Last November, reacting to statements from Marvel and JMS that The Twelve was "almost done," I boldly made this statement:

"I call dibs on February 2012 in the "When will The Twelve #9 actually show up" pool..."

So what does Marvel announce at SDCC? "The Twelve #9 is coming in February 2012."

What do I win?

Two things to note: A) At nearly 3 1/2 years between issues, this breaks the record established by Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk #2-3 and Planetary #26-27. Congratulations to all involved!!

B) It's JMS, so matter what they say, don't count on it meeting that ship date...

A new Marvel teaser promo has popped up, daring to ask the question...

Well, duh...that's pretty easy to answer:

"The Mystery Men are Marvel's admission that JMS screwed them pretty hard on The Twelve but they still want to use free Golden Age characters, so they're trying again, with hopefully more reliable results."

Also acceptable would be "The Mystery Men project would sure seem to imply that Tom Brevoort was...overly optimistic...when he tweeted that JMS would be finishing The Twelve any time soon."

Hey, Marvel, if you're really desperate for public domain intellectual properties to exploit, I've got a few for you...

For a more serious discussion of The Mystery Men, and who they might be, and who might be doing the book, check out this article...

Tom Brevoort tweeted yesterday:

For those who've been asking, yes, JMS is finishing The Twelve. #9 & 10 are done, and Chris is waiting on script from JMS this week.

A) "Waiting on a script from JMS" is the comics version of Waiting For Godot. Surely the script will arrive tomorrow...

B) So, JMS was unable to keep up on Superman and Wonder Woman, but he'll be sending Marvel scripts "this week?" I'm sure DC is very happy about that...

C) I call dibs on February 2012 in the "When will The Twelve #9 actually show up" pool...