How to use this Page

What does it all mean, you ask?

Simple.

Going by Marvel’s past actions, it means a boatload of #1 issues, plus the renumbering of just about every current Marvel comic.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Marvel’s business strategy. Not an honorable one, but hey, it beats the pants off whatever DC’s trying to do.

Like, actual top-tier creators? Cause there are very few of those, and most are busy doing creator-owned work. I want to believe that Marvel has top-tier creators ready to go, but it seems unlikely. Feels like when they call Tom Raney an “all-star artist” or Cullen Bunn a “fan-favorite writer”

I want to see a Marvel Then! event where characters from the Timely and Atlas eras threaten to take back the company from everyone who came post-1961. “We were here first!”

It’s always slightly depressing to hear Marvel shilling their “rich history” as a selling point when their concept of a shared universe is so thin these days that even writers working on the same characters don’t coordinate, dead characters come back with no explanation (and this was happening before SW), and no one seems to know when books take place in relation to each other.

Ah, well.

Looks like someone is desperate to reverse plummeting post-SW sales.

Decision 2016: Everybody Sucks.

“Branding” is definitely a loose concept here. Wow. “Let’s put a red tilted box in the corner and a giant number! Branding design done!” Man, whatever happened to actually putting some design skills into comics. Even the logos are boring flat book cover fonts now.

I wish I wasn’t so excited about an All-New Invaders, but damn do I love Namor and the Invaders (So much I’d call “Namor and The All-New Invaders”!!!!”) .

But what’s this? The article states “and Original Human Torch Toro”…well which is it? The original Human Torch, or Toro (who wasn’t the original Human Torch, but the original Toro)…?

Looking forward to seeing what the new titles are, but I dunno if it makes sense to do a modern-day Invaders. Everyone on the cover has been an Avenger, all quite recently, and setting it in the modern-day doesn’t give it much of a unique hook. WW2 or something would be a better selling point, methinks.

Yeah, what the h e l l??? Why dont they just put Wolverine on every cover like they did in the 80′s… “Hey speculator market, we got a cover that says -first issue!-, aren’t we lame…!!!”
Alonso, said that “Marvel Now!” was supposed to bring back NuMarvel, in ways that delivered cutting edge new art, like in how the covers were designed in “non-conventional” ways. How can you expect people to take the *sequential* medium seriously, when the only main access to *sequential* are these lame “comic books”. The super hero genre is great, but the “American” version of super hero’s is this twisted culmination of homo-erotic power fantasy fulfillment encased in christian/conservative-extremist regulations (Comics Code Authority), which have been further perverted with stories written to comply with the speculator’s bubble from mid-80′s to early 90′s, and then all chewed up and spat out during the 90′s hell that was the aftershock of the speculators bubble bursting (example: stories created under a bankrupt management like at Marvel Comics ; also please see on youtube.com Max Landis’ “the death and return of superman”). If Marvel stock was no under 10 dollars /share like it was, then there probably would not had been room for the window of time that was just before the stories written to comply with the Disney buy-out -NuMarel was when heads were rolling, people were being replaced, and new independent, more ‘fringe’ creators were hired to take over mass market character-based assets. Now, there is no slew of indi-talent hired to take on the mass market titles -NuMarvel was when Marvel was owned by Marvel. When they were just gaining momentum to create their own Marvel Studios movies, and the comics being printed were freaking awesome! Alias, Daredevil, “e is for Extinction” X-men story, Ultimate Spider-Man and especially the Ultimates stories, Peter Bagge even did a Spider-man one-shot -as well as James Sturm did *Unstable Molecules*!!! Marvel needs to start pushing the boundaries of *sequential* with some new talent, and in new mediums like the larger Magazine format, because print sequential will always be around, but “American comic books” (especially the cheese American version of the super hero if American sequential does not fix up their act), may not.

I was reading the new “Marvel Now”,
But my LCS had no copies to show.
The “old Now” was old news
And the “new Now” issues
Were too new a New Now for review.

(Apologies to Ogden Nash.)

Wouldn’t that make good *journalism*, instead of the flog of a site promotions going on, to include in this article a quote from someone at Marvel that can explain why Alonso said how “Marvel Now!” was supposed to bring back NuMarvel, and yet now Marvel is rejecting NuMarvel, -and how Marvel is N O T progressing the *sequential* medium, as they keep pushing their consumer-market driven “comic books”.

@Marvel : hey, if you guys can crawl yourselves out of not only bankruptcy, but also in doing so you were able to have some killer NuMarvel stories, then why dont you run with that cutting edge shtikt that you had 2000 – 2004??? Why just cater to the Disney buy-out and then ‘rest on your laurels…’??? If corporations can have all of these hundreds of millions of consumers walk around actually thinking they are ‘Americans’, then why can you progress *sequential* in the USA, instead of milking off the consumer mentality of printing only “comic books”???? You can still have brainwashed cubicle gimps that OK with calling themselves “consumers”, and still have better more creative forms of super heroes in *sequential* -or can we??? What? Is that going to cause people to start thinking they are human beings/Americans/members of a community, and stop living as consumers when not at work, as they also ignore they are economic units that comprise a ‘person’ while at work??? Why do we only get these twisted icons that are culminations of christian/conservative-extremist crap (Comics Code Authority) and the speculator’s bubble, and bankrupt management, and compliance to multinational corporate buy-outs (Time/Warner and now Disney)???? Maybe create a different “universe” that is all about *sequential* super heroes, and not “comic book” super heroe -P L E A S E??? Maybe some of these “consumers” will get off their corporate slave a$$es and just do it themselves, instead of waiting for something that puts profit over quality (a multinational corporation) to progress *sequential*…

Is it just me? I seem to be missing an “S.”

Is this new series “Inhuman” or “Inhumans” because well, the team composition is making more sense if it’s the first one.

