Stan Lee, Marvel Comics legend, dead at 95

LOS ANGELES — Stan Lee, the creative dynamo who revolutionized the comic book and helped make billions for Hollywood by introducing human frailties in superheroes such as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk, died Monday. He was 95.

Lee was declared dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to Kirk Schenck, an attorney for Lee’s daughter, J.C. Lee.


As the top writer at Marvel Comics and later as its publisher, Lee was widely considered the architect of the contemporary comic book.

He revived the industry in the 1960s by offering the costumes and action craved by younger readers while insisting on sophisticated plots, college-level dialogue, satire, science fiction, even philosophy.

Millions responded to the unlikely mix of realistic fantasy, and many of his characters, including Spider-Man, the Hulk and X-Men went on to become stars of blockbuster films.

Recent projects he helped make possible range from the films “Black Panther” and “Doctor Strange” to such TV series as “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D” and “Guardians of the Galaxy.”



“I think everybody loves things that are bigger than life. … I think of them as fairy tales for grown-ups,” he told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview. “We all grew up with giants and ogres and witches. Well, you get a little bit older and you’re too old to read fairy tales. But I don’t think you ever outgrow your love for those kind of things, things that are bigger than life and magical and very imaginative.”

Lee considered the comic-book medium an art form and he was prolific: By some accounts, he came up with a new comic book every day for 10 years.

“I wrote so many I don’t even know. I wrote either hundreds or thousands of them,” he told the AP in 2006.



He hit his stride in the 1960s when he brought the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Iron Man and numerous others to life.

“It was like there was something in the air. I couldn’t do anything wrong,” he recalled.


His heroes, meanwhile, were a far cry from virtuous do-gooders such as rival DC Comics’ Superman.

The Fantastic Four fought with each other. Spider-Man was goaded into superhero work by his alter ego, Peter Parker, who suffered from unrequited crushes, money problems and dandruff.

The Silver Surfer, an alien doomed to wander Earth’s atmosphere, waxed about the woeful nature of man. The Hulk was marked by self-loathing. Daredevil was blind and Iron Man had a weak heart.

“The beauty of Stan Lee’s characters is that they were characters first and superheroes next,” Jeff Kline, executive producer of the “Men in Black” animated television series, told The Blade of Toledo, Ohio, in 1998.

Some of Lee’s creations became symbols of social change — the inner turmoil of Spider-Man represented ’60s America, for example, while The Black Panther and The Savage She-Hulk mirrored the travails of minorities and women.


Lee scripted most of Marvel’s superhero comics himself during the ’60s, including the Avengers and the X-Men, two of the most enduring.

In 1972, he became Marvel’s publisher and editorial director; four years later, 72 million copies of Spider-Man were sold.

“He’s become our Mickey Mouse,” he once said of the masked, web-crawling crusader.

Lee also published several books, including “The Superhero Women” in 1977 and “How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way” the following year, when he was named publisher of the year by the Periodical and Book Association of America.

CBS turned the Hulk into a successful TV series, with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno portraying the doomed scientist from 1978-82. A Spider-Man series ran briefly in 1978. Both characters were featured in animated TV series as well.

The first big-budget movie based on Lee’s characters, “X-Men,” was a smash in 2000, earning more than $130 million at North American theaters. “Spider-Man” did even better, taking in more than $400 million in 2002. /atm

source: entertainment.inquirer.net

Marvel beefs up 'Avengers Alliance' with 3D tactical combat

The world of Marvel's "Avengers Alliance" role-playing game continues to expand, with a new 3D tactical combat offering.

 

Dubbed "Marvel: Avengers Alliance Tactics," the new tactical game for Facebook has nearly 70 million agents fighting for the fate of Earth.

 

"Heroes are drafted from a roster of more than 20 characters that includes Iron Man, Thor and Captain America. Special characters, like Loki and Task Master, become playable as the game’s story unfolds," Marvel said.

 

The game is available at Facebook.com/MarvelTactics

 

Aside from strategically positioning a team of Marvel heroes within 3D environments, players are to manage the upgrading of their heroes' powers.

 

In the game, S.H.I.E.L.D. has sent a strike force to the Savage Land to investigate an energy anomaly.

 

But our heroes later find out this would be much more than a routine containment mission - uncountable parallel dimensions are about to collide.

 

Players in the game can recruit and train over 20 Marvel heroes and villains at launch, and engage in action-packed tactical combat within 3D environments.

 

They can compete against other players in strategic multiplayer battles, and build and upgrade their headquarters.

