Category: Comic Books

Marvel celebrates 60 years of the Fantastic Four in August

Dan Slott, John Romita Jr. Mark Waid, Paul Renaud and more contribute stories to the giant-sized issue #35.

In celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Fantastic Four, Marvel has announced that August’s issue #35 will be special giant-sized issue featuring three stories.

The main story will featured the FF going up against all the Kangs, as the time lord and his various incarnations target the team at different points in history. It’ll be written by Dan Slott and drawn by John Romita Jr., who recently returned to Marvel after spending a few years at DC, and inker JP Mayer.

“I’ve read, and been told by much smarter people, that ‘luck is the residue of design’ so I won’t even attempt to claim I designed the events of these last few months, but I will take this kind of luck any day any time,” Romita Jr. said. “I was lucky to begin my career with Marvel and now am extremely lucky to re-connect with Marvel. That’s an enormous amount of good fortune. I sincerely thank all the folks up at Marvel, and Disney, who worked for this fortunate re-connection to happen.

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It’s a New Day comic (yes it is)

The popular WWE trio break out into their own solo miniseries from BOOM! Studios.

Don’t you dare be sour — WWE’s tag-team trio The New Day are bringing the power of positivity to comics, with a new miniseries arriving from BOOM! Studios this summer.

Writers Evan Narcisse and Austin Walker, along with artist Daniel Bayliss, will tell the story of the early days of the group, including how Kofi Kingston, Big E and Xavier Woods came together to become The New Day.

“Collaborating with my colleague Austin Walker so we could tap into the personalities of The New Day to tell the origin story of this history-making trio has been an incredibly enriching experience,” said Narcisse. “We tried to write a love letter to an unseen side of WWE history, and I’m so excited that WWE fans everywhere will finally be able to read how Kofi, Xavier, and Big E came together to form sports entertainment’s most electrifying tag team.”

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Milligan + Kowalski bow down to the ‘God of Tremors’ in August

The new title from AfterShock Comics is a ’19th Century gothic horror of exorcism, demonic worship and epilepsy.’

Peter Milligan, writer of X-Statix, Shade the Changing Man and so much more, will team with Bloodbourne and Sex artist Piotr Kowalski for a story of “gothic horror of exorcism, demonic worship and epilepsy” in God of Tremors, a new one-shot from AfterShock Comics.

“It’s a story of dark secrets, shameful longings and terrifying changes,” Milligan said. “A Gothic tale of isolation and horror. Aubrey is a young man living in a straight-laced, 19th century English Victorian world, whose father is a vicar, renowned for his fiery speeches against the evils of new scientific ideas. When Aubrey has his first epileptic seizure it begins a harrowing series of ‘exorcisms,’ as both Aubrey and his father are convinced his condition is the work of the devil. Hidden away in his father’s country estate, Aubrey’s only release is walking in the wild woods that surround the house. It’s deep in these woods that Aubrey discovers an ancient stone pagan effigy that slowly changes his and all his family’s lives.”

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Clownhunter takes the spotlight in a ‘Secret Files’ one-shot this summer

The Gotham vigilante is on a collision course with Punchline in a story by Ed Brisson and Rosi Kämpe.

Clownhunter will hunt again in Batman Secret Files: Clownhunter by Ed Brisson and Rosi Kämpe, which arrives in August. The one-shot follows the previously announced Secret Files issues that will focus on The Signal and the Huntress, who get the spotlight in July.

The comic will mark Brisson’s first work for DC in six years, while it will be the first for Kämpe, who draws the Unknown Lands webcomic on Tapas.

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Re-reading ‘World’s Finest’ #258, the comic that got Jason Aaron into world-building

Tom Bondurant dives into a classic issue of DC’s ‘Dollar Comics’ line that helped inspire the architect of Marvel’s ‘Heroes Reborn’ event.

As part of our round-robin Heroes Reborn [2021] coverage, I learned that writer Jason Aaron’s first superhero comic book was August-September 1979’s World’s Finest Comics #258. Back then it was part of DC’s “Dollar Comics” line, boasting 68 pages’ and five features’ worth of colorful characters. In his newsletter, Aaron says

I fell in love with these books, in part because they didn’t just give me one story, but instead gave me a taste of an entire world of characters and adventures and history that was out there waiting for me. The sort of gargantuan super-world that would come to consume a large portion of the rest of my life. […] In other words, I think I’ve been primed from the beginning to want to build my own world of superheroes. And HEROES REBORN is maybe as close as I’ll ever come to doing exactly that.

It will surprise none of you to learn that I also read World’s Finest Comics regularly as a kid, especially during the Dollar Comics phase. (It lasted over five years and almost 40 issues, from April-May 1977’s #244 through August 1982’s #282; and a Green Arrow/Black Canary backup continued for a couple of issues past that.) Although the Dollar Comics line was largely an experiment in marketing and economics of scale, World’s Finest was pretty impressive among the company’s late-1970s output.

