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Are Dan Slott (Silver Surfer) and the risk-takers at Marvel bringing a supporting Spider-Character back from the dead in the comics? Will jaded Spider-Man fans contribute enough interest to the resurrection to warrant a teaser and marketing campaign? Let’s face it, watching heroes die is just more interesting than finding a way to bring them back. While Spider-Man: Dead […]

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Last week, it happened.  Marvel finally ended the event that kicked off their line-wide All-New All-Different relaunch when they released Secret Wars #9. We had an in-depth review on the comic, but will be continuing our Marvel review series under a familiar moniker; The Marvel Rundown. We took out those annoying adjectives, but will continue to […]

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The weirdest thing happened in Marvel last week. The publisher’s landmark Secret Wars event has been delayed repeatedly, but Marvel is moving ahead as scheduled with their full line relauch, giving birth to the All-New, All-Different Marvel Universe. We at Comics Beat are dedicated to praising great comics, and with so many potential winners out there it […]

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Man, Marvel loves their hyphens.

Dan Slott recently gave an interview to MTV regarding his and artist Giuseppe Camuncoli’s upcoming Amazing Spider-Man run, which begins following Secret Wars‘ conclusion in October.  In the article, MTV debuted new designs from the series including a brand new costume created by Alex Ross (Kingdom Come) and a Spider Mobile conceived by Camuncoli.

As head of Parker Industries, the tech company that Doc Ock founded while his mind was in Peter Parker’s body, the newly restored Parker is now an incredibly wealthy inventor.  Slott promises that Parker will put this wealth to use by expanding his heroic operations beyond the Manhattan skyline, traveling to Shanghai, San Francisco, and London to face greater threats than ever before.

It’s worth comparing this new take on Spider-Man to the Batman Inc. era Dark Knight.  Bruce Wayne, as head of Wayne Industries, financially endorsed Gotham’s #1 vigilante and helped him expand Batman’s reach beyond his home city, much like Parker will help the web slinger do in Slott’s Amazing Spider-Man.

Spider Mobile = Batmobile

Did I mention that Spider-Man’s suit is high tech now, too?

“The things this suit will be able to do and the innovations that Peter Parker has put into it will be astounding,” Slott noted, “and when you want to take something to the next level, you go, and make it look real, you go, ’hey Alex Ross, take your best shot.’ ”

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Who would win, Spider-Man or Ms Marvel? We may find out when they meet for the first time in October’s AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #7. Will Spidey share tips on how to get home in time for dinner while saving the world? The meeting of Marvel’s seminal “hero with problem” and the modern day “superhero for the people” should be an interesting moment, as captured by Dan Slott, Christos Gage and Guiseppe Camuncoli. Although this is billed as a team-up, in comics tradition, maybe they will accidentally fight first. The issue also introduces Spider-UK, a mysterious character with unknown ties to the Spider-verse. We’d guess crumpets and cricket but that’s to be seen.

The issue includes variant covers by Javier Pulido, Gary Choo, and a Deadpool 75th variant by Michael Golden. There’s also a Hasbro variant which is…for bagged comics I guess?

 

 

 

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By David Nieves
One of Marvel’s top cheeses…no not Mickey, the other one Joe Quesada, got together with two of the company’s best architects; Mark Waid and Dan Slott to remind everyone that this Comic-Con is also Marvel’s 75th anniversary. This panel was officially titled “Marvel Comics’ 75th & Daredevil’s 50th” because the guy who titles panels for Marvel was on vacation.

Waid started by talking about the origins of Marvel Comics and the story of Martin Goodman. Inspired by the success of Action Comics a year before, Goodman published Marvel Comics 1 with Stan Lee as an editor at the time. After the decline of superheroes, Goodman continued to venture into lots of different genres. Quesada asked if it was fair to say Goodman was an “advantageous” publisher?

That’s probably the definition of advantageous, Joe. We’ll let it slide because you had that phenomenal run on just about everything.

Waid then talked about Lee being burnt out in the comic book business. That’s when his wife, Joanie, advised him to take one last shot, but to do it the way he wanted to do it. Along side the godfather of comic book art, Jack Kirby, this last try would become Fantastic Four and the rest is make my Marvel history.

Waid brought up the question of first reading Marvel experience to the panelists. Quesada talked about it being the anti-drug issues of Amazing Spider-Man 96-97.  “I never did drugs, but I got addicted to comics. Which may have cost me more money in the long run,” said Quesada.

