Link Ink: Universal Gets ‘Pluto,’ ‘Underground’ Gets a Sales Boost and Penguins Love Robots

Movies: Universal and Illumination Entertainment are teaming up with Tezuka Productions to produce a live action/CGI hybrid adaptation of Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki's Pluto manga, which explores a world analogous to Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy stories . [Deadline]

Industry: Will Marvel's number of $3.99 titles really be reduced next year? The Beat takes a look at the numbers. [The Beat]

Crime: A 77-year-old man Albany bachelor who planned to sell a comic book collection valued at between $40,000 to 100,000 to benefit his family was robbed and roughed up before dying of a heart attack hours later, according to authorities. [Boston Herald]

Recalls: Dollar Tree is recalling $1 Marvel flashlights due to battery badness. Apparently at least one caught on fire, one melted and they're all potential overheaters. [FoxDFW]

Threads: I'm trying really hard to resist calling these Peanuts Converse from Collete "Chuck's Chucks," but... whoops. [Fantagraphics]

Custom Toys: Thor is joined by his human half Donald Blake via customizer Usagi Yojimbo (although I'm afraid he's not exactly Stan Sakai's famed bunny samurai). [Toycutter]

Science: Remember the Penguin's super creepy rocket launching penguins from Batman Returns? This robotic penguin from Japan is just like that, only really badly made and cute. [Topless Robot]

Anime: Japan's ginormous RX-78-2 Mobile Suit is now complimented by a 1/1-scale, "life-size" model of the FF-X7 Core Fighter at the Hobby Museum at the Shizuoka Hobby Fair. [ANN]