Silly but True

We need one Marvel universe that prints books as “comic books”, for consumers – these can have their typical “First Issue!” lame designs with books created as a “market share” to promote the mass consumption of plastic in the form of merchandise, as well as promoting data mining in tracking what one does after logging in with an online account to read comics. This brand of Marvel stories are the typical predictable crap written w/out any innovation or creative substance -instead of as *sequential*.

Then create a second Marvel universe that can be books published as actual *sequential* stories containing super heroes created by actual artists and writers who prefer to progress and have fun with the *sequential* form of art -more like NuMarvel, instead of the consumer driven predictable unimaginative “comic books” that have people turn their heads away from super heroes as something lame. This *sequential* form of super hero stories can be in a printed magazine format or other sized formats that can be used to break the boundaries of what Americans consider should be “comics books” and create and awareness for *sequential* stories. Unfortunately Americans are such consumer slaves they will not be able to accept something unless they see some movies star or celebrity use it first, something on TV or the Internet to let them know that it is OK to use; to go drive to… -will never happen… who am I kidding… Big Red box “First Issue!!!” that is best Marvel can do after FIFTY ***50*** YEARS… “If it is not broken, then dont fix it”, right? But then how can you not call spending decades in traffic, fast food, strip malls, homes made to be flipped instead of lived in, more traffic, no rights in the workplace, rising price of gas while the purchasing power of the dollar diminishes ever year from now on, as products are made to break down fast and take our money (instead of made to work and last) and labor is out-sourced while no one that calls themselves an ‘American’ knows what all the amendments are, or how a bill gets passed, or what gerrymandering is, or which congressional district they belong to, or what the suffrage movement really was -how can you call all of that which makes up every moment of every American’s day “not broken”??? Designing sequential as the consumer “comic books” is a pretty stupid thing to do considering we now live in an environment where getting by in life is not enabled, getting by in life is not something everyone can do anymore -our disillusioned consumer lifestyle is a joke, so why still published “comic books” when consumers are a dying breed??? Why not write super hero stories not for consumers, but instead for *human beings*, for *Americans*, for *members of families* ????

Can I borrow someone’s Cliff Notes for the comments section?

Aaron Browne – are you all right?

Matthew Jeske – are you all right?

I do not know what is happening in these comments o______O

Anyway. As someone who used Marvel Now to try out a bunch of new comics that I’m now in love with, I’ll definitely be giving these a try! I’ve been a bit wary of trying Avengers as there are just so many titles to choose from (similar with X-Men but I’ve found a couple I like) so these looks ace.

Ok. (I’m slow…) I just put it all together that Avengers is being given a great big new #1, but just in case you are tired of those it’s also being given a little tiny #24.NOW. So in Marvel Now land (which is a year old and apparently NOW boring) it’s still issue #24, but in All New Marvel Now land (which is shiny and awesome!) it’s being given a new #1! Wow, my head is spinning…

I’m with Mathew. What’s up with Aaron Brown??

@Eric K – What’s up with you?? Nice job being the typical ‘American’ and going strait for the negative attack -you gotta cut people down, not like you know of any other way to be… ‘Way to go, consumer. What a bummer.

You pretty much completely missed the entire point…

I’d like to hear your thoughts, then?

What part of “people aren’t solely defined by the minority/majority group they belong to” didn’t you understand?

Americans always seem so eager to find stuff to get offend by…
(see what I did there?)

Thank you for pointing out the stupidity! You sum up my feelings on this pretty well.

“What part of “people aren’t solely defined by the minority/majority group they belong to” didn’t you understand?”

The part where Alex clearly said that ANY reference to that minority group as being unique in some way is a bad, bad thing, I would assume.

I saw the headline, and thought ‘Marvelman??’

Yes- this is a pretty freaky scene and I’m with you on this Steve. It has the tone of a strangely fascist speech though I’m not exactly sure what phrase strikes that note for me. Maybe it’s the odd triumphalism?
This solidarity he’s going for comes at the cost of hiding difference to put non mutants at ease.
Dislike.

I think I can see what Remender was going for with this idea, but it seems he didn’t really think it through very well, which ended up ruining the intended effect of Havok’s speech and generating quite a few dark implications.

The way the speech was written, it gives off the impression that “mutant” is a pejorative word, which is ridiculous in the context of the Marvel universe. The word has always been used as a means to refer to a particular group of people with a specific genetic configuration, and there’s nothing inherently pejorative in it. They are mutants, which of course doesn’t mean that they aren’t also humans.

It would have been perfect if instead of “mutant”, Alex condemned the use of the word “mutie” or something like that, which is a pejorative way of making reference to mutants, much like “nigger” is an offensive, pejorative way of calling people with black skin and “faggot” is an offensive, pejorative way of calling homosexual people.

Unless, of course, Remender aims to make Havok look like a fool. If so, I’d call this scene a resounding success.

(By the way, I’m not a hater. I enjoy this series. But this scene was very bad indeed)

Didn’t Peter David already cover this ground twenty years ago in X-FACTOR by having Guido/Strong Guy prefer the term “GeeCees” (Short for Genetically Challenged)?

I think what he was going for was something like this:

I’m left-handed. And in any conversation relating to handedness, obviously my left-handedness should be pertinent. But in pretty much any other conversation, it’s irrelevant. For mutants, their mutancy has been treated as if that is the whole of their person, as if being left-handed was something that was so important about me that it defined everything I did. So what Alex is saying is, don’t call me “Left-Hander” or suggest that all of us “left-handers” are some organized religion with common goals and traits (other than the one). “Left-hander” is perfectly fine to say when actually talking about handedness, but otherwise shouldn’t be referenced.

