Category: Comics

Disney Completes Marvel Deal, Makes New One With Stan Lee
On the last day of 2009, Disney confirmed that it had completed its $4.24-billion acquisition of Marvel Entertainment as Marvel shareholders voted to approve the deal. The studio added frosting to its New Year’s celebration cake by announcing that it had also acquired a 10-percent stake in Pow! Entertainment for $2.5 million. Pow! is headed by former Marvel president Stan Lee, who created or co-created many of Marvel’s iconic superheroes, including Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Iron Man, and the Hulk. Disney, which already had a first-look deal with Pow!, acknowledged that it wanted to extend the relationship in order to take advantage of Lee’s “knowledge and familiarity of the Marvel universe.” The deal was announced on Thursday, three days after Lee’s 87th birthday.

Disney to buy comic book powerhouse Marvel for $4B
LOS ANGELES ñ The Walt Disney Co. said Monday it is buying Marvel Entertainment Inc. for $4 billion in cash and stock, bringing such characters as Iron Man and Spider-Man into the family of Mickey Mouse and WALL-E.
Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of 5,000 Marvel characters. Many of them, including the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, were co-created by the comic book legend Stan Lee.
Analyst David Joyce of Miller Tabak & Co. said the acquisition will help Disney appeal to young men who have flocked to theaters to see Marvel’s superhero fare in recent years. That contrasts with Disney’s recent successes among young women with such fare as “Hannah Montana” and the Jonas Brothers.
“It helps Disney add exposure to a young male demographic it had sort of lost some balance with,” Joyce said, noting the $4 billion offer was at “full price.”
Disney said Marvel shareholders will receive $30 per share in cash, plus 0.745 Disney shares for every Marvel share they own. That values each Marvel share at $50 based on Friday’s closing stock prices.
Marvel shares jumped $10.17, or 26 percent, to $48.82 shortly after the market opened. Disney shares fell 47 cents, or 1.8 percent, to $26.37.
Disney said the boards of both companies have approved the transaction, but it will require an antitrust review and the approval of Marvel shareholders.
Disney last made a big purchase in 2006 when it acquired Pixar Animation Studios Inc., the creator of the “Toy Story” franchise, for $7.4 billion in stock.
Disney CEO Robert Iger said the latest acquisition combines Marvel’s “strong global brand and world-renowned library of characters” with Disney’s “unparalleled global portfolio of entertainment properties” and ability to maximize value across multiple platforms and territories.
Marvel earned a net profit of $206 million last fiscal year, up 47 percent from a year earlier, on revenue of $676 million, as it took movie production in house instead of just cutting licensing deals.

AMERICA’S BEST COMICS TELL THE NEW YORK POST THE 50 FUNNIEST JOKES THEY KNOW
Hannibal Buress: “I can’t believe that a plane got taken down by geese. That’s got to be messed up — to be taken down by the thing that inspired you.”
Any comic who couldn’t be funny this past year should just give up and become a funeral director. The well of material has been virtually bottomless. George Bush leaving office, Obama coming into office, economic woes, scandals galore, whatever came out of Paula Adbul’s mouth — it all lent itself to wisecracking. So The Post asked dozens of comedians, both big-time and local, to pick their favorite jokes — whether they told it, or heard it from someone else — from the past 365 days. The best 50 are compiled here.
LARRY MILLER
“Is it good when banks buy each other? They make it sound like the most natural thing in the world: ‘Wachovia . . . now part of Wells Fargo! WaMu . . . now part of Chase!’ But to me, that just sounds like, ‘Poland . . . now part of Germany!’ ”
FRANK DeCARO
“I know that when someone who weighs what I do says that Aretha Franklin is enormous, it’s a case of fat-on-fat crime. But that woman has gotten huge. Sister ‘Re may still be riding on the Freeway of Love, but now it’s in a high-occupancy vehicle.”
PENN JILLETTE
“Well, Obama got his stimulus package through. He said we had to ‘act now before it was too late’ to save the economy. Last time I was told to ‘act now before it was too late,’ I ended up with five boxes of ShamWows!”
BOB NEWHART
“It’s a shame that the ‘3 a.m. phone call’ issue in the Democratic campaign was resolved after Obama’s nomination, when John Edwards was caught by the paparazzi while visiting his mistress and love child.
“Thinking quickly, he ran down several flights of stairs and barricaded himself in a stall in the men’s room until escorted back to his room by hotel security.
“It showed quick thinking, originality and inventiveness. I personally would want John Edwards there for that ‘3 a.m. phone call.’ ”
JONATHAN KATZ
“The economy is so bad that a picture is now only worth 830 words. It’s so bad, we had to lay off one of our kids.”
WENDY LIEBMAN
“My husband suffers from migraines. It sucks for him, but it works for me. I’m like, ‘Not tonight, honey — you have a headache.’ ”
JON STEWART
“If I’d just listened to CNBC, I’d have a million
dollars today — provided I started
with 100 million dollars.”
