17157: Overreaction Of The Week.

 

Anybody else think Riri Williams looks a little Golliwog-ish on this Invincible Iron Man cover? Sorry, don’t heart this Ironheart.

16965: BHM 2025—AMC Theatres.

 

AMC Theatres celebrates Black History Month with discounts on movies featuring Black talent.

 

Yet no special prices for Captain America…?

 

10658: Heineken Not Very Heroic.

Advertising Age reported that Heineken is catching heat for not exiting Russia as promised after the Russia-Ukraine war erupted. Gee, Ant-Man can escape the Quantum Realm but not the former Soviet Union?

16063: Wakanda Forever, CMO Tenures For A Few Years…

Oh, look! Party City has Black Panther party stuff—the perfect props for CMO Julie Roehm’s farewell bash.

16035: Chicken Licken V Black Panther…?

 

Not sure how Chicken Licken managed to get away with a copyright-violating parody of Wakanda Forever—Ya’hunga Forever—created by Joe Public in South Africa…?!

 

Avengers—And Attorneys—Assemble!

 

15984: DoorDash Superhero Campaign Is Weak.

Advertising Age reported on a new DoorDash campaign that feels like a recruitment initiative for delivery people. The scheme features a Marvel comic book spotlighting four DoorDash delivery drones as superheroes and includes animated videos. Um, did anyone at DoorDash consider redirecting the loot spent on splashy promotions to increase workers’ paychecks instead? Seems like a super bad idea and epic waste of money.

 

DoorDash And Marvel Turn Delivery People Into Superheroes

 

The latest campaign from the delivery company revolves around a comic book starring four superpowered DoorDash delivery people, or “Dashers”

 

By Gillian Follet

 

DoorDash is entering the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a new campaign that transforms four ordinary DoorDash delivery people into comic book superheroes.

 

The food delivery company announced today that it’s partnering with Marvel Entertainment on the “Activate Super You” campaign that likens the work of DoorDash’s delivery people, or “Dashers,” to acts of everyday heroism. Marvel collaborated with DoorDash’s in-house creative team to create a comic book titled “The Dashers” for the campaign. It tells the story of four delivery people with powers related to delivering food, like the ability to exist in multiple places at once, and their efforts to save the city of “Dashville.”

 

DoorDash is kicking off the campaign with an activation at New York Comic Con, which begins today and runs through Sunday. At the convention, attendees can visit a small replica of Dashville and participate in different challenges to “test their Dasher super powers,” including a quiz about superheroes and a game that measures how effectively participants can deliver items to the correct recipients. Copies of “The Dashers” comic will also be distributed at the convention.

 

The campaign’s name, “Activate Super You,” is a call to action for people who may need the additional income that delivering food for DoorDash provides to support themselves and their future goals, Emma Glazer, the company’s head of Dasher marketing, said in an interview.

 

“As you work toward your goals, there are so many obstacles to get through—whether it’s priorities, a demanding boss or bills—that are preventing Dashers and workers and all of us from feeling like their most ‘super’ selves,” she said. “With this [campaign], it really is our invitation to Dashers to ‘activate super you’ to get earnings that help support and empower their passions.”

 

DoorDash last year experienced a shortage of delivery drivers but the company on its most recent quarterly call reported better retention rates.

 

As part of the campaign, Marvel has also converted “The Dashers” into a five-part video series of digital motion comics, with the first episode available to watch on the DoorDash website. In the coming weeks, Marvel will share new episodes of the series across its social channels and website. Marvel also created a trailer for the series, akin to those it produces to promote its blockbuster superhero films, that will air in movie theaters throughout the fall.

 

DoorDash also partnered with marketing agency Tag to develop social media content for the campaign, including a superhero-themed AR Snap filter.

 

“The pandemic highlighted the vital role Dashers play in their communities, helping businesses grow sales and connecting consumers with essential products,” David Bornoff, DoorDash’s head of brand marketing, said in a press release. This partnership with Marvel, the “authority on superheroes,” aims to recognize the ongoing contributions of the company’s delivery people, he said.

