[Featured art by Jason Muhr]
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, “Mandrake the Magician: Mandrake’s Legacy” and the winners of the 2020 Eisner Awards were announced.
– Via press release, Scout Comics announced “By The Horns” by writer Markisan Naso, artist and letterer Jason Muhr, and cover artist Andrei Tabacaru. The team have previously collaborated on “Voracious.” The series follows Elodie who is hell-bent on killing all of the unicorns in the continent of Solothus after her husband, Shintaro, was trampled by a group of them. This quest puts four ancient wizards who are abducting the creatures to extract their magic, in the path of Elodie, her half wolf/half deer steed, Sajen, floating-eyeball guide, Evelyn, and two unicorn prisoners, Zoso and Rigby. The series will be launching this winter.
– Marvel Comics launched a new digital-first and timed digital-exclusive comic book series called “Heroes At Home” by Zeb Wells and Gurihiru. The series reverses Stan Lee’s famous description of Marvel’s stories as depicting the “world outside your window,” to show the world inside, as Marvel’s most iconic characters stay indoors in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. The webcomics will be releasing digitally through August and then printed as variant covers in September. The first installment is available on the publisher’s Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram pages now, and will continue to be released weekly on Sundays.
– DC Comics revealed that they will be closing out 2020 with a new event series called “Endless Winter.” Details regarding the creative team and the plot remain under wraps for now, with only a promotional piece showing the logo against an icy background and a December 2020 release period published in DC Connect #4. You can view it here.
– Artist Jae Lee posted on Instagram to responding to “hate pouring out of strangers’ mouths” after Tom King expressed “deep disappointment” at DC for hiring Lee to produce variant cover art for “Rorschach” #1. King, who believed that Lee had “done covers” for the harassment group Comicsgate, claimed that the previous stance was a misunderstanding, and that the pair have spoken and are now “all good.” However, Lee responded “irresponsible tweets are not harmless. They do not just go away. They have real world consequences. They can take away your job. Your life. Your memories. June and I were robbed of a special day. So, no, we’re not ‘all good.'” He elaborated he had intended for Friday to be a day of mourning for him and his partner, June, after their dog Loki died after complications during surgery, but couldn’t because of King’s comments; he also stated “I’m not part of ANY group.” King has not responded. “Rorschach” #1 by Tom King and Jorge Fornes will be released on October 13.
– Tom Taylor (“DCeased”) started teasing a new DC Comics project by sharing a white letter ‘I’ against a black background, accompanied by a Batman quote: “I think it could have been different.” As many fans have pointed out, the ‘I’ matches the second ‘I’ in the ‘Injustice’ logo. Taylor has previously written the franchise’s comic book tie-in series, with his last entry being “Injustice 2 Annual” #1, which was released in November 2018. The last of the ‘Injustice’ comic books, “Injustice VS. Masters of the Universe” by Tim Seeley and Freddie E Williams II, was released at the start of 2019. You can check out the teaser image here.
– In a series of three The Walking Dead Comic-Con@Home panels, details regarding the production and air dates for each series were specified:
Each panel provided new footage from its respective series; an extended clip from The Walking Dead‘s season 10 finale, an extended trailer for The Walking Dead: World Beyond season 1, and a trailer for Fear the Walking Dead season 6 all available for you to watch here.
– A host of past and present stars of The Walking Dead were announced as part of the voice cast for the upcoming Invincible animated series. Lauren Cohan, Ross Marquand, Lennie James, Sonequa Martin-Green, Chad Coleman, and Michael Cudlitz will be joining the series as the Guardians of the Globe; War Woman, The Immortal & Aquarius, Darkwing, Green Ghost, Martian Man, and Red Rush, respectively. The series will tell the story of Mark Grayson, a teenager who fights crime as Invincible, after inheriting powers from his alien father, Omni-Man. Steven Yeun, another former star of The Walking Dead, will voice Grayson, with J.K. Simmons voicing Omni-Man. The animated series is an adaptation of the comic by the same name, written by Walking Dead co-creator Robert Kirkman. A release date for the Amazon Studios series has not been announced yet.
– A trailer and an air date for the upcoming Helstrom series were unveiled as part of the show’s Comic-Con@Home panel. The series will be Marvel’s first horror series and follow Daimon and Ana Helstrom, the son and daughter of mysterious serial killer, as they track down the worst of humanity using their powers. The trailer shows Daimon (Tom Austen) and Ana (Sydney Lemmon) visiting their mother, Victoria (Elizabeth Marvel), seeking answers about what she unleashed on the world. The series will debut on Hulu on October 16. The trailer can be watched over at ComicBook.com.
– Monica Owusu-Breen (Alias) joined season two of ABC’s Stumptown as the co-showrunner, replacing the departing Matt Olmstead, alongside creator Jason Richman. Owusu-Breen had been in negotiations for the role for several weeks but appeared as part of the series’ Comic-Con@Home panel on Saturday. Stumptown, an adaptation of the Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth comic of the same name, stars Cobie Smulders as Dex Parios, a private investigator with a gambling addiction. There is not a premiere date for the second season at this time.
– Peter Shinkoda, who portrayed Nobu in Netflix’s Daredevil, accused Jeph Loeb, the chief of Marvel Television, of making racist comments. Shinkoda made the accusations in a #SaveDaredevilCon livestream hangout, claiming that “Jeph Loeb told the writers room not to write for Nobu and Gao,” and that he said, “Nobody cares about Chinese people and Asian people. There were three previous Marvel movies, a trilogy called Blade that was made where Wesley Snipes killed 200 Asians each movie. Nobody gives a shit so don’t write about Nobu and Gao.”
He continued to say Loeb’s comments ended up in the removal of most of Nobu’s backstory from the series. Actor Tommy Walker, who portrayed Francis in the series, added that Doug Petrie, the showrunner of Daredevil season 2, “came up with some brilliant pitches for Iron Fist early on before Iron Fist was well into production… but they were along [the lines of a multiracial version of Danny Rand], very very thoughtful very progressive for the time.” These pitches were shut down by the studio, with Walker stating that Loeb’s racist views likely “permeated” across the shows.
