THE FANTASTIC FOUR
Writer: McDuffie (alt. Slott, alt. Pak)
Pencils: Pelletier (an upcoming arc by Deodato Jr., alt. Epting, alt. Pelletier)
Covers: McGuinness (alt. Turner, alt. Land)
First 2 issues part of 4-part crossover with She-Hulk (6 part with sim Black Panther): The original Four, She-Hulk, Black Panther, Storm follow the trail of newly returned Doom on a chase through time, space and alternate dimensions to prevent him from creating what Reed assumes is a Doomsday Device, but is actually free life-saving tech for third world countries. T’Challa and Storm leave the FF on bad terms, frustrated by Reed’s almost compulsive distrust of Doom. She-Hulk leaves for L.A. (see below) with a desire to start fresh, and Johnny indicates he may follow her there later, since things have gotten grim on the East Coast.
Stage set for a darker 4-issue arc (love to have Deodato Jr. or Epting for pencils, but Pelletier can handle it): We’ll split our time between the FF having a difficult time making amends with one another, and Doom courting T’Challa, Magneto and Namor with this goal: to defeat the overzealous, registered American Initiative and make the entire world a paradise, calling themselves The Defenders and paving the way for… oops, don’t have approval from Sean to say that yet.
Marketing’s relatively straight forward for the crossover, usual channels, Newsarama interview, and FF will likely be boosted by marketing for…
SHE-HULK
Writer: Slott (alt. McDuffie, longshot Heinberg, longershot Simone)
Pencils: Amanda Conner (alt. Steven Cummings, alt. Land, alt. Burchett, longshot alt. Cho, longestshotofall alt. Byrne)
2-issue crossover with FF in which Jen, in addition to chasing Doom and fighting dinosaurs, really examines her life and realizes she’s out of control and needs the stability of a FF-style family atmosphere. So her book is re-titled something along the lines of:
FANTASTIC FOUR: L.A.
(But not that specifically; it’s been vetoed by the EIC; we’ll have specifics tomorrow.)
I will assure She-Hulk fans this is still HER book, and with Slott staying on (hopefully), it’ll be a new chapter of the same story, not another Exiles Concept-Bastardization.
Who will compose this West Coast branch? Will it even be a branch? Will they be Fantastic, or number Four? Possible members include Sharon Ventura, Crystal, Nova (the chick who dated Silver Surfer) and Lyja. Eventually Johnny Storm moves to L.A. to join the new team and play the acting game.
The team will be women (JS excepted), and we’ll aggressively target female readers. The book will read like a comedic Grey’s Anatomy, except instead of practicing medicine, our gals lay the smackdown on folk like the Mole Man’s California cousins.
We’ll employ a more aggressive marketing campaign, including Newsarama interviews, die-cut She-Hulk bookmark CSN inserts, a fake ‘Cosmo Quiz,’ in which you take a personality test to determine which team you belong on, the overall benefit hopefully being an increased awareness and prominence of the FF in the Marvel Universe.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Last thing tonight
I need to go to bed, but before I do...
I just posted my notes to Tom's blog; it's your turn! Once we get rolling, I expect this'll be a smoother process. Lots to do these first days! :)
Phil -- I think Pat asked someone to post his notes on Tom's blog; can you do that, please?
My crossover idea -- It'll take too long to explain tonight. Let's focus on getting some creative teams and general tones/themes set and I'll get to my proposal later. I'll try to post something when I have a chance. (Tomorrow?)
I just posted my notes to Tom's blog; it's your turn! Once we get rolling, I expect this'll be a smoother process. Lots to do these first days! :)
Phil -- I think Pat asked someone to post his notes on Tom's blog; can you do that, please?
My crossover idea -- It'll take too long to explain tonight. Let's focus on getting some creative teams and general tones/themes set and I'll get to my proposal later. I'll try to post something when I have a chance. (Tomorrow?)
