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.
– The good folks over at CBR have a conversation with IDW’s Chris Ryall and Christos Gage about a certain galactic armored space defender. It’s nice to see creators honestly excited about things they are working on, and it comes across immediately that these two, especially Ryall, have been chomping at the bit to get their (five-fingered) hands on Rom. Also of interest is Gage’s intention to keep the creepy paranoia/Invasion of the Body Snatchers-vibe from the original Marvel series. There’s a LOT of Marvel-originated material now off-limits to the IDW series; not just the appearance of basically the entire Marvel Universe circa 1985 but almost all of Rom’s backstory and cast. Bill Mantlo had the same kind of carte blanche with fleshing out Rom’s world that Larry Hama had with G. I. Joe, and it’s a toss-up as to which writer came up with the crazier environment. But while Ryall & Gage don’t have access to the actual toys (no pun intended) Mantlo came up with, they can still hang on to that original spirit and seed in new elements tapping into what we already know works for the character and his fanbase. They pull that off and this could be one of the best comics revamps we’ve seen in a while. Maybe even Valiant-Without-The-Gold-Key-Characters good.
– I’m shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, that Frank Miller isn’t thrilled to see Elektra showing up on the second season of Netflix’s Marvel’s Daredevil. As The Beat points out at the link, Miller’s reticence for any iteration of the character not under his pencil or pen is nothing new. Reading that article made me dig through my old fanzines and pick out this nugget of Miller’s from “Overstreet’s FAN” #23 (May 1997):
Yeeeeaaahhhhh I’d say Miller was pretty on record against Elektra showing up anywhere back in the day.
(And just as a side-note, someone should really collect Miller’s 80’s & 90’s editorials and editorial cartoons because they are, no joke, some of the best work of his career. Especially when he was directing those smoking .45’s of righteous fury at opponents who really deserved it…)
– Not that plotting & executing one of the best monthly series in recent memory (SPOILER: it’s gonna show up on our “Best of 2015” list) slowed him down from doing the equivalent workload of two other comics writers simultaneously, but now that “Mind MGMT” has wrapped up, it looks like Matt Kindt is really doubling down on his Valiant commitments. He and artist Clayton Crain are spearheading the publisher’s 2016 summer event with “4001 A.D.”.
– What? You mean DC isn’t automatically cancelling the main “Batman” book when Snyder & Capullo eventually leave? You’re kidding me…
– And in the latest “Spend Money on Comics For A Good Cause” news, Lost Art Books is running their Fifth Anniversary Fundraiser that kicks over a portion of every December sale to help support Street Sense, a Washington DC-based biweekly 16-page newspaper created and disseminated by members of the homeless community and volunteers. You can find out more about the Street Sense organization here. Lost Art Books has shown up here on the Rundown before because they have a wonderful selection of books on comics and art in a more general sense. Please consider treating yourself or someone else to one of their books this month, and help out a great cause in the process.
