marvel comics

First, let me lower your expectations: This is just a rumor started by fanboys at a comic book shop.

OK, for those of you still reading, former Battlestar Galactica actress Katee Sackhoff was recently spotted buying a ton of comics featuring Daredevil character Typhoid Mary. According to MTV, Sackhoff visited Golden Apple Comics in L.A. last week and picked up the books and stunned the shop's staff with her smokin' hotness. This, of course, led the staff to believe that she might be doing research to play Typhoid Mary in a new Daredevil movie.

It's true. You really can't kill Wolverine.

Hugh Jackman is already hitting the gym for a sequel to the just-released X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Nicktoons just ordered 26 more episodes of Wolverine and the X-Men.

The animated show was a big hit on Nicktoons, helping give the network its highest-ratings ever in key demos. The new eps will kick off May 22.

I know a lot of X-Men fans had problems with Wolverine and the X-Men, but I love the show. Being a Cyclops fan (yes, we do exist), it sorta bugs me that Wolverine is billed as the leader of the X-Men on the show, but that's a minor complaint. The show is fun, packed with cool, somewhat obscure Marvel mutants, and it's pretty entertaining for kids and adults.

Bill Hader and Seth Meyers (the latter of whom is the head writer for Saturday Night Live) will be writing Spider-Man ... the comic book, not the next movie. Their single-issue story is called "The Short Halloween" (which I presume is a parody of a Batman comic story called "The Long Halloween") and will be in finer comic book shops on May 13.

This isn't the first time a comedy writer has written a comic book. I recall Gilbert Gotfried helping out with an issue of Superboy and Patton Oswalt writing a one-shot Justice League special, among others. While I don't think this will get the same level of publicity as Barack Obama being on a Spider-Man cover, it's kind of cool to hear about. I wonder if Spider-Man will sing his own rendition of "Dick In A Box".

In short, comedians are huge nerds. But this is nothing you didn't know before.

[via ComicMix]

It's not enough to have Spider-Man on The CW, Wolverine and the X-Men on Nicktoons and the upcoming Black Panther on BET. Marvel Comics is now creating a new series for Cartoon Network called the Marvel Super Hero Squad.

Obviously, the show is marketed towards the very young viewer who is first being introduced to the Marvel super hero characters. That way, the company can indoctrinate new zombies into its empire. The cartoon is based on Hasbro's anime-like action figure series of the same name.

I can't help but wonder if Marvel is spreading itself too thin with so many movies and cartoon series. On the other hand, rival DC Comics is already marketing to the kiddies with their Brave and the Bold series on Cartoon Network and one cannot help but wonder if Marvel simply doesn't want to be outdone in that demographic.

In any case, kids watching the show will buy the toys and vice-versa. Marvel is learning the lesson of Disney.

I'm not referring to Emma Peel and John Steed. Apparently there's a new cartoon heading to television based on the Marvel Comics superhero team of the same name. Is it just me, or are the characters' shapes reminiscent of the excellent Batman, Superman and Justice League cartoons from recent years?

Obviously, this is crossover marketing with the Marvel-financed movies that are coming out using the "shared universe" approach that was popular in their comics. Movies like Iron Man, Thor, and The First Avenger: Captain America (while I understand the marketing behind "The First Avenger" tag, I don't really like its use) are leading up to The Avengers movie in which all the aforementioned superheroes appear on the same screen.

Everyone thinks they can write. No, really. If you talk to anyone who likes TV and movies, invariably you'll hear that they have a great story. Well, some do and some don't. In the soap business, just about every kind of story has been told.

A show like Passions, which has recently come to an end, told wild tales about witches and sorcery and dwarfs and demons.

General Hospital has been firmly set in plots about mobsters in the manner of The Godfather, with Sonny Corinthos a latter day Michael Corleone.

As the World Turns, currently in its 52nd year, is rooted in traditional love stories and family conflicts, although you have to give them props for Luke and Noah, a frontline gay romance which is definitely a 21st century development.

The Marvel Comics character Black Panther is getting his own animated show on the BET network. This was announced during the BET upfront presentation in New York for the 2008-2009 season.

