Posted 3/28/11 10:30 am EST by MTV Geek in Comic Books, IDW
G.I. Joe: Cobra Civil War #0 is hitting stands April 13th, but you can read your free preview of the issue right here on MTV Geek! G.I.Joe Cobra Civil War #0 will be featuring three ten-page stories - one for each of the new G.I. Joe ongoing series from IDW starting in May. You can check it all out below!
Preview For G.I. Joe: Cobra Civil War #0
Posted 3/1/11 5:00 pm EST by Alex Zalben in Comic Books, IDW, Interviews
Locke & Key is the best comic book you may not be reading right now, but will be soon. Why’s that? Well, because like The Walking Dead before it, Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s insanely creative gothic horror comic will be heading to FOX as a TV series (read all about that today in MTV Splash Page with Hill and Rodriguez).
So before all your friends are talking about Locke & Key, and how they’re big fans of the show, why not jump into the series? A new issue hits this Wednesday, so to get you all caught up, we chatted with Rodriguez and Hill about how they collaborate, just what they think about pop star Jesse McCartney’s casting on the show, and also threw a few possible keys by them, just to see what they think:
MTV Geek: Okay guys, for those who aren’t up to speed – where are we now in Locke & Key? What’s happened so far?
Joe Hill: In the largest possible sense, Locke & Key is the story of a New England mansion filled with impossible keys. Each key has a unique power which is usually switched on by opening a particular door. The oldest of all the keys, the Omega Key, opens something called the Black Door, located in the caves below the house. And this is a door that’s better off left shut. There’s something very bad on the other side.
Gabriel Rodriguez: Locke & Key is also a story about growing. About discovering death, leaving childhood behind, and shaping your own self. It’s about secrets and guilt, but also about love and friendship. It’s about empty people who become enraged because they can’t deal with their pain. It’s about facing fear. It’s a story in which magic is the key to new possibilities, but never the answer to problems that matter. And a story about opening scary doors, and taking responsibility for the consequences…
JH: On a more micro sense, right now Locke & Key is about three kids, Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode, who have moved to Keyhouse following the murder of their father. In the first storyline, little Bode discovers a beautiful young girl living in the wellhouse behind the mansion, a girl with incredible powers. This is Dodge, the reincarnation of a murderous teenager who tried to open the Black Door about thirty years before.
By the end of that first story, Dodge is free, and has used a key to change to a guy… His original gender. In the stories that follow, Dodge takes an assumed name, Zack Wells, and befriends the Locke kids, staying close to them in an attempt to find the Omega Key. In the process of looking for the thing, a lot of people get killed. Now, in the most recent issues, Tyler Locke, the oldest, has begun to suspect his good old buddy Zack has been playing him. We’re about to drop the curtain on the second act of what has been a very big three-act story.
GR: We’ve just finished establishing our mythology and our characters. So it’s time to start tying things up, resolving conflicts, and getting some answers. Time to find out what’s behind the mysteries, even though we may not like what we would find there. Getting the answers has a price, and for some it’s going to be really hard to pay…
Geek: You’ve always embraced the comic book form wholeheartedly in the book, but this mini – Keys to the Kingdom – in particular seems like it’s playing with the format. Why was that important to do at this point in the series?
JH: After KEYS TO THE KINGDOM concludes, there's only a dozen issues left before we'll be done telling this story. So KEYS felt like our last chance to do some standalones, and explore the possibilities of all the different keys. Each key is a story; and each story wants to be told a different way. Read More...
Posted 2/22/11 1:44 pm EST by Alex Zalben in Comic Books, Five Minute Recap, IDW
Getting into a comic book mid-way through its run is hard! So we’ve made it easy for you: in just five short minutes (or less), we’ll get you caught up on a comic book you need to pick up tomorrow… Today! Oh, and in case it wasn’t clear: spoilers on.