I agree with Chad B. This is a very well thought out speech that says what I’ve felt for a long time. People become to attached to their heritage, traditions, orientations, family history, and so on, to the point where they fear stepping outside of it. Media inflates and perpetuates these ideas and sells them back to the masses, encouraging stereotypes. Large groups of people buy into these stereotypes to the point where they fear stepping outside them, because of pride or social scorn from “their own kind” or bigots, and as a result, never give themselves the opportunity to define themselves as an individual. This does not mean turning away from those incidental details of where you come form, what color your skin is, or whom you chose to love. It just means that they don’t factor into who you are as defined by your intent and your actions. I am dyslexic, ADHD, and have Aspergers. They are part of what I am. I’m not ashamed of that, but they are not who I am. If that was all anybody ever thought of me as, or if they tried to use it to say that what I had to say or do didn’t matter, because of it, I’d be pretty mad. They are not the choices I make. Do you think Oscar Wilde wanted to be known as Oscar Wilde the gay man or Oscar Wilde the great writer? Being gay was incidental. It’s nothing to be ashamed of and it unfortunately wasn’t socially or legally acceptable in his time, but it didn’t define him as a writer. Nor does it Clive Barker, who is very proud to be gay. Steven Spielberg is Jewish. Do you think 100 years from now when people looked him up, all people would find about him was that he was a Jewish man, or do you think he’d rather people read about his accomplishments as a great director, who happened to be of that particular religious view. I know Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t like the “N word” and wouldn’t want to be defined by it, but rather as the man who said this: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” In other words, “Call me Alex.” If that’s alarming to anybody, than I’m a little alarmed at them. But hey, maybe that’s just the Aspergers talking, right?

@Glen Simpson:

Great point. But I think the speech failed because it didn’t draw a line between, on the one hand, using the word “mutant” as an instrument to forcefully and unecessarily set appart people that are essentially the same and, on the other hand, simply using it to describe people with certain genetic/social/fenotypical characteristics.

Applying what Havok’s speech to your example, he would have said that “left-handed person” is the “L-word” (“L-expression”, in this case”), which is weird to say the least

@Leandro – I guess I just took that as a given. He’s not talking to scientists or geneticists, he’s talking to regular people. So in his philosophy, regular people have no reason to use the word mutant on a day-to-day basis.

In some ways this ties to the whole business of why Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four are heroes but the X-Men are freaks, because for some irrational reason the general public in the Marvel U thinks gaining powers through some accident is OK but being born with them is freaky.

@Christopher Moonlight – I think Spielberg would like to be remembered as a great director who was Jewish. I think Oscar Wilde would have be thrilled to see a world where the fact that he was gay was just as celebrated as his writing. Because I think you’re mistaken to say that neither of those facts define them as creators.

It’s been well established in Wilde biographies that he didn’t start to really flourish as a writer until he embraced his homosexuality. Furthermore, The Picture of Dorian Gray was roundly denounced when it came out because of the homoerotic undertones. And the “living a double life” theme returns over and over again in his work, because that’s what he was doing in his life. And he was imprisoned because he dared to love another man publicly. You can’t say “it’s not important to who he was” when his life was DESTROYED by anti-gay bigotry, driving him to an early grave. Maybe you don’t think it was important to his WORK, but it was a driving force in his LIFE, behind who he WAS.

Spielberg, meanwhile, has directed a number of films dealing with bigotry in its various stripes, not just anti-Semitism but also racism, and has set up a Holocaust remembrance project that records the testimony of survivors. Does he want his Jewishness ignored? I’m sure if you mentioned it to him, he’d smack you across the face. He grew up knowing that up until the year before he was born, people across the Atlantic were being slaughtered by the MILLIONS for a heritage they shared. Forget Schindler’s List, anti-Semitism still shaped who Spielberg IS.

Speaking as a woman, I can tell you that I don’t want my femaleness ignored when it comes to anything I do. I don’t want to be successful on the grounds of people pretending I’m not a woman, or “in spite” of the fact that I’m a woman, I want to be successful because people get over their preconceptions and entrenched prejudices, and accept my gender as part of the whole package. MLK said he didn’t want his children judged by the color of their skin, but I doubt he wanted it to be ignored either. Because you know what that says to women or people of color? It says “You’re so great I forgot you were black/a woman!” As if either of those things are mutually exclusive to achievement.

When the rights of your people are attacked, severely restricted, when your people have historically been imprisoned, killed, enslaved, raped, deprived of property and suffrage (and still are in certain parts of the world), or been told there are certain things they are constitutionally incapable of doing (e.g. reading, science, math, politics) because of WHO THEY ARE, it is a MASSIVE insult to suggest they aren’t profoundly shaped by that history. You even point out that “media inflates and perpetuates stereotypes”–as if the media starts out with clean hands, instead of being founded on the same prejudices as the rest of society. I don’t know a single woman, LGBT person, or person of color who doesn’t rail against the stereotypes the media perpetuates about them.

So when it comes to mutants in the Marvel Universe, who have historically been attacked, legally and physically, by homo sapiens, it rings so, so false to have Havok disown that identity. And I note that the person who wrote this scene is a straight white man. In my experience, straight white men are very, very fond of telling everyone else to stop talking about how “We’re all one race– the human race! I’m not a feminist, I’m an equalist! Love who you want, but don’t shove it in my face!” Each and every one of those phrases is guaranteed to piss off the group they’re directed to. Because IF ONLY it were that easy for us.

Ugh, in that last paragraph of mine, put “their differences” after “stop talking about”.

@Glenn Simpson: I wholeheartedly agree with you. Also, @Christopher Moonlight above also sums up brilliantly the problem that apparently Remender was trying to tackle. It really is something that plagues our society, and even worse than that is the fact that so few people realize how stupid this custom of sticking labels to people really is (with mainstream media being the greatest perpetuators of this shameful practice).

My problem with the speech is that – in my opinion – there was a gap between what Remender wanted to convey and what he actually had the character say.

