Ultron isn’t the only villain joining the West Coast Avengers

Meet Blue Bolt, ‘the biggest jerk in the Marvel Universe.’

Marvel’s West Coast Avengers relaunch announcement came with a surprise addition to the line-up in Ultron, one of the Avengers greatest foes. He’ll be joined by one of their not-so-greatest foes in Blue Bolt, a new character created by Gerry Duggan and Danny Kim.

Chad Braxton, a.k.a. Blue Bolt, is a former henchman with “unrefined lightning-based abilities” who joins the team as part of a prison release program. “Reckless, undisciplined, and downright rude, Blue Bolt may just be the biggest jerk in the entire Marvel Universe,” Marvel.com says. Blue Bolt joins a long list of former villains who have been members, including Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Black Widow and Sandman, among others.

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Slugfest | ‘Timeslide’ into Marvel’s December solicitations

December brings new comics featuring Cable, Bishop, the new Infinity Watch, Sabretooth and more.

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you. This edition focuses on Marvel’s December solicitations. Hit the links for more information.

Marvel’s made a tradition of releasing a year-end one-shot in December that is usually one part complete story, one part preview of what to expect from the publisher in the next year. (It usually involves some sort of time travel angle as well).

This year’s edition is titled Timeslide, and in a year of big change for the X-Men line, it makes sense that this year’s story will feature Cable and Bishop, the X-Men’s resident time travelers. It’s by Steve Foxe and Ivan Fiorelli, and features a cover by Kael Ngu:

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‘Hulk Teach!’ by Jeffrey Brown will arrive next school year

Marvel and Scholastic team up to present a lesson in patience and anger management in the worst environment possible.

Marvel has announced a smash-worthy new graphic novel by Jeffrey Brown, creator of Batman and Robin and Howard and Clumsy, among many other projects. Hulk Teach! shows what happens when you give Dr. Bruce Banner a job as a middle school teacher.

The middle-grade graphic novel, which comes as part of the publishing partnership between Scholastic and Marvel, arrives next August.

“Marvel Comics were a big part of my childhood, so when Scholastic asked if I’d be interested in doing a middle grade series with Marvel super heroes, I immediately knew I wanted toI just didn’t know which characters I wanted to write about,” Brown said. “Doing talks at schools gave me the inspiration I needed. I was watching teachers navigate their days with more patience than I have and realized it would be really funny to see Bruce Banner try to teach middle school without getting frustrated and turning into the Hulk. I was also excited for the chance to write a version of Hulk I had in mind, somewhere between smart Hulk and dumb Hulk – and of course he’s fun to draw, so it all fit together nicely!”

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Greg Pak, Evan Narcisse + Eder Messias soar on ‘Sam Wilson: Captain America’

The ongoing series kicks off in January.

With Captain America: Brave New World set to hit theaters in February, I was wondering when we’d see a new comic featuring Sam Wilson. And lo and behold, Marvel has announced Sam Wilson: Captain America, a new series by co-writers Greg Pak and Evan Narcisse, and artist Eder Messias.

“It’s going to be a fun, fast, high-octane adventure that also explores what it means to feel locked out of the American Dream. I feel pretty confident in saying Sam’s never flown through skies like these before,” Narcisse said.

And given that Brave New World includes the Red Hulk, it’s no surprise to see who is joining Sam Wilson on Taurin Clarke’s cover for the first issue:

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Elektra gets the Red Band treatment in ‘Daredevil: Unleash Hell’

Erica Schultz and Valentina Pinti add a bloody new dimension to the Woman Without Fear’s adventures.

Writer Erica Schultz will continue to tell stories featuring Elektra Natchios in Daredevil: Unleash Hell – Red Band. The mature readers title will feature artwork by Blade and Immortal Thor artist Valentina Pinti.

This is Schultz’s third miniseries featuring the assassin-turned-superhero, but the first to fall into Marvel’s new mature readers line, which “allows Elektra to unleash unrestricted bloodshed against her targets,” according to Marvel. It comes polybagged to protect innocent eyes.

