Slugfest | Deadpool + Wolverine are together again in Marvel’s January solicitations

Marvel kicks off the new year with a new Cable series, Galactus, an amped up Power Man and more.

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you. This edition focuses on Marvel’s January solicitations, plus at least one project coming in February. Hit the links for more information.

Deadpool and Wolverine, you might remember, had a pretty big summer together, but the lovefest is far from over. In January Marvel will launch Deadpool/Wolverine by former Wolverine writer Benjamin Percy and his X-Force colleague Joshua Cassara.

“Josh and I really hit it off when we were working together on X-Force and became great friends,” Percy told IGN. “When he made the jump to X-Men, it was honestly a little traumatic for us both—but if you get the opportunity to draw a flagship title, you have to go for it. And he drew the living shit out of that series. We never stopped texting or hanging out at cons. We’re always trading stupid jokes (and many hundreds of Arnold Schwarzenegger GIFs). I even helped his wife locate one of the elusive 12-foot Home Depot skeletons recently, so we’ll both be celebrating Halloween like bosses. This is all to say: we were both so damn excited to get the band back together. Deadpool/Wolverine is us cartwheeling onto the stage and shredding our guitars once more while smoke machines churn and pyrotechnics explode all around us.”

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Marvel will release a series of team-up one-shots by J. Michael Straczynski

The prolific writer will team with Will Robson, Bernard Chang and more on team-ups featuring Spider-Man, Captain America, Galactus and Doctor Doom, among others.

Captain America writer  J. Michael Straczynski will write an eclectic series of one-shots for Marvel next year, each featuring a different art team and a different set of characters “in unexpected team-ups or action-packed showdowns.”

Straczynski will work with artists Will Robson, Bernard Chang, Elena Casagrande, Germán Peralta, Juan Ferreyra and Phil Noto on the one-shots, which feature oddball team-ups like Doctor Doom and Rocket Raccoon, as well as battles between the likes of Ghost Rider and Galactus.

“I like to go where the fun is, and the idea of putting together Marvel characters who had either never been paired before, or only minimally, seemed like it would be a ton of fun, and it was even more of a blast than I anticipated,” Straczynski said.

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A new team called ‘Blood Hunters’ will debut during Marvel’s ‘Blood Hunt’

Dagger, Hawkeye and Man-Wolf will star in anthology stories that tie into Marvel’s big summer event.

Marvel continued to roll out the Blood Hunt tie-in series today, announcing an anthology that will show what Hawkeye, Dagger, Man-Wolf and more are doing against the backdrop of the bigger vampire-themed event.

Blood Hunters is not only the title of the comic, but also the name of a new team that Dagger of Cloak & Dagger fame will assemble while her partner is missing in action. Writer Erica Schultz and artist Bernard Chang will assemble the new team across the anthology’s four issues.

“It’s really exciting to write Dagger and see her assemble a team of fantastic fang hunters,” Schultz said. “You’re going to love the dynamic between these characters, and see where the drama is!”

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After Krakoa falls, the ‘Dead X-Men’ rise

Steve Foxe, Vincenzo Carratù, Bernard Chang and Jonas Scharf send a group of dead mutants back in time to save their world.

This past weekend brought news on the future — or lack of one — for the X-Men’s Krakoa era, and following the big reveal of three new miniseries that will tie everything up, Marvel has announced a fourth tie-in miniseries — Dead X-Men.

There’s probably a joke to make here about the past three or so years under the Krakoa banner and its resurrection protocols — I mean, aren’t most of the X-Men technically dead at this point, with cloned copies walking around with their memories? But I digress …

Steve Foxe and a host of artists have been tapped for a Terminator-esque story where Professor X sends a group of five X-Men back in time to try and prevent the destruction of Krakoa, as detailed in this year’s Hellfire Gala special.

Dead X-Men is one of the most complex stories I’ve worked on at Marvel, but also one of purest: a small group of mutants who have to accomplish the impossible, which is the premise that made me fall in love with the X-Men in the first place,” Foxe said. He’ll be working with several artists on the series, including Vincenzo Carratù, Bernard Chang and Jonas Scharf.

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Louise Simonson returns to the X-Men for a Jean Grey miniseries

The four-issue series will tie into the ‘Fall of X’ event.

Louise Simonson, legendary Marvel editor and former writer of X-Factor, will return to a character near and dear to her heart in Jean Grey, a four-issue miniseries with artist Bernard Chang.

The series will launch in August and tie into Fall of X, which Marvel.com describes as a “dark new age of mutantkind” and the potential end of Krakoa. To help save mutantkind, Jean Grey will have to look to her past to save the future, as the series explores different dark events in Jean Grey’s life.

“I loved writing X-Factor and Jean was a pivotal part of those stories, from the escape from her Phoenix-created cocoon to her life and death battle with the Goblin Queen in Inferno. So It’s really exciting to explore Jean’s part in this new mega-adventure,” Simonson said. 

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Yang + Chang bring the Monkey Prince back to comics next year

Gene Luen Yang and Bernard Chang reunite for a story featuring the character they introduced earlier this year.

Following his debut in the pages of DC Festival of Heroes: The Asian Superhero Celebration earlier this year, the Monkey Prince will leap into his own maxi-series next year from Gene Luen Yang, Bernard Chang and Sebastian Chen.

The shape-shifting superhero and his friends are inspired by the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, which is considered one of the “four classic novels” of Chinese literature.

The first issue will arrive on Feb. 1, which is Lunar New Year.

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DC will introduce Monkey Prince in ‘DC Festival of Heroes’

The new character will meet Shazam! in a story by Gene Luen Yang and Bernard Chang.

DC Comics will introduce a new character called Monkey Prince in their upcoming anthology DC Festival of Heroes: The Asian Superhero Celebration. They also revealed more about the contents in a press release today.

Monkey Prince will debut in a story written by Gene Luen Yang with art by Bernard Chang. Per the release, Monkey Prince is inspired by the Monkey King, legendary hero of Chinese mythology and the classic tale Journey to the West. In Yang and Chang’s 12-page story, “The Monkey Prince Hates Superheroes,” Monkey Prince battles and teams up with Shazam! to defeat Dr. Sivana and a Chinese deer demon spirit.  

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Marvel announces five ‘Heroes Reborn’ one-shots

Peter Parker, Magneto, Baron Zemo, the Imperial Guard and more join in on the alternate reality event.

Marvel has announced that the upcoming Heroes Reborn event miniseries will be accompanied by five one-shots that take place in this new world created by the Phoenix — one where the Avengers never formed.

They’ll feature characters and themes that should be familiar to readers of both Marvel and DC; with the Squadron Supreme being the Marvel universe equivalent of the Justice League, it’s not surprising that some of these one-shots get a little “meta” in their homages.

They are:

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