 

Along with acknowledging the impact that DoorDash’s delivery people had in the early months of the pandemic, the campaign also spotlights the fact that, in a 2021 report from DoorDash, 88% of Dashers reported that their work for DoorDash is a side gig in addition to their other responsibilities, like a full-time job. The comic’s four main characters are inspired by these real-life Dashers with other ambitions, similar to the way that many of Marvel’s characters have alternate lives and careers when they’re not busy saving the city, Glazer said.

 

This campaign comes on the heels of a larger marketing push from DoorDash in August focusing on DoorDash’s impact on the economies of communities around the world. The 2021 report, which DoorDash conducted with Oxford Economics, revealed that over 6.3 million people globally deliver food for DoorDash, and these Dashers completed almost 1.4 billion deliveries in 2021 alone.

15736: BHM 2022—Marvel And DC.

 

Marvel and DC celebrate Black History Month in super style…

 

14380: Stan Lee (1922-2018).

The late Stan Lee is best known for his comic book creations. Yet he was a heroic equality defender too.

14018: BHM 2018—Black Panther.

Marvel makes BHM stand for Black Hero Month.

13948: Super Sex Objects.

This series of photos was described as follows:

Los Angeles-based fashion photographer Viktorija Pashuta, famous for her creative viral photo shoots, comes up with a new series of high fashion images exclusively for BASIC Magazine, where she reimagines what famous AVENGERS MARVEL CHARACTERS would look like if they were female.

Sponsored by luxury suitcase company DESENO, the photographer transforms six famous superheroes like THOR, IRONMAN, HULK, CAPTAIN AMERICA, BLACK PANTHER and HAWKEYE into WOMEN SUPERHEROES. Using one-of-a-kind fashion pieces from European & US designers, she creates images that aim to empower all women around the world and inspire them to be strong, independent and almighty.

Okay, but not sure these images really save the day, so to speak. After all, the women are arguably objectified and hardly inspirational. Actual female heroes in the Marvel universe exhibit greater strength, independence and almightiness. Plus, some of the Marvel characters already have female versions. Finally, the lack of diversity is super insulting.

13154: We Don’t Need Another Hero.

This campaign featuring Super Pedophiles—created by Grey in Costa Rica—is super awful.

12497: Pascal’s Prestigious Penance.

The New York Times reported soon-to-be-reassigned Sony Chair and closet racist Amy Pascal will be working on the studio’s Spider-Man series. Hey, maybe she’ll support the fans on Twitter calling for a Black Spider-Man.

Amy Pascal to Work on Sony’s Spider-Man Team

By Brooks Barnes and Michael Cieply

LOS ANGELES — Amy Pascal may be giving up the Sony Pictures crown, but she’s keeping the jewels.

In a deal announced late Monday, Ms. Pascal will join the producing team for Sony’s most important film property — the Spider-Man series — when she steps down as the studio’s movie chairwoman in May. Landing the blockbuster franchise ranks her alongside Hollywood’s most prominent producers.

Ms. Pascal will also board the studio’s high-profile “Ghostbusters” remake, according to people briefed on her exit package who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss deals that are still private. She is additionally expected to tackle “Cleopatra,” an epic starring Angelina Jolie that has long gestated at Sony.

Sony also said on Monday that Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, will join Ms. Pascal in producing the next Spider-Man film. As yet untitled, the movie will be released in July 2017. It will not continue the story set out in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” which Sony released to mediocre results last year.

Together, the deals with Ms. Pascal and Marvel signify a structural transition at Sony, which was struggling with uneven box office results long before it suffered a devastating cyberattack in November. Like other studios, Sony will become less an operation run by an auteur chief — for the last 18 years, Ms. Pascal — and more a federation of powerful filmmaking arms competing for coveted release dates.

Whoever succeeds Ms. Pascal will have to play broker among the fiefs. Ms. Pascal, lured by the attractive new deal and drained by the pressures of the hacking crisis, announced her departure last week.

Thomas E. Rothman, the former chief executive of Fox Filmed Entertainment, is now in charge of Sony’s rejuvenated TriStar division. Jeff Robinov recently brought his Studio 8, financed by China’s Fosun Group, to Sony after leaving his post as the top movie executive at Warner Bros. Another Sony division dedicated to lower-budget urban comedies and horror films, Screen Gems, is run by Clint Culpepper.

