Mail Call | The Hellfire Gala guest list includes mutants, Avengers … and Eminem?

As Marvel’s mutant event gets closer, take a look at what’s in store at the big party — and afterwards.

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.

It seems like we’ve been talking about Marvel’s Hellfire Gala forever, and Marvel’s publicity team has been working on overdrive to hype up the big X-Men event. And they aren’t stopping now! I’ll do a broader round-up over the weekend, but for this one we’re strictly looking at Marvel’s mutants.

As for the gala, Marvel announced this week that you can expect to see some familiar faces at it — and not just from the world of comics. The potential guest list includes real-life celebrities like Eminem, Conan O’Brien, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Ira Glass, Pete Alonso and possibly more.

“The Hellfire Gala will be the culmination of months of anticipation, and as one of the biggest nights in X-Men history, it only made sense that the nation of Krakoa would invite some of the world’s biggest stars to witness it for themselves,” said Mike Pasciullo, Vice President, Marketing and Communications at Marvel. “We thank all of our special guests for joining us for this exclusive in-world event, along with the incredible artists who brought them to life on the page.” 

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Marvel + Scholastic will release ‘Ms. Marvel: Stretched Thin’ this fall

The middle-grade graphic novel will find Kamala Khan over-committed and fighting a robot.

Marvel has announced that Scholastic’s Graphix line will release Ms. Marvel: Stretched Thin, a new middle-grade graphic novel by Nadia Shammas and Nabi H. Ali, in September.

The story will see Kamala Khan “stretched thin” due to too many commitments while also dealing with a mysterious robot that attempts to infiltrate Avengers Tower.

“A beloved teacher of mine lent me the very first issues of Ms. Marvel when I was in high school, knowing how important it was for me to see a South Asian super hero,” Ali told Marvel.com. “Kamala and her family didn’t feel like stereotypes, nor were they written with a ‘colorblind’ approach; the generational and cultural misunderstandings between Kamala and her parents—as well as how they overcame them—were very true to South Asian experiences among the diaspora. As a Muslim convert, it also meant a lot for me to see openly Muslim characters. I’m honored that I got to explore Kamala’s world and that I’m helping introduce her to new generations of readers like me.” 

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Hulk, Spider-Man and more headline Marvel’s 2021 Free Comic Book Day titles

Jason Aaron, Chip Zdarsky, Greg Smallwood and more will contribute to this year’s offerings from the House of Ideas.

Marvel has shared the covers and a few more details on their two 2021 Free Comic Book Day titles, which between the two of them will include stories featuring the Avengers, Hulk, Venom and Spider-Man.

Marvel’s gold title, Avengers/Hulk, features a cover by Ryan Ottley:

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Spidey’s villains go to war with each other in July

‘Sinister War’ pits teams led by Doctor Octopus and Vulture against each other, with Spider-Man caught in the middle.

Spider-Man will find himself caught between two factions of villains in July in Sinister War, a miniseries that ties into Nick Spencer’s run on Amazing Spider-Man and, in fact, was teased in the “post-credit scene” in this week’s Amazing Spider-Man #64.

“Nick Spencer always goes big,” Editor Nick Lowe told Marvel.com, “and this is his biggest story yet through this series and the concurrent issues of Amazing Spider-Man, so clear some room on your ‘Best Comics Ever’ shelf.”

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‘Guardians of the Galaxy,’ ‘S.W.O.R.D.’ will cross over for ‘The Last Annihilation’

Al Ewing brings two of his titles together for an epic space war.

Two of Al Ewing’s space-based titles will cross over later this year for an event Marvel is billing as “The Last Annihilation.”

Guardians of the Galaxy, which launched a new team and new mission with last week’s issue #13, will cross over with S.W.O.R.D., the X-title featuring Magneto, Cable and other mutants tasked with protecting the Earth. You might also remember that late last year, following the Empyre event, the Empyre Aftermath: Avengers special teased a confrontation between S.W.O.R.D. and the new Kree/Skrull Alliance. With both Hulkling and Wiccan playing a major roll in Guardians now, this could be what that teaser was alluding to.

Guardians and S.W.O.R.D. have been building their own unique gravity for a while now, and in space, when two objects have gravity, there’s a pretty good chance they’ll crash into each other – or get sucked into the orbit of something even bigger,” Ewing told Marvel.com. “Marvel Space these days is a fragile coalition of worlds that chose peace over war, a little bubble of hope in a cruel void – but there’s an enemy nobody ever suspected readying an attack that’ll either cement all those frail alliances or tear them to pieces.”

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Marvel celebrates 35 years of ‘Aliens’ with ‘Aliens: Aftermath’ #1

Benjamin Percy and Dave Wachter return to the scene of the crime in a new one-shot.

