Whew. Lots of traffic and positive response to that Ultimates v3 “review” we posted earlier this week - hope some of you are choosing to stick around! Just in case, I thought I’d give a brief overview of the site’s raison d’etre for anyone new: The goal is to have one comic reviewed every weekday for either discussion or perusal. On Wednesdays, we review a back-issue in a feature we call “Dusting Off.” On Thursdays, we review the first of the current week’s new comics, and on Saturday we rest. On Sunday, we post this column. We call it “The Sunday Pages”, and the idea is we use it to talk about the industry news and rumours which have shown up over the previous week.

This week, we’re thinking about JMS canning his exclusive deal with Marvel and what he might do at DC, the new Secret Invasion teaser images, the Foo Fighters’ fight with Marvel and the news released regarding a few of the various comics movies. Enjoy!

NEWS: Marvel fans breathe a sigh of relief : J. Michael Straczynski is no longer exclusive. In fact, Thor aside, it doesn’t look as if he’ll be doing very much work there at all in the near future. What’s good news for the Zombies, however, is potentially ominous for the Distinguished Competition, whose fans will surely now be looking over their shoulder. It’s already been announced that he’s got work lined up for DC, in what appears to be a Crapness Exchange Programme with Jeph Loeb, and the only question now is to which title he’ll bring the sort of “magic” he worked on all but the earliest issues of his Spider-Man run. And while Superman appears to be safely in the hands of James Robinson, plans for Batman after Final Crisis look worryingly up in the air if Grant Mozza doesn’t end up staying around… (SP)

Personally, I would put money on JMS being the man who takes over on All-Star Superman following Morrison. He’s certainly got enough name-power to follow the critical darling that is Morrison, but as for the ability… well, let’s just hope he’s learnt something from the last time he tried a super-powered epic story in his interesting but over-ambitious Top Cow series, Rising Stars… (JH)

SPECULATION: Marvel has released another pair of Secret Invasion teasers entitled “Who Do You Trust”. One shows a Skrulled-up Hawkeye (in his old, purple costume, rather than the Ronin costume he’s been wearing.) The other (left) is showing a Skrulled-up Wolverine. It would be interesting to discover that the reason Wolverine is in about 90 books a month is because there’s a skrull version of him on those teams.

That said, if you read my Dusting Off for Uncanny X-Men #375 you’ll know that, er, IT’S BEEN DONE. Make what you will, though, of the fact that both of the Skrulls appear to be wearing out-of-date costumes, as Wolverine appears in the “Origins” brown/orange costume. Anachronistic costumes suggests, bizarrely, that there might actually be a link with the Skrull infiltrators of that X-Men story after all… (JH)

NEWS: Foo Fighters to sue Marvel. This could be fun. The question is, if Grohl and co. are successful, will we see the publishers of various porn magazines bring a suit against them for Greg Land’s “work” of the last few years? (SP)

Also - while I totally get that the Foos are 100% within their rights here - am I wrong to think they should be suing the animation company rather than Marvel? The trailer, for the cartoon, Wolverine and the X-Men (in addition to looking utterly awesome) strongly resembles an internal video that was never supposed to be available for public viewing, and it seems like a genuine, if unfortunate, mistake that it got out. But still, if you can find it, go and watch it now, because with these kind of problems, it won’t be available for long… (JH)

NEWS: A couple of movie snippets - first of all, in What Comic Is Neil Gaiman Adapting Corner this week, we find that he and Roger Avary are scripting an adaption of Black Hole, with David Fincher down to direct. Once again, colour me excited. Meanwhile, the first Watchmen still has been released, and it’s kind of cool, but a bit disappointing compared to those lovely set photos. Let’s just hope the mask looks better in the rest of the film, eh? Oh, and what the hell, let’s have a third - some guy’s been cast as Gambit in that there Wolverine film. Woo. Yes. (SP)

NEWS: Remember that Brian Wood/Becky Cloonan item last week? Well, Wondercon is in full swing, and it’s announced that Yes, There Will Be a New Demo Series. A 6-issue mini, and it’s almost certainly going to be the best thing I read this year, and I’m genuinely not overselling it by saying that. Start putting your money aside for it now. (JH)

Tags: Becky Cloonan, Black Hole, Brian Wood, Greg Land, J. Michael Straczynski, Neil Gaiman, secret invasion, Watchmen, Wolverine, Wolverine and the X-Men
Publisher: The Sunday Pages