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, next year’s Gold Free Comic Book Day releases have been announced. We also have an exclusive preview of “Iron Maiden: Piece of Mind,” due out from Z2 Comics next week.
– Spectacular Spider-Man co-creator Greg Weisman is reuniting with the webhead on “Spectacular Spider-Men,” an ongoing series starring Peter Parker and Miles Morales. Drawn by “Amazing Spider-Man” veteran Humberto Ramos, the series’ first arc will pit the dynamic duo against the Jackal. Ramos comments, “I enjoy every occasion in which I am called to [draw Spider-Man], or as I like to say, ‘come back home,’ and I could not ask for a better way to do that than alongside Greg Weisman, who gave us the greatest Spider-Man TV series!” Issue #1 releases March 6.
– Amazon have announced they are merging the mobile versions of comiXology and Kindle, meaning the comiXology app will be shut down on December 4. The iOS, Android, and Fire OS versions of your comiXology purchases will continue to be available on the Kindle app. Jeff DiBartolomeo, General Manager of comiXology, states the decision was made because “93% of comics, graphic novel, and manga customers are reading via Kindle and the Kindle app, and Kindle reading is where a majority of our customers have been for years.”
– BOOM! Studios revealed Amy Jo Johnson and co-writer Matt Hotson’s long-gestating comic book “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Return” will begin on February 7, 2024. Drawn by Nico Leon, the four-issue series imagines a world where the original Power Rangers never separated, and defeated Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd, but at a terrible cost. 22 years later, the team reunites to remember their fallen friends, only to learn Jason (the Red Ranger) has disappeared. “Will the remaining Rangers be able to track him down, especially with a mysterious figure in pursuit?” A pre-order campaign is now live on Kickstarter.
– Dark Horse will publish “John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando: Rise of the Sludge God,” a prequel to the upcoming action horror game John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando. Written by Michael Moreci with art by Alberto J. Alburquerque, and lettering by Nate Piekos, the three-part series will introduce readers to the game’s world, where the Toxic Commandos are Earth’s only hope of salvation from the undead army of the Sludge God, an eldritch abomination unleashed by a renewable energy experiment. It will begin on March 13, 2024.
– Titan Comics announced “Don Coppola,” a graphic biography of The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola, by writer/artist Amazing Améziane. The second installment in Améziane’s planned Cine Trilogy, after “Quentin By Tarantino,” the book “takes a look at both the impact of [Coppola’s] movies and his life from a cinematic narrative.” It will be released on June 6, 2024, during the 50th anniversary of both The Conversation and The Godfather Part II, and before the release of Coppola’s next film, Megalopolis (which he is working on a graphic novel of with Image Comics imprint Syzygy.)
– Amazon Prime Video released the trailer for Merry Little Batman, the holiday special releasing on December 8. The cartoon, which sports an unusually cartoonish look for a DC project, follows Damian Wayne (Yonas Kibreab) as he takes up his father’s mantle after (a conspicuously bearded) Bruce (Luke Wilson) crashes the Batwing into a snowcapped mountain, and the Joker (David Hornsby) leads Gotham’s criminals in a plot to steal everyone’s Christmas presents. The film, also starring James Cromwell as Alfred, will lead into a spin-off series titled Bat-Family.
– Actress and playwright Ana Nogueira (The Vampire Diaries) will pen the screenplay for Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, the upcoming DC Studios film based on the comic by Tom King and Bilquis Evely. Nogueira was previously attached to a Supergirl film last year, which Warner Bros. was developing as a Flash spin-off for actress Sasha Calle; James Gunn and Peter Safran reportedly liked her work on the previous project, and have given her an overall writing deal at DC.
Continued below– Director Tim Miller is set to helm a film version of “Alien Legion” for Warner Bros. The series, created by Carl Potts, Alan Zelenetz, and Frank Cirocco for Marvel’s Epic Comics imprint in 1983, followed an intergalactic peacekeeping force composed of various alien races. A film version has been in development at various studios, including Disney, since the early 2000s. Potts previously suggested Miller, a longtime fan of the comic, to the producers at the time, but he declined the project because of creative differences with Disney.
– Hannah Berry’s horror graphic novel “Adamtine” is being developed into a film by wiip Productions (Mare of Easttown). Published in 2012, “Adamtine” follows four seemingly unconnected strangers, who find themselves stalked by a shadowy evil on the last train home. Berry, who describes Mare of Easttown as one of her “favourite series of the last ten years,” will serve as an executive producer on the project.
– The anime film version of Akira Toriyama’s manga “Sand Land” will be recut into a series for Disney+ Star. The post-apocalyptic comedy, which was released in Japan in August, follows a sheriff and a demon who team up to restore water to the world. Sand Land: The Series, which will include new footage, will arrive worldwide in Spring 2024.
– Finally, Netflix’s Scott Pilgrim Takes Off has been rated TV-MA for a very amusing reason: namely, Julie (Aubrey Plaza)’s bleeped swearing. Series co-creator BenDavid Grabinski states, “We didn’t realize until it was too late that if you start the BLEEP a few frames after the start of the first consonant sound and end the bleep in the same manner (which we did for laughs) you got the same rating as if you actually had unbleeped profanity in the mix.” The show releases this Friday.