Quesada talked about the difference between Marvel and DC characters. He feels that DC Comics tend to be lots of Clark Kent is a mask while Superman is the real identity. He credited Stan Lee with switching that around and making guys like Matt Murdock and Peter Parker what the story was about. He related it more to real life; in it being that we all have to put on masks to be someone else instead of them disguising who we really are.

The group turned the attention to Daredevil and discussed the work of character co-creator Bill Everett. He noted the character was one of the few to come fully formed, except for the costume. Quesada joked about the original color scheme being “court jester-ish.’ Quesada talked about his work on the character:  “there’s something beautifully heroic and tragic about the character, and the fact that his powers, while they were somewhat super, you could also probably just explain them away with a person who can hone their own human abilities to utter perfection, if you really wanted to explain them that way. Something about that I really gravitated towards.” He praised the all-star list of creators that have had runs with the character like Frank Miller, Kevin Smith, Bendis, and Brubaker.

Just by mentioning his name, Waid had us all voluntarily clapping for his current Daredevil artist Chris Samnee. He joked about how they’re never leaving the book. Personally, I hope they never do leave the book because Samnee is the best artist of his generation. But I also think that if Waid was ever made king of some land, he’d have a giant drawing of himself by Samnee hanging over the fire place of his presidential moon palace.

Slott then talked about what he loves about Daredevil, “everything about him is really messed-up.” Even joked about Waid’s Daredevil being happy but still messed-up.

The fan Q&A started.
First up was the subject of how the movies have affected the comic books. Waid talked about how he meets many female fans that came to comics through the 90′s X-Men cartoons. He credited Quesada with never pushing the books to be like the movies and realizing that the comics are what drive everything.

The group was asked what they’d be like if they met Steve Ditko. Slot was the only one who ever met him, he did so while working a job at the Marvel office. His face when he answered the question probably looked a lot like the face of excitement he had when actually meeting Ditko.

Netflix Daredevil details were asked, specifically if Power Man and Iron Fist would be partners. While it’s still too early to talk about anything, Quesada did say the plan is to lead to a Defenders series.

Another fan asked if Slott would do something similar to what JMS did on Amazing Spider-Man 36 with the new World Trade Center opening. Slott said he’d be afraid of doing it but thought it was a great idea.

The legacy of Jim Steranko was brought up to the panelists. Waid talked about not knowing of anyone else that had more influence in comics with that small a body of work.” Quesada chimed in saying that, in person,  the man lives up to the legend. At this point I realized I missed the Steranko panel, D’oh!

Q&A closed with the final question being about if Marvel was making the Daredevil series to combat the negative reaction given to the 2003 Ben Affleck film. Quesada sharply intervened saying, “Marvel didn’t make that movie. This is our take on Marvel’s making Daredevil. That’s the only way we’re looking at it.”

The three thanked the crowd for their passion and devotion to the house of ideas and the panel closed. But I’d just like to say Dan Slott is the nicest guy in comics and he can kill however many Spider-people he wants to.

 

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by Alexander Jones

This early in the morning, it’s tough to get comics fans to wake up for anything. Luckily here at San Diego Comic-Con, there was a room full of eager Spidey fans frothing at the mouth to hear more news about the upcoming Spider-Verse event over at Marvel. The event combines every single Spider-Man character (owned by Marvel) into one jam packed story. This saw multiple heroes down at the show decked out in some awesome costumes. There was an Black Cat cosplayer in the room, a Miles Morales Spider-Man, and the original Peter Parker outfit as well.

The panelists included Dan Slott, writer of the event; Senior Editor Nick Lowe; Daredevil author Mark Waid; Superior Foes of Spider-Man author Nick Spencer; artist Humberto Ramos; and Amazing Spider-Man colorist Edgar Delgado. Nick Lowe solicited much excitement from the crowd who happy to oblige amongst some of the others. He teased that he was going to show some of the fans a video later on in the panel. Mark Waid was attempting to tease that artist Humberto Ramos was only late because he wanted to make a big entrance. This solicited even more applause from an energetic crowd.

We then got another tease at the Spider-Verse tease variant covers by Gabrielle Dell’Otto.

Another comic was shown off at the upcoming The Superior Spider-Man #32 by Slott and author Christos Gage, along with Giuseppe Camuncoli and Adam Kubert teased the Edge of Spider-Verse. Humberto Ramos then showed up to a crowd who didn’t give him any applause at first. The audience then gave him some news after the initial whimper. Lowe explained that they were not going to show us any of the art from Spider-Verse yet.

