* NYCC news, Brian Michael Bendis division, part one: Ultimate Spider-Man is being cancelled and relaunched as Ultimate Comics Spider-Man. According to the interview with Bendis at the link, this entails a new #1 issue; a new artist, David Lafuente; a more shared-universe feel between UCSM and the rest of the rechristened Ultimate Comics line; a phasing-out of Spidey’s two biggest antagonists, the Green Goblin and the Kingpin; and most interestingly, if the interview is to be believed and depending on how you parse what is said, a new character as Spidey. There will also be a two-issue sign-off for the original series called Ultimate Spider-Man: Requiem, featuring Mark Bagley and Stuart Immonen.Ultimate Spider-Man has been a lot of fun for a lot of issues, so I’m quite interested in seeing how this pans out.

* NYCC news, Brian Michael Bendis division, part two: Powers is also being relaunched with a new #1 issue. Bendis blames its erratic shipping schedule, which he was “embarrassed” by, for the move, and says he and artist Michael Avon Oeming are stockpiling issues before restarting it. Powers, too, is a very good comic, but it’s hard for it to get traction in your head when it comes out so sporadically. I’d love for it to arrive on a consistent basis so that it gets a little more oomph.

* NYCC news, Brian Michael Bendis division, part three: Powers is headed for a TV adaptation on FX. Of course I’ve been hearing about live-action Powers adaptations all decade long, so I probably won’t be holding my breath, but it would be awfully nice if someone could pull off serialized live-action non-ridiculous superhero storytelling, wouldn’t it?

(Many of the above links via Kevin Melrose.)

* NYCC news: Geoff Johns is launching a new Adventure Comics series. It will feature the Legion of Super-Heroes–presumably the grown-up versions of the original Legion, whom we’ve seen in Johns’s Action Comics, Justice Society of America, and Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds, as well as the Superman villains Lex Luthor, Bizarro, and Brainiac. In other words it’s a continuation of Johns’s excellent Action Comics run, more or less, so I’m excited about it.

* NYCC news: There’s a new Taiyo Matsumoto book called Gogo Monster on its way from Viz this November.

* NYCC news: Pixu II came out and I totally missed it, dammit.

* NYCC news: Kiel Phegley presents the best of the ICv2 Graphic Novel Conference. I think the most interesting exchange involves Marvel’s Executive VP – Global Digital Media Group Ira Rubenstein and what could charitably be described as a downplaying of fanfiction and, really surprisingly given his job, YouTube.

* B-Sol at the Vault of Horror has once again polled a variety of online horror commentary luminaries to create a list of the Top 20 Foreign Horror Films of All Time. Bucking the trend of the previous lists regarding the age-to-ranking ration, the number one film is also the most recent, Let the Right One In. My guess is that this is simply because it’s the one foreign horror film that nearly every horror blogger has seen.

* Fantagraphics is launching Johnny Ryan’s Blecky Yuckerella as a webcomic!

* I really liked my pal Sam Walker’s ideas for famous images she’d like to see reinterpreted by comics artists.

* Monster Brains T-shirts? Yes please.

* I’ll stop posting drawings by Jim Woodring when they stop looking like this.

* I’ll stop posting pictures of Kate Winslet when they stop looking like this.

* The one good thing about this Michael Phelps marijuana nonsense is how everyone who isn’t the news media or Phelps’s sponsors seems to realize that it is, in fact, nonsense. In a political culture given to fits of fact-free stupidity on a daily basis, reefer madness may well be the stupidest of it.

* Finally, my friend Sarah took some steps to protect her neighborhood this weekend.

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