  

Super Hero teams can be deployed to defend S.H.I.E.L.D. bases and collect resources. — Joel Locsin/TJD, GMA News

source: gmanetwork.com

Generations collide in 'X-Men: Days of Future Past'

Trapped in a dystopian future where marauding, shape-shifting robots have turned New York's Central Park into a concentration camp, Hugh Jackman's Wolverine has no choice in "X-Men: Days of Future Past" but to travel back in time to alter history.


The film, which opens in U.S. theaters on Friday, is the seventh based on the Marvel Comics series that has grossed more than $2.3 billion at the global box office.


A sequel to both 2006's "X Men: The Last Stand" and 2011's "X-Men: First Class," the film begins in a future where Sentinel robots are trying to destroy mutants, and follows Wolverine as he travels back to the 1970s, when he does not have the use of his silver-colored claws.


"The X-Men movies always have a theme of disenfranchisement or minorities or discrimination," said Jackman, 45, the best actor Oscar nominee for the musical "Les Miserables" whose action film career took off with X-Men.


"We're actually tackling real human issues in addition to having people fly and have lasers come out of their eyes," Jackman told Reuters, noting that the characters' powers come from emotional traumas they have faced.


The film, expected to be one of the biggest at the box office this year, has had a dose of unwelcome publicity after two men accused director Bryan Singer of sexually abusing them as teenagers, charges he denies.


As a result, Singer has not participated in the film's global rollout, leaving promotion to his cast of acclaimed actors with an increasingly international profile.


Academy Award winner Halle Berry ("Monster Ball") returns as weather-controlling Storm. Jennifer Lawrence, who picked up an Academy Award for "Silver Linings Playbook," is the blue, shape-shifting Mystique and Ellen Page ("Juno") plays Kitty Pryde, who can run through solid objects.


Much of the plot revolves around Mystique's actions and Wolverine's attempts to thwart them.


GLOBAL CULTURE, EXISTENTIAL ROOTS


"The film is about struggle and being able to risk everything," said British actor Patrick Stewart, 73, back as Professor X in the film, whose younger self is played by Scottish actor James McAvoy, who starred in 2008's "Wanted."


Two-time Oscar nominee Ian McKellen ("Gods and Monsters") returns as the metal-controlling mutant Magneto, with Michael Fassbender, who won an Oscar nod as the slave owner in "12 Years a Slave," playing Magneto in the past.


Peter Dinklage is Bolivar Trask, a quietly conniving industrialist bent on destroying the superhero mutants with his Sentinel robots.


"I wanted Trask to be smooth, because I don't trust that in people," said Dinklage, best known for HBO's "Game of Thrones." "I never know where they're coming from."


As Wolverine and the other mutants attempt to stop Trask they disrupt key historical events, including the 1973 Paris Peace Accords and the Watergate scandal, during which a portly President Nixon, played by Canadian-born actor Mark Camacho, considers buying a fleet of Sentinel robots.


Fassbender's young Magneto even picks up the RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. and drops it around the White House as Trask and Nixon negotiate a deal.


While the plot may be complex, it helps reset the storyline after "X-Men: The Last Stand," in which Professor X's body is destroyed and Magneto loses most of his mutant powers. The film also returns the series to its existential roots, exploring how several characters find redemption.


New additions to the cast include Chinese actress Fan Bingbing as the teleporting mutant Blink, and Omar Sy in the role of energy-absorbing Bishop.


"We want our movies to reflect the world," said Lauren Shuler Donner, who has produced all of the "X-Men" films. "Years ago they sort of reflected the American culture, but it's no longer about the American culture. It's about the global culture." -- Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Marvel unveils Muslim superhero

NEW YORK - Move over Black Widow and step aside She-Hulk: Marvel Comics is introducing a new superhero—a 16-year-old Muslim-American girl named Kamala Khan, to reflect the growing diversity of its readers.

The character, who will be the new Ms. Marvel, lives with her conservative Pakistani parents and brother in New Jersey. She will make her debut in January and appear in a monthly series starting on Feb. 6.

"It is so important that we tell stories that reflect the ever-changing world that we live in and being a Muslim-American is so much a part of that," said Sana Amanat, the series editor, who also worked on Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men comic books.

Although the inspiration for the new series came from a desire to explore the Muslim-American experience, she said it isn't about what it means to be a Muslim, Pakistani or American.

"It is about a young girl who is figuring out who she is and what happens when these really extraordinary things happen to her," she added in an interview.

Khan is a big comic book fan and after she discovers her superhuman power - being a polymorph and able to lengthen her arms and legs and change her shape - she takes on the name of Ms. Marvel. The title had previously belonged to Carol Danvers, a character Khan had always had admired.