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Marvel will debut the new character Somnus in ‘Marvel’s Voices: Pride’

Steve Orlando, Claudia Aguirre and Luciano Vecchio bring the new character to life.

The Marvel’s Voice: Pride anthology arrives in June, and when it does, it will bring the debut of a new character — Somnus, who will appear in a story written by Steve Orlando and drawn by Claudia Aguirre.

“Somnus, Carl Valentino, is inspired not only by my own family history, but by my experiences with past generations of LGBTQ+ folks from across the country, people I wouldn’t have met without comics,” Orlando said. “While there is still plenty of work to do, we’ve also come a long way as a community. Somnus is a chance to explore how my own late queer relatives may have felt, living in more prejudiced times. He’s also a chance to celebrate past generations as a whole and acknowledge the strides we’ve made that they may not have lived to see.”

The character was designed by artist Luciano Vecchio, who also provides a variant cover featuring Somnus:

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Marvel announces ‘The Trial of Magneto’ for August

Leah Williams and Lucas Werneck are the creative team for the upcoming miniseries.

Marvel has revealed more details about that teaser they released last week concerning Magneto, and it has some potential SPOILERS for an upcoming X-Men-related storyline. So consider yourself warned before reading further.

Coming in August is X-Men: The Trial of Magneto, the first of a five-part miniseries featuring the Master of Magnetism. It’s by the team of Leah Williams and Lucas Werneck.

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Rest in peace, John Paul Leon

The artist of ‘Static,’ ‘The Winter Men,’ ‘Earth X’ and many other comics projects passed away at the age of 49.

Multiple sources are reporting that artist John Paul Leon, whose work included Static, The Winter Men, Earth X, Batman: Creature of the Night and the upcoming Batman/Catwoman Special, has passed away. He was 49 when he died.

According to a press release from his family, Leon had battled cancer for 14 years. He is survived by his wife, his daughter and an older brother. Artist Tommy Lee Edwards has set up a Gofundme page in honor of Leon, with proceeds to go to Leon’s daughter’s future education.

DC Black Label editor Chris Conroy shared the news on Twitter. “It seems the news is out. Last night we lost John Paul Leon, one of the greatest draftsmen in the history of comics, the kind of artist that EVERY artist revered,” Conroy wrote. “Those who loved him had some warning, but not enough.”

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Hulk, Spider-Man and more headline Marvel’s 2021 Free Comic Book Day titles

Jason Aaron, Chip Zdarsky, Greg Smallwood and more will contribute to this year’s offerings from the House of Ideas.

Marvel has shared the covers and a few more details on their two 2021 Free Comic Book Day titles, which between the two of them will include stories featuring the Avengers, Hulk, Venom and Spider-Man.

Marvel’s gold title, Avengers/Hulk, features a cover by Ryan Ottley:

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The gods are among us in Higgins + Watanabe’s ‘Ordinary Gods’

The new science fiction/epic fantasy series begins in July.

Kyle Higgins and Felipe Watanabe are bringing an epic new series to Image Comics. Ordinary Gods will kick off with an extra-sized issue in July.

“Sometimes an idea is so good, it’s impossible to ignore. Even if it initially seems impossible to crack, you circle back to it time and time again, bringing with you new life experiences and concepts learned from other projects. And even if it takes ten years before you’re ready to announce the book to the world, that’s okay. Because, as Ordinary Gods will be exploring, everything’s connected for a reason,” Higgins told SYFYWIRE. “This is a book that I’ve been working on for many years, alongside an incredible cast of artistic partners and collaborators, to try to tell a generational action epic that spans eras, worlds, dimensions and the connections between them all. And that’s just issue one.”

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Emilia Clarke comes to comics with ‘M.O.M.: Mother of Madness’

Marguerite Bennett and Leila Leiz team up with the ‘Game of Thrones’ star for a comic about a superhero mom.

The Mother of Dragons is writing about a different M.O.M. in a new miniseries for Image Comics. Actress Emilia Clarke is working with co-writer Marguerite Bennett and artist Leila Leiz on M.O.M.: Mother of Madness.

The story is about a single mom/scientist/superhero.

“We’re always calling mothers superheroes, and I’m like, ‘What if they were? What if they legitimately were superheroes?'” Clarke told Entertainment Weekly. “Maya has had a very hard life, and she finds herself in a place where everything that makes her unique, she hates and is ashamed about. It’s only in the discovery of her powers that she finds her true acceptance of who she is.”

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Azzarello + Maleev send the Suicide Squad after the Joker in a new Black Label title

‘Suicide Squad: Get Joker!’ will run for three issues, starting in July.

Brian Azzarello and Alex Maleev are sending the Suicide Squad on a somewhat personal mission for at least two of its member — to stop the Joker.

The DC Black Label title Suicide Squad: Get Joker! will run for three prestige format issues, starting in July.

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