This May Rob Zombie will return to comics for the first time in over 5 years with Whatever Happened to Baron Von Shock? published by Image. Baron Von Shock will be a Zombie’s first foray away from the horror laden pulp of his last book and into a satire about the drawbacks of celebrity life. Sure to be morbid and strewn with macabre, Whatever Happened to Baron Von Shock follows the rise and fall of a small time TV horror host hits it big. It will certainly be filled to the gils with the sex, nudity and debauchery as only Rob Zombie can deliver. It hits your local comic store May 26, 2010. Keep an eye out for it.

After years of rotting in development hell, Brian Michael Bendis’ superhero detective yarn is joining the FX Network with the ranks of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Damages and Rescue Me.

Short of the adaption hitting a premium cable network like Showtime or HBO, FX is a prime spot for Powers. The network is known for pushing the envelope; so at least the book will be able to maintain it’s noir edge and grittiness.

Wether it’s gonna be animated like Adam Reed’s FX’s animation, Archer is unknown, but if Bendis helms it as a producer and/or writer it’s no doubt going to be good.

It has been confirmed that (500) Days of Summer director, Marc Webb will direct a reboot of Spider-Man.

As much of a bummer as it is that the same creative team that helmed the first three films won’t be back for a fourth, at least the franchise is in good hands. Webb should have the ability to bring a great amount of humanity to the beloved Marvel characters.

It might prove to be interesting to see a retooled version of the mythos in film, perhaps this reboot will be what Ultimate Spider-Man was to The Amazing Spider-Man books and even integrate the characters in Marvel Studios’ interconnecting Iron Man, Thor and Incredible Hulk. Hell, if the studios were smart they’d have Brian Michael Bendis either write or produce the damned thing.

Though, with only one flick under his belt, does Webb have the experience to pull it off?  Let’s hope so, no one wants another Spider-Man 3.

Welcome to the first installment of Big Shiny Robot’s monthly ongoing Earth 1610 recap and review, Ultimate Monthly. Let’s cut the bullshit, and dive right into it…

Ultimate X-Men has run it’s course, bowing out with a beautifully illustrated final issue, laying to rest the series as well as a plethora of it’s characters. Picking up shortly after the conclusion of Jeph Loeb’s Ultimatum with Kitty Pride slinking through the Triskelion to retrieve Wolverine’s remains for burial. Back at Xavier’s campus, Rouge, Jean Grey and Iceman, the surviving X-Men, prepare to lay their fallen teammates to rest in a mass grave. The services are interrupted when Mystique, Sabertooth and Assemble crash with a proposition to start a new X-Men team. A fight ensues, some ass gets kicked and the Brotherhood of Mutant stragglers leave with their tails between their legs, leaving the X-Men to bury their friends and family and walk away from superheroism forever.
This book seems to do the series some justice, after several years of bad art, bad writing and poor  sales. Ben Oliver’s art in the book is fantastic: subtle and shy away from the bulging muscles, square jaws and big tits and ass artwork Mark Brooks’ had endowed the book with in it’s final days. Aron E. Coliete has penned a fine issue, the first in his disappointing run on the book. Happily this story doesn’t involve a shitty reimagining of Alpha Flight, human/sentinel hybrids or after school anti-drug dramas. So long Ultimate X-Men, if Mark Millar or Brian Bendis had been writing you you’d be missed.

Ultimate Fantastic Four: Requiem
Written by Joe Pokaski
Illustrated by Robert Atkins

An Open Letter to Ultimate Fantastic Four.

“Dear Ultimate Fantastic Four,

When you broke your cherry as a well written and well drawn retooled version of Stan Lee’s classic I was nothing short of amazed. When I asked a clerk at my comic store how this book came to be, he explained that when two very talented writers love each other they come together they produce one kick ass book. You were very special, managing to develop an amazing story about a family that incidentally had super powers. The Thing cried himself to sleep, Mr. Fantastic was a snot nosed kid with daddy issues, the Invisible Woman was a compassionate girlfriend and good big sister and the Human Torch played practical jokes and couldn’t grasp the concept of having power and responsibility and it pulled on everyone’s heart strings.
Yes, you did pass through the hands of many a writers, but they all knew how to push you forward and successfully reinvent classic stories of your older brother, the original Fantastic Four. That was until someone at Marvel decided to hand you over to the talentless Mike Carey, who took all those three dimensional aspects you had and tainted them with bad dialogue and even worse, convoluted stories that shat out your integrity like a hooker with dysentery. There was so much potential and yet, you were cut down in your youth, now we’ll never see Reed and Sue tie the knot, or see Ben Grim become the godfather of their children or Johnny Storm grown into his own as a superhero.
In your final issue, you pass through yet one more writer, one not as moronic as Carey, yet one very banal, not quite giving you your dues. Our last 32 pages of you consists of a badly drawn backstory to how the Human Torch gets sucked into the pendent of the demon named Dormammu. The trauma you had ensued during the events of Ultimatum seemed to have little to no barring on your four beloved heroes and everyone goes their different ways, us readers included. It’s like a bad break up, sent over a text message. I feel bad for you Ultimate Fantastic Four, you were abused by bad writers and may you rest in peace.