Slott elaborated on the return of Superior Spidey. He states that Spidey got caught in a time vacuum and ended up stranded in 2099, where the new comic book picks up. The audience was shown some variant Skottie Young covers that are absolutely gorgeous. The focus then naturally shifted over to Spider-Man 2099. Lowe asked the audience if they bought the title from Will Sliney and original creator of the hero; Peter David. The audience once again broke off into massive applause. The editor explained some of the premises behind the issue. Rick Leonardi was mentioned as returning to the book with Issues #4 and #5 coming in October.

Mark Waid then teased Daredevil during Original Sin, which focuses the spotlight on Matt Murdock’s mother. She had abandoned him as a child, and Matt sees her again when she has been on tough times and found her way to prison. She is on her way to Wakanda. The group teased pages from upcoming Daredevil #7. Lowe shared that the group has a terrifying story coming up entitled “Who Are The Purple Children.” Waid states that the happy-go-lucky Daredevil is now starting to lose his cool with this title.

Slott elaborated about the Original Sin storyline crossing into Spider-Man, which features the Spider that bit Peter has also bitten Cindy Moon. She is also known as the Spider-Bride by Ezekiel. Ezekiel served as Spidey’s mentor for a short  time. Ezekiel has been keeping Moon enslaved for a certain amount of time, and her breaking out of imprisonment is going to be a major inciting incident towards Spider-Verse.

Lowe then brought some more attention to The Superior Foes of Spider-Man. Author Nick Spencer was talking about how this comic is focusing on some of the C and D-list villains in the Marvel Universe. He teased that that the comic book series may be crawling down to a halt soon. Issue #14 shifts the character focus more towards Overdrive. Spencer noted that at times he only needs to write down a paragraph and then have artist Steve Lieber work out what the page in full is going to look like.

Edge of Spider-Verse #2 by Jason Latour and Robbi Rodriguez was met with much fanfare, as it features the return of Gwen Stacy as an alternate Universe Spider-Man. Edge of Spider-Verse #3 is written by Gerard Way and Jake Wyatt was also met with much acclaim. Lowe stated that he has been trying to find a way to write for Marvel for some time. The musician turned comic artist has a massive following.

In The Amazing Spider-Man Issue #7, Dan Slott teased a brand new spider-Man that he created for Spider-Verse. The Spider-UK, who has supposedly been on the Captain Britain Corps. The next issue bring in the MC2 Spider-Girl known as Mayday Parker. Slott teased that she may be in for a “rough” time.

Spider-Verse Team-Up was then announced which is a new comic shipping in November. Each issue is being written by a different author. Christos Gage, Roger Stern, Tom DeFalco, Dave Williams, and others will be penning the story.

The crowd was even more excited about the brand new Scarlet Spiders tale. The comic is a mini-series written by Mike Costa and drawn by Paco Diaz. The book features Ultimate Jessica Drew, Ben Reilly Spider-Man, and the Scarlet Spider. The cover teased was a variant issue drawn by long-time Ultimate Spider-Man artist Mark Bagley.

The trailer for a multi-media project was teased. Developed by Gameloft, the panel was teasing a video game entitled Spider-Man Unlimited. There are 23 playable Spider-Men in the brand new phone game. Lowe noted that each Spider-Man has different abilities, and there are going to be other villains in the title. The game is set-up like a Temple Run style format.

Whew! That is a lot of Spidey info. Spider-Verse kicks off in Amazing Spider-Man #9 in November.

 

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It’s been an age since I went onto a Marvel conference call – heck, it’s been an age since I did anything over here which wasn’t an interview. So today when Marvel set up a call with Dan Slott and Nick Lowe to discuss the next Spider-Man event storyline, I decided to nip across and see what was going on.

Spider-Verse will be a six issue storyline starting in issue #9 of Amazing Spider-Man – for Peter Parker is returning next month, as well as the Amazing Spider-Man series – and will see the villain Morlun return to take his attack on Peter Parker to multiple Universes.

Marvel are advertising this as a storyline where every Spider-Man to have ever appeared (as well as Spider-Girls and Spider-Womens) will appear once more, to try and take on Morlun. As you can see in the images here, all kinds of Spiders will show up. Spider-Ham is there, as is Miles Morales. Scarlet Spider, Venom and Spider-Man 2099. Morlun wants to kill every Spider, so every Spider is going to have to work together if they want to stop him.

