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.
In case you missed it, Golden Age Marvel artist Allen Bellman passed away, aged 95; we have an audio interview with Mark Russell on our Comics Syllabus podcast; and we got an exclusive preview from DC of next week’s “Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen” #4.
– Writer Steve Orlando will be making his Marvel debut in June with “Darkhold Alpha” #1. The book, done with art by Cian Tormey, will see Doctor Doom gaining ahold of the the elder god Chthon’s spellbook the Darkhold, forcing the Scarlet Witch to gather the world’s greatest heroes to stop the threat Doom has inadvertently unleashed.
– Marvel also announced June’s issues of “Marvels Snapshots” will include “Captain Marvel” by Mark Waid and Colleen Doran, and “Civil War” by Saladin Ahmed and Ryan Kelly. The series, overseen by “Marvels” writer Kurt Busiek with cover art by co-creator Alex Ross, similarly explores classic storylines through the eyes of ordinary people living in the Marvel Universe.
– In middle-grade graphic novel news, Publishers Weekly reports HarperAlley has acquired Jarad Greene’s autobiographical “A-Okay,” as well as another book for publication in 2023. Holiday House have also bought the rights to an untitled horror anthology series by Mark Fearing, which will begin in 2022.
– The New Mutants director Josh Boone revealed the movie will have a lesbian love story between two of the title characters, neither of whom are LGBT in the comics. For more spoilers, head on over to Entertainment Weekly. The long-delayed New Mutants movie finally releases on April 3.
– Polygon got a look at never-before-seen, unused art from 1988’s “Batman” #428, namely the issue where Batman discovers Jason Todd’s corpse in ‘Death of the Family.’ The uncolored panel by writer Jim Starlin, artist Jim Aparo, and inker Mike DeCarlo, was intended for print if fans had voted for Jason to live, and depicts Bruce Wayne by Jason’s side in hospital: also shown for the first time is the full dialogue for the page where Batman discovers Jason is alive, first presented in 2006’s “Batman Annual” #25.
– Finally, Bad Idea revealed all 100 stores that will be carrying their titles when they launch in May with “ENIAC” #1; the Japanese government have approved expanding their anti-online piracy law to include manga; and Amazing Spider-Man 2 co-writer Roberto Orci is writing one of Sony’s many untitled Spider-Man spin-off films.
