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The 31-year-old animation company that produces the animation for "The Simpsons" has a new owner.

I love the character and attitude that artist David Lafuente puts into his comics pages! This week saw the release of the fifth and final issue of Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. Assassin, which features another deliciously dynamic cover by Lafuente. David Lafuente is from Spain and currently lives in London where he’s working on his next big project, a creator-owned series for Image Comics called The Ludocrats with fellow creators Kieron Gillen and Jim Rossignol.

Lafuente first cut his teeth in the mainstream comics world on the 2008-09 Hellcat mini-series with writer/artist Kathryn Immonen, then worked with Brian M. Bendis on the Ultimate Spider-Man relaunch. Some of my favorite art by David Lafuente is his interior work on the All-New Doop series in 2014 with Doop’s creator’s Peter Milligan & Mike Allred; check out those beautiful pages above!

Other notable works include Batman Eternal, Batgirl, Neli Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, and The Runaways.

You can follow David Lafuente and see his art process on his tumblr page here.

For more comics related art, you can follow me on my website comicstavern.com – Andy Yates

Over the weekend at Emerald City Comic Con , Marvel’s Vp of animation Cort Lane threw a one man panel with lots of teases for most of the Marvel animated shows and a preview of Avengers Assemble returning only to  ‘Disassemble” .

Ultimate Spider-Man will return to finish its season in July with a new storyline titled S.H.I.E.L.D ACADEMY. Many of the characters Spider-Man recruited at the beginning of Web-Warriors will be joining him again. Even Trition from the Inhumans and Squirrel Girl are coming back. Fans can also look forward to the threat of Arnim Zola, voiced by Mark Hamill, in a look that can only be described as Kang from Ninja Turtles meets Apple Computers. In addition Robert Patrick will be voicing The Whizzer, yep that guy.

Fans also got a look at the entire first episode of the “Disassembled” arc. If you want the spoiler run then highlight this blank space.

Episode begins with a Captain America-less Avengers battling the Adaptoid. Spider-Man joins the team in order to combat the robot who can mimic all the powers of the Avengers. Cap joins the fray alongside S.H.I.E.L.D as he’s been working for them since leaving the team an episode before. He’s even in his Winter Soldier film based costume.

The audience finds out Adaptoid is actually Ultron in disguise and he’s been after Starks tech the entire time. In a desperation move, Stark enacts his “final protocol,” destroying his labs and Avengers Tower to stop Ultron.

Cap and Stark are clearly building towards a mini inner Avengers civil war. Spider-Man is trying to hold things together, but ditched the Avengers. Cap has called for a new Avengers team, seeing Falcon, Black Widow and Hulk join his team, while Tony, Hawkeye, and Thor ban together.
The Avengers have officially disassembled, giving Ultron exactly what he wanted.

During the fan Q&A we got a few teases about the animated Marvel U:

-No kid Avengers plans.

-Plans are in the works to have animation produce something that takes place in the Marvel cinematic universe.

-No X-Men plans since those rights are still controlled by Fox, which include animation. They’ve only been able to get away with using Wolverine in his solo character costume incarnations with no X-Men ties.

To close things out, Cort showed the Guardians of the Galaxy prequel shorts leading up to the premiere of the animated series. First was Star-Lord part I. It takes most of its cues from the film version of the team, even going so far to say it may be a fill in for missing information. What we saw deals with what happened when Peter Quill was beamed aboard the alien ship as a child. In this version he’s had the Element Guns all along but is just now discovering their power.

A preview was show of Rocket Raccoon’s short. We see the moment he escapes the lab and becomes partners with Groot. You’ll hear the famous “Ain’t no thing like me…” line and it’s even got mature tones of his acceptance that he’s lost anything that will connect him to his species.

Marvel’s animation presentation was the most informative of all their ECCC panels. Cort’s division has made the Disney merger benefit Marvel without having to sacrifice much in the way of character voice.

Hopefully during Wondercon we’ll get answers to when fans will see the Guardians prequel shorts, what’s coming up in Agents of S.M.A.S.H and what the future holds for Ultimate Spider-Man once its third season ends since typically most Marvel animated series after 1997 only last between 3-5 years.