With art from Olivier Coipel, the story will be teased in next month’s Amazing Spider-Man #1, but will also be previewed in Marvel’s Free Comic Book Day issue with a five-page story from Slott and artist Giuseppi Camuncoli – two pages of which you can see here.

When you get in on one of Marvel’s press calls, you’re willingly opening yourself up to “the full Nick Lowe experience”, which typically ends with you feeling like you’ve just eaten a whole bag of sherbet. Routinely pausing to scream the words SPIDER VERSE!! at the rest of the Spider-Man office, Lowe said that this was the first script he read upon moving to role of Spider-Man editor.

It was a fun call, and a lot of details came out during the press questions – the press being CBR, Newsarama, Crave, ComicVine, John Siuntres (the one man brand) and Nerdist. With Superior Spider-Man soon ending, and Peter Parker returning, the story was decided upon as it would hit on an interesting slant for the character: having just come back to life, Peter will now find himself face to face with the man who killed him during ‘The Other’. Morlun is a fairly recent villain, and Lowe said  “Spider-Man is never closer to defeat than when he is facing Morlun”.

When I asked about why they chose Morlun to be the villain who is tracking down and killing off every version of Spider-Man he could find, Slott answered:

So many questions haven’t been answered yet about Morlun. He always dies at the end of each story he appears in… but always comes back, as an unstoppable force. It takes the most desperate, flailing measures to take him down. Doc Ock gets beaten a million times, and we’ve seen him lose repeatedly. On the other hand, Morlun has a really good record! Morlun means business.

This is being pitched as a war story for Spider-Man, as he heads off to battle with an army by his side. And that army will include Miles Morales, the Ultimate Spider-Man:

We loved Spider-Men, and the characters certainly remember meeting…

Lowe said. The idea of this being a story with multiple Spider characters in it led many people to speculate on which characters would or wouldn’t show up. John Siuntres asked if the Spider-Man from the Broadway production “Turn Off The Dark” would appear, whilst Crave were told that the Spectacular Spider-Man from the cartoon series would not get to show up – the character is partly owned by Sony. The Ultimate Spider-Man of the cartoon will show up, though. As will Mayday Parker.

Slott said that he wanted to write a story where the Spider-Car would come to life – a sentient creature, in the style of Pixar’s Cars – and would be called “Peter Parked-Car”. Lowe said he wanted Stingray to show up.

Marvel’s press calls are very silly things. In the poster right at the top, from Gabrielle Del’Otto, five of the six covers for the series are displayed. The sixth one will follow on to the right, but is being held back for the time being. Also held back were details on the tie-in storylines for this event, which’ll be announced at C2E2 instead. There will be a series launching alongside this event, as well as several different miniseries.

I asked about working with Coipel, as I believe this is the first time Slott and Coipel have collaborated.

One of the things about Olivier – when he signs on – is he first and foremost has a love for characters. He wanted to make sure there was a good story for Peter Parker. What clinched it for him is that this is a story which is meaningful for Peter. It’s not just a battle filled with splash pages of all these characters leaping about – but there’s character, and a real arc for Peter Parker himself.

The scope of the story will be large, and head to other dimensions as Morlun goes on his killing spree. Slott first had the idea to write this when he worked on the video-game “Shattered Dimensions”, in which the player got to take control of four different Spider-Men at different points in the game. This is the natural progression from that, and obviously a bit bigger in scope.

The call wrapped after three questions each. Although for my final question, I simply asked “will Spider-Kitty be in this story?”

Spider-Kitty, of course, being the hero of a Skottie Young short story set during the previous Spider-Island event. After a pause, Slott said “I hadn’t thought of Spider-Kitty… but now we’ll have to write it in”.

So, y’know, you’re welcome.

Spider-Verse starts way into the future, in November, with Amazing Spider-Man #9. It’ll be teased in Marvel’s Free Comic Book Day issue, out in May.

