The latest summary of Marvel Comics related news from Feb. 12th - Feb. 14th, 2013!
Marvel Studios released a poster image for May 3rd's "Iron Man 3" which features Don Cheadle's James Rhodes wearing the Iron Patriot armor. That armor was confirmed to appear in the sequel film, and at least seems to inspire more star spangled pride than his War Machine suit. The armor first debuted during the "Dark Reign" era of Marvel Comics from 2008-2009 and was originally worn by Norman Osborn when he was briefly the corrupt head of SHIELD. Up until now, as Newsarama notes, this was the first official confirmation of the name of this armor. This summer the Iron Man will be pitted against Warner Brothers' "Man Of Steel", which debuts June 14th.
"Superior Spider-Man" debut tops January sales!
As reported by ICv2, sales estimates from Diamond Distribution are in and "Superior Spider-Man #1" by Dan Slott and Ryan Stegman topped the sales chart to kick off 2013 with just over 188,000 copies sold. Considering "Amazing Spider-Man #700" sold over 200,000 copies, this is encouraging. Even more encouraging was that the second issue, which shipped the same month, slipped only 37% to over 112,500 copies sold. It appears that within the short term, the transition from ASM to SSM has been a success. Can these sales hold up? After all, average issues of ASM usually sold roughly have these figures since 2008.
Meanwhile, the somewhat controversial "Avengers Arena #1" debuted within the Top 20 in December 2012 at 64,626 copies but its second issue that month slipped to the bottom of the Top 50 with just over 43,000 copies sold. In January that figure was now down to over 38,000 copies; with sales slipping that fast it may struggle to survive a year.
"Guardians of the Galaxy #1" revives 1990's sales gimmick!
The debut issue of "Guardians of the Galaxy #1" will also feature trading cards featuring the members offered at participating retailers. Marvel plans some "launch parties" at some shops, which will likely include major ones such as Manhattan's Midtown Comics. Written by Brian Bendis and drawn by Steve McNiven, the team features Star-Lord, Drax, Gamora, Groot, Rocket Raccoon, and Iron Man. Considering this will soon be adapted as one of Marvel Studios' riskiest film ventures, additional promotion for this is not unwise.
Will "X-Men: Days of Future Past" be Hugh Jackman's last X-film?
The Hollywood Reporter has posted an extended interview with Hugh Jackman, who was just finishing work on "The Wolverine" when word of "X-Men: Days of Future Past" came to him. He claims his role in the film is "large" even if it came "out of the blue" and he has yet to read the script. The film, debuting in 2014, reunites most of the original cast from the first three "X-Men" films by Fox Studios. However, Jackman notes that after this sixth performance as Wolverine, he is not committed to any more X-Men films from Fox...at least for the moment. While Jackman has usually struggled to succeed in feature films outside the X-Men franchise since immigrating from Australia in 2000, he's had a successful Broadway career since and is starting to come into his own; his performance in the latest film version of "Les Miserables" has earned him an Oscar nomination. Things like that make some actors reconsider screaming on wires trying to stab at green screen with plastic claws as their primary film career.
Read last week's Marvel Comics news here!
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