Can’t Wait for Comics | ‘Conan the Barbarian’ returns to conquer comics

Plus: Iceman is Astonishing, Kitty Pryde returns to the shadows, Thessaly goes Hollywood, and the Last Vampire Slayer returns.

Welcome to Can’t Wait for Comics, your guide to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital.

I’ve pulled out some of the highlights below, but for the complete list of everything you might find at your local comic shop and on digital this week, you’ll want to check out one or more of the following:

As a reminder, things can change and what you find on the above lists may differ from what’s actually arriving in your local shop. So always check with your comics retailer for the final word on availability.

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2023 Free Comic Book Day gold titles include Spider-Man, Fishflies, Dog Man and more

The first 13 titles include selections from Marvel, BOOM!, IDW, Image, Dark Horse and more.

Diamond has announced the first round of Free Comic Book Day titles for 2023. The “gold sponsor” titles for next year will include comics from Marvel, Dark Horse, AfterShock, Image, VIZ, Kodansha, Archie, BOOM!, Graphix, IDW, Titan and Dynamite, for a total of 13 titles, as Marvel will have two gold level books.

“This year’s lineup of titles has something for every kind of comic fan,” said Ashton Greenwood, Free Comic Book Day spokesperson. “We’re looking forward to another great year celebrating comic books and comic book shops, and we think this year’s lineup gives fans a lot to be excited about!”

The rest of the batch — otherwise known as the silver sponsor titles — will be announced later this week. Free Comic Book Day is scheduled for May 6, 2023.

Here’s a look at each gold-level title:

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Titan confirms their new Conan creative team

Jim Zub, Roberto De La Torre and José Villarrubia will tell new stories about what is best in life.

Titan Comics have confirmed via press release what we learned earlier this year — Jim Zub will write their upcoming Conan title. He’ll be joined by artist Roberto De La Torre, who drew the preview art that was revealed this summer, while José Villarrubia will provide colors.

All three creators have worked on Conan before. Zub’s written many issues of the title for Marvel over the last few years, while Torre has done a couple of short stories featuring the character. Villarrubia probably has the most Conan on his resume, having worked on the character for multiple publishers, as well as doing illustrations for Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of, a role-playing game released a few years back.

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Jim Zub will write Titan’s upcoming Conan comic

The new series will launch in May of 2023.

During the Conan the Barbarian 90th Anniversary panel at Comic-Con International this week, Titan Comics announced that Jim Zub will write their upcoming Conan comic.

Zub has plenty of history with the character, having written the character at Marvel. Zub’s run will launch with a story during next year’s Free Comic Book Day, with the first issue coming in May of next year as well.

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Titan Comics will publish new Conan comics starting next year

Titan and Heroic Signatures announce they are teaming up for new comics featuring Conan and other Robert E. Howard characters.

Titan Comics and Heroic Signatures have announced that Titan will publish comics featuring Conan the Barbarian and other Robert E. Howard characters starting next year.

Titan and Heroic plan to launch a new Conan the Barbarian ongoing series in May of 2023, along with miniseries featuring “Robert E. Howard’s rich tapestry of iconic heroes.” The deal also includes the Conan omnibus program that Marvel was publishing.

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Conan license will leave Marvel later this year

The license owners plan to publish their own Conan comics in the future.

It looks like Marvel’s license to publish new comics based on Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian is coming to end.

Bleeding Cool first reported that Marvel’s licensing of the character will end, which was confirmed by Heroic Signatures CEO Fred Malmberg in an article on ComicBook.com. Heroic Signatures manages the Conan license in addition to other Howard-created properties like Solomon Kane and Kull of Atlantis.

Marvel seemingly confirmed the change in a vague press release, which states “Jason Aaron’s epic King Conan #6 will mark the end of Marvel Comic’s new adventures into the Hyborian Age, but the fan-favorite character will continue to appear in several exciting stories including the upcoming trade collections and omnibuses.”

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Aaron + Asrar’s ‘King Conan’ will reign in December

Jason Aaron, Mahmud Asrar and Matt Wilson reunite to tell stories about an older Conan and his son.

Jason Aaron, Mahmud Asrar and Matt Wilson’s King Conan, which the creators first teased in early 2020, will finally take the throne in December.

The trio previously worked together on Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian title in 2019, on the first 12 issues of that title, but Aaron knew that wasn’t his final word on the character.

