“All over this like Go-Go boots on Gwen Stacy” - Spider-Man and X-Men Team Up

It may have something to do with the fact that one of the major ways in which I was introduced to the Marvel Comics pantheon was through Saturday morning cartoons where these guys seemed to team up a bunch, but I am super excited to read that Spider-Man and the X-Men are teaming up for a four-issue mini-series. Newsarama has the scoop, and according to the piece the series will “[take] place in a different era in Marvel history, [with] the final one occurring in the present day.”

The image I’ve embedded above is from the second issue and features both black-suit Spider-Man and the 1970s-era X-Men (Dazzler among them). This is just awesome, awesome, awesome in my opinion. I hope that they ratchet up the nostalgia factor to level ten and really do this team-up justice. There’s such a strong connection between the X-Men and Spidey in the Ultimate Marvel Universe, and I think it’s about time that we saw these guys teaming up more in the mainstream Earth 616 universe too (I’m sure Marvel’s sales guys agree with me, given the popularity of both franchises).

What say you, dear readers?

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Worth Your Consideration 015 - A GF5 Linkdump

• Kevin Rose has the scoop on a linewide iPod refresh in September. Apparently, we’ll be seeing widescreen iPod Nanos, a cosmetic refresh to the iPod Touch, and a price drop across the line to differentiate between iPod and iPhone (which is now priced at $199 with a new two-year contract). Thanks to Mac Rumors for linking up Kevin’s post.
• Marvel Comics is ramping up for something big in 2009 featuring one of my favorite X-Men characters of all time, the won’t-stay-dead redhead herself: Ms. Jean Grey (a.k.a. Phoenix). Check out Newsarama’s article on the “teaser trifecta” that Marvel has released for a glimpse at some absolutely killer noirish images.
• Lastly, some Lost news. According to a scooper at DarkUFO’s spoilers blog, the Powers That Be are shooting a scene with Hurley and Sayid that takes place just after Sayid rescues Hurley from the mental institution at the end of season four. It sounds like next season is starting off as fast and furious as last season did. Awesome, says I.

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Wolverine Comic-Con Footage Leaked (Video)

The San Diego Comic-Con footage of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which I mentioned on Friday has now leaked onto the Internet. The angle here is shitty, but the quality of the video isn’t bad. And, most importantly, the content of the video is pretty bad-ass. I like the casting all-around and I am pumped to see both favorites and more obscure characters popping up here. Deadpool? Check! Gambit? Check! The Blob? Really, the Blob? Check!

Do yourself a favor and check this out while you have the chance. There’s no telling how long it’ll be before Marvel’s lawyers file an injunction and take it offline. If you can’t see the videos I’ve embedded above, check out part one and part two over at Trailer Addict.

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Worth Your Consideration 012 - A GF5 Linkdump

• I really, really, really hope that Marco Zaldivar wins his lawsuit against T-Mobile over “mandatory” text-message fees. I think it’s ridiculous that the company told Zaldivar that turning off text-messaging was “impossible,” especially when, according to Red Tape Chronicle writer Bob Sullivan, “Verizon, AT&T and Sprint allow consumers to shut down delivery of unwanted text messages.” Me, while I’ve sent and received a few text messages in my time, I wish I had known I could turn them off altogether. I think they’re relatively useless when free alternatives such as e-mail, instant messaging, and Twitter exist. But maybe that just means I’m old.
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine star Hugh Jackman made an unannounced appearance at the San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday, and he brought footage from the forthcoming film with him, footage which apparently included a fan-favorite from the comic books who has thusfar not appeared in the X-Men film-franchise: Gambit. I’ve never been as nuts about Gambit as some of my contemporaries, but Newsarama’s description of the trailer as a whole does have me excited. I really dig the X-Men film-franchise (including the oft-hated-upon third installment), and I can’t wait for this one.
• The Unofficial Apple Weblog thinks apps for the AppleTV are a good idea and I wholeheartedly agree. I probably wouldn’t turn on regular cable TV at all if my AppleTV could tell me the weather and get me some other basic information like that. And I would be giddy like a schoolgirl if I could watch Viddler videos on my TV (a suggestion that TUAW makes). Apple, are you listening?
• ...apparently not. Apple continues to face major problems with the rollout of its new MobileMe service. While MacWorld gives MobileMe a relatively good review, known Apple enthusiast David Pogue (New York Times) has some serious concerns about the way that Apple is handling a crisis that’s affecting some 20,000 MobileMe users: “This is an airplane that’s stuck on the runway for hours with no food or working bathroom. And the pilot doesn’t come on the P.A. system to tell the customers what the problem is, what’s being done to fix it, how much longer they might be stuck, and how he empathizes with their plight. Instead, he comes on once every three hours to repeat the same thing: ‘We apologize for the inconvenience.’” I intend to give the new service a spin over the weekend, despite the bad reviews, but I’d been hoping that Apple would bowl me over with this service, and I’m not so sure that’s going to happen now.

