During C2E2 last weekend, Marvel announced a new project by Mark Waid, Javier Rodriguez and Alvaro Lopez — History of the Marvel Universe, which will detail exactly what the title implies. According to Marvel, the comic “will go all the way back to the Big Bang and the beginning of time and conclude with the twilight of existence.”
And boy, are Rodriguez and Lopez bringing their “A” game on these preview pages. It’s not surprising, of course; they brought their vibrant visual style to Spider-Woman, Exiles and other titles, but these pages in particular really blew me away when I saw them.
“History of the Marvel Universe is exactly what it says on the package—a sweeping story that covers all of the important events in the span of Marvel history from the Big Bang all the way to the heat-death of the universe,” Marvel Executive Editor Tom Brevoort said. “It’s not a Handbook, it’s not Marvel Saga, it’s an all-new story that puts all of these events into a greater context. But like those earlier projects, it will also serve as a massive master reference resource for anybody who wants to know what went down when. Even those readers who think they know everything will find new surprises and revelations—and the artwork for the series will make it a visual delight for both those new to Marvel as well as decades-seasoned Marvelites.”
This looks like a fun project, covering everything from cosmic beings to time travelers to the birth of Thor to X-Men baddie Belasco to cowboys … and Wolverine, of course, who seems to have lived forever. Check out the preview below.
Update: And here’s the official cover for the first issue:
And a new quote from Waid from the press release:
“We’ve seen Marvel histories and Marvel encyclopedias and Marvel handbooks, and I love that stuff. I absorb them like Galactus absorbs planets,” Waid said. “This is not that. There’s information here, but there’s also a story. The Marvel Universe is a living thing, it is its own story, and we’re trying to approach it with some degree of heart to find the heart in that story so it doesn’t read like 120 pages of Wikipedia.”