Category: Comic Books

Destiny and Mystique are goin’ to the chapel in ‘X-Men: The Wedding Special’

Kieron Gillen, Tini Howard, Wyatt Kennedy, Tate Brombal and more will contribute to the special.

The relationship between Mystique and Destiny has been explored and tested in the X-Men titles over the past few years, between Immortal X-Men and the recent X-Men Origins Blue special that cleaned up Nightcrawler’s origin. But now the two of them will take the center aisle in X-Men: The Wedding Special.

Immortal X-Men writer Kieron Gillen will write a story that sees the two mutants renew their vows.

“They’ve been through hell, mainly at my pen. Finally, giving these two a happy day? How can I say no,” Gillen told Marvel.com.

The comic serves as this year’s Marvel’s Voices: Pride special, and will feature additional stories by LGBTQIA+ talent like Tini Howard, Wyatt Kennedy, Tate Brombal and Yoon Ha Lee, among others.

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Ennis + Burrows bring ‘deeply disrespectful humor’ to the fantasy genre in ‘Babs’

The new miniseries debuts from Ahoy Comics in July.

Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows’ partnership is going on about 20 years now, having started at Avatar with 303 and continued into Crossed, Punisher: Soviet and the upcoming Get Fury. But the duo will head into a different direction this summer in Babs, a sword-and-sorcery satire coming from Ahoy Comics.

This sounds like something that will appeal to fans of Ennis’ work on titles like Hitman and Dicks.

“Writing Babs was an absolute hoot,” said Ennis. “The character is one of my favorite types—good at the job but crap at life, with a lousy attitude to boot—and the world of ‘Sword & Sorcery’ provides endless opportunities for deeply disrespectful humor. Having our heroine smash her way through goblins, ogres, imps, incels and other vermin was extremely satisfying; nobody’s going to be Making Middle Earth Great Again while she’s around.”

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Emgård + Aira bring eldritch horror to a new battleground in ‘Beyond the Pale’

The four-issue miniseries kicks off from Dark Horse Comics in June.

Christofer Emgård and Tomás Aira, who previously combined eldritch horror with war stories in Dark Horse Comics’ The Secret Land and The Whispering Dark, will once again team for Beyond the Pale. Letterer Maguro Mantella joins them on the new miniseries, which brings their trademark “impending doom” approach to the Vietnam War.

“The senseless insanity of the Vietnam War lends itself especially well to tales of inexplicable horror,” Emgård said. “Beyond the Pale is my humble attempt to capture some of that madness onto the page, and Tomás has outdone himself in depicting the moist, suffocating jungle and the young, forsaken soldiers lost in its dark embrace.”

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Marvel announces ‘Blood Hunt’ one-shots for Magik, Psylocke, Jubilee + Wolverine

The X-Men will enter the vampire apocalypse, just not all together.

Four of Marvel’s mutants are getting one-shot tie-ins to this summer’s big Blood Hunt crossover event, including Psylocke, Magik, Jubilee and Wolverine — no, not him, the other Wolverine, Laura Kinney.

According to Marvel.com, the reason for the solo one-shots is story driven –“This bloodbath of terror couldn’t come at a more dire time for mutantkind. Currently scattered after the fall of Krakoa, the X-Men won’t be able to strike from a united front.”

So instead, four of them will go solo — one who is a former vampire, and three who are really good at stabbing things. But all of this is happening after Fall of the House of X and, it sounds like, before the launch of the Tom Brevoort-edited X-Men: From the Ashes, which we don’t really know anything about except that it’ll be previewed on Free Comic Book Day.

Anyway, here’s a rundown of the four one-shots, which leaves us with two as-yet-unrevealed one-shot tie-ins that’ll be announced tomorrow.

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Scarlet Witch returns to her own solo title in June

Steve Orlando and Jacopo Camagni reopen the door for new adventures starring the magical Avenger.

Following her current five-issue team-up with her brother in Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, Wanda Maximoff will return to her own solo title in June, courtesy of Steve Orlando and Jacopo Camagni.

Orlando has been writing the character since Marvel’s Darkhold event in 2021, which was actually delayed because of the pandemic, so his tenure with the character goes even further back. In her previous solo title, Orlando established her as the proprietor of a shop that will open itself to souls in need — leading to all sorts of adventures for her and her partner in magic, Darcy Lewis.

Camagni, meanwhile, is known for his work on X-Men Red and Longshot Saves the Marvel Universe, among other titles.

“The news is out and I couldn’t be more excited,” Orlando said. “Scarlet Witch has been a dream job, and getting to return to her once again and continue Wanda’s adventures is something I could never say no to. And Wanda’s going to keep climbing! Here, we’ll be bringing the blockbuster storytelling of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver to the focused, personal journey Wanda began in Darkhold and Scarlet Witch. And standing in her way? Only one of Marvel’s most powerful and climactic entities, bent on destroying everything Wanda stands for.”

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Casey + Fry’s ‘Blood Squad Seven’ kicks off in May

The new series will “explore ’90s superteam dynamics through a contemporary lens.”

Joe Casey and Paul Fry will dig through the bones of 1990s comics nostalgia in Blood Squad Seven, a new series that spins out of Casey’s recent work on Dutch.

“This might be the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my 20-plus years working with Image Comics,” Casey said. “To play in this sandbox is the most fun I’ve ever had writing in a shared universe. This series is much more than a modern deconstruction of what it meant to be a superhero in the ’90s. Paul and I are building on that past to find our way into the future.”

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‘Blood Hunt’ tie-ins bring a new team of Avengers, vampire Doctor Strange and more

The vampire apocalypse will rage through many Marvel titles this summer.

Marvel’s Blood Hunt event continues to spread in scope; in addition to the eight tie-in miniseries they announced last week, they’ve also announced the seven regular titles that will take part in Marvel’s big vampire apocalypse.

