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.
– With the upcoming Black Panther film and this week’s release of the first omnibus collection of this incredible run on that character’s book, Newsarama has posted a 3-part interview with comics writer Christopher Priest. (The link goes to the last part but there are links to the first two parts in the header for easy access.) Christoper Priest is not only one of the best writers this industry has seen in the last twenty-five years, but also one of the unluckiest. Time and time again he has turned comics lead into gold with scripts that are intelligent, engaging, and unpredictable (when they aren’t butchered by unsympathetic artists or editorial) and been rewarded for it with more lead. I honestly can’t think of a modern creator who works at his level of talent that hasn’t had the opportunity that his talent clearly warrants. He’s also one of the most astute observers of comics around, as you’ll see when you read the interview. It’s high time someone does right by this man and give him some high-profile work so he can kill on it and make them look like a genius.
– He may be about to start a hopefully hilarious new career as Walter Blunt, over-the-top TV pundit, but Patrick Stewart hasn’t quite moved out of the X-Mansion just yet. It looks like he’s going to be a part of Hugh Jackman’s swan song Wolverine film, which I’m assuming picks up after Days of Future Past continuity?
– Stan Lee has been fortunate enough to work with some of the best talent in comics history, but his luck with picking partners outside comics isn’t nearly as good. Usually that pertains to former business partners who later try and cash in on his name, but now there’s a former personal assistant suing him for emotional damages. The list of ‘incidents’ where Lee (and both his wife and daughter) verbally abused and berated the assistant can be seen at a different link off of this one, but just trust me that it’s very un-Stan-like. So much so that several comics creators have already come out and vouched for how uncharacteristic of The Man it is. I know there’s always a difference between someone’s public and private persona, but having been in the public eye & around gossip-mongers for nearly 70 years in one form or another, I have to believe that if Stan & family were capable of this level of vitrol, we’d have seen evidence of it by now. YMMV.
– JJ Abrams is one-and-done for this new Star Wars trilogy, just like George “The Flanneled One” was for the original three movies. Subsequent directors for Eps VIII and IX will be working off story beats and plans coming from the work Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan set up for Ep VII, so he’ll still have about the same level of control as Lucas had for Empire. (Legend has it Lucas essentially co-directed Jedi which I don’t think is a trick Abrams would pull.) This is good news when you have a filmmaker of Rian (Looper) Johnson’s caliber waiting to pick up the baton. Now if only we can get someone good for that third leg of the trilogy…
– With the 2015 version of Fantastic Four currently rocking a 8% on Rotten Tomatoes (about 1/3 the score of its 2005 predecessor), there are a lot of fingers being pointed as to who caused this particular rocket to crash and burn so so incredibly hard with the public. The Hollywood Reporter did some digging and discovered there’s more than enough blame to go around.
– And while it’s not quite news, I thought we’d all like to cleanse the palette from that last bit with this look at the 1963 Fantastic Four live-action TV show we all remember so fondly. What? You don’t remember it at all? Next thing you’re going to say is that you don’t remember this shockingly prescient 1952 Avengers movie either…
