The Beginning Of The End: The Superior Spider-Man #25 Review

Editor’s Note: Ah, but my dear Spider-Woman… I so want to spoil you. And I can no longer think of a reason not to.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

I’ve been pretty vocal recently that, while I’m generally enjoying Dan Slott’s tale of Doc Ock as Spider-Man in The Superior Spider-Man, it’s felt like it’s been dragging along for a while to me. With the foregone conclusion that Peter Parker would eventually be returning as Spider-Man – a foregone conclusion that has been bourne out by recent news (spoilers at that link, by the way) – I had passed the point where I was fully engaged in seeing how Doc Ock would operate as Spider-Man and had reached the point where I wanted to see how things turned out to put Peter back into the suit. Picture it like sex: foreplay is fun and all, but as a wise man once said, eventually you gotta go into the trenches and bump uglies. So to speak.

Well, we are now on the 25th issue of The Superior Spider-Man – an impressive feat, considering the first issue was only a year ago – and now we’ve got some solid rising action moving toward a denouement of this whole Otto situation. Writers Dan Slott and Christos Gage take a solid step in this issue toward yanking the rug out from under Otto, showing cracks in his public image, suspicion from Spider-Man’s allies, and some real opposition from someone who can actually get to the bottom of this whole Ock / Spider-Man situation.

After months of foreplay, characters are finally starting to bump Editor’s Note: Rob, this metaphor is a dicey pile of shit. Move along. -Amanda

Ahem. Anyway.

“All Hail The King” – Watch One Minute Of This Marvel One Shot

Who is Trevor Slattery? If you saw Iron Man 3, you will recognize that name as the supposed real identity of The Mandarin, at least, in the movie. This clip from “All Hail The King”, a one-shot Marvel short that will be included in the Blu-ray/DVD release of Thor: the Dark Work, sets itself up as a documentary that purports to answer the question. My guess? He’s actually The Mandarin. This whole befuddled actor thing is a ruse, a long game. He intended to get caught but, for what purpose? I suppose it will all bear itself out over the course of Marvel’s Phase 2 and 3 movies.

Or maybe he’s a starving actor who just figured this was the easiest way to score three square meals and a roof over his head. Beats the bus stop men’s room, I guess.

The Blu-ray/DVD of Thor: The Dark World hits stores February 25, 2014.

Via The mary Sue.

Double Booked: Michael Douglas Cast As Hank Pym In Ant-Man

Okay, so we’ve known for a few weeks that Edgar Wright, who is directing the upcoming Marvel Studios version of Ant-Man, had cast Paul Rudd as, well, Ant-Man. But what we didn’t know what exactly which Ant-Man Rudd would be playing. After all, we’ve got the original Hank Pym (wife-beater with an inferiority and occasional persecution complex), we’ve got Scott Lang (sneak-thief with a daughter complex who died as a C-Lister so that Brian Michael Bendis could put Spider-Man on The Avengers), and Eric O’Grady (goofy, weaselly thief who uses the Ant-Man suit to get himself laid and eventually dies a self-sacrificing hero)… and given that Wright is a comedy director, O’Grady seemed like the most likely choice to me.

So yeah: turns out that years of reading and writing about comics doesn’t mean that I know a Goddamned thing. Because Marvel Studios has announced that Rudd will be playing Scott Lang.

And that Michael Douglas will be playing Hank Pym.

Wait, what?

Known Unknown Knowns: Marvel, Dan Slott Announce Changes To Spider-Man

Editor’s Note: Look, this entire article is loaded with spoilers about upcoming events related to Spider-Man and Marvel’s and Dan Slott’s plans for the character in the coming months. And while none of those events are particularly hard to guess, if you want to remain pure and unspoiled about things, you should probably move along. And try not to think about the most likely actions a corporation might take to maximize profit via cross-platform synergy. And if you don’t have to think about what “cross-platform synergy” means because it is a part of your job, you should move along before I call you something I can’t take back. 

I wrote not too long ago that, despite generally enjoying Dan Slott’s The Superior Spider-Man, that I was ready for the whole Doc Ock as Spider-Man storyline to start coming in for a landing. While it’s been an interesting storytelling experiment, in the sense that it explores a different and darker angle on the concept of “with great power comes great responsibility” that’s at the core of Spider-Man’s character, it’s grown a little long in the tooth for me, since I knew full Goddamned well that eventually, Peter Parker was gonna come back. When? Well, sometime before The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens in theaters in May, at the very least… no matter what Dan Slott said about Peter Parker staying dead.

Well, Slott and Marvel have finally gone on record about their long-term plans for Peter Parker. And while the broad strokes might be pretty much what one would expect, they amount to pretty big spoilers, so if you want to know what’s up, you can find out after the jump.

I Will Show You Fear In A Handful Of Boogers: All-New Doop Coming In April

There are two constant givens that I can tell you about Marvel Comics at this particular moment in time: Peter Parker will somehow return as Spider-Man before The Amazing Spider-Man 2 comes out in theaters in May (yes, I’ve been saying that since Doc Ock took over, but clearly I’m not the only one thinking that), and that Doop is awesome.

Yes, Doop. That floating green spud that acted as camera man for X-Force and X-Statix during Peter Milligan’s and Mike Allred’s run on those books in the early 00s, and who has been a stalwart faculty member of the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning in Jason Aaron’s Wolverine And The X-Men. In fact, the Doop-centric 17th issue of that series was one of my favorite single issues of 2012. The little (literal) booger is just cool; an enigma wrapped in a riddle shrouded in mucous. It’s just an interesting character that can move from fringe comic relief to an international snot of mystery. While remaining funny as hell.

