Thursday, August 8, 2002

X-MEN: EVOLUTION UPDATE

The Morlocks will be appearing in the upcoming third season of Kids' WB!'s X-Men: Evolution.

"The Morlocks are an intriguing group to me - clearly illustrating that mutants aren't the perfect race, and these unfortunate souls are proof of that," X-Men: Evolution story editor Greg Johnson told The Continuum.

"We'll meet a few of them early on in brief encounters, and then a group of them are featured in one episode. Some are taken from the comics, Caliban and Callisto among them, while others have been created specifically for our series."

Why new characters?

"I needed a group to possess specific abilities and personalities useful in the episode they're in, and when I couldn't find them in the archives, I chose to develop them," Johnson said. "Included in the new creations are Lucid, who can peer through solid objects, and Facade, who can camouflage himself. "

Johnson said the Morlocks won't be a big part of the cast, but they do play an important role in the life of one core character.

The Continuum has obtained designs of the Morlocks, including the two made-for-TV characters. (Click on the thumbnails above for larger images and a few surprises).

Like most of the characters in the show, the Morlocks were designed by Steve Gordon, a director of the first two seasons who now works at Dreamworks.

"My main thinking was to design characters that couldn't easily blend into normal society -- without the use of an image inducer, of course -- and I tried to create designs that somewhat reflect their powers," Gordon told The Continuum. "I also wanted to get away from that dated look of the comics while still trying to keep true to the original intent."

THE HULK MOVIE UPDATE

Of the Marvel movies scheduled for release early next year, The Hulk is shrouded in the most mystery. Heck, the main character hasn't even been seen yet.

Director Ang Lee, who kept a closed set, broke the silence a little on Saturday at Comic-Con International. Lee - joined by producers Larry Franco, Gale Anne Hurd and Avi Arad -- brought along two dozen slides to show the crowd of 4,300, and discussed the film, which remains on track for a June 20 release.

For a rundown on the filmmakers' comments, CLICK HERE.

SMALLVILLE UPDATE

Warner Bros. conducted a panel for Smallville last weekend at Comic-Con International and the room proved way too small, swelling with fans well before the panel started.

Eventually, everyone was packed in and executive producers Al Gough and Miles Millar provided insight into the first season as well as dropping hints about the second, which starts on Sept. 24.

The panel was on Smallville and Birds of Prey, but, aside from a trailer for BoP, it focused on Smallville. Last season's finale, "Tempest," was shown and was followed by a question-and-answer session with Gough and Millar.

For highlights from the panel, CLICK HERE.

DREAMWAVE'S TRANSFORMERS PLANS

At Dreamwave Productions' panel at Comic-Con International in San Diego last weekend, the publisher's Adam Fortier announced that Dreamwave will be publishing a line of Transformers children's activity books next year.

"Transformers is a children's property," Fortier said. "Children can watch them on TV, children can play with the toys and there's no reason children shouldn't be able to read the comics."

The books will be 22 pages, larger in size than comics and will have self-contained stories and word/math games.

Fortier said the activity books will be sold through the mass market.

In other Transformers news:

* Writer Simon Furman will team with Pat Lee on a story in Transformers: Armada #6-7.

* Transformers: Profiles will launch in November. There will be four 96-page sourcebooks.

* The first Transformers: G1 trade paperback will be released in November, with a preview of the second G1 series due in the spring that will also be drawn by Pat Lee. "We wanted to give Pat some time," Fortier said. "It will be 10 times as complicated."

* A lithograph of more than 600 characters, measuring three feet by five feet will be available in October.

* The Transformers: War Within mini-series will explore the history of Optimus Prime.

FIRST LOOK: NEW X-MEN #130

New X-Men #130 will arrive in stores on Wednesday from Marvel Comics. The issue is written by Grant Morrison, with art by Igor Kordey and a cover by Ethan Van Sciver.

Although Marvel did not solicit any story information with the issue, here's some information provided with the images:

"Looking at the following pages you'll see two things: 1. The Weapon XII story is coming to it's crazed conclusion; and 2. Something extremely painful is being done to Wolverine."

New X-Men #130 will be 32 pages and will cost $2.25.

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