DICK GREGORY
“I’m bringing a civil rights case against Bernie Madoff. How are you gonna steal $100 billion, but not a dime from black people? That’s just racist.”
(Lee Camp’s favorite)
JIM GAFFIGAN
“I love how New York is so multicultural. I wish I was ethnic. ‘Cause if you’re Hispanic and you get angry, people are like, ‘He’s got a Latin temper.’ But if you’re a white guy and you get angry, people are like, ‘That guy’s a jerk.’ ”
(Michael Ian Black’s favorite)
ZACK GALIFIANAKIS
“You know it’s time to do the laundry when you’re drying yourself off with a sneaker.”
(Michael Showalter’s favorite)
MAC KING
“I checked into a hotel here in Vegas the other day and I asked the woman behind the counter if the porn channel was disabled, and she said, ‘No, it’s regular porn, you sick bastard.’ ”
(Penn Jillette’s favorite)
JACKIE MASON
“Eighty percent of the married men cheat in America. The rest of them cheat in Europe.”
ANDY BOROWITZ
“I’ve started using Obama’s catchphrases around the house. Like the other day, my wife said, ‘We can’t have sex tonight.’ And I said, ‘Yes, we can.’ ”
BRUCE CHERRY
“I never read books like, ‘1,000 Things You Must Do Before You Die,’ or, ‘100 Films You Must See Before You Die.’ I’m way too obsessive-compulsive. On the day I died, I would be clutching my chest saying, ‘I’m having a heart attack! Quick — somebody go rent “The Seven Samurai!” If I’m not here when you get back, I’ll be climbing the Matterhorn.’ ”
LORD CARRETT
“I learned a lot from my
divorce. Did you know they won’t sell you a gun if you’re crying?”
(Bruce Cherry’s favorite)
MYQ KAPLAN
“I’m Jewish, but I’m not uber-Jewish. I will use German to describe how Jewish I am.”
JIM NORTON
“For the ‘Miracle on the Hudson,’ let’s be honest — if Sully wasn’t a hero pilot, we’d all be looking at his creepy mustache and trying to get the FBI to investigate his hard drive.”
GARY GULMAN
“Nice to have a literate president again. A president who says a word and you have to look it up to see what it means, not to see if it’s a real word.”
JOSELYN HUGHES
“I was interested in how celebrities get so extremely skinny, and I found out they all follow this really easy diet. You start out with a few baby carrots for breakfast, you skip lunch and then for dinner you have a reasonably sized amount — like three to four ounces — of pure Colombian cocaine.”
MIKE BIRBIGLIA
“April Fool’s Day is about saying the most preposterous thing you can to someone, and trying to get them to believe it. And that’s getting harder. Like right now someone could say, ‘The US government is taking over Citigroup, and they’re going to charge $20 ATM fees, and those fees are going to be used to pay bonuses to AIG executives.’ And you’d be like, ‘That sounds about right.’ ”
OPHIRA EISENBERG
“My husband called me passive-aggressive and I told him to go screw himself. In an e-mail. Saved in drafts. But he’ll find it. Because he’s an enabler.”
DOUG BENSON
“I get upset when people type in all caps. Because I’m case sensitive.”
ROBERT KLEIN
“I’m an Obama man. But when Hillary Clinton said, ‘Who would you rather be there when that crucial call to the White House comes at 3 a.m.?’ I went with McCain on that one. He’d already be up
taking a leak.”
DEMETRI MARTIN
“You know the expression, ‘People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’? How about just, ‘Nobody throw stones.’ That is just crappy behavior.”
(Jay Mohr’s favorite)
NATE BARGATZE
“There are two kinds of chicken — free-range and caged. I don’t want to eat the happy chicken, the chicken with a dream. That chicken was thinking about going back to school.”
(Helen Hong’s favorite)
JESSE POPP
“If you buy a book on how to pick up women, check the copy-right date first.
“You don’t want to make the same mistake I made and find yourself leaning next to
a lamppost, flipping a coin all night.”
(Tom McCaffrey’s
favorite)
STEVEN WRIGHT
“It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to paint it.”(Richard Belzer’s favorite)
SETH HERZOG
“Joe Biden says that offshore drilling is like ‘raping the ocean.’ Which Sarah Palin is fine with, as long as the ocean pays for its own rape kit.”
PAUL SCHEER
“I just saw the poster for ‘Fast and the Furious 3’ and the tag line is ‘New Model. Same Parts.’ Isn’t that just a crappy version of something? Who would want to buy a car like that? ‘Yes, it’s the 2009 Porsche, but under the hood all the parts are from 1986.’ ”
JERMAINE FOWLER
“The longer Magic Johnson doesn’t die from AIDS, the more I start to think that he’s an actual magician.”
