Wolverine: Worst Day Ever is a short novel for kids ages 10-12 (ish), featuring a brand-new look at everyone’s favorite metal-boned mutant. I don’t want to say too much lest I give away some of the surprises, but I think I managed to find a unique way of looking at Wolverine…which was no mean feat, given how long he’s been around and how many other people have had their hands on him!

The book is told as a series of blog entries by a new student at Xavier’s School, with illustrations culled from Wolverine and X-Men comics going back as far as Giant-Size X-Men #1 (and, yeah, I thought of Fanboy every time I flipped through that comic…). It was a lot of fun to write and I think it’ll look great. I wrote it for kids, but your average forty-year-old Wolverine fan should get a kick out of it, too. Plenty of in-jokes in there for the geeks. Represent!

Oh, and it has this most awesomely cool cover by Todd Nauck. Bravo, Todd!

The book should be in stores in April.

No way.

No freakin’ way!

This is bull.

There is so much wrong with this that I can’t even start to explain it all.

This entry written by…Me.

It’s mainly about Heroes, which I love, but it’s a real backhanded slap at comics.

Man, I think it’s a bunch of crap. “Starting in the 1980s…” Look I’m not the oldest comic fan I know, not even close really, but has this writer ever checked out the Essentials line from Marvel. I mean, I figure on his big Slate.com salary he could afford to purchase a copy of Stan Lee’s early Spider-Man stuff, which is all about the characters and their troubles… or the X-Men, either the originals or the ’70s team, which was always, always, always about issues bigger than their powers.

And if he doesn’t want to spend the money on black and white reprints he could always save up for that copy of Giant Size X-Men #1 in the display case at our local comic shop.

Or, you know, a clue.

This entry written by…Cal.

• Marvel’s editor-in-chief Joe Quesada mentions Bendis in his regular Friday column for Newsarama, which actually only appeared on Monday. (Even Marvel’s COLUMNS are late — har, har.)
• Comic Book Bin reviews New Avengers: Illuminati #1
• An interview with Bendis collaborator Brian Reed (somehow I missed this one a couple weeks ago).

This entry written by…Me.

That said, it sounds pretty cool. Here’s one no-spoilers part:

“The conspiracy will be revealed this year, in this first story arc coming up. People have waited long enough. This isn’t the X-Files where we say it’s coming but it’s not coming because we don’t have it. We’re not just jerking people around and getting them angered. No, this story is a story with an end with a shocking reveal after shocking reveal and we’re ready to build towards it for a few months right after Civil War because there’s a lot that needs to be addressed. The characters dive right back into that main story, some of them not even realizing they’re diving right back into the story, but what they (and readers) want to know, they will find out, and it will set up an entire new agenda for the book about who they are fighting, why they’re fighting, and what the people they’re fighting against want.”

This article written by…Me.

He said, “There is nothing better in the whole history of literary fiction than a guilt-ridden Peter Parker, and we have the ‘King Kong’ of guilt-ridden Peter Parker’s now, on this team, trying to make amends for all the damage that was done and all the damage he did in outing himself and dealing with the disastrous implications of what happened since.”

And yes, it starts with Spidey in the black costume.

There’s some cool art, too, so check out the whole article.

This article written by…Me.

I’ve only ever been able to find low-res versions of it… until now!

Click on the thumbnail to see the cartoon in hi-res glory! I especially like the bit about smelling like ramen noodles…

This entry written by…Me.

Bendis has obvious really delved into Luke’s personality through his appearances in Alias, The Pulse, Daredevil and New Avengers. Here’s part of what he said to Newsarama about him: “Luke Cage will now rise to be the leader of the team. He almost had a …hmmm, let’s says a ‘King Arthur’ heaviness in him in New Avengers #22, where he made decisions to fight for what he believes in no matter what the cost to himself or his family. And now here he is having survived the war and kind of being put in position to lead the team to where it needs to go. He is, of all of them, the biggest believer in that what happened to the New Avengers in the first arcs – in the Savage Land, discovering there is something rotten in S.H.I.E.L.D. – is all connected, all the way from House of M, to the Secret Wars, to Civil War … that there has been something pulling at them this whole time, and they’re going to get right back to trying to figure out what it all is and putting it all together.

Iron Fist

Bendis said: “I’m glad we’ve put them together as a reveal because…Yes, the ‘Heroes for Hire’ [see below] are back together again. Danny went through a lot during Civil War. He’s got his Rand Corporation and we’re discovering a lot about him in his series by Ed [Brubaker] and Matt [Fraction], and this is the book where you get to see that information effecting the Marvel heroes in his life. This is a really good time to be an Iron Fist fan and a ‘Power Man & Iron Fist’ fan. They are going to achieve a lot in the coming months.

This entry written by…Me.