There’s good news and bad news on this one, folks. Locke & Key is an incredibly intricate, twisty horror/mystery series that rewards readers with huge revelations, and great character pay-offs, particularly if you’ve been reading since the beginning. The good news is, though, that writer Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez’s award winning series – which will soon be a TV show on FOX – is written for the single issue, so you can easily pick up any issue and start there.
That said, this Wednesdays issue, Locke & Key: Keys to the Kingdom #5 is a little bit of an exception, in that it’s the pay-off of a number of storylines, as well as a rare Part 1 of 2 story. No worries though, broheim: the Five Minute Recap is here to help.
The Locke family, hoping to put the horrible murder of their patriarch behind them, traveled to Keyhouse in Lovecraft, Massachussts – which is pretty much the same as the Stabbed family moving into Knifehouse is DeathTown, USA – and soon discovered all was not as it seemed. The house was home to a malevolent spirit who wants something called The Omega Key, a vastly powerful artifact with the power to open something we’ll get to in a second. But first, our major characters!
Oh, actually, before that: Daddy Locke was part of something much bigger, we think, trying to prevent this evil being from getting its hands on the Omega Key. Throughout the house, there’s other keys with fantastic powers, some which aid the enemy, other that can be used to stop it. The Locke Kids are the ones who are engaged in this struggle.
Okay, okay, characters:
Tyler Locke:
The oldest, a high school student who has taken his father’s death the hardest. He constantly works to protect his siblings, often at his own expense.
Kinsey Locke:
Posted 2/14/11 3:59 pm EST by Alex Zalben in Comic Books, IDW, Interviews
Zombies are invading the multiverse, and the only people who can stop them are Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning! Wait, that’s not quite right. Abnett and Lanning – affectionately known as DnA – are the architects of IDW’s massive crossover Infestation, which pits zombies against G.I. Joe, Star Trek, Transformers, and Ghostbusters. DnA are taking the writing chores on Infestation #1 and #2, as well as the two issue Transformers mini-series in the middle.
With the crossover just getting rolling, we decided to check in with DnA about how they got involved, why there are more robot vs. robot fights in part one than robot vs. zombie fights, and where Infestation may head next:
Geek: Now that the first issue of Infestation is out there, I think we have a clearer idea how this event is working; but for those that didn't pick it up, give us the lowdown.
DnA: Originating in the ‘IDW’ Universe, the home Universe of CVO, Zombies versus Robots etc, there’s been a deadly viral outbreak. The infestation is making zombies out of organic and inorganic creatures alike! CVO fights to stop this plague, but disaster strikes and it escapes via an interdimensional portal, infecting OTHER iterations of reality... The universes of Transformers, Star Trek, GI Joe and Ghostbusters. Then the REAL fun begins!
Geek: Given the amount of hype for the "crossover" elements of this story, it was surprising to see us start with lesser-known vampire characters. Why was this important?
DnA: We wanted to ground it in a ‘core’ universe, and also in a continuity that we could fully control and mete out evenly (and appropriately) between the other books. It seemed much more unbalanced to start it in, say, GI Joe, and have, say, Star Trek be obliged to play along.
Geek: How much coordination goes into having, essentially, five series telling the same story?
DnA: A lot. It’s not the differences in continuity that present the biggest headaches; it’s crafting something that is malleable enough to suit the very different tones of the brands involved. We want individual stories that are true to the spirits of the universes we’re visiting. Read More...
Posted 2/14/11 2:26 pm EST by MTV Geek in Comic Books, IDW, Previews
MTV Geek is pleased to present you with the exclusive first peek at the Steve Niles and Kelley Jones comic book "Edge of Doom" #4 from IDW! Check out the preview below, then read on for more details about this chilling tale coming out next week!
Read An Exclusive Preview Of "Edge of Doom" #4 Here!
