After many years of happily reading John Romita Jr.’s work on Wolverine’s “Enemy of the State” Arc, Spider-Man and Kick-Ass, I was thrilled to be able to interview John Romita, Jr. (or JR. Jr.) for Marvel’s return to a bright, new day with the “Heroic Age.”

I caught up with the delightful John while he was working hard on the Avengers.  It seems this is one man who can draw and answer in-depth questions at the same time.

As always he was humorous, insightful, and well…in need of a nap.  Read on, true believers, and enjoy the latest from the desk of the modest legend himself.

The Flickcast: Marvel takes the entire Avengers line of titles into “The Heroic Age.” You’ve been paired up with Brian Michael Bendis on the core “Avengers” title; is your opening run contained to the first arc or two, or do you plan on being involved for the foreseeable future?

John Romita, Jr: In the first year I’m doing it [Avengers] for a minimum of 2 arcs and I’m enjoying myself.  If the book is still doing well, I’ll do it for a second year.  It’s so difficult, though, that I may not survive the first year— it’s intense work.

I have to finish 25 pages in the next 17 days.  So, after doing Avengers, I may want to sleep for a year.  But doing the Avengers with Bendis is an amazing experience.  If I get through the year and I’m still healthy enough, I will do another one.

TF: What are the benefits and challenges of drawing iconic characters like Thor, Spidey, Iron Man, Wolverine, and Captain America vs. drawing characters you create?

JR: Oh, that’s on a strictly selfish scale, it’s much more fun to do a character you create because you create them and there’s a lot of gratification for that, but working on iconic characters is like driving your father’s classic car, it’s spectacular and fantastic, but it’s better off when it’s your own.

Continue Reading →

This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt are joined by resident gaming expert John Carle for another round of discussions and debate. This week’s topics include the rather lame Superbowl ads, Smallville: Absolute Justice, Avatar being dethroned by Dear John, Betty White hosting Saturday Night Live, Microsoft stopping XBox Live for original XBox, reboots of Daredevil and The Thing and upcoming games such as Mass Effect 2 and the future of console gaming.

The boys also made some great picks this week including John’s pick of the animated X-Men series, Matt’s pick of Double Team with Jean Claude Van Damme and Mickey Rourke and Chris’ pick of John Carpenter’s 1982 horror/sci-fi classic The Thing.

As usual, if you have any comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitterand at Facebook, MySpace or via email.

According to Heat Vision Blog, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Grindhouse) and Joel Edgerton (Attack of the Clones) are set to star in the latest incarnation of The Thing, Universal’s take on “the shape-shifting alien who terrorizes a group of people in a remote facility.” Oh yeah, that one.

Winstead will play a Ph.D. candidate who joins a Norwegian research team in Antarctica after it discovers an alien ship frozen in the ice. When a trapped organism is freed and begins to kill, she is forced to team with a mercenary helicopter pilot (Edgerton) to stop the rampage. Matthijs Van Heijningen is directing the movie, which was written by Ronald D. Moore and Eric Heisserer.

Sadly, Van Heijningen has never directed a big budget feature film before, so he’s probably the best choice for this one. Yes, that was sarcasm.

The Thing has, of course, been made into a film at least twice before. The best (and best-known) of these is probably the John Carpenter version from 1982 which featured Kurt Russell as the titular “mercenary helicopter pilot.” That film was a contemporary remake of 1951′s The Thing From Another World, directed by Howard Hawks and featuring pre-Gunsmoke James Arness as the creature.

A March 15 start date in Toronto is planned with a very short theatrical run and swift trip to your local video store probably soon to follow.

Marvel is at it again, adding a new spin to their image and changing things up to excite readers new and old. This time around, the publisher is set to unleash “the dawn of new heroism in the Marvel Universe.” What are they talking about? Well, read on for all the scoop, via the official press release.

Marvel Comics is proud to announce The Heroic Age, the dawn of an exciting new era of heroism in the Marvel Universe! Beginning in May 2010 with the release of Avengers #1, The Heroic Age ushers in a brighter Marvel Universe and a bold new era for the world’s greatest super heroes as they emerge from darkness with a renewed sense of hope and optimism, leading to the formation of all new teams with new members…and brand new characters!

Titles branded with the Heroic Age banner offer a perfect jumping on point for readers new and old alike, as the top comic book creators in the world deliver a Marvel Universe like you’ve never seen before!

Continue Reading →

When you think of comics and comic history, one name probably comes to mind pretty quickly: Stan Lee. Having created or co-created some of the most famous and popular characters in comics history, his name has become synonymous with comics and Marvel, the company he helped put on the map.

Now, “The Man” is lending his talents to a new project for Marvel, the Marvel Digital Holiday Special. This four-part comic is available only online and features a story by Stan lee himself. For more info on the comic and where to get it, check out the official press release. And, be sure to check out some pages and a cover from the comic after the jump.

‘Tis the season to celebrate! And what better way to do so than with the 2009 Marvel Digital Holiday Special – an exclusive, four-part comic available only at Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited (www.marvel.com/digitalcomics). The legendary Marvel founding father Stan “The Man” Lee makes his Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited exclusive debut, penning a special Fantastic Four tale with art by Nick Dragotta that could only be called Marvel Digital Holiday Special: Rock of Ages. Check out a free preview right HERE!

The Thing teaches the rest of Marvel’s First Family all about Chanukah, and in turn, they impart some lessons of their own on some would-be street toughs. All this plus an art cameo by Lee’s FF co-creator Jack Kirby in a one-of-a-kind story that should not be missed!

Continue Reading →

It should come as no surprise that in addition to the big announcements yesterday, especially the Disney Marvel deal, there was other news. One such piece that may please many Marvel fans out there who were less than thrilled with the way the first two movies turned out is the late breaking revelation that Fox is rebooting The Fantastic Four franchise. But wait, don’t get too excited because Akiva Goldsman, the man who wrote the two worst Batman films in history (Batman and Robin and Batman Forever) and the feature film version of Lost In Space featuring Matt Leblanc is in charge of the reboot for the studio.

Fortunately, he’s not actually writing the script and is just a producer. Michael Green, co-executive producer of Heroes, co-writer of the new Green Lantern and creator of the short-lived series Kings is the one tapped to write the new script. So, that may mean good things for the new Fantastic Four franchise. In case you don’t recall, 2005′s Fantastic Four and the 2007 sequel Rise of the Silver Surfer were directed by Tim Story and starred Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis. Since the details of the reboot are still being worked out, it is unclear if any of them will return. Or, if they should.

To be honest, I wouldn’t mind if nobody from the first films returned. I wasn’t a big fan of Tim Story’s direction nor most of the performances except for Gruffudd and Chiklis. Starting over fresh is not a bad idea and now that Iron Man and The Dark Knight have clearly shown the way to make really great comic book movies, maybe Michael Green can turn The Fantastic Four into something great also. Let’s hope so because these characters deserve a better cinematic treatment then they’ve gotten so far.