Marvel officially announces the event series ‘Judgment Day’

Marvel will bring together the X-Men, the Eternals and the Avengers for Judgment Day, a crossover series coming this summer from Kieron Gillen and Valerio Schiti.

The story will revolve around conflict between the Eternals and the X-Men, as the latter target Krakoa and the Avengers try to play peacekeeper. With Gillen already writing Eternals and Immortal X-Men on deck, it makes sense that he’d bring them together — and write his first event series for Marvel.

“There’s a classic metaphor to describe the Marvel Universe – a toybox, which creators take toys out of, play with and put back. I get it, but it’s never quite how I’ve seen it – I think ‘play’ in another way. I think of a music shop, with all these instruments with their different qualities suggesting different songs, different stories,” Gillen said. “For all the Marvel instruments I’ve played, I’ve never written an event. Writing an event is something different. It’s not like playing an instrument. It’s having all the instruments in the Marvel music shop. That’s not like writing a song. That’s like writing a symphony.”

Here’s the description from Marvel.com: 

The X-Men have achieved immortality and mutants have taken their place as the dominant species on the planet. The Eternals have discovered long hidden knowledge about their species, including a devastating truth about mutantkind. The Avengers have come into direct conflict with the Celestials and are currently using a fallen Celestial as their base of operations, slowly unlocking its secrets… When the Eternals brazenly target the mutant nation of Krakoa, the Avengers try desperately to de-escalate a potentially apocalyptic war. But this is no simple conflict. The Eternals’ purpose cannot be denied and mutantkind’s future will not be threatened. And after the opening battles, new players and revelations for both sides will emerge as the inhabitants of the Marvel Universe are JUDGED by the greatest power they’ve ever come into contact with.  

“I looked at everything in Eternals and Immortal X-Men and everything else all the X and Avengers writers have done and thought… yeah, this is an event. In fact, an event is the only way to do justice to this,” Gillen said. “The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson described the music he was reaching for as Teenage Symphonies to God. I think that’s what the best Marvel Events aspire to be, and it’s what we’re aspiring to here. I want the scale. I want the heartbreak . I want a book that wears its heart on its sleeve even as it puts a fist in your face. I want something Wagnerian in its volume as emotional as God Only Knows.”

Schiti has become Marvel’s go-to artist for big events, following Empyre and Inferno.

“It is great to have the opportunity to draw another Marvel event after Empyre,” Schiti said. “The difference is that last time I was just excited, but now I know how high the expectations are, so now I am both excited and a bit scared! Luckily for me I have the great Kieron Gillen and Marte Gracia watching my back and together we can face any cosmic threat!”

The event will launch in July, but you can get a preview of it in the Avengers/X-Men Free Comic Book Day issue that comes out May 7.