PENULTIMATE

LegalDispatch 0.99

May 17, 2024

Howdy.

I’m afraid this weeks Dispatch will have to be a bit quick, as I’m leaving town for a few days and still have a lot to do before I race to the airport.

WORK UPDATE

Work on PROJECT MARBLE continues apace. I finished up the outline for the PROJECT ATLANTIC tv pilot. And I also wrote what I think is a fun 8-page comic book story for a publisher I’ve never worked with before and featuring a character I’ve never written. Fun stuff.

BEWARE THE PLANET OF THE APES

With Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes burning up the box office, I thought I’d share this rather nice review of Beware the Planet of the Apes from SFX magazine:

The paperback drops Tuesday, August 13…

…AND ONE DAY LATER, WE HAVE…

I’d previously mentioned that I wrote an 8-page Green Lantern story for Green Lantern #13. Well, today, DC released its August 2024 solicitations and “announced” I’m doing a second story in Green Lantern #14. It’s about the rise of a group I call “the Shadow Lanterns” and it’s illustrated beautifully by none other than Darick Robertson (The Boys).

*Green Lantern* #14 cover by Ariel Cólon

Darick has wrapped up all his work on the story and I can tell you that it looks simply stunning.

Green Lantern #14 drops August 14, 2024.

CGC COMICS SIGNING

CGC Comics is the industry leader in professional comic book grading and preservation. I’m very honored to have been invited to participate in a special in-house private signing event.

Basically, you can pay (what I think is) a reasonable fee to have me sign a comic or series of comics of your choice under circumstances where CGC assures that the signature is “official” as part of the grading and preservation process. (I recently did this with my copy of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Frank Miller’s signature and accompanying Batman sketch kicked this up to being one of the most cherished items in my collection.)

(You’ll be relieved to know that I won’t be drawing Batman on anyone’s comics.)

You can read more about the event by clicking here.

WELL, THIS IS FUN…

I have to admit that I’m terribly behind with the critically-acclaimed X-Men ‘97 animated series currently streaming on Disney+. I’ll further cop to the fact that I was a bit too old when the original X-Men animated series came out for it to have made an impression on me.

Nevertheless, I was tickled pink to learn that Cipher, one of the characters I co-created with Rafa Sandoval when I wrote Young X-Men has been making multiple appearances in X-Men ‘97. (She’s actually the second mutant created for my Young X-Men run. Ink appeared in live action in the X-Men: Days of Future Past feature film.)

Northstar Psylocke Cipher and Puck in X-Men '97 Season 1 finale — There’s my girl, second from the right.

It’s always nice when the kids make good. You can read more about Cipher and X-Men ‘97 here.

Cipher in Young X_Men 8 — Art by Rafa Sanoval

NOTICE & COMMENT

Fewer questions per se this week, so I’m (temporarily?) stealing a title from a column I used to write for my law school newspaper. (It comes from the public commentary period mandatory for new federal regulations.)

Last week, I shared the sad news that we had been working on a theatrical release event for Crisis On Infinite Earths. This week, Cam wrote in to ask:

Is there a chance you could rearrange the event for later this year or early next year for the crossover's 5-year anniversary?

It’s a great idea, Cam. I’d certainly be game, of course. Unfortunately, I don’t see it as being likely. For one thing, a lot of the Warner Bros. folks who were championing the event have since left the studio. And the current regime appears uninterested in anything that doesn’t relate to the DCU that James Gunn and his team are building. I’m sorry.

Leave a comment

Norman Anderson was kind enough to write in to say:

Most excellent read today!! The Crisis script tidbits were both great to see. The chance to see the whole production in theaters…amazing! I would’ve even traveled from my frozen state up in Alaska to watch it in an actual theater. The Arrowverse, Especially Arrow has been really special for me and helped me through a very difficult time in my life. Also, the dialogue tip is fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing all this. It brightens my Friday when your newsletters hit the inbox!

Thank you, Norman. That’s extremely kind. Feedback like this is a big reason for why I continue to maintain this newsletter. Stay warm in Alaska!

David Banks wrote:

Great stuff! Going to remember squeeze the lemon but in design rather than writing.

To explain, David runs a terrific comic book binding service which I have availed myself of many times. I don’t have his website at hand for some reason, but a photographed a few samples of his exemplary work below:

C’mon, DC, this one really deserves a proper collection.

Jenn Anderson writes:

Loved the tidbits for Crisis and hope that some day we can see the cut scenes. Excited to see the convention list-maybe you can add FanExpo Chicago 🤞

I love Chicago and would love to do that con. Just need to be invited!

I will, however, be at FanExpo San Francisco and FanExpo Toronto. (See the “Coming Attractions” section below for details.)

And speaking of Crisis, that’s a good set up for this week’s:

FROM THE VAULT

Fans of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths know that a lot of the action took place in — and motivated by scenes set in — the Monitor’s orbital satellite. Well, we went down a road with designing our own version. Here are examples of some of the designs worked up for that little endeavor:

I apologize that I’ve long since forgotten the names of the talented artists who worked on these.

But as you know, the Satellite never made it into the finished product. Instead, we gathered the heroes in a parallel universe version of the Legends’ Waverider ship.

But here’s a funny little story about that: While the Satellite was still in play, Netflix got back to us and said that we couldn’t use Lucifer in our event. At the time, Lucifer’s show, uh, Lucifer was on Netflix, so we had to get their permission. After they said no, I got a phone call from an executive who shall remain nameless who told me, “I’m glad Netflix won’t let you use Lucifer. Every one of these cameos diminishes the crossover.”

Suffice it to say, I disagreed.

Cut to a week or so later. Budget realities meant that building an entirely new set — while cool — wasn’t fiscally responsible, particularly when a “free” option was readily available in the form of the Waverider set.

So I killed that satellite and, in so doing, freed up a nice chunk of change. A fraction of which would pay for, say, the services of a certain actor on a certain Netflix show.

Now, to be clear, Netflix’s objection to us using Lucifer had nothing to do with cost. It was a purely creative/IP-management decision on their part. But those kinds of decisions can be, shall we say, changed.

So I called up Channing Dungey who, at the time, was rather high up at Netflix. (Ironically, she’s now head of TV at Warner Bros. today.) Channing and I worked extensively together back when we were both at ABC Studios and I called to ask her for a favor.

And Channing, bless her, delivered.

So, if you enjoyed Lucifer’s appearance on Crisis of Infinite Earths, you have two executives to thank: The exec whose comment, ahem, motivated me and Ms. Dungey. Please give her a round of applause.

Be good to each other.

Best,

Marc

Encino, CA 91436