~Humanjunk”

Welcome to a new chapter in the Ultimate universe. Ultimatum is over and the damage has been done. Heroes have died, teams have disbanded and they need to be avenged and the surviving members of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Ultimates are gonna do it. Mark Millar returns to his motley crew of dysfunctional superheroes with the talented Carlos Pacheco to take on Captain America’s  son and new foe, the Red Skull. The first issue of this new ongoing series is damn good, but it’s hard to expect anything less from Mark Millar. It’s balls out action packed and well paced, you finish 32 pages wanting more in the best way possible. The book has the potential, if you read Marvel books and this isn’t in your hold you’re an imbecile.

We knew Ultimate Spider-Man wasn’t really going to die. How could Brian Michael Bendis let that happen? Ultimate Spidey single handedly launched what is probably the best web slinging title in 20 years. It’s also happens to be one of the best books regularly published by Marvel, it’s consistently good, it moves forward and has everything a reader could want in a superhero book, melodrama, great villains, adventure and heart. Well, welcome to volume two of Ultimate Spider-Man. It’s a brand new era for the young hero having survived the cataclysmic events of Ultimatum and officially earning the respect of New York City as a hero. Anyone who followed Ultimatum knows that a lot of characters died, heroes and villains alike, but not all of them; not the Kingpin of New York, Wilson Fisk and not Mysterio, who’s now gunning to run the underbelly of New York’s organized crime.
Bendis treats the book as a new beginning; it’s light hearted and feels like an episode of Degrassi rather than a John Hughes high school dramady. It’s snappy and fun and certainly the antithesis of the Earth 16010’s last few hellish months of death, violence and mayhem. Sadly, artist Stuart Immonen has moved on to greener pastures (Bendis’ ongoing New Avengers) and has been replaced by David LaFuente. LaFuente’s art certainly contributes to the books light and new found cuddly atmosphere, but doesn’t really do it any justice. His close ups of character faces are absolutely hideous and looks like the art of an anime obsessed 6th grader who can’t draw his way out of a paper bag. Spidey’s head is a huge, round grapefruit on a toothpick and when the mask is off, Peter Parker looks androgynous which is creepy when he makes out with a horribly drawn Gwen Stacy. LaFuente’s character designs are Hot Topic chic and cater to the blind. What Bendis sees in this hideous art is beyond me.
As good as the writing is, Ultimate Spider-Man #1 is a frustrating book. It picks up 6 months after Ultimatum and skips a lot of potentially interesting story and character development; like how does a 15 year-old, who’s already lost so much, cope with being a hero in such a traumatic event; how does his relationship with Mary Jane dissolve and why does he rebound with Gwen Stacy? Long time readers of the first volume of Ultimate Spider-Man will feel slightly gypped by the book, like Bendis tried to fix something that wasn’t broke. But, most comic book readers fear change, so let’s all wait and see how it unfolds.

What’s coming up this month?

The next issue of Ultimate Spider-Man hits shelves and Marvel Digital Comics this Wednesday (September 3rd) and continues the New World According to Peter Parker arc and on September 9th look for Ultimate Avengers #2. Warren Ellis returns to the Ultimate Universe for the first time since his stellar Ultimate Human with the first of a four issue mini series called Ultimate Armor Wars; where Tony Stark has to prevent the theft of his technology, which will hit your local comic store on September 16th.

Until next month, cheers!

The teaser trailer for James Cameron’s Avatar is now live, and you can view it at here. For something that had $10 million in R&D dropped into it just to create the right special effects, you HAVE to download the 1080p trailer.

Avatar will be the first film James Cameron has done (that isn’t a vapid, 3D documentary) since 1997’s Titanic.

It hits theaters December 18th.

The new trailer for Venture Bros. season four is live at Adult Swim!