And for anyone who feels like me, there’s good news: Marvel has announced that Doop will be getting a star turn in All-New Doop, a miniseries by Milligan with art by David Lafuente with covers by Doop co-creator Mike Allred.

Who Watches The Watcher? Anyone, Because He Is Dead: Marvel Announces Original Sin by Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato, Jr.

We are well and truly into a new year, which is a downer on a few fronts. All the holiday vacation time is burned away, which means we will be forced to go to work in this shitty weather (it is currently eight balmy degrees outside the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, and that’s degrees Fahrenheit, not those wussy degrees Centigrade that you whimpering pleaders overseas use to try to convince people you’re not wandering blithely through simple sweater weather). And further, it means that the Big Two are gonna start announcing their big summer crossover events.

And, since we have been publishing over the last two and a half years or so, this has not necessarily been great news. Just in the last year, we have been hyped for, and then had to all but suffer through, Age of Ultron and Infinity from Marvel and The Trinity War and Forever Evil from DC, and they have not particularly grabbed us when they weren’t busy actively irritating us with arbitrary epic plots that often seemed more interested in involving everyone in the universe than making it clear why we should give a fuck about anyone involved (With God as my witness, I began pulling for Thanos about 2/3rds of the way through Infinity because at least I knew what he was trying to accomplish and why).

So I have been waiting without any particular enthusiasm to start hearing announcements about the upcoming big events that will change everything… so imagine my surprise when I heard about Marvel’s first big plans for 2014, and actually got a little excited, in spite of myself. Because while yes, the upcoming Original Sin four-month event involves a huge cast and some cosmic elements, at its heart, it’s a simple murder mystery.

A simple murder mystery written by Jason Aaron, who has been writing some of the most fun and character-driven books at Marvel over the last couple of years, and drawn by Mike Deodato, Jr., who is one of my favorite artists working for Marvel today.

You’re Far Too Trusting: Marvel Reclaiming Star Wars Comics License From Dark Horse In 2015

Remember a little more than a year ago, when The Walt Disney Company bought the license to Star Wars from George Lucas? Who had owned the rights since its creation as a concept in 1974 through 2012, and had spent years made sure that the people creating stories in that universe were of the finest possible calibre? You know, except when he forgot to vet that rotten hack who wrote and directed Episodes 1 through 3, which nearly steered the entire franchise into a ditch? Yeah, Lucas should’ve eviscerated that rotten bastard… but I digress.

Anyway. At the time, there was a lot of speculation that Disney would take the Star Wars comic book publishing license away from Dark Horse Comics (who has held the license since the very early 1990s, when they published Dark Empire and when the only people who gave a shit about Star Wars were unfuckable members of Generation X – Hi, Kevin Smith and me in college!) and return it to Marvel Comics, who had the original license back in 1977 and held it until the late 1980s, when it was no longer cool or needed to save the company when it was in danger of going down the shitter in 1976.

However, that was all speculation, and year-old speculation at that. And it would be laughable to revisit that speculation if it hadn’t turned out to be completely and utterly true: Marvel will be the sole comic book publisher of Star Wars as of 2015.

Hey, True Believers – Stan The Man Introduces New Amazing Spider-Man 2 Trailer

Happy New Year, everyone! While I am still in the midst of composing my list of favorite, and least favorite, comics for 2013, I wanted to share with you the brand new trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 that was released last night while the rest of us were getting shitfaced celebrating. In this one, Stan Lee, possibly fresh from his 91st birthday, gives us True Believers a quick intro. Then, we get another shot of the Rhino’s armor and lots of looks at Jamie Foxx’s Electro, in various action poses. Also, we see Spidey do what he does best when up to his neck in danger from his enemies – sling quips (and webs!).

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will be released in the US on May 2, 2014.

Vin is Groot: Vin Diesel’s Role In Guardians of The Galaxy Made Official

So when I saw my comic news wire blowing up earlier today with the news that Vin Diesel was portraying Groot in the upcoming James Gunn directed Guardians of The Galaxy, I was honestly surprised. Not that Diesel was playing the role, but that the fact that he was playing the role was news.

Seriously: there were rumors months ago that Diesel was in talks with Marvel to do something with them, and I follow Gunn on Twitter, so I was pretty sure I had read Gunn reference Diesel in there somewhere along the line. And normally someone only references admiration for Vin Diesel when they are working with him, or else accompanied by the word, “homoerotic.”

So I have taken it for granted for months that Diesel was playing Groot… but apparently I had no basis for that opinion because yeah: now it’s official.

I Love You, (Ant) Man: Paul Rudd Cast In Edgar Wright’s Ant Man

So Marvel made it official yesterday: Paul Rudd has been cast as the lead in Edgar Wright’s (The guy who directed The World’s End, which was, bar none, my favorite movie of 2013) movie version of Ant-Man.

When Edgar Wright came to us with the idea of Paul Rudd, we felt a huge sense of relief because the first step in creating any Marvel Studios film is finding the right star,” said Marvel’s Kevin Feige. “We knew early on that we had found the right person in Paul. When he not only agreed to do it but became as enthusiastic as any actor we’d ever met with about doing the work, we knew we’d found the right guy. We couldn’t be more excited for our audiences to see what he’s going to do to bring Ant-Man to life.

Yes. He’s enthusiastic about “the work,” Kevin. He’s certainly not considering Robert Downey, Jr.’s percentage of the gross of Avengers and envisioning finally being able to tell Judd Apatow to fuck off when he calls at 3 a.m. with an idea for a gross, yet sweet, comedy about some experience Apatow lived through at some point.

Look: I like Paul Rudd. But I can’t address whether or not he’ll be a good Ant-Man. Because we still don’t know which Ant-Man he’s gonna be playing.