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.
– Marvel and Steve Ditko’s estate have resolved the lawsuit over the ownership of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange. Both parties said in a joint court filing on Wednesday, December 6, that the settlement was an amicable one, although they did not provide the terms of the agreement. Ditko’s estate filed to terminate Marvel’s copyright for both characters in 2021, as part of several copyright termination filings from the estates of various 1960s Marvel creators, and the still living Larry Lieber; Marvel settled the lawsuits against those parties earlier this year.
– Meanwhile, Bleeding Cool reports Marvel have removed two previously solicited stories from March’s “Predator: The Original Years Omnibus Vol. 2,” apparently over racial concerns. As a result, the hardcover will be made returnable for those who pre-ordered it. The two comics in question, both of which were published in 1998, were Nancy Collins and Dean Ormston’s miniseries “Hell Come a Walkin’,” which saw a Predator hunting both sides during the American Civil War, and Ron Marz and Claudio Castellini’s one-shot “Demon’s Gold,” which followed Nazi treasure hunters battling a Predator in South America during World War II.
– Bryce Gold, the head of Kickstarter’s comics department, has stepped down after several months in the role. “Shout-out to all of the creators who have brought the most interesting, beautiful, and radical comics to life on Kickstarter these last six months,” he tweeted. “I am so grateful to have been a part of your process [heart emoji] Although I am leaving Kickstarter, I will not be a stranger in the world of comics and look forward to sharing more soon.” Gold joined Kickstarter in May, replacing Oriana Leckert, who had been promoted to oversee all of the site’s publishing projects.
– The Boy and the Heron opened at number one at the domestic box office, becoming the first film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, the first Studio Ghibli production, and the first anime project not based on a TV show to do so. The film made $12.8 million, adding to a current worldwide total of $84 million. It also picked up at least two honors this weekend, being named the Best Animated Film of the year by both the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the Boston Society of Film Critics (who named Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and Robot Dreams as runner-ups.)
– Sean Gunn has been reportedly cast as Maxwell Lord in the DC Studios universe, although it is unclear which of the company’s upcoming film/TV projects will use the character. Gunn, the brother of DC co-CEO and chairman James Gunn, is also set to reprise his role as Weasel from The Suicide Squad in Creature Commandos, in addition to voicing G.I. Robot in the animated Max series. Lord was previously portrayed on film by Pedro Pascal in 2020’s Wonder Woman 1984.
– Speaking of James Gunn, the director was named PETA’s 2023 Person of the Year for promoting animal adoption, and for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3‘s anti-animal experimentation themes. The animal rights group said “the film did something that few movies have ever done: it engaged a Marvel-sized audience with a thought-provoking narrative about the horrors of experiments on animals.” Gunn stated he was “honored and touched” to receive the award.
– Finally, via IGN, Rocksteady Studios announced on Discord that a free update will make Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s main campaign playable without an internet connection. The option will be added shortly after the game’s release on February 2. The inability to play the game offline was one of several controversies that led Warner Bros. to delay the release from May until early 2024; presumably, if the game had gone ahead with its planned release this year, the gap until the main story worked offline would’ve been much longer.
