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 yesterday, Archie Comics announced another Sabrina miniseries from current creative team Kelly Thompson, Veronica & Andy Fish, and Jack Morelli called “Sabrina: Something Wicked,” which will hit shelves in spring 2020. We also have an exclusive preview of “Wonder Woman” #78, out tomorrow from DC Comics, and an interview with “Mimi and the Wolves” creator Alabaster Pizzo.
– Kicking off, former WWE superstars Shad Gaspard and Marc Copani and artist Eder Messiah have a new book from Scout Comics called “Assassin & Son: Path for Vengeance.” The series features “Donovan Braddock, a one-man killing machine who worked with a team of assassins known as The Horsemen,” who goes on a quest for revenge after his wife is murdered in front of him and his son. The series will debut in spring 2020 under Scout’s Nonstop! imprint.
– Two more teasers from Marvel were released yesterday for their ‘Incoming!’ event or series set to debut in December. The first featured the full Champions team roster glued to a television with the caption “A Titanic Division…,” and the second has the Avengers looking at a silhouetted mystery character with the tag “A Galactic Threat.” The second teaser revealed that the full details for whatever the project is would be featured today on Marvel’s The Pull List.
– In more Marvel news, Jim Zub will be leaving his co-writing gig on “Tony Stark: Iron Man” with Dan Slott after issue #16 this month, for what he’s teased on Twitter as a “bucket list” project at the company. Slott’s frequent co-writer Christos Gage is joining the book with issue #17 in October. Zub has been a credited co-writer since issue #9.
– Upstart publisher Clover Press has signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Diamond Comics Distributors to “distribute their products to comic book specialty store markets worldwide.” Clover Press is run by IDW founders Ted Adams and Robbie Robbins and is located in San Diego. The company is set to publish original graphic novels and prose novels, with its first book, a new edition of The Royal Book of Oz coming in April 2020.
– Believe it! VIZ Media is celebrating the 20th anniversary of “Naruto” this year and next, and will launch a collection of anniversary merchandise at New York Comic Con this year. The company has plans a number of items and events throughout the year, “including video games, pop-up installations, live programming with panel discussions, and other officially-licensed products.” The manga premiered in 1999 in Japan’s “Weekly Shonen Jump” before making the jump to English in 2003.
– In casting news, Hailee Steinfeld has been offered the lead role of Kate Bishop in the upcoming Hawkeye Disney+ show. If cast, Steinfeld would star with Jeremey Renner when the show debuts on the streaming service in fall of 2021. Steinfeld has already starred in a few comic book movies, including voicing Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
– In more movie news, the writer/creator of “Tank Girl,” Alan Martin, tweeted that “Margot Robbie’s company have optioned rights from MGM to make a new Tank Girl movie – now several months into development.” Martin went on to say that they hadn’t reached out to him yet for consultation. Robbie is set to star again as Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey when it hits theaters February 7, 2020.
– In more movie news, Todd Strauss-Schulson (Isn’t It Romantic) has signed on to direct the adaption of the popular Chinese manga “Zombie Brother.” The movie is being produced by STXfilms, Channing Tatum, Reid Carolin and Peter Kiernan’s Free Association, and Tencent Pictures, the Chinese media group responsible for the digital comics and anime that has spawned. The movie is set to follow “a Chinese character who leads a ragtag team of New Yorkers in a fight to stay alive during a zombie apocalypse.”
– Finally, the “Funky Winkerbean” comic strip from cartoonist Tom Batiuk is entering a 10-week story line this fall that will see one of its characters die after dealing with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The comic strip has been published consistently since 1972, and is one of the few that features its characters aging in real time. You can read more about the story from The New York Times here.
