Welcome back to The Rundown, our daily breakdown on news stories we missed from the previous day. Have a link to share? Email me at david@multiversitycomics.com.
– We all know that Geoff Johns is leaving Green Lantern, but did you know Peter Tomasi, Tony Bedard and Peter Milligan are leaving Green Lantern Corps, New Guardians and Red Lanterns respectively? Well, Bleeding Cool has the scoop from DC’s solicits, as the creative teams from each of those books are moving on.
– James Johnston from Multiversity has to be pleased. Or maybe he hates his life because of this news. Either way, the CW renewed “Arrow” yesterday, the Green Arrow drama that kind of sort of spawned from Smallville. Near as I can tell, it sort of walks the line Smallville did – enjoyable from a fan perspective, but objectively bad and creatively vapid. Yay for another season of that!
– If you don’t know who Fredric Wertham was, he was the guy who wrote “Seduction of the Innocent” and singlehandedly threw off the meteoric growth of the comic book industry. He triggered the Comics Code Authority, and he made it so making comics was taboo in many ways in the country. Now, Carol Tilley, a professor of library and information science at the University of Illinois, discovered that some of his information that led him on such a crusade was effectively fictionalized. More or less, Wertham adjusted his research results to fit the story he wanted to tell, even if it wasn’t truly legitimate. Given the amount of negativity this caused to the world of comics, this is a truly astounding story and definitely worth a read.
– The Guardian has a look about the uproar over Orson Scott Card writing Superman, as his frequent negativity towards the gay community has made people rather…upset over the whole deal. In fact, as people are apt to do these days, there is even a petition to get him fired off the book before he even has a chance to write it. While that would be a very DC thing to do, personally, I agree with someone quoted from The Guardian article:
Dale Lazarov, a gay comic writer, said it was counterproductive to attack Card’s appointment: “I’ve known Orson Scott Card is a raging homophobe since the early 90s. I refuse to buy or read his work. But asking that he be denied work because he is a raging homophobe is taking it too far. Asking for workplace discrimination for any reason is counterproductive for those who want to end discrimination on their own behalf.”
– Do you like Mr. Potato Head? Are you a fan of Marvel superheroes? Well get excited, as they’ll be releasing Mr. Potato Head’s of Iron Man, Wolverine and Thor in the near future. Check out what they look like at ComicBook.com, and look forward to almost certainly seeing them in the background of future episodes of 4 Color News and Brews.
– And in the decidedly less cool toy realm (at least to me), Gizmodo has a look at the latest in Marvel toys, as Wolverine gets a line, Phoenix-Cyclops, and a bevy of random characters like Puck and Hit Monkey. That said, there is a Noh-Varr toy – in Protector form – which in my book is totally rad.