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As I suggested in my early con impressions, WonderCon had a reasonable amount of space and handled the numbers of attendees pretty well. It was no surprise that Saturday brought bigger numbers than Friday, and the crowding was more obvious, but still never reached that feeling of pushing and shoving that can easily erupt at crowded cons. The floor occasionally got backed up, particularly around the constantly slammed DC Comics booth, where big names like Scott Snyder appeared frequently for signings and the DC booth’s location, at the very front of the con entrance, contributed to some difficulty getting onto the floor. I noticed that the retail side of things was fairly busy, too, with some crowding and difficulty navigating, suggesting that plenty of fans were there to buy back issues and memorabilia, as well. The artists alley at WonderCon was a little on the scanty side in terms of size and numbers of tables, but those artists who were present were very engaging and passionate about their work. They seemed to have regular followers who were coming in to buy their artwork and there was a strong representation of the fine art side of fantasy prints and original work, as well as handmade arts and crafts.

Open areas like the food court and outside atrium were a welcome oasis, but it also continued to be easy to exit the con into the outdoor plaza areas for a rest and there was no difficulty with re-entry. Though the floor only allowed a couple of doors for access, the many exterior doors were open for comings and goings, with several food trucks outside, far enough from the entrance not to cause back ups. One other surprise was that Sunday seemed just as busy as Saturday, as I heard retailers commenting. They were turning over sales at just as high a rate that day. This feeling may be due to the fact that there were slightly fewer panels on Sunday, making the floor more of a feature, or simply that people waited to do their shopping on the floor on Sunday. When I stumbled into the Arena, a venue I hadn’t seen before, I was impressed with the numbers it could hold, and also that it was completely full for a Joss Whedon Shakespeare film adaptation event. This suggested to me that the con was handling numbers well, since I generally had no idea that so many people were even at the con on top of the numbers moving in the open spaces of the con. It was Easter Sunday the last day of the con, and it closed a little early, at 5PM, perhaps for this reason, but fans still had a sense that they would have been happy for the con to go on a little longer, a good sign regarding WonderCon’s appeal.

One final follow up: I suggested initially in my coverage that people might find WonderCon in Anaheim appealing due to Disneyland access, and that this would appeal to people will kids particularly. Though this turned out to be true, I also underestimated the appeal of Disneyland to singles and younger congoers. I went to Disneyland the following Monday and found that quite a number of WonderCon attendees were there too, from a younger demographic than I expected. You could tell from their conversations and generally less pastel clothing what guests were in town for the con, and I’d say about 1 in 10 were from the con in the massive crowds Disney drew on that post-Easter day.

Final thoughts: it was a well run and appealing con, offering plenty of choice in terms of panels, keeping up with what’s going on in comics and pop culture right now. Marvel were a little under represented, though Dan Slott was participating in panels, and several pros who were there for DC panels were formal Marvel people. Marvel didn’t have a booth on the floor, driving up the demand for DC variants and signings, which they happily accommodated. I was also impressed by the energetic presence of the mid-sized presses like Dark Horse, Archaia, Image, IDW, and ComiXology, for taking the opportunity to flourish and interact with fans when given a little more space to do so. The mid-sized presses really shone in their engagement with fans on the floor, their foresight in bringing new and upcoming books to purchase and get a sneak-peak at, and also through their involvement on panels. This gave the general impression that mid-sized presses are on the rise and taking on the role, collectively, as contenders for the Big Two. Good for them!

Whether WonderCon is in Anaheim again or back in San Francisco in the future, the planning and structure of the con should continue to hold up to make it a comfortable as well as enjoyable, exciting event for fans. This won’t be one of the cons where you have to sacrifice personal amenities just to see your favorite artists speak or get the variant your collection is calling for. They have a sense of putting the customer first at WonderCon and let’s hope that continues; it sets a good model for the growing con industry, and there are some bigger cons who could learn a thing or two from this.

Without further ado, some highlights of the con in photos from my trusty partner in crime Michele Brittany who proved her moxie as a pop culture photographer at WonderCon 2013 in spades. Thanks Michele!

 

Photo Credits: All photos in this article were taken by semi-professional photographer and pop culture scholar Michele Brittany. She’s an avid photographer of pop culture events. You can learn more about her photography and pop culture scholarship here.

Hannah Means-Shannon writes and blogs about comics for TRIP CITY and Sequart.org and is currently working on books about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore for Sequart. She is @hannahmenzies on Twitter and hannahmenziesblog on WordPress.

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A panel on Friday, March 29^th, the first day of programming at WonderCon brought together a rather iconic cast to discuss “iconic characters” and what keeps a character “true” to their origins over long periods of time. Mark Waid opened as moderator by pointing out that the table full of seasoned pros had more than 125 years of comics experience between them and most had worked on longterm characters and newer creations alike. The essential question posed by Waid was how to “vault” characters “into the 21^st century without losing what keeps them special”. The question seemed particularly pertinent to Waid, whose ongoing work on DAREDEVIL has evoked critical acclaim. Waid asked his panellists how they handle the “core elements of characters” to face this challenge.

