into pee.

Casualties of Reboot: DC Cancels More Books, Shifts More Creative Teams

It has been 17 months since DC blew up their entire line of comics, shuffled all their creators around to different books, and blew up their entire history of continuity. You know, for everyone except Grant Morrison, who has been allowed to continue his Batman saga that started several years ago in Batman Incorporated like it’s still 2009… or sometimes, considering all the Silver Age characters Morrison’s shoveled into that storyline, like it’s still 1959.

And the New 52 reboot was an unqualified success. It put DC over Marvel, in both sales numbers and dollar earnings, for the first time. It refreshed the classic characters of the DC Universe for a new generation. Truly, those 52 books signalled the start of a thousand-year uncontested reign. Nothing could stop them. They would march to victory on a road of bones. They would drive their enemies before them, see them broken, and hear the lamentations of…

What’s that? DC’s cancelling six more books?

Whoops.

Digital Rioting: San Diego Comic-Con 2013 Tickets On Sale February 16th

As we speak, we are watching the Super Bowl, taking place at the Super Dome in New Orleans and packed with people who spent a great deal of money and endured extreme personal hardship to attend in person.

Those poor dupes are rank amateurs. As anyone who had ever tried to attend San Diego Comic-Con knows. And will soon relearn. Because the sales of passes to the general public for SDCC 2013 starts at noon Eastern Time on Saturday, February 16th…

…and if history is any guide, will be sold out by 2 p.m. on February 16th.

Get Well, Stan – Stan Lee Will Miss Amazing Arizona Comic Con Due To Illness

The Amazing Arizona Comic Convention has sadly announced the following:

We here at Amazing Arizona Comic Con regret to announce that we have been informed by Mr. Stan Lee’s representatives that he is physically unable to travel and appear for this weekend’s events due to illness. Fortunately, we have a full weekend of great programming, over hundred of comic creators coming to the convention, and nearly 300 exhibitors on the main floor. Further headline guest Jim Lee, the Best Selling comic artist of all time, will be on hand at the event to meet with attendees, sign FREE autographs, and share in the spirit of comics and pop culture. Amazing Arizona Comic Con apologizes for the inconvenience and wishes Mr. Stan Lee a speedy recovery.

For those attendees who purchased Stan Lee Photo Ops or Stan Lee Packages, you may contact INFO@AmazingArizonaComicCon.com to inquire about refund eligibility. Please contact us no later than Friday, January 25, 2013 for more information. Amazing Arizona Comic Con reserves the right to process and issue refunds for eligible and qualified attendees, which will be dispersed from February 18 through 28.

Oh no! Stan!

Stan, get lots of bed rest and clear liquids! We here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office also wish you a speedy recovery. We are confident that your mutant power is immortality and that you will be up and around the convention circuit in no time. If all else fails, we hear that gamma radiation is good for toughening a guy up. Get well soon, sir.

Via Bleeding Cool.

Scatter What Now?: Warren Ellis Announces New Comic Project

Warren Ellis is a legend in the world of comic books who hasn’t written a comic book in Goddamned forever. Sure, he did a short run on Marvel’s Secret Avengers toward the end of 2011, but while he released a novel and started a weekly column for Vice in 2012, he’s been pretty much absent from comics for well over a year at this point. And hey, those things were entertaining, but he did these things while there’s a fandom out there waiting for the conclusion of Fell and hoping for another dose of Desolation Jones.

Well, there’s some good news – no, not new Fell or Desolation Jones; we live in a human world, filled not with miracles, but with mundane and crippling disappointment – Ellis has announced a new comics project.

Of some kind.