Empire Magazine has a news article with a new picture of Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw from X-Men: First Class. Condemn all the fucking promotional materials surrounding this flick! Every time more promo shit leaks out of this movie’s guts, the more excited I get. I’ve gone from “Meh, this is probably going to blow” to “Holy shit, this could be tight.”

Hit the jump for the full picture.

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Marvel’s dropped some character posters for the upcoming X-Men: First Class. The posters are of Xavier and Magneto, and they follow the “Before he was a crippled bald dude, he was…” motif. Which, I must add, I’m totally digging. I didn’t realize that there would be such an emphasis on the friendship and ideological rift that erupts out of it between these two chaps. Good calls! It seems that often they’re left behind in lieu of giving greater focus to a hairy dude with blue fur dropping one-liners and optic blasts.

Which I’m cool with, but this is even cooler.

Hit the jump for the posters.

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A lot of people are diggin’ the trailer for X-Men: First Class, myself included. Despite the fact that they’re quite literally still shooting and editing bullshit for the rushed movie, the tonal shift to the wayback days has me intrigued. Oh, and January Jones may not be able to act, and she’s clearly going to bastardizing Emma Frost, but her heaving cleavage always gets me going. Today across the webs there’s a quote going around where James McAvoy explains how the flick is a love story between two dudes.

Awesome.

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Not to be outdone by the cadre of new Thor pictures, Captain America got himself some new photos as well tonight. Dude straight up told Marvel Entertainment, “Listen, it’s obvious as a blue eyed, blond haired dude I am clearly not the America dream, but the Nazi posterchild. I will make this shit public if you don’t give me some pub” and thus they did. I really don’t know what I’m taking about.

Hit the jump for the pictures.

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Close the door and turn out the light. If you use your mind’s eye, you’ll see an infinitely tendriled machination coming your way. Don’t even sweat that, okay? It’s my mind-parts worming their way into your synaptic cores. They’ll be done soon, and when they’re gone, you’ll have the latest edition of Variant Covers in your mushy grey matter. The column that blathers on, and on, and on in verbose unedited prose about the comic books I’m interested in this week.

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Action Comics #898.
Are you still being an asshole, or are you reading this comic book yet? This title is the thunder. The culmination of a talented writer, a gorgeous penciler, and the desire to tell a hilarious, absurd storyline. In the past few months, Luthor has shot the shit with Death, gotten into a philosophical debate with the Joker, and beaten some serious ass. It’s a hodgepodge of wit sexy panels. I dismissed it at first because I’m a dismissive douchebag who thought that sticking Luthor in his own titles just didn’t make sense. Was a money grab. All of that has been thrown to the wind, cast aside like autumn leaves. This week Luthor is going to run into Larfleeze, and I imagine the alien avarice motherfucker and him are going to engage in yet another bizarre encounter. Cornell just wants to trot Luthor into the path of one prominent DC character after the next. I’m down with that.

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Shit I Should Be Reading: Scalped #46, Morning Glories #7.
There’s a good amount of comic books currently running that I’m not up to date with. Call it a function of having to read floaty bullshit about paratexts in the influence of meaning on a copy of DeFoe’s Robinson Crusoe. I’m not frontin’, I’m awash in that gunk. So time is limited. Whenever the schooling gods smile upon me, I hope to begin to read Scalped. Everything I’ve heard about it informs me that a) it’s fucking awesome and b) that I’m a choad-stuffed choad for having not gotten around to it yet.

Then there’s Morning Glories. I’ve heard almost exclusively awesome things about the title, save for the inestimably rageful description of it as “LOST” meets Zac Efron’s dance moves. Sir Rager is probably correct, but it didn’t stop me from whoring out $10 for the first trade last week. It sits amongst a bunch of other trades, waiting for me to crack their spine and eat their souls.

But for those in the what, Morning Glories #7 comes out this week. For many I assume it gets their glands flowing with blood and vigor.

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Animated All-Star Superman.
I know you’re asking, what the fuck is an animated movie doing in a comic book column. Well, I’ll tell you, inquiring lads and lasses. It’s a scientific fact that All-Star Superman is the greatest Superman of the last forever. And while I haven’t been able to personally confirm it, a good amount of websites are commenting that the transition from panel and text to celluloid has gone flawlessly. This is the story that a thousand Morrison bonerbots (hi!) splooged over, only animated.

I didn’t pay attention to the first three-thousand glowing articles about it, but eventually it overwhelmed me. My forcefield eroded, I was helpless to its allure.

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The final arc of Fantastic Four had some serious fans around OL. Serious. Fans. Rendar threw inter-splooge all over the final issue in I&W, and I dedicated a good five-hundred words to fawning all over it. That ultimate arc paved the way for the forthcoming FF #1, where Reed and the rest of the family along with Spider-Man set up to solve tomorrow.