Editor Interviews
Here's a marketing end thought that I want to put out there. As EIC, I'm going to try to make myself super-available to comic news groups (Wizard, Newsarama, FBR, etc) but I'd like to note that you guys -- as editors of relatively high profile books -- should at least be receptive to, if not active in seeking, interview requests. I have no idea what kind of curves Tom might throw at us, but I want you to be ready for folks to come knocking on your door to ask you about what your plans are, why you choose such-n-such creative teams, etc.
Especially as we solidify creative teams and establish (potentially) new directions, I want you all to be proactive in not just putting out good books, but also in making sure that people know about them!
FYI, I'm going to post something to that effect on Tom's blog as well.
Especially as we solidify creative teams and establish (potentially) new directions, I want you all to be proactive in not just putting out good books, but also in making sure that people know about them!
FYI, I'm going to post something to that effect on Tom's blog as well.
X-office. Day one. 500 words.
Uncanny X-Men
Mike
We start with Emma and Scott’s wedding. All X-Men and ex-X-Men are present. If Astonishing and the adjectiveless X-Men book are still around, those characters will be away on a mission. Before the two are wed, a huge energy portal swallows almost everyone present. Trevor Fitzroy has taken them away to another time. Why? Where? That will be one of the two main subplots.
Nightcrawler gets saved by Belasco (the other subplot), other mutants were too much for Fitzroy’s portal (he has to kill somebody for every person he wants to transport and underestimated the number of guests? Something like that). Those are the last X-Men left – until the missing members reappear in the timestream somewhere down the road. If readers like this direction, later. If not, sooner.
With both time travel and Belasco in the X-Men’s future, Robert Weinberg seems to be the best writer for this run.
Before another publisher snatches Adrian Alphona away, it’s time to put him on a big Marvel title. He’s the next big thing, so let him be that at Marvel. Let him be that on Uncanny X-Men.
Marko Djurdjevic is my first choice for the cover art.
I offered Ben Morse a Wizard-exclusive First Look at the new lineup and costumes (pending your approval) , with a couple of cryptic words by the writer for each team member. This, along with the Summers/Frost wedding should lure in a couple of readers. And then we hook them with Fitzroy and Belasco.
Wolverine
For people who want classic superhero Wolverine, there's New Avengers. For the scruffy mutant, there's Uncanny X-Men. For his dirty past, there's Wolverine: Origins. So what to do with Wolverine? Put him out of costume.
After losing so many friends in Uncanny X-Men, we play Logan as a Charles Bukowski kind of character. Drinking alone in a bar. (Is the no-smoking rule still active?)
Add a few Femmes Fatales (Madame Hydra? Yukio?), a damsel in distress or two (Amiko?) and more bad guys than you can shake your claws at, and you’ve got the perfect Noir book set in a superhero world. That being said, I’d like to have Ed Brubaker as the writer. With his track record, I can’t think of a writer better suited for this direction. And he just ended his run on Uncanny X-Men, so this assignment would replace that.
Ed has a great chemistry with Mike Perkins, so he should be the artist. For the first four or five months, we’ll have done-in-one standalone stories with a subplot setting up a larger arc. They set the mood, but readers can always join the ride. Then, the larger storyline sends Logan around the world (Japan, Madripoor, Genosha…).
Dave Johnson is my first choice for the cover art.
Could we have in-house ads for this on other books (X-Factor, Criminal, New Avengers) so readers will be reminded of the new approach? Oh, and a Newsarama interview would be nice once the creative team is approved/signed.Mike
EIC Responses
Gonna try responding to a boatload of stuff in one post here for the sake of speed...
First, thanks again to everyone for all convening on the blog here and shooting out lots of great ideas already! We're rockin and rollin and we're not even 24 hours into the sim!
First, let's assume that, generally speaking, all other existing books will be carrying on more or less as they are in their current state. That's going to more directly affect Pat and
Pat -- Welcome aboard! Glad you didn't get shut out there! First, your creative team ideas are fine, but I'd strongly suggest having backups at the ready. King seems a long shot and I don't know Byrne's current opinion of Marvel. Also, JRSr might well just want to rest in retirement, I don't know. So backup plans on these guys I think are a must.
