James Spader to be Avengers Sequel's Ultron

The next instalment of the Avengers cinematic series is 2015's "Avengers: Age of Ultron", there's been a lot of talk about the upcoming addition to the Marvel cinematic universe recently, such as new characters ( with the possibility of the Wasp making an appearance ), a possible death of one of the lead characters, and now Marvel have revealed the actor set to play the robotic villain of the film, Ultron, that actor is James Spader.

Now, I'm assuming Spader will only be voicing the character in the film. I'm not familiar with any of the actor's work, but if he was chosen by Joss Whedon ( who did a pretty good job with the first film ), he's probably a good choice for the job.

The Avengers: Age of Ultron is directed by Joss Whedon and supposedly stars the main cast of the first movie; Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Scarlet Johhanson, Jeremy Renner, Samuel L. Jackson; along with new additions including James Spader and more. It's due to be released on May 1st 2015.

(Source: Marvel)

First look at Spider-Man 2099 in The Superior Spider-Man #17

Today, Marvel have released some unlettered preview pages for The Superior Spider-Man #17, written by Dan Slott, pencilled by Ryan Stegman and with colours by Edgar Delgado. This issue marks the first meeting between Miguel O'Hara, the Spider-Man of the year 2099, and Otto Octavius as the Superior Spider-Man, check out the preview pages below:

SDCC 2013: Bendis and Bagely join forces once again for "Cataclysm"

In last month's "Age of Ultron" #10, The World-Eater, Galactus, arrived in the Ultimate Marvel Universe. As you can probably tell from his title, this isn't good for residents of the Ultimate universe. This plot will be continuing in "Hunger", a four-issue miniseries written by Joshua Hale Fialkov (I, Vampire, Alpha: Big Time, Ultimate Comics: the Ultimates) which is, in itself, a build up to "Cataclysm: The Ultimates' last stand", written by Brian Michael Bendis ( Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man, All-New X-Men, Age of Ultron) and pencilled by Mark Bagley ( Ultimate Spider-Man, Fantastic Four)

Cataclysm was announced today at San-Diego Comic-Con, the team have previously worked on the successful original run of Ultimate Spider-Man. As you can see, this creative team have a lot of experience in the Ultimate Universe. Check out the cover to issue one of Cataclysm below:

(Source: Newsarama)

Review: Age of Ultron #8

Age of Ultron has been quite disappointing of late, but I think it's gradually building up to a good standard which will hopefully be reached by the finale in issue #10. Now back to reviewing this issue...

I think the word that sums up this issue overall is "alright", I didn't hate it, I didn't love it, it was just alright. However, that's not really what I look for in a comic, I want to really enjoy it, so I felt a little disappointed with this issue.

That being said, I think the art was brilliant and the opening double page spread was pretty amazing.

I don't really have much to say about this book because I feel that I've gone through most of my thoughts there, but just one last thing, the one scene that I actually, properly enjoyed from this entire issue was the scene between the two Wolverines, that was actually quite good.

Overall, I feel this was an okay issue, but not particularly impressive. It did, however, have some great pages of art and one scene that I felt was pretty good.

Rating: 6/10

Roundup: All posts for the month of May!

Here's a round-up of all the posts on the blog in May!

Review: Superior Spider-Man #9

Review: Age of Ultron #7

Review: The Movement #1

Final Man Of Steel poster released

Interview: Ryan Stegman talks Superior Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, Scarlet Spider and more!

The beginnings of something interesting in Batman #20?

Dan Didio and Ethan Van Sciver's... Bat-Cow?!

Review: Age of Ultron #8

Review: Supergirl #20

Full cinematic trailer released or Batman: Arkham Origins

Brett Booth to leave Nightwing after #21

Interview: Brett Booth on leaving Nightwing, JLA and the future!

New full trailer for "The Wolverine" released

Review: The Green Team: Teen Trillionares #1

Review: Teen Titans #20

Booster Gold to star in new ongoing series... Possibly

Preview for Hawkeye #11, "Pizza is my business", released.

DC release the first look at first Green Lantern issue Post-Johns

Batwing coming to All Star Western in June

Comics Catch-Up: Avenging Spider-Man #21 ( What you need to know )

DC Comics release Superman's 75th anniversary logo

DC Comics release eight new Superman Unchained variants

James Robinson confirms he's NOT writing Namor

Interview: Robert Venditti on taking over Green Lantern

Review: Justice League of America #4

Review: The Wake #1

Review: X-Men #1

Review: Earth 2 annual #1

Enjoy!

Review: Age of Ultron #8

Cover to Age of Ultron #8

You may remember that my review of the last issue of this series wasn't very positive, I found it a bit dull and was annoyed that they'd just erased most of the story and a lot of the characters I was looking forward to seeing more of in this series. I think this issue was quite a big improvement.

Although you don't get to see the heroes of the old universe again, I do think they did a good job of making you care about the characters in the alternate universe, and I actually enjoyed seeing the changes between the old universe and this one, and it was interesting to see what the Marvel Universe turned out like without Hank Pym, one of the founding avengers and the creaor of Ultron.

Bendis has come up with interesting consequences of Hank Pym dying years ago, including the most of Avengers and X-Men being completely different to their regular counterparts, and the personalities of some so different they feel like completely new characters. He wrote the tension of the heroes of this universe when  they found out that there were alternate versions of Wolverine and Sue Storm really well and seeing the team argue and fight about the alternate heroes was actually quite a good read.

The art in this issue by Brandon Peterson is brilliant, I wasn't keen on the series' art change at first because I loved Bryan Hitch's work on the first issues of the series, but Peterson has done a great job on the issue, and   the page showing (SPOILERS) the Helicarrier crashing into the city below was amazing.

I had two problems with this issue, first off, there was no appearance of Ultron in this issue, which is always a bit disappointing when buying a series called "Age of Ultron", hopefully the character is back in a big way in the final two issues of the series. The second is that I think there was a lot of unused opportunities to show what became of a lot of the other heroes in this universe, such as Spider-Man or Hawkeye, instead it focused on a group of Avengers and X-Men (along with the Thing, Ben Grimm).

Overall, an interesting issue, but I think it could've used the idea of this alternate timeline more to show different characters.

Rating: 7/10