Slugfest | Black Widow gets ‘Venomous’ in a new one-shot

Plus news and announcements on Hellverine, Misty, Nick Cagnetti, Paul Pope, Blood Hunt, Briar, Joy Operations and more!

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you that we haven’t otherwise covered. Hit the links for more information.

If you’ve been reading Venom of late, you know that the Black Widow — who already has a cool spider name — has gone and gotten herself a symbiote. This summer, writer Erica Schultz and artist Luciano Vecchio will “unleash Natasha Romanoff’s full potential as a symbiote warrior” in a new one-shot.

Black Widow: Venomous will not only show the super-spy figuring out how to work with her new partner, but will also set the stage for the upcoming Venom War event.

“Who doesn’t want to write Natasha Romanoff? And with a badass symbiote, it didn’t take much to convince me,” Schultz said. “Luciano Vecchio’s art is so amazing. It’s been so fun to delve into Nat’s spy craft techniques, and you just may learn something new about her.”

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Mark Millar makes his Dark Horse

The creator will move his Millarworld line to the publisher next year.

Mark Millar will join Brian Michael Bendis, Matt Kindt, Stan Sakai and others as the latest creator to take their creator-owned work to Dark Horse Comics.

According to Forbes, the deal will see Millar and Dark Horse release five new titles in 2024, all under the “Millarworld” banner. Dark Horse will also collect previous Millarworld titles like The Magic Order and Night Club. Previously Millar’s creator-owned work was being published by Image Comics.

“Can I just say that I’ve been a Dark Horse fan since the beginning, and this has been a decades-long love affair finally consummated?” Millar said. “I’ve loved what Mike and the team have been doing for years and so many of my friends are over there, having a great time. I really just wanted to join the party and not only haul my massive, shelf-groaning library with me, but also commit to several years of really exciting stuff in the wake of our Big Game crossover event.”

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Slugfest | ‘The Ambassadors,’ ‘Stranger Things’ and more

Check out news and announcements featuring Shazam!, Jeff the Landshark, Chispa Comics, Crash & Troy, and more.

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you from comics creators, publishers and more. Hit the links for more information.

Mark Millar will team with six artists for his next project, The Ambassadors — a six-issue miniseries where each issue is set in a different country.

Frank Quitely, Travis Charest, Olivier Coipel, Matteo Scalera, Matteo Buffagni and Karl Kerschl will join Millar on the project, which was announced in The Hollywood Reporter. Here’s the premise:

It takes place in a world in which the superhuman genome has been cracked, and the scientist behind it is a Korean billionaire who builds the world’s first superhuman headquarters in Seoul and alerts the world that she will turn six ordinary people into super-people. This sparks a global competition for people who want to join a team that will be on call 24/7 for superhuman emergencies.

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‘Jupiter’s Legacy: Requiem’ expands on the upcoming Netflix series

Mark Millar and Tommy Lee Edwards team up for the third and final Jupiter’s Legacy series.

Image Comics has announced a new Jupiter’s Legacy maxi-series, titled Jupiter’s Legacy: Requiem. The series, written by series co-creator Mark Millar and drawn by Tommy Lee Edwards, will pick up on plot points from the upcoming Netflix adaptation of the comic.

The new series also follows the previous two Jupiter’s Legacy comics, which focused on the present and the past, respectively.

“We’ve done the past, we’ve done the present and Requiem takes us into the future to finish this book epic tale with a 12-issue series starting in June,” Millar told The Hollywood Reporter. “The show launched May 7, so people will be licking their lips to see what happens next.”

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Millar + Scalera buddy up for ‘Space Bandits’

New title announced by Netflix will feature limited edition ‘legends’ covers by ‘artists Miller was obsessed with in high school.’

Mark Millar and Matteo Scalera will team up on a team-up comic this July, as Millarworld owner Netflix announced Space Bandits, “a female Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid set in space.”

Each issue will feature different pricing based on who drew the cover. In addition to the regular $3.99 versions, a limited edition series of Space Bandits legends covers, “featuring Miller’s all-time favorite comic-book artists–artists Miller was obsessed with in high school, and whom he has wanted to work with for years” — will also be available for 75 cents each, or “the same price as a comic-book cost when Mark was in high school.” The first of five legends cover will be drawn by Howard Chaykin.

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Millar + Netflix unleash ‘Sharkey the Bounty Hunter’ next year

Millar says the new sci-fi series is “all the things ‘Star Wars’ or Marvel can’t get away with.”

For their third comic book collaboration, Mark Millar and Netflix are headed to space next February with Sharkey the Bounty Hunter. The new series will be drawn by former Wolverine and Astonishing X-Men artist Simone Bianchi and will be published by Image Comics.

Sharkey the Bounty Hunter follows The Magic Order and Prodigy, the first two comics from Millar following the acquisition of his Millarworld imprint last year.