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The Amazingly Sh*tty Spider-Artist

I’d like to begin by giving my good pal Andy a shout-out for the shout-out he gave Geek Force Five on his site last week. And I’d like to follow-up that shout-out by thanking Andy for inadvertently reminding me that the comics coverage of this site has been woefully inadequate thus far. You see, in describing what I was covering over here, Andy specifically mentioned “comic book movies” instead of just plain comic books. That got me looking back into the archives to see what might have given him that impression. And, lo and behold, I discovered that the only comic book story I’ve done prior to this one was the one about the forthcoming Wolverine and Hulk movies. Add to that the fact that I used a movie-version of Spidey in the header image, and you can see why people might be confused.

So, without further ado, here is my attempt to get the comics coverage on this site back on track. Next week, I hope to get you an Explaining the Obsession entry similar to the one I did for Nine Inch Nails. Until then, here are my thoughts on this week’s issue of The Amazing Spider-Man:

The art sucks!

The gist of my feelings about the now thrice-monthly Spider-Man title is that Marvel is sacrificing quality for quantity. I was behind them 100% when they decided to cancel their excess Spidey titles and start publishing only one book that would have a more cohesive storyline. In the past, you had Spidey dealing with one crisis in Spectacular Spider-Man, one crisis in the adjectiveless Spider-Man, and another crisis in Amazing. And then, every once in a while, they’d do some sort of line-wide crossover and you’d have to buy all three when you hadn’t been buying all three before. It was confusing, even more confusing than this paragraph, if you can imagine that. The new strategy of publishing one title, Amazing Spider-Man, three times a month, was supposed to solve problems. And, for the first two months, it did.

But the problem now is that they’ve cycled through their top-tier artist and writer combos and we’re left with Bob Gale of Back to the Future fame doing the writing and this guy Phil Jimenez, who apparently couldn’t draw a realistic-looking foot to save his life. I mean, the art is just shoddy. Maybe this guy has done some quality work in the past, but what he’s doing now is just not doing it for me.

I started collecting comics in the 90s, when art was the major selling point. Now, I’m not saying that art should be the major selling point, and I’ll be the first to admit that the writing in the 90s left a lot to be desired, but I can’t stand books that try to win customers over with good writing alone. Comic books are about the marriage of art and words. You can’t skimp on one or the other, in my opinion. And that’s what I feel like Marvel is doing. They want to capitalize on Spidey’s popularity by having a new Spidey book out in stores three weeks out of every month, but they’re losing so much in the process.

Maybe next week will be better, but I’m not holding out much hope.

This Week’s Other Book(s)
This week’s Uncannny X-men (#496) was a surprise of the far nicer variety. Ed Brubaker’s spinning a couple of fun yarns here, one involving Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler bar-fighting in Russia near where Colossus comes from, and the other involving Cyclops and Emma Frost traveling to San Francisco to rescue some friends from a city that’s suddenly psychically under the impression that it’s the 1960s again. Fun, fun stuff. The mutants have been through some dark days in the past year or so, and this story arc seems to be all about balancing that.

I also managed to snag a copy of Secret Invasion Saga, a freebie book/marketing device designed to pull people in for Marvel’s big Secret Invasion event this summer. That was mildly entertaining, too. I loves me some skrulls, man. And I’m really excited to see what they do with this whole storyline. Basically, these shapeshifting aliens have infiltrated every facet of the Marvel Universe’s Earth. And everyone’s flipping out, because no one knows who’s who anymore.

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