EUGENE MIRMAN
“I was thinking about truth or dare, and what the first dare was. I bet it was a cave man daring a cave woman to throw a burning stick at a monster. And I bet she was like, ‘Fine, truth.’ And I bet he was like, ‘OK. What’s your biggest fantasy?’ And I bet she was like, ‘Agriculture.’ ”
DAVID LETTERMAN
Letterman: “Why exactly are you here, honest to God?”
Gov. Rod Blagojevich: “Well, you know, I’ve been wanting to be on your show in the worst way, for the longest time.”
Letterman: “Well, you’re on in the worst way, believe me.”
(Justin and Eric Stangel’s favorite)
JEFF KREISLER
“I went to the Inauguration in DC. I feel bad for Bush — I’ve had bad days, done things I’m not proud of, but I’ve never performed so poorly that when I left, they threw a party with 2 million people and Bono.”
LOUIS C.K.
“We live in an amazing, amazing world and it’s wasted on the tackiest generation of spoiled idiots that don’t care. I was on an airplane and there was high-speed Internet. It’s the newest thing I know that exists. It’s fast and I’m watching YouTube on an airplane! Then it breaks down and they apologize that it’s not working. And the guy next to me goes, ‘Pfft, this is bulls – – – .’ Like, how quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only 10 seconds ago!”
(Hannibal Burress’ favorite)
VICTOR VARNADO
“When I am making out with a girl I used to think it spoiled the mood when she would whisper in my ear, ‘Victor you’re the first black albino I’ve ever kissed.’ But then I realized that it’s way better than hearing her say, ‘Victor, you are the 43rd black albino I’ve ever kissed. I’m a collector — you’re getting sleepy because of the poison. Bye bye.’ ”
CHRISTIAN FINNEGAN
“Sometimes when you’re out on a stormy night, you’ll see a broken, mangled umbrella lying on the sidewalk. I find that very poignant. Because every umbrella corpse that you stumble across represents a truly sh – – – y moment in someone’s life. If hell exists, it consists of eternally walking up 10th Avenue in the pouring rain, on the way to a dinner party, armed with nothing but a $4 Duane Reade umbrella.
GREG GIRALDO
“Rolling Stone magazine called George Bush the worst president ever. That’s ridiculous. I’ll give them worst American president, but there have definitely been worse presidents in the history of presidents. Like in Liberia, they’ve had some pretty sh – – – y presidents — and do you remember the president of the Selena fan club?”
RALPHIE MAY
“Birds knocked that plane out of the sky. Birds. Now every terrorist is all training pigeons. ‘You are my favorite pigeon. You are going to fly on the wings of jihad to the heart of the infidel, knocking him out of the sky!’ ”
CRAIG FERGUSON
“Here’s how bad the economy is: Today ‘Sesame Street’ laid off 67 people, so tonight’s episode is brought to you by the letters ‘F’ and ‘U.’ ”
Compiled by Larry Getlen, Mandy Stadtmiller, Sara Stewart and Reed Tucker
D.C BENNY
A lady came up to me on the train and handed me a pencil with a note that said, ‘I’m deaf.’ I wrote, ‘I’m broke,’ and gave it back.”
LIAM McENEANEY
“New York City has some of the friendliest homeless people on Earth. “They’ll give you all kinds of advice without even being asked. I was walking down the street and this guy sitting in a gutter shouted, ‘My man, you gotta walk tall! You gotta show some pride.’ I said, ‘Thanks — you’re not wearing any pants.’
JACKIE HOFFMAN
“True, we are in a depression, but I do love that the hedge fund – – – holes and the rich, Wall Street banker types now know how actors feel all of the time.”
BO BURNHAM
“I’m an optimist. I don’t think of strippers as pole dancers. I think of them as confused firemen.”
MICHELLE COLLINS
“You ever sit on the train, and the conductor comes over the loudspeaker and says, ‘This train is being held at the station.’ And you just sit there, and you’re like, ‘God, I wonder what it’s like to be held?’ Because you’re so lonely.”
TOM McCAFFREY
“In fourth grade, I was voted class clown. Not because I was funny, but because I was an alcoholic and all the kids were afraid of me.”
JON FRIEDMAN
“I was having breakfast with my dad recently, who started spraying I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter all over his bagel. And I thought to myself, What more do they have to do before we don’t believe that it’s not butter?”
RYAN SHERMAN
“Michael Pelps lost the Wheaties endorsement. But he picked up Funions.”
(Wendy Liebman’s favorite)
BILL BRAUDIS
“There is a sign in my hotel that shows you how to use the stairs. In case of a fire, they show a stick figure very calmly walking down the stairs. I just don’t think that in a fire, a guy made of sticks is going to be very calm.”
(Dana Gould’s favorite)
RACHEL FEINSTEIN
“I can’t deal with the softening of the straight man. I don’t want to see any more men with their hair tousled into these ‘It’s fun to be a boy’ haircuts. No more ironic tops and shoulder totes. Soon men aren’t even going to have bodies anymore. They’ll take of their shirts, and there’ll just be a calming smear left.”
PETER KASSNOVE
On first-time parenting being like learning to drive: “First I’ll learn how to do it — and then I’ll learn how to do it drunk.”
