Yesterday here at borg we featured this week’s entertainment memorabilia auction by Los Angeles auction house Propstore and its big sale of an original X-Wing Fighter filming model. The auction continues through Friday, but Wednesday you may have overlooked an intriguing prop from the 2017 Academy Award-nominated superhero movie Logan (probably the best superhero film of all time, reviewed here). Comic book collecting is a major industry with every price level and niche of comics fandom having legions of collectors. A pile of comic books was featured in the groundbreaking film directed by James Mangold, but they weren’t ordinary comic books. They were made exclusively for the movie. And one of those comics sold Tuesday for $17,500 (including a 25% buyer’s premium).
Hot on the heels of DC Comics’ big Detective Comics #1000 event last Wednesday, Marvel Comics is stepping in today with its next onslaught of variant covers. It’s for The War of the Realms, a storyline written by Jason Aaron with art by Russell Dauterman and Matthew Wilson, a Thor-centric event, bringing in the entire pantheon of superheroes from Marvel, the ten realms, assassination plots, and the fate of Earth hanging in the balance. As Marvel boasts, “no corner of the Marvel Universe will be untouched.” It even comes with its own theme song.
This is also your typical Marvel Comics multi-series crossover, with tie-in stories twined through several monthlies, like Journey Into Mystery, New Agents of Atlas, Giant-Man, Amazing Spider-Man, Daredevil, Punisher, Uncanny X-Men, and Venom, plus Asgardians of the Galaxy, Avengers, Thor, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Champions, Fantastic Four, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Captain Marvel, Deadpool, Superior Spider-Man, Tony Stark, Iron Man, Spider-Man and the League of the Realms, plus War Scrolls and War of the Realms Strikeforce. That’s a big, twisty storyline ahead for Marvel readers.
The War of the Realmsvariant covers are on their way with regularly available covers by Arthur Adams, J. Scott Campbell, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Frank Cho, John Tyler Christopher, Oliver Coipel, Amanda Conner, Russell Dauterman (wraparound), Adi Granov, Ron Lim, Nexon, Ryan Ottley, Pyeong Jun Park, George Perez, and Rodney Ramos (international connecting variant with next five issues). A 1 in 10 variant by Russell Dauterman and Greg Horn, a 1 in 25 variant by Victor Hugo, 1 in 50 variants by Sana Takeda and Joe Quesada, a 1 in 100 virgin variant by Quesada, a 1 in 200 variant by Walt Simonson, and a 1 in 500 black and white Simonson cover. Plus a blank sketch cover, and retailer incentive covers based on other purchases and store exclusives by Arthur Adams, Amanda Conner, Clayton Crain (trade, virgin) (Frankie’s), Gabriele Dell’Otto, Mike McKone (The Comics Mint) and Skan Srisuwan (Midtown).
Today writer Dan Slott and artist Sara Pichelli are bringing back the title Fantastic Four to Marvel Comics with a re-launch beginning with part one of a new Issue #1 story, “Fourever,” arriving at comic book stores today. Marvel Comics sidelined the team of Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Ben Grimm, and Johnny Storm since the end of its Secret Wars series. Now fans of the team and “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” will find out what they’ve been doing since then. We’ve gathered the dozens of cover options available for this issue, shown below.
As Marvel states in its marketing materials for the new series:
A void no other team can fill. And it’s time for the world to move on. But can it? A life-changing decision by the Thing! A momentous declaration by the Human Torch! A clarion call-to-arms that summons Doctor Doom! And a signal in the sky that heralds the return of hope to the Marvel Universe! All this, and Alicia Masters adopts kittens! So cute! Plus, the Impossible Man!
Marvel has amped up its cover artists yet again for the variant covers for this latest of several recent renumberings of main titles. So you’ll find covers from Alex Ross, Artgerm, Art Adams, Adam Hughes, Steve Epting, Sara Pichelli, Esad Ribic, George Perez, Mark Brooks, Skottie Young, Simone Bianchi, Joe Quesada, Eric Powell, Humberto Ramos, Nick Bradshaw, Mike Wieringo, Jack Kirby, John Cassaday, Emanuela Lupacchino, Walt Simonson, Rob Liefeld, Jen Bartel, Will Sliney, Mike Mayhew, Bill Sienkiewicz, and many more–more than 55 including virgin art and blank covers, most new, some pulled from archives of artists of the past, plus some homages to comic book covers from the past.
Bonus stories will be included in the issue by Simone Bianchi and Skottie Young. New Fantastic Four pins and backerboards will also available at some comic book stores today.
In 2029, real X-Men read Marvel’s X-Men comic books.
Old Man Logan is one of those great comic book ideas that surprisingly took such a long time to come around. It would be like seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger come back in Conan the Conqueror to play an elder King Conan, a film that always seems in the works but never quite in a moving-forward state. In the X-Men movies it means Hugh Jackman in the big-screen release Logan, supposedly his last of nine films portraying the steely clawed X-Man, providing a rare chance for an actor to complete a character study 17 years in the making. We’re NOT looking forward to anyone else being cast in this role down the road. The first trailer (previewed earlier here) gave us a moody, grim look at Logan backed by Johnny Cash. The final trailer released this week gives more hope for the future, with a little Jim Croce thrown in.