The character was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (who co-created most of the classic Marvel Comics line up) and first appeared in Fantastic Four #52 in 1966. The character's real name is T'Challa and he is the ruler of a fictional African country called Wakanda. His name predates the existence of the Black Panther Party.

There have been a few attempts to bring the character to the movie screen, one in particular in the early 1990's starring Wesley Snipes. In 2007, Marvel announced that a film based on the character was on its movie development slate.

He's a minor character as far as the Marvel universe goes, but he is the most visible black superhero they have. He has appeared in several other animated Marvel television shows before, but not in a main role.

It's product placement on a whole new level. ABC Marketing is placing references to its its show Lost in Marvel Comics.

It's a pretty big marketing campaign, based on what I read in the article. There will be posters and references in panels of various comics.

I wonder how the creators feel about that? Will it interfere with a story or piece of art? Will they get renumeration for putting the advertisements in their stories (much as TV writers were looking for a piece of the advertising dollars for putting product placement in their scripts).

I've seen some odd cameos in comic books, TV shows, and movies, but this is one of the more odd ones.

Marvel has a new comic book out, Mythos: Spider-Man, which retells the origin story of the webslinger with several changes. One of the changes? After Peter Parker is bitten by the radioactive spider, he doesn't go try out his powers in a wrestling ring, he demonstrates them on NBC's Late Night With Conan O'Brien!

The show's blog has the details, along with several pics from the issue, which hits newsstands today. Next month: the Hulk's band plays on Letterman's show.

[via TV Tattle]

Remember the old Spider-Man cartoon? Not the one from the 90s, the one from the 60s that was all groovy and had those confusing shots of Spidey shooting his web straight into the sky, and you wondered what the hell he was hanging on and swinging from. Airplanes? A blimp? Giant birds? It didn't make any sense, but the theme song was cool:

In his satin tights
Fighting for your rights
And the old red, white, and bluuuuuuuuuuuue!

Oh, wait, that was Wonder Woman.

Remember that crossover between Marvel Comics and the CBS soap Guiding Light that I told you about recently? The episode airs next Wednesday, November 1, and CBS.com has a sneak peek video.

Of course, I can't get the video to work at all. Can anyone else get it to work? I've tried both IE and Firefox and it doesn't load for some reason.

Anyway, the superhero is actually regular GL character Harley Cooper, who is zapped by lightning (oh, original) and gets superpowers. But will she will good or evil? Not sure, but it looks like her superhero-ness is comprised of colored contact lenses and the kind of hat that newsboys used to wear in the 1940s.

Marvel will have a special comic book featuring the superhero inserted into several other comic books in the coming weeks (a full list is at the site above).

This kind of made my day. Marvel is partnering with No Equal Entertainment, a Canadian production company, to develop a television show based on the comics character Moon Knight. For those of you unfamiliar with the Moon Knight, his real name is Marc Spector. Spector is chosen by an ancient Egyptian god named Khonshu to be its vessel in the modern world. Spector adopts a number of identities, from a playboy millionaire to a New York cabbie, in order to infiltrate the underworld and dons the Moon Knight garb when kicking butt is needed. There's no timeline for when the series will hit TV but this is fertile ground for a dark series dealing with a number of issues.

I've been watching Guiding Light for almost three decades, and this might be the most bizarre news I've heard yet.

Our friends over at TMZ.com are reporting that the CBS soap has made an agreement with Marvel Comics, and Marvel will actually introduce a new superhero on the show!

Not only that, but Marvel is actually creating a comic book based on the new superhero, and the comic book will feature several characters from the soap along with Wolverine and Spiderman.

Now this is new synergy, eh? I can understand NBC having an online comic to cross-promote Heroes, but a new superhero on a soap opera and a comic book?

The superhero will make his (her?) debut on the soap on November 1.

No, we're not talking about a return of the old Beatles cartoons; that would be the Fab Four. We're talking about the long-running Marvel Comics series created by Stan "The Man" Lee that became a popular movie last year. Starting in the fall, Cartoon Network will air 26 new half-hour episodes of the Fantastic Four animated series.

Produced in cooperation between Marvel Studios and Moonscoop, the animated series will incorporate both 2D and 3D animation styles. According to Marvel Chief Operating Officer Michael Helfant, the animated series will be part of an aggressive strategy to promote their comic book characters through a number of different media outlets.