Marvel Announces new Daredevil Team

At Marvel, the only two characters I'm interested in are Spider-Man and Daredevil. At the moment, the only Marvel trades I buy are Daredevil and Ultimate Spider-Man, both written by Brian Michael Bendis.

Earlier this year, Bendis announced that he and artist Alex Maleev will be leaving Daredevil soon (they will work together on a new Spider-Woman series), and speculation had begun on the next creative team. Most of that speculation centered on recent Marvel exclusives, writer Ed Brubarker and artist Michael Lark (who worked together on DC's Gotham Central), but until this weekend, no one knew for sure.

At WizardWorld Chicago on Friday, Bendis confirmed that Brubaker/Lark are indeed the next Daredevil team. From the Marvel Knights panel report at Newsarama:

Brubaker and Lark take over the series in February ’06. Quesada acknowledged it was one of the worst kept secrets in comics, but that they couldn’t think of anyone else other than Brubaker and Lark to take over the series. He added Brubaker’s pitch contains enough material for at least 2 years worth of stories. Bendis touched on something he said in his own Q&A earlier that day that his last story arc “The Murdock Papers” ends rather uniquely and would only work if the writer that followed him on DD agreed to pick up on some elements from that story, and the Brubaker was up to the task and his first story arc will follow-up on it as well as kick off his own run.

Brubaker give his own take on the transition here.

I love Brubaker's Gotham Central stories (the curent arc, his last, is co-written with Greg Rucka) and his Sleeper series for Wildstorm, and Lark is a great, gritty street crime artist, so it looks like I will keep buying Daredevil trades.

And Bendis isn't leaving Ultimate Spider-Man anytime soon either.

It's a shame I've lost complete interest in the regular version of Spider-Man. Maybe "The Other" storyline will bring me back. There's a panel on that today. Plus, another favorite writer, Peter David, is doing a new Spider-Man title, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (which unfortunately kicks off as part of "The Other" crossover), so maybe I'll be buying that in trade as well.

Good News for DC: Jeph Loeb, Michael Turner Exclusive to Marvel

At last month’s Comic-Con in San Diego, DC had the biggest spotlight (biggest news being the exclusivity of Mark Waid and his Brave and the Bold series), while Marvel was pretty low-key. The situation was reversed at this weekend’s WizardWorld Chicago, with very little new DCU information, but lots of announcements and teases from Marvel.

The biggest Marvel news to affect DC fans is probably the signing of writer Jeph Loeb and artist Michael Turner to exclusive contracts. Loeb is the current writer of Superman/Batman, and it’s just launched spin-off Supergirl. Loeb is already on his previously announced final arc on Superman/Batman, and has stated that his Marvel contract allows him to take the Supergirl series to a point where it will be easier to hand off to another writer.

Turner has mostly drawn covers for DC for the past two years, most notably Identity Crisis, as well as a perpetually late arc of Superman/Batman (the one that introduced the new Supergirl, actually). He also wrote a Superman story arc about a year ago.

Frankly, as a major DC fan, I’m not sorry to see either go. While many of Loeb’s stories are fun, they mostly too convoluted with little resolution at the end of stories. His Batman: Hush arc was entertaining as a parade of Batman’s greatest villain, but the story was a little weak (though it did open the door to the current return of Jason Todd). And Turner, he’s pretty much a cheesecake artist who draws figures out of proportion. The Identity Crisis covers should have been by series artist Rags Morales, and when the collection comes out with a choice of covers by the two artists, I’m getting the Morales version.

Their Marvel projects have yet to be announced.

So Marvel’s happy and so am I. And I’m sure Loeb will be back to DC at some point.