A lot of big announcements came out of San Diego Comic Con this past week, and whether you were there or not it will be likely that you’ve heard about some of them. I wasn’t fortunate enough to be there this past week, unlike everyone else on the Comic Impact team, but I was able to watch the news flow in from afar. I tell you what though dear readers, I had a heck of a time catching up on all the announcements and news since I only came back home from France on the last day of Comic Con’. There are some really juicy bits and bobs, and plenty to entertain the minds of everybody!

Starting with Spidey, it was announced that Dan Slott is set to take over ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ in November, as the only title he will be writing at Marvel. He will stay on the series for the forseeable future, and the series will be published bi-monthly. He will be joined by artist’s Humberto Ramos, Marcos Martin and Stefano Caselli. This new status quo for Spidey is bringing the character out of the ‘Brand New Day’ era and into the ‘Big Time’, as it is going to be called. Spidey fans look as if this has a lot to offer them, as there are some hot new covers which have been released alongside this bit of news.

Pat Mills, Keith Richardson and Jock hosted a well recieved ‘Anarchy in the USA’ panel, which focused on the creators wanting to bring 2000AD into printing in the US, and to have it available in the states as a series of graphic novels. I hear there was also talk of the new Judge Dredd movie, to which none of the panel members said an awful lot about.

On news of various movies, both DC and Marvel delivered with some hot props. DC brought along ‘the corpse of Abin Sur’ from the upcoming ‘Green Lantern’ movie, and Marvel brought along a model of ‘The Infinity Gauntlet’ with them, which will perhaps make an appearance in the upcoming ‘Thor’ movie. Both look very cool indeed, and both give me high hopes for both movies. There is also a look at Destroyer from the ‘Thor’ movie too, and the armor looks pretty amazing. It is unknown though, what role in the film the Destroyer will have. Marvel also brought along Thor’s impressive helm which went on display. Ontop of this,DC have also released some Green Lantern teaser posters for the upcoming Green Lantern movie.

Actors have been confirmed in “The Avengers” movie, with some cool surprises. Mark Ruffalo is said to play Bruce Banner/Hulk in the future movie, replacing Edward Norton. Jeremy Renner from the movie ‘The Hurt Locker’ is confirmed to play Hawkeye, which is a cool decision. It has also been announced that Joss Whedon is to direct “The Avengers” movie.

Keiron Gillen, who wrote ‘S.W.O.R.D’ at Marvel Comics, has announced that he will be righting a new mutant series for the X-Men line. It will be called ‘Generation Hope’, and the series will focus on the 5 new mutants who appeared at the end of ‘Second Coming #2′. The different characters are brand new and hail from all areas of the Earth. Gillen has high hopes for the series. The artist for this upcoming series is yet to be revealed.

On the topic of new series, Fred Van Lente (Marvel Zombies, Incredible Hercules etc) is to write a new mini series called ‘Power Man & Iron Fist’. As someone with an Iron Fist tattoo, this pleases me and hopefully a lot of other fans a lot. Van Lente and artist Wellinton Alves aim to have the 5 issue mini series on the shelves of our comic stores by Janurary 2011.

DC Entertainment have embarked on a mission to produce a ‘Suicide Squad’ video game, which sounds totally awesome. Geoff John’s in a panel said the game would be “hardcore violent”, just as it should be. Finally, a game with Deadshot in. Along with a sequel to the recent ‘Batman: Arkham Asylum’ and an upcoming’ Green Lantern’ video game, ‘Suicide Squad’ aims to join the ranks of DCs video game line.

There was so much news and announcments this year at Comic Con’, and more juicy teaser stuff than you could shake a stick at! I only wish I could have been there. Those of you who went, I hope you had a great and wonderful experience at the event. Make sure to stay tuned to Comic Impact these next two weeks, as we’ll be posting many of the interviews we got with some of the big name creators in the world of comics.

Also how cool is this?

Rob Andrews
Rob@ComicImpact.com