What has come before: It really doesn’t matter.

I have nothing bad to say about Alan Davis's covers. That logo, on the other hand...

Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s aborted run on Fantastic Four was ambitious, yet disappointing. With their final issue, they joined the ranks of extraordinarily talented creative teams (JMS and Mike McKone, Jeph Loeb and Carlos Pacheco, Chris Claremont and Salvador LaRocca, etc.) that, for one reason or another, proved unable to fill Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Galactus-sized shoes. When I heard about the incoming creative team, I was indifferent at best. I am unfamiliar with writer Jonathan Hickman’s previous work, and Dale Eaglesham’s art has always been solid, but has never fostered any sense of fannish loyalty in me. Still, since I have been fascinated with these four heroes for a long time, I felt compelled to give them a chance and picked up their first issue, despite the retro 70’s logo and the Alan Davis cover (I adore Davis, but his awesome covers have graced some awful comics).

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Ultimate Comics Avengers #1 -- Look at these bad asses.

Here we are, a new era of comics… Sort of.

Mark Millar is back working for Marvel’s Ultimate line in a post-Ultimatum universe where everything was simply blown to hell. Nick Fury is back in the universe–thanks to a nice deus ex machina bit from Ultimatum–and this new series deals with one thing: Black Ops. Mind you, Nick Fury’s showing up only makes things more kick ass–as I will explain–so bear with me.

I’ve been out of the Ultimate universe for a bit given how bad people have been talking about Jeph Loeb and Ultimatum, so I picked this comic up post-convention and being super hyped for 1) a new Millar comic and 2) Ultimate Captain America being more of a bad ass via Millar’s writing. Let me say one thing: this comic does not disappoint.

No major spoilers. I promise.

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Alright, so here’s the deal. I attended the DC Nation panel at Chicago Comic-Con on Friday completely ready with my laptop to take notes and give you guys a great rundown of what DC announced at CCC and all of the spectacle that comes with these kinds of panels.

Except… I can’t do that. Because for some reason, DC decided that this year, they don’t want to talk about shit. I started off the panel taking notes of everything that was said, but about 10 minutes in, I realized that nothing was being said. All DC was giving us was a rundown of all the books that they are publishing. That’s it. So I stopped taking notes.

Now, I’m not here to rag on DC and say anything bad about them, but seriously, when  you come to a major comic book convention, you have to come with a least something to get people excited. I can’t say that Marvel really announced a lot of stuff at their panels, but at least they gave fans something, instead of just saying that you should buy their books.

And then, to make matters worse, the Q&A portion of the panel turned into the moderator bashing the fans asking questions because they were asking for spoilers. Yes, they may have been asking for hints at what was coming in the big DC storylines, but that’s no reason to bash them. And then other fans started to yell at each other for asking dumb questions.

Bottom line, this panel was a mess. It put a terrible taste in my mouth. I decided to skip the Sunday Conversation because of this panel and am not sure if I will ever attend another DC panel at a convention.

Note: the first part of this article was written about 5 hours after the now infamous ‘Avengers Avenged’ blog was posted. A followup reaction to the strong reactions posted over the next twelve hours is attached at the end.

I woke up to this link of a comic fan at Wizard World pranking Rob Liefeld. Thank you, Yellow Hat Guy. Rob Liefeld’s ridiculous lines are a part of comic book history, and this was a pretty good epic footnote to it.

you are a dick for expressing your views of this creation to the creator in a public setting

To the more eloquent defenders of Liefeld who commented on that link, I understand how you feel about something like this. “Here’s this guy who is pranking a creator at a convention while that creator is trying to work, this is an incredibly rude thing to do.” While it certainly was rude, it’s also a non-violent reaction to art work that inspired an emotional response.

Comics books are an artistic expression, and that expression has formed a community. The artists and writers who create them are exchanging their time, talent, and creative spark for a paycheck that, no matter how large, will never truly repay that creator for those moments of self-perceived genius they feel for getting the wording just right or the lines just so.

Readers are on exactly the opposite end of this. They cough up their paychecks to follow their favorite characters and stories every month, hoping to be inspired, tickled, and moved by the contents of these pages. Their entire goal is to have an emotionally charged opinion about about an issue.

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Olympus, a new limited series from Image comics, bleeds cool. The tale follows two brothers, Castor and Pollux, as they hunt down renegade divinities from the ever-popular Greek pantheon. Is it worth your hard-earned cash? Read on.

