Andy Wood

Brian Bendis was the special, surprise guest during Marvel Comics’ presentation at Diamond Comics Distributors’ retailer summit in Las Vegas Nevada Monday evening. After thanking retailers for the success of this summer’s Secret Invasion, Bendis announced the Marvel event that follows that storyline will be called Dark Reign, which will focus on the "after effects" of Secret Invasion, and will include several Marvel Universe titles that will feature "Dark Reign" trade dress.

More specifically Bendis went on to say the post-Invasion Marvel Universe will feature a complete change in his Avengers family of titles, including Bendis leaving Mighty Avengers with issue #20 and the launch of a new title Dark Avengers, with art by Mike Deodato.

The fan-favorite but sometimes controversial creator told the retailer audience that if they thought Internet readers have been mad at him before that they should watch out for the post-Invasion fallout as he expects "loads of sh*t" to head his way.

His Spider-Woman series with artist Alex Maleev is also still in the works, and the creators duo plan a long run on the title.

Bendis went on to apologize for the lateness of his ICON series Powers, and spoke briefly about the deal for a TV show adaptation that he would help write and that should be officially announced soon.

Among the other Marvel projects announced…

Ultimate Avengers by Mark Millar, scheduled for an early Marvel 2009 debut. Fans that have been around for a few years may recall that very early on in the development of the Ultimate Universe, the title that would become The Ultimates was originally referred to as "Ultimate Avengers".

The Amazing Spider-Man #600 creative team was not announced, but promo art shown to retailers apparently featured an image of the "classic" Mary Jane with Peter Parker and a caption asking what "really" happened at Spider-Man’s wedding.
Marvel Noir is an upcoming new line that explains those four b&w teaser images the publisher has released over the last few months. The line will apparently launch with a title featuring the X-Men, with Spider-Man and then other characters/properties to follow.

This report was filed in Newsarama, I think there was a spy there. <grin>

This report is a day late, as the dinner event from Monday was 5 hours and I didn’t want to miss any parts of it as there was some great information be passed along.

The workshops that I sat in on where:

Thinking Outside the Box/Going to the Movies & Anatomy of a Business - these shops were leads by those that have been in the business for a while and were passing along tips and other helpful information to continue to be successful in the trade.

Between the works shops, I got a game demo of the new WOW Minis.  This game is fun, it is something that takes like 15 mins to learn, but can’t get complicated depending on the units you have on the board.  I am looking forward to this game and will most likely be hosting tournaments at the store.

I was able to geek out with the rep from WOTC and talk MTG, so that was pretty good.

I also chatted with a lot of folks that have stores talking about a variety of things from ‘new comic book day’ to which "POS" are you using.  Lots of great networking stuff too.

I also got to meet Brian Michael Bendis, whom is the man behind Secret Invasion:

Not the greatest picture as I didn’t have my camera on me and had to be taken with my camera phone.

The exhibit hall was packed!  There was a ton suppliers, publishers, vendors, etc. there and that lots of free stuff.  I also got a little 1:1 with Cheryl Sleboda whom is the person behind the new Comic Suite POS which is an add-on for Microsofts RMS POS system. (Good information)

I have to end this short, need to check out and pack things up for the flight home.