Captain America (Bucky)

Note: This article may contain spoilers. If you dont care about that, read on.

Norman Osborn is going down. There’s no doubt about it. The “Dark Reign” looks to be collapsing and as casualties on both sides pile up in Seige, the dawn of the Heroic Age is just around the corner.

With the Heroic Age coming, some Marvel books will be coming to an end, most notably New Avengers. In the aptly named New Avengers: Finale, scribe Brian Michael Bendis and artist Bryan Hitch will tie up the loose ends of every New Avengers tale that has led to this point. With no cover image even leaking on to the internet yet, no one knows exactly what’s to come from this book.

This will all come to a head in April, giving perfect timing for Marvel’s latest set of promotional art entitled, “I’m an Avenger” and “I’m a Secret Avenger”. With a “May 2010” tag, these pieces feature work from John Romita Jr. and show some of the current stars expected to be present in the Avengers team post-Siege. The most shocking has Hawkeye, not Ronin, pictured which could mean that Clint Barton may finally be returning to the good old purple and blue.

The five “secret” pieces show simple silhouettes of various members of the new Secret Avengers along with different quotes they’d use to describe themselves. Of the Secret Avengers thus far there are many theories going on about who might be on the team.

Take a look for yourself at them all below and let us know who you think may be screaming for their team to “Assemble!” come May.

Once again its time for the list of the comics on sale from our friends at Marvel this week. Catching our interest this week are the latest issue of Punisher, Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth, Dark Avengers and the new Kookaburra. As always, be sure to check out the list below and after the jump some great covers for some of these new comics.

Comics On-Sale:

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #612
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #612 BLACK CAT VARIANT
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #612 GRANOV COVER
DARK AVENGERS #11
DARK REIGN: THE LIST – AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
DARK REIGN: THE LIST – AMAZING SPIDER-MAN HERO VARIANT
DARK REIGN: THE LIST – AMAZING SPIDER-MAN VILLAIN VARIANT
DEADPOOL: MERC WITH A MOUTH #5
DOMINIC FORTUNE #4
INCREDIBLE HULK #604
KOOKABURRA K #1
KOOKABURRA K #1 VARIANT
MIGHTY AVENGERS #31
NOMAD: GIRL WITHOUT A WORLD #3

In what could very well be the next step in comic book storytelling, Marvel entered the motion comics arena with Spider-Woman, based off of the recently launched series written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Alex Maleev. Available on iTunes, each episode is $1.99 US each or $8.99 US for the entire series with a total runtime of 53:46. Are we witnessing evolution, or merely a fad? And how is the story itself? Pouring through all five episodes, the answers may surprise you.

Starting with the story, Jessica Drew, aka Spider-Woman, finds herself lost in a world she doesn’t recognize. No, she’s still on Earth, but she was replaced by Veranke the Skrull Queen during the Secret Invasion storyline and has only recently returned to the playing field. Making matters worse, at one point Jessica was an agent of practically anything you can be an agent of in the Marvel Universe – all simultaneously – so it’s no wonder she’s a little out of sorts these days.

When SWORD Agent Abigail Brand tracks her down and offers an outlet for that pent up frustration, Jessica feels that she may find herself and knock a few heads in the process, so she sets off to the island of Madripoor. As the story unfolds, Jessica winds up in a whirlwind of activity as local authorities, Skrulls, the Thunderbolts and the New Avengers try to insert themselves into her booked-solid dance card. Once the dust settles, it’s the decisions going forth that has Jessica’s full attention as she continues to find her rightful place in the world.

As we do each week (unless something goes horribly wrong) following is a list of all the great Marvel comics hitting store shelves this week. In case you don’t know how this works, new comics come out on Wednesday of each week unless Monday is a holiday or something. Then, they come out on Thursday.

Fortunately, today isn’t a holiday so Wednesday it is. So, be sure to head out to your local comic book store two days from now and pick up some cool new comics. Some of the Marvel titles we’re interested in this week include the latest issue of Punisher Noir, a new Dark Avengers, the second issue of Spider-Woman and the latest Invincible Iron Man.

Be sure to check out the entire list, and some great art from some of these upcoming titles, after the jump.

Comics On-Sale:

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #609

DARK AVENGERS #10

DARK REIGN: THE LIST – AVENGERS 2ND PRINTING VARIANT

DARK REIGN: THE LIST – HULK

DARK WOLVERINE #79

For previous installments of Dave’s Weekly Comic Book Recommendations, go here.

Slim pickings yet again this week. From DC Comics, we have the entire Blackest Night Tales from the Corps for $7.99, and the final issue of the exceptionally wonderful Wednesday Comics.

From Marvel we have the third issue of the exceptionally fun Immortal Weapons, and the first issue of Spider-Woman #1 comes out. If you haven’t been watching the “motion comic,” via the iTunes download, then get the series in this more traditional format. Its a lot better. Especially with the former Daredevil team Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev at the helm.

