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, AfterShock announced “Samurai Doggy,” and we spoke to “Black Cloak” creator Meredith McClaren.
– Marvel announced Christos Gage and Todd Nauck’s unfinished “Gwen Stacy” series will return in “Giant-Size Gwen Stacy” #1 this August. The one-shot will collect the first two issues, as well as what would’ve been the final three chapters. Originally published in February and March 2020, Gage and Nauck’s “Gwen Stacy” follows the character on her own adventures before meeting Peter Parker/Spider-Man. It was put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and did not return with other Marvel titles after 2020’s Diamond Distributors shutdown. “Giant-Size Gwen Stacy” #1 will conclude the story on August 10.
– In other delayed comics news, Dark Horse announced the graphic novel “Joe Death and the Graven Image” will be released in comics shops on March 8, 2023, and in bookstores March 21, 2023. The 152-page book, by first-time writer/artist Benjamin Schipper, is a weird western starring Joseph Bones, Shadow of Death, who battles the bandit Scary Harry. The book was originally intended for a Fall 2020 release.
– McDonald’s and Webtoon have joined forces to mark Asian Pacific American Heritage Month with a weekly series, called “Drawing on Heritage.” The four-part series, by cartoonists uru-chan, instantmiso, Kris Nguyen, and Quimchee, sees them respectively explore their heritage, “including ways to keep in touch with family abroad, experiencing a ‘lunchbox moment’ when classmates reacted to traditional Asian school lunches, and even the role McDonald’s played in their own upbringing.” You can read the first installment by instantmiso here.
– Titan Comics unveiled a variant cover for “Gun Honey: Blood for Blood” #1 by Adam Hughes, and announced that the series will begin on August 24. The second installment of writer Charles Ardai and artist Ang Hor Kheng’s crime series continues the adventures of weapons expert Joanna Tan, who goes on the run after being framed for murder. The first “Gun Honey” series was released last year, and a TV version is currently in the works.
– Viola Davis is in talks to reprise her role as Amanda Waller for an untitled spin-off series on HBO Max. Davis is expected to executive produce the show alongside The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker director James Gunn, and Christal Henry (Watchmen) is in negotiations to write it. Variety‘s sources tell viewers to expect the show to continue on from Peacemaker, where Waller’s daughter Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) exposed her mother as the overseer of Task Force X, and her culpability in Project Butterfly.
– The U.S. Postal Service unveiled some new stamp designs for 2022, including a series to mark the centenary of “Peanuts” creator Charles M. Schulz’s birth. The stamps feature ten different “Peanuts” characters, which were unveiled as part of a frame around a 1987 portrait of Schulz. You can take a closer look at the stamps here. Schulz, who died in 2000, would’ve turned 100 on November 26, 2022.
– Paramount+ announced it will launch in the UK and Ireland on Wednesday, June 22. The streaming service, which will offer Star Trek: Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Halo, and more, will cost £6.99 a month or £69.90 a year, although it will be also be available for free to Sky Cinema customers, or as an add-on for Sky Q subscribers (similar to the package deal they offer for Netflix.) It is unclear if Paramount+’s original titles will also be available to Now subscribers, although Paramount and Comcast (the owner of Sky and Now) had agreed to launch a SkyShowtime streaming service in countries without Peacock or Paramount+.
– Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel is getting a solo movie or three, at least in Pakistan: per Collider, Ms. Marvel director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (who helmed the fourth and fifth episodes) revealed on Instagram that a “cinema format” version of the series will be released theatrically in the country. As Obaid-Chinoy notes, Disney+ is not available in Pakistan, but Disney and Marvel felt it would’ve been remiss of them to let the introduction of the MCU’s first Pakistani American lead go unreleased in her ancestral homeland. The first two episodes will be released there on June 16, followed by the next two on June 30, and the final two on July 14.
– Speaking of the MCU, Wong actor Benedict Wong has spoken up to defend his Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness co-star Xochitl Gomez, after learning she received homophobic abuse online for playing the lesbian America Chavez. “It’s not OK. It’s not OK,” he told Gomez and AsiaOne, adding, “there’s a real level of shame for all those trolls that are cowards not to actually put their face on, and they should feel a deep shame of what they’re doing. Let’s all just play nice. Let’s all just enjoy… what we are representing.” Gomez, who is just 16, reportedly received venomous comments blaming her for the movie being pulled from various countries in the Middle East, which happened after Disney declined to cut a reference to her character’s two moms.
– Finally, in the wake of the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion indicating Roe v. Wade will be overturned, cartoonist Hazel Newlevant has tweeted readers can download a digital PDF of “Comics for Choice,” at any price of their choosing, with all proceeds going to the National Network of Abortion Funds. The anthology, edited by Newlevant with Whit Taylor, can be purchased here.