Solicitation Info:
EDGE OF DOOM #4 (of 5)Steve Niles (w) • Kelley Jones (a & c)
Our hosts of horror Steve Niles and Kelley Jones have cooked up a chilling tale filled to the brim of shock and awesomeness... an FBI agent named Pete is being taken on his last boat ride on the bayou, as his cover is blown and his now former buddies in the mob are making sure he never talks again! It being their favorite “dumping grounds” for situations like this… they may just discover that tonight might prove to be one too many bodies for the swamp to accommodate.
FC • 32 pages • $3.99
Related Posts:
Exclusive Preview: IDW's 'Doc Macabre' #3
Crossovers We Want To See: Walking Dead / Infestation
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Posted 2/10/11 7:00 pm EST by TJ Dietsch in Comic Books, Crossovers We Want To See, IDW, Image Comics
Welcome to Crossovers We Want to See, a fairly self-explanatory recurring feature in which we pitch the meeting of a pair of characters or teams from different comic companies. Playing editor, we'll dream up writer and artist combinations and basic story points.
Written by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Robert Kirkman
Drawn by Gabriel Rodriguez
IDW's dimension-spanning Infestation zombie pollution finds itself landing in the Walking Dead universe but, it doesn't come alone. A quintet of heroes from other worlds have made the journey as well in an effort to put a stop to it once and for all. Snake Eyes, Spock, Optimus Prime and Egon Spengler find themselves in a strange place—one that seems to have been hit by the zombie infestation far earlier than their worlds—and soon find themselves teamed up with a man who knows just how to handle the undead, Rick Grimes. Rick, his friend Michonne, and the rest of their companions team up with the other dimensional quartet to put a stop to the zombies once and for all.
We know that IDW's Infestation event isn't a crossover in the traditional sense. The characters from G.I. Joe, Transformers, Star Trek and the Ghostbusters universes won't actually be crossing over, though they will be facing the same zombie threat on their respective worlds. Given that this is purely fantasy, we decided to cherry pick our favorite characters from those worlds and the creators of both books, by teaming the dynamic duo of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning with Robert Kirkman and Gabriel Rodriguez. They will be doing the covers for this book and currently do an amazing job on IDW's Locke & Key. The book would probably be a logistical nightmare but, you could probably sell a few thousand copies on the idea of Snake Eyes and Michonne chopping off zombie heads alone.
Related Posts:
Crossovers We Want To See: Doctor Who and The Time Masters
Crossovers We Want To See: Justice Society and the Invaders
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Posted 2/9/11 10:53 am EST by MTV Geek in Comic Books, IDW, Previews
Click the image for previews of the new releases coming from IDW Publishing on Wednesday February 9!
Posted 2/4/11 7:02 pm EST by MTV Geek in Comic Books, IDW, Previews
Transformers #16 from IDW is coming out February 9, but you can get your own special sneak peek at it here with our exclusive Preview. Then read on for more details about this book!
Read The Preview For Transformers #16
TRANSFORMERS #16
Mike Costa (w) • Don Figueroa (a) • Figueroa, Nick Roche (c)
MEGATRON’s plan enters its second stage as the AUTOBOTS continue to fall under attack from heavily armed humans. Elsewhere, STARSCREAM attempts to initiate a plan of his own with an old ally. Costa and Figueroa aren't bringing everyone out of this issue in one piece as the “Revenge of the Decepticons” continues!
*2 regular covers will be shipped in a 1-to-1 ratio.
FC • 32 pages • $3.99
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Posted 2/3/11 2:58 pm EST by TJ Dietsch in Comic Books, Crossovers We Want To See, DC Comics, IDW
Welcome to Crossovers We Want to See, a fairly self-explanatory recurring feature in which we pitch the meeting of a pair of characters or teams from different comic companies. Playing editor, we'll dream up writer and artist combinations and basic story points.