Mr. Rothman and Mr. Robinov have only just started to assemble what are expected to be dozens of films that — alongside the contributions of Ms. Pascal — will shape Sony’s creative signature through much of the next decade. Mr. Rothman and Mr. Robinov will work together on one early film, Ang Lee’s “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” an Iraq war veteran story.

Ms. Pascal’s exit deal, among the richest in Hollywood history, will guarantee her income of between $30 million and $40 million over four years, according to people briefed on its terms. Her package also includes a percentage of profits on movies she produces and roughly $9 million annually for office costs and discretionary acquisition of scripts.

The agreement ranks in opulence with the farewell 20th Century Fox package given to Peter Chernin when he left as president of the News Corporation in 2009. Among the prime Fox properties Mr. Chernin joined as a producer was the reimagined “Planet of the Apes” series, which went on to generate more than $1 billion at the worldwide box office.

Ms. Pascal’s presence on so many films will inevitably crowd producers who might otherwise have had her slot. Notably, Avi Arad and Matthew Tolmach, both of whom were producers of the last two Spider-Man films, will transition to lesser roles on the next Spider-Man movie.

Spider-Man is a Marvel character, but Marvel sold Sony the movie rights in 1999 and has had almost no involvement since. As part of the agreement with Marvel announced Monday, Marvel can include the Spider-Man character in its own movies — starting, perhaps, with “Captain America: Civil War,” which will arrive in May 2016.

Sony will continue to finance, distribute, own and have final creative control of the stand-alone Spider-Man films.

The Spider-Man series came to Sony when Ms. Pascal helped connect the project with Laura Ziskin, a friend who resigned as president of Fox 2000 in 2009 and quickly set up shop as a producer at Sony. With the immense success of “Spider-Man,” which had about $822 million in worldwide ticket sales after its release in 2002, Ms. Ziskin helped reinvigorate the studio. (She died of breast cancer in 2011.)

Two more sequels, both starring Tobey Maguire as the title character, delivered mammoth ticket sales. But Sony’s last outing with Spider-Man — its original deal with Marvel requires the films to keep coming — did not perform as well as its predecessors, taking in about $706 million at the global box office in 2014.

While Sony has struggled to keep Spider-Man vibrant, Mr. Feige has delivered hits like “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” “We always want to collaborate with the best and most successful filmmakers to grow our franchises,” Michael Lynton, Sony’s chief executive, said in a statement.

12487: Female Avengers Assemble.

The Associated Press reported Marvel will present an all-female Avengers team. Look for Kat Gordon and Lindsey Clay to take credit.

Marvel Comics debuts all-female Avengers team, ‘A-Force’

She-Hulk, Dazzler and Medusa among the heroines teaming up for the publisher’s new title, which will debut in May.

By The Associated Press

The ladies are taking the lead in one of Marvel Comics’ top comic book properties, with an all-female Avengers team called “A-Force” debuting as the company intensifies efforts to bring more girls and women into its male-dominated fan base.

Not only will the book feature some of Marvel’s well-known female heroes, it will be written by two of Marvel’s female comic book writers, Marguerite K. Bennett and Willow Wilson.

Wilson, a Seattle comic book writer who helped break ground in 2013 with her “Ms. Marvel,” the story of a Muslim female superhero, said women were rarely the focus of comic book superhero teams, usually in the role of a girlfriend or damsel in distress.

This book will challenge that script, Wilson said.

“I think that we’re kind of asking some implicit questions with this lineup and one of them is: Do we respond to female superhero teams in the same way that we respond to superhero teams composed primarily or entirely of men?” Wilson said. “So it is a bit of a risk, but it’s a risk that’s been shown to work.”

A-Force won’t be Marvel’s first all-female team, with successful runs of an all-female mutant team in “X-Men.” When it debuts in May, it will join Marvel’s 14 other female-led books, like Ms. Marvel and “Captain Marvel,” which is scheduled to become a Marvel movie. DC Comics also has several female leads, including Batgirl, Catwoman, Batwoman and Wonder Woman, the longest-running comic book with a female hero.

A-Force — which will feature characters like She-Hulk, Dazzler and Medusa, as well as a new hero called Singularity — will hopefully get more women and girls to transition from successful superhero movies like “Marvel’s The Avengers” and “The Dark Knight” to reading comic books, Wilson said. Part of the way forward is to have female characters take the same kind of journeys taken by superheroes like Batman and Spider-Man and told from a female point of view, she said.

