Tag: Sam Humphries

Captain America for President?

  America is divided. There’s a fight for power. Voters have a choice. Sound familiar? In this bitterly divided United States voters choose a war hero to lead them…a SUPER war hero!

 

SPOILER WARNING!

 

IF YOU HAVE NOT READ ULTIMATES COMICS ULTIMATES #15 AND #16 YOU MAY WANT TO STOP READING THIS POST

 

SERIOUSLY

 

OK HERE IT COMES

 

  America in the Ultimate Comics Universe (published by Marvel Comics) has been brutalized by super villain terrorist attacks, occupation by giant Sentinel robots. The nation has been split into independent feuding states. The Ultimate Comics United States was divided and fell.

 

Ultimate Comics Ultimates #16 courtesy Marvel

  One man will unite the country – President Captain America?

  In this week’s Ultimate Comics Ultimates #15 voters will elect Captain America to become President of the United States. Can the super soldier unite the broken nation and lead it into better days?

  How did the creators come up with this major status quo change? Writer Sam Humphries tells Marvel.com.

 

Ultimate Comics Ultimates #16 courtesy Marvel

  “Jonathan Hickman, my predecessor, very generously gave me all his notes for the title. There was a line in there about making Cap the president. It was an intimidating idea to pitch to Marvel, especially on my first big book. But the more I talked about it with editorial, the more we all became convinced it was the right story to do.”

  Humphries explains how this game-changing story will play out.

 “Cap is a soldier, not a politician. He’s not trying to make a career change. He’s answering the call of the people. They want him to do a job—unite America—and he’s going to do anything he can to do it.”

 

Ultimate Comics Ultimates #16 courtesy Marvel

  What kind of President will Steve Rogers be?

 “This isn’t the first time Cap has answered the call of an America in crisis. He’s not going to let the presidency change who he is; he’s going to do the job he was elected to do.”

  This is the same comic book line that killed most of the X-Men and Fantastic Four, has the U.S. defeated by its foreign enemies and inspired the alien warrior seen in The Avengers movie. Humphries explains why this election could only happen in this universe.

  “In the Ultimate Comics Universe we do stories with iconic characters you can’t find anywhere else—in the Marvel Universe, the movies, video games, anywhere. President Cap fits that definition by shaking up Steve Roger’s status quo in a radical fashion, and hopefully getting to know him in new ways.”

  For more of Humphries interview here’s the Marvel.com link.

  In the Marvel Comics Universe Captain America is still leader of The Avengers and not entering politics.

  Humphries (Higher Earth, Fanboys vs. Zombies) is launching a brand new Uncanny X-Force in January, 2013.

By Editor

 

 

 

 

Psylocke Leads New Uncanny X-Force

Uncanny X-Force #1 courtesy Marvel

Earlier Sam Humphries revealed he and Ron Garney will launch a brand new Uncanny X-Force this January. The new book with a new team picks up 6 months after the climax of Rick Remender’s run. The new roster starts with Storm, Psylocke, Spiral and Puck of Alpha Flight. The writer says the action begins when a student is kicked out of the Jean Grey School. Humphries tells Marvel.com why Elizabeth is taking charge as team leader and acts the center of the book.

Uncanny X-Force 17 from Marvel.com. Cover Art by Esad Ribic

“She’s a great character with deep contradictions. Her history is a mess. She’s a survivor who doesn’t fear the darkness. She’s one of my favorite X-Men. And it’s her time. Watch the throne.”

I’ve said before that Psylocke is the new Wolverine. She’s everywhere. Betsy was in the previous Uncanny X-Force and in Brian Wood’s X-Men where she followed Storm’s commands. Humphries points out a moment of Storm’s history to explain her position on his new team.

 “Don’t forget Storm is still the same person who ran off into the Tokyo night and reappeared sporting leather street wear and a mohawk! I see everyone in this book as a wild card, especially Storm. Without saying too much, the events of AvX creates a bond between her and Betsy that will take them into the events of the book together.

  Characters in Uncanny X-Force aren’t always going to be on the same page when it comes to killing. Same goes for some of the other bizarre surprises we have in store. We’ve got a wide spectrum of strong personalities and it’s been fun to decide where they stand on some core values—and how their positions could change over time.”

Alpha Flight #1 courtesy Marvel

I think the biggest surprise about the roster is a short, hairy Canadian adventurer. Not that one with the claws. Puck.