"Doctor Who and The Time Masters"
Written by Paul Cornell, drawn by Dan Jurgens
While traveling through time with his companions Amy Pond and Rory Williams, the Doctor is surprised when the TARDIS gets rocked by an unknown force. It's not until the Doctor actually opens the door of the ship to see the source of the collision: Booster Gold, Skeets and an unconscious Rip Hunter in the Time-Sphere. Booster and Skeets explain that, while on the trail of time traveling villain Per Degaton, their shipped was rocked by an unseen force that was still after them. As they finish their tale and the Doctor takes a look at Rip, the unseen force reveals itself to our heroes: the combined might of the Daleks and Per Degaton. Knowing space is no place to do battle with these enemies, the Doctor throws a time lasso around the Time-Sphere and transports the whole party to an abandoned Earth outpost. The battle rages on, with Rip eventually coming to in time to assist the Doctor with his plan to defeat the villains. Read More...
Posted 2/1/11 2:04 pm EST by MTV Geek in Comic Books, IDW, Previews
MTV Geek is pleased to give you the exclusive first peek at the Steve Niles and Bernie Wrightson horror/comedy "Doc Macabre" #3 from IDW! Check out the preview below, then read on for more details about this ghoulishly clever comic coming out next week!
Read the Preview For "Doc Macabre" #3 Here
Solicitation Info:
DOC MACABRE #3 (of 3)
Steve Niles (w) • Bernie Wrightson (a & a)
After conducting experiments to detect artificial ghost hauntings, Doc Macabre and his robot pal, Lloyd, finally track down the culprit. With solid leads and advice from Dead, She Said’s Coogan and The Ghoul, young Doc Macabre is ready to confront the Swami of Real Estate. Laughs and horrors abound! Features the concluding prose short by Steve Niles, too!
FC • 32 pages • $3.99
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Posted 1/31/11 11:40 am EST by Alex Zalben in Comic Books, DC Comics, IDW, Image Comics, Marvel
For too long, Top 10 lists have been the provenance of the end of the year. I will tell you, as a critic, they are hard to do. Hopefully you’ve kept good notes, but most of the time, you’re scrambling to remember the span of titles that affected you over the course of the year, distilling twelve months of stories down to one pithy sentence or paragraph.
Well I say… No more! Starting this year, MTV Geek will tell you the absolute best comics that were published each month – and we know, because we read pretty much all of ‘em. We’re not saying these are the best series – though they often are. These are, in the span of hundreds of books released on the stands each month, the ones that stood heads and tails over the others. And if you disagree? Hey, let us know – that’s what the Internet is for. Read More...
Posted 1/28/11 11:31 am EST by Alex Zalben in Comic Books, IDW
This week, IDW launched their mega-zombie crossover "Infestation," which sends the undead masses from their Zombies vs. Robots universe to do battle with four of their licensed properties: G.I. Joe; Ghostbusters; Star Trek; and Transformers.
Beyond the initial total geek-out caused by something that’s only previously existed in your rec room when you had all your action figures fight finally existing in comic book form, it gets the mind racing: what other franchises could IDW tackle in the inevitable sequel? Here are a few ideas:
Doctor Who
When The TARDIS crash-lands, The Doctor and his companion Amy Pond are thankful that they’re safe on Earth… Except this is the parallel Earth of Zombies vs. Robots! In a Doctor Who first, our hero isn’t able to beat the enemy just by explaining to them in a pointed tone that, “I’m the Doctor!” Plus: In this issue, some quirky twee British stuff happens. Read More...
Posted 1/26/11 4:08 pm EST by Eddie Wright in Comic Books, Digital Comics, IDW
IDW, who was the first company to offer the ability to purchase from storefronts that are within its app has launched a Ben Templesmith-specific app for the iPad and iPhone. The Templesmith Comics app joins IDW's other "in app storefronts" Star Trek, G.I. Joe and Transformers.
The Templesmith Comics app comes with 3 free comics and offers the ability to purchase over 30 titles for either $.99 or $1.99.
