Bendis-Hate Post #65,934

A few days ago, Marvel announced a third Avengers book that they’ll be putting out when the Heroic Age starts in May. Just like they did with Avengers and Secret Avengers (well, sorta), Marvel is revealing the cast of New Avengers one at a time through promotional images.

After first announcing Luke Cage (who’s suddenly starring in two different team books), Marvel revealed yesterday that Spider-Man would be on the team. After letting out an audible groan, I got to thinking…maybe it’s not such a bad thing.

The groan wasn’t in reaction to Spidey being on the team. As much as I don’t think Spider-Man makes sense as an Avenger, I’ve become accustomed to that (and quite frankly, I’m surprised it took Marvel 40 years to put their #1 character on the team). No, the groan was because I don’t want New Avengers writer Brian Michael Bendis anywhere near my friendly neighborhood wallcrawler. He’s one of only two writers that has made me actively dislike a Spider-Man comic (the original Ultimate series), and the other was Reggie Hudlin. That’s not good company to be in.

But if Bendis is busy writing Spider-Man as a member of the Avengers, that means he won’t be writing him in the comic that really matters for the webhead, the thrice-monthly Amazing Spider-Man. If Bendis wanted to write ASM, his butt buddy Joe Quesada would give it to him in a second. And that would be terrible, because then I wouldn’t have a comic starring my favorite fictional character that I could stomach. At least I could turn to Peter David’s great Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man when Hudlin’s Marvel Knights Spider-Man left a sour taste in my mouth. If Bendis took over the only regular Spidey comic, I’d have nowhere to turn.

So please enjoy writing Spider-Man in your Avengers comics, Bendis. Please get your fill of the character and get it out of your system. You don’t go anywhere near my Spider-Man comics, and I won’t go anywhere near your Avengers comics. Deal?

At a panel at SDCC this afternoon, DC revealed four characters who will be part of the James Robinson/Mark Bagley Justice League in a few months, as well as a cover with the rest of the line-up in silhouette. Aside from Hal Jordan, the three characters revealed (Donna Troy, Mon-El and Dick Grayson) are quite clearly intended to be the junior versions of the Big Three. One more character can be seen wielding a bow, so it’s likely that a member of the Arrow family is on the squad as well. Going with the theme, Red Arrow or Connor Hawke seem more likely, but it’d be cool to see Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen initiating a new generation of heroes into the Justice League. It also looks like that might be Starfire flying in on the right. Perhaps the large furry thing at the top is Beast Boy, and the caped figure in the back is Raven? Could this be a reunion of the New Teen Titans as the New Justice League of America?

A few bits of interesting news came out of SDCC today. Well, interesting to me at least. Remember when every bit of news that came out of this con was interesting?

-At an X-Men panel, X-Force writer Craig Kyle said “16 million mutants will be brought back in Necrosha.” Necrosha is an X-Force/New Mutants/X-Men Legacy crossover coming out in October. Now that Magneto, Professor X, Polaris, Quicksilver and Iceman (the big five that were depowered after House of M) all have their powers back, it makes sense that Marvel would just say “frak it” and bring back the whole lot. Of course, with “Necro” in the title, they could be zombies. Ugh.

-At the Cup of Joe panel, Joe Quesada announced that Marvel now own the rights to Marvelman, which American audiences probably know better as Miracleman. Marvel has also announced that it’s the biggest news of the convention. But is it really? Sure, I’d like to read Marvelman when Marvel releases it in trades, but I don’t think the series has been on comic fans’ minds for a long, long time. Seems like a case of too little too late if you ask me.

-Robert Kirkman announced that Astounding Wolf-Man will end with issue #25. That’s not very surprising. I can’t imagine the series sells that well, certainly not anywhere close to the level of The Walking Dead or Invincible. Speaking of Invincible, there’s going to be a Return of Invincible one-shot later in the year. Strange…I didn’t realize he had left.

Check out newsarama.com for more SDCC highlights. That’s where I go.

Some great news has already come out of the San Diego Comic-Con for fans of Jeff Smith and his classic all-ages epic Bone: a series of brand new Bone graphic novels, starting next summer! Graphix, the imprint of Scholastic books that recently released the entire Bone saga in color for the first time, will publish at least four GNs, drawn by Smith and written by Smith and Tom Sniegoski, the guy who wrote the Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails mini-series.

I couldn’t be more surprised or overjoyed at this announcement. Bone is without a doubt my favorite comic story of all time. But with Jeff Smith hard at work on his new series Rasl (which is thankfully switching to a bi-monthly schedule pretty soon), I figured he had left the world of Bone behind for good. While this likely will be stories set before or during the events of the actual series and not a continuation of the story of the Bone cousins, I’m really excited to return to the world that introduced me to comics outside of Spider-Man and X-Men.

Hey all! The DC October solicitations were released today, so let’s take a look at a few of the books coming out in a few months:

Blackest Night- I have no idea. I’m trying to avoid all possible spoilers for this crossover, because it’s the only thing I’ve been really excited about in comics in quite a long time (which might help explain my recent sabbatical from Doomkopf). Superman, Batman and the Titans all have their own mini-series, written by James Robinson, Peter J. Tomasi and J.T. Krul, respectively. I’ve been nothing but impressed by Tomasi’s work on Green Lantern Corps and Nightwing, so I’ll definitely be reading the Batman mini. James Robinson’s work is unfamiliar to me (more on him later), although he’s got a reputation as a decent writer. I’ve never heard of this Krul guy though. Wikipedia tells me he wrote Fathom and Soulfire, and we here at Doomkopf are huge fans of anything Michael Turner’s done. Man, sarcasm just doesn’t come off right written down.

Final Crisis- How is this garbage still going on in October? Is there anyone out there that cares how the Human Flame, Tattooed Man, and the Super Young Team are dealing with the fallout of the lamest Crisis of them all? No, there isn’t.

Batman Family- Good news, everybody! Azrael’s got a new series! Plus Judd Winick’s leaving Batman so Tony Daniel can make that series as unreadable as Battle for the Cowl was. Yippee! (more…)

While wasting time on the internet this evening, I happened upon a post from two years ago called “The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings.” I know what you’re thinking: “How can someone have possibly narrowed it down to forty?” Well, somehow they managed to do it over at progressiveboink.com. If you’re a Liefeld hater like every other comic book fan is, I’m sure you’ll get a kick out of it. And surprisingly, this image of Captain America isn’t included. I didn’t realize that a worse piece of comic book art had ever been drawn. Then again, I’ve managed to steer clear of Liefeld’s work for most of my 15 years reading comics.

I was directed to the “40 Worst” post through another blog called “Heroes N Hunks,” which had a post about Liefeld’s hating on the recent revelation in X-Factor that Rictor and Shatterstar are in fact gay. So if a complete lack of talent despite enormous success in an industry we all love isn’t enough to make you hate the guy, now there’s another: Rob Liefeld is a raging homophobe!