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.
– Kicking off, the final trailer for Wonder Woman dropped last night during the MTV Movie & TV Awards to the soundtrack of Imagine Dragons’ “Warriors.” The trailer offered a good look at Doctor Poison and probably the most dialogue from Chris Pine in any of the trailers thus far. Wonder Woman premieres on June 2.
– DC will be undergoing some editorial shakeup soon. Pat McCallum will oversee the entirety of DC’s superhero titles, newly promoted Executive Editor Mark Doyle (previously of the Batman line) will oversee Vertigo, Young Animal, and other projects, and Bobbie Chase will curate a Young Readers imprint set for a 2018 debut alongside Wildstorm, Milestone, Hanna-Barbera, kids, Digital First titles and custom comics. Congrats to everyone, and hopefully the mention of Milestone means more news on that front is to follow!
– Rest in Peace Pepe the Frog. As part of Fantagraphics’ Free Comic Book Day issue, cartoonist Matt Furie, in his one-page story “World’s Greatest Cartoonists,” held a funeral for Pepe with his “Boy’s Club” friends Landwolf, Brett and Andy in attendance. The character debuted in 2005 in Furie’s “Boy’s Club” MySpace comic as a chill frog getting stoned with his friends, but as part of the recent nationalistic uptick in the United States became a symbol and meme for the alt-right and was declared a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League last year. While it is unlikely Pepe memes will disappear, this is perhaps the best way for Furie to reclaim a character whose image became something he vehemently abhorred. RIP.
– Following up on the first cast photo, Marvel revealed the first teaser for the upcoming Inhumans show. It’s an ominous teaser not offering any visuals for the upcoming show, only dialogue. Inhumans premieres in IMAX theaters for two weeks starting September 1 before beginning its eight-episode run on ABC September 26th.
– Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 star Dave “Drax the Destroyer” Bautista, revealed in an interview recently that he believes Marvel may fully reacquire the rights to Spider-Man in the MCU. Sony, who owns the cinematic rights, and Marvel entered into an agreement to include Spidey in Civil War and other upcoming movies, including July 7th’s Spider-Man: Homecoming following the failed reboot on Sony’s part.
– Here’s an interesting spoiler from this weekend’s release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. It was revealed that Stan Lee’s character in every cameo he’s ever had is actually the same character! If you want to know who, click through, because we’re not going to post the spoiler here. Check out our full review of the movie here.
– The nominations for the 2017 Eisner Awards were released last Tuesday highlighting the best of the best of the industry all vying for comicdom’s top award. Our Reader Poll over the weekend asked which of the five series nominated for Best Continuing Series should receive the award and the results are in! To no one’s surprise, Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples “Saga” should be the recipient according to you readers, followed by Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson’s “Astro City,” Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips “Kill or Be Killed” and Jason Aaron and Russell Dauterman’s “The Mighty Thor” tied for third, and BKV’s other nomination with Cliff Chiang, “Paper Girls,” in last.