From last week, the softcover of Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel’s The Alcoholic came out from Vertigo. For those of you who caught the new HBO series Bored to Death and are interested in Jason Schwartzman’s character’s work in graphic novel form, you ought to pick that up.

And well, to be honest, there isn’t anything else that interests me this week so that’s about it. As always, we here at The Flickcast care about what you read, so leave us a comment and let us know what you liked/didn’t like from this week’s comics. For a more complete list of what comes out this week, check out the one at Midtown Comics.

We’ve been keeping pretty close track of Spider-Woman: Agent of S.W.O.R.D. and Astonishing X-Men: Gifted, the new motion comics (aka MOCO) coming from Marvel. Recently, we brought you the first news of them, a trailer and a sneak peek and now we’ve got the brand new trailer for episode three of Spider-Woman: Agent of S.W.O.R.D. for you today.

This trailer gives you a preview of episode three of the series and provides a bit more insight into how our favorite female web crawler is going to deal with some pesky problems. Also, as is often the case, Marvel has a little something to say about the video as well

Marvel is proud to unveil new footage from the critically acclaimed Spider-Woman motion comic! The New York Times Best-Selling team of Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev (Halo Uprising) continue Marvel’s first ever original motion comic as Jessica Drew shows the world why Spider-Woman is force to be reckoned with!

Spider-Woman Episode 3 hits iTunes on September 16th and no True Believer can afford to miss it! Discover more at www.marvel.com/motioncomics!

Check out the trailer after the break.

Previously, we brought you news of this motion comic (MOCO) and told you that Episode One was one of the fastest selling videos on iTunes. In addition, we were able to bring you a trailer for another new Marvel MOCO yesterday that we’re all pretty excited about: Astonishing X-Men: Gifted. Now, courtesy of the folks at Marvel, we’ve got a preview of Episode Two of Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev’s Spider-Woman: Agent of S.W.O.R.D. to share with you this morning.

And, as is often the case with these types of Marvel goodies, they’ve got something to say about the video.

Marvel is proud to unveil new footage from the critically acclaimed Spider-Woman motion comic! The New York Times Best-Selling team of Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev (Halo Uprising) continue Marvel’s first ever original motion comic as Spider-Woman finds herself at odds with the law in Madripoor and that may spell the end of her mission as an Agent of S.W.O.R.D.! Spider-Woman Episode 2 hits iTunes on September 2 and no True Believer can afford to miss it! Discover more at www.marvel.com/motioncomics

So far, this Spider-Woman MOCO is pretty awesome and we can’t wait to see Episode 2 in its entirety. Until then, be sure to click through and check out this brand new trailer for it right here.

You think motion comics (aka MOCO) are just a fad? Maybe, but tell that to the thousands of people who downloaded Marvel’s first MOCO, Spider-Woman, when it became available this week in iTunes. The story, written by Brian Bendis with art by Alex Maleev, was the number one episode on the Television/Animation chart and the number two episode on the chart of all TV episodes.

Want to know more? Fortunately, Marvel has provided us with a bunch more information, via an official press release, and we’re going to share it with you right now. If you haven’t checked out the MOCO in iTunes, its definitely worth a look.

Marvel is pleased to announce that the first episode of Spider-Woman Motion Comic has conquered iTunes, debuting as the #1 episode on the Television-Animation sales chart and as the #2 episode on the Top Television Episodes sales chart. The New York Times Best-Selling team of Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev (Halo Uprising) present Marvel’s first ever original motion comic as Spider-Woman embarks on a new mission that’ll change the Marvel Universe forever!

Progress marches on and apparently its not enough to read good comics, now they have to move too. Oh well, can’t stop progress I guess. Besides, as much as I might hate to say it as a fan of reading, this new Spider-Woman motion comic (aka MOCO) does look pretty darn cool. Don’t understand what I’m talking about?

Well, fortunately, we’ve got all the info you could possibly need about this new offering from the folks at Marvel, via an official press release. Of course, we’ve also got some awesome screen shots of the MOCO after the jump, so be sure and check those out!

MARVEL LAUNCHES FIRST-EVER ORIGINAL MOTION COMIC

SPIDER-WOMAN

First episode available on iTunes on August 19, 2009

If the pages of Marvel Comics could move, what would they look like? Wonder no more! Marvel Comics announced the launch of its first ever original motion comic, Spider-Woman. The legendary, Eisner-award winning Brian Michael Bendis wrote the story of Spider-Woman, with art by Eisner Award winning artist Alex Maleev (Daredevil and Stephen King’s N. Mobisodes).  The first episode of Spider-Woman will be available on iTunes beginning August 19, 2009, with additional episodes released every two weeks.