It’s funny how things work in cycles sometimes. Long ago, in the heady days of 2018, Legendary announced it was making a live-action adaptation of the beloved mecha anime series _Mobile Suit Gundam_ , and after three years of silence, the studio announced that Netflix and director Jordan Vogt-Roberts had boarded the project. Another three years of silence later (save for one apt image of a Gundam on fire), Legendary revealed that it had gone back to the drawing board, parting ways with both Netflix and Vogt-Roberts to rework a new project from writer-director Jim Mickle. Now, Netflix might be back on board, although not in the way it was previously. Deadline reports that the streamer has been tapped by Legendary to purportedly distribute Mickle’s _Gundam_ movie, the first live-action movie take on the franchise since the 1999 TV movie misfire _G-Saviour_. Although Deadline says the plot of the film is under wraps, the film—set to star _Madame Web_ ‘s Sydney Sweeney and _Street Fighter_ ‘s Noah Centineo—was reported by THR to purportedly be based on a star-crossed romance between the two, who find themselves falling in love despite being on opposing sides of an interstellar conflict. There’s every chance that the live-action film, like many entries in the anime franchise, could be set in its own unique timeline of _Gundam_ continuity rather than the “Universal Century” timeline that houses some of the franchise’s main shows, including the 1979 original. But fans of the series will no doubt see parallels between that star-crossed description and the loose premise of the beloved mid-’90s OVA _The 08th MS Team_ , which revolved around the burgeoning romance between Earth Federation mobile suit pilot Shiro Amada and the Zeon pilot Aina Sahalin at the height of the Universal Century’s infamous One Year War. Whatever the film ends up being, by the time it actually makes it to theaters, there could be another full-circle moment involved behind the scenes. Netflix is, of course, currently in the process of potentially acquiring Warner Bros. in a major consolidation of Hollywood powers—with Warner currently being home to a major distribution deal with Legendary for franchises like _Godzilla_ and _Dune,_ while Legendary seeks to potentially sign a new distribution deal with Paramount… which is in the process of heavily contesting Netflix’s attempted merger so it could buy Warner instead. It’s a small world, isn’t it? > Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

Sal Buscema, one of the last illustrators for Marvel in the "Silver Age" has died last week at the age of 89. Today would have been his 90th birthday. Sal was born in Brooklyn on January 26, 1936. He followed his older brother John into a career in art but, at first, not comic book art. Sal worked in commercial art and magazine illustration but then, in 1968, he began inking some of John's work for Marvel and soon was drawing on his own. His clear, direct storytelling pleased most or all of the writers he worked with. His speed and dedication to meeting deadlines pleased his editors. I never heard anyone speak of Sal in less than glowing terms. At one point or another, he drew just about every major super-hero comic that Marvel published. In the seventies, there was a period when Marvel was desperate for artists who could handle that kind of material and Sal was pressed into service as a pencil artist who did what some called "breakdowns." That meant that he penciled the pages but not in great detail, leaving much to be left to the inker/finsiher. His rep as an artist may have been sullied a bit by some of those stories that went to not-the-best inker/finishers. As I understand it, Sal became bothered by that and eventually, though it lowered his income a bit, asked to do finished art all by himself. Some of this material was quite outstanding. I got to interview Sal at the 2003 Comic-Con International in San Diego and we also had him on the Jack Kirby Tribute Panel. Here's a photo from that panel… Photo by Richard Pini Left to right standing, that's Michael Chabon (author of _The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay_), Stan Lee, Sal Buscema, Larry Lieber, Stan Goldberg and me. In the front row, we have Wendy Pini and Mike Royer. Sal was a very nice man and a very good artist and he drew a huge amount of comics that people loved. Always sad to lose someone like that.