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, we spoke to Magic Tree House creator Mary Pope Osborne.
– Via Bleeding Cool, DSTLRY revealed three new series in their August 2024 solicits, namely “Life,” by Brian Azzarrello, Stephanie Phillips, Danijel Zezelj, and Lee Loughridge, “The Missionary” by Ryan Stegman and Jason Howard, and “Time Waits” by Chip Zdarsky, David Brothers, and Marcus To. “Life,” a six-issue series launching August 21, is a dystopian sci-fi tale, where “covert experiments have forced criminals with multiple life sentences to live all their time to full term.” A flip book, it follows the prisoners of a forgotten mining planet, and the thieves hoping to make a score, unaware the miners are still alive, that will require you to turn the comic upside down to follow both perspectives.
Stegman and Howard’s “The Missionary” is a three-part superhero horror series, that follows Bryce, a man who is driven into the arms of the demon Uvydus after discovering his wife is having an affair with an elder from their church. As Bryce embraces the darkness and Uvydus gets a taste of human goodness, the pair find themselves battling a veteran exorcist, and a group of demons who’ve escaped Hell, intent on remaking Earth in their image. The 48-page first issue will be released on September 4.
“Time Waits” by Zdarsky, Brothers and To is a four-part sci-fi following Blue, a soldier from the future stranded in the present, who has built a normal life with a sheriff, whom he is looking to adopt a child with. However, his former corporate masters now want him back, and have ordered their other troops to kill anyone standing in their way. Issue #1 will be released on September 11. The publisher also revealed one-shots collecting the covers for Becky Cloonan & Tula Lotay’s “Somna” and Jock’s “Gone,” as well as a card game based on “Somna,” Unveil the Shadows; you can check out all of these at the link.
– Adria Arjona (Andor) has joined the cast of Prime Video’s Criminal series. She will play Greta, a car thief, driver and single mother, whose husband was killed during a bank heist. Looking to leave Center City, she plots a new scheme to help her and her daughter start a new life elsewhere. The show, which will also feature Richard Jenkins, will begin filming with Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden at the helm soon. It is being overseen by Ed Brubaker and Jordan Harper, and is based on the anthology by Brubaker and Sean Phillips that ran at Marvel’s Icon imprint, and then Image, from 2006 to 2020.
– Per The Prague Reporter, Disney will distribute City of Night, a German vampire series based on the graphic novels “Berlinoir” by writer Tobias O. Meißner and artist Reinhard Kleist. The show, which is currently filming in Prague, is set in a version of Berlin ruled by bloodsuckers, and follows the resistance seeking to free the humans imprisoned in the fiends’ blood banks. It is being directed by Philipp Kadelbach (We Children from Bahnhof Zoo), and its cast will include Melika Foroutan (The Empress, Tribes of Europa). The show will presumably be released on Disney+ Star and Hulu sometime next year.
– Sky have acquired broadcast rights to The Penguin series for the UK, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy. While no date was given for the show’s debut on either side of the Atlantic, it should allow DC fans to watch it much sooner, unlike the gap that occurred when Peacemaker was released on Max without an overseas arrangement. The Penguin, starring Colin Farrell, will follow Oswald Cobblepot after the events of The Batman, as he competes with Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti) for control of Gotham’s underworld in the wake of her father’s assassination. It will also star Rhenzy Feliz, Clancy Brown as Sal Maroni, Michael Zegen as Alberto Falcone, Michael Kelly as Johnny Vitti, and many more.
– Finally, Film Music Reporter states Brian Tyler (Avengers: Age of Ultron, The Super Mario Bros. Movie) will compose the score for Transformers One. The movie will mark something of a return for Tyler to Cybertron, as he also scored the first season of the TV series Transformers Prime (2010-13). Transformers One, featuring the voices of Chris Hemsworth as a young, pre-war Optimus Prime (Orion Pax), Brian Tyree Henry as Megatron (D-16), Scarlett Johansson as Elita-1, Keegan-Michael Key as Bumblebee (B-127), Laurence Fishburne as Alpha Trion, Jon Hamm as Sentinel Prime, and Steve Buscemi in an unannounced role, will be released in theaters on September 20, 2024.