TED ALEXANDRO
“Not only is Barack Obama our first black president — it’s the end of white presidents forever. Because you know what they say, ‘Once you go black..’ ”
JORDAN CARLOS
“I live in a bad neighborhood and the little thugs — the ‘thuglets’ — used to make fun of me. They’d say, ‘There goes Obama! There goes Obama!’ And I’d let them have their laughs, because when the condos come in, they have to leave. They have to take that bandana out of their back pockets, put all their worldly possessions in it, tie that to a hobo stick, sling that across their shoulder, get on one of those see-saw trains and get the hell out of my neighborhood, ’cause I need room my yoga. The coffee shop and organic doggy-treat bake shop can’t open til you’re gone. Holler!
DOM IRRERA
“You know you’re getting fat when you say that in front of your friends and no one corrects you.”
(Jonathan Katz’s favorite)
DANA GOULD
“There is a Dog Heaven. I’m not sure about a People Heaven. There is definitely no Cat Heaven, there is only Cat Hell — it’s called Dog Heaven.”
JACKIE HOFFMAN
(To a predominantly gay crowd) “I just got married. Because I can.”
(Frank DeCaro’s favorite)
JOHN McCAIN
“I now introduce my choice for the next vice president of the United States: Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.”
(Andy Borowitz’s favorite)
CATIE LAZARUS
“On The White House lawn, the Obamas put up a jungle gym, to inspire kids to play and exercise. Then they planted a vegetable garden, to symbolize the root of a healthy diet. Maybe the Obama’s should set up a cubicle, to symbolize how one pays for gourmet food and playtime.”
DUSTIN YBARRA
“I used to work at Long John Silvers. I got fired because I was too honest with people. This lady was like, ‘Excuse me, sir, I found a hair in my fish.’ ‘Well, lady, you’re at Long John Silvers. You’re lucky you found fish in your fish.’ She wanted to talk to my manager. ‘I was like, ‘OK, I hope you speak Spanish.'”
HEATHER LAWLESS
“My mom tells everyone that I am a lesbian, but I know that I am straight because of the way I feel around my nephews.”
PETE CORREALE
“My wife’s grandmother came to visit us here in New York last month. She’s an 88-year-old Polish woman from Buffalo. I love this woman to death, but as you can imagine she walks like two miles per hour. She wanted to go see ground zero but I didn’t want to go all the way down there. So I just took her to a construction site in my own neighborhood.”
AMY SCHUMER
“Everyone is so hot in Miami — even the homeless people are hot. I made out with a homeless guy by accident. We were kissing on a bench and I was like, ‘Let’s go back to your place.’ He was like, ‘This is my place.’ ”
HELEN HONG
“I get really angry when I see dogs and cats in commercials. Not because of animal rights but because I’ve been trying to book a commercial for 2 years and I can speak and read.”
STEVE HOFSTETTER
“We tease the homeless constantly. We have canned-goods drives for the homeless. They don’t have can openers.”
PHIL MAZO
“Parents say, ‘Eat this — there are starving children in Africa.’ What do they say to children in Africa? ‘Eat this — you’re starving.'”
(Steve Hofstetter’s favorite)
COLIN KANE
“They call New York City the city that never sleeps. I figured out why after I got my apartment, because the heaters keep you up all goddamn night! It’s four in the morning and I got the Blue Man Group banging away on my pipes!”
MYKA FOX
“I’ve decided to start having one-night stands. It’s not that I really enjoy sex — it’s just that I don’t want the people I’ve already slept with to feel like they’re so special.”
(Myq Kaplan’s favorite)
AMY SCHUMER
“You can guess, I never got attention from guys when I was younger. But then the old story — I got the braces off..of my legs.”
(Jim Norton’s favorite)
JEFFREY ROSS
At the Friar’s Club Roast of Matt Lauer: “Matt Lauer is so bland, his nickname in high school was Matthew Lauer.”
(Barry Dougherty’s favorite)
ROBERT KELLY
“You know you’re fat when you drop something and in your head you’re like, ‘Do I need that?’ ‘Honey, if you want the baby, pick it up.’ ”
JANE KRAKOWSKI
Singing on “30 Rock” as Jenna, who scrambles the words to “Me and Bobby McGee” to avoid a lawsuit: “Synonym’s just another word for the one you want to use.”
(Judah Friedlander’s favorite)
JAY MOHR
“I don’t want to pick a favorite joke of mine because then I would hurt my other jokes feelings.”
LEE CAMP
“I put a pole in my room because I thought it would attract hot girls. Instead, firemen kept showing up.”
ABBI CRUTCHFIELD
“I like the ad on the subway: ‘If you see something, say something.’ It’s a lot better than their old ad: ‘If you see something, pee on it.'”

The Five Things You Gotta Know About Watchmen
It’s a murder mystery! It’s got superheroes you’ve never heard of! It’s totally deep and way metaphysical! It’s an ’80s period piece, with Richard Nixon and a giant blue naked guy!
