Marvel Goes Little

Marvel Comics has announced that they will be collaborating with Sony to create content  for the hit video game Little Big Planet.

Little Big Planet has used its Play, Create, and Share capabilities to establish a creative gaming genre. And the gaming community has fully embraced this new facet of  the  game. Over one million levels  have been have been published to the PlayStation  Network. The game has been phenomenally  successful, and it continues to  grow by  adding big brands like Marvel Comics to its community.

Kimota !

One of the big stories coming out of Comic-Con International this past week is that Marvel Comics is rescuing the long lost hero Marvelman from limbo.

And every comic geek just hit the floor.

For those of you not in the know, Marvelman is the creation of Mick Anglo, who first appeared in the U.K. in 1954, and had been inspired by Fawcett’s (before DC obtained him) Captain Marvel. Kid reporter Micky Moran received superpowers from an astrophysicist using atomic energy. Whenever Micky said his trigger word, Kimota, he became the super powerful Marvelman, and went on to have forgettable adventures.

The character went through a transformation in the 80s when Alan Moore began writing a dark version of the hero for the British magazine Warrior. Moore’s writing, along with artwork by Garry Leach, and Alan Davis, made Marvelman a complex and interesting character. However, the character met resistance from Marvel Comics who fought against their name being used in the series’ title. Legal troubles ended Warrior‘s run with issue #21. After that Marvelman’s name was changed to Miracleman, and the character eventually landing with Eclipse Comics.

Eclipse began publishing a Miracleman comic in 1985, teaming Moore up with artists Chuck Austen, and then Rick Veitch, and later John Totleben. Moore would write the book for 16 issues, and with issue #17 the book was taken over by Neil Gaiman with artist Mark Buckingham. Gaiman wrote Miracleman until issue #25. However, the series ended with issue #24, due to Eclipse folding. And this is where the trouble starts.

The rights to Miracleman became a tangled web of parties claiming ownership of the character. When Warrior began publishing the character’s adventures, it wa asumed that the rights to the character was split between Warrior editor Dez Skinn, Alan Moore, Gary Leach, and publisher Quality Communications. When Leach left the book, and Alan Davis took over, Davis was given a percentage of ownership in the character. Eclipse Comics bought the rights from Skinn when they began publishing the new Miracleman comic. Meanwhile, Davis wanted to distance himself from the situation, so he gave his rights to Leach. When Moore ended his run on the Miracleman comic he handed over his percentage of the character to Neil Gaiman, who in turn shared part of his ownership with Mark Buckingham.

A couple of years after  the collapse of Eclipse, Todd McFarlane purchased the rights to Eclipse’s creative assets. McFarlane believed that he now held a stake in Miracleman, however, it would be discovered later that Miracleman was not included in sale of Eclipse’s assets. Although MacFarlane did own two trademarks for Miracleman logos. These rights issues were brought to light during a legal battle between Gaiman and MacFarlane over the characters Angela, Cogliostro, and Medieval Spawn, all of which Gaiman created for books that he wrote for MacFarlane.

During its run Miracleman became one of the most highly regarded books of its time. That fact along with having had Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman, two of the most acclaimed writers in comic book history, work on the book, along with some great artists, made Miracleman a much desired book. However, because of the rights lissues, the series couldn’t be reprinted for nearly 20 years. This helped fuel the fan ferver for the comic book even more as original copies have become scarce, and if you do find any copies they sell for a preamium price.

Now, Marvel Comics has announced that they have secured the rights to Marvelman (they’re going back to the characters original name) with the rights to reprint past stories, as well as being able to print new stories with the character. Gaiman’s planned story for Marvelman/Miracleman went unfinished. And fans have been clamoring to read these stories for a long time. If there aren’t any other hitches and Mavel can go forward like they want to, they are going to make a lot of money of this comic.

Jonah Hex Movie Poster

The first poster for the upcoming Jonah Hex movie has been released. Let’s hope its not the last. I am very interested in seeing this movie, but this poster doesn’t do anything for me. My general knock against it is that the style doesn’t fit the movie. This movie is placed in a western setting with an element horror mixed in. I would really like to see a poster that has a western feel to it. The blue light lit photo, and the lettering on the title seems more like a sci-fi gimmick than a wild west dust up. I want more Tombstone grit and less cheap X-Files like effects. I would really like to see them try to pull me into the movie by playing more to the genre. Hopefully this won’t be the last poster that we see.

