Mark Waid Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It seems the entire comic book and film world "misread" Warner Bros' announcement that they were angling to make Superman's reboot a gloomier one. No one seems to have read the original article slowly enough -- not even MTV, Kevin Smith, Christopher Golden, Jeph Loeb, Steven T. Seagle, or Mark Waid.

The wonderful geeks over on MTV's Splash Page chased down all the above, and asked them what they thought about the studio's latest plans for the Man of Steel. The funniest and most extreme reaction isn't Smith's, it's Golden's! "How stupid is that? That announcement made my head spin . . . Making a dark and gritty Superman movie because Dark Knight made a ton of money is incredibly stupid." Oddly, Smith is actually more tempered in his comments, and that he was all for a reboot. "You always have to always keep Superman very distinct from Batman ... Superman is about the hope in people, the good in people, whereas Batman is about the more driven, hungry for justice angry side of us. [So] I don't know if doing a dark Superman is the approach."

The lone dissenting voice is Seagle, not surprising from the man who penned It's a Bird ... and feels that Superman has always been a dark character. "Heroic struggles are basically all dark in tone. The idea of 'villains' implies something bad happening to good people most of the time, and that's dark. Heroes look brighter emerging from dire consequence successfully." Ultimately, I think Waid's the man who speaks for the majority of us in arguing that you can make Superman's world darker, but not the character, who's "a creature of hope." If Warner Bros goes in that direction, I can get behind it. A bright and shining Superman against a depraved and unjust world might be just what the reboot ordered.

In all the ComicCon insanity, a pretty cool story slipped under the Cinematical radar -- the news that Pixar had teamed up with Boom! Studios to create comic books and graphic novels based on the Disney/Pixar and Muppet properties. If that doesn't sound exciting to you, get a load of this -- the first series that will be published will be The Incredibles.

The series is confirmed for four issues, but author Mark Waid already has scripts penned for two more, and is hoping the series can continue beyond that. In an interview with MTV, Waid revealed that the storyline just about takes up where the movie left off. The characters aren't any older, and are still dealing with the insecurities and difficulties faced by a family of superheroes.

The four issue arc will center on Mr. Incredible, who starts suffering from heroic impotence. His powers are fading, and he doesn't want to tell his family or go to a doctor. Relgated to house husband status, "He feels terrible," Waid said. "He's calling them on the phone when they're on missions, to give them advice, but what he really needs to do is get his powers back." The Incredibles universe will be further fleshed out, introducing a doctor who practices superhero medicine.

The series will appear on store shelves in April, with other Pixar titles to follow. It sounds like Toy Story is the next in line, and the plan is to have six titles in rotation. None of the books, will deviate too far from the movie path in order not to interfere with possible sequels. And who knows -- we may just see The Incredibles go from the page to the screen for their second outing!