The Gods at Marvel, or perhaps more specifically the Marketing Gurus, have seen fit to drop the first six pages on our gaping asses. They’re fantastic, and I can’t help but be slightly aroused when Sue Storm calls Peter Parker “young man.”

Hit the jump for the preview if you’re so inclined.

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Shit’s gone gold, Shane Black 3 is going to be the director of Iron Man 3. There isn’t anymore ruminating, you can bite this news without worry of Fool’s Gold. According to Deadline, the Obviously Hooded Cabal at Marvel is in final negotiations with Black to direct the final flick in the trilogy, though it isn’t certain if he is going to write it or not.

RDJ teaming up with the dude who essentially relaunched his career, the same dude who wrote The Last Boyscout makes me a bit more excited about this movie. Hopefully it’s more memorable than the cute but ultimately forgettable second installment.

I’m really excited for Thor. Like, really excited. Everything I’ve seen from the movie, excluding a few out-of-context shots, has me thinking this has the makings of a dope comic book flick. This new trailer brings some of the Thor Is A Stupid Bastard Misunderstanding American Cultural Norms humor that has come to pass in Thor stories, and it’s all a bit amusing. I’ll admit, I laughed like an asshole at the Facebook comment.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer, and I’m interested to see what you think.

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Gary Shore has gone and done something unexpected. He’s turned Wolverine slicing and dicing his way through a legion of Hand ninjas into something beautiful. In this video, Shore conjures up a fan trailer for the second Wolverine movie, and it’s pretty fucking stunning.

Hit the jump for the video.

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Thank goodness it’s almost Wednesday. The weekly grind demands a brief respite, and on that third day of every week comic books come to the fucking rescue. This is Variant Covers. Inside you’ll find the comic books dropping tomorrow that I’m interested in.

Opinionated? You’re on the internet so you fucking must be. Hit the comments section with the funnies you plan on snagging this week.

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Jennifer Blood #1.
Jenny Blood is a new comic dropping tomorrow by Garth Ennis and Adriano Batista. The premise? Something fittingly Ennis. Blood is a suburban housewife by day. She feeds the kids, takes them to soccer, cooks them dinner. But by night! Oh you knew this was coming. But by night, she’s a totally elite assassin. In a latex get-up, which is always, always, always a good thing to me.

There was a time when Garth Ennis was my fucking idol. Between Preacher, Hitman, and his take on the Punisher, the good man owned my soul. Over time, I’ve grown less and less enthused with his efforts. While some people may find it heretical to say, I got tired of The Boys. I get it, I get it. A vulgar deconstruction of superhero motifs. Like I said, I probably just pissed a good amount of people off. I’m hoping that Jennifer Blood can rekindle my love affair.

If it’s nothing more than a female twist on the Punisher, I’d be fine with that. Perhaps my time away from the Ennis bag of tricks has been enough to recuperate my love for him.

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S.H.I.E.L.D. #6.
The first volume of Marvel’s most mindrapingly fantastic title concludes tomorrow. It is, without doubt, going to be my title of the week. Hickman and Weaver’s panel-smashing, contemporary narrative structure-defying, philosophically curious title has been nothing less than the fucking belle of my pull list ball since it started.  This week we get the epic battle between Leonard Da Vinci and his free spirits versus Isaac Newton and his Hobbesian belief that mankind must be  corralled. I think these motherfuckers are going to come to blows.

Hickman has been nothing short of brilliant to me in everything that I read of his. His killing of a member of the Fantastic Four? Had this guy in tears. His exploration of ideologies and the fictionalization of historical figures in S.H.I.E.L.D. has been something special. It isn’t a question of whether or not the sixth issue will be fantastic, but if the second volume can possibly top this first arc.

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Morning Glories Trade #1.
I have not read Morning Glories yet. However, I have only heard wondrous things regarding the title written by Nick Spencer and drawn by Joe Eisma. In fact, the buzz was so good that it drove me to pick up Spencer’s newest title, Infinite Vacation. Conclusion from reading that title? Spencer can fucking pen, yo! I’m not certain what Morning Glories is about. There’s been a concerted effort made by myself to stay away from any plot synopses, because I’ve read there’s a mystery afoot in the title.

Basic plot summary from various sites is, “Morning Glory Academy is one of the most prestigious prep schools in the country, but something sinister and deadly lurks behind its walls.” It doesn’t sound amazing, does it? Probably why I passed on it the first time. Do these copywriters realize people make financial decisions based on their bland fucking description of something that could be fantastic? Doesn’t seem that way.

I’m there.

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