In 53 years of publication, Fantastic Four hasn’t featured a whole lot of women creators, despite having one of the most prominent superheroines, the Invisible Woman, at the heart of the team. Louise Simonson wrote the annual in 2000, and Ming Doyle drew a story in Fantastic Four #600. Marie Severin inked an annual. Several women have been colorists on the series, but a woman has never been a regular writer or artist on the book.

Perhaps that will change sometime in the next 47 years or so. There is certainly hope. The just-announced 100th Anniversary Special: Fantastic Four #1, a special issue set in 2061 boasts a creative team of highly accomplished women: writer Jen Van Meter (Hopeless Savages) and artist Joanna Estep (Fraggle Rock).

Marvel isn’t really playing up the all-woman creative team in its press release about the issue, but from what I can tell it’s the first time women have completely been in control of a Fantastic Four comic.

Here’s what Marvel did say about the issue:

Witness the first family of the future in a way you’ve never seen them before! What does the Fantastic Four look like in the year 2061? Reed Richards, Doctor Doom and Johnny Storm are all gone – presumed dead. The Fantastic Four has been discredited in the eyes of the public – no longer the champions they once were. Now, a new Fantastic Four will rise up – comprised of Doom’s granddaughter and the Richards-Banner twins. But when a key player in the first family’s past resurfaces – it will have earth-shattering effects on their future!

The special issue comes out July 2 and can be pre-ordered from finer comics shops now. Check out some preview pages below.

Nicolas Winding Refn will be the first to admit he doesn’t know how to write female characters. The writer-director—known for violent, dreamy odes to macho cool, starring the blank stares of Mads Mikkelsen and Ryan Gosling—has always talked about movies in gendered terms (“Filmmaking is the only thing a man can do that could possibly be similar to a woman giving birth” is a fairly typical statement) and about his own work as ineffably masculine. (Heck, his last feature was about castration anxiety.) 

Not that he hasn’t tried to expand his range. He’s expressed interest in directing a Wonder Woman movie, and he’s long hinted that he was going to make a horror film with an all-female cast. “I always set out wanting to make films about women, but it always ends up being about men,” he told IndieWire last year. “Maybe it was ...

Scott Davidson/Flickr

A local New Hampshire police department agreed Thursday to pay a woman who was arrested and charged with wiretapping $57,000 to settle her civil rights lawsuit. The deal comes a week after a federal appeals court ruled that the public has a "First Amendment" right to film cops.

The plaintiff in the case, Carla Gericke, was arrested on wiretapping allegations in 2010 for filming her friend being pulled over by the Weare Police Department during a late-night traffic stop. Although Gericke was never brought to trial, she sued, alleging that her arrest constituted retaliatory prosecution in breach of her constitutional rights. The department, without admitting wrongdoing, settled Thursday in a move that the woman's attorney speculated would deter future police "retaliation."

Dan Taylor

Vodafone, the world’s second-largest mobile phone carrier behind China Mobile, revealed Friday that in six countries where it does business, the government requires direct access to the telecom’s network.

"In a small number of countries, the law dictates that specific agencies and authorities must have direct access to an operator's network, bypassing any form of operational control over lawful interception on the part of the operator," the report said.

Vodafone declined to name those specific countries for legal reasons but noted that nine countries worldwide—including three from the European Union—forbid disclosure of any information related to wiretapping, interception, or surveillance under their own law. Those countries include Albania, Egypt, Hungary, India, Malta, Qatar, Romania, South Africa, and Turkey.

The US government loves Twitter. For NASA, it's a public relations goldmine. For the State Department, it's a bizarre weapon in the fight on terrorism. For the CIA, it's a chance to revel in kitsch. The agency, which somehow did not yet have a real social media presence, has just posted its first tweet.

The Twitter launch comes a few days after the CIA opened a Facebook page, where it recently honored D-Day. The agency will post job listings, photos, trivia from the CIA World Factbook, and "reflections on intelligence history." It's part of what looks like a larger online overhaul, which will include event livestreaming.

The agency will also participate in Throwback Thursday.

The CIA has mostly escaped ire during the Edward Snowden leaks, but social media is still a clear way for the agency to humanize itself, drawing attention to tweets instead of drones. That doesn't mean organizations are immune from criticism online, though, and it should probably be careful about its hashtag campaigns.

