Baltimore News

Lots of news going down for Marvel at the Retailer Summit tonight. Joss Whedon is taking over Brian K. Vaughan's baby, Runaways, one of my favorite titles; A Runaways spin-off series written by CB Cebulski called Loners is coming soon; Spider-Man's returning to his black costume, or someone like him is; and the Dabel Brother's titles are going to be sold through Marvel carrying both companies' logos on them.

There were plenty of other announcements, but these are the four that stood out to me.

First of all, I have been a fan of Runaways since #2, volume 1. I missed issue one, but I read the script for it (it was one Epic offered as a script example). It's an engaging title with realistic characters set in the middle of the Marvel universe. And to beat that, they are all original characters, which isn't something we see a lot of. BKV and Alphona have done an excellent job on this title, and I'm sad to see them go. However, I love Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men and look forward to what he has in store for the teen team.

The spin-off title, Loners, features one character I absolutely love, so I'm incredibly psyched about that. I was excited seeing Darkhawk in Runaways and Marvel Team-Up, but I knew it would only be temporary. But now he, along with Turbo (New Warriors), Julie Power (Power Pack), Phil Urich (Green Goblin) and Ricochet (Slingers) will get at least six issues of their own. I'm stoked!

Spider-Man is back in black soon, but is it the real Spider-Man? Joe Q. teased that seeing Peter Parker side by side with a person in the black costume could neatly tie up some things. Could black clad spidey be Ben Reilly back from the dead? Could this be the ploy to get Spidey masked again? Come on, we all knew somehow they'd figure out a way to get Spidey's secret identity secret again. But then people have seen Parker climbing walls in street clothes, so who knows? I'm just excited to see the black costume again!

And finally, the Dabel Brothers have struck a deal with Mighty Marvel, who will now get the DBPro line into more and more hands. I personally think this is great for both parties. Had DBPro sold the company, or lost control of it in some way I would have been less than thrilled, but under the agreement the Brothers keep control of their properties and benefit from the Marvel marketing machine. Can't beat that.

This should be an exciting year coming up for comics. Hopefully Marvel is getting back on track as their overall stories haven't been that great for a while with a few exceptions of course. I hope Civil War and everything coming out of it changes all that. Of course I'm one of the ones enjoying Civil War and what has happened so far. So we'll see.

B-Out