The final trailer reveals more than what we thought the studio would reveal in advance of the film: 2017’s leading contender for kick-ass superheroine… the little girl comic book readers know as cyborg X-23 (Laura, played by Dafne Keen) taking off her kid gloves and opening up her X-Men powers on some bad guys. Hugh Jackman is the wise guardian we all need, and his own 90-year-old guardian and mentor Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) is along for the ride, bringing that additional, personal dimension to the story. The other universe of Marvel films outside the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” has been well-established to bounce around in parallel worlds and has resulted in the most satisfying movies in the superhero genre, particularly with the spectacular X-Men: Days of Future Past. This film takes us about five years after that film’s epilogue.
This new trailer features a comic book on-screen for the first time in the X-Men universe, and comic book creators are featured in a new and unique way. Comic book artist Joe Quesada drew the pages with ink work done by Dan Panosian (see above). Comic book creator Gabriel Hardman created the storyboards for the film.
Check out this final trailer, first the U.S. version followed by the international version:
Ten years after Return of the Jedi, Topps trading cards editor and writer Gary Gerani was tasked once again to meet fan demand for more Star Wars trading cards. Many years before he would create photo cards for a new trilogy of prequels, he would team up with Lucasfilm’s Steve Sansweet to showcase Star Wars as interpreted by some of the best artists that contributed to the films or would re-imagine the “Star Wars Galaxy” in their own styles.
The three resulting trading card series have been released in the 2016 addition to Abrams ComicArts successful hardbound series featured here previously at borg.com. Star Wars Galaxy: The Original Topps Trading Card Series includes the works of more than 170 artists in more than 200 card reproductions, plus commentary by Gerani and an afterword by notable poster artist Drew Struzan. Unlike the prior volumes in the series, only the obverse image from the cards, which featured the artwork, is included.
You’ll find an incredible array of imagery by a surprising combination of artists, including rare images you will have seen only if you collected the original cards. So you’ll find the work of Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Ralph McQuarrie, Moebius, Drew Struzan, Dave Dorman, Al Williamson, Howard Chaykin, Mike Grell, John Eaves, Mike Zeck, George Perez, Jim Starlin, Dave Stevens, Walter Simonson, Gene Colan, Rich Buckler, Bill Sienkiewicz, Mark Schultz, P. Craig Russell, Dave Gibbons, Sergio Aragones, Boris Vallejo, Charles Vess, and Gil Kane.
The volume includes the entire run of portraits created for Star Wars Galaxy specifically for the Topps cards by Joseph Smith–the original art was later bought by George Lucas for his personal collection.
Are you a fan of Star Wars: The Force Awakens? How about a comic book adaptation whose quality is nearly as good as that of Marvel’s original trilogy adaptations in the late 1970s and early 1980s?
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a Marvel six-issue adaptation is coming your way later this month and we have a preview of not only some great variant covers, but previews of interior artwork by Luke Ross. Chuck Wendig provides the script adaptation for the story.
Variant covers include some beautiful interpretations by Phil Noto and Joe Quesada (above), and John Cassaday and Esda Ribic (below).
After the break, take a look at some interior pages from Marvel’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Issue #1:
It hasn’t been released yet, and it is already the #1 best selling comic of 2015. Forecasted with advance sale numbers at more than one million copies already, Marvel Comics is re-entering the world of Star Wars comics like it’s 1977 all over again. Written by our friend Jason Aaron with artwork by John Cassaday and colorist Laura Martin, the story continues the adventures of Luke Skywalker after the end of the original Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope.
Marvel Comics is pulling out all the stops with the variety of cover variants readers can choose from. Most comic book stores will get one of a half dozen basic covers, but those who dig around on the Web will find plenty more available. More than 30 basic full-color covers will be released in January 2015, plus black and white versions and sketch variants of many of those covers. And that’s not all, several collectible comic book websites will be releasing signature editions signed by everyone up to Stan Lee, and sketch covers by several artists including Dynamite Comics’ Chris Caniano. And you can get a logo-only cover to take to your next Con and commission an artist of your choice to sketch you a character.
Alex Ross, John Cassaday, Mike Mayhew, Frank Cho, David Petersen, Jenny Frison, Stephanie Han, Amanda Connor, Alex Maleev… everyone but Dave Dorman seems to have been pulled into this project. Click on each image to see the artist and whether the book is only available at a special store. A few variant images have not yet been released.
So check out even more great covers to Marvel’s Star Wars, Issue #1, after the break:
PBS is airing a new documentary series tonight and re-broadcast October 22 focusing on the impact of comic book superheroes on America and American culture, in Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle. It’s a good history lesson in the creation of the modern comic book and the development since the 1930s of the comic book art form. Packed with interviews with key creators and industry professionals, and comic book page and TV and movie clips, it tells a history of America as much as the comic book medium.
Not surprisingly the documentary, funded by both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, focuses on U.S. comics and comic stories tied to patriotism across the past 100 years. Written and directed by Michael Kantor, it covers how changing times is mirrored in comics, but also dictates the stories of comics, from the Great Depression, to World War II, McCarthyism in the 1950s and the Cold War in the 1960s to 1980s, the psychedelic 1960s, drugs in the 1970s, to Watergate and terrorism.
