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, Marvel announced “U.S.Agent” by Christopher Priest and Stefano Landini.
– Marvel Comics announced Marvel Comics: The Variant Cover Collection, a hardcover book by John Rhett Thomas, with a cover by Mike del Mundo, that will showcase the publisher’s most famous variant covers alongside interviews with artists and industry experts. The collection will chronicle the introduction of the variant cover in 1986 through until the present day, notably including “X-Men” #1 from 1991, which holds the world record as the best-selling comic of all time, largely due to its five variant covers. Marvel Comics: The Variant Cover Collection is being produced by Marvel Entertainment and Insight Comics, and will be 216 pages long when it releases on March 2, 2021. A host of preview pages are available at Marvel.com.
– Artist Ryan Stegman unveiled a new poster for the upcoming “Venom” event, ‘King in Black,’ with the tagline ‘Darkness Reigns.’ Stegman also detailed that the event series will consist of five issues. The series, by him and writer Donny Cates, is set to start in December and see Knull, the god of the symbiotes, travelling through space to destroy Earth, with Marvel’s biggest characters trying to stop him. To have a look at the poster yourself, head over to Twitter.
– IDW Publishing terminated its Publisher, Jud Meyers. IDW’s statement read that they had “parted ways with Jud Meyers and would like to thank everyone for their discretion.” The termination follows only sixteen days after his promotion to the role, and eleven days after being placed on administrative leave. There has been no comment from IDW as to why Meyer was placed on administrative leave and then terminated. In Meyers’s absence, the newly-promoted President, Jerry Bennington, became the interim Publisher. It is currently unclear whether IDW will hire a long-term replacement for Meyers.
– Rocksteady Studios, the game developer behind the Batman: Arkham series, released a poster for a Suicide Squad game. The poster depicts Superman facing away from the viewer with a Suicide Squad target-logo on his head. No other information has been released yet, although the studio stated they will be attending DC’s upcoming Fandome event on August 22, with more details expected to be unveiled then. You can view the poster here.
– The film adaptation of Mark Millar and Greg Capullo’s “Reborn” took another step in pre-production, with Bek Smith being named as the writer of the film. The Netflix adaptation already had Chris McKay (The Lego Batman Movie) on board to direct, with Sandra Bullock (via her Fortis Films banner) set to produce alongside Roy Moon and Miri Moon of Vertigo Entertainmnent. Samantha Nisenboim will co-produce the feature, and Millar and Capullo will serve as executive producers. The film will follow an 80-year-old woman who dies in hospital, but then wakes up many years younger, in a fantasy landscape where forces of good and evil fight endlessly. There, she is rejoined by many of her lost loved ones, except for her husband who died before her, whom she sets out to find. There is currently no release date known for the project.
– Finally, THR spoke to Christina Merkler, the President of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, about the future of the charity, following the resignation of executive director Charles Brownstein in June. Brownstein faced allegations of sexually assaulting female creators during his 18 years in the role. Taki Soma reported Brownstein’s assault at Mid-Ohio Comic Convention to police in 2005, which he publicly admitted was “a stupid, drunken prank, of which I’m ashamed” the following year, but retained his position in the CBLDF, even after a third-party investigation in 2016. The scandal re-emerged online shortly prior to Brownstein’s departure.
In the written exchange, Merkler stated, “The current board was not aware of the details of Taki Soma’s allegations, nor the recent accusations by previous employees.” Many people have called for the 2016 investigation to be made public, something which Merkler states will not happen, but added “missteps of the past will fully inform the organization’s future and we’ve been encouraging public and private discourse with those affected.”
When Brownstein’s behaviour resurfaced online earlier this year, more individuals came forward with their own stories, including a former CBLDF employee, Cheyenne Allott, who requested that she be released from a non-disclosure agreements so that she could do so. Merlker described releasing Allott from her NDA as “an important step towards CBLDF’s transformation,” stating that “everything from the past 14 years — incidents and allegations publicly stated or perhaps stories that we have not heard yet, but have encouraged in recent statements to be brought forward, if they exist — is on the table to help inform how this organization operates in the future.” The CBLDF plan to appoint an interim executive director to discuss the trouble areas of the charity with individuals across various levels of the organization, and hire a permanent executive director. The members of the board who left following Brownstein’s departure will also be replaced.
