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.
– According to The Wrap, Marvel is looking at Selma director Ava DuVernay to helm either Captain Marvel or Black Panther. Selma was a great film, so there’s no doubt either movie would benefit from her vision. My biggest worry is that she only gets to get the movie about a black person right and or the one about a woman right. Whichever movie she turns down gets swallowed up by a suddenly returning Joss Whedon. Why can’t we just cut through the red tape and let her direct Avengers: Infinity War? No matter which film she chooses, DuVernay would still be Marvel’s first African-American and female director.
– Cover artist Glen Orbik
passed away last Monday at the age of 51. Orbik was a renowned painter and professor at the California Arts Institute and produced one of the greatest Lex Luthor covers of all time. While he will be missed, the influence he had on his students and other artists will live on.
– The trailer for the upcoming Jem and the Holograms trailer dropped yesterday and it is… something? The film departs from the wacky 80’s cartoon source material and is about a normal mortal girl who becomes a rockstar named Jem. As far as trailers go, it’s devastatingly underwhelming, especially for longtime fans of the series who were looking for more super powered rock star and less Ariana Grande knock-off. On the plus side, an intrepid fan could definitely edit the trailer, darken the mood a bit, and turn it into a “The Wicked + The Divine” trailer.
“Jem, you only have two years to live.”
“That’s outrageous. Truly truly outrageous.”
– Speaking of underwhelming misguided trailers, the first look at ABC’s Muppets series came online yesterday and just kind of happened. It aims to be a more “adult-oriented” take on Jim Henson’s cast of characters but just kind of apes shows like The Office and Parks of Recreation. ABC, you really cannot go half-way with this series. Either make it a family show for all ages like The Muppet Movie or open every show with a naked Dr. Teeth snorting heroine off Gonzo’s rotting corpse. Not committing to either end of the spectrum just results in a show that looks like Kenneth from 30 Rock‘s fantasy sequences but without the charm of Jack McBrayer.
– In a drastic shift of tone, Dark Horse Comics will be reprinting all the classic He-Man minicomics from the 80’s and 90’s. What’s most intriguing about this reprint is the inclusion of Bruce Timm’s earliest work in comics.
