Author: JK Parkin

SDCC | Marvel teases the end of ‘One World Under Doom’ — and what will follow

Ryan North and RB Silva present the big finale in November.

All good things must come to an end, even the benevolent rule of the one true Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Doom.

The One World Under Doom, Marvel’s big crossover event and miniseries, will come to a head in issue #9 in November, and in San Diego this week writer Ryan North teased what that issue will bring.

“The story is in two parts,” North said. “[In the second part], you’re kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop, because there’s no way he’s doing what he’s doing without any consequences. So in the second half, you see what’s going on behind the scenes.

“There is some stuff coming up that I’m very excited for,” he continued. “I know issue nine is the conclusion, but issue eight has some big stuff that I’m very excited about.”

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SDCC | Matt Kindt + Ibrahim Moustafa bring John Le Carré’s Circus to comics

The three-issue miniseries begins in November.

Writer Matt Kindt and artist Ibrahim Moustafa will team up to bring the world from John le Carré’s novels into comics. The three-issue John Le Carré: The Circus—Losing Control will begin in November.

Le Carré is the author of many best-selling espionage novels, including The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which have been adapted to film. Several of his books are connected and feature a British intelligence agency nicknamed the Circus, which is overseen by a man known only as “Control.” His right hand is a man named Smiley, and his left hand, as seen in the comic, is his executive assistant, Maggie. When Control goes missing, it’s up to Maggie to find him — while keeping the world on track.

“Getting asked to contribute a piece to John le Carré’s world of Smiley has been one of the greatest honors and responsibilities of my life,” said Kindt. “I wasn’t looking for this job but I was called into service. And much like Smiley, my heart is in the right place and hopefully that will be enough.”

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Your 2025 Eisner Award winners

‘Lunar New Year Love Story’ takes home three awards, while ‘Santos Sisters’ won for Best Continuing Series.

The winners of the 2025 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards were announced Friday night in San Diego.

Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham, published by First Second, took home three awards, including Best Graphic Album – New and a Best Writer award for Yang. Santos Sisters by Greg & Fake, Graham Smith, Dave Landsberger and Marc Koprinarov, which is published by small press publisher Floating World Comics, took home Best Continuing Series, beating out several series by Marvel, DC and Image.

Other awards given out included the Bob Clampett Award, a humanitarian award that was given to Mad Cave Studios’ L.A. Strong charity anthology. Don Glut and Sheldon Mayer received the 2025 Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. Richard Blake, writer and artist of Hexagon Bridge, won the Russ Manning Award. And Akira Comics in Madrid, Spain took home the Spirit of Comics Retailing Award.

Congratulations to all the nominees and winners, which you can see below, followed by the Hall of Fame inductees for 2025:

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SDCC | She-Hulk, Nova + more ongoings will spin out of ‘Imperial’

‘Planet She’Hulk’ and ‘Nova: Centurion’ lead the pack in November.

At the San Diego Comic-Con today, Marvel revealed that Jonathan Hickman, Iban Coello and Federico Vicentini’s Imperial miniseries is not only redefining the Marvel cosmos, but is also serving as the launching pad for five new ongoing series starring Nova, She-Hulk and more.

If you’ve been paying attention to the one-shot tie-ins for the event, you can probably guess the five series:

  • Planet She-Hulk by Stephanie Phillips and Aaron Kuder
  • Nova: Centurion by Jed MacKay and Alvaro Lopez
  • Exiles by a to-be-announced creative team
  • Black Panther: Intergalactic by to-be-announced creative team
  • Imperial Guardians by to-be-announced creative team

All five series are being set up in the Imperial War one-shots, with the first two debuting in November.

“This is a story that unites all the disparate and separate powers of the galactic portion of the Marvel Universe—the Kree, the Shi’ar, the Skrulls, and more—all in one big science-fiction epic, set up in a series of Russian nesting dolls where in every issue, something is pulled off, and something is revealed behind the thing you just learned the last time out. It’s an all-out cosmic war,” Marvel Execuitve Editor Tom Brevoort said.

Here’s a look at the two announced titles:

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SDCC | Frank Tieri + Stefano Raffaele pit ‘Alien vs. Captain America’

The miniseries kicks off in November.

Following the recent Aliens vs. Avengers miniseries that brought the Alien franchise into contact with the Marvel Universe, Marvel announced at the San Diego Comic-Con today Alien vs. Captain America by Frank Tieri and Stefano Raffaele.