  “I see him as a Canadian Indiana Jones. He’s gone some dark places in his past, and he’s a dwarf, which can present challenges most of us never have to deal with. But he’s also a bad ass who has confronted the darkness with a wry sense of humor, and he has yet to find a situation where being small of stature has stopped him from kicking some butt,” Humphries explains.

The first villain this new team will face is Lucas Bishop. Storm has a history with this X-Man gone rogue.

“Bishop is the man she remembers, but not the man she remembers. He was abandoned in the year 6300 AD. The dude has been alone, thousands of years in the future. A man goes through a lot of changes trying to get from 6300 AD to the present day. It is going to be an ugly reunion all around,” explains Humphries.

Humphries explains how his new Uncanny X-Force will differ from Cable and X-Force by Dennis Hopeless.

  But we’ve also got two books with two very different focuses. To put it simply, UNCANNY X-FORCE are the hunters, and CABLE AND THE X-FORCE are the hunted. Will the two books intersect? Well, one book has Cable as a leader, and one has Bishop has a bad guy. There’s a volatile history there that could be powerful enough to draw in both teams.”

Humphries ends with explaining how he will deliver on the Uncanny.

 “How can I say this without spoilers? I take the title of “uncanny” very seriously, just like I do the mandate of “ultimate” over on ULTIMATES. My job is to tell a story about mutants that you can’t find in any other X-book—and that’s what you’re going to get. After the first arc, even the so-called “Uncanny” X-Men are going to find these mutants very, very uncanny. And [editor] Nick Lowe might start dodging my calls.”

For more on the perhaps lesser known members of this team:

What the Puck? I highly recommend John Byrne’s original Alpha Flight run with Eugene Milton Judd as the small guy with a big tragic past.

Longshot #6 courtesy Marvel

Stuntwoman Ricochet Rita was transformed into Spiral by Mojo back in the original Longshot series. Spiral was last scene in Matt Fraction’s Sisterhood arc of Uncanny X-Men.

By Editor

New Uncanny X-Force Team, Roster

 

courtesy Marvel and Comics Alliance

Uncanny X-Force is heading to a finale with Rick Remender’s Final Execution arc. Sam Humphries (Ultimates, Higher Earth) and Ron Garney will relaunch Uncanny X-Force #1 this January according to Comics Alliance. The X-Force concept has always been a team operating outside the core X-books- outsiders among outsiders if you will.

 Humphries told the site his take on the ‘outsider’ team.

 “One of my favorite things about this book, not just working on it but reading it over the years, is that it delivers a story that you can’t find in any other X-Book. Theres’s a combination of characters and character dynamics, and they go out and find and deal with situations and beings and all sorts of dark secrets that you can’t find anywhere else. Through the different incarnations, we’ve seen that implemented in different ways. You have the Rob Liefeld paramilitary extreme version, you have the wacked-out, nearly psychedelic Milligan/Allred version, you’ve got Rick Remender doing his thing with questions of killing and murder and when it’s okay and when it isn’t.

 Even though it’s a definition, it gives you a lot of room to move within that definition. There’s a lot of different things that you can pick apart in the Marvel Universe, and specifically the mutant universe, that aren’t ever really addressed in the main book. It’s a huge opportunity to do some cool things, new things, to get people excited and present the whole mutant world in a new light.”

courtesy Marvel

The biggest shocker from this interview is the initial roster including a short Canadian guy – without claws!

  “This is not any cast that I think anyone can say they’ve ever seen before. This is not a classic Wolverine, Rogue, Colossus line-up. It’s definitely a new mix of characters thrown together in ways that they really have never encountered each other before.

  The group that we start off with right off the bat is Psylocke, Storm, Puck and Spiral, and we have a few more characters joining the group in the first few issues. In my mind, all those characters are wild cards. They’re all strong personalities, they’re all strong in terms of their powers, they’ve all got dark secrets and they’ve all got a rebellious streak. That to me is a really attractive part of the book, being able to balance all those character dynamics at once.”

Puck…seriously?

“I think Puck is a character that deserves more love. He’s like a Canadian Indiana Jones, he’s an adventurer. He’s also gone out and faced a lot of dark stuff out in the world, but he does it with this wry sense of humor. He’s a guy that despite being short of stature, he always finds a way to kick somebody’s ass. That kind of character who has a wit and determination is fun to write, and I think he’s going to be a good mix with these other characters in the book who all tend to be super-serious all the time.”

For more of the Humphries interview here’s the Comics Alliance link.

