Comic book fans may take special interest in this news, and not just because their pits may moisten with nerdy excitement at a real event involving an “Aegis-class cruiser” launching a missile into orbit to counter potentially deadly toxic hydrazine. Recent issues of The Mighty Avengers, as well as Cable/Deadpool #50, which hit stands yesterday, centered around a symbiote virus spilling from a satellite and infecting citizens of Manhattan.

Coincidence? I think not.

Comic Book Resources

“Aside from very specific contracted creators (such as Jim Lee), any penciller contracted to work on a monthly book must deliver complete turnaround of 22 pages of work in four weeks. Not a month, four weeks. If that schedule isn’t maintained, they’ll pull pages and assign them to other creators. And you may run short of future work. A reduction in quality is more acceptable than a reduction in quantity.”

Oy vey, what a mess. While no one likes delayed books, it seems like DC is only going to be pushing artists over to their competitors with this new policy. Considering that Marvel is already ahead in sales, I can’t help but view this move as somewhat lacking. Is it better to have a half-baked comic on the shelves every month, or a really great piece of work every other month? It’s true that delays have certainly hurt books like Justice Society, but in the end, don’t consumers want a cohesive, quality product? I think, perhaps, the key problem with this new policy is that it’s clearly a case of DC trying to have its cake and eat it, too; why not just fire creators who can’t stay on top of their work? Harsh, certainly, but damn, I don’t want to open my 30-page comic book only to find a different artist on every page. It seems that doing that would at least get creators on the ball.

It’s a tough call, I guess. I’ll be interested to see where things go from here.

Ain’t it Cool News reported yesterday that Ryan Reynolds is slated to appear as the popular anti-hero Deadpool in the upcoming X-Men Origins: Wolverine film. The story is published here by Drew McWeeny.

And earlier today, “Chaos Bringer” reported on SuperHeroHype.com that Friday Night Lights star Taylor Kitsch is set to play Gambit in the same film. Full details here.

Personally, I’m not shitting my pants at the news. Ryan Reynolds is best-known for playing Dane Cook-esque asshole characters in flicks like Van Wilder and Smokin’ Aces, while Taylor Kitsch’s big contributions to cinema have been supporting roles in John Tucker Must Die, arguably the worst teen comedy ever made, The Covenant, and Snakes on a Plane. Seems to me that a more high profile star would do justice to the fan-favorite character Gambit.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is currently set for a May 1, 2009 release date.

“Welcome back! Starting tomorrow, February 16th, it’s The Midtown Comics In-Store President’s Week Sale! Come into either of our two New York City locations, until the 22nd, and save 40% OFF ALL BOOKS! That’s 40% off on our huge collection of graphic novels, trade paperbacks, manga and novels. Again, this sale is in-store only, but starting this Saturday you’ll find incredible savings on a huge selection of books. Don’t miss out – Stop by our Times Square or Grand Central stores and save! And we hope you can make it down to meet Clifford Meth next Thursday – Check out “The Things You Need To Know” below to find out more. And a reminder that our Jack Staff contest is now closed – but check back here next week when we’ll announce the lucky winners. Finally, again this week we want to make sure everyone keeps in mind that we offer FREE DOMESTIC SHIPPING on all orders over $75 – To take advantage of this great deal, you can check how close you are to that FREE SHIPPING on the left hand side of the page when purchasing items for home delivery. Now onward!”

I personally stopped by today to get Annihilation Volume 1 for a sweet $15. Midtown’s 40th Street location has probably the most expansive collection I’ve seen in the city, rivaled only by Forbidden Planet on 13th Street, so it’s definitely worth checking out.

—

Gotham Underground (#1-5 out of 9)
DC COMICS
Written by Frank Tieri; Art by J. Calafiore and Jack Purcell; Cover by Calafiore

Issue #5 of DC’s Gotham Underground plopped onto shelves this past Wednesday, and the whole thing is still in pretty bad condition. It’s not entirely clear why DC decided that a War Games rehash is what everyone needs right now; we just had a huge Batman event in The Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul, and pretty much every beat so far has been rather familiar territory (a non-superpowered gang war in Gotham City, Batman going undercover as Matches Malone, to name a couple). The re-emergence of Spoiler, killed in War Games, seems to be the main draw here, but the mystery is unraveling so slowly (there’s a far greater emphasis on the other events at hand) and with such little finesse that it’s probably not worth slogging through Underground to its conclusion. Cheap storytelling strategies (‘missing’ images in issue #5, for instance, or Wildcat coming out of nowhere to save Robin and Oracle in #3) also don’t really help things.

Issue #5 at least spiced things up by offering some insight into the feuding gangs and throwing grotesque violence in, but the whole thing is still pretty “meh” right now. Readers on the fence should probably wait for reviews of the sixth issue, where everything should come to a head based on the build-up in #5, before deciding if this one’s worth it. As of now, it’s not.