Would you want to see Marvel animated do something in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

Ultimate Spider-Man and Amazing Spider-Man are two of Marvel’s most consistent titles, with writers Brian Michael Bendis and Dan Slott respectively putting an incredible amount of energy into two very long-running books which should by rights have become stale and repetitive by now. But while Peter is fully established and one of the most powerful, recognisable personalities to be found anywhere in comics; Miles is still new and relatively untested as a character. While Ultimate Spider-Man is a well-written book, Miles has only been the star for a few months and the pacing is glacial.

In a few years we’ll probably be able to look back and view Miles as a character with a rich history (well, let’s hope so!) but at the moment of writing, he’s neither punched an eight-limbed astigmatic nor hit the jackpot.

Which is why Spider-Men is a smart idea for Marvel. Bendis is in charge of the entire storyline – rather obviously, given his affinity for Spiders both Peter and Miles – and has five issues to bring the two characters across universes, and into sight (and fists) of each other. And it’s probably one of the freshest, most energetic and fun takes on superheroics that I’ve read in ages.  The story is so by-the-numbers that I could already likely tell you what happens in each of the following four issues, and guess at least three of the cliffhangers – but the characterisation is invigorating, the pacing fast, and the concept strong.

Peter takes most of the attention in this first issue, with Bendis finally getting his chance to do some solo work with the character. He’s clearly been wanting to write about the Amazing Spider-Man for years now, adding him to various Avengers teams and contributing short stories whenever a new anthology or anniversary issue comes out. He’s funny here, although there are still very strong reminders why Bendis’ version of the Amazing Spider-Man is widely hated by everyone who has to spend more than five minutes with him. The jokes tend to work, although sometimes they grate extensively. When Bendis treats this as a throwaway, fun story, which isn’t *important* but is widely entertaining, he is at his best. There’s a rare sense of freedom in the story, which is probably because the Ultimate Universe is still an alterable playground for writers. 

It feels a lot like artist Sara Pichelli has loosened up Bendis’ writing over the past few months working with him, with her layouts allowing the book to look structurally like some of the classic Stan Lee stories, but with updated art and lush colours from Justin Ponsor. Pichelli has to spend a lot of time with a character who is relatively new to her here, and it would’ve been easy for her to give Peter the body-type and language of his predecessor. She doesn’t so that. Peter is reconfigured to look bigger, bulkier; and he moves with more swagger and confidence than Ultimate Peter ever did.

While Bendis’ script is solid, there are several moments – especially during a scene midway through – which would’ve crashed without someone as flexible as Pichelli to handle them. Her decision to stick rigidly to a panel layout means that the fight scenes can sometimes feel a little like a progression of moves, instead of a fluid, flowing fight, however. Her refusal to break between panels does slow things a little. But it’s more than made up for through her actual fight choreography, which rolls across slowly and allows readers the cha



When do you let go of that childhood dream? Jim Mroczkowski at iFanboy looks at the fannish habit of holding on to something you hate in hopes of something improving vis a vis the new Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon on Disney XD, of which he writes:

UltimateSo far, I have recorded every episode of DisneyXD’s latest iteration of the Parker mythos, and I have risked spinal damage bending over backwards to give it the benefit of the doubt each weekend. I’ve loved the comic for twelve years; I love Paul Dini; I love Brian Bendis. Their show makes me want to burn Disneyland to the ground and pee on the embers. But I keep sticking by it and sticking up for it, like it is going to get better.

No, of course Ultimate Spider-Man doesn’t float your boat. You aren’t eleven years old.

In other words: no, I’m not enjoying this program about my favorite character by my favorite creative team, but what if this particular children’s show about a colorful superhero was a cartoon on the Disney Channel intended for little kids, as opposed to an epic meant for 37-year-old homeowners?

This is the real question, isn’t it? Isn’t it okay to let children have their superheroes once in a while?

We managed to catch an episode of USM the other day. Interestingly, it was on at like 9 pm which, to be fair, is not a time when tots are regularly watching toons. The guiding hands of Ben 10 pilots Man of Action would indicated some attempt at kid friendliness though.

The thing that struck us the most about the show was its incredible devotion to looking like a cheap 90s cartoon. 90s nostalgia!