“There’s a big push … to have that same kind of recognizable, really enduring storytelling that appeals — not just to women readers but to men as well — and that reflects that same journey, that same coming of age, that same struggle that we all identify with through the eyes of female characters,” Wilson said.

And while the majority of comic book buyers are male, millennials and Generation Xers are becoming more accepting of stories told from different points of view, she said. “In the past, when you had teams that were composed entirely of men and with maybe one woman, that was considered something very usual but to do the reverse was somehow unthinkable,” she said. “We’re at a time now where we can ask why that is.”

12173: Marvel Makes More Movies.

From The New York Times…

Marvel Unveils an Ambitious Roster of Films, With a Bit of Diversity

By Brooks Barnes

LOS ANGELES — It’s Marvel’s world. The rest of Hollywood just lives in it.

Following the release of 10 back-to-back blockbusters — not counting more than a dozen smash hits starring Marvel characters but produced by outside studios — Marvel Entertainment on Tuesday announced a lineup of nine new movies.

Marvel will notably devote entire films to a female character, Captain Marvel, and to an African superhero, the Black Panther.

After revealing the roster of films, which includes a two-part “Avengers: Infinity War,” Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios, told a packed El Capitan Theater here, “As you can see, we have a hell of a lot of work to do.”

Shares of the Walt Disney Company, which owns Marvel, climbed nearly 2 percent after the announcement, closing at $89.93. Investors like long-term film-franchise building because it greatly lessens the risk of fluctuations in studio financial results. Wall Street now knows Marvel’s plans through mid-2019.

Marvel’s announcement came two weeks after DC Entertainment, a division of Warner Bros., unveiled its own roster of nine new superhero films. Add the Marvel and DC slates to plans by other studios to keep mining the comic book genre, and Hollywood is on track to deliver 29 superhero movies in the next six years.

Can the marketplace absorb the glut? Some media analysts warn that superhero fatigue is already setting in, but Mr. Feige brushed aside concerns. “If the movies deliver in terms of quality, they will succeed,” he said.

When DC confirmed its slate — single movies will be devoted to Aquaman, Wonder Woman and, in a redo, the Green Lantern — Mr. Feige said Marvel’s reaction was: “Let’s stick to our plan. Let’s do what the audience is telling us we’re doing right.”

Marvel’s 10-movie run, which started in 2008, has been worth $7 billion at the box office; DVDs, TV reruns and merchandise have generated billions of dollars more.

The new Marvel movies for 2016 are “Doctor Strange,” which is expected to star Benedict Cumberbatch, and “Captain America: Civil War,” which will co-star Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man and introduce Chadwick Boseman as the Black Panther. Following, in 2017, will be “Guardians of the Galaxy 2,” “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Black Panther.”

In 2018, Marvel will release the first of the two “Avengers: Infinity War” movies; “Captain Marvel,” based around a not-yet-cast superheroine named Carol Danvers, who has cosmic powers; and “Inhumans,” a film that Mr. Feige said would introduce “tons” of new characters and is envisioned as “a franchise and perhaps a series of franchises.”

Mr. Feige said a version of Tuesday’s splashy announcement event — taking the stage were Mr. Downey, Chris Evans, who plays Captain America, and Mr. Boseman — was supposed to have happened at Comic-Con International in July. But Marvel decided to wait in part to see how audiences responded to the unknown characters in “Guardians of the Galaxy,” which arrived in August. It now ranks as the year’s No. 1 domestic movie.

12112: Thor, Goddess Of Thunder.

From USA TODAY…

It’s hammer time for a new female Thor

By Brian Truitt, USA TODAY

Thor is looking a little curvier than usual, but this new goddess of thunder can wield a mystical hammer as well as any Asgardian dude.

When the Avenger we all know and love is deemed unworthy to lift the mighty weapon Mjolnir, a woman takes up the mantle in Thor, the relaunched Marvel Comics series debuting Wednesday by writer Jason Aaron and artist Russell Dauterman.

“She’s going to be Thor,” says Marvel executive editor Tom Brevoort, “as powerful and strong as the previous god and embodying the same sort of nobility we think of as being Thor.”