Planet Hulk Movie

EW.com has a trailer for Marvel Entertainment’s next direct-to-dvd animated movie, Planet Hulk. The movie is based on a 2006 Marvel storyline by writer Greg Pak. A shadow group of big wigs in the Marvel Universe (if you haven’t read it I won’t give them away here) that call themselves the Illuminati have been guideing the events that impact the world. Seeing the potential danger of an uncontrollable Hulk, they decide to exile him to a deserted planet. The plan goes awry when the Hulk crash lands on the wrong planet, and he finds himself a prisoner on the savage planet Sakaar. Now the Hulk must fight for his life in the arena.

The direct-to-dvd animated comic book movies of the past few years have had me just about as excited as the live action movies. Marvel has been doing an excellent job with their animated movies, and Planet Hulk looks like another winner. The original comic book story was a block-buster adventure, and this movie should be the same. I can’t wait for Planet Hulk to smash the shelves in February 2010.

Planet Hulk Trailer

Marvel Slows Down Their Trades

CBR has a report on the comments and Q&A that took place during the Mondo Marvel Panel at Comic-Con International this week. One of the thigs that raised my eyebrow was writer Jim McCann’s statement that Marvel has slowed down its trade paperback releases at the request of retailers who are asking for help to support individual issue sales.

My question is, “Why does it matter to the retailers?” Isn’t a sale a sale? I know what the obvious answer is, they want people to buy both the individual issues and the the trade collections. They want to double dip you to buy twice, but is that really working? I don’t doubt that there are some people who probably do buy both the single issues and trade collections, but is that really a considerable percentage of the comic buyers? There has been a growing segment of comic book fans and casual readers who only want to buy the trades. If it takes longer for them to get the story that they want in the trades, will that really make them give up their preferred product to buy the individual issues? Will it make them but both? I don’t. If someone wants trades, then I think that they’ll wait for the trade. If it takes longer, then they’ll wait longer, and that means that the retailers will have to wait longer to bring in money. If anything having a longer waiting period runs a higher risk that readers will forget about the book that they wanted to buy, or just skip it out of frustration, or because something else has come along while they were waiting.

If the retailers can gauge what their customers want so that they don’t over order and get stuck with books that don’t sell, and then get the trades in shortly after a story has wrapped up, then everyone can get what they want. It seems that there is some mid-ground here where everyone will be happy, and you can keep the sales flowing.

YO JOE !

I came across a You Tube video that has all of the commercials for the old G.I. Joe comic book series by Marvel comics. I used to love seeing these things when I was watching TV. And when I saw one I always new that I needed to walk down to the local 7-11 that week to buy the newest issue. Even though these seem to be advertising the comic books, you can tell that they are also announcing the new toys that are coming out as well. I know that its been said that the G.I. Joe cartoon was a half hour commercial, but I wonder just how the collaboration between the cartoon, comic books, and toys was handled.

Some of the voices in these old commercials are pretty bad, and lyrics are so terrible that they’re hilarious, but the animation is pretty cool and its neat to see these things again. I’ve always wanted comic book companies to produce commercials like these again. Check ‘em out!

YO JOE !

Warner Bros. Picking Up Steam To The Screen

A few years ago it seemed like Warner Brothers was dragging their feet when it came to developing DC Comics properties for movies. I remember that there was a lot of hemming and hawing about whether they should do a Superman movie, or Batman movie, or a movie with Superman and Batman, or a Batman Beyond movie. While Marvel was basking in the success from Spiderman, X-Men, Spiderman 2, and X-Men 2, Warner Brothers wasn’t able to make a decision on what to do.

It might have taken time for the WB to get rolling, but when they finally did, they did it right. Batman Begins was an incredible return of DC characters to the big screen. And while Superman Returns might have been a flop, their follow up with The Dark Knight has been phenomenally successful. Its a year later and Warner Brothers has more DC Comics movies in production than any other time since WB purchased DC Comics in the late 60s.

