The Weekly Wrap-Up: the beginning

So the new format begins. So why “The Weekly Wrap-Up”? Well, it does start with the same old Jake & Leon comic.

Yeah, we're off to a good start.

And you still click on the comic to get a “behind the scenes” look at the comic. However, that is where it changes. Instead of the weekly comic reviews (not spread out during the week, both giving me time to enjoy my comics and take care of my household chores or anything else I want to do), I’ll be doing something more like the “Getting Caught Up” stuff. This will be a collection of articles I found during the week, some new and some old, that I found interesting but not enough to devote an entire post to. Usually, this will end with the “Best Scene of the Week” award, where I take all the comics I reviewed during the week and choose the best scene.

Since I haven’t reviewed anything yet (although I will hopefully put the spoiler-blocked versions up at ComiXology as I write the articles, auto-scheduled to post at 12PM ET rather than the 6PM I gave last week–so the article have extra time listed at sites that carry my RSS feed–Hi, Snell and Gary!), there is no Best Scene, but I do have some articles.

• So Marvel’s decided to take the covers of unsold Blackest Night tie-ins in place of a special Deadpool variant cover for one of their Siege comics. Apparently there is some major fallout from it, but I hear better things about the BN titles than I have any of Marvel’s recent events, so I don’t see the point. It also seems to be backfiring. Just more of the childish war between the head honchos at DC and Marvel Comics.
• Speaking of Marvel, they’ve unveiled the new Iron Man armor for the comics.
• A few too many little lights for my taste, but otherwise I like it. Still, it doesn’t match the one showing up in the next movie, which still resembles the pre-Extremis armor. Not as bad as making Batman RIP just as Batman: The Dark Knight was coming out, but still odd.
• $1.00 reprints of “classic” (read Quesada’s favorite) Marvel stories? At this point I’m not even sure they’re worth that much. One of them IS Civil War #1, after all.
• Wrapping up Marvel news, they’re celebrating the anniversary of their Obama cover, and doing the “secret” history of the Avengers. Do I have to comment?
• DC is bringing back Birds of Prey. Fans rejoiced!
• DC is doing a weekly comic based on their upcoming DC Universe MMORPG. I’m not sure if I care. I don’t have time for MMOs.

• Heard about the political nature of James Cameron’s Avatar? (Personally, I haven’t seen it because it sounds like the story doesn’t live up to the visuals. Also, Cameron’s attempt to sell us on the movie at last year’s E3 was enough to put me to sleep.) Hube at The Colossus of Rhodey decided to look at the other “messages” of science fiction.

• The new trailer for Transformers: War for Cybertron is out. It is looking sweet! Seriously, I’d love to see a movie with this animation, and I want a toy of that Bumblebee! I have to see actual game footage before I judge if I want to play the game.
• More Transformers news: IDW announced the next Movieverse comics series, Nefarious. Apparently there’s an evil shadow organization called Skywatch Sector Seven The Machination Initiative that has questionable plans for the Autobots and Decepticons. How original, Simon Furman.  Can we get Bob Budiansky back for more than a token adaptation to the 80’s movie? Please?
• As it is, Michael Bay is rather confusing as to what is going to happen in the third movie.

• Comics Makes No Sense‘s Adam Barnett has been taking a look at the Golden Age comic The Young Allies, one of Marvel’s WW2 comics back when they were still called “Timely” (insert joke about scheduling issues here).  However, he semi-defends the character “Whitewash”, an obvious black stereotype common in the era, yet, but at least he was a legit member of the team.
• Somehow the internet survived the meeting of Chris Sims and Yatzee! The host of The Escapist‘s Zero Punctuation spoke to the Invincible Super Blogger about his forthcoming novel.

That’s all I had a chance to take a look at. This would ordinarily be immediately followed by the “Best Scene of the Week” award, but you’ll have to wait for next week. Each of the “Today’s Comics” reviews will feature a “Best Scene”, with the winner announced in “The Weekly Wrap-Up”. In the meantime, here are the comics I’ll be reviewing this week.

No, the Iron Man image isn’t a comic. I just can’t get it out of the gallery the way WordPress works.

Let’s see how long this format lasts. Opinions are most welcome. Praise is welcome. Criticism is welcome. Insults are not.