Graphic novel adaptation Watchmen opens this week to big buzz, even though you may know nothing about it. But don’t worry. We sat down with the oddly familiar cast and director Zack Snyder to decode this antihero epic, and gather the five essentials:
1. Watchmen Is the Utimate Geek Comic: Want street cred at Comic-Con? Talk Watchmen. Anyone can go on about the X-Men, but aficionados obsess over Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ 1986 seriesóabout how very twisted masked men and women in tights would really be.
2. The Dark Knight Was Lightweight: This isn’t just a romp about beating up bad guys. Watchmen dwells on questions about the role of superheroes and the toll crimefighting takes on the psyche. Like The Dark Knight, only…darker. “You accept that Batman can walk around in a real world and that a bad guy can dress like a Joker,” Snyder tells E! News. “Watchmen blows that up again. “It’s time to take [those ideas] apart,” he says, “and re-examineówithout a smile or a winkówhat the f–k this mythology is about.”
3. Denny Duquette Is a Real A-hole: Izzy, don’t accept any marriage proposals from The Comedian, played by Grey’s Anatomy’s Jeffrey Dean Morgan. He may be one of the heroes, but he’s a bad dude. Seriously. “I may lose a couple of Grey’s Anatomy fans,” Morgan tells us, “but I’ll gain some Watchmen fans, so it’s an even trade.”
4. You Know These Characters, But You Don’t: Watchmen doesn’t have a Christian Bale or Heath Ledger or even a Wolverine or Spidey. What it has are heroes you’ll find familiar, but with names like Nite Owl, Rorschach, Moloch the Mysticóand Silk Spectre, actually Malin Akerman in tight yellow synthetics. “I don’t know if anyone in here has a latex fetish,” Akerman (maybe you know her from Entourage?) tells us. “I certainly do not after this film.”
5. The Giant Blue Penis Is a Fake: Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) is the movie’s only hero with actual superpowers, an energy force who looks like a big buff guy. He’s too busy analyzing particles to put on pants, but don’t get too excited. “I like being nude in front of people as much as the next guy,” Crudup tells us, “but no, they insisted that I remain clothed, and they do all the work in postproduction.”

Spidey saves Inauguration Day for Obama in comic
President-elect Barack Obama’s mythic status as a saviour for the U.S. could be cemented by his appearance in a new Spider-Man comic from Marvel.
A five-page story, added as a bonus feature in the latest Spidey installment coming out on Jan. 14, takes place in Washington D.C. on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.
“When we heard that president-elect Obama is a collector of Spider-Man comics, we knew that these two historic figures had to meet in our comics’ Marvel Universe,” says Marvel’s editor-in-chief Joe Quesada in a statement.
“Historic moments such as this one can be reflected in our comics because the Marvel Universe is set in the real world. A Spider-Man fan moving into the Oval Office is an event that must be commemorated.”
Marvel comics have featured most presidents, but generally in walk-on roles, adds Quesada.
In “Spidey Meets the President!,” one of the super hero’s oldest enemies, the Chameleon, tries to stop Obama’s swearing-in ceremony.
Fortunately, Peter Parker is covering the event as a photographer and manages to save the day.
“I hope this doesn’t ruin the inauguration for you,” Spider-Man tells Obama, as the Chameleon is led away by security.
“Honestly, I’m more upset by the Chameleon’s shockingly deficient understanding of the electoral process,” Obama replies.
At the end, Spider-Man bids a quick goodbye as Obama stops him with one more thing to say: “I’ve been a fan of yours for a long time and before you go I just want to say … Thanks. Partner.”
At this point the two exchange a fist-bump ó a direct reference to the gesture the president-elect and future first lady, Michelle Obama, often do.
As for Michelle, there is a superhero future for her as well. In April, she will be appearing in the Female Force comic book series.

Carmen Electra & Kim Kardashian dazzle comics fans
SAN DIEGO (AP) ó The line snaked through the Comic-Con floor. Hundreds of camera-toting fans jockeyed for position, barely able to contain their excitement.
They weren’t trying to see the latest world-saving superhero or never-before-seen footage. They were waiting to see Carmen Electra and Kim Kardashian.
The two beauties made their Comic-Con debut Saturday, signing autographs to promote their new film, “Disaster Movie.” Both wore formfitting, cleavage-bearing dresses as they posed for fans’ photos.
For 18-year-old John Kilgore, attending the signing was the day’s top priority.
“It’s Carmen Electra,” he explained. “What’s not to like about a woman like that?”
David Benker, 46, was embarrassed to reveal exactly how excited he was to meet the two women.
“Aw, come on,” he said. “My son is here and he’ll tell his mom.”
Most fans sheepishly shuffled by collecting their posters, but a few were brave enough to talk to the pinup pair.
“You look even more beautiful in person,” said one blushing fan. “Wow.”
