Possible Villain, MJ Revealed for Amazing Spider-Man 2

Peter Parker has traditionally had two major women in his life: Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson. (No, we're not gonna include Aunt May.) And while she was absent from The Amazing Spider-Man this summer, it looks like the redhead of the group will soon be making her return.

Variety reports that The Descendants' Shailene Woodley is in early talks to play MJ in Amazing Spider-Man 2 for director Marc Webb. The film is about to start casting, and Woodley is said to be Sony's top choice for the role. The first film's Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone will of course be returning as Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy.

Shailene Woodley

Character breakdowns are floating around Hollywood now, and they reportedly reveal that Electro is one of the villains "the filmmakers are considering" for the film. Additionally, an unspecified villain and Harry Osborn are also said to be in the cast.

Production starts early next year. The trade paper claims that means the filmmakers still have time to settle on which villain will show up, so I guess the basics of the script are still being hashed out? In any event, there was a bit of Electro-like lightning in the post-credits sequence of the first film, wasn't there?

Talk to Movies Editor Scott Collura on Twitter at @ScottIGN, on IGN at scottcollura and on Facebook.

Source : ign[dot]com

The Amazing Spider-Man #693 Review

After two issues, Alpha isn't exactly proving himself to be a memorable addition to the cast of Amazing Spider-Man. The idea of Peter Parker mentoring a young hero with plenty of power but no sense of responsibility is perfectly sound. The problem is that the execution feels half-baked. Like the debut chapter, issue #693 spends plenty of time telling readers how powerful and important and special Alpha is without actually proving it. Meanwhile, Alpha's personality is lacking, and the character is almost wholly unlikable at this point. Looking at Joshua Fialkov's backup feature from issue #692 and certain portions of AvX, it's clear that pairing Spidey with a young, inexperienced foil can yield great results. But not in this case.

Another element that drags this arc down is the return of the Jackal and his science projects. Dan Slott put the villain to perfectly good use during Spider-Island. However, nothing in this story suggests he needed to return to menace Spider-Man so soon. Jackal's latest plot seemingly begins and ends in this issue, and it just reads like a lump of poorly paced filler material that doesn't do much to grow the relationship between Spidey and Alpha.

Humberto Ramos' artwork is at least reasonably well suited to the tone of the story. His rendition of Alpha is brimming with energy, and he delivers some more creepy Spider clones. As usual, it's really the civilian characters who suffer. Aunt May and Mary Jane are too stylized to be convincing, with the former sporting some wonky facial work and the latter taking on an overly masculine appearance at times.

There's some decent character work to enjoy in this issue as Peter interacts with Max Modell, his family, and various superhuman allies. Sadly, none of it involves Alpha himself. As poorly executed as these two issues have been, my enthusiasm for the series and the build-up to Amazing Spider-Man #700 is beginning to wane.

Jesse is a writer for IGN Comics and IGN Movies. He can't wait until he's old enough to feel ways about stuff. Follow Jesse on Twitter, or find him on IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com