J. M. De Matteis introduced an image that stayed with the panellists as a reference point for discussion. He felt that creators handling long-lived characters work “within a cage”, so they can’t “go wide” with the character in term of change, but they can “go deep” in terms of making new discoveries. For De Matteis, personally, it’s all about the “Big Why” of characters, figuring out what makes them tick. He prefers working with super-villains to pose questions about the formative impact of their past histories because there’s “always a little corner of the psyche to dig into”. Ann Nocenti, however, in her recent work with Catwoman found that “her archetype was pretty clear” as a troubled kid originally, “on the streets” originally, and moving through “foster homes”. Her intuitive approach is to “play with a character and see what feels right” and she doesn’t mind the fact that later creators will do the same with long-term characters. It’s “like treading water”, she said, “You give a sense of constant, dynamic action, but you’re really not moving far”, and she expects later creators to be under the same constraint.

Doug Mahnke’s challenges, as an artist working on long-term heroes, is rather specific, handling costumes and their overtones. He observed that heroes, even today, often don’t look “contemporary” because their appearance has become iconic and we no longer question the anachronism, like Superman’s “underwear outside his pants”. Other features like capes and boots, Mahnke said, “made sense at the time” they were created based on a “swashbuckling” influence. In fact, he explained, an artist’s job is to “bring out the majesty in the character. It doesn’t matter so much what they’re wearing”, but you can use costume as a “tool” to use to your advantage.

Several of the panellists then commented on the fact that objectively, some of the nomenclature and costumes of characters created decades ago would seem “stupid” now. Nocenti’s example was a resurrection of a minor character, Zebra Man who was “visually fantastic” but the name and concept bizarre. Slott felt that once an icon is an icon, “the fact that it’s an icon gives it weight”, preventing further critique from readers. Even Waid’s considered opinion was that “Green Lantern” is a “stupid name for a character, but after 75 years”, it has “gravitas”.

The panel then tackled the question of when and how exactly a character becomes officially iconic, and they set the bar high on awarding this status. De Matteis opined that “nothing about the character idea makes it iconic. It’s the execution”, and not every character reaches this status despite reasonably strong storytelling behind them. Dan Slott interjected that it only takes “one writer and one artist to do it”, like Frank Miller on DAREDEVIL. The discussion often drifted into slap-stick commentary on the more absurd aspects of superhero lore like the possession of a super vehicle as an icon accoutrement. Nocenti provided the little known detail that Cat Woman’s car is known as a “Catillac”. Slott confessed to proposing in a “meeting with real adults” that Superman’s car should be known as “Superman’s Ford Taurus of Solitude” with disasterous results.

Waid observed that some characters are iconic in pop culture without necessarily being long-lived, like Woody Woodpecker, who’s highly recognizable, but not a currently active character. Waid commented that the tendency toward merchandizing may encourage the slow-down or freeze of new developments in a character since “every character becomes a beach towel” in the end. The entire panel segued into a long and fairly serious discussion of Wonder Woman as a character and why she has, or has not, lived up to her iconic status in terms of actual comic storytelling.

Most felt, like De Matteis, that Wonder Woman comics have not always been “all that good”, nevertheless the character definitely qualifies as “iconic”. Waid had a fairly idiosyncratic theory behind why this is the case. He observed that there was a strong “sexual element” to the “first 10 years of the strip” that was later removed to render the character more “plain vanilla”, and that now, lacking that “x-factor of sexuality”, stories fail to live up to the early days (an issue, he said, he frequently discusses with Grant Morrison). Slott disagreed pointedly with Waid’s assessment. He instead blames the lack of verve in Wonder Woman comics to the fact that comics are essentially a “make dominated industry” that has not explored the “many angles of the character” sufficiently. Slott still feels that if the right team is put together, the stories can rise to iconic status again, without recourse to the “weird quirky bits”. His choice of phrase caused plenty of giggling among the panellists.