(Don’t worry, Chris Hemsworth fans: The actor is still set to play his very male Thor in next summer’s Avengers: Age of Ultron and other Marvel movies in the foreseeable future.)

Aaron had been writing the male Thor in his God of Thunder comic book. But when old super-spy Nick Fury whispered something to Thor in the event series Original Sin, it made the Norse superhero drop the hammer and not be able to pick it up again.

Enter a mysterious woman from his corner of the Marvel Universe who wears a mask and is the first female to carry Mjolnir around.

The enchanted weapon has had a home in the hands of various folks over the years, from the alien Beta Ray Bill to even a frog Thor. But after Aaron built up the female supporting cast in his series, it made sense that the new Thor “was going to wind up being a lady,” says the writer.

“There will be things she does that are very different than what the previous guy did, in particular her relationship with Mjolnir. I’m having a lot of fun exploring that and really making Mjolnir a character in and of itself.”

Having a woman as Thor allows Aaron to continue playing with gender roles within the book. Thor’s mother, Freyja, has been ruling their Asgardian kingdom as its All-Mother, but when Odin returns, he expects it to fall back under his control.

Not so fast, says Aaron. “Now Freyja has proven herself to be a worthy leader and she’s not ready to just step aside and drift back into the shadows.

“The fact that Odin couldn’t pick up the hammer and someone else does, let alone a woman, and the fact that not even Odin knows who this person is under the mask, I imagine all that is going to drive him quite crazy.”

Meanwhile the hero formerly known as Thor, the Odinson, is in a darker place than ever because he can’t lift Mjolnir. However, when a giant threat arises on Earth, he rushes to help, even without his powers.

“He was always questioning his worthiness — there was always that little doubt in the back of his mind that he wasn’t the god he could be,” Aaron says. “Now, that doubt has exploded and seems to be confirmed.”

What exactly was whispered into his ear is going to stay a mystery for a while, the writer adds. While some assume it’s some dastardly revelation, “that he once pushed a bunch of nuns down the stairs or something,” there’s a little more to it than that.

The identity of the new Thor will also remain a secret, but Aaron promises not to tease it out for months and months. “The real story begins once we know who she is and what her story is. That’s the part I’m really excited to get to.”

There will also be a Thor vs. Thor confrontation early on since the previous guy is going to be angry someone else is running around with his favorite hammer.

That relationship will be one of the comic’s ongoing dramas as the Odinson becomes very interested in revealing the heroine, “especially once he decides that this is someone who knows him,” Aaron says. “He’s going to be looking at all the women around him in his life and try to figure out which one is this new Thor.”

12016: You Da Spider-Man.

From USA TODAY…

Spider-Man ‘can be anybody’ — and now he’s Donald Glover

By Brian Truitt, USA TODAY

Donald Glover grew up with Spider-Man as his No. 1 superhero, and while he doesn’t get to wear web-shooters or red and blue tights, at least he’s getting to voice a precocious version of Marvel Comics’ iconic wall-crawler.

The new season of Disney XD’s animated series Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors will take Peter Parker through various parallel worlds, including one where he meets Miles Morales, his half-Hispanic, half-black counterpart, voiced by Glover. The season premieres Sunday (9 a.m. ET/PT), and the “Spider-Verse” arc of episodes airs next year.

In 2011, Miles was introduced to comic-book readers in Marvel Comics’ Ultimate Spider-Man series by Brian Michael Bendis, after the writer saw Glover’s Twitter campaign to play Spidey in a live-action movie — and witnessed Glover dressed up in Spidey pajamas on the NBC sitcom Community.

“I don’t think it’s hit me necessarily yet how big of a deal that is,” Glover, 30, says. “I’m very grateful for that, and it’s cool to read the comic now.”

The cartoon Miles is very close to the comic-book version: The 13-year-old is still getting used to being a superhero when he meets the dimension-hopping Peter (Drake Bell), who’s trying to stop his old nemesis the Green Goblin from collecting the DNA of various Spider-Men — from Spider-Man Noir to the porcine hero Spider-Ham — for nefarious reasons.

It’s an emotional moment for Miles, though, because in his world, Peter is dead.

“He meets someone who is his hero, and that comes across completely in Donald’s performance,” says Stephen Wacker, a former Spider-Man editor at Marvel Comics who’s now vice president of Marvel Television’s animation division. “He’s got a real warmth that suits the character really, really well.