I’m going to go out on the limb and await for someone to inevitably cut the limb while I’m out there. I don’t see what the character Alex says as being offensive at all. He’s asking to be included. If you swapped out today’s difficult social norm identifiers, it would make complete sense. We want identity but also uniqueness. A trans-woman wants to be called “she” and “woman” not a “trans-woman.” How is what Alex saying any different? He’s saying “mutant” is a label based on something physical that he had no choice in making. He identifies as a man and wants to be called a man. And like story arcs historically show us, he will probably change his own view of himself at least twice the way other X-gened people have.

Given Marvel’s sliding time scale, I think it’s safe to assume that Hiroshima is, no longer, part of Sunfire’s origin. If his mother died, then, the character would be pushing 70.

@Amber, a transwoman asks to be called “she” because she IDENTIFIES as a woman. But when lawmakers try to tell her she can’t get hormone therapy or change her gender on state documents or use women’s bathrooms, or when she’s beaten, raped, and/or killed for being trans (as far, far too many trans people are) saying “we’re all human, let’s get along” is a sick joke.

What I took away from this was Alex Summers denouncing his brother’s hubris while asking the world to start referring to mutants as “Alexes”.

Doesn’t it all depend on the connotations attached to the word in question? Of course “the L-word sounds weird;
Wog isn’t an acceptable word to describe African-Americans in the USA, but it is widely used in Australia with fewer negative connotations for a different ethnic group.
Mutant-kind’s reputation has recently been tainted in the Marvel universe so Havok wishes to dissociate himself from the connotations the word carries at the moment. I say fair enough.

[...] The Beat – Captain Marvel #11 [...]

It’s SEBELA. With an E. Not SebAla.

Loving the artwork on this book. Best superhero art on a mainstream book since Alex Maleev.

It looks like the weekly series isn’t just be a Wolverine comic, just the first story. Am I wrong?

What’s the location this is happening at?

It’s isn’t just be a Wolverine comic, no. The first thirteen weeks are, and it’ll then be followed by a new thirteen-part story

Official release thingy?

Do you mean “an interview with the creative team”?

???

Aye! That’s what I meant. Because it was conducted prior to the news going public, and explained the details of the comic for people, and how it’d work.

Good to be providing a gateway to attract comic readers, but why only 48 hours ?

Good to provide free content to attract new comic readers, but why only 2 days?

[...] Sources: IGN & Beat [...]

[...] Sources: IGN & Beat [...]

Yeah, site’s not working. Nice idea Marvel, but perhaps a bit longer than 48 hours so people have a chance to download something would be a more effective strategy.

Free? Has anyone else been having problems downloading any free comics, putting them in the cart and you can’t access them? If you try again you get error messages. No wonder piracy is popular — unlike Marvel Com it works.

I think we overwhelmed the server(s). It’s bad news in the short term, and probably embarassing to Marvel and their ‘technology partner’, but since digital cloud comics never sell out, there will be lots more for us to borrow once they get back online.
This could be a hint at our approval of lower prices for old comics on cloud.

Thank you so much for singing this book’s praises. I decided to try out all of the Marvel NOW books and could not have been less interested in this one when it was announced. Legion has never engaged me in the slightest, as a character. However, with just one issue, I was won over and now consider this (along with “Avengers Academy”) to be the biggest surprise of the whole initiative. Great, complex, multi-layered writing and quirky, exciting, unconventional artwork that comes off like the lovechild of Jack Kirby and Michael Golden (Tan Eng Huat’s issues, anyway). I love this book and hope it has a long run (though, sadly, I’m not optimistic about its chances).

Okay, sold. This is the one comic I’ve been dithering over purely because I love the covers and know nothing about the contents… I shall go forage for this arc!

This has definitely been the surprise hit on my pull list! I gave it a shot because I heard Spurrier was weird, and I was certainly not disappointed. A book that feels like it’s combining short term excitement with long term plans in very good ways.

I really enjoy Spurrier’s work. Extermination was fun while it lasted (I’m sure it wasn’t an eight issue mini-series to begin with). X-Men Legacy is the X book for people who don’t read X books.

Weird. I’ve been finding it pretty much unreadable tosh and am close to dropping the title (which is actually the title, back when it was just adjectiveless, that was my first ever US comic).

I just really love that cover.

They didn’t need to reboot Nova. Rich Rider still had a lot of potential stories to tell. And I am curious how they will explain Star Lords return but not Rich Rider Nova’s. If the Nova force is back it should mean he is as well based on how they have historically explained it’s working.

And it annoys me on some level that they are making the charcter match an animated show when we know that comic sales do not correlate to book sales. I plan to give this the first cohple if issues before I judge it so maybe the will surprise me or enjoy it.

I meant comic book to tv/ movies.

Actually, both the Batman TV show in the 60′s and the Tim Burton movie in 1989 upped sales on the Batman comic by quite a lot.

Rich Rider is/was my favorite character so I’m kind of bummed at this series. I would be willing to wait until the Bendis/Loeb “era” of cosmic is over before they revive RR because tbh they don’t have the chops to do it right. see Vision, Wasp and Cable

A hero reboot – the old song and dance;
to be fair, though, I will give it a chance.

The cover would be even better if he was saying, “Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!”.

While they didn’t need to put/ keep Rich Rider on ice just to introduce a character with a somewhat wider visibility (he is on a animated kids show), the fact that Loeb says that he’s not really “writing for an all-ages audience” but instead for “the Marvel audience” brings a certain phrase to mind – “Epic fail”.

It’s simply weird to me how a company in the business of making money through selling stories of their characters doesn’t use, perhaps even avoids, solid avenues to grow their business prospects.

Beautiful cover by Marcos Martin btw.

At 3.99$ per issue they can keep it (especially since Marvel started doubleshipping his books). Nothing in what Loeb is saying makes this Sam (never heard of him) different from Rich Rider. Except he’s it seems in an animated show….
…it really helped Static Shock also to be the star on an aimated series for years…..
This cover is really gorgeous, true. But with a scripter like Loeb , Im sure nothing is gonna surprise me, and seeing the price of the entrance ticket, I’m out.