This led Waid to ask his panel how they decide what elements are most essential to a character, what continues to translate, and what can be left behind. De Matteis advised to “always approach the characters psychologically and emotionally” and not worry too much about the “other stuff”, and sometimes that psychological appeal can be found in lesser known characters. Nocenti commented that her current work on KATANA based on the strange but intriguing concept of a “girl with a sword” produced “good potential” for developing “obsessional love triangle” elements between herself, her murdered husband, and his murdering brother.“The less iconic a character, the more fun you can have!”, she enthused.

Slott agreed with Nocenti on  this idea, up to a point. When you’re handling an iconic character, readers lose the fear that their reckless lifestyles will do them in, whereas if a character is “unknown”, “Everyone is worried”, wondering if they will survive from issue to issue. Slott and Nocenti shared an interesting moment of commiseration, albeit brief, about their mutual killing off of Spider-based characters, and the emotional reaction of fans. “Screw letters from emotional fans”, Slott concluded, laughing, but Waid intervened by informing the audience that he’s sure Slott “weeps himself to sleep at night with 6 year olds’ fan mail” over the death of Spider-Man .

The panellists didn’t always find their subject matter easy to decipher, nor did they feel that there’s always an easy answer for why some characters “click” as icons and some don’t. Batman, particularly, has a mysteriously successful dynamic, they said. But some things do change. Waid observed that he “couldn’t have imagined a world where I walked down the street and everyone knew who Tony Stark was” until after the Iron Man films had been made. Waid suggested that iconic status for characters might be measured in the number of imitators who have sprung up. De Matteis returned to his general position that archetypal patterns determine iconic status, however. Slott provided examples, stating that Superman is like Hercules, Batman a being on a vengeance-quest, and Tony Stark is, too, iconic in formula, as a combination of “Man and Machine”, an icon that the world is ripe for right now.

The panellists’ parting thoughts during the Q and A period focused on an interesting point made from the audience about the superhero/villain ratio. With so many more supervillains than superheroes in comics, “recycling” them is the norm, but at what point do they become “stale” and need to be retired, at least for awhile? De Matteis was firm about the roles of the artist and writers, insisting that there are “no stale characters but stale interpretations of characters” and that good work will prevent this problem. “Every character is great if you did into them in the right way”, he said. Waid’s closing example to support De Matteis’ point was that “20-25 years ago, no one would have thought that GREEN ARROW would become 2 times the best selling DC book, and then get his own TV show”. His bottom line: “If you dig deep enough you can find something that resonates”, and that’s the key to creating an icon, something that may not happen overnight.

 Photo Credits: All photos in this article were taken by semi-professional photographer and pop culture scholar Michele Brittany. She’s an avid photographer of pop culture events. You can learn more about her photography and pop culture scholarship here.

 

Hannah Means-Shannon writes and blogs about comics for TRIP CITY and Sequart.org and is currently working on books about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore for Sequart. She is @hannahmenzies on Twitter and hannahmenziesblog on WordPress.

 

 

 

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By Steve Morris

It’s not over quite yet! Even while Torsten attempts to shoo the remaining sheep out of Stately Beat Manor’s library and Todd tries to piece together one of Heidi’s vases, SDCC 2012 still has a few small bits and pieces left for us all. Marvel’s Spider-Man panel have been announcing a few changes in the company’s third-biggest franchise (assuming that X-Men are first, Avengers are second, and Doop fourth) today, including the cover for this year’s issue #700, and details on the ‘Minimum Carnage’ crossover story.

Yes, Minimum Carnage, following the previous two Zeb Wells-helmed stories featuring the red-fury symbiote villain. Starting with ‘Minimum Carnage Alpha’ and, absolutely, concluding with the Steve-predicted ‘Minimum Carnage Omega’, the series is this time a crossover story. Chris Yost’s Scarlet Spider and Cullen Bunn’s Venom are the two books involved, as the pair of antiheroes team up (after probably fighting each other a bit, as per tradition) to try and stop Cletus Kassady from, y’know, doing a load of murders. Lan Medina will draw the opening issue, before Khoi Pham tackles the Scarlet Spider side of the story and Declan Shalvey draws Venom.

Avenging Spider-Man #13 will be by Kevin Shinick and Aaron Kuder, and features Hypno Hustler and Deadpool. This may well be part of a tie-in to the weird web series Marvel announced earlier in the con, called ‘All-Winners Squad’. This series – live action – features Squirrel Girl, The Unicorn, Hypno Hustler and Doop as they… do something… and Morgan Spurlock is involved. It’s bizarre, nobody quite knows what’s going on. You can read a little bit about it on CBR, who seem equally confused about what Marvel are trying. OR! The issue is unconnected to the webseries entirely, and I just wasted ten seconds of your time.