Also, start thinking of general story directions/themes to work with. Obviously, we're not going to be writing the stories here, but I think we'll at least need to set the pace for the books.
Phil -- She-Hulk's shaping up -- I like the creative team ideas -- but I'm still not sold on reason for the "team" forming around Jen. She's got no real relationship with Sharon and only tangental relations with Crystal. I don't know that we want to directly ape the "FF" name/idea too much, either. The family/friends thing on the West Coast is cool, but directly renaming it "FF LA" and specifically having four members is a bit much. Why not 3 members? Or 5? Or 2? I think we should be looking at this as more of a "She-Hulk and Friends" type of thing than "FF LA". Who's in Jen's circle of friends, and who would be willing to head across country with her?
On the FF, I think it's important to keep Johnny with the team for at least the short term. Remember that we've got a big movie coming out soon and I think it's important to keep the team members fairly recognizable for any possible spillover we get from it. (That's not to say Johnny can't visit over in She-Hulk's book, BTW!) Creative team ideas are good.
With your Defenders crossover idea, it's a good, well-thought out spin on a classic team. But (you knew that was coming!) I'd like to propose something a little more radical story-wise. More on that in a bit...
Mike -- Creative teams are good for both books. (My bad for the art confusion earlier!) I like where you're going with Wolverine story wise. Uncanny, I think, is a good idea, but that's going to be really tricky. First, you're going to have to account for mutants in other X-books. Second, why does Fitzroy leave those mutants? Does he simply have trouble locating them? If so, why? Lots of story issues to deal with there.
All -- I'll post something to Tom's blog shortly about current assignments. I think you can all post your thoughts on creative teams, and maybe a few short notes about general directions that I've okayed so far. (If I haven't okayed part yet, see what you can do to write your post around those points!) We'll hold off on noting anything about crossover stuff until we've something a little more solid on that.
First, thanks again to everyone for all convening on the blog here and shooting out lots of great ideas already! We're rockin and rollin and we're not even 24 hours into the sim!
First, let's assume that, generally speaking, all other existing books will be carrying on more or less as they are in their current state. That's going to more directly affect Pat and
Pat -- Welcome aboard! Glad you didn't get shut out there! First, your creative team ideas are fine, but I'd strongly suggest having backups at the ready. King seems a long shot and I don't know Byrne's current opinion of Marvel. Also, JRSr might well just want to rest in retirement, I don't know. So backup plans on these guys I think are a must.
Also, start thinking of general story directions/themes to work with. Obviously, we're not going to be writing the stories here, but I think we'll at least need to set the pace for the books.
Phil -- She-Hulk's shaping up -- I like the creative team ideas -- but I'm still not sold on reason for the "team" forming around Jen. She's got no real relationship with Sharon and only tangental relations with Crystal. I don't know that we want to directly ape the "FF" name/idea too much, either. The family/friends thing on the West Coast is cool, but directly renaming it "FF LA" and specifically having four members is a bit much. Why not 3 members? Or 5? Or 2? I think we should be looking at this as more of a "She-Hulk and Friends" type of thing than "FF LA". Who's in Jen's circle of friends, and who would be willing to head across country with her?
On the FF, I think it's important to keep Johnny with the team for at least the short term. Remember that we've got a big movie coming out soon and I think it's important to keep the team members fairly recognizable for any possible spillover we get from it. (That's not to say Johnny can't visit over in She-Hulk's book, BTW!) Creative team ideas are good.
With your Defenders crossover idea, it's a good, well-thought out spin on a classic team. But (you knew that was coming!) I'd like to propose something a little more radical story-wise. More on that in a bit...