THE LOSERS

The Losers was a comic book published under DC’s Vertigo imprint. Created by writer Andy Diggle and artist Jock, the series covered a special forces group who turn against the CIA after an attempt by the agency to assinate them. The movie looks to be an action-adventure drama that follows along that plotline. Principle photography starts this week in Puerto Rico. The movie will star Jefferey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana and Chris Evans.

JONAH HEX

One project that I’m very excited about is Jonha Hex. Jonah Hex is a wild west gunslinger who has a horrible scar on the right side of his face. He was a Confederate soldier during the Civil War, and in the comics he is often depicted wearing his tattered Confederate Army jacket. During the 90s there were a couple of Jonah Hex mini-series published in the Vertigo line that brought a supernatural twist to the western genre. I thought those books were excellent, and I am all in favor of the movie going into this realm of the “Wierd West.” Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, and John Malkovich star in this supernatural Western which recently wrapped production in Louisiana.

GREEN LANTERN

The searche has ended and the rumors can be put to rest. Ryan Reynolds will star in the next big super hero movie from Warner Brothers, Green Lantern.

THE HUMAN TARGET

I just found out that FOX has picked up the tv series Human Target. Created by comics legends Len Wein and Carmine Infantino, The Human Target is about bodyguard for hire Christopher Chance. He is a master of disguise who impersonates his clients in order to protect them and take down the bad guys.

The show will star Mark Valley and is slated to priemere as a mid-season replacement in January 2010. There are 13 episodes odered for the first season, and it is expected to air Wednesday nights following American Idol. This show has a lot of potential, and I know that everyone says this at some point or another, but I had this idea a long time ago. I’m glad to see that someone is developing this idea, and if Warner Brothers is looking for any other ideas, then they should call me, I have some good ones.

It also appears that Warner Brothers and DC have built a partnership where they will be working together to make the best movies possible. That might not have always been the case in the past, but it looks like they are taking good steps to have the people who know the comic books participate in developing the comic book movies. DC has input on the material, and some of their biggest writers, Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, and Marv Wolfman have been hired as consultants for some of the projects.

Warner Brothers might have been slow out of the gate, but now its full steam ahead.

Silver Screen Comics

Comic books remain a popular source of material for movies, and Hollywood is developing a couple more comic book properties for the big screen.

The Nye Incidents

Dark Castle, a Warner Bros. based production house has picked up the rights to the Graphic Novel The Nye Incidents. The comic book is written by Whitley Strieber and is published by Devil’sDue. The comic book is about a medical examiner who is on the hunt for a killer of alien abductees. Its being offered that the book is inspired by true events, but who knows whatthat really means. The alien abductee angle shouldn’t surprise anyone as Strieber is well known in the alien conspiracy theorist community. He is best known for writing Communion, his novel about alien abduction, and The Coming Global Superstorm, which he co-wrote with Art Bell. Strieber also wrote the novels The Wolfen and The Hunger both were adapted into movies in the 1980s.

Todd Lincoln will direct the film, with Joel Silver, Andrew Rona, Alex Heinmen, and Daniel Alter with serve as producers on the project. As of now there hasn’t been a writer hired to write the screenplay adaptation.

Station

CBS Films has purchased the screen rights to Station, a comic book mini-series by Johanna Stokes that is published by Boom! Sudios. Station is a tale suspense set aboard the Earth’s first multinational space station. The best astronauts from five nations are sent to the space station, but when one of them turns up dead, the remaining personnel must race against time to discover if the death is the result of sabotage, an acident, or murder.

Screenwriter Jeff Vintar is teaming up again with his I, Robot producer Laurence Mark, who will be producing along with Boom! Studios co-founders Andrew Cosby and Ross Ritchie. David Blackman will serve as executive producer on the film.

Why Mylar Dreams?

The name Mylar Dreams comes from a couple of sources. The first is my favorite book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. Its the book that the movie Blade Runner is based on, which is also one of  my favorite movies. The other part of the idea comes from comic book collecting. Mylar is a type of plastic that bags for storing and protecting comic books are made from. When I let my mind wander around these two ideas I came up with the title Do Comic Collectors Dream of Mylar Sheep? And then that was  shortened down to Mylar Dreams.

For this blog I decided to disable the comments section of the posts, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want discussion here. Instead of having comments directly on my posts I would like people to join my forums and have discussions there on all things geek. There is a link to the Forums under the Features tab on the right side column. I hope to see everyone there!