Does Marvel really own Nova? Given that he was created by Marv Wolfman and Len Wein and first appeared in their fanzine back in 1966, isn’t he actually theirs? I wonder how they feel about Jeph Loeb coming in and co-opting a character with that length of history and throwing someone else in the suit with the same name as his late son? Is this some kind of grief therapy for Loeb gone overboard?

You had me until “Ed McGuinness”. Never liked his art.

Yes — why is this book $3.99?

For *Nova*?

Really?

If Loeb wasn’t involved and it was Rich Rider in the helmet, I’d be all over this, $4 price tagged be hanged.

So Nova has a Nova Corps like Green Lantern has the Green Lantern Corp. So since Sam is a young kid taking up the mantle from the veteran we all know & love, does that make him Kyle Rayner v2.0?

I personally like Kyle Rayner. He my GL and it was my first real DC book. The situation is similar to that so that is why I’m willing to give this a couple of issues to wow me

You got me with Ed McGuinness. I’d just about buy the phone book if he drew it. This will be the only Marvel book I’ll be buying for the foreseeable future as long as EMC is involved that is.

Sixteen heroes and heroines is as far away from the classic, two-tiered, AVENGERS setup as one could envision.

SRS

hey, cool cannonball is in the Avengers, he’s one of my favorites. Maybe now he won’t be portrayed as absolutely incompetent.

Pretty sure you’re incorrect about minorities on The Avengers previously. During Johns run The Falcon and Black Panther were both members. Triathlon and Firebird, Firebird and Living Lightning, etc. at various times.

One of Hickman’s earliest Marvel works was a pretty cool Sunspot/Cannonball buddy story so their inclusion should be entertaining.

Really a shame though that we’re being denied the art skills of one of the industry’s most innovative modern artists due to the demands of being a Marvel architect.

>> This represents perhaps the first time that two minority characters have been on the main Avengers at the same time, I believe >>

Oh, sure. Make a claim like this a week after I packed away my AVENGERS reference volumes.

But I think the first time two minority characters were active on the Avengers roster was in the 1970s, when the Black Panther and Mantis were both on the team, though Mantis’s membership may not have been formalized until she left.

By my run, at least, there was a period that Triathlon, Photon, Silverclaw, Living Lightning and Firebird were all active at once.

Steve, you are definitely wrong about the minority thing. Ben Grimm (Jewish) and Luke Cage (black) were on the same Avengers team for years. And that’s just off the top of my head. You’re posting this stuff for the whole internets to see, why not do a bit of checking before making a false statement like that?

Also, Moon Knight (Jewish) and War Machine (Black) were on Brubaker/Ellis Secret Avengers at the same time.

if we’re counting Young Avengers:
Wiccan (Jewish and gay)
Patriot (Black)
Hulkling (gay)

Sorry guys, Jews see themselves as WHITE first, religion second…

Can we count Scarlet Witch as Roma?

As for this lineup … yawn. Same ol’ same ol’ at this point.

Whoa whoa, I said I thought it was the first time, not definitively that it was! And I meant to say minority males, not minority characters – sorry!

Snikt Snikt – really? Glad to know you have the ability to speak for all Jews. Super helpful skill to have.

When they mentioned several New Mutants would be headed to this book, I thought for sure that would include Cypher–his modern power set seems right up Hickman’s alley. (Of course, he could still pop up.)

I like Sam and Roberto, especially with a proper amount of bromance, but as New Mutants go, they’re not ones that will get me to pick up an Avengers book.

>> Sorry guys, Jews see themselves as WHITE first, religion second…>>

Aside from the fact that you’re mistaken on that score, the claim wasn’t “non-white,” but “minority.”

Where is the Vision? Get him in the game, Hickman!!

Actually, he’ll go by Gazerbeam and die in a cavern fighting a giant robot.

So, does Rachel start calling Jean Jr. her sister-mom?

My jimmies are rustled

“Which is probably going to be especially weird for Beast.”

Nah… he’s met “Dark Beast”. Who is actually twenty years older than himself, since DB got shunted back in time when he escaped via that crystal.

But… if these students are from the past in the 616 universe, then how do you retcon all that happens now? Mind-wipe? Or is it another universe/timeline? And what about Professor X?

“Days of Past Futures”?

Wait, that’s Dark Beast? My mind just exploded.

So if they are from the past, I guess the big questions they will be asking are:

* Did OJ get convicted?
* Did George Lucas ever make those prequel films people are talking about now he’s re-releasing the special editions of Star Wars?
* Is Michael Jackson still the king of pop?

“Days of Past Futures”

Wait, are the X-Men now in the business of trading futures? When did they move the mansion to Wall Street?

I gotta say, I really like this premise. It could be really fun.

@Kevin: No, that’s not Dark Beast on that sample page. Dark Beast returned to the Age of Apocalypse, where he’s from.

Wonder what Jean is going to think that in the future she had lost eveything

Rob – I don’t think that’s correct. I believe the last time we saw him was in Uncanny X-Force, and he was in our reality.

But… if these students are from the past in the 616 universe, then how do you retcon all that happens now? Mind-wipe? Or is it another universe/timeline?

There’s a basic problem with the premise. Since time travel involves movement within the space-time continuum, the X-Men can’t travel into their own future. They’d be in two places at once. From their perspective, they’re traveling into a potential future; if they jump 40 years ahead, that’s a 40-year span in which they’re not present to influence events. Going to the present of the 616 universe is logically impossible.

The physical movement which has to be accounted for is a major difference between modern approaches to time travel and the old approach, in which each microsecond was a separate interval, the future had already happened, and a time traveler could go ten seconds into his own past and greet himself.

