Tag Archives: Marvel

Tosche Station Radio #45: Star Destroyer Bubbles

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On this episode of Tosche Station Radio, the hosts are joined by Dunc from Club Jade to discuss Marvel’s new chick-lit initiative (this initiative featuring significantly less Nick Fury) and genre fiction in the Star Wars Expanded Universe!

Before diving into anything else, the hosts discuss a big change to the podcast. Tosche Station Radio is leaving the Solo Sound Network to join Majestic Giraffe productions. Don’t worry, very little will be changing! We’d like to thank Austin and the Solo Sound crew for being such a gracious home for the first year of the podcast and putting us in a position to succeed.

To kick off the festivities, Nanci highlights what’s new on the blog. Bria encountered Wraith Squadron and the Han and Leia love boat. Guess which one produced more feels, as the kids say. Brian reviewed Star Wars #2 by Brian Woods. Did he think it was an improvement?

In Fixer’s Flash, Nanci finished up John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War and started working on a pair of her own short stories. She’s also been busy outlining her next novel! Brian, on the other hand, read through a pair of comics, Star Wars #2 by Brian Woods and Avengers Assemble #12 by Kelly Sue DeConnick. He enjoyed one significantly more than the other.

This week’s Deak’s Dirt starts with news that Hasbro’s Mara Jade action figure is shifting to the black series. She’s also still wearing the catsuit. Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg discussed Episode VII and the standalone films. In literature, Harry Potter will be getting new paperback covers for the 15th anniversary. Finally, Hollywood.com gathered up a collection of Expanded Universe authors talk about the Sequel Trilogy.

For Camie’s Concerns this week, the hosts are joined by Dunc from Club Jade to discuss Marvel’s new and somewhat odd chick-lit initiative. Wise marketing, or condescending towards their female demographic? Riffing off that, the roundtable discusses genre fiction in the Expanded Universe. Would a romance book work in this universe? What about other genres?

Wrapping up the show, the hosts field questions in our Ask Us Anything segment.

Tosche Station Radio is the official podcast of Tosche-Station.net and a part of Majestic Giraffe Productions. If you like what you hear, please leave a review on the iTunes Music Store. We can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Nanci and Brian are the co-founders and writers of Tosche-Station.net. You can find Nanci on Twitter with the handle @Nancipants and you can find Brian with @LaneWinree.

Today on Tosche Station Radio: Marvel’s Weird Chick Lit, Expanded Universe Genre Fiction

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We’re going to be recording a brand-new episode of Tosche Station Radio today at 5PM Pacific time! Dunc from Club Jade will be joining us this week to discuss Marvel’s bizarre new chick lit initiative as well as genre fiction in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. You can listen live and join the chat at our Livestream channel. Do be sure to tune in, because Dunc is missing a new episode of Community and will have my head if we’re talking into the void while it’s on.

Since there is a fair chance we’ve picked up some new listeners with yesterday’s move to Majestic Giraffe Productions, you may be interested in knowing that we run a segment called Ask Us Anything where you can fire off questions at Nanci and myself and we’ll answer them. Really, anything.

So if you have questions about Marvel’s chick-lit thing, Expanded Universe genre fiction, or any geeky or fandom related topic, send them our way in the comments of this post, on our Facebook page, or hit us on Twitter.

Word on ‘Thor 2’: Marvel’s Phase 2 takes shape

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avengersWarning: the links in this post contain spoilers for the movie.

Now that we’ve all enjoyed The Avengers, it’s time for Phase Two of Marvel’s grand plan to take over the world comic book movie-verse, and Yahoo! weighed in this morning with news from the sequel to Thor. Rather than sticking with elite Shakespearean director Kenneth Branagh, who directed the first movie, Marvel has chosen to go with Game of Thrones director Alan Taylor.

Investigating the Yahoo post shows that this is old news, according to Collider’s official synopsis. Still, with an even more incredible cast than the previous incarnation and Taylor directing, Thor: The Dark World looks like it’s going to be an incredible movie.

Thor: The Dark World will be released November 8, 2013.