Mike -- Creative teams are good for both books. (My bad for the art confusion earlier!) I like where you're going with Wolverine story wise. Uncanny, I think, is a good idea, but that's going to be really tricky. First, you're going to have to account for mutants in other X-books. Second, why does Fitzroy leave those mutants? Does he simply have trouble locating them? If so, why? Lots of story issues to deal with there.
All -- I'll post something to Tom's blog shortly about current assignments. I think you can all post your thoughts on creative teams, and maybe a few short notes about general directions that I've okayed so far. (If I haven't okayed part yet, see what you can do to write your post around those points!) We'll hold off on noting anything about crossover stuff until we've something a little more solid on that.
Post Preview
Okay, heading into the homestretch here on the East Coast, so here's a look at what my 500- is going to look like for Wednesday.
I leave it here and abide by whatever folks choose to do in terms of posting.
Just know that I won't have computer access until after 3 p.m. on Wednesday, so won't be able to post from my computer until then.
If anyone wants to post the words below as mine, fire away. If not, I'll do so after 3 p.m. Wed. Caio!
Lo, There Shall Come New Spider-Creators!
With all due respect to the current teams on the Spider-books, I'm bringing in some new and old blood to stir up the Spiderverse for the next year.
Webhead is coming off record-setting box office weekends. I've been trolling message boards to see responses from folks who opine on the internet. It’s not everyone, but it is a vocal bunch not to be discounted.I'm hearing how fans don't like when the foundations of a character are meddled with. (Flint Marko plugging Ben Parker? Ouch!)So at the risk of an internet tar and feathering, how about a -shudder- back to basics approach with Spidey?Here we go: Let’s make Amazing Spider-Man Amazing again. Fans want to see John Romita Jr. back on Webhead, so let's give the people what they want. And how's this for a twofer? I'm asking his big daddy to supply variant covers for one year!So who would pen the tale to complement this titanic two? You sitting?Stephen King.You read that right. I'm making a pitch to the Maine Man to carry over the humongous success of his Dark Tower series and apply it to Mainstream Marvel. We know King has helped bring tons of new readers into the local comic stores in search of Dark Tower. I'm asking the Master of the Macabre for a one-year commitment to Marvel's flagship character. Everyone's got a Spider-Man story they're just waiting to tell. Let's hear SK's version!The cross pollination from King bringing new readers into our Marvel Universe is limitless. Obviously, I see a major media blitz coming with this, so let's get the folks in marketing buckled in. Comics sites, fanzines, giveaways, and of course - ugh - variant covers.Over in Spectacular, I'm bringing back a couple of familiar names, one of whom hasn't been seen around these parts in some time, and will surely ignite a fair amount of controversy.On Spectacular, I'm going for David Michelinie writing, with John Byrne returning to the House of Ideas on art. Love him/hate him, you can't deny Byrne's ability to draw. This pair could really tell some great tales of Spidey and his supporting cast, which of course, includes his cadre of villains.First up for David, I've asked for the consummate story of a villain he himself helped create: Venom. He made it to the big screen before the likes of the Lizard, Electro, and the Vulture. He's got wheels. Any kid glomming Venom via the movie is looking for Eddie Brock in the regular titles. David, you've got a year to get Eddie and his symbiote up close and personal again.
Oh, like Romita Sr. on Amazing covers, I'm shooting for another biggie for Spectacular, who also had a hand in Venom's debut. Still sitting? Good. I've placed a call to Todd McFarlane and asked him for a one-year commitment to covers. You all loved his USM 100 variant, right? Think 12 more.
I leave it here and abide by whatever folks choose to do in terms of posting.
Just know that I won't have computer access until after 3 p.m. on Wednesday, so won't be able to post from my computer until then.
If anyone wants to post the words below as mine, fire away. If not, I'll do so after 3 p.m. Wed. Caio!
Lo, There Shall Come New Spider-Creators!
With all due respect to the current teams on the Spider-books, I'm bringing in some new and old blood to stir up the Spiderverse for the next year.
