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.
– Valiant is pulling out all the stops for the relaunch of “Quantum and Woody!” from writer Daniel Kibblesmith and artist Kano. Retailers that order 250 or more of the first issue can get a special variant, dubbed the “Most Variant Cover of All Time.” This “monstrosity” of a variant cover is drawn by Clayton Henry, and will feature a chromium bar, embossed foil logo, iridescent fifth ink, “die-cut Goat bite,” a lenticular back cover, individual hand numbering, and one of four random character stickers. The only thing missing is glow-in-the-dark ink (which they attempted). “Quantum and Woody!” #1 is scheduled for release on December 20.
– Cartoonist, and Pepe the Frog creator, Matt Furie has escalated the legal action against alt-right groups using Pepe the Frog as a re-appropriated mascot. Furie just settled out of court last month to prevent an Islamophobic children’s book using the character . But now Furie’s legal team has sent cease and desist orders to several people, including Richard Spencer, Mike Cernovich, and admins of the r/The_Donald subreddit. In addition, DMCA takedown requests have been sent to Reddit, Amazon, YouTube, and Twitter for any copyright infringing memes. Furie was definitely not joking around when he officially killed the character off in a Free Comic Book Day issue this year.
– Kingsman: The Golden Circle director Matthew Vaughn has confirmed that he’s in talks with Warner Brothers to direct the sequel to Man of Steel. He also outlined his vision for the character, saying that he wanted to do a modern take on Richard Donner’s version. Vaughn expanded, “For me Superman is color, feel-good, heroic. He’s a beacon of light in darkness.” So basically, the exact opposite of Zack Snyder’s Superman (yes, please).
– Audition tapes have surfaced for the role of Beast Boy in DC’s upcoming live-action Titans. The videos feature Nathan Policarpio, Oliver Adkins, Diego Josef, Zach Heto, and Louis Le all reading for the part. So far, the show has cast Anna Diop as Starfire, Brenton Thwaites as Nightwing, Teagan Croft as Raven, Alan Richardson as Hawk, and Minka Kelly as Dove.
– The fourth and final volume of “Rust” has been announced from BOOM! Studios and creator Royden Lepp. The only details known at this time are that it takes place over a single night, and that the title of the volume will be ‘Soul in the Machine.’ The book will be released through Boom’s Archaia imprint in February 2018.
– AfterShock will be debuting a new series about Leonardo da Vinci, from former “G.I. Joe” writer Paul Allor and artist Chris Evenhuis. “Monstro Mechanica” will follow da Vinci, his apprentice Isabel, and their nine-foot tall wooden robot, as they try and prevent various groups from obtaining and weaponizing da Vinci’s inventions. The series will debut on December 13.
– Casper the Friendly Ghost is returning to comics in a new series from American Mythology Productions, written by Jenni Gregory and drawn by S.A. Check. The series will team Casper with another Harvey character in each issue. The first one will be “Casper and Wendy” #1 on December 27.
– “Witchblade” will be relaunching this December. Top Cow has recruited writer Caitlin Kitteridge and artist Roberta Ingrata for the new series, which will focus on a new bearer of the Witchblade, Alex Underwood. The original run concluded in 2015 after a 20-year run with #185. “Witchblade” #1 will be released on December 6.