Cosplay Monday: Gender Swapped Storm

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Aaaaaand Cosplay Monday is back after a nice long break for the holidays.  This week, we’re featuring a super amazing gender swapped costume: Storm from Marvel’s X-men!  When pictures of this amazing costume by Larry popped up on tumblr the other week, I just knew it had to be shared with all of you.  He completely captures the essence of Storm’s character while simultaneously creating a fantastic costume.  On top of that, his poses for the photos are great and absolutely make me believe that he is indeed worshiped as a weather god in Kenya.  (Honestly.  Just try and tell me he doesn’t look cool as heck!)

You can check out more photos of the costume and from the shoot at NYCC over at the Felix Wong Photography Facebook Page.

Gender Swapped Storm

Will the Star Wars Comic Rights Be Reverting to Marvel?

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One of the questions surrounding the Disney acquisition of Lucasfilm and today’s rumor mill of the day has concerned the future of Star Wars comic books with Dark Horse.  Many people have predicted that Star Wars will return back to Marvel (Disney’s in house comic company) and rumors today put that return date to be sometime in 2014.  However, Randy Stradley, VP of Publishing for Dark Horse, commented on the Dark Horse messenger boards recently and said “don’t believe everything you read on the internet” indicating that the previous rumors are likely false.

There does, however, remain a decently strong chance that Marvel could reacquire the rights to publish Star Wars comics at some point within the next several years.  I’m going to make it clear that this is all speculation on my part based upon rumors and the current state of comics.  So what would that mean for the books themselves?  First and foremost, the fate of the current or forthcoming books that Dark Horse is putting out could possibly be in limbo.  Judging by the interview with CBR, both Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman seem to have at least a year’s worth of issues and story lines planned out if not more for the brand new Legacy comic.  If Marvel does reacquire the Star Wars IP, will comics like Legacy or Agent of the Empire or the new Original Trilogy era comic continue under Marvel editors or would they be halted completely or halted and relaunched with completely new creative teams?

It would also bring the fate of the various creators into question.  It is possible that some of these writers and artists could have exclusive contracts with Dark Horse therefore stopping them from making the change along with the Star Wars IP.  If they don’t have exclusive contracts, it’s possible that some of these titles could simply seamless continue and just change editorial staffs.  More likely than not though, you would probably see at least some creative team shifts but predicting those would be nigh impossible especially since it’s almost equally as impossible to predict what books sales might look like in 2014.

On the other side of things, some people have looked at Marvel’s current line up of writers and artists and become excited about the prospect of something like Bendis, Fraction, DeConnick, Remender, or Hickman writing a story set in the Star Wars universe.  As far as artist goes, I know that I would personally love to see Skottie Young give some of the Star Wars comics and characters his baby treatment or Phil Noto or Jerome Opeña drawing a Star Wars book.  Unfortunately, I honestly do not see that happening especially given the current book assignments and Marvel’s current tendency to double ship many of their more popular books.  For those who don’t know what double ship means, it refers to a comic having two issues published each month instead of one.  Obviously double shipping requires a very strict creative schedule and usually a fair bit of planning so each contributor can meet his or her deadline.  Looking at the current and upcoming Marvel NOW schedule, it is very unlikely that most of the big name writers would have time to add another Marvel book to their schedules in addition to their own creator owned projects.  That’s not saying it’s impossible (because let’s be honest: after the Episode VII announcement, nothing is impossible anymore) but it’s unlikely.  This could potentially give some of the lesser known creators for Marvel a chance to shine or even some new talent to emerge.

On the other hand, there is also the chance that Marvel might not have any immediate interest in working on Star Wars comics in the immediate future especially given their current projects.  Star Wars could possibly have a longer future with Dark Horse than most people anticipated.  At the very least, given Stradley’s comment, it does not look likely that Dark Horse will lose their contract within the next few years.

At the end of the day, we really still don’t know anything for sure about whether or not Dark Horse will be losing the rights to Star Wars once their current contract is up.  Once again though, we’d like to remind you that nothing is officially confirmed as being true until it is announced by StarWars.com.

