Welcome to your pre-Thanksgiving edition of  Comics Relief! In today’s installment, we’ve got news on a possible sequel to Marvel’s Civil War event, and Frank Miller finally gives a proper explanation on just why he hates Superman so much. First off though, Marvel prepares a video crash course for all their newer fans on the history of their greatest heroes. Read on for more details…
Marvel Teaches New Fans A Lesson in “Marvel 101” Series
With more and more new fans coming to comics through the Marvel Studios films, the publisher has begun releasing a “Marvel 101” video series, giving quick rundowns on the comic book histories of some of their biggest and most popular characters. Starting November 23, and then with new episodes made available every Tuesday on Marvel.com and on Marvelâs YouTube page, fans will get a new quickly digestible short-form video detailing the basics of their major characters.
The first twenty episodes have been unveiled all at once, just to get the ball rolling on this series in a bigger way, with each video featuring Marvel’s heaviest hitters and most well known names…. well, except for the X-Men or the Fantastic Four (make your own judgement on that one). You can watch the first video for “Marvel 101”, featuring the Avengers, below: [Comics Beat]
Latest Archie 75 Digital Collection Focuses on Kevin Keller
Archie Comics is celebrating 75 years of the Riverdale gang with a series of special digital collections this year, highlighting the best Archie centric stories of the past several decades. Now the publisher is highlighting one of the best and biggest additions to the world of Riverdale with a digital collection spotlighting Kevin Keller, the first major LGBT character in Archie comics history. This new collection will feature 75 pages of his adventures, and will become available on Comixology, the new Archie app and other digital outlets starting next Friday: [Comics Alliance]
Marvel to Reprint Star Wars: Droids and Ewoks Omnibus Edition
In the post-Return of the Jedi/pre-Expanded Universe world of the mid-80s, all Star Wars fans had to cling to were the  Saturday morning animated adventures of the droids Threepio and Artoo, along with the Ewoks, which also had accompanying comic book series. Although those series aren’t exactly beloved by the majority of the fanbase, Star Wars completists still want them all collected, if only for posterity.
Originally published by Marvel, then collected by Dark Horse Comics, that particular Omnibus is now OOP. But now Marvel is collecting Droids and Ewoks both into one giant Omnibus edition again….and it  will only set you back about $100. But hey, it’s got a few stories that the Dark Horse version was missing. That’s worth a hundred bucks, right? [Bleeding Cool]
John Belushi Finally Appears In Ghostbusters, Thanks to IDW
It’s a well known fact that when Dan Aykroyd was coming up with the basic idea for the movie Ghostbusters, he wanted his friend and former SNL castmate John Belushi to be a part of the film. Sadly, Belushi’s untimely death in 1981 prevented that from ever happening. However, the folks at IDW Comics have managed to find a way to sneak in Belushi into the Ghostbusters mythos, or at least a ghost who looks just like his character in the Blues Brothers. This happens in the latest issue of their Ghostbusters series, which came out this week. Check out an image below from the issue to see Belushi making like Obi-Wan, and being all blue and glowy and dispensing sage advice.
Frank Miller Explains Why He Hates Superman In Dark Knight III: Interview
So it’s possible that by now, you might have heard, but the third installment of Frank Miller’s epic Dark Knight saga came out this week, with the first issue of Dark Knight III: The Master Race. Although co-written with Brian Azzarello and drawn by Andy Kubert, Miller still has a lot to do with the creation of this new series, and also has a lot to say about it and all things Batman related, in this week’s episode of DC All Access. He even talks about just why he hates Superman so damn much. You can watch the entire video below:
Could Marvel’s Assault on Pleasant Hill Lead to Civil War 2?
Marvel has already announced Assault On Pleasant Hill as their next big crossover event series, based around the 75th anniversary of Captain America. In this new story, Pleasant Hill is a small town with a dark secret, one which causes a conflict between three generations of heroes who have gone by the name Captain America-Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson. And of course, this being Marvel, the rest of the Avengers are going to be pulled into the conflict too. Could this be the start of a second Marvel Civil War? The folks at Bleeding Cool seem to think so. For more on the possibilities of Assault on Pleasant Hill, click on the following link: [Bleeding Cool]
Titan Comics Join The Classic Album Cover Variants Party
It’s not just Marvel and DC that are getting in the variant covers game in a big way. In response to Marvel’s Hip Hop Album variant covers that came out this year, this week, British publisher Titan Comics unveiled their own series of variants, paying homage to classic album covers of the past from legendary musicians.
Included in this series will be three new Doctor Who variant covers by artist Simon Myers, which will pay homage to albums from David Bowie, Blondie, and Bob Dylan. The covers feature on the upcoming third and fourth issues of the Twelfth Doctor series, featuring Peter Capaldiâs Doctor, as well as a retailer-exclusive cover for the first issue of the upcoming Eighth Doctor series, featuring Paul McGann. You can check them all out in our gallery below. [Comics Alliance]
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Images: Marvel Comics / DC Comics / IDW Publishing / Dark Horse Comics / Titan Comics