"It pays homage to the legacy character," said Amanat.




POSITIVE RESPONSE

The idea for the new superhero stemmed from a casual conversation Amanat had with her senior editor, Steve Wacker, about her own experiences growing up as a Muslim-American.

"He was interested in the dilemma I faced as a young girl and the next day he came in and said, 'Wouldn't it be great to have a superhero that was for all the little girls that grew up just like you, and who are growing up just like you are today, and to create a character they can be inspired by,'" Amanat said.

Writer G. Willow Wilson, a convert to Islam, and artist Adrian Alphona are the team working on the project, which started about 18 months ago.

Wilson said she wrote the character as a true-to-life person so that people, particularly young women, can relate to her.

Khan experiences the usual teenage angst, feelings of confusion and being an outsider, dealing with the expectations of her parents and problems at high school.

"It's for all the geek girls out there, and everybody else who's ever looked at life on the fringe," Wilson said in a statement.

Kahn is not the first Muslim-American character in the superhero world, which has been largely dominated by white males, but Amanat said she is being pushed to the forefront of the Marvel universe.

"People have been mostly positive about it," she said, adding that the real test will come early next year when the series begins.

Amanat believes the options for the new character, and others like her, are limitless.

"We are always trying to upend expectations to an extent but our point is to always reflect the world outside our window, and we are looking through a lot more windows right now," she said. (Editing by Mary Milliken and Eric Walsh. ) — Reuters

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/video/183024/marvel-comics-introduces-muslim-superhero

source: gmanetwork.com

Marvel's 'agents' hope to entice Comic-Con fans to lagging ABC

LOS ANGELES - Disney offered Marvel comic devotees an exclusive look at its new television series "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D" on Friday as its ABC network hopes to engage the "super fans" at Comic-Con to bounce back from a ratings decline.

Banking on the huge success of Marvel's films that include 2012's "Avengers," ABC and Disney's television series tries to lure young fans of the films to a new platform for the universe created by the comic books.

They had their first shot at San Diego's annual comic convention, which has become a venue for television studios to bring fans their favorite shows, building hype around upcoming seasons.

Unlike the films that focus on superheroes such as Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D" side-steps costumed crime-fighters to center on Agent Phil Coulson, a high-level government official who commands Marvel's Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division.

The series' executive producer, Joss Whedon, creator of sci-fi TV series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and director of Disney's Marvel box office hit films "Thor" and "Avengers," said on Friday that the show would take a more human focus.

"'The Avengers' is the epicenter of the Marvel universe and this is the periphery, this is about the people who did not get the big hammer or gamma radiation, and are dealing with things on a human scale," Whedon told reporters.

For ABC, which has suffered a ratings decline that put it last of the four largest TV networks among the young audience coveted by advertisers, Comic-Con is a quick way to tap into Marvel's devoted fan base.

Last year's "The Avengers" had the largest box office opening at the North American box office, while this year's "Iron Man 3" grossed more than $400 million at domestic theaters.

Not much is known about "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D" but on Friday, fans were given an exclusive look at the first episode of the television series, set to air on Sept. 24.

Coulson, played by Clark Gregg, has had supporting roles in the "Iron Man," "Thor" and "Avengers" films, where he quickly became a hit with his humorous and often sarcastic one-liners.

"'The Avengers' made him a fan favorite, he was the audience surrogate in the movies...and the way Clark brings him to life, people love that," said Jeff Bell, the show's co-writer and producer.

In "Avengers," Coulson was seemingly killed off, but in the trailer for the new television show, the agent is very much alive and the mystery behind his death is resolved.

'The most dialed in'

Another network on high display on Friday was HBO, which brings its raunchy vampire series "True Blood" and medieval fantasy series "Game of Thrones" to San Diego each year, and both attract a slew of fans.

"Game of Thrones" devotees dressed as their favorite character from the show to attend the panel featuring cast and crew, who discussed the past season. HBO is also hosting fan interactive experiences, parties with the cast. It even debuted a new beer in honor of the show.

"Comic-Con over the past few years has seen such a growth in terms of size and scale of what's going on, there's a lot more noise and clutter, and we're always looking for ways to stand out in the market there," said Zach Enterlin, HBO's senior vice president of program advertising.

"The fans that come to San Diego are almost super fans, and the most dialed-in and most engaged and most passionate," he added.


Comic-Con, now in its 44th year, attracts more than 125,000 people and brought an estimated $75 million to the city of San Diego last year, according to the San Diego Convention Center. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com