The Way is Clear: Anti-Trust Regulators Okay Disney’s Lucasfilm Purchase, Netflix gets Disney subscription rights

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Via Yahoo! today: The AP reports today that Federal anti-trust regulators have given the all-clear for Disney to buy out Lucasfilm. Disney’s stock prices closed up .02% on the news.

What is of other interest in Disney news is that Netflix has grabbed the subscription rights to Disney films, starting in 2016, also according to the AP, and The Wall Street Cheat Sheet notes that this includes movies from Pixar and Marvel. However, with Disney’s newest acquisition, a question might be whether or not movies from Lucasfilm will show up on Netflix as well.

So You Want To Get Into Marvel Comics

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So you want to get into Marvel Comics but don’t know where to start.  Well kids, pull up a chair and listen to your Auntie Bria because there are absolutely some good places to begin reading comic books and you won’t even have to go all the way back to the 1960s!*  Will you likely want to jump on Wikipedia and do some research about some aspects of the history of these books or characters?  Probably.  It’s impossible to jump into a medium with such a long history as comic books without there being at least some sort of background you’d like to know more about.  However, I think that each of these suggested titles can be picked up and read with minimal confusion.  Each of these suggestions also takes place in the main Marvel Universe which is also referred to as the 616 verse.  I also tried to refrain from any company wide arcs for reading ease.** With that, enjoy these suggestions and feel free to ask any clarification questions you might have in the comments.

Astonishing X-men
[Amazon – Comixology]
I have fondly referred to this book as my gateway drug to Marvel Comics.  Not only have I used this book to get tons of my friends into comics but I consider it to be one of my favorite runs of all time.  Written by Joss Whedon and with art by John Cassaday, Astonishing X-men takes the X-men back from the black leather street looks (thanks for that, X-men films) and back to their spandex superhero roots.  Mutants have always been treated with at least some fear and distrust by the public and the X-men want to fix this.

Whedon brings together Cyclops/Scott Summers, Emma Frost, Wolverine, Beast/Hank McCoy, and Shadowcat/Kitty Pryde, a group of characters who certain have issues with each other but work together as a team because they have to astonish the world.   It’s a story that not only can stand on its own but also one which will introduce you to the characters in a way that will leave you wanting to know more about them.  Although Whedon’s run concluded back in 2007, it’s certainly a book worth reading if you’re interested in the modern X-men.  Plus, as an added bonus, Whedon introduces us to some awesome new characters, namely Hisako Ichiki/Armor and Abigail Brand.  If you have any interest in the X-men at all, this is the book to start with.

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Comic Review: Captain Marvel #1-6

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Sometimes, a comic book’s first arc can take you completely by surprise because of how just gosh darn good it is.  I’ll admit that I had high expectations for the first issue of Captain Marvel and was thrilled when it exceeded them and the rest of the arc kept me entertained.  Since July, writer Kelly Sue DeConnick and artists Dexter Soy and Emma Rios have delivered a solidly good book that looks like it will thankfully be around for awhile.

The first, and one of the most important things, that Captain Marvel did was give her a new costume and have her finally take on the mantel of ‘Captain Marvel’.  Both of these were excellent upgrades, no matter what naysayers might tell you.  As the editor points out in the letter page of the very first issue, her iconic black leotard with a yellow lightning bolt was not exactly a costume that most fathers want their daughters wearing for Halloween.  The new costume is not only reasonable but it really helps define and emphasize her new codename which Captain America himself makes an excellent argument for in the first issue.

This very first arc is a time travel one, surprisingly enough.  Shortly after taking the Captain Marvel mantel, Carol is left a plane by Helen Cobb, a friend and hero with many a flying record to her name.  Carol decides to take the plane up and try and replicate one of Helen’s feats but finds herself sent back in time to 1943, right in the middle of a World War II fight off the coast of Peru.

It is there that she encounters one of the best parts of this arc, a group of Women’s Air Service Pilots called Banshee Squadron.  Although they aren’t around for terribly long, they back up Carol in a crazy fight and each manage to hold their own.  They are fantastic characters and I certainly wouldn’t be averse to seeing them receive a miniseries in the future.  Carol fights back against the Japanese along side the Banshees until the plane reappears and she finds herself moved forward in time… just not all the way. Continue reading →