Google is reportedly eyeing a purchase of Songza, a music streaming app that places a huge focus on curation and finding the right song for any moment. But apparently Mountain View isn't willing to spend much; the New York Post claims that Google is offering only around $15 million for the acquisition. Songza is by no means a threat to heavyweights like Spotify and Pandora, but the app receives generally positive reviews for its playlist algorithms, which look to match song selections with user activities like working out, studying, and mood-based items like "getting fired up" or "taking the day off." This approach is markedly different from that of Pandora, iTunes Radio, and other "radio" services that use your favorite artists and songs to formulate the listening experience.

Google already has on-demand streaming covered thanks to its Google Play Music All Access service. It's already got a massive song catalog. So a Songza purchase would be all about curation and making its music offerings smarter. Apple's senior executives have said the strong curation offered by Beats Music has made it the first streaming music app "to get it right." Jimmy Iovine has routinely insisted that a human element is necessary to make the right song choices. Songza seems to share in those beliefs. "Our free streaming music service has expert-made playlists for every occasion and makes it outrageously easy to find the right one, at the right time," the company says on its website.

Lupita Nyong’o took to Instagram last night to announce that she has acquired the rights to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s National Book Critics Circle winner Americanah. Nyong’o will star in the film adaptation, which will be co-produced by Brad Pitt’s production company, Plan B—the same company that produced 12 Years A Slave, the movie that first endeared Nyong’o to awards-giving bodies and Tumblrs across America.

Americanah centers on Ifemelu (the role presumably played by Nyong’o) and Obinze, a Nigerian couple who split up when the former successfully emigrates to the U.S and reunite when she returns to Nigeria years later. Coincidentally, Adichie’s previous novel, Half Of A Yellow Sun, was previously adapted into a film starring Nyong’o’s 12 Years A Slave co-star, Chiwetel Ejiofor. 

Uber has announced a enormous new round of funding this afternoon. The company is taking on $1.2 billion in fresh capital, an investment that values it at $17 billion. The only startup to raise money at a higher valuation before going public was Facebook.

Uber was launched four years ago in San Francisco. It now operates in 128 cities in 37 countries around the world. It has plans to expand beyond offering rides to several areas of transportation and logistics, from family carpools to picking up and delivering packages.

The new funding comes mutual funds — Fidelity Investments, Wellington Management, and Blackrock — with four of the venture capital firms that previously backed the company also joining this round.

Uber's biggest rival, Lyft, raised $250 million back in April, a move that put its cash pile on par with Uber. It's unclear if Lyft plans to raise again now that Uber has acquired this massive war chest, but it has certainly fallen far behind in the battle of the best-funded taxi apps.

developing...

Tricia J

Eset

The crudeness of Android/Simplocker, as the malicious app has been dubbed, suggests it's still in the proof-of-concept phase, Robert Lipovsky, a malware researcher for antivirus provider Eset, said in a recent blog post. The malware also addresses users in Russian and demands that payments be made in Ukrainian hryvnias, an indication that it targets only people in Eastern Europe. Still, the trojan—with its combination of social engineering, strong encryption, and robust Internet architecture—could be a harbinger of more serious and widespread threats to come. After all, the first Android trojans to make hefty SMS charges also debuted in the same region.

Once installed on a device, the app delivers the following message:

Of all the Marvel characters who have made it to the big screen over the past few years, none have seemed less likely than Peter Quill. An obscure sci-fi character who debuted in the ’70s and made a handful of appearances in his first three decades of existence, he rose to fame during the Annihilation crossover as the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy, a ragtag band of spacefaring heroes who battled evil across the stars.

Now, with a Guardians of the Galaxy movie set to debut this summer, Peter Quill is getting his first ever ongoing series as The Legendary Star-Lord, thanks to Sam Humphries (Avengers A.I., Sacrifice), artist Paco Medina (Nova, Ultimate Comics X-Men) and colorist David Curiel. To find out more, I spoke to Humphries about the history of Star-Lord, how his obscurity helped to propel him to fame, and why his hair has to stay gloriously uncovered.

ComicsAlliance: Star-Lord is a pretty interesting character, just from a standpoint of how he developed.

Sam Humphries: Yes, absolutely.

CA: He first appears in this all-but-forgotten one-shot story in Marvel Preview by Steve Englehart and Steve Gan, and I remember when I was a teenager, there was a miniseries by Timothy Zahn, of Star Wars novel fame, that I don’t think anybody read.

SH: You skipped the one after his first appearance, which was a “Giant-Size”, or maybe two issues, that are one of the most minor works ever done by the legendary creative team of Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Terry Austin. They were unable to take Star-Lord to the heights that they did with Wolverine. [Laughs]

CA: So essentially, for thirty years, he had three appearances.