Last month I did a less than favorable write up of the first installment of Ultimate Spider-Man: Requiem #1 and how it was just a ploy for writer Brian Michael Bendis to rehash some unused USM leftovers from a years back. Unfortunately issue 2 isn’t any better. Book one left off on a great cliffhanger, Robbie Robertson informing reformed Spidey basher, J. Jonah Jameson that he is going to write his eulogy. If there is one thing Bendis is good at it’s writing the layers of a character.  An you’d think this gives Bendis plenty of room to add more to a character he’s already developed from what was a 2 dimensional webhead-hater to a complicated individual.

Well, it starts off that way. The book segues from JJJ’s eulogy to a pretty good Spidey meets Hulk story; but like the last issue, it’s a leftover that would have been good as it’s own 32 page story, and doesn’t really fit into what USM Requiem is trying to do or supposed to do. The book isn’t a total loss; when Bendis actually has JJJ pound out the Spider-Man eulogy the book is amazing: it’s heartfelt and wonderfully written. Issue two is less a requiem for the character and more the book, allowing Bendis to gush over Spidey as Jameson while highlighting art from series regulars Mark Bagley and Stuart Immonen and Ultimate Six artist Trevor Hairsine. Though, the icing on the cake is the last page when amongst the debris and ruins of Manhattan, Captain America and Iron Man find Peter Parker’s body buried. When they dig him out of the ruble, Peter opens his eyes.

Earth 1610’s Spider-Man’s adventures will continue in Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man written by Brian Michael Bendis (woo!) and illustrated by David LaFuente (ugh). Look for it on shelves August 12th.

Variety has reported that Ridley Scott is returning to the Alien franchise he helped kick off by signing on to direct the prequel to the first film. The project is still in development and what the hell it’s going to be about is beyond anyone at this point; one thing is almost for sure it will explain how the derelict space craft crashed on LV-426. One can hope that they don’t treat the most recent entries into the series (Alien Versus Predator and AVP: Requiem, which act as prequels as well) as cannon. That’s the plus to having Scott signed on, fans can expect him to carry on the series like those terrible movies don’t exist.

Apply here: http://www.starkindustriesnow.com/

Last summer Marvel announced that it would launch a huge event that would alter the Ultimate Universe permanently. This was good news, both Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four had been plagued by hack writers and bad artists, which lead to horrible stories and atrocious sales. It also seemed like a good way to give the consistently good Ultimate Spider-Man a much needed kick in the ass to propel the story and it’s characters a little further.

The concept was nothing short of bad ass either; Magneto’s children are murdered, pushing him over the edge and setting a doomsday plan into motion, killing millions of people, heroes and villains alike. Well, it turns out that it’s all part of Dr. Doom’s plan to get the master of magnetism to effectively destroy the populous as to pick up the pieces and rule what’s left of the world. Of course, the heroes team up and fight back. Sounds good right?

Sadly, the project was given to Jeph Loeb to pen and it’s not that he doesn’t know how to write comics; he just doesn’t know how to write comics in the Ultimate Universe. The miniseries doesn’t even start out strong; it’s spread far too thin for something cramming lots of story in what’s supposed to be a 5 issue miniseries. Readers don’t have time to blink; tons of shit goes down in 32 pages with virtually no exposition each issue. It’s like each page is devoted to what should be 10 pages of plot and action. And it seemed to be the running theme by the second issue to replace any bit of story with either action, brutal violence and/or gore.

Key characters are picked off by Loeb without the slightest regard, and you care, but not because you’re drawn in, but because it’s done in the most ambivalent way. Loeb lacks the abilities in storytelling Brian Michael Bendis has honed in crafting drama and relationships amongst the characters or the finesse for action and adventure Mark Millar has atoned with other Ultimate titles, leaving Ultimatum a messy clusterfuck of a story. At least it ends on a good note, Spider-Man lives (sorry, but did you really think Bendis would let Marvel kill his pride and joy?).

The book isn’t a total loss however, David Finch and Danny Miki’s wonderful attention to detail makes it at least fun to look at, even when Blob is munching on Janet Pym’s guts or when Cyclops and Iron Man obliterate Wolverine into adamantium and sinew. If there is one thing Finch can draw well, it’s intensity and chaos. The imagery doesn’t falter, it’s intricate without being too gaudy or overwhelming the reader.

In the long run, Marvel should have entrusted title to Ultimate Marvel godfathers Brian Bendis or Mark Millar. It’s also frustrating that not only did they give Jeph Loeb rein to change Earth 1610 but mutilate it beyond recognition. It seems unnecessary to kill off that many characters when the whole point of the Ultimate Universe was to put a modern day spin on it. There were plenty of concepts left to retool; 70 years of Marvel Comics material to draw from in point of fact. I’d say no use crying over spilt milk, but us comic book nerds do have trouble letting things go.