House Of (Painfully Similar) Ideas?

Have you seen the X-Men teaser images Marvel's been putting out? Of course not - you're not a comic reading nerd like me. But even a casual observer who's at least heard of a comic book movie or two that's been released in the past decade would recognize Spider-Man and Wesley Snipes Blade and the X-Men name, right? Well, so has Ultimate Comics Avengers writer Mark Millar.

Apparently the "X-Men vs. vampire mutants" storyline people have deduced from the teaser images is awfully similar to an upcoming Ultimate Avengers storyline Millar's been talking about for years, and he's very unhappy. Millar's furious posts on his message board, in a thread titled "I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS X-MEN/ BLADE THING" (all-caps in original) are as follows:

I'm just starting Ultimate Avengers 3, issue 5, and it's the arc I'm maybe most proud of. As trailered forever, this is vampires in the Ultimate Universe attacking mutants and Blade brought in to help the Avengers as heroes go down one by one.

Now someones sent me a link to an X-Men event out two months previous that's exactly the same idea.

Seriously.

What do I do? This is what JRJR and I were going to do 5 years ago before Enemy of the State and I've been talking about it in interviews (and on here) since Ultimate Avengers launched. Blade's even on the cover to issue 1 as I've been excited about this since I had Blade painted on an ice cream truck in 1978.

I don't want to pull the issues as they're part of a complex plot that runs through my entire four arc run, but I'm almost finished now. I'm writing issue five of six and they're really, really good.

How the Hell did this happen? It wouldn't have been as big a deal if I hadn't started the series yet, but it's almost done and just going to look foolish following an X-Men event. Am honestly just so disgusted with this as I've talked about it many times. Thoughts on what I should do next?

I'm hoping this is some horrible misunderstanding. I've only seen what you've seen online with Blade and the X-Men and a vampire Jubilee (again, very close to stuff I'm doing). Fingers crossed this bullshit gets fixed, but am getting closer and closer to just doing my own stuff every day.

The difference [between this situation and examples like Blackest Night/Necrosha and Deep Impact/Armageddon] is that was competing companies with different characters. This is something I created for a company that's being used within the same company and using the same characters, now two months earlier.

I'm going to speak to the guys and then take a night to think about this. But really, really pissed off about this as have put a lot of work into this and it's really, really good.

We'll see what happens. This storyline was planned 5 years ago, like I said, and was known at the company. But it's been public knowledge since I started hyping Vampire X prior to Ultimate Avengers issue 1 coming out. The mods here read the original proposal I sent to all the Marvel bigwigs in 2005. I'm hoping this is all bullshit and the teasers are misleading.

I'm not changing anything. I did this first and it's too tightly plotted with the other arcs to pull and replace with something new. I guess they could kill the series with the second arc and bring someone else to take in a new direction. I dunno. Hopefully it won't come to that. We'll see what they say when I speak to them tonight, but I couldn't believe it when I saw this online. How the Hell did this happen when they have weekly meetings about what's coming up across the line? I discussed this arc at the Marvel retreat in Summer 2008, weighing up with the guys whether to have Leinil do this arc or the Punisher/ Ghost Rider one.

Millar has touted his own awesomeness in bombastic (and occasionally unrealistic) fashion for years. So is he taking on his Marvel bosses in addition to battling Roger Ebert? Soon thereafter, the Millarworld thread has been deleted following a post from Millar that read:

Hi guys

am now in boozer but just off the phone with dan b (Marvel Publisher Dan Buckley, presumably) and were all talking tomorrow to sort this out. Have never had problem in ten years at company so expect this can be fixed fast. Dan assures me this was a misunderstanding and he's a good bloke so have no reason to doubt. I don't think this is as bad as it looked a litle earlier. Will keep you posted.

Good to backpedal and not bite the hand that feeds, but Millar does have a lot of cred now that he's got arguably the year's most controversial film opening today, and a hit under his belt with Wanted. Marvel would also be wise to spare their golden goose, as he has been instrumental in some of their biggest storylines to date, but they're now with the House of Mouse, which makes them an even bigger brand. The storyline connected to the "We Are The X-Men" teasers is expected to be announced Sunday at the C2E2 convention. So maybe there's a part two on Monday...