Time travel, even the old-fashioned kind, doesn’t have to involve logical impossibilities. It can be a sightseeing trip, in which the time traveler learns shocking things about his past. “Oh, God! My great-great-grandfather was a cannibal!” Or the time travel can be played for laughs. But making the threat of a paradox a plot element invariably creates problems. Time travel isn’t going to bring about the end of the universe any more than a megalomaniacal supervillain is.

SRS

*sigh*

Get ready for lots of “I did WHAT!?” and “When did THAT happen!?” and “”I’m a big blue CAT!” and “Holy $#@%! I’m DEAD!!”

Of course, nothing will hurt quite so much as seeing that their favorite coffee shop is now a Sprint outlet.

@synsidar – i dig what your saying but the thing is, aren’t all potential futures still a future that they shouldn’t be in considering it could still happen and considering all the different alternate realities more than likely will happen. also at some point these five x-men will be going back to their own time to fulfill their destinies. the question is will they be going back with all their knowledge of the future intact, thus changing the timeline forever by making different choices as they grow older (perhaps the next big cross-over event next summer) and will they go back to their point of origin, perhaps seconds after they left thus negating the whole “40 years without them” scenario?

also at some point these five x-men will be going back to their own time to fulfill their destinies. the question is will they be going back with all their knowledge of the future intact, thus changing the timeline forever by making different choices as they grow older (perhaps the next big cross-over event next summer)

There are two principles:

1. A time traveler can’t change his own past, because doing so creates a paradox, aka a logical impossibility.

2. A time traveler can’t travel into his own future, both because he’s not physically present during the years covered in the travel to create that future, and because viewing his own behavior during those years would reverse cause and effect, inviting paradoxes, so it’s impossible.

The single timeline only works in a logical sense if you suppose that from the time of the Big Bang to the moment of the universe’s heat death in the far future, everything has already happened and time travelers can only safely view what’s happened; if one affects any development, in his future or past, he screws things up.

If you accept that the time traveler can’t duplicate himself—at any given moment in any timeline, there’s only one of him—then the modern approaches to time travel make perfect sense. If you claim that the time traveler can duplicate himself, then you have to invent your own version of the space-time continuum to justify it.

In the real world, the current position held by physicists is that time travel, aside from time dilation, is impossible, because no particle has been found that travels faster than light. So, any non-trivial time travel system has to make sense intellectually, or it’s a failure.

SRS

Best of luck to the new team and the new direction but for me Kid Loki written by Gillen was the only reason to pick up JiM.

Schiti has seriously been rocking the sinfully under-reported Battle Beasts for IDW.

This won’t make me pick up a Marvel book though.

That’s no problem, Ron.

Having never bought it before, I’ll be picking it up in light of this news. Call it breaking even for Marvel.

Kathryn Immonen is VERY uneven as a writer. This is probably not a positive step.

Well, Captain Marvel, Dazzler, Red She-Hulk, and Sif will each be a fun little 12 issue experiment.

Going to give this a try as Immonen is a writer I’ve liked a lot. However, is it $2.99 or $3.99? It says $3.99 on the cover.

If it’s $3.99 now, that’s a price rise from Gillen’s run, which had a $2.99 cover price.

Marvel issued a clarification for those who have an…issue with the price on…the…issue.

It will remain at $2.99.

Dazzler is just a prominent character in a team book, isn’t she? If we’re finally allowed to count those, Marvel has had loads more female-led series recently.

I feel like I *should* be glad JiM is continuing, but Sif doesn’t seem particularly interesting to me and the only thing by Immonen I’ve really liked is “Wolverine & Jubilee”.

Of course… when they started JiM, I wasn’t particularly interested in Loki either and Gillen was still only in the beginning phases of his awesomeness, so who knows what might happen here?

Dazzler is team leader! Also, she is DAZZLER. She should be in every comic

Well, so’s Dani Moonstar. And Storm. And Hope, until not long ago. That is to say, they’re all team leaders. They’re not all Dazzler too, that would be awkward. Funny, but awkward.

It was just above cancellation-level with a better and more well-known writer and a better and more well-known protagonist. And it was only $2.99 then, not $3.99.

I give it six issues. After the fourth issue it’ll already be down around 20,000 copies.

Oh well, we can always pretend that it didn’t work because the new writer and protagonist are female.

I read the recent “date” issue of Kitty Pryde and Colossus.

She’s rather strong-willed and another team leader.

Perhaps Marvel should take all the strong female X-Men and feature them in a separate series? Maybe title it “X-X”…

Good luck to the new creative team. I’m so excited that Gillen is taking over Iron Man. He’s my current favourite comic book writer. Woot!

Anyone know what’s happening to Kid Loki? Is he going to another book?

I’d buy that. Here’s hoping it doesn’t sit below the radar like the wonderful Allred and Milligan X-Force!

Medusa looks sexier in her costume than She-Hulk does. That’s a reversal.

SRS

Crushed Defenders has to die, but as much as I adore the book, the sales weren’t enough to keep it afloat.

Really hope Doctor Strange lands a regular appearance in either Hickman or Parker’s books.

So bummed :(

I’m with ya Comic Book Candy. The Allred / Milligan X-Force was fantastic.

Defenders has quickly turn into a disapointment. I stick with it hoping it would move away from the very confusing current Omega plot, but instead it kept focused even more on it. I was planning to drop it with issue 11, seems I’ll stay with it one last issue to see if, at least, the ending was worth the wait.

[...] Right, so this came out last week and while I was writing this post I just saw that Defenders just got cancelled. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO(deep breath)OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. So upsetting; [...]

Fraction is a terrible launch writer. He sells acceptably on well known properties on the strength of the properties.

Give him something new? IT gets bogged down in nonsensical waffle about Captain Nemo. Nobody cares and then it stops.

See Venom/Remender for how to open up a new book successfully.

FF looks great. Gonna be picking this up.

Color me uninterested with Marvel’s Music Chairs Event but these actually look good and fun.