Cable and X-Force and a brand new Uncanny X-Force in the Marvel Now? Do you think the publisher is “forcing” too many similar teams on us?

This is not the answer I was expecting after the Killers teaser. I love Storm, Spiral and Puck. I commend Humphries for going for an unexpected roster.

By Editor

 

KILLERS in the Marvel NOW

 

courtesy Marvel

  Marvel is really making fans scratch their heads this week with all the teasers for upcoming Marvel NOW series.

Sam Humphries. Ron Garney. KILLERS. January 2013.

  I don’t expect a Brandon Flowers and Alison Blaire duet. I do expect great writing from the man currently behind Ultimates and Fanboys Vs. Zombies. Garney has killed it as artist on several titles including Captain America.

  I suspect this might be a relaunched Uncanny X-Force? What about you?

By Editor

Devour Fanboys Vs Zombies #1

Fanboys Vs. Zombies #1 courtesy Boom! Studios

  I know I’ve dreamed and brainstormed with fellow geeks about surviving an undead invasion in Seattle. An up and coming writer is taking this geek fantasy and created an outrageous adventure with: Fanboys Vs. Zombies.

  Feuding friends with baggage reconnect at the world’s biggest comic book convention when a zombie outbreak erupts.  Fanboys and girls who think they know zombie survival skills from comics and videos are put to the test in this hilarious adventure from Boom Studios.

 This weekend I met writer Sam Humphries at Emerald City Comicon. I was in a geek haze when I the Fanboys Vs. Zombies cover caught my eye (I wish I had got the ECCC variant now!) and recognized his name at the booth signage from my blogging. I talked with Humphries about this project, grabbed a copy, got his signature and talked with a rising star. Humphries is co-writing Marvel’s Ultimates with Jonathan Hickman then taking over the book.

  I’ve been reading that he’s the next big thing and sure enough Humphries was on Marvel’s Next Big Thing panel with Dan Slot, Jeff Parker, Rick Remender, C.B. Cebulski, Chris Yost and Greg Rucka.

  Not only is Fanboys Vs. Zombies a fun read from two rising stars (Jerry Gaylord’s art reminds me of Humberto Ramos from Gen 13 and DV8 days) More selling points: this issue is only a buck! I haven’t paid just a dollar for a comic book in years! Fanboys Vs. Zombies #1 invades local comic stores this week. Grab it. Devour it. Stay alive for next month’s issue.

John Carter Back to Mars

John Carter The Gods of Mars interior art courtesy Marvel.com

  While Taylor Kitsch has been talking about a possible sequel to Disney’s John Carter, Marvel is taking John back to Mars in a new 5 part comic book series. Sam Humphries and Ramon Perez are the creative team on John Carter: The Gods of Mars.

This new series takes John back to Barsoom in the world created by the great Edgar Rice Burroughs. Marvel gave Comics Newsarama a first look at the several pages. I wanted to share this cool page of the hero using the enhanced powers. Like Superman is powered by the yellow sun, John’s body gets powers from Mars.

Here’s an earlier post with Humphries talking about how this series picks up a decade after events in the movie.

Here’s the Comics Newsarama link to see the entire gallery.

Ultimates New Writing Team

 

Ultimate Comics Ultimates #10 courtesy Marvel.com

  Ultimate Comics Ultimates writer Jonathan Hickman and incoming co-writer Sam Humphries. The mighty Marvel tradition of passing the baton continues with issue 10 this May.

 “I wanted to work with somebody who has a fresh voice and who is clearly talented. I’m ecstatic to be working with Sam, he’s got some real game,” Hickman said on Marvel.com. 

 “When Hickman hits a book, he comes in with big plans. He’s a big picture thinker. At the end of issue #9, everything gets thrown off a cliff–figuratively. Something happens that nobody in the Ultimate Universe can walk away from. Everything changes for all the characters and how they relate to each other. S.H.I.E.L.D., the City of Tomorrow and other major institutions get shaken up,” Humphries said. 

  “I never planned on leaving Ultimates. I took the Ultimate Thor gig with the understanding I’d be getting Ultimates. When I came to Marvel, Ultimates was the book I wanted more than any other. But…I got a job offer I couldn’t refuse, so I’m taking it,” Hickman said. 

 Artist Luke Ross will join Hickman and Humphries on the arc. For today’s entire session here’s the Next Big Thing link on Marvel.com.

  If you haven’t checked out Hickman’s SHIELD you should definitely get the trades – excellent storytelling.