Another whipped out his cell phone to show Electra her own photo. “You’re on my screen saver right now,” he said.
Despite the frenzy of excitement, the fans were well behaved, Electra said: “They were all really sweet.”
A Lionsgate release, “Disaster Movie” ó which features a wrestling scene between Kardashian and Electra ó hits theaters Aug. 29.

Comic fans fume as Marvel erases Spidey-MJ marriage
Those who know Spider-Man only from Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst in the movies might be surprised to learn that in the comic book, the web-spinning hero has been married for almost 21 years.
That’s why the comic world is in an uproar over Marvel Comics’ decision to undo the marriage of Peter Parker and red-haired bombshell Mary Jane Watson, reversing two decades of storytelling.
In Amazing Spider-Man #545 last week, Peter and Mary Jane make a tearful deal with the devil-like character Mephisto: In exchange for saving Aunt May’s life, Mephisto erases all traces of the Peter-Mary Jane marriage from memory.
In the issue out this week, subtitled Brand New Day, Peter Parker returns to his roots ó young, nerdy and single. Aunt May is alive and well and Mary Jane is again just part of the cast. The marriage never happened.
“People are very upset. They erased a lot of stuff that had been set in stone,” says John Newman, manager of Ultimate Comics in Chapel Hill, N.C., on Wednesday as customers came in to buy the opening chapter of Brand New Day. To help emphasize the new start, Amazing Spider-Man will go thrice-monthly.
“We knew it would be a very controversial thing to do,” says Joe Quesada, Marvel’s editor in chief, who believed so much in the project that he drew the crucial issues himself. “Looking into the future, this is really the right thing to do for the long-term health of the character.”
Spider-Man, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in 1962, was a hit, connecting with young readers because he was a geeky teenager, shy with girls and uncertain of how to use his powers. But in 1987, Peter and Mary Jane, by then a fashion model, got married. Marvel had instant regrets.
“I remember editors and editors in chief lamenting that a married Spider-Man was not where we want to be,” Quesada says. “A married Peter Parker makes for a less interesting soap opera than a single Peter Parker going about his nerdy kind of life.”
Writers tried everything: The couple separated for a while. She miscarried. And in a much-criticized story line, Marvel tried to convince readers that Peter Parker had not gotten married, but his clone. That didn’t stick, either. Then Quesada took over and insisted the marriage just couldn’t continue.
“Nobody wants to read about a married Spider-Man,” says Craig Shutt, a columnist for Comics Buyers Guide. “But in the short run, it’s a terrible idea. It disrespects the readers by saying everything they read is wrong.”
At DC Comics, Superman is married to Lois Lane, disrupting that title’s long-standing tensions. DC declined to comment for this story.
Quesada is steadfast that for Spider-Man, the move is the right one: “Ultimately we have to do this to keep this character fresh for this generation and generations to come.”
HEROES CHANGE
How long-term heroes have been revised to keep up with the times:
Superman. Created in 1938, Superman was totally revamped in 1986. The current Man of Steel never had a career as Superboy, and as Clark Kent, he has been married to Lois Lane since 1996.
Batman. Created in 1939, Batman has mentored three Robins. The first, Dick Grayson, is now Nightwing. The third, Tim Drake, was introduced in 1989. The second Robin, Jason Todd, was killed by the Joker but has returned.
Iron Man. Created in 1963, Tony Stark built his armor after being injured in Vietnam, later updated to the Gulf War. Now he got his injuries in Afghanistan.

Marvel puts old comics online
Marvel is putting some of its older comics on the internet hoping to capture the interest of young readers in the exploits of the X-Men and Fantastic Four by featuring the original issues.
“You don’t have that spinner rack of comic books sitting in the local five-and-dime any more,” said Dan Buckley, president of Marvel Publishing.
“We don’t have our product intersecting kids in their lifestyle space as much as we used to.”
Comics ó such as Wonder Woman and Iron Man ó will be proffered online Nov. 13, viewed through a web browser. They will not be downloadable.
Marvel is hoping fans will get hooked and be willing to shell out $9.99 US a month, or $4.99 US a month with an annual membership, for the privilege of viewing old issues online. About 2,500 issues will be available at first with 20 more released each week.
Fans will be treated to the first 100 issues of Stan Lee’s 1963 Amazing Spider-Man series and other titles such as House of M and Young Avengers.
The move comes after Marvel’s two competitors began showcasing their products online.
Dark Horse comics puts monthly anthologies for free viewing on its MySpace site.
DC Comics offers weekly peeks at the first few pages of upcoming issues. The publisher also gives out PDF files to download of the first issue in a comic series whenever the series is being launched as a book or graphic novel.
Comic shop owner Michael Ring of Portland, Ore., applauded Marvel’s move to use the internet, calling it a “feeder system.”
“They give people that initial taste.”

Neil Young to release comic book
TORONTO (CP) – Outspoken musician and political activist Neil Young is putting his anti-war and environmental convictions into a graphic novel.
