Judgment Day, Hellfire Gala + Bloodline headline Marvel’s ‘Free Comic Book Day: Avengers/X-Men’

Kieron Gillen, Dustin Weaver, Danny Lore, Gerry Duggan and more contribute to the title, which arrives for free on May 7.

Marvel has released more details on their third Free Comic Book Day title for 2022, Avengers/X-Men, which will feature three stories.

As announced earlier today, the first one will preview the Judgment Day event, in a prelude story by writer Kieron Gillen and artist Dustin Weaver (who drew the preview artwork accompanying the announcement.) The event will feature the Avengers trying to avert a war between the Eternals and the X-Men.

The second story, by Gerry Duggan and artist Matteo Lolli, will serve as the lead-in to this year’s Hellfire Gala. a storyline that’ll take place this summer. Last year’s gala brought a new team of X-Men, the mutant takeover of Mars and the death of the Scarlet Witch — so who knows what will happen this year. Quicksilver, watch your back …

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Marvel officially announces the event series ‘Judgment Day’

Kieron Gillen and Valerio Schiti will bring together the X-Men, Avengers and Eternals for a symphony of destruction.

Marvel will bring together the X-Men, the Eternals and the Avengers for Judgment Day, a crossover series coming this summer from Kieron Gillen and Valerio Schiti.

The story will revolve around conflict between the Eternals and the X-Men, as the latter target Krakoa and the Avengers try to play peacekeeper. With Gillen already writing Eternals and Immortal X-Men on deck, it makes sense that he’d bring them together — and write his first event series for Marvel.

“There’s a classic metaphor to describe the Marvel Universe – a toybox, which creators take toys out of, play with and put back. I get it, but it’s never quite how I’ve seen it – I think ‘play’ in another way. I think of a music shop, with all these instruments with their different qualities suggesting different songs, different stories,” Gillen said. “For all the Marvel instruments I’ve played, I’ve never written an event. Writing an event is something different. It’s not like playing an instrument. It’s having all the instruments in the Marvel music shop. That’s not like writing a song. That’s like writing a symphony.”

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Rest in peace, Ryan ‘Bode’ Bodenheim

The artist of ‘Black Panther,’ ‘Secret,’ ‘A Red Mass for Mars,’ ‘Bloodshot’ and more passed away Dec. 20 at the age of 44.

Artist Ryan Bodenheim, who sometimes went by the nickname Bode, passed away Dec. 20 at the age of 44. A cause of death has not been released.

Over the course of his career, Bondeheim worked on projects at Marvel and Valiant, on titles like Black Panther, Bloodshot and Ninjak. But fans might best know him from his work with Jonathan Hickman; together they co-created several Image series, including The Dying and the Dead, Secret and A Red Mass for Mars.

“Ryan made the work better,” Hickman wrote in his newsletter. “It’s why I loved working with him. I think that’s the highest compliment you can pay a creative partner, and over the past decade it was such a joy to watch him also grow as an artist.”

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Kieron Gillen + Lucas Werneck convene for ‘Immortal X-Men’

The new title will focus on Krakoa’s Quiet Council ‘with all its muffled screams.’

The Quiet Council is about to get a whole lot louder, as the rulers of Krakoa will take the spotlight in Immortal X-Men, a new series coming from Kieron Gillen and Lucas Werneck next year. It’s part of Marvel’s Destiny of X line of titles, the fancy moniker they’re giving to the next era of X-Men titles.

Gillen returns to the X-Men titles after several years of playing in the Star Wars and creator-owned sandboxes, co-creating titles like Once and Future, Die and The Ludocrats in recent years. Werneck, meanwhile, is fresh off of the Trial of Magneto miniseries.

Gillen talked about the new title (and poked fun at departing Krakoan architect Jonathan Hickman) in a recent newsletter:

“Obviously, I was delighted when I heard that Jon was leaving the X-office, due to our ancient rivalry,” Gillen said in his newsletter. “It’s a complicated story, and involves several duels, all of which I lost. Suffice to say, I have sworn to never enter any office where he is present. When news reached me he was leaving, I realised it was time to sneak in the back door. For a good month or two, I was lurking around pretending to be Jonathan. I donned a disguise (a wig, a different accent, a series of gnomic diagrams as my zoom background) and sort of hung around, making pronouncements. I have since learned everyone realised it was me immediately, but felt so bad for me they decided I could stay.”

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Two Eternals will meet the prehistoric Avengers in ‘Eternals: Celestia’

The one-shot by writer Kieron Gillen and artist Kei Zama arrives in October.

Ajak and Makkari of the Eternals will break out into their own one-shot this October, courtesy of Eternals writer Kieron Gillen and artist Kei Zama. The story will find the duo coming into contact with the Avengers of 1,000,000 BCE, who have played a big part in Jason Aaron’s run on Avengers.

“When developing Eternals, Ajak and Makkari were two of the characters I was most excited about,” Gillen told Marvel.com. “I had so many ideas. The problem was trying to find a place to introduce them in a way which gives enough space to show what a fascinating, funny and genuinely heartbreaking odd-couple they are. Suffice to say, this is the space, and I can’t wait to show what Kei, Esad and I have cooked up with them. Also, taking the Avengers of 1,000,000 BCE out for a spin. I’ll be honest – the first time I saw Ghost Rider on the back of a Mammoth, I did think ‘I’ll be having some of that, thank you very much.’”

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Mail Call | The Avengers brace for ‘World War She-Hulk’

Plus: More news and announcements from Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, AfterShock, Top Cow, Skybound and more!

Mail Call is a roundup of the announcements we’ve received from comics publishers in our mailboxes recently that we haven’t already covered. Hit the links for more information.

Marvel is dusting off a classic event title for an upcoming Avengers storyline — “World War She-Hulk,” which references the popular “World War Hulk” story from 2007.

