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.
– Early Wonder Woman reactions are unanimously positive. Twitter was alight when the social media embargo lifted on Thursday. There were both comparisons to the tone of Christopher Reeve’s Superman and the quality of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight made as those who had seen about the film raved about the films ability to save the DCEU. The film also has the support of both “Wonder Woman” writer Greg Rucka and “Wonder Woman ‘77” writer Marc Andreyko. This should all be taken with a grain, or depending on your opinion of the DCEU a cube, of salt as both Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad were recipients of early social media buzz. We won’t have a truly accurate look at the film’s quality until the review embargo lifts May 31st.
– Not only has DC prevented Marvel from getting their fourth Chris by snagging Chris Pine, Sony has now prevented the gathering of a third Tom as Tom Hardy has now been cast as Eddie Brock in Venom. This isn’t the first time Hardy has done comic book work as he played Bane in The Dark Knight Rises and was also at one point attached to a “100 Bullets” adaptation in some form. The film will be directed by Ruben Fleischer, director of Zombieland, based on a script by Scott Rosenberg, writer of Con Air and Jeff Pinkner, writer of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Hardy is the second actor to portray the character after Topher Grace’s portrayal in Spider-Man 3.
– DC Comics has announced three new series and the second creative team change of the Rebirth era. “Suicide Black Files” is a six-issue mini-series which will be split into two separate stories each issue, one which follows Katana as she takes on Kobra and the other which follows El Diablo, Enchantress, and the Gentleman Ghost as they act as Amanda Waller’s supernatural black ops team. The first story will be handled by Mike W. Barr and Philippe Briones, while the second will be written by Jai Nitz and drawn by Scot Eaton. The second series announced was “Future Quest Showcase,” an anthology style series written by Jeff Parker and drawn by Ariel Olivetti as a follow up to Evan ‘Doc’ Shaner and Parker’s series “Future Quest.” Marguerite Bennett announced on her twitter that there will be an all new digital first “DC Bombshells” ongoing coming later this summer. Lastly Tim Seeley will be taking over as series writer on “The Hellblazer” as well as doing covers for the series. He will be joined by artist Jesus Merino.
– Marvel has announced another series to launch alongside “Star Wars: Jedi of the Republic – Mace Windu” in August. “Star Wars: Rogue One – Cassian & K-2SO Special” #1 will explore the origin of its titular characters in the time between the original trilogy and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The comic will be written by Duane Swierczynski and be drawn by Fernando Blanco. In other news Marvel has just received the Guinness World Record for most unnecessarily long titles.
– Despite the field of competing films becoming larger every day and the fact that virtually no work has been done on the film, Cyborg actor Ray Fisher took to the mic at the City of Heroes convention to assure everyone that Cyborg is still happening. It is also apparently on track for a 2020 release. We can only hope we see an official release schedule from Warner Brothers at Comic Con this year.
– Conor McCreery, Mattia Di Meo and Phil Murphy are teaming up to bring fans the Adventure Time/Regular Show crossover they’ve been waiting for. The series, aptly title “Adventure Time/Regular Show,” will see Princess Bubblegum send Finn and Jake on a quest to find The Power, which The Regular Show’s Skips is hiding. The series is set to test the friendship of both shows’ leads as they set out on an adventure to save Ooo.
Continued below– Steve Englehart, co-creator, of Mantis is reportedly not happy with the character’s portrayal in Guardians of the Galaxy 2. He says while he enjoyed the film and connected with Pom Klementieff’s character, “that’s non Mantis.”
– Finally we have the results of this weekends reader poll which are sure to shock no one. In honor of the soon to be released Wonder Woman film, and also because we’re super excited about it and wanted to talk about it, we asked “What’s Your Favorite DC Film of All-Time?”
The poll saw The Dark Knight take the lead by a wide margin with 36% of the vote. The closest film to that was another one of Christopher Nolan’s trilogy, Batman Begins at 16% of the vote. From there V for Vendetta, Watchmen, and Richard Donner’s classic Superman all tied for third place with 8% of the vote. Man of Steel came in at fourth place and The Dark Knight Rises and Superman II tied for fifth. Everything below this point received only one vote or less.