Marvel will celebrate the 35th anniversary of the movie Aliens with a one-shot titles Aliens: Aftermath by Benjamin Percy and Dave Wachter.

The double-sized issue features a story set in Hadley’s Hope, the terraforming and mining colony where the original film takes place.

“When I was a kid, I had a door-length poster of a xenomorph crashing through the wood, tearing off the hinges, creeping forward with a drippy fanged smile,” Percy said. “This is the image I would drift away to every night, which no doubt influenced my imaginative hard-wiring, along with the films and comics that I watched and read over and over and over. To this day, I can’t grip a knife without wanting to lay my hand on a table and tick-tick-tick the point between my splayed fingers—I can’t play a game of ping-pong or Clue without yelling, ‘Game over, man.’—I can’t scratch an orange tabby without whispering , ‘You are my lucky star….lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky.’ I’ve been in love with these stories most of my life, and it’s truly an honor and a delight to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Aliens with a script inked in acid blood.”

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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 reveals the new X-Men line-up

The new roster will debut in ‘X-Men’ #1 this July, by Gerry Duggan, Pepe Larraz and Marte Gracia.

Following the reveal earlier this week of who won the fan vote, Marvel has revealed the roster of the new team of X-Men that will debut during the upcoming Hellfire Gala storyline.

The team will headline the relaunched X-Men title, which debuts in July from Gerry Duggan, Pepe Larraz and Marte Gracia. The new team will be based in New York City, according to Duggan.

“It’s my privilege and honor to be reteamed with Pepe Larraz as we throw beautiful and deadly threats at the X-Men beginning in July,” Duggan said. “Mutants have saved themselves, and are now going to save the world. Krakoa will grow roots in the capital of the world, New York City, and the inaugural year will star Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Rogue, Wolverine, Synch, Sunfire, and Polaris. The threats to Earth will come fast and hit hard, and every page from Pepe and Marte will blow your hair back. See you in July.”

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Marvel reveals who fans chose to join the X-Men

The new X-Men team will debut during the Hellfire Gala event, and will headline their own comic starting in July.

Marvel has revealed the winner of their online X-Men poll, where they asked fans to vote for the final member of the new X-Men team that will debut during the Hellfire Gala storyline. And no, it isn’t Tempo.

If you want to avoid any spoilers, you may want to stop reading now …

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Jabba the Hutt gets his own ‘War of the Bounty Hunters’ tie-in comic

Everyone’s favorite giant space slug gets a one-shot courtesy of Justina Ireland and Luca Pizzari.

The most notorious gangster in the Star Wars universe will get his own one-shot as part of Marvel’s upcoming War of the Bounty Hunters crossover event. The comic, which is due out in July, is by Justina Ireland and Luca Pizzari.

“Getting to work on a comic at Marvel, especially a Star Wars comic about one of the most perpetually under-appreciated criminal masterminds in the whole galaxy, has been a trip,” Ireland told StarWars.com. “It’s exciting, a little scary, and really makes me wish I could time travel to tell my twelve-year-old self reading comics in the grocery store self  ‘All of this will pay off one day.’”

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Peter David writes a new X-Factor story for ‘X-Men Legends’

The ‘writer of stuff’ teams with Todd Nauck for a new story featuring Havok, Polaris, Madrox and more.

Peter David’s run on X-Factor is the next classic X-title to get the X-Men Legends treatment, as issue #5 of that title will feature a new story by David and artist Todd Nauck that is set between X-Factor #75 and #76, which came out in 1992.

The story will feature the characters you remember from his run, such as Havok, Polaris, Madrox, Wolfsbane and Strong Guy, among others.

X-Men Legends, if you weren’t aware, revisits classic X-Men runs with new, in-continuity stories by some of the original creators. Fabian Niceiza kicked off the series with a story about the Summers clan, while Louise and Walt Simonson will return to their version of X-Factor — the team that featured the original X-Men — in X-Men Legends #3.

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Marvel announces a new ‘Amazing Fantasy’ series by Kaare Andrews

Versions of Black Widow, Spider-Man and Captain America from different points in history come together in this new miniseries.

Marvel has announced a new five-issue miniseries, named after the classic series Amazing Fantasy, set on an island of high fantasy and featuring iconic versions of three of their heroes. Kaare Andrews of Spider-Man: Reign, E-Ratic and Iron Fist: The Living Weapon fame, will write and draw the series.

In the series, Red Room-era Black Widow, teenage Spider-Man and World War II-era Captain America find themselves on a dangerous “island of intrigue.”

“This is a story that combines not just different Marvel eras but different art styles to depict them,” Andrews said. “As a creator, sometimes you want to invent new heroes and villains to expand the universe into different places or ideas, but sometimes there is an even greater power in embracing what has come before. In telling fresh and passionate tales with heroes that an audience has already invested a lifetime in. There is a beating heart to these archetypes. And they need to live again!”

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