SH: Yeah, pretty much. I think that including that miniseries, it’s a total of maybe twelve issues, but he was almost never explicitly connected to the main Marvel Universe, and he kind of came in on the tail end of Marvel’s “Crazy Cosmic Freakout” period. The Jim Starlin stuff, which you could say ended with The Death of Captain Marvel. He’s part of that, but he’s part of the sunset of that era, and thus never really took off.

CA: For thirty years, basically nothing. In the decade since, now the lead character in a big-budget Hollywood film.

SH: [Laughs] Yeah, exactly. The lead character in a film, as portrayed by Chris Pratt. A movie that by some elaborate twist of fate, is a highly anticipated summer blockbuster.

CA: As someone writing about Star-Lord, do you go back and read the stuff that never really took off to inform your take, or do you start with 2006 and his rise to popularity with Annihilation?

SH: I went back and read it all. There’s a lot of stuff there that was kind of forgotten about or revamped, I think to the benefit of the character, but when you take over a character who has a lot of past publication history, it can be a little difficult to find the time to read every appearance they’ve ever made. With Star-Lord, it’s a lot easier, so it’d be kind of shameful for me to not do so.

You know, even though his first phase of appearances are not referenced so much anymore, and aren’t really near and dear to most of the Star-Lord fans out there, there are still things you can pick up that have been informing how I’ve been writing Peter Quill.

CA: What did you pick up from those?

SH: He had a much harder edge back then, which I thought was interesting. He was much more of this angry young man, angry at the world.

CA: Steve Englehart described him as “an unpleasant, introverted jerk.”

SH: [Laughs] Exactly! That’s what he was! And that’s not the Peter Quill that I’m writing in Legendary Star-Lord by any means, but it’s interesting to remember that he can have a temper, and that he’s a genial, charming guy who still has this core character within him that’s basically still this ten year-old kid whose mom died saving his life. That’s something that’s very difficult to get over, especially if you’ve spent the rest of your life trying to run away from that.

CA: Star-Lord’s return in Annihilation, which is what led directly to being in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, happened at a really interesting time at Marvel where it seemed like a lot of “forgotten” characters were making a comeback. It happened right around the same time as Nextwave, which brought back Elsa Bloodstone, Monica Rambeau and Machine Man. Guardians had Star-Lord and Rocket Raccoon…

SH: And Groot, who has a history much more obscure than Peter Quill, which is saying a lot.

CA: Is there something about these characters who don’t have that long history that makes them inherently appealing to you as a creator, or as a fan?

SH: Just on a real practical level, it’s like, Wolverine has so many appearances and pages devoted to him over the years that he comes with a lot of baggage. In terms of a creator’s appeal with these much more obscure characters, you have much more of a blank slate, and you have a freedom to interpret them in a fresh new way. Wolverine has been constantly reinterpreted for the modern day, whatever the “modern day” happens to be on that particular date.

For fans, I think you can come to it with, I guess, less anxiety in your heart when that character gets revamped. When you revamp Wolverine, before it’s even announced, people are going to be up in arms about it. But for Star-Lord, pre-Annihilation, who didn’t have a huge fanbase, you didn’t have people second-guessing everything you’re doing, and readers can come to that reading experience with a much more open heart and less fear clouding their reading experience. I think there’s something that’s definitely attractive there.

And if we’re talking about how an obscure character like Star-Lord went from his humble origins to headlining this summer blockbuster, I think you have to give all the credit to Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning for the way that they took the character, reinterpreted him, and really executed him into this compelling, charming, adventurous, fun character. I think having an obscure character has its advantages, but with any character, it comes down to the talent of the creator behind him.

CA: So what you’re saying is that Star-Lord is definitely, 100% better than Wolverine.

SH: Yeah, absolutely. [Laughs] He’s absolutely better than Wolverine, but most people haven’t realized it yet.

CA: What was it about Star-Lord in particular that you think clicked with readers? I was really drawn to this idea that he’s this Earth-man out in space who, unlike a lot of Marvel’s cosmic characters, has no desire whatsoever to go home.

SH: That’s a storytelling tradition that goes all the way back to Adam Strange and Flash Gordon, and even Robinson Crusoe. But yeah, Peter Quill is a guy whose time on Earth is kind of defined by a crappy life. He never knew his father, his mom died saving him when he was ten, he grew up in a series of foster homes. On Earth, he’s this normal, woebegone Peter Quill, but in space, he’s the Legendary Star-Lord. In space, he found this blank slate on which he could recreate his life, not as this unlucky orphan, but as this fast-talking, fast-shooting adventurer. 