“It’s been such a pleasure to continue writing Elektra, especially donning the horns,” Schultz said. “In this new series, we have the opportunity to show that just because she doesn’t kill doesn’t mean she won’t make you wish she had. Elektra has been known for her brutality, and we’ll see that on display here. Also, with a Red Band rating, that means we can get real nasty with stuff. Don’t know what I mean? You will. Valentina Pinti and I are very excited to show you this new direction.”

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Steve Foxe, Edgar Salazar + Peter Nguyen bring five-star terror to a luxury resort in ‘Alien: Paradiso’

Marvel + 20th Century Studios present a nightmare vacation scenario this December.

A group of hyper-wealthy criminals living it up on a luxury planet get some uninvited guests in Alien: Paradiso, a new miniseries coming from Marvel’s 20th Century Studios imprint this December.

Writer Steve Foxe is working with Edgar Salazar on the five-issue miniseries, which will also feature “special Xenomorph point of view pages” drawn by Peter Nguyen. (Why is this not a Red Band book?)

For his part, Foxe says he was looking to do something different with his contribution to the franchise, which recently got a back-to-basics reboot in this summer’s Alien: Romulus.

“With Romulus taking the franchise back to its roots in many respects, I wanted to make sure we were offering readers a story they couldn’t find anywhere else,” Foxe said. “Setting our tale on the sun-kissed shores of a high-end beach resort populated by underhanded criminals, undercover marshals, and underpaid employees immediately spun us in a new direction.”

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Marvel’s newest teen heroes assemble in ‘New Champions’

Steve Foxe and Ivan Fiorelli helm a new series featuring the heroes who appeared in recent issues of ‘Spider-Woman.’

Last year Marvel released a series of “New Champions” variant covers where they asked different artists to design new sidekicks for Marvel characters, following the debut of Spider-Boy. At the time I remarked that it seemed odd for Marvel to create all these characters just for a set of variant covers, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some of them again.

And we have — in the pages of Spider-Woman (as The Assembly), Ultimate X-Men and the upcoming Ghost Rider: Robbie Reyes Special. And now we will see many of them again, as they assemble for a New Champions series by Steve Foxe and Ivan Fiorelli.

“As soon as I saw the New Champions variants, my mind started racing dreaming up possible origins and powers and codenames for these imagined sidekicks,” Foxe said. “Reverse-engineering the cast from the covers was unlike any other creative process I’ve ever been involved in, and I’m beyond stoked to debut a whole new class of Marvel heroes (and a few villains!) in New Champions alongside Ivan Fiorelli, who makes each and every one of these new additions feel like they’ve been part of the fabric of the universe all along.”

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Two X-Men teams come to blows in ‘Raid on Graymalkin’

The four-issue crossover begins in December.

Two of the three flagship X-Men titles will cross over this winter in a story called “Raid on Graymalkin.” The crossover will run through X-Men #8-9 by Jed MacKay and Ryan Stegman, and Uncanny X-Men #7-8 by Gail Simone, David Marquez and Javier Garron.

“It’s been an exciting time being part of the launch of the line of X-titles, but now we’re really getting into it- our first crossover!” MacKay said. “’Raid on Graymalkin’ is going to push the X-Men of both Alaska and Louisiana to their breaking points and set the tone for the future, and it’s been great to work with a legend like Gail in bringing it to life!”

If you’ve been following both titles, you know there’s some tension brewing between Cyclops and his crew of soldiers, who live in Alaska, and Rogue and her family of mutants, who reside in Louisiana. That tension will come to a head as both teams decide it’s time to do something about Graymalkin Prison, the former site of Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters in New York, where mutants are being held by Dr. Corina Ellis, including Professor X.

“Writing in the X-World has been one of the most fun and rewarding experiences of my career,” Simone said. “Best characters, best art team, best editors and best fellow creators, particularly Jed Mackay, who is just an idea machine. We’ve been throwing ideas back and forth nearly every day since we all started putting together the bones of what the X-Verse would be like, and I think it helps tremendously that we like and respect each other’s work.”

