fabian nicieza

Every month, comic publishers release their solicitation announcements to provide information to readers and retailers on comics that are coming out in three months’ time, but there’s so much information dropped at once that a lot can slip through the cracks. This month in Marvel's June solicitations, there are some big returns of forgotten characters and costumes, a surprising-yet-welcome guest artist worth talking about, and two big debuts of mystery characters in familiar roles.

On December 11th 1990, Marvel Comics published New Mutants #98 by Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld, which introduced the world to a mercenary in a bright red costume, by the name of Deadpool. Over time, Deadpool would transform from the grim gun-for-hire he was introduced as, to one of the most recognizable characters in all of superhero comics, thanks to his quick mouth and his liberal disregard for the conventions of the genre.

With the Deadpool movie arriving in cinemas this week, media attention has turned to the character's co-creator Rob Liefeld, and it’s already caused a fair share of controversy. As part of an interview with the New York Times, Liefeld stated that he did “all the heavy lifting” in the creation of Deadpool, and even more bluntly, “I chose Fabian [Nicieza], and he got the benefit of the Rob Liefeld lottery ticket. Those are good coattails to ride.” Liefeld has called the article a "hit piece," but has made similar assertions on Twitter. Liefeld’s words raise interesting questions about who gets to call themself the true creator of a character. Is it just the initial concept, idea, or design that warrants a creator credit, and does time spent defining a character count for anything?

Welcome to Cast Party, the feature that imagines a world with even more live action comic book adaptations than we currently have, and comes up with arguably the best casting suggestions you’re ever going to find for the movies and shows we wish could exist. This week we're going back to the '90s, to imagine a film based on a comic that's mocked almost as much as it's revered, Marvel's New Warriors, written by Fabian Nicieza, with art by Mark Bagley, Darick Robertson, and others.

Welcome to Cast Party, the feature that imagines a world with even more live action comic book adaptations than we currently have, and comes up with arguably the best casting suggestions you’re ever going to find for the movies and shows we wish could exist. Today, we're looking at X-Force, Marvel's paramilitary mutant team, specifically the original version by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza.

The Tangent universe is a recurring feature in the third week of titles for DC's spring 2015 Convergence event, cropping up by name in the solcitations for the Flash, Justice League of America, and New Teen Titans two-part minis -- and "tangent" seems like an apt term to describe DC's impenetrable two-month event that offers all the confusion and frustration of a reboot with none of the narrative consequence. Besides the Tangent universe, the other unifying theme of the third wave of books is that dig into DC's pre-Crisis On Infinite Earths past, with writer Marv Wolfman returning to the New Teen Titans, Len Wein taking another swing at his own creation, Swamp Thing, Diana Prince back in her modish 1968 white jumpsuit, and the return of the mid-80s Detroit Justice League.

Over the past couple of weeks, DC Comics' Convergence event has resulted in some of the most exciting and most bizarre announcements since the company threw out their previous shared universe canon in favor of the "New 52" reboot -- especially since the core idea of next April's big crossover is that they're bringing back a bunch of the versions of characters that they got rid of for a big battle against the new batch. Last week was particularly enticing for long-time fans, teasing us with Greg Rucka's return to writing Renee Montoya in The Question and Gail Simone going back to the fan-favorite pairing of Nightwing/Oracle. This week, they've attempted to top that with a whole new roster of books, and this time they're set in a pre-Flashpoint Metropolis. The second week's launches will see the return of characters from 1996's Kingdom Come and the landmark Justice League International, plus Louise Simonson writing Steel. Of course, we're also getting Azrael and the return of Larry Hama to writing Batman, so someone out there needs to stop wishing on the Monkey's Paw already.

With the wrap-up of writer Joe Keatinge's multi-artist "Strange Visitor" epic in Adventures of Superman last week, the series is nearing a full year of weekly, digital Superman stories. It's easily been the best, most daring Superman title DC Comics has been publishing in 2013 and 2014 (and not just because Superman gets to wear his real costume in it). Edited by Alex Antone,  Adventures

DC's digital-first line has provided an outlet for a lot of episodic, unconstrained storytelling starring characters from Teen Titans Go!, Batman '66, the Batman Beyond universe and more, but this Monday's Adventures of Superman Chapter 42 will take things a step further as Clark Kent spends a day babysitting Sheldon Mayer's Sugar and Spike in a new story by writer Fabian Nicieza and artists Phil

DC Comics confirmed this week some personnel changes for two of its New 52 superhero titles. Specifically, Gail Simone will no longer be Ethan Van Sciver's co-writer of The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men following February's issue #6...