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A series of mini-shorts will debut on Disney XD tomorrow.

At New York Comic Con earlier this month, Disney-owned Marvel unveiled test footage from its "Guardians of the Galaxy" animated series, which will premiere in 2015 on Disney XD's Marvel Universe programming block.

StarWars.com
has unveiled Joe Quesada’s variant cover to Star Wars
#1. The first Marvel issue of the 21st century will debut in
January with story by Jason Aaron, and art by John Cassaday and
Laura Martin. Marrtin colored Quesada’s cover. Marvel’s CCO
wrote:

I was asked to give a quote
about this cover and to tell fans about the first time I saw Star
Wars or how it completely changed my life, but it’s a story I’m
sure isn’t all that interesting when compared to the countless
others that have been told, much more eloquently, by so many before
me,” said Quesada. “While each of us has had our unique moments of
discovery and love affair with the property there’s nothing that I
think I could say or add that hasn’t been said before and
truthfully it really isn’t all that important because It’s that
love for Star Wars that binds all of us who share those unique
moments like the Force itself. That’s why when I was offered the
opportunity to do this cover I was both thrilled beyond belief and
as nervous as I was when I did my very first professional work over
twenty years ago. To have the opportunity to illustrate the classic
cast members in one piece has been by far one of the highlights of
my career as an artist. I can only hope that it turned out okay and
that maybe, just maybe, I get the chance to do it again
someday.

I like it, but no
Jaxxon?

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Although the Miracleman reprints by Marvel have more or less been business as usual and not the apocalypse, news of never-before seen Miracleman stories by Grant Morrison and Peter Milligan is still exciting. Vulture has the deets on a new Miracleman Annual #1 which will be out on December 31st and include a long-lost story written by Morrison, now found and drawn by Joe Queseda, and an all new story written by Milligan with art by Mike Allred. The cover is by Gabriele Dell’Otto, and the variant by Jeff Smith.

The Morrison story was unearthed in an article right here on the Beat written by Pádraig Ó Méalóid. Given the long antipathy between Morrison and Moore, it’s a surprising detail but according to Morrison in the Talking with Gods documentary, the story being spiked when it was written in the mid-80s might have been one of the root causes of the feud. Morrison said:

I didn’t want to do it without Moore’s permission, and I wrote to him and said, “They’ve asked me to do this, but obviously I really respect you work, and I wouldn’t want to mess anything up. But I don’t want anyone else to do it and mess it up.” And he sent me back this really weird letter, and I remember the opening of it, it said, “I don’t want this to sound like the softly hissed tones of a mafia hitman, but back off.”

With Miracleman back, Marvel started asking about the story and Morrison requested that Quesada draw it — it’s his first interior art in quite a while.

Milligan’s story is bit nostalgic as well, he told Vulture:

“We’re doing a story that, if you like, looks at the Mick Anglo years, what might be seen on the outside as the innocent, old-fashioned years,” Milligan told me. “There’s a scintilla of self-awareness, with Marvelman being — I don’t want to give too much away, but the story is not without some awareness that it’s all going to change very quickly. It’s an homage. All the guys are there, all the craziness.”

Marvel confirmed that the Neil Gaiman-written conclusion to the Miracleman story—now nearly 30 years in the planning—is still in the works. Finegrs crossed!

By David Nieves
One of Marvel’s top cheeses…no not Mickey, the other one Joe Quesada, got together with two of the company’s best architects; Mark Waid and Dan Slott to remind everyone that this Comic-Con is also Marvel’s 75th anniversary. This panel was officially titled “Marvel Comics’ 75th & Daredevil’s 50th” because the guy who titles panels for Marvel was on vacation.

Waid started by talking about the origins of Marvel Comics and the story of Martin Goodman. Inspired by the success of Action Comics a year before, Goodman published Marvel Comics 1 with Stan Lee as an editor at the time. After the decline of superheroes, Goodman continued to venture into lots of different genres. Quesada asked if it was fair to say Goodman was an “advantageous” publisher?

That’s probably the definition of advantageous, Joe. We’ll let it slide because you had that phenomenal run on just about everything.

Waid then talked about Lee being burnt out in the comic book business. That’s when his wife, Joanie, advised him to take one last shot, but to do it the way he wanted to do it. Along side the godfather of comic book art, Jack Kirby, this last try would become Fantastic Four and the rest is make my Marvel history.

Waid brought up the question of first reading Marvel experience to the panelists. Quesada talked about it being the anti-drug issues of Amazing Spider-Man 96-97.  “I never did drugs, but I got addicted to comics. Which may have cost me more money in the long run,” said Quesada.

Quesada talked about the difference between Marvel and DC characters. He feels that DC Comics tend to be lots of Clark Kent is a mask while Superman is the real identity. He credited Stan Lee with switching that around and making guys like Matt Murdock and Peter Parker what the story was about. He related it more to real life; in it being that we all have to put on masks to be someone else instead of them disguising who we really are.

The group turned the attention to Daredevil and discussed the work of character co-creator Bill Everett. He noted the character was one of the few to come fully formed, except for the costume. Quesada joked about the original color scheme being “court jester-ish.’ Quesada talked about his work on the character:  “there’s something beautifully heroic and tragic about the character, and the fact that his powers, while they were somewhat super, you could also probably just explain them away with a person who can hone their own human abilities to utter perfection, if you really wanted to explain them that way. Something about that I really gravitated towards.” He praised the all-star list of creators that have had runs with the character like Frank Miller, Kevin Smith, Bendis, and Brubaker.

Just by mentioning his name, Waid had us all voluntarily clapping for his current Daredevil artist Chris Samnee. He joked about how they’re never leaving the book. Personally, I hope they never do leave the book because Samnee is the best artist of his generation. But I also think that if Waid was ever made king of some land, he’d have a giant drawing of himself by Samnee hanging over the fire place of his presidential moon palace.

Slott then talked about what he loves about Daredevil, “everything about him is really messed-up.” Even joked about Waid’s Daredevil being happy but still messed-up.

The fan Q&A started.
First up was the subject of how the movies have affected the comic books. Waid talked about how he meets many female fans that came to comics through the 90′s X-Men cartoons. He credited Quesada with never pushing the books to be like the movies and realizing that the comics are what drive everything.

The group was asked what they’d be like if they met Steve Ditko. Slot was the only one who ever met him, he did so while working a job at the Marvel office. His face when he answered the question probably looked a lot like the face of excitement he had when actually meeting Ditko.

Netflix Daredevil details were asked, specifically if Power Man and Iron Fist would be partners. While it’s still too early to talk about anything, Quesada did say the plan is to lead to a Defenders series.

Another fan asked if Slott would do something similar to what JMS did on Amazing Spider-Man 36 with the new World Trade Center opening. Slott said he’d be afraid of doing it but thought it was a great idea.

The legacy of Jim Steranko was brought up to the panelists. Waid talked about not knowing of anyone else that had more influence in comics with that small a body of work.” Quesada chimed in saying that, in person,  the man lives up to the legend. At this point I realized I missed the Steranko panel, D’oh!

Q&A closed with the final question being about if Marvel was making the Daredevil series to combat the negative reaction given to the 2003 Ben Affleck film. Quesada sharply intervened saying, “Marvel didn’t make that movie. This is our take on Marvel’s making Daredevil. That’s the only way we’re looking at it.”

The three thanked the crowd for their passion and devotion to the house of ideas and the panel closed. But I’d just like to say Dan Slott is the nicest guy in comics and he can kill however many Spider-people he wants to.