Official Press Release:
San Diego, CA (January 26, 2010) – Introducing another great addition to the company’s growing line of digital comics, IDW Publishing is proud to announce Templesmith Comics, a collection of comics by one of the industries most unconventionally brilliant creators, Ben Templesmith. A free storefront application offering in-app purchases, Templesmith Comics is now available exclusively for the Apple iPadTM, iPhone® and iPod touch®. Read More...
Posted 1/11/11 6:12 pm EST by MTV Geek in Comic Books, IDW
By Alex Zalben
Echo #27
You guys ready to scream at me? Okay, here goes: I have never read a Terry Moore comic book before this issue of Echo. I’ve never read any of the previous issues, never picked up Strangers in Paradise… I think I even accidentally skipped his issues of Runaways. And I’ll tell you what: I’ve clearly made a terrible mistake I need to correct.
It’s a tough enough thing to get a reader up to speed on the plot in the twenty-seventh issue of a comic book, let alone make them care about the characters. But by the end of this issue, due to Moore’s brilliant characterization, both in the writing and art, I was nearly in tears. Seriously. Nope, not joking.
And lest you think this is some sort of anthology series, or easy to jump into? Hell no. We’re clearly in the third act of the plot here, with one of the characters growing in size, another growing younger and losing her memory, and all the main characters trying to stop an evil experiment called the Phi Collider. But it’s all well explained here, tied into the characters emotional growth, and even lets in a good, healthy dose of humor. Plus, in three or four pages, a character we never see again is killed, clearly in the culmination of his storyline, and even that was easy to understand, and be emotionally affected by.
It’s nearly mind boggling that’s possible, but it is. Credit to Moore’s clean, expressive black and white art for perfectly capturing emotion and pace. Jill is growing younger, and is terrified she won’t remember her daughter soon, and you can read it on her face. The main character Annie is trapped in another person’s giant body, but you can feel every mixed emotion going through her as she reconnects with her lost love. And a scene at the end featuring a stolen kiss pulls away at the perfect moment, with a beautiful image of just a car, alone, in a snowy wilderness. Read More...
Posted 1/10/11 4:55 pm EST by Charles Webb in Comic Books, Dynamite, IDW, Interviews
Hot on the news that "Danger Girl" would return to comics in the first-time Dynamite/IDW collaboration "Danger Girl and the Army of Darkness," MTV Geek interviewed writer Andy Hartnell to get the full scoop on one of the most exciting and offbeat mash-ups of the year!
MTV Geek: How did the mash-up between Danger Girl and Army of Darkness come about?
Andy Hartnell: I guess it all started early last year as we began preparing our Danger Girl Deluxe Edition - the oversized hardcover collection of the original series that’s just been released by IDW Publishing. Our plan was to follow that book with several all-new Danger Girl adventures. Somewhere around that same time, Nick Barrucci over at Dynamite Entertainment shot us the idea for a Danger Girl/Army of Darkness crossover event. Kind of a weird and really out-there idea at first, but then it really wound up to be a pretty exciting mix.
Geek: What made the mix of super-spy action and horror-comedy seem like a good fit for you?
Hartnell: Well, you have the character of Abbey Chase, who’s this gorgeous, intelligent, and highly-skilled adventuress, and then you have Ash, who’s really just a bumbling loudmouth who happens to be pretty clever with a chainsaw. So it’s seeing the way these two wildly different characters interact and struggle while trying to accomplish their common goal that’s pretty entertaining. And they’ve both got some experience with tracking down supernatural antiquities, so that helps bring them together as well.
Geek: You've written Ash before in the “Ashes to Ashes” miniseries. How were you able to find the character's voice and still bring something unique to readers?
Hartnell: I really dig how much the character changed while making his way through the Evil Dead trilogy - going from that squeaky, boring and mild-mannered dweeb in Evil Dead to the really wild and wise-cracking badass we all know and love from Army. But now, Ash isn’t leading a bunch of peasants and simpletons into Read More...