SH: I think you can kind of draw a parallel to him with someone who spends all their time in junior high or high school hating the town they live in, and then they go off to college and reinvent themselves, and they never, ever go back. I think that’s Peter Quill’s relationship with space.

CA: Is that how your take with him starts?

SH: Absolutely. He’s a guy, and we say this right in the issue, who loves space. He’s not tortured about being in space. He has an affection for Earth as where he grew up, it’s where half his heritage is, but he loves being Star-Lord. He loves going out into space and drinking and fighting and adventuring. But we do give him a new connection to Earth, which is his long-distance flirtation with Kitty Pryde, which Bendis introduced in “The Trial of Jean Grey.” They have these holographic phones with which they can communicate with each other. It’s kind of like intergalactic Skype. They’ve met and they have chemistry and there’s a spark there, and now they’re going to find out across thousands of light years if there’s potential for a relationship there.

CA: So Legendary Star-Lord is based partially around Peter Quill’s long-distance relationship with Kitty Pryde.

SH: Yeah, exactly. Maybe there’s something inextricably human about the notion of a long-distance relationship. No matter where you are in the universe, you end up stumbling into one.

CA: I think I missed that story. Did they meet while she was part of a giant space bullet?

SH: No, they met just a couple months ago — it was a crossover between All-New X-Men and Guardians of the Galaxy, where the Shi’ar kidnapped young Jean Grey and took her into space. The X-Men and Guardians teamed up to rescue her, and that’s when they met.

CA: So what else is in store for the series?

SH: We’ve got Mr. Knife, who’s a new antagonist out in space –

CA: Mr. Knife?!

SH: Yeah, he’s put a Blood Bounty on Star-Lord, which is the créme de la créme of bounties. It’s the baller bounty, and everybody’s out to get him, so right off the bat, he’s shaken up a little bit. He’s pursued and has to stay one step ahead of everyone who wants to turn his head in for a big reward.

SH: In issue #1, Peter’s got an improbable heist that goes wrong. In issue #2, he tangles with a long lost family member that doesn’t think his high-flying style is “cool.” In issue #3, he gets a new ship from an unlikely source, and in issue #4 he comes face to face with some heavyweights of the Marvel Universe — on Earth.

CA: Are those cosmic aspects, the big sci fi stuff, something you’ve been wanting to do for a while? I know you did a John Carter miniseries.

SH: Yeah. John Carter’s another one of those guys who’s always trying to get home. I don’t think it’s a secret to anyone who’s read any of my stuff that I love sci-fi, so I feel very much at home in the cosmic corner of the Marvel Universe, especially as it’s getting more and more developed. I’m just loving everything that’s going on, the cosmic franchise that Marvel’s publishing, with Brian Bendis doing Guardians and Kelly Sue DeConnick doing Captain Marvel and Greg Rucka with Cyclops and Gerry Duggan on Nova and Skottie Young on Rocket Raccoon. We’ve got a very, very deep bench of great books and great characters and great creators. It’s a really interesting sandbox that we’ve all come to and that we’re all developing at the same time, and while Legendary Star-Lord is starting out focused on more human stories and less cosmic-spanning stories like Infinity, there are things we’re developing right off the bat, in #1, that will become big, large-scale threats to the Marvel Unvierse that we’ll see playing out in very rapid fashion.

CA: I don’t think I’m blowing anyone’s mind when I say that Star-Lord, Guardians of the Galaxy and Rocket Raccoon are all happening because of interest in the movie, but is this built solely to be a Star-Lord solo series? Are any of the Guardians characters going to show up?

SH: I’d say both. The relationship between Legendary Star-Lord and Guardians of the Galaxy is no different from the relationship between Iron Man and Avengers. Iron Man is a part-time Avenger, but full-time Tony Stark and Iron Man. Same thing here. Peter Quill is a part-time Guardian of the Galaxy, but he’s full-time Legendary Star-Lord. The Guardians are such an important part of his life, not just as compatriots, but also as his closest friends, so we’ll see the influence they’ve had on his life and the way he thinks, and how he attacks problems and looks at the galaxy, even when the characters themselves don’t show up.

It’s definitely a solo book for Peter. It’s not just a spin-off, it’s not just a junior title to Guardians. That said, with so many things happening in the cosmic end of the Marvel Universe, I think, without spoiling anything, that we can say there’ll be a lot of cross-pollination between these books that’s going to lead to something big in the near future.

CA: Last question: What are the chances he’s going to get that helmet back, or is his hair out all the time?