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The Funtastic Four: Marvel x Disney recast Mickey + friends as the Fantastic Four

Writers Steve Behling and Riccardo Secchi, and artist Lorenzo Pastrovicchio revisit the early days of Marvel’s first family, with a Disney twist.

Marvel will continue their series of one-shots that feature Disney characters as Marvel heroes in What If Mickey and Friends Became the Fantastic Four?, which will come out early next year.

Yes, the Fab Five — or at least four of them — will become the Fantastic Four, with Mickey as Mister Fantastic, Minnie as Invisible Woman, Donald Duck as the Thing and Goofy as the Human Torch. Oh, and Pete as the Mole Man! Co-writers Steve Behling and Riccardo Secchi, along with artist Lorenzo Pastrovicchio, will pay tribute to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s creations, who look to have a pretty big year next year with their new film arriving next summer.

This is the fourth Marvel/Disney mash-up Marvel has announced in recent months, following one-shots featuring Donald Duck as Wolverine and Thor, and Minnie Mouse as Captain Marvel.

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Phillip Kennedy Johnson + Adam Gorham unleash ‘Hellhunters’ this winter

The five-issue miniseries spinning out of ‘Incredible Hulk’ begins in December.

Phillip Kennedy Johnson’s run on Incredible Hulk has introduced all sorts of new monstrous characters into the Marvel universe, with one of them being a World War II era Ghost Rider — Sergeant Sal Romero, who fought the Nazis alongside several other Marvel characters you might recognize. Now Sergeant Ghost Rider is getting an origin story, courtesy of Johnson and artist Adam Gorham.

“Ghost Rider ’44 is definitely my favorite guest star that’s appeared in our Incredible Hulk series so far,” Kennedy Johnson said. “I had a fully-realized origin story for Sergeant Sal Romero in my head before my partner Nic Klein brought him to life with his art, and the character turned out so unbelievably cool and fun, we knew the ‘War Devil’ arc wouldn’t be his last appearance.”

The five-issue miniseries, Hellhunters, will feature appearances by Wolverine, Nick Fury, Peggy Carter, Bucky Barnes, and, from the pages of Jason Aaron’s Avengers, Soldier Supreme.

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Tim Seeley + Zulema Lavina revisit a classic X-Men story in ‘Rogue: The Savage Land’

Marvel will publish the five-issue retro miniseries next year.

Marvel will revisit a classic Jim Lee-era X-Men story next year in Rogue: The Savage Land by veteran comics writer Tim Seeley and artist Zulema Lavina, who Seeley worked with on Hexware.

The five-issue “retro” miniseries will expand on the story from Uncanny X-Men #269 and #274-275, where a powerless Rogue teamed up with Magneto, Nick Fury and Ka-Zar to battle the sorceress Zaladane, who had stolen Magneto’s powers. This was a time when the X-Men were scattered after using the Siege Perilous to escape the Reavers following their years in the Australian Outback.

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Magik will star in her own solo series next year

Writer Ashley Allen and artist Germán Peralta send the Darkchylde on a demon hunt in January.

Illyana Rasputin, a.k.a the mutant known as Magik, is getting a long-overdue ongoing series next year. Marvel has announced that Ashley Allen, who wrote the character earlier this year in her Blood Hunt one-shot, will work with Loki artist Germán Peralta.

The popular mutant has technically been around since the 1970s, as she debuted as a child in the pages of Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum. In the 1980s, due to magical shenanigans and a weird time lapse in Limbo, she was aged up to be a teenager and starred in the Magik: Storm and Illyana miniseries, which is also where we saw her mutant powers blossom and the debut of her soulsword. She’s been a member of both the New Mutants and the X-Men, but this is her first solo ongoing series.

“I’m beyond excited to be returning to write Illyana!” Allen said. “Supernatural stories featuring characters with hearts of gold are my favorite, so this series has been a dream to write! I can’t wait for readers to experience the adventure we take Magik on to slay some demons … and maybe accept some of her own.”

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