What is with the little “001″ in the lower right hand corner? Issue number? Do they really think they are going to get to 100 issues before another relaunch?

“Is this the last time we’ll get to see a Defenders title?”

Silly reporter! You know better than that. :)

“It gets bogged down in nonsensical waffle about Captain Nemo. Nobody cares and then it stops.”

This. It was at that moment, while reading (I don’t remember which issue) when I literally put the book down and asked myself, ‘what the hell *is* this nonsense?’

I can’t recall ever being so excited for a series, and being so disappointed so quickly.

What’s this? A FOUR DOLLAR comic book starring THE DEFENDERS was quickly canceled…? I am shocked. Shocked!

Well, shocked that anyone at Marvel thought, “Hey, maybe if we make this much, much more expensive than all those other Defenders comics we canceled, it will work this time!”

I thought that was Pixie in a Thing costume.

“What is with the little “001″ in the lower right hand corner? Issue number? Do they really think they are going to get to 100 issues before another relaunch?”

Wouldn’t bet on it. I’d be surprised if FF lasts that long. And FANTASTIC FOUR will, surely, revert back to it’s original numbering when issue #700 rolls around.

If nothing else, I’m glad to see both books are remaining at $2.99. I was worried that the relaunches would give Marvel an excuse to change that.

I liked Defenders but it wasn’t a four dollar like.

both f.f. books look interesting enough to give them a try. have to agree with shark jumper about the book being relaunched (again) before getting to issue 100 (hell, before getting to issue 50 these days). also have to kinda agree with cerebro, that marvel would probably revert back to the original numbering of the f.f. when getting close to issue 700. silly shit all around when it comes to marvel numbering their books.
real shame about the defenders, but i have to admit that this current story is just meandering way too long. they should have been done with the whole thing by issue 4 and moved on to something else. so does this mean the end of the defenders, maybe, or maybe, just maybe this will lead to next years big cross-over event, which will be: THE AVENGERS & X-MEN VS. THE DEFENDERS & GREAT LAKE AVENGERS/X-MEN/whatever the hell they call themselves these days!!!!! yeah, that’s the ticket. it’ll be the greatest cross-over event of all time!!!! loads of cross-overs with main stream books,loads of all new mini-series that tie into the event, and all new relaunches (again) of all main stream books when it’s all over……….. then again, NAH! :)

Somewhat surprised to see the title of X-Men: Legacy return (if it is indeed that, of course).

Somewhat relieved to finally hear about another X-book.

While I’ve not always been crazy about Spurrier’s stuff, X-Club was a lot of fun, and I’ll be very interested in seeing what the extra room of having an ongoing brings out in him.

Frankly, I was hoping that X-MEN: LEGACY’s cancellation meant that Marvel was doing the sensible thing and trimming some of the unnecessary X-Men titles (this, coming from a die-hard X-Men fan). I’m hoping that “Legacy” will be something completely different.

The industry is SAVED!

ugh, why? It was a fantastic book, why ruin it with fraction? :(

Fantastic Four is a perfect fit for Fraction and Bagley. And that FF book is a lot of fun and I know Fraction/Allred will keep up the quality of that book. Good news all around.

Fraction and Allred on FF?

Damn, might have to pick this up.

I am in awe of Fraction’s Iron Man, so I expect big things here…. and I rarely read Marvel books.

Mike Allred on art will get me to by a FF book.

Granted it won’t be at $3.99 a copy. Rather, I’ll wait until the tpbs hit the bargain bins.

SOLD!

Bagley? Bagley?! Ugh. Pass.

You know what is interesting, so far they haven’t announced a single new title. Ok, Uncanny Avengers and All New X-Men. But I seriously refuse to count those as NEW titles.

Nice to see that FF will continue. The concept of the book is too interesting to be left to the side.

Very hesitant about Fraction on F4. He’s got the mad science, big ideas part down, but his characters always have an unbearable need to be übercool. Perfect for Tony Stark, but it seems like a terrible fit for the F4 with the *possible* exception of Johnny.

Allred on FF intrigues me, though. Franklin and Valeria rock, so if they remain a focus of that book, things could get interesting yet.

FF is good now. Why change it at all with a relaunch? People are going to use the break in numbering to jump off the book.

Allred. Fan favorite who has no sales power. Until recently with Izombie (which is ending through no fault of his own), he couldn’t handle the monthly chores associated with a mainstream title. It’s likely he’ll have to have back-up features in short order to help maintain deadlines, or only do two to three issue story arcs with someone else doing fill-ins. The man in these lights (if they happen) brings nothing to the table other than the indie crowd going “gosh-wow” and then not buying it.

Bagley. Always good. What does this mean for Avengers Assembled? Brilliant is not something worth looking at anymore, as most of the Marvel Icon series are tragically late (Powers, Brilliant, Kabuki).

Fraction: A pleasing and engaging writer who Marvel is stretching way, way too thin.

Restarts. A doomed ploy to try and bring in lapsed readers Marvel should know by now that while there MAY be a short there upwards bump in sales, there is an inevitable catastrophic drop off and weakening of the overall brand (Thor, Avengers, Captain America, Fantastic Four,etc…).

Marvel needs to forgoe the gimmicks they are allowing their marketing department to become reliant on, and just crank out consistently good books. Not 3 to 6 so-so to mediocre ones to a family title in an attempt to pull in more of the collectors desperate to keep their runs intact.

I second chanting MIKE! ALLRED! Will skip on the pom-poms, though.

Wouldn’t give this a book a second look without him involved. If the story is any good, that’s a bonus . . . although I’d rather have him on the regular F4 book.

Any Allred is better than no Allred.

Why is Marvel promoting these books with the name of the writer and artist and a giant word like ‘Family’ or “Worthy”?

Unless you know the Marvel characters – this won’t mean anything to new readers.

Why not just show a piece of forthcoming art instead and let the audience guess who might be doing the books? That would be a REAL tease.