SH: [Laughs] He’s hair-out. This is the mousse styling gel era of Star-Lord. The classic Star-Lord costume is awesome, and we may catch a glimpse of it again, but we’re going helmet-less with a full mask for the near future. It’s a great design with the jacket and the gun and boots, and it’s more in line with where Peter’s headed with the more Western outlaw scoundrel with a heart of gold vibe that we’re taking him to. If the sight of hair offends you, you may want to avert your eyes.

The Legendary Star-Lord #1 is available for pre-order now from finer comics shops. It goes on sale in July from Marvel.

GOG.com will offer DRM-free gaming with its new service, GOG Galaxy, the company announced today during a livestream.

This "optional client" will allow users to play games without needing to connect to the internet.

"We believe gamers deserve a better experience," the trailer's narrator said.

"With GOG Galaxy, your game will always launch. No online activation required ... Being online will always be optional."

If users wish to play online with friends, they'll need to connect; sharing achievements online with friends will also require a profile. GOG Galaxy will also include a cross-play feature that allows them to game with friends who have titles on other online venues.

Check out the trailer above for more on the service. Additional news is expected this year, and those interested can sign up on the service's website to participate in The Witcher Adventure Game's closed multiplayer beta.

Madden NFL 15's first screenshot, released today by publisher Electronic Arts on Twitter, is an action shot of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, and the big deal here isn't any improvement in graphics — it's the ink on his arms.

In the screenshot, Kaepernick's arms are adorned with the same tattoos he has in real life. Seann Graddy, line producer for the Madden NFL series, confirmed to Polygon in a phone interview today that this is the first time any athlete has had tattoos in Madden since, at least, the series' transition to high-definition consoles with Madden NFL 06 in 2005. Prior to that, some individuals had generic tattoos, but because tattoos have been missing from the franchise for so long, Madden fans assumed the cause for their disappearance was a mandate from the NFL in its licensing contract with EA.

Not so, according to Graddy, who said that no such provision exists.

"It really comes down to a piece of art asset here that could be [copyrighted], frankly, as we've learned over time," Graddy explained. This problem came to light last year, when a tattoo artist sued EA and now-retired NFL running back Ricky Williams for copyright infringement. Williams had appeared on the cover of EA's 2004 title NFL Street with tattoos that the artist had inked, and the individual accused EA of using his work without his permission. (The artist later dropped the lawsuit.)

As it stands, EA can only use real tattoos if the athlete himself first goes out and secures the permission of the artists. That's exactly what Kaepernick did, because he "takes his tattoos as a personal self-expression that he wants represented in any product or marketing thing that he's a part of," said Graddy.

According to Graddy, the Madden 15 developers at EA Tiburon obtained their own reference materials as a basis for Kaepernick's in-game tattoos. The process took "a fair amount of work" but "not a huge amount." However, if more players start to secure the rights for their tattoos and ask for them to be put into Madden, the effort required will pile up. Graddy said Tiburon would "absolutely" look into bringing players into the studio and scanning their bodies for tattoos, as they already do for some athletes' heads, in the future.

For now, Kaepernick is the only player who will appear in Madden 15 with his authentic tattoos, because he's the only one who has obtained the permissions from the artists involved. "We want to do this with every player, frankly, and we're hopeful that more players over time actually go out and secure the rights so that we can use their tattoos as well," said Graddy.

"We want to do this with every player, frankly"But if other athletes do come to EA with the appropriate rights secured, it's unlikely that Tiburon will be able to implement the in-game ink this year. According to Graddy, the studio is "four or five weeks away" from having a final version of the game ready. And it's not something that could be added to Madden 15 in a post-release update, because the game's patch technology would have to specifically support replacing a player's arms.

"We're not focused on that right now. We are more focused on solving it long-term for Madden 16," said Graddy.

Madden NFL 15 will be released Aug. 26 on PlayStation 3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. When EA announced the game earlier this year, the company put out a teaser trailer featuring the Panthers' Luke Kuechly; this year's game will feature a focus on defense. You can expect more details on Madden 15 during E3 2014 next week.

This morning the four finalists in each category of the Tales of the Cocktail 2014 Spirited Awards were announced. 

As mentioned previously, your host Camper English (for Best Writer) and this website Alcademics (for Best Publication) were on the long list. 

Alcademics.com has made it through to the four finalists for the Best Publication. Hooray! Not bad for a mostly-one-person operation. 

The other finalists are Imbibe Magazine (for which I also write), Punch Magazine, and Ginger Magazine from France (which I can't seem to locate online). 

The winner will be announced at the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards celebration on July 19th. 

Thank you for reading!