So, it’s been a couple of months now and Seb and I have (mostly) kept our heads down, dutifully reviewing a comic a day for a fair few weeks with very little industry sarcasm and speculation. Well, not much anyway. Still, it’s not enough for us. We want a place where we can talk about the latest news and rumours, poke some fun, and generally talk about wider industry issues without the pretense of reviewing a comic to do so. And thus, The Sunday Pages is born, allowing us to indulge in editorials and commentary just once a week, giving us somewhere to put all those nuggets we think of which would otherwise end up unsaid.

For the inaugural column, you’ll be getting some news about the long-awaited reprint of Sam ‘n’ Max: Surfin’ the Highway, some information about a possible comics-based movie from Guillermo Del Toro that’s NOT Hellboy-related, a look at Marvel’s latest “Phoenix Rising” teaser, and some speculation about what DC’s forthcoming Trinity and Final Crisis might mean for the future of the shared DC universe… Read the rest of this entry »

We don’t usually do much in terms of new updates here, but since the April 2008 Marvel Solicits have just been released, and in light of all the secrecy over the casts of various titles, I couldn’t help noticing this Greg Land X-Men poster (top image below, click to enlarge)

Colossus, Frost, Cyclops, Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Pixie? Odd set of characters to be appearing on a poster together. It doesn’t appear to be the cast of Ellis’ Astonishing X-Men, after all (depicted here) though there is a little crossover. Could it be something to do with the post-Messiah Complex X-Men line? The Uncanny cast, perhaps?

There’s also this leaked Young X-Men cover (bottom image on the left, also click to enlarge.) YXM is, as we know, the successor to the dearly departed New X-Men.

 Clearly no Pixie there. Though I do recognise Wolfcub, Blindfold (in costume!?) Rockslide and Dust, clockwise from the far left, along with an (apparently) new guy on the far right and either Elixir or a new character in the centre. That’s clearly a Dodson cover even before you read the signature, though whether that means he’ll be the regular artist is anyone’s guess.

Still, I suppose we’ll find all this out soon when the full X-Men solicits come out on Thursday.

And, while we’re speaking about the solicits, it’s also good to see this has finally been announced:

X-MEN DIVIDED WE STAND BOOK 1 (of 2)
Written by MIKE CAREY, MATT FRACTION, CRAIG KYLE, CHRISTOPHER YOST and SKOTTIE YOUNG
Pencils by BRANDON PETERSON, JAMIE MCKELVIE, SANA TAKEDA and SKOTTIE YOUNG
Cover by BRANDON PETERSON
*Solicit classified until 1/24/2008*
48 PGS./Rated T+…$3.99

Frankly, that’s going to be worth it for McKelvie’s first mainstream superhero work alone. Excited? Yes sir.

Continuing the unofficial attempt to mention Spider-Man every day for a week, allow me to present a special Comics Daily update, which I’m going to call:

Things that should’ve been made 100% clear in One More Day

A Comics Daily Event in 1 Part.

Read the quote below, and judge for yourselves. It doesn’t clear up the whole “deal with Satan,” Mephisto Ex Machina crap, but by god it does sugar coat that pill substantially by explaining exactly why this isn’t the continuity carpet bombing that it first appeared to be. I can’t say that all is forgiven, but now that I’ve seen this, the outrage is actually beginning to subside. It’s still bad, but it’s now closer to Avengers Disassembled Bad, rather than Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions Bad.. Joe, a word of advice – please, in your editorial capacity, remember to include the full story in the actual comics next time:

CBR: So, to get this straight, OMD doesn’t actually negate the previous 20 years of Spider-Man stories?

Joe Quesada: Exactly, that’s precisely what we wanted to avoid. What didn’t occur was the marriage. Peter and MJ were together, they loved each other — they just didn’t pull the trigger on the wedding day. All the books count, all the stories count — except in the minds of the people within the Marvel U, Peter and MJ were a couple, not a married couple. (extract taken from CBR)

Long-awaited clarification or editorial backpedal? I’ll let you decide…

(You know, this is exactly the kind of reason the Comics Daily No Drama rule exists. Since I have resolutely failed to stick to it after mere weeks of existence, I wonder – should I just abolish it entirely, or redouble my attempts to follow it even in the face of the potential psychological damage it might cause me?)

Comics Daily will be gearing up for a return on Monday with a review of Amazing Spider-Man #545 and, you can be sure, there’s going to be plenty of commentary on the matter.

For now, I’m going to pad out the week with a hastily constructed Op/Ed piece. I’d like to invite some preliminary discussion of the ramifications of One More Day. Specifically, what do you think the damage – if any – is going to be in the long term?

Incoherant rambling and some spoilers for OMD below the cut…

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