Interesting.

So all of the movie Avengers will have ongoings in the coming months with the exception of Black Widow, regulated to co-star status in Brubaker’s and Lark’s Winter Solider.

P.S. – Wonder who will be on Cap’s book and what the hook of it will be.

The Hulk wearing armor…but Hulk is already strongest one there is.

I guess I don’t understand what Marvel Now! is. Is it that different popular books have new creative teams? Isn’t that “Marvel Just Like It Always Is”?

The Hulk wearing armor…but Hulk is already strongest one there is.

Green Hulk used to be strongest one there is. The red Hulks are now apparently stronger than their green counterparts.

SRS

I’ll be glad when the Red Hulk trend finally dies. They can share room in the has-bin with all the various Venom offshoots that infested the spider titles in the 90’s.

We live in a golden era of Hulks. It used to be we had to put up with only two Hulks: The Hulk and She-Hulk.

But now we have Hulk, She-Hulk, Red Hulk, Red She-Hulk, Skaar (son of Hulk), Hiro-Kala (son of Hulk), and She-Hulk 2 (Lyra daughter of Hulk). I can’t believe I ever read comics that only had one or two Hulks in them.

I also wish Spider-Man’s Clone Saga never ended and loved when Superman was one of 100,000 living Kryptonians. I hate it when something I like is unique and interesting.

Rip-offs are a hallowed super-hero comics tradition. Elongated Man and his wife are the detective couple from The Thin Man (get it hurr hurr), Batman is the Shadow, Green Lanterns are the Lensmen, Punisher is Mack Bolan the Executioner, X-men was almost a complete lift from the sci-fi novel Children of the Atom, etc, etc.

Stuff like Red Hulk is just the modern equivalent of the practice, except more obvious since it’s a concept ripping off itself. This is, of course, because the creators doing it only read super-hero comics unlike their predecessors that also read novels.

[...] Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu are Indestructable (writing Hulk) (comicsbeat.com) [...]

waid is doing a great job on daredevil, so i’m gonna be optimistic that he’ll do a great job on the hulk, but there have been cases where a writer that is doing great on one book switches and/or takes on a second title and completely tanks, but one never knows, so we’ll see how it goes.

@Adam, that was awesome. :-) LoL

Don’t be silly. You know very well that Marvel isn’t going to announce any X-books until they’re damn well done presenting their A-books. THEN we’ll find out about the Angel book when it appears unannounced in the back of the catalogue.

Wow, the luster that THOR had during JMS’ run wore off quick, didn’t it?

We should expect that Wolverine will soon be welding the hammer if Arron is indeed the new writer.

i know marvel doesn’t care much about my personal collecting proclivities, but i just want to buy sequentially numbered continuously published stapled floppy paper issues of Wolverine and Uncanny X-Men, and i wish they’d stop making that increasingly difficult to do.

the rest of their titles they can do whatever they want with, enumeratively and regards to publishing schedules. i’ll buy them in collected trades depending based on quality and whim. also, speaking for from an objective aesthetic/OCD point of view, it’d be nice if they just left Fantastic Four alone. as the start of the “Marvel Era” it makes for a nice benchmarker. but i guess that was also scraped a while ago during Heroes Reborn so whatever.

It blows my mind that any of this would blow anyone’s mind.

I’m surprised that so many people are posting about being surprised that someone is surprised by this.

It’s new! Buy it! Buy it! Buy it! Please?

If JiM survives Gillen’s departure by more than a month or two, I’ll be surprised.

It’s strange, if not surprising, that Marvel is, essentially, trying to push subscriptions, but never uses the marketing techniques that regular magazine publishers do for selling subscriptions. The company is just too dependent on sales of single copies through stores.

SRS

As song lyrics go, it’s more a case of “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

And this is why I lost interested in a lot of Marvel and DC books. I use to read Fantastic Four pretty much fucked that up many of times with ending the series then starting it over again.

Piss on Marvel and DC for the lack of ideas and for having a bunch on cunts running the companies.

Creator-own comics books have been a life savers.

This is a good time to start reading some creator-owned books.

If the indies were smart they would start new arcs at the same time the big two decide to pull a reboot. Maybe even publish some point one issues.

I am so sick and tired of Marvel restarting their titles. They just started many of these a little over a year ago and already they’re going back to #1’s. $#@!

This post was intentionally and ironically incredulous, right? Please?

No one believes these books are being purged. None of this is surprising. It’s a creative reshuffle/renumbering of their main titles. Nothing is being “purged”. No one “escaped destruction”. It is not a surprise that top titles are affected. No one was predicting nor did they expect that ancillary titles would be affected. The books that will “replace this backbone” are exactly the same books with different creators.

This article was shockingly bad.

Sometimes you want to go….. Where everybody knows your name….

Granted the number on a comic never held much weight for me but I understand long time readers being a bit erked by the frequent relaunches/ reboots.

Since I’ve been a weekly/ monthly reader ( only a couple of years) I tend to pick out books based on premise and creative teams.

I understand Marvel simply playing creative musical chairs with their reboot as a opposed to DC, who made a bit of a misstep with their relaunch by not getting new talent on their books.

Fear not true believer, Cap, Stark, Thor, Hulk, the Fantastic Four, and the various mutants will be front and center in a new book by next March.

This info now confirms what more than half of the Marvel Now books will be.

Make of that what you will.

Buy what titles you like, regardless of the number on the cover.

Marvel should’ve done what DC has and started their universe from scratch again. Give people a new/fresh jumping on point, w/new creative teams. Just renumbering the same old garbage only works so long these days…

Cancel the Ultimate line, its time has long since passed. This goes for Bendis too!

I’ve got a great idea. All issues of all comics should be #1’s, just with a new volume number!

So Fantastic Four, for example, could start with Volume #612, Issue #1, then go to Volume #613, issue #1, etc!