The story, set during World War II, will feature Hydra looking for the hidden city of Attilan, home to the Inhumans. But like the stupid Nazis they are, their quest for power leads to them unleashing something very, very bad.

“Ya know, sometimes a project comes along and you just have to pinch yourself that you get to be involved with it,” Tieri said. “I mean, here you have two of the most iconic properties in entertainment—Captain America, who is basically the ultimate hero, going against Alien, one of the ultimate names in horror. As a writer, what more can you ask for than that?”

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SDCC | Gene Yang + Freddie Williams II take on ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’

Plus: TMNT X Godzilla, Battle Nexus and more Turtle-focused news from San Diego.

The 12th issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will be the final issue by Jason Aaron and Juan Ferrerya, who kicked off the new series last year. But December will bring a new creative team as Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese) and Freddie Williams II (Batman/TMNT) take over the title.

The creative team change was one of several TMNT-related announcements IDW made this week at the San Diego Comic-Con.

According to publisher IDW, “this all-new story arc will provide fans with a fresh jumping on point as the Heroes in a Half-Shell are back together and hopeful about the future of the city, but there’s a dark and personal danger lurking in the shadows as a deadly new assassin makes their debut.” Yang and Williams will be joined by Jake Thomas, who take over editing the title.

“I’ve been a fan of the TMNT since I was young. I remember watching the ‘80s cartoon with my brother and then reenacting the Turtles’ adventures with our action figures,” Yang said. “I read my first issue of TMNT at a friend’s house, and I was blown away by the melding of gritty martial arts action and wild, out-of-left-field ideas. Many years later, I began my cartooning career in American independent comics. All of us from that corner of comics owe a huge debt to Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. Their talent and creativity, both as comics creators and as businessmen, carved out a path for the rest of us to follow. In fact, the very first comic I ever self-published was funded by a grant from Peter Laird’s Xeric Foundation. I’ve admired the Turtles for a long, long time. I’m absolutely thrilled to get to tell their stories at IDW.”

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SDCC | ‘Age of Revelation’ continues in November

See what’s up with Magik, the Fenris twins, the Iron King, Vindicator and the X-Babies during Marvel’s next big X-Men event.

Marvel has revealed more details about Age of Revelation, their big alternate-history X-Men event that kicks off in October. Following the slow trickle over four days of revealing the titles that’ll take over the X-Men line in October, Marvel has released covers and solicits for the second issues of each of those titles, which will arrive in November.

As a reminder, Age of Revelation is an Age of Apocalypse-style event. Like the 1990s event — which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year — Age of Revelation will show us an alternate world and bring the relaunch of several X-related titles for the duration, as Doug Ramsey, the heir to Apocalypse, creates a new world order and we jump 10 years into the future to see what it brings.

I covered the first issues when they were announced here, here, here and here, if you need to catch up on what was previously announced. Now here’s what you can expect in November … note that a couple of titles, Binary and Rogue Storm, are missing, but Marvel said details on their second issues would be released at a later date.

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SDCC | Robert Kirkman + Mark Englert return to ‘Capes’

Remastered issues of the 2003 series will arrive in November from Skybound, followed by new issues written by Benito Cereno.

Capes, an early superhero comic by Robert Kirkman and Mark Englert, will get a makeover by the creators as it returns in November.

The story revolves around a superhero business, Capes Inc., that’s set in the same universe as Invincible (and has been seen in the animated series). It employs characters like Kid Thor, Knockout, Captain Cosmic and more, who protect New York when they’re on the clock.

Capes originally debuted in 2003, a month before another Kirkman-written series, The Walking Dead, and many years before Kirkman would form Skybound and become an Image partner. At the time, the young up-and-coming writer had already kicked off Invincible and Tech Jacket at Image Comics, so he was turning into a force for the publisher.

Kirkman and Englert’s original Capes stories will be remastered with new art and dialogue by the original creative team and released as single issues. And then with issue #7, the title will continue with new stories drawn by Englert and written by Blood & Thunder writer Benito Cereno.

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SDCC | ‘Kull’ will return at Titan Comics in 2027

Plus more news from Titan’s ‘Conan the Barbarian’ panel.

Robert E. Howard’s Kull, sometimes known as Kull the Conqueror or King Kull, will return to comics in 2027 at Titan Comics.