Given that the main Blood Hunt book is written by Jed MacKay, it’s not surprising to see Doctor Strange, Avengers and Vengeance of the Moon Knight will tie into the bigger story. There’s also three Spider-Family titles on the list, which is rounded out by the Fantastic Four.

Here are a few things you can expect from the tie-ins:

  • With the current Avengers roster involved in the main Blood Hunt title, the Avengers ongoing will instead focus on a ragtag team put together by the guy who invented ragtag teams of Avengers, Steve Rogers. This 2024 version of Cap’s kooky quartet is actually a quintet, as it’ll feature Quicksilver, Hawkeye, Hercules and Hazmat.
  • Blade will show up in a number of places during the crossover, including in Miles Morales: Spider-Man.
  • The Venom issues will see the resurrection of a former host of the symbiote Venom — Lee Price, who became Venom in 2016 but was killed off in 2019 after Eddie Brock took the suit back.
  • Black Panther isn’t the only hero to become a vampire, as Doctor Strange will also be infected.
  • But don’t worry, T’Challa and Stephen — Mr. Fantastic is on the case, as he searches for a cure for vampirism in Fantastic Four.

Six of the ongoing series tie-ins will run for multiple issues, with the only exception being Amazing Spider-Man, which just gets a single issue before spinning its story off into the Amazing Spider-Man: Blood Hunt miniseries. You can find covers for the May issues, along with descriptions and creative teams, below.

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Image announces a sequel to Zdarsky, Anka + Wilson’s ‘The White Trees’

The trio of creators returns to the fantasy world they created with ‘The Whisper Queen,’ which begins in May.

Back in 2019, Chip Zdarsky, Kris Anka and Matt Wilson introduced the fantasy world of Blacksand in the two-issue Image Comics miniseries The White Trees. They’ll return to that world in The Whisper Queen, a three-issue miniseries that begins in May.

“The White Trees is the best project I’ve ever been involved in, thanks to the gorgeous work by Kris and Matt,” Zdarsky said. “We always knew there were more stories to tell in the world of Blacksand, so getting the gang back together for another wild, action-filled adventure was a no-brainer. It’s years in the making, and I hope everyone is ready to find out what happened next in The Whisper Queen!”

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Deadpool and Wolverine team up in ‘WWIII’ this May

Joe Kelly and Adam Kubert return to two characters they know very well in this three-issue miniseries.

Joe Kelly, one of the creators who helped define the character of Deadpool, and Adam Kubert, who has drawn more than his fair share of panels featuring Wolverine, will bring the two characters together in Deadpool & Wolverine: WWIII this May.

The announcement landing this week is perfectly timed, in a “Why didn’t he propose to her after the game?” kind of way, what with the new trailer that was released last Sunday.

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Taylor + Redondo’s final Nightwing arc begins in May

‘We wanted to show how high this flying Grayson could soar. Now, it’s time for him to fall.’

It’s been almost three years now since Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo took over Nightwing, taking an approach that wasn’t “Not Batman,” as my colleague Tom Bondurant put it when reviewing their first issue, but instead, was “Fun Batman.” I think the title has stuck to that ideal pretty well, and now we’ll see if they can stick the landing.

DC has announced that Nightwing #114 is the first of a five-part arc that will wrap up their run on the title. And thanks to the villain Heartless, it could be the end of Nightwing’s career as a superhero.

“When Bruno Redondo and I first took on this series, we felt it was the perfect time for a big Nightwing story,” Taylor said. “We wanted to show the world why Dick Grayson was an A-lister in our eyes. It was the right time for a charming, entertaining, positive force for good pushing back against corruption and greed. It was also time for Dick and Babs to get a puppy.”

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Juni Ba’s ‘Boy Wonder’ series will launch in May

The DC Black Label series will feature Damian Wayne teaming up with the other Robins.

Juni Ba, creator of the wonderful Djeliya from TKO Studios and Monkey Meat for Image Comics, will take Robin in a fun direction this May in Boy Wonder, a Black Label series from DC that kicks off in May.

Ba is joined by colorist Chris O’Halloran and letterer Aditya Bidikar on the five-issue series.

“There‘s a real drive here to capture some adventurous fun as well as heartfelt humanity,” Ba said on social media. “The story of a kid who was hurt a lot, raised wrong, and who has to learn to navigate conflicting sets of expectations from both his families, with fear of not being good enough for either.”

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It’s open season on dragons in Orlando + Huang’s ‘The Scale Trade’

Steve Orlando and Megan Huang hunt the dragon hunters in the new title coming from Magma Comix in May.

Now that we’re a couple weeks into the Year of the Dragon, Magma Comix has officially announced The Scale Trade, the new modern fantasy series by Steve Orlando and Megan Huang. Magma mentioned it last month when the publisher started unveiling their 2024 slate.

In any event, the new series sounds great — set in a modern world where dragons still exist but are high on the endangered species list, one man takes a stand against the poachers and corrupt governments that want their scales.

“The Scale Trade was absolutely influenced by the depravity of the illegal exotic meat trade, poaching, and specifically the street-level vigilance against the abuse of horses and sale of horse meat in a variety of parts of the country,” said Orlando. “We wanted to talk about these things, but also thrill and excite on an elevated scale (no pun intended). So we built a world where dragons were part of the animal kingdom, where THEY, these creatures that awe us, were also some of the most valuable commodities in the world. It’s a modern fantasy—not high fantasy or low sword and sorcery. At the end of the day it’s about the way we as a species interact with nature—concepts bigger and older than us—and how we tend to commodify life on this planet. At the core, The Scale Trade is about heroic animal rescue. A man and his dog… if his dog was a majestic flying lizard.”

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