Deathlok and Lothar

 

Looks like we will be seeing Lex Luthor on the big screen again sooner than we thought, with Man of Tomorrow scheduled to hit theaters in just two years.  Supposedly Lex and Superman will have to join forces against a larger threat - it has to be Brainiac, right? I have a suspicion that we may see Lex even before that though - I don't think an appearance on Peacemaker season 2 is out of the question.

Green Arrow Vs. The Kingpin

 

I'm looking forward to Vincent D'Onofrio's return as Wilson Fisk in the upcoming Daredevil: Born Again Disney+ series. That series has undergone a lot of ups and downs, with lots of rewrites and major reshoots - let's hope the final product is on par with the first couple of seasons of the Netflix series.

The Crimson Avenger and The Avengers in: "The Tragic Vow of Lee Travis!"

 

I felt that this team up idea from comics' historian and Patron of this blog Marc Tyler Nobleman was worthy of a follow up story.  Regular visitors, may remember the Crimson Avengers first encounter with Earth's Mightiest Heroes in STF #3271.  Thanks again for the idea, Marc!

Spider-Man and The Guardian

 

We've seen Peter Parker put his smarts to work for various companies over the years, so why not Cadmus Laboratories?  I think its a simple set up that could lead to all kinds of fun stories.

Green Lantern & The Flash and The Defenders

 

Another pair of JLA members with a classic Marvel team again today, like on yesterday's cover. This time I feature the GL/Flash team, which made more sense to me as a kid than GL/Green Arrow.  You could always count on an action packed tale when Barry and Hal got together.

Fantastic Four and Red Tornado & Elongated Man

 

Elongated Man and Red Tornado were two members of the JLA that were never granted their own solo ongoing series, but that only made me seek out comics in which they did appear even more.  I would have loved to have seen them on the forefront of a great team up battle like the one on this cover.

Elongated Man previously faced off against Galactus in STF #1581...

Galactus Vs. The Seven Soldiers of Victory

 

Yeah, I don't know how this group is expected to be able to take on the World Devourer either.  It would be fun to watch them try, though!  Let's hope that one of them has an ace up their sleeve.

Hawkwoman Vs. Ego: The Living Planet

 

It sounds like we will be getting the Kendra Saunders version of Hawkgirl in Superman: Legacy, played by Isabela Merced.  Still, I hope there will be some reference to Shayera Thal.  Will the reincarnation aspects of her story be told here, or is that something we will have to wait for future appearances to see?  Only time will tell.

Captain America and Air Wave

 

I actually experienced a few Brooklyn blackouts during my 20 years living in NYC.  I remember one time my friend in the building came to my place and we cooked everything in the fridge on the gas stove and played scrabble by candlelight while listening to battery operated radio.  We definitely made the best of it, it was a fun night actually!

Aquaman and The Shadow

 

My favorite memories of The Shadow do not come from his print or theatrical appearances, but from the classic radio plays featuring the character.  When I was a kid, we had a collection of them that we would pop in and listen to at bedtime.  I'm sure that someone has a bunch of the episodes on Youtube, I'll have to give them a listen again after all these years.

Fantastic Four and The Atom Vs. Doctor Doom

 

Another day, another riff on one of my favorite comic issues.  "Terror in a Tiny Town" was a real highlight during John  Byrne's stint on the FF.  Doctor Doom had a lot of twisted plans against Reed Richards and company, and this one was truly epic.

The Fantastic Four and The Atom first crossed paths in STF #1499... and The Atom first clashed with Doctor Doom way back in STF #80.

Dick Tracy and Bullseye

 

 I enjoyed the Dick Tracy movie back in the day.  It's been decades since I've watched it, I wonder if it holds up.  One thing I remember that bothered me was they used so many different Tracy villains in one single film, killing most of them off - it seemed like a waste of potential there.  I still think a Dick Tracy streaming series would be a great idea, that way each villain could get an arc or at least an episode to themselves.

Hawkman & The Atom and Jack of Hearts

 

This is another of those covers where the final product looks relatively simple to achieve.  Take a splash page featuring JOH, and then drop in the other two heroes on top of it, right?  This wasn't quite that easy, as I had to do a lot of prep work with the initial image before anything could be added to it.  I thought this would be a good candidate for a little behind the scenes view of a cover in progress.  I hope you enjoy these mid-creation peeks, I'm considering making this a semi regular feature of the blog going forward for whenever there's a cover that has a deceptively tricky element in its creation.

Static and Spider-Man

 

I haven't heard much about the Static movie since it was announced, but I am definitely looking forward to it.  Michael B. Jordan will be producing alongside Denys Cowan and Reginald Hudlin, so it has a lot of talent behind it already.  Hopefully we will hear about a director and casting soon.

Electro Vs. Air Wave

 

Despite the fact that Sony is sharing Spider-Man with Marvel, they seem determined to build their own Spidey Cinematic Universe.  We know that there will be lots of returning villains from the previous Spider-Man movie incarnations appearing in the next film, but now rumors are swirling that their involvement will not end there.  Apparently Jamie Foxx's Electro is now slated for a solo film, like Venom, Morbius and the rumored Kraven the Hunter movies.  Once they have enough solo villain movies out, they will make a Sinister Six film, not sure that it will include Spider-Man or save that confrontation for a future big screen adventure.  It will be interesting to see how many of these rumors come to pass.

The Vision and Hawkman

 

Wanda/Vision is set to debut in less than a month (finally), and given the intriguing trailer it will be interesting to see how the series develops.  I hope that there will be some way for The Vision to survive the series and continue on in the MCU,  but I think that his appearance is only due to Wanda's hex magic.  I'm guessing by the end of the series, She will have lost him for good and that's what will cause her to snap and make a break the multiverse which will be dealt with in the next Spider-Man movie and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.  So, I'll enjoy The Vision while we still have him!

Sleepwalker and Sandman in: "Escaping the Dreamscape!"

Wesley Dodds was included among the classic JSAers depicted in the first episode of Stargirl.  I'm not sure how much time will be spent on flashbacks to the past in that show, but it would be nice to showcase him in action at some point.  He has one f the coolest looks of all the Society members and it would be great to see him battling injustice in his prime.

Sleepwalker first met Sandman in STF #1779, and he encountered Sandman of The Endless in STF #1211...

Aquaman Vs. Attuma

1989 is remembered fondly as being the summer of Batman, but there was another comics book event that I also remember well. Atlantis Attacks was a fun event that ran across the Marvel Annuals that year, and it was a pretty fun read.  Company-wide story lines were still relatively new for Marvel at that point, and it felt like a big deal. 

Iron Man and Red Tornado (Part Two)

Continued from yesterday's cover, we see the thrilling conclusion to our story...

Between the various MCU movies, audiences have been able to see many iterations of Iron Man's armor on the big screen.  The suit he wore in Avengers: Endgame came close, but I still wish we had gotten a version of his classic 70's-80's look (the one right below his logo on the above cover) at some point.  Maybe if we get a Secret Wars movie down the road, Rhodey can don that particular suit, just as he did in the comic book version of that crossover story.

The Phantom Stranger and Iron Man

This is a good example of a cover that was a bit trickier to accomplish than may look at first glance.  One might think that all that needed to be done was to add in an image of Iron Man on top of the Phantom Stranger splash.  As you can see below, I used the splash page from DC Comics Presents #72, which had a lot of captions and text that needed to be removed and replaced with background elements first.  Sometimes even the simple looking covers can be a challenge to create.