The book will be an adaptation of Young’s 2003 disc “Greendale,” a 10-song concept album that was turned into a film of the same name in 2003 and also spawned an art book and multi-media tour.
The legendary artist, renowned for his strong anti-George W. Bush sentiments, has made it clear that the project will be just as biting politically as the rest of his artistic catalogue, said writer and collaborator Joshua Dysart.
Dysart, who describes his own political leanings as “left of Lenin,” says the graphic novel’s theme is decidedly anti-war and pro-planet. The story is set in the fictional town of Greendale on the eve of the Iraq invasion in 2003.
“It’s just sort of a smorgasbord of the political reality of that moment of 2003 when we went into Iraq,” Dysart said Thursday in a telephone interview from his home Los Angeles.
“Greendale is a fictional town but it’s in northern California and the politics and concerns of northern California are going to be very prevalent and that’s: anti-war, environmentalism and the raping of the California resources by major corporations in the pocket of the Bush administration.”
The novel has been two years in the making and will be published by the DC Comics subsidiary Vertigo. Dysart said he’s only completed a sketch of the storyline so far and hopes the book could be completed next year.
The idea for the novel came from Young himself, he adds, but so far the Canadian rocker has taken a largely arms-length approach to directing the narrative.
Major elements, however, are drawn directly from his disc “Greendale,” said Dysart, also behind an Avril Lavigne graphic novel released earlier this year called “Make Five Wishes.”
Young’s album “Greendale” told the story of a tragic event and its effects on three generations of an American family.
The graphic novel focuses on the story of Sun Green, a teenager and burgeoning activist whose life is changed when a mysterious stranger pays a visit to her small town.
It also places great significance on her family’s unique ability to connect with nature, an aspect referred to only casually in the art book, said Dysart.
“I just clued into that because it hadn’t been explored in other mediums and the last thing I wanted to do was just kind of regurgitate the storyline,” Dysart explained.
A big challenge for Dysart will be just how to capture Young’s unconventional persona.
“There is this sort of low-fi, loose E-string humming Americana rock-n-roll about that album and about a lot of his work,” he notes.
“I want to find that (feeling) inside of our medium. And part of that is going to be what (artist) Sean (Murphy) brings to it, obviously. I think, for instance, the way he uses ink is going to very much have that sort of a strong intensity. He can be a splatterer when encouraged with his ink and I think that will help a lot.”
Those who know the album well will likely recognize a few song lyrics Dysart hopes to insert into the text.
“I’m sure there will be many because there are some great storylines in there,” he said. “I will probably be altering them so they do not rhyme. That’s not really the kind of piece we’re going for. It’s not a music video on paper.”
As for Young himself, Dysart was coy about whether the music great would make a cameo.
“In the film, a sort of a supernatural entity arrives in town who is like a white blues man, basically all dressed in a red suit and a red fedora and patent leather shoes,” he says. “Now, that character is going to be in the piece and if that character looks strikingly similar to Neil Young, then I don’t know what to say.”

SUPERHERO SMACKDOWN
Here’s nothing comic-book fans like better than a knockdown, drag-out fight. But the most interesting superhero battle these days isn’t playing out on four-color pages, it’s taking place on movie screens, between two old foes who have battled and sniped at each other for going on half a century.
I
t’s Marvel versus DC, and for the uninitiated (or the less geeky), the two publishers dominate the comic-book market and own every hero popular enough to show up on a bedding set. Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman (think the old “Super Friends” TV series) are all the property of DC, while Spider-Man, X-Men and Captain America are Marvel’s babies.
Basically, the two companies would like to melt each other with heat vision.
“When either one of them talks about the other, no matter who it is in the company, there’s tension and rivalry,” says Gerry Gladstone, co-owner of Midtown Comics. “There is a rivalry almost to a childish point. It’s been there since Day 1.”
This battle’s got everything that make comics worth reading: slugfests, superpowers (if you count making the Z-list “Ghost Rider” into a hit a superpower) and above all, high stakes. While the top-selling comic book only moves around 100,000 copies, a blockbuster movie can pull in a billion bucks.
And currently in this epic throwdown, Marvel is winning. Mightily. It’s like Hulk beating up on Krypto the Wonder Dog.
This year alone, Marvel has released “Ghost Rider” (which pulled in a surprising $115 million) and “Spider-Man 3,” (which broke records, or something). On Friday, Marvel’s next movie, “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer,” arrives, along with likely millions in box office revenue and priceless mainstream exposure for its marquee superteam.
And that’s just 2007. Next summer, “Iron Man” – starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrence Howard – hits screens, along with “The Incredible Hulk,” a reboot of the you-wouldn’t-like-me-when-I’m-angry franchise, featuring Ed Norton as Bruce Banner.
Meanwhile DC (and Warner Bros., which, like DC, is owned by TimeWarner) hasn’t come close to matching Marvel’s output or success in the 21st century.
“Batman Begins” was masterfully done, but “Superman Returns” mostly fizzled with critics and audiences.
