Welcome to Comic Rack! My pick of the top five comic news stories in no particular order…
Jeff Lemire Speaks About Wrapping Up Sweet Tooth, New Project Called Trillium
Jeff Lemire is by far my favorite comics writer out there right now. Aside from writing the best book in the New 52, the guy’s original work is spellbinding. But enough of me gushing about Jeff Lemire, the fascinating thing is his planned projects to come. Along with wrapping up his award-winning Sweet Tooth, a series which if you haven’t been reading, I implore you to go out and read right now, he mentions a new project. The project in question is called Trillium, which sounds like it’s going to be the most amazing book ever made specifically for me.
via [ComicsAlliance]
Described as “The last love story ever told,” Trillium is a sci-fi story that alternately takes place 1,784 years in the future and 92 years in the past. In the year 3797, botanist Nika Temsmith is researching a species of strange, plant-based life forms on a science station on the outskirts of colonized space.Meanwhile, in the year 1921, a war-scarred explorer named William Pike leads an expedition into the jungles of Peru in search for the fabled Lost Temple of The Incas, which is said to have magical healing properties.Despite being separated by space and time, Nika and William fall in love, and their love leads to the end of the universe.
I LOVE these kinds of ideas, in any medium. It reminds me of Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain, which was a movie I loved on so many levels for a multitude of reasons. The idea of Lemire attempting Hard SF, and mixing it with “Lost history of the world” type fiction, is pretty much my favorite mixing of genres ever. It’s why I loved Lost so much, and it’s why the fact that this is only going to be a 10 issue limited series is the only thing that I can think of negatively about this project. Every single other thing has me giddy with anticipation.
You can hear watch him talk about wrapping up Sweet Tooth and even more about Trillium over here at [Newsarama]. You can even hear how to pronounce his name, if you were curious like me!
Scott Snyder Talks About His Plans For Superman
I really dug Scott Snyder’s run on Batman lately, and read it every month right up until I couldn’t afford to any longer. What is left me with was the distinct impression that he’s a dude who knows how to write characters well and tell horrific, yet deeply haunting stories without going into shock tactics. The fact that he’s approaching Superman brings a lot of hope for me, because as I’ve said before here, the new 52 Superman comic has been quite the letdown so far. The way Snyder speaks about taking grand ideas, and really bringing a large, epic scale to his Superman story has me excited, especially since he’s using brilliant examples of Superman stories to compare it to.
via [CBR]
This Superman story really is the biggest, most epic Superman story I can do. It’s sort of like, I always imagine they’re gonna kick me off right after the story so it’s like everything I love about Superman in one. It’s similar where it really is largely about things that I find most heroic and wonderful about him is his sense of restraint in the way that he’s this super hero who has the ability to reshape the world in the way that he thinks would be best. And yet instead he challenges us to do it ourselves, and he looks to us to be inspired, and to inspire us. The story really takes its structure from that, it has the DNA of a lot of my favorite Superman stories like “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way?” and “Kingdom Come” and “Red Son.”
It really sounds like he’s got something great up his sleeve. You can see the full interview here, where he talks a bit more about his other projects as well.
Jason Aaron’s New Thor Sounds Interesting, To Say The Least
I’ve never been a huge fan of Thor, but not in the way that I am with Spider-Man. I’ve just never really gotten into Thor the way other Marvel fans have. That’s not to say I don’t find his character interesting or appealing, as any loyal reader here can attest to my dislike of Spider-Man. I’ve always thought Thor was a great character, and who doesn’t love Mjolnir? My problem has always been that when I think of a definitive Thor story, I tend to go blank. This could be one of those situations where my ignorance is showing, as it did with X-Men: Days of Future Past. Regardless of my ignorance, one thing I do know is that Jason Aaron is a great writer. I’ve only just now started reading the first trade of his highly acclaimed series Scalped, which I’ve heard referred to as The Wire of comic books. Anyhow, the guys plans for the character sound like he’s got some great stories to tell, and even casual but ignorant fans of Thor can get excited for that.
