SDCC: Cup O’ Joe

July 25, 2008 on 3:26 pm | In Comics, San Diego Comic Con |

It’s time, once again, for everyone’s favorite Marvel status panel, Cup O’ Joe! Joe Quesada, PR Guru Jim McCann, Reginald Hudlin (Black Panther), Orson Scott Card (Ultimate Iron Man), Eric Shanower (Wonderful World of Oz), C.B. Cebulski (Avengers Fairy Tales, Loners), and surprise panelist Jeph Loeb took the stage for an overview of the awesome that is to come for Marvel Comics. Amidst Jeph Loeb’s plugs for Ultimatum, art was showcased from Shanower’s upcoming Oz, as well as some new artwork by Pasqual Ferry from the new Ender’s Game series. Finally, Quesada revealed the announcements from Marvel:

- Danny Miki, Khoi Pham, and Paolo Rivera are all exclusive to Marvel.
- Next year is Marvel’s 70th year anniversary. Next year look from some very cool stuff coming from Marvel.
- There will be auctions in honor of Michael Turner in conjunction with Inkwell. The profits will be donated to Michael Turner’s favorite charities. There will be information at the Inkwell website (inkwellrelief.com) and the first auction will be sometime in early August.

At this point, the panel opened it up for questions from the fans. Here are the highlights:

- There will be another Dark Tower series will be coming up, while Orson Scott Card talked about Ender’s Game. “I’m just thrilled to see it coming to life visually,” said Orson Scott Card, “It’s wonderful to see it well adapted” Noting his delight with Christopher Yost’s scripts and Pasqual Ferry’s art, he mentioned “[Pasqual Ferry’s] being very respectful to the material. Chris Yost started out a little too respectufl of the material. “I begged and pleaded no narration at all. Chris responded so positively, he took it as an opportunity and what he came back with was so powerful that I felt like I was reading it for the first time.” Card continued praising Pasqual Ferry’s depiction of the world of Ender, “Whatever Marvel does in the book is how its going to look in movie and the game. … We’re getting great material”

Jeph Loeb was asked about the status of the Red Hulk series. “We’re going to do more and we will be coming to the end of the first arc. I think there’s going to be a lot of talk about the fight between the Red Hulk and Thor.” The fight between the Red Hulk and Green Hulk will have a definite conclusion. In the back of the Hulk book, beginning at issue 4, there will be one-page Mini Marvels version of Hulk written by Jeph Loeb’s daughter who is 17. There will be a Red Hulk, a Green Hulk and a Smurfy Hulk who is blue.

- A fan asked about plans to expanding Marvel back to the mystical realm. “We have been talking about it. It’s just a matter of getting the right story and the right methodology.” said Quesada. “We’re looking at it. The thing that was wonderful about Annihilation was that we did the big event in the cosmic universe when we had the right time to do it.” Quesada mentioned that Marvel’s “not there yet, but definitely thinking along those lines.”

- A surprise trailer of the new Black Panther animated series was shown, with a vision completely faithful to John Romita Jr.’s art. It’s going to be very gritty and faithful to the attitude of the Black Panther series. “We’re gonna have a lot of fun.” said Reginald Hudlin.

- On the inspiration for bringing back Magik CB: “Her death was always a tragedy.” Cebulski commented that bringing Illyana back began with the work on New X-Men by Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost. “We’re going to do our best to get her soul back.” Check out X-Infernus later this year.

- The wonderful world of Oz. The art is by Scottie Young. “His artwork is not derivative of any vision of the Wizard of Oz we’ve seen before,” said writer Eric Shanower. It will be an 8 issue series premiering in December.

- A new book from Orson Scott Card will be releasing in the Ender’s Game series, Ender in Exile, will be coming out soon.

- A GeNext sequel has been approved.

- Lot of Mary Jane stuff coming around for fans.

- A girl in a Dazzler outfit was invited up on stage for a hug from PR Guru Jim McCann and then sat down next to Jeph Loeb and asked the inevitable question, “I was just wondering if there were going to be any Dazzler stories?” to laughter from the panel.

That’s it for Cup O’ Joe! See you at the next panel!

-SS