The publisher returned to San Diego to reveal more details on upcoming Conan the Barbarian projects, revealing to fans at their panel plans for the return of Kull, The Savage Sword of Conan: Reforged, Scourge of the Serpent and more.

Not much was said about Kull, which is still two years away. But in the more immediate future, Oct. 8 brings the extra-sized Conan the Barbarian #25 by longtime Conan writer Jim Zub and fantasy artist Alex Horley, who is painting the issue. Here’s a preview:

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Smash Pages Q&A | Craig Hurd-McKenney on ‘Curse of Dark Shadows’

The writer of the new graphic novel that dives back into the world of the cult classic supernatural soap opera discusses the project, which is currently up on Kickstarter.

Dark Shadows was a supernatural-themed daytime soap opera that ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971, but still holds a place in the hearts of many fans. Barnabas Collins and his brood have lived on in books, movies and through streaming services over the years, bringing new fans to Collinsport, Maine — a city inhabited by vampires, zombies, werewolves, witches, warlocks and more.

Hermes Press has kept the story alive through a series of novels and reprints of previous comics, but now they’re returning to the world of Dark Shadows with an original graphic novel that moves the story into the present. Craig Hurd-McKenney, writer of the recent Station Grand from Oni Press, and Jok, artist of the under-appreciated In Hell We Fight with John Layman at Image Comics, are bringing these characters back to the forefront and continuing the drama that made the show so popular.

Here’s the description of Curse of Dark Shadows:

Carolyn Stoddard-Hawkes made a deathbed promise to her mother. But, in order for Carolyn to complete that promise, she must rely on the one person in the world she doesn’t want to see: vampire Barnabas Collins. His return home after an extended period away sets in motion a chain of events that will change the Collins family forever. Can Carolyn and her cousin David survive the newly-awakened CURSE OF DARK SHADOWS, or will Barnabas be the end of the Collins family line?

The project is currently up on Kickstarter, and Hermes Press has a small number of limited edition copies at the San Diego Comic-Con. They’ll also host a panel this afternoon at 3 p.m. Pacific at the con, featuring Hurd-McKenney and actress Kathryn Leigh Scott, who played Maggie on the show and will join the conversation remotely.

I spoke with Hurd-McKenney about the project, his history with the show and working again with his longtime collaborator Jok.

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SDCC | Abrams ComicArts to publish John Byrne’s ‘X-Men: Elsewhen’

The 600-page story will be told across three hardcover volumes.

I can’t say I ever expected to see this news, but hey, there’s no better time than the week of Comic-Con for a surprise. Abrams ComicArts and Marvel are teaming up to publish X-Men: Elsewhen, a collection of John Byrne’s alternate history X-Men story.

Byrne is one of the legendary artists of the new X-Men, if not THE legendary artist of the new X-Men that debuted back in Giant-Sized X-Men #1. Byrne joined writer Chris Claremont on X-Men with issue #108, shortly before “Uncanny” was added to the title. Together with inker Terry Austin, he drew some of the most well-regarded issues of the title, including the Dark Phoenix Saga, Days of Future Past, the introduction of Alpha Flight and more. He left the title with issue #143, and went on to work on everything from Fantastic Four to Alpha Flight to Sueprman to Doom Patrol and so much more.

Cut to about seven years ago, and Byrne started posting these X-Men: Elsewhen comics on his Byrne Robotics forum. As the press release describes it:

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Jeremy Whitley + Bayleigh Underwood roll for initiative on ‘Strange Tales’

The four-issue miniseries features several of Marvel’s mystical heroes in an RPG-inspired story.

Marvel is reviving Strange Tales, a title used by the company for decades — even before they were Marvel — for a “mystical mystery” story by Jeremy Whitley and Bayleigh Underwood.

The four-issue miniseries will feature magical heroes like Scarlet Witch, Wiccan, Nico Minoru and Doctor Strange in a story that “blends Marvel Comics storytelling with elements of popular tabletop role-playing games.”

“I’ve always been a fan of the spookier side of the Marvel Universe and to get to play in that playground was a ball,” Whitley said. “And to get to add aspects of table-top role-playing games on top of it – who could resist? Then I found out we’d get to see all of the excitement penciled by the amazing Bailey Underwood! Strange Tales is a treat I think all Marvel fans will enjoy!”

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