So I'm guessing Thor isn't going to make it through Fear Itself if there's a new Thunder God in town taking over from the norse goldilockes in The Mighty Thor #8. Thanks for the spoilers Marvel, well in all fairness there is a preview in the back of Fear Itself that suggests as much. So who exactly is this Vigo the Carpathian looking pretender to the crown? From the very limited research I have done, I can use google, the information after the jump could be considered even more spoilerific...or not, proceed at your own peril.

Read more »

Well that’s that done, on with the review. This week is a look back at a darker time for the Marvel universe; it’s a book set bang smack in the middle of Dark Reign. Once again it features a number of stories so I will be focusing on them each listing the writers and artists and giving information of what to pick up after each story and how we got to where the story starts.

The Book is “The List” it was published originally in 2009 and was collected in a nice book that has some great stories in it. When these stories originally came out I only picked up the Uncanny X-men version as it became clear that it was essentially a jumping on point book for other titles. The list is something that Norman “Green Goblin” Osborn creates to make life easier for him and contains the following things to do:

Pages: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9

Kieron Gillen, man of the moment, hero of the hour, musical magician, indy supremo and Sidekickcast interviewee has now been announced as the sole writer on Uncanny X-Men. I know, I know, shock, horror, who'd have thought that was going to happen?! It's safe to say that this was on the cards, especially given the way the Uncanny X-Men has been passed around in Marvel from top writer to top writer in the last couple of years. Normally that would be fine but nobody really seems to know what to do with the book.

Read more »

Today in a press conference held at Midtown Comics in New York a Mickey Mouse emblazoned Joe Quesada unveiled Marvel's new event; Fear Itself. Matt Fraction, Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger and Laura Martin are the creative team. Here's the trailer:

Read more »

We've all known for some time now that there are creators stationed at Marvel who drive the direction the universe is going. Now it seems Marvel want to make that assurtion official with their Marvel Architects. The names are familiar and will be no surprise to anyone that is a fan of Marvel comics. Just what do these guys have planned and where will it leave our favourite books? PR stunt? Probably. Will status quo be 'irreversibly' altered only then to be put back together? Definitely. Am I still excited, even though I know all this? Hells yeah!

PRESS RELEASE

The very fabric of the Marvel Universe is changing and the Architects are the ones leading the charge! Marvel’s Architects initiative spotlights the writers and artists telling the most exciting and impactful stories that rock the Marvel Universe to its very core every month.

But just who are the writers in Marvel’s Architects?

Read more »

Debuting in Invincible Iron Man #25 is the new Iron Man armor as designed by Matt Fraction and Ryan Meinerding, designer on the Iron Man and Thor films. “The inspiration for the new design came from thinking about a sleeker, leaner, tougher Iron Man,” revealed Fraction. “If technology is increasingly getting smaller and lighter it seems like the Iron Man should do the same: ergonomic and aerodynamic. We were looking for something that felt as sleek and glossy as a sports car Tony Stark would covet. I love what we've come up with. It feels like the next evolutionary step in the Iron Man's design.”

This new armor is certainly sleaker than anything we've seen before but is in no way a quantum leap from the current armor, maintaining the traditional colour scheme and general appearance of previous incarnations. I was going to kick off about how everytime Marvel have a major film about to launch, like say Iron Man 2, they tend to mess with the comics and put the character through some major changes. However seeing as one of the designers from the movie worked on this armor I'm wondering if by the end of the second celluloid outing of ol' Shell Head we may see Mr Downey sporting a brand new armor? It's been rumoured that we may see the Extremis armor in the new film and could this new more lightweight and less complex armor herald it's return to the comics too? So many questions but I guess we'll just have to wait until May to find out.

Link: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2009/12/matt-fraction.html

Interesting news that Matt Fraction will be taking over the reigns of Thor in 2010, kicking off with a team-up between Thor and Iron Man for Free Comic Book Day with art by John Romita Jr. Seeing as these two characters have been opposed to each other since Thor's return to the (im)mortal coil it seems pretty safe to assume that The Siege will putting all the big players back where they belong, at each other's side.

CLICK IMAGE TO EMBIGGEN

No stranger to Thor, Fraction recently wrote the mini series Age of Thunder which chronicled Thor's Asgardian history but for the ongoing title Fraction will be dealing with the Thor we know now and the issues that arise with a God wandering around the Marvel Universe. For more on Fraction's intentions for his ongoing Thor check out the interview over at CBR.

Read more »

CLICK IMAGE TO EMBIGGEN

Ever dropped a comic book series only for it to then get really good, get high critical acclaim and make you look like a tit? No? Just me then. I dropped Eisner Award winning Invincible Iron Man in protest to the outrageous level of photo referencing and inconsistency artist Salvador Larroca was exposing the book too. Well this is me officially flip flopping and trying to atone for the abuse I've handed out. I'm now back on this book and it's looking better than ever, now the quality of the art really is matching up with the outstanding writing by Matt Fraction. The image above is a preview of Patrick Zircher's awesome cover to Invincible Iron Man #20, the beginning of the Stark: Disassembled storyline kicking off in November. The cover seems to be an homage to a scene from the Confession where Tony Stark is talking to a dead Captain America, in this cover Thor is taking the place of Tony and Tony seems to be the dead one. Since Thor's return he has shown nothing but distatse for Tony even though they were close friends founding the Avengers together. Could his apparent 'death' allow Thor to forgive him, is Tony's pennance for his 'crimes' against the superhero community finally over and as he seem's 'dead' does this mean Osborne will win? Stay tuned to find out.