One of the first things that you may notice about Olympus is Christian Ward’s art. The pencils, as a whole, are a little inconsistent but the colors are simply stellar. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many different tints and hues in one comic before and for the most part they really enhance the the characters and the story.

If I had to one word to describe the pencils, it would have to be “kinetic.” The characters always seem ready to leap off the page and the action sequences flow into each other with a grace that you rarely see in other comics. Ward’s skill with panel layout is a treat as well. The panels cater to the flowing movement of the pencils and infuse all of the action with a dynamic energy that’s awesome to see.

More after the break

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Mondo Marvel Panel

Hey everyone, Mike here reporting from Chicago. Nick and I covered some panels today, so look out for his DC Nation post sometime soon.

Today, though, I hit up the Mondo Marvel panel featuring Jim McCann, Mark Paniccia, Dan Slott, Jason Aaron, Sean McKeever, Chris Yost and Craig Kyle. There was a little bit of information at this panel, just a bit more than the Ultimate’s panel, but nonetheless it was informative. I took notes on my iPhone so if I missed some small stuff, I’m sorry.

The convention covered a bunch of things, but I’ll just spit it to you as I got it:

Dan Slott featured a teaser for his arc that will be coming up in Amazing Spider-Man featuring none other than Mysterio! (But I thought he was dead?! Oh wait, this is Marvel mwhahaha). This should be showing up around issues #618 or #619.

Paul Toben and Patrick Scherberger will be putting out a 4 issue limited series called Spider-Man and the Secret Wars–yeah, from way back then–which will cover a bit of retelling of Spider-Man’s place in Secret Wars and his view of things.

More after the break

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Despite a small (and rather sad) contingency of Marvel people at this year’s Chicago Comic-Con (you may know this as Wizard World Chicago), there are still a couple of Marvel panels to report on. The first of which happened on Friday afternoon – the Marvel Ultimate Panel – involving news and discussion of the Marvel Ultimate Comics line. In attendance were Jim McCann, Marvel’s PR guru, Lauren Sankovitch, Associate editor (formerly with the Ultimate line), Mark Paniccia, Ultimate line editor, and Mark Millar, writer of many Ultimate books and co-creator of the Ultimate Universe.

The panel started a little late, as Millar walked in and said that he was “taking a poo”. To which McCann replied that they are only 3 minutes late, like many of their books. This pretty much set the tone for the rest of the panel, which was as much filled with witty banter as with actual news on the Ultimate U.

As the laughter died down, McCann said that this is the first panel where they can actually talk about a lot of the Ultimate stuff, now that Ultimatum #5 has finally shipped. The first book coming out with be, as many of you know, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man this Wednesday. Paniccia said that these are his favorite books and Sankovitch said that they are resetting the bar even higher now after Ultimatum. The panel members said look for some huge surprises in Spider-Man from the very first issue. There was also a general praise for David LaFuente’s art on the book.

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Hey everyone. Mike here. Just wanted to post something quick about Wizard World Chicago. Here’s something I haven’t seen on any other site that Mark Millar and a few Marvel people (Jim McCann and such) showed us today at the Ultimates panel for the new and improved Ultimate Universe:

Ultimate Red Skull.

Ultimate Red Skull (click to enlarge) taken via my iPhone 3Gs

A full breakdown and informational post is coming later tonight via Nick, but I wanted to show you guys this little blurb.

Well, folks, Mike, Jeff and I, as well as our friend Jared, are off to Wizard World Chicago tomorrow (Thursday, August 6th). We are all pretty pumped and ready to bring you some coverage from the con floor. So, keep an eye on the site this weekend and on our twitter account (@destroythecyb) as we will try to post tweets and blog entries as soon as possible. The lack of wi-fi in the convention center might make this a little difficult, but we’ll at least get the posts the we write up from panels up nightly for you.

So, what exactly will we be checking out at Chicago Comic-Con this year?

• Ultimate Marvel Panel
• Mark Millar Q&A
• Mondo Marvel Panel
• DC Nation
• DC Sunday Conversation
• Dan Slott Q&A
• And so much more!

Along with those panels, we’ll also (hopefully) be attending 3 night time programming events. First is Shooting the Shit with Mark Millar and also the artists and writers parties. Not sure if we’ll have anything to post from those events, but perhaps we’ll get a writer or artist to slip on a big announcement!

If you’re going to be heading out to the con this weekend, let us know! Leave a comment on this post, or hit myself or Mike up on Twitter, via an @ or a DM at @nicknelson or @mikerapin. You can also @ or DM the @destroythecyb account.

So yeah… stay tuned! Should be an exciting weekend for us here at DTC!