Webhead is coming off record-setting box office weekends. I've been trolling message boards to see responses from folks who opine on the internet. It’s not everyone, but it is a vocal bunch not to be discounted.I'm hearing how fans don't like when the foundations of a character are meddled with. (Flint Marko plugging Ben Parker? Ouch!)So at the risk of an internet tar and feathering, how about a -shudder- back to basics approach with Spidey?Here we go: Let’s make Amazing Spider-Man Amazing again. Fans want to see John Romita Jr. back on Webhead, so let's give the people what they want. And how's this for a twofer? I'm asking his big daddy to supply variant covers for one year!So who would pen the tale to complement this titanic two? You sitting?Stephen King.You read that right. I'm making a pitch to the Maine Man to carry over the humongous success of his Dark Tower series and apply it to Mainstream Marvel. We know King has helped bring tons of new readers into the local comic stores in search of Dark Tower. I'm asking the Master of the Macabre for a one-year commitment to Marvel's flagship character. Everyone's got a Spider-Man story they're just waiting to tell. Let's hear SK's version!The cross pollination from King bringing new readers into our Marvel Universe is limitless. Obviously, I see a major media blitz coming with this, so let's get the folks in marketing buckled in. Comics sites, fanzines, giveaways, and of course - ugh - variant covers.Over in Spectacular, I'm bringing back a couple of familiar names, one of whom hasn't been seen around these parts in some time, and will surely ignite a fair amount of controversy.On Spectacular, I'm going for David Michelinie writing, with John Byrne returning to the House of Ideas on art. Love him/hate him, you can't deny Byrne's ability to draw. This pair could really tell some great tales of Spidey and his supporting cast, which of course, includes his cadre of villains.First up for David, I've asked for the consummate story of a villain he himself helped create: Venom. He made it to the big screen before the likes of the Lizard, Electro, and the Vulture. He's got wheels. Any kid glomming Venom via the movie is looking for Eddie Brock in the regular titles. David, you've got a year to get Eddie and his symbiote up close and personal again.
Oh, like Romita Sr. on Amazing covers, I'm shooting for another biggie for Spectacular, who also had a hand in Venom's debut. Still sitting? Good. I've placed a call to Todd McFarlane and asked him for a one-year commitment to covers. You all loved his USM 100 variant, right? Think 12 more.
When are we Postingggggg???
Patrick has brought up an important point:
We should probably make our official posts on Tom's blog around the same time. For safety, I think we should do it sometime late tonight rather than early tomorrow morning (it would be bad if none of us missed our posts, wouldn't it?)
How do you guys feel about allowing Sean to cobble together one long post, or cobbling one together for him since he's externally busy? Letting him state his basic overview, saying a few words to introduce each title and express his goals for them and then posting our 250 word plans for our books. I would love it if we could really present a unified front on this, as that might prevent unpleasant shakeups later on. That's also fewer posts for the Marvel boards to potentially screw up (though four concise posts have a certain charm to them too, don't they?).
If we do separate posts, does everyone agree that Sean should post first, if not daily, then at least this first round? I know you're busy Sean, but we're all trying to make sure you're happy with everything before we put it up on Tom's blog. The last thing we want to do is waste turns having Sean shoot us down as well.
We should probably make our official posts on Tom's blog around the same time. For safety, I think we should do it sometime late tonight rather than early tomorrow morning (it would be bad if none of us missed our posts, wouldn't it?)
How do you guys feel about allowing Sean to cobble together one long post, or cobbling one together for him since he's externally busy? Letting him state his basic overview, saying a few words to introduce each title and express his goals for them and then posting our 250 word plans for our books. I would love it if we could really present a unified front on this, as that might prevent unpleasant shakeups later on. That's also fewer posts for the Marvel boards to potentially screw up (though four concise posts have a certain charm to them too, don't they?).
If we do separate posts, does everyone agree that Sean should post first, if not daily, then at least this first round? I know you're busy Sean, but we're all trying to make sure you're happy with everything before we put it up on Tom's blog. The last thing we want to do is waste turns having Sean shoot us down as well.
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