Trying to come up with something clever to lead off this week’s news roundup but the PAX flu fever has kind of turned my brain to mush so lets just get on with it.

Comics

More news on Disney’s acquisition of Marvel. Disney president and CEO Bob Iger held a press conference at the D23 expo which was attended and reported on by the people at Screen Crave. Unsurprisingly, Iger assured the audience that there were no plans to make Marvel more family-firendly to fit in with the Disney image.

We plan to keep Marvel as an entity and and to respect both the talent that is there, working as one and also respect what Marvel is and what the essence of Marvel is. There will be no Disney-fication of Marvel.

All is not smooth sailing for the deal however. National securities law firm Levi & Korsinsky has sent out a press release announcing a challenge to the buyout on the grounds that it undervalues Marvel’s stock.

Boardgames

Couldn’t resist mentioning the latest expansion for Warfrog Games’ Age of Steam rail game. Survival would surely be on everyone’s mind during a zombie outbreak, but has anyone considered what effect all those shambling corpses would have on shipping costs? Well Boardgame News has a preview of the expansion that answers that question – Age of Steam: The Zombie Apocalypse.

MMO

BioWare has released the video footage from Star Wars: The Old Republic that they showed at PAX into the wild. Enjoy!

Another MMO showing its stuff at PAX was Funcom’s The Secret World. The premise behind The Secret World is pretty appealing to me. It appears to be set in modern or near-modern times but with the idea that every wacko conspiracy theory, urban legend and cryptozoological critter you have ever heard of is real. Players will play as one of three factions, Dragons, Illuminati and Templars. You can even take an online initiation test to see which faction you’ll fit in with best. The factions are all engaged in a war against a primal evil force while at the same time struggling with each other for power and dominance. One of the aspects of game play that was promoted at PAX was the idea of the leaderboards. Every aspect of gameplay, PvP, PvE, exploration even crafting is going to be tracked and the each of the cabals (The Secret World’s version of guilds) within the factions will be ranked in several categories. There will, of course, be as yet unspecified benefits for being in the leading cabal and the leading faction which is the one small problem I foresee with the game. The idea behind the leaderboards was to encourage competition not only between factions but between cabals in the same faction. The problem will come, I think, if one faction becomes overwhelmingly dominant. With the rankings being not only available but advertised and broadcast I think it is quite probable that population imbalances could arise. Aside from that little fly in the ointment I think the game looks pretty cool.

Movies

Ronin looks to be the latest of Frank Miller’s graphic novels to get the movie treatment. SuperHeroHype.com has a couple comments from director Sylvain White who is set to work on the project once he is finished with his current movie, an adaptation of DC/Vertigo’s comic The Losers.