Then there was Halle Berry’s “Catwoman.” Moment of silence, please.
And with the exception of sequels for Supes and Bats (including next summer’s much anticipated “The Dark Knight”), no other DC superheroes are guaranteed to hit the screen anytime soon. (Warner Bros. didn’t make its executives available for comment.)
Perhaps trying to catch up, DC has optioned a slew of its properties recently, including an X-Men-like team of misfits called “The Doom Patrol,” and “Teen Titans,” a group of young superheroes that’s already spawned a popular cartoon. Nervous fanboys, however, have pointed out that in both cases Akiva Goldsman – the man who wrote 1997’s franchise-killing “Batman & Robin” – is attached to produce.
Another cinematic try at an A-list DC hero, Wonder Woman, recently collapsed after writer-director Joss Whedon (creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) had differences with the studio regarding the film’s direction. On comic-book fan site newsarama.com, Whedon called his 18 months of work a “huge waste of time.”
A fan-made video called “Hi, I’m a Marvel … and I’m a DC” posted on Youtube nicely sums up the state of the rivalry. In a parody of those Mac commercials, a Spider-Man toy needles a Superman toy about Marvel’s movie dominance.
“We’ve got plenty of projects lined up,” Superman says confidently.
“Like Wonder Woman?” Spidey asks.
“You may see that one eventually,” Superman stammers.
“Flash?” Spidey asks.
“Sometime possibly soon in the next few years,” Supes says. “And we just asked a few writers to think about the possibility of maybe what it might take to theoretically make a Justice League movie in the next 10 years or possibly more, perhaps.”
But while DC/Warner Bros. may not have yet found the winning formula for consistently churning out superhero blockbusters, it has nicely managed to leverage its nonhero properties. “V for Vendetta,” “Constantine” and “A History of Violence” were all based on its comics. The company has more movies based on similarly spandex-free fare in the works, including “Y: The Last Man,” the wonderfully inventive saga of the lone survivor of a plague that kills every male on Earth.
“There’s certainly a diversity among what we publish,” says DC president Paul Levitz, who incidentally refused to characterize DC’s relationship with Marvel as a “rivalry.”
But for DC, the billion-dollar question remains: How in the world can Marvel produce a hit with a third-tier character in a critically reviled movie like “Ghost Rider,” while a film starring the most well-known hero in the universe, Superman, can’t even make back its budget domestically?
The answer may lie in the nature of each company’s heroes. When Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko created many of Marvel’s iconic heroes in the 1960s, their innovation was to give their characters great humanity along with great power.
“They took superheroes and made them more realistic,” says Midtown Comics’ Gladstone. “They gave their characters real traits, had them living in real cities – most in New York City. They had tremendous flaws and problems that you and I would face every day: getting to work on time, having a cold or flu, having a sick aunt.”
“I do believe that what moviegoing audiences respond to is what the comic-book audience and the Marvel audience has responded to for decades. And that’s relatable characters,” says Kevin Feige, executive producer of “Fantastic Four” and most of the other Marvel movies. “There’s a reason these characters have endured for 20, 30, 40 years. There are emotional elements that people connect with. The Marvel characters are infinitely more than their exterior design. They have an emotional core.”
But Marvel hasn’t always been on top. DC ruled the ’70s and ’80s with its initial Batman and Superman franchises, while for years Marvel years failed miserably to capitalize on its characters. The company was sometimes in financial straits (Marvel declared bankruptcy in 1996), which led to a Hollywood fire sale on many of its properties. These ill-conceived deals spawned dreck like a 1989 Punisher movie starring Dolph Lundgren, David Hasselhoff as superspy Nick Fury and most legendarily of all, a 1994 Fantastic Four movie directed by schlockmeister Roger Corman. It was never released.
Not to mention a certain Howard the Duck, who laid a lead egg for Marvel in 1986 – one of that decade’s biggest box-office debacles.
Although the quality of its movies has improved, Marvel still hasn’t gotten out from under those bad deals. Years ago, the company licensed characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men to Sony and Fox, respectively, and those studios are reaping most of the rewards. According to Fortune, Fox grossed a combined $2 billion on the three X-Men movies. Marvel’s take: just $26 million.
Marvel, however, recently formed its own studio, which will produce (and keep the profits from) “Iron Man,” “The Incredible Hulk” and the loads of other films the studio has planned. Among their contenders are: “Ant Man,” directed by Edgar Wright, the man behind “Hot Fuzz “Thor “Captain America,” which will be set partly during World War II and partly in the present day; and, ultimately, “The Avengers,” which will unite all these characters into a superteam.
“We definitely have the stories to keep these film franchises going for a long time,” says Feige, who also guaranteed an “X-Men 4.” “What shapes they take and what players are involved will always shift every three to four movies.”
In other words, Spider-Man will be back, even if Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst aren’t. And that’ll probably be OK with fans – as long as no one hires George Clooney and gives the spider-suit nipples.