The new storyline will find She-Hulk declared a global menace, so the Winter Guard decides to bring her in.

“When the Russian Winter Guard invade Avengers Mountain to arrest She-Hulk, it sets off a global espionage adventure that takes us from the notorious assassin training academy of the Red Room to an undersea kingdom on the verge of violent revolution,” said writer Jason Aaron. “Along the way, traitors will fall, regimes will crumble and the dark evolution of Jennifer Walters will reach its bloody red crescendo, all as we build toward the epic events of Avengers #50.”

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Marvel announces ‘Marvel’s Voices: Pride’ #1

The anthology will feature new stories by Kieron Gillen, Olivier Coipel, Steve Orlando, Anthony Oliveira, Tini Howard, Vita Ayala, Kris Anka, Javier Garrón and more.

Marvel has announced their plans for Pride Month, which include a new issue of their Marvel Voices featuring their “first-ever queer-centered special spotlighting Marvel’s growing tapestry of LGBTQ+ characters.” They also plan to have a series of variant covers drawn by Phil Jimenez.

Contributors to the anthology issue include Allan Heinberg, Jim Cheung, Kieron Gillen, Olivier Coipel, Steve Orlando, Anthony Oliveira, Tini Howard, Vita Ayala, Kris Anka, Javier Garrón and Luciano Vecchio, who provides the issue’s cover.

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‘Die’ wins a British Fantasy Award

The awards recognize fantasy and horror lit across a variety of categories.

Die, Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans’ series about a group of teens sucked into a role-playing game, has won a 2020 British Fantasy Award.

“This is an amazing honour. Stephanie and I are totally humbled,” Gillen said on Twitter.

The British Fantasy Awards recognize fantasy and horror literature across a range of categories, including the “Best Comic/Graphic Novel” category. You can see the complete list of winners across all categories here. You can also see the full awards presentation on YouTube.

Other nominees in the comics category this year included 2000AD, Basketful of Heads, B.P.R.D. The Devil You Know, Vol. 3: Ragna Rok, DCeased and The Ozone Diary.

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Gillen + Ribić team for a new ‘Eternals’ series

Jack Kirby’s classic Marvel creation will return in November.

Marvel has announced a new Eternals comic for what would have been the same month the feature film debuted, if it wasn’t for COVID-19. No, the film is now scheduled to arrive next February, but a new comic series by Kieron Gillen and Esad Ribić will debut in November.

“I said if I was ever to do a book again at Marvel, it would have to be something I’ve never done before. This is exactly that. This is me teaming up with literally my favourite artist of the epic, taking one of those lightning-storm Kirby visions and re-making it to be as new as the day it was forged,” Gillen said. “While Esad makes whole worlds on the page, I’m applying all the skills I’ve developed when I was away. It’s a lot. It’s everything. There’s enough scale packed in here that I believe that when you look at the comic, you’ll see the pages slightly bulge. Essentially ‘Eternal’ has to mean ‘never going out of style,’ which means we’re aiming for ‘instant classic.’ Also — fight scenes, horror, human drama, emotions, explosions. Comics!”

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Warhammer 40,000 comes to Marvel

Kieron Gillen and Jacen Burrows will collaborate on ‘Warhammer 40,000: Marneus Calgar.’

The Warhammer tabletop miniature wargame is returning to comics, this time at Marvel. The company has announced that writer Kieron Gillen and artist Jacen Burrows will serve as the creative team for Warhammer 40,000: Marneus Calgar, which debuts in October.

“I am venerable enough to have bought Rogue Trader in 1987,” Gillen told Marvel.com. “Since then, I like to think every hastily dry-brushed Necron, every badly edge-highlighted Marine, every ignored Harlequin (as painting Motley petrified me) has prepared me for writing the first Warhammer comics for Marvel. If I said, ‘Getting to explore the roots of Marneus Calgar and setting the stage for Marvel’s Warhammer comics is a dream come true,’ I would be betraying everything this grim future should be since ‘dream’ implies the possibility of hope.  But getting to do this is the sort of thing Slaanesh would wave in my direction if she wanted me coming over to the tentacle-y side.“

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‘Dune meets Asterix & Obelix’ in ‘Ludocrats’

Kieron Gillen, Jim Rossignol, Jeff Stokely, Tamra Bonvillain and Clayton Cowles team for a ludicrous new series from Image.

It’s been a long and winding road for co-writers Kieron Gillen and Jim Rossignol’s Ludocrats, a comic first announced at the Image Expo in 2015 (that’s the same year Paper Girls and Monstress were announced). Since that time, original artist David Lafuente has been replaced by Jeff Stokely, and the book is now on schedule for an April 1 (no foolin’) release.

“It’s a fantasy adventure,” Gillen said in his email newsletter. “The ‘Dune meets Asterix & Obelix’ is the most accurate way of describing it, which is why we lobbed it in the previews. There’s others. Imagine Pratchett if instead of being a kind and brilliant humanist, he was a complete shithead. Imagine the Neverending Story for adults, if not grown-ups.  Imagine imagining. We can and will go on.”

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Project Art Cred spotlights ‘the impact artists bring to a script’

40 artists turn a Kieron Gillen script into a comic — with interesting results.

So this is pretty cool: artists Stephen Byrne and Declan Shalvey had an idea to showcase the effect a particular artist has on a comic, so they came up with Project Art Cred. Their idea was to have a comics writer — in this case, Kieron Gillen — write a one-page script, then have different artists interpret it in their own styles.

After 200 artists asked for the script, Gillen said in his email newsletter that 40 artists submitted pages, which have been shared on both Twitter and Tumblr. The artistic styles are impressive in their range and voice, bringing Gillen’s words to life in many different ways.

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