“If you’ve read Miles Morales comics, Donald’s voice nails what you’ve been reading.”

Miles is also a character cut from the exact same cloth as the original Spidey, Wacker adds. “He’s a kid you can root for, who you want good things for, who suffered some loss of his own, and we’re seeing him come to terms with his new powers and how to use them.”

Miles is a high school student who tries to balance a family life with moonlighting as Spider-Man, Glover says, “and it’s a lot of pressure for a kid to be yourself and have all this responsibility. Miles is really brave, and that’s a cool attribute to have when you’re that young.

“I admire anybody who allows themselves to be themselves. Especially a kid.”

Glover, who has a high voice, didn’t have to pitch it up too much to play a teenager with a heap of youthful optimism. Actually, there wasn’t a whole lot of pretending to be someone else needed.

“That’s the great part about the Spider-Man costume: He can be anybody,” Glover says. “Spider-Man could be a girl. Spider-Man could be an old man. You don’t know. So I just tried to be as me as possible, because you’re always just going to bring it back to yourself when you watch the show.”

Kids come up to Glover at his Childish Gambino concerts asking him to sign their Miles Morales comics. The actor can relate since he, too, was a Spider-fan from way back.

“I never liked Superman that much, because I was like, ‘Yo, this dude can’t die. It’s too easy,’” Glover says. “Batman is pretty fly. He’s a close second, just because he doesn’t really have powers. He’s just a justice-driven vigilante.

“Spider-Man is the best because you just don’t know who he is, and he’s funny and he’s poor. I understand Spider-Man a lot on that level. He’s just trying to make it.”

Glover still gets a kick out of how much has come from one comment about wanting to don tights and be Spider-Man. Voicing Miles is not exactly the same thing, he says, “but it’s pretty good. I’m still holding out, though.

“I still have hopes to do something like that one day. I don’t look at this as second place. Spider-Man, he’s such an icon — you have to do something with him.”

12005: Sexist Spider-Woman…?

From The New York Daily News…

Illustrator’s ‘Spider-Woman #1’ cover features heroine in overtly sexual pose, critics say

The alternate cover by Italian erotica artist Milo Manara will be an option for customers beginning Nov. 19. Some have blasted it as sexist and in poor taste, while other comic fans aren’t offended.

By Ethan Sacks

The curves on this Marvel character make no spidey sense.

An Italian erotica illustrator has spun a tangled web of controversy after drawing an alternative cover for an upcoming Spider-Woman comic that shows the character in a pose that would make Miley Cyrus blush.

Critics have blasted the cover of “Spider-Woman #1” as overly sexual, sexist and in poor taste. But some fans aren’t offended by the image, showing the heroine with her derriere in the air.

It looks more like a Nicki Minaj album cover than the front of a comic.

“I was surprised to see it because of how well Marvel had been doing recently,” says Jill Pantozzi, managing editor of TheMarySue.com, a pop culture news site. “For a variant cover to pop up which is very offensive to many women and men, there seems to be a disconnect there.”

The variant cover, drawn by Milo Manara, will be an option for customers beginning Nov. 19.

Dani Ward, manager of Staten Island’s JHU Comic Books, finds the cover unsurprising in an industry that has catered mainly to adolescent males since long before the character was first created in 1977.

“Not many regular comic readers are offended by this,” she says. “They get more offended if someone draws lips on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

Still, it’s a particularly surprising KAPOW! for female readers given Marvel’s recent track record. The publisher has been praised for adding a number of new titles centered around female characters for a growing segment of its readership.

The company announced a woman would be taking over the hammer as the new Thor, the character played by Chris Hemsworth in the Marvel movies. Other new Marvel titles have focused on veteran heroines Black Widow, She-Hulk, Captain Marvel and Elektra.

Marvel has also introduced a series around a new Ms. Marvel character, whose alter ego is a Muslim-American teenage girl from Jersey City.

Marvel executive editor Tom Brevoort answered a fan’s question on the sexy spider via his blog.

“I think that the people who are upset about that cover have a point, at least in how the image relates to them,” Brevoort wrote.

