Welcome back to The Rundown, our daily breakdown on comic news stories we missed from the previous day. Have a link to share? Email our team at rundown@multiversitycomics.com.
& Andrew Hennessy
– Kirby fans rejoice! DC recently announced that a new miniseries will star Jack “The King” Kirby (“Fantastic Four,” “Mister Miracle”)’s creation Etrigan The Demon. “The Demon Hell is Earth” will be written by Andrew Constant (“Torn,” “Fly”) with art by Brad Walker (“Aquaman,” “Guardians of the Galaxy”) and Andrew Hennessy (“Aquaman,” “Hulk”) and will focus on the strenuous relationship between Etrigan the Demon and his host body Jason Blood while in the midst of a nuclear attack that has brought about the rise of hell to our earthly plane. So be keeping an eye out for the book with Etrigan the rhyming demon because if you don’t you are likely lacking severely in reason.
– According to Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea, Ocean’s Eleven), brother of Ben Affleck (Argo, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), he is fairly confident his brother will not be returning for the solo-Batman film. Although Casey Affleck was quick to walk back his statement in an interview, saying “I was just kind of making that up,” it had already been announced that Ben Affleck would be stepping down as director of the film, with Matt Reeves (War for the Planet of the Apes, Cloverfield) coming in to fill his position as director. Whether Bat-fleck is on the screen or not Batman is expected to be in theatres October 5, 2018.
– What was once old is now new again: Wizard Magazine is coming back from the dead. It was announced yesterday that the magazine which helped give rise to the Image and Valiant Comics in the 90’s will be returning as a quarterly magazine with Nerdist Editor-In-Chief Brian Walton taking over that role for the magazine. More information will be available at this year’s Wizard World Comic Con in Chicago, which the publisher puts on each year, during the Nothing Stays Dead in Comics panel on August 23.
– Neil Gaiman (“American Gods,” “Sandman”), Gail Simone (“Secret Six,” “Mockingbird”), Gerad Way (“Doom Patrol,” “Umbrella Academy”) and many others will be contributing their talents to “Mine!” a new anthology currently seeking funding on Kickstarter. All proceeds from sales of the book will be going to benefit Planned Parenthood. The anthology will focus on trailblazing women who have fought for their right to choose in addition to more personal stories about and mythically heroic stories as well. The Kickstarter for the book with a list of all of the talented contributors, gifts for those who choose to donate and extra information on this spectacular opportunity to support an American institution can all be found here.
– Wolverine, Ninjas, and Japan, the trifecta of awesome is back again this fall in “Old Man Logan” #31 as Ed Brisson (“Iron Fist,” “Cluster”) and Mike Deodato Jr. (“Avengers,” “Original Sin”) continue their run on the series as part of Marvel Legacy. The arc will see Logan going back to Japan to fight The Hand who are being led by Gorgon (no not the Inhuman but rather the petrifying mutant savant who often wears a blindfold) and Scarlet Samurai the mysterious female from Logan’s past who fans will have seen on the cover of the issue.
– Speaking of Legacy, Multiversity alumni Chad Bowers (“X-Men ‘92,” “Youngblood”) along with Chris Sims (“Deadpool: Bad Blood,” “X-Men ‘92”) and artist Kev Walker (“New Avengers,” “Uncanny Inhumans”) will be teaming up to reintroduce readers to a 90’s Marvel cult character in “Darkhawk” #51. The one-shot issue will reintroduce readers to Chris Powell aka Darkhawk as he struggles to keep his Darkhawk crystal out of the hands of the Fraternity of Raptors, who were recently seen in pages of “All-New Guardians of the Galaxy.”
– In addition to Darkhawk, fan favorite Shang-Chi will be returning to “Master of Kung Fu” for issue #126 which will also be a special one-shot issue from wrestler-turned-writer-turned-UFC fighter CM Punk (“Strange Sports Stories,” “Draxx”) and artist Dalibor Talajic (“X-Men,” “Foolkiller”), who previously drew the Secret Wars “Master of Kung Fu” miniseries in 2015. Both the writer and artist are trained in hand-to-hand combat which they said will add a sense of realism to the issue which will see what exactly the Master of Kung Fu does on his day off.
Continued below– A new piece in The Atlantic focuses on the important role that comic colorist and letterer play in the industry and how many are finally gaining the notoriety and credit they are due for their work. The piece focused on Matthew Wilson (“Young Avengers,” “Black Science”) and Clayton Cowles (“Young Avengers,” “FF”) the colorist and letterer, respectively for Image Comics “The Wicked + The Divine.” The article also features interactions with industry veterans like colorist Jordie Bellaire (“Redlands,” “Vision”), letterer Deron Bennett (“Batgirl,” “Tale of Sand”) among others on their craft.
– DC has announced a new deal with the app Madefire to carry their back catalog of over 80,000 comics to the application in addition to updating regularly with new releases from the company. Madefire publishes and distributes digital comics with a strong focus on their Motion Book technology. The deal was punctuated by the addition of today’s new comic book releases from DC to the app. Madefire is available through Apple and Google Play app stores now.
– Naruto the long running and much-beloved manga has had a live-action adaptation in works since 2015 and now it has been announced that a rewrite for the script is in the works from the writing team who adapted Warren Ellis (“Injection,” “Transmetropolitan”)’s series “Red” into the RED and RED 2. Brother’s Jon and Eric Hoeber (Battleship, Whiteout) are currently working on a script for the film which will feature Naruto and his classmates as they come of age in the world of ninjas and constant strife.
– Batman has always had authoritarian tendencies and in a new story, which started in “Batwoman” #6 yesterday, Batman will be going full dictator complete with Bat-stormtroopers and a fascist police-state that would make Steve Rodgers drool (at least in his current Hydra-ized form). The story, which will be continued on in “Detective Comics” #969 in an arc titled ‘The Fall of the Batmen,’ sees a battle-hardened Batwoman taking leadership of The Colony, the evil paramilitary group who killed Tim Drake in the pages of “Detective Comics” earlier this year, in order to defeat this fascist Batman. “Batwoman” #6 is available now and “Detective Comics” #969 will be out in November.
– The incredibly influential “Star Wars Sourcebook” and “Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game” will be returning to print this fall in honor of their 30th anniversary. Well after the first Trilogy had come out these two books laid out in wonderful detail the structure of the Empire, the names of ships and alien species in addition to so many other parts of the galaxy far far away which had yet to be explored. These books helped shape the fandom for years to come and now, with some minor tweaks and a new foreword by Pablo Hidalgo of the Lucasfilm Story Group, the two books will be available once again to educate a new generation in all things Star Wars.