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Netflix announces next Millarworld title ‘Prodigy’

Mark Millar and Rafael Albuquerque re-team for a new title about Edison Crane, a “Nobel-Prize winning scientist, a genius composer, an Olympic-level athlete and an expert in the occult.”

Mark Millar and Rafael Albuquerque will team up on a new title starring “world’s most exceptional man,” Netflix announced via press release.

Prodigy re-teams the creators of Huck on the second Millarworld title to be announced since the streaming giant bought the publishing line, following The Magic Order. What’s great is that this very comic book-y press release is up on Netflix’s media center, stuck right there between announcements that Fastest Car has been renewed and their CFO stepping down. Comics, am I right?

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Steve Niles, Marcelo Frusin take over ‘Kick-Ass’ with issue #7

After a decade of kicking ass, Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. hand over the reigns to their creator-owned title.

Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. returned to the world of Kick-Ass this year with a new title and a new character under the mask. And now, with issue #7 of the series, the duo will bring in a new creative team — Steve Niles and Marcelo Frusin.

“When we sold Millarworld to Netflix, the one and only downside was not being able to write more Kick-Ass with my new executive role, and so I did the next best thing—I got my favorite writer to continue Patience Lee’s adventures,” said Millar. “Steve Niles is without question my favorite writer in comics, and I rank 30 Days of Night as my favorite graphic novel of the last 20 years. I’m honored he’s taken the time to do this and slightly in awe that, like Jeff Lemire on Hit-Girl, he’s already outclassed me on this book. I finally get to enjoy Kick-Ass as a reader!”

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Image reveals many, many new titles at Image Expo

New projects announced from Matthew Rosenberg and Tyler Boss, Rob Guillory, J.H. Williams and Haden Blackman, Sam Humphries and Jen Bartel, Annie Wu and more.

As they’ve done in previous years, Image Comics dropped a metric ton of announcements at their Image Expo event, held today in Portland, Oregon.

The line-up of announcements this year includes five new titles from Todd McFarlane’s camp, new titles from Chew creators John Layman and Rob Guillory, two comics from Christoper Sebela, the fact that they’ll publish the Netflix/Millarworld titles starting with The Magic Order and much more. No doubt there are interviews aplenty dropping around the internet on all these new projects, so I’ll start with the text of the press release, then add art and commentary as I find it.

So let’s get to it …

Blackbird by Sam Humphries & Jen Bartel
Sam Humphries and Jen Bartel team up to co-create Blackbird, a modern fantasy story best described as Harry Potter meets Riverdale. It follows a young woman named Nina who discovers a neon-lit world of magic masters in Los Angeles. Now they’ve kidnapped her sister, and Nina is the only one who can save her.

“Blackbird is a labor of love, a coming of age story and beautiful people doing insane things with magic,” said Humphries.

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‘Kick-Ass’ returns with new hero, new publisher

Writer Mark Millar teases something new involving Hit-Girl as well.

To help celebrate the 10th anniversary of Kick-Ass, Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s Kick-Ass will return next year with a new character under the mask — Patience Lee, a black, female military veteran with kids. While previous volumes were published by Marvel’s Icon line, this one will find a home at Image Comics, according to Entertainment Weekly.

“When we sold Millarworld to Netflix, two properties weren’t part of the deal. Kingsman and Kick-Ass both had unique arrangements with Matthew Vaughn and it made sense for these to continue, so in the year or so where we were preparing the sale I came up with this great idea for a whole new take on Kick-Ass,” Millar told EW. “The entire story was all completely written in that year and it’s a monthly book, launching in February for the title’s 10th anniversary. It’s crazy to think that in the 10 years since it was created, Kick-Ass has spawned two Hollywood movies, video games, toys, key rings, PEZ dispensers and even an upcoming board game. So the idea of it lying dormant was just insane and to be honest it’s the most fun I’ve ever had writing anything. I really love that world.”

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Millar, Coipel team for ‘The Magic Order’ comic from Netflix

New comic debuts next year from the streaming giant.

When Netflix acquired Millarworld back in August, we were left with some quetsions around what this meant for the Millarworld comics themselves. While Mark Millar has been writing books like Kick-Ass, Superior and Secret Service for years now, he’s worked with various publishers like Image and Marvel’s Icon imprint to publish them.

Apparently we have a new comics publisher in town, and its name is Netflix:

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The Moment: Huck

huckIn this week’s edition of The Moment, I detail how in some ways Huck reminds me of Mark Millar’s 1998 Superman Adventures run.

Superman Adventures remains the high point so far 0f Millar’s work, serving return to that form dating as far back as 1998. Huck is an incredibly likeable character in the way he is characterized in these first two issues there’s an unseen optimism to him I don’t know if it will last but all I know is it’s really a refreshing change from a lot of comics currently on the market. The moment that hooked me was from issue 2 when he could have quit but he chose to presevere and help people as he always does.

Rafael Albuquerque on art is merely icing on the cake.