He added that Manara’s Spider-Woman art seems “far less exploitative to me than other Manara pieces we’ve run in previous months and years.”

Breevort said “the character is covered head-to-toe, and is crouched in a spider-like pose.”

“But all that said, it’s the right of every reader not to like something,” he added.

11873: Super Bullshit From BBDO.

Advertising Age reported on the latest initiative to come from BBDO’s Diversity Council: a Marvel comic book hyping the importance of inclusion. Is BBDO’s Diversity Council part of the Omnicom Diversity Development Advisory Committee? Gee, these agencies are creating a veritable Justice League of Delegating Diversity. The comic book, not surprisingly, fails to mention the real villains on Madison Avenue still perpetuating exclusivity. Rather, it’s a partnership between BBDO and New York’s Police Athletic League designed to aim a positive message towards kids. Why does the advertising industry consistently ignore addressing its own ranks regarding diversity, opting to target children instead? Wonder what the youngsters would think upon discovering the comic book creators—namely, the majority of staffers at BBDO—more closely resemble Mad Men versus X-Men.

BBDO Teams with Marvel on New Avengers Comic Book

‘Heroes Welcome’ Is Latest in Agency’s Diversity Initiatives

By Ann-Christine Diaz

Diversity can be a tough issue to tackle—but it helps when you have The Avengers to back you up. That’s the thinking behind a partnership between BBDO and Marvel to create a custom comic book “Avengers: Heroes Welcome.”

The title is an initiative of BBDO’s Diversity Council, and ties into an education and distribution program aimed at kids through New York’s Police Athletic League and online. It features the young hero Nova, who questions the notion of heroes in a world plagued by strife and approaches more seasoned heroes like Iron Man, Thor, She-Hulk and others for advice.

The comic book, which coincides with Marvel’s 75th anniversary, was actually years in the making and was one of the first ideas to come out of BBDO’s Diversity Council when it was formed in 2006 to promote an ethos of acceptance across the agency’s culture, business practices and beyond. “It’s not a black, white or an age thing,” said BBDO New York President-CEO John Osborn, who founded the council. “It’s totally about acceptance and inclusion and it’s not just the right thing to do, it’s the right thing for our business.”

Shifts in the economy put the project “on the back burner, but we kept focus and took whatever steps we could toward an eventual completion,” said JD Michaels, senior VP-director of tactile production and creative engineering as well as a founding member of the council. “We didn’t give up on it.”

Mr. Michaels has helped steer the project throughout. “I’m African American, and when I was a kid, many of the stories I read about Marvel Heroes helped me,” he said. “They were regular people but had super powers and went through all the things I went through.”

The comic book that finally resulted is an evolution of a tale written eight years ago—one of four the agency originally thought up around various Marvel heroes.

“The relevance of a comic book that talked to kids about gender and race before the Obama Presidency was one world,” Mr. Michaels said. “Today’s world is a little different. Culture has shifted and we wanted to make sure this effort was less defensive and more inspirational.”

The popularity of certain Marvel characters has also skyrocketed thanks to Hollywood in the time since the original idea, so Marvel built out the new cast to pull in certain heavyweights alongside characters reflecting some diversity, such as She-Hulk and African American hero Power Man.

Although this was a custom title, Marvel tapped one of its top writers, Brian Michael Bendis, an Avengers and X-Men vet who also co-created “Ultimate Spider Man,” as well as one of its most popular artists, Mark Brooks, who has illustrated for X-Men, Avengers and Spider Man titles.

The comic tries not to come off as preachy, according to Marvel Custom Solutions Creative Director Bill Rosemann said. “What I’ve always appreciated about our comics is that they don’t hit you over the head with the message,” he said. “One strength of the story is its subtle message, with diversity baked in. We don’t have to hit you over the head with it.”

For now, BBDO and Marvel have no plans to release a follow-up, but if the comic book sparks more conversation, “this may be the first step in something that may have a longer shelf life,” said Mr. Osborn.

11809: Flying High As The Falcon.

From The New York Daily News…

Anthony Mackie talks about his role as Falcon in ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ opening late Thursday

The 35-year-old actor describes a failed stunt and feelings about playing a superhero of color on the big screen. Marvel’s ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier,’ starring Anthony Mackie and Chris Evans opens late Thursday. By Ethan Sacks

Strapped to a four-point harness and suspended 15 feet off the ground, actor Anthony Mackie briefly felt like he was flying on the set of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” — costumed as the heroic Falcon.