Issue 700 of Amazing Spider-Man will look like this:

In other news, Punisher: War Zone was revealed to be a five-issue miniseries which wraps up Greg Rucka and Marco Checchetto’s current run with the character. To confirm: Punisher is cancelled in September, with this miniseries starting in October.

In it, the Avengers finally decide that it’s time to do something about the ol’ mass murdering vigilante, and things get messy

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Oh c’mon! Everybody enjoys a good pun, and you know you felt a thrill of wordplay-based excitement race down your spine as you read that title. Frankly, I don’t know why we aren’t all punching the air right now in glee.

Dan Slott, who nowadays lives mainly in Spider-Editor Steve Wacker’s dungeon and is only allowed to see natural light once every three months, has been hinting for a while that issue #700 of Amazing Spider-Man will see a momentus moment happen, and so has now started to build up momentum for his momentus moment, as you’ll learn momentarily. After the current battle with lizard which connects over to the release of the Amazing Spider-Man movie, Marvel have revealed that Slott’s next arc on the title will be ‘Alpha’.

 

In this story, Peter Parker – who is nowadays a scientist, specialising in cycle helmets and inadvertent weaponry – will give a tour to a group of young high-schoolers, who are excited to see his lab. But oh no! Due to the ever-dangerous nature of science, something will go wrong and a young boy called Andy MacGuire will be zapped by SCIENCE RAYS. These rays will give him great power, much like science gave to Peter all those years ago. Were we ever so young?

…Knowing that with great power comes something or other, Peter will take the young Mac under his, uh, web-wings, and try to teach him how to become a responsible superhero in his own right. Titling himself Alpha, Andy will apparently become Spider-Man’s sidekick, for better or worse.

Drawn by Humberto Ramos, this arc will see everything go really smoothly. Or! Andy will prove a liability. One of the two. At any rate, things are certainly escalating as we head towards issue #700…

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The internet sure makes people jerks. But there are jerk in the real world too, and three recent stories reveal that jerks in all mediums are still with us.
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§ Don MacPherson goes all 20/20 in investigating the case of copyright infringement on Rich Koslowski.

Basically, the owner of Geeks Galore Computer Center in Marmora, Ont., one Hogan Scott Courrier, used images base on Koslowski’s 3 Geeks books as the logo of his business — they are visible on his facebook page and elsewhere. Last Year, Kowlowski sued over copyright infringement — and won. But Courrier has simply ignored the court ruling, still using Koswloski’s art, and making all sorts of excuses — it’s his art, he wasn’t there when it happened, wah wah wah.

“I was never served with the disclosure so the court ruled in my absence. The following forms have been reintroduced into court. You would be best to talk to my lawyer regarding this as I am far too busy to play games with a comic-book creator. We are two completely different businesses, much like Joe’s Garage in the States and Joe’s Coffee Shop in Canada, they both use the same Joe’s Logo,” he wrote, mistakenly representing the notion that entities that share a name can use the same copyright-protected logo if they’re in different countries.

JERK.

Koslowski says he isn’t going to spend any money to pursue more legal action but if he wants to go over to Courrier’s with a baseball bat, and exact some frontier justice The Beat will definitely go along and pitch in with gusto.

§ Over at Robot 6, Sean T. Collins runs down
a recent ugly internet incident involving Dan Slott.

It seems some internet wanker going by the handle Lejayjay accused Slott, the current Spider-Man writer, of being a hack:

It is jus a paycheck for Slott anyway. He’s not a real fan.

Slott is known for his love of hanging out on message boards, somehing al his friends have advised him against, but he did it, and this comment was too much, as it would be for anyone with pride in their work.

As a guy who turned down a side job this year for a paycheck that would’ve been over a third of his yearly income– BECAUSE it would’ve meant cutting back on his not-so-lucrative comic book writing career– and get in the way of working on his Spider-Man dream job…

…and the guy who slept less than 12 hours over the course of 4 days this week working on a script while he was sick… a guy who finally had to be ORDERED off it by his editor to go see a doctor… and is still in a good deal of pain today…

…this is the first time I think I’ve ever said this to somebody over a comic book message board:

Go fuck yourself.

Seriously.

Go. Fuck. Yourself.

Now seriously, if Slott had gone over to lejayjay’s hou

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