“I knew as soon as Mahmud, Matt and I finished ‘The Life and Death of Conan’ in Conan the Barbarian, one of the absolute personal highlights from my career as a comic book writer, that I wasn’t done hanging out with everyone’s favorite Cimmerian,” Aaron told Marvel.com. “As King Conan rode into the sunset at the end of that story, with his son, Prince Conn, by his side, I always knew where I wanted that story to take us next. Now at last comes that next chapter, as Mahmud, Matt and I reunite to reveal a pivotal moment in Conan’s life as a king, as a father, as a mortal enemy of snake-worshipping Stygian wizards and as a barbarian who was born to chase the wind, even to the ends of the earth.”

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Can’t Wait for Comics | Jason returns this week with ‘Good Night, Hem’

New comics and graphic novels arrive this week from Joshua Cotter, Jeff Lemire, Chuck Brown, Valentine de Landro, E. Lockhart, Manuel Preitano, Zac Thompson and more.

Welcome to Can’t Wait for Comics, your guide to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital this week.

Check out a few highlights below, or visit Diamond’s website for this week’s almost complete list of new comics arriving in stores. You can visit Lunar Distribution’s home page to see DC’s releases, and the comiXology new releases page for what’s available digitally.

I should also add that the list of what is actually arriving at your local shop can vary from what’s on anyone’s official website for a myriad of reasons — so always check with your comics retailer for the final word on availability.

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By Crom, Zub + Antônio take over ‘Conan’ with issue #13

The new team takes over in February, with E.M. Gist on covers.

Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian is getting a new, yet familiar, creative team in February, as Jim Zub and Rogê Antônio will take over the title with issue #13. E.M. Gist will provide covers.

Both Zub and Antônio have worked on the character in recent months; Zub wrote him in Avengers: No Road Home and Savage Sword of Conan, while Antônio drew the upcoming Conan 2099. They follow Jason Aaron and Mahmud Asrar on the title.

“Rogê’s line art is going to knock people out,” Zub said in an email. “It has a strong visual tie to the incredible work Masmud Asrar has been doing on the core title this year, but also manages to carve out its own distinct look. E.M. Gist‘s covers are classic pulp fantasy fare with all the grit and earthiness I could hope for. It’s a heck of a creative line up and I’m doing everything I can to live up to their top notch storytelling skills. Deep thanks to editors Mark Basso and C.B. Cebulski for this incredible opportunity and Jason Aaron for setting a high bar on the issues preceding mine.”

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‘Marvel #1000’ gets Star Wars, Conan, variant covers and a second issue

Look for Marvel’s big anniversary special in August.

Since announcing Marvel #1000, their big 80th anniversary special project with 80 creative teams telling one 80-page story, Marvel has released some additional details about the project. It’ll include some unexpected appearances in its pages, and not unexpectedly, a bunch of variant covers.

Let’s dive in …

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‘Avengers Dismember’: Wolverine, Conan join the ‘Savage Avengers’

Gerry Duggan and Mike Deodato Jr. bring together Marvel’s ‘badasses’ this May.

A new “unsanctioned” group of Avengers will slice and dice their way into comics in May, as Marvel has announced Savage Avengers by the creative team of Gerry Duggan and Mike Deodato Jr.

The Savage Avengers’ members will include Conan, Wolverine, Venom, Elektra, Brother Voodoo and Punisher.

“It has to be something that visually makes sense to you, and I think it does,” Duggan, who is also writing Savage Sword of Conan for Marvel, told Entertainment Weekly. “Mike Deodato Jr. is illustrating this book in both worlds. We envisioned a threat, a magical green zone where the evil wizards of Conan’s world are trading spells with the Hand in Japan. Conan is on a very Conan-like mission; he’s heard a tale of an amulet so he’s chasing it, and the evil magic sorcerers are doing something that would be a Marvel Avengers problem. It feels like we have found some very fertile ground that is a Venn diagram between those two worlds.”

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Bêlit returns to comics in a new miniseries from Marvel

The Conan mainstay gets an origin story thanks to Tini Howard and Kate Niemczyk.

Conan’s favorite pirate queen will return in March for a five-issue miniseries from Marvel detailing part of her origin story.

Bêlit, Queen of the Black Coast brings together Tini Howard and Kate Niemczyk for a tale starring a teenage Bêlit, who stows away on the ship of the Dread Admiral Atrahasis.

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