via [CBR]
“What I wanted to do with this book was focus in on a big way on Thor himself,” Aaron said. “I’m going to focus on not one version of Thor but three.” He promised a young Thor drinking and carousing with Viking women, a modern Thor on a cosmic quest and a new future Thor who’s missing limbs and more. Meanwhile, all three will be attacked by a new villain described as, “This is a being who’s been stalking the cosmos for centuries killing gods. We don’t know why, and we don’t know where he came from…At the end of the day, it’s about ‘Who is Thor? What does Thor want? And how has he changed over the years?'”
You can read a lot more at the interview with him over at [CBR].
New Judge Dredd ‘Year One’ Announced Alongside A Slew Of 2000 A.D Projects
If there’s one thing we can thank the recent Judge Dredd movie for, is that along with being an awesome movie, it’s brought a renewed interest in the Judge, and a seemingly coordinated plan of new projects that span the gamut of the 2000 A.D world. I’ve always had an interest in the Judge, but never really got around to readying any of his stories, having always put it off until later. However, I’ve always really found the character fascinating, and my cursory knowledge of him is particularly peaked with the announcement at NYCC Judge Dredd panel.
via [CBR]
Several major announcements were made in the course of the panel: “2000 AD” editor Matt Smith will be writing a “Judge Dredd: Year One” miniseries for IDW Publishing, and writer John Wagner, who created Judge Dredd along with artist Carlos Ezquerra, will return as the writer of the “Judge Dredd” series in 2013. Wagner’s last Dredd work was the “Day of Chaos” story.
That in and of itself is enough to get me interesting, as a ‘Year One’ series for the Judge sounds excellent. Given that for Americans at least, he’s a relatively more obscure character, it could be a great introduction for plenty of new readers to become familiar. I know it’s something I plan to pick up on my list anyway.
You can read more about the Judge Dredd Panel and the LONG list of details about other 2000 A.D projects here.
Brian Michael Bendis’ All New X-Men Seems… New?
So a running theme during this Comic Rack has been my ignorance of properties that are non-DC centric, and while I’d love to say I’m not a fanboy, by any stretch of the imagination, there’s no way I am not one. The difference is that I can admit when I hear a good story idea, and will be willing to give a book a shot, solely based on the strength of its idea alone. My main excuse for not doing so lately, is that I am constantly, consistently broke. Being a comics fan is quite expensive, and if you plan to follow any ongoing series that is remotely popular, at some point you’re going to have to buy multiple books to finish the story. This is one of the main reasons I’ve recently stopped reading a lot of comics, (DC included), because as much as I love them I can’t afford them, and just can’t justify *acquiring* them off the internet.
But when I hear an interesting idea, I tend to like it, and Brian Michael Bendis, love him or hate him has great ideas. His recent idea to take the X-Men and make them all new, at first had me skeptical, until I heard his pitch for it.
via [CBR]
The idea of transporting the original teenage X-Men to the future is one that’s been floating around Marvel for a while now, and it was the chance to tell that story which initially drew Bendis to “All-New X-Men.” “There was this idea at Marvel retreats called ‘Days of Future Now,'” Bendis told CBR News. “It was literally the idea that the original X-Men would come here, to what would be their ‘Days of Future Past,’ and it would be horrifying and startling for them to see what the X-Universe had turned in to. I loved this idea, but I was on the ‘Avengers’ books. It never stuck to the wall and just as a fan I wanted someone to write it so I could read it. It never happened, though.
I gotta be honest, that sounds really awesome. It’s actually something I’ll definitely read, whenever it comes to trade paperback. If you want to read more about the idea, and I mean a LOT more, along with lots of other info about Bendis’ X-Men plans, and his journey getting to this point in the X-Men timeline, just go here. You’ll be glad you did.
Grizzly Bomb 