But that feeling was quickly replaced by panic as the stunt crew hoisted him up 70 feet and let go.

“I was supposed to land next to Chris Evans and take three steps before I ran into a parked van,” Mackie told the Daily News from the stable perch of an eighth-floor balcony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. “I’m coming in and I’m looking at Chris and he’s looking at me like ‘Dude, you’re going to die.’ The fear in his eyes made me freak out. … I couldn’t stop. I knocked Chris over and just smashed into this van.”

The 35-year-old product of the Juilliard School may not have stuck that particular landing, but he’s in rarefied air as a major milestone in the superhero genre.

While Wesley Snipes’ “Blade” and Michael Jai White’s “Spawn” have roots in the pages of comic books, Falcon is the first true costumed crusader of color on the big screen.

Mackie’s team had been campaigning directly to Marvel since “Iron Man” blasted off in 2008.

“We would call and write letters after ‘The Hurt Locker,’ saying we would love to be a part of the Marvel Universe,” says Mackie, who pitched another hero, the Black Panther.

“I thought it was a no-brainer for there to be a black superhero movie in the time of superhero movies. And it got to the point where we harassed them so much, they went, ‘Don’t call us anymore, we’ll call you.’”

Marvel Studios kept its word. The next thing he knew, he was being fitted for that cursed harness that left him with a pinched nerve in his back. Now, the moment is here — the action flick opens late Thursday.

Mackie’s older brother is a comic-book nerd who briefed the actor on the importance of the character introduced by Stan Lee and artist Gene Colan in 1969 as a bridge to the civil rights movement for the relatively vanilla Captain America.

And if Mackie didn’t appreciate the history, co-star Samuel L. Jackson could remind him.

“I was a product of segregation and I just knew that’s how the world was in my mind,” says Jackson. “The idea if it was going to be a superperson, he wasn’t going to be a person of color. They didn’t even have black villains in the books.

“When ‘Star Wars’ happened, I realized how important it was to my friends and their kids,” added Jackson of his own role as a barrier-breaking Jedi in “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.”

“Then I started to understand more about what the necessity was to have characters like that in the films that would make people feel better.”

Now that he’s fully healed, Mackie, who splits his time between homes in Brooklyn and New Orleans, is campaigning to join the cast of “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”

This time, he’s holding out for a Falcon jet.

“I feel like Batman is the luckiest rich kid in the world,” he says, laughing. “Flying without a jet is not for the faint of heart.”

11552: Muslim Ms. Marvel.

From The New York Daily News…

Marvel Comics introduces new Ms. Marvel, a Muslim American teenager

Kamala Khan is a Pakistani-American teen from Jersey City with strict parents and new powers.

By Ethan Sacks / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Marvel Comics is adding some needed color to the world of costumed superheroes.

The publisher announced it’s introducing a new Muslim superheroine, a revamped Ms. Marvel, whose secret identity is that of a Pakistani-American teenager from Jersey City.

Sixteen-year-old Kamala Khan is the brainchild of writer G. Willow Wilson, an Islamic convert herself, and Muslim editor Sana Amanat in an effort to reach out to segments of the comic book reading public that haven’t had their own heroes.

“At her core, Kamala is just a 16-year-old girl, exploring the many facets of her identity when she is suddenly bestowed with super-human powers that send her on the adventure of a lifetime,” Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso said in a release.

Khan will debut in January’s “All-New Marvel NOW! Point One Comic Book” before kicking off her own “Ms. Marvel” series a month later. The creators promised the title would focus as much on her interaction with her more traditional parents as it would with battles with super villains.

“Any time you do something like this, it is a bit of a risk,” Wilson told the New York Times. “You’re trying to bring the audience on board, and they are used to seeing something else in the pages of a comic book.”

Khan’s introduction comes a year after rival publisher DC Comics introduced its own major Muslim character—a Green Lantern from Dearborn, Mich., named Simon Baz.

“It continued to reinforce that our readership is extremely diverse, so we want to continue to diversify the characters in our universe,” creator Geoff Johns, himself a Lebanese American from Dearborn, told the Daily News at the time.