The origins of Spider-Man, Hulk, Thanos, Venom and more will be retold in the all ages series.
IDW will add to its Marvel Action line in December with Marvel Action: Origins, a new series that retells the origin stories of Spider-Man, Thanos, Venom, Hulk and more.
“Creating a gateway for young readers to learn more about the amazing characters of the Marvel Universe is a dream job,” Eliopoulos said. “In this series, readers are going to learn about the emotions and inner thoughts of these heroes and villains while learning about values and character. It’s a series that shows the character behind the characters!”
‘M.O.D.O.K.: Head Games’ by Jordan Blum, Patton Oswalt and Scott Hepburn brings the KIrby creation into his own comic.
M.O.D.O.K. is having quite an autumn, not only appearing in the big Avengers video game, but also preparing for the debut of his own show on Hulu.
The newfound fame of the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby creation is also translating into a comic series, as Marvel as announced that Jordan Blum and Patton Oswalt, the showrunners of the upcoming animated Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K., are writing M.O.D.O.K.: Head Games. Scott Hpeburn will provide the art.
“One of the things that tickled us about M.O.D.O.K. was his insistence on keeping up this intimidating/frightening front even when all visible evidence pointed to the opposite,” Oswalt said. “Even from the git-go, those early Kirby issues, he’s still frothing and gnashing about the majesty of himself even when he’s been knocked to the ground. The malevolent Weeble was love at first sight for us. So after exploring every aspect of that in the series — showing him in lonely moments when he’s got no one to impress but this desperate self-image he keeps trying to prop up — it was super-fun to bear down on M.O.D.O.K. trying to unravel a specific mystery about his origin.”
A round-up of news from DC, Marvel, Image and more.
Fresh from saving the Earth from being destroyed by the sun in Empyre, the Fantastic Four will get a much-needed vacation in a one-shot by new Iron Man scribe Christopher Cantwell and artist Filipe Andrade. It’s titled Fantastic Four: Road Trip, and it features family fun, a station wagon … and a Reed Richards experiment gone wrong.
Carla Hoffman looks back at Marvel’s Empyre, both as a game-changing “event book” and from a story perspective.
With the world in flux, we can at least count on a major summer event to remain a constant for comic fans. Neither rain nor sleet nor dark of night will keep our Big Two from their appointed rounds of throwing their entire universe (or multiverse, as the case may be) into flux to determine the definitive path for their respective companies. At least until next year.
Let’s look at this year’s Empyre by Dan Slott, Al Ewing and Valerio Schiti, and see if a comic can rock our world harder than real life already has. WARNING: spoilers ahead for the basics of the main Empyre series, so if you’ve read all six issues, grab your comics and read along!
“We were always hopeful comiXology Originals books would get into readers’ hands via comics retailers and book stores, and Dark Horse is a terrific collaborator to work with to do so, with an unmatched history of supporting creator-owned projects alongside unmatched distribution expertise. This deal fortifies the ability for these stories to reach customers like never before,” said David Steinberger, comiXology co-founder and CEO. “We’re thrilled to be working with Dark Horse.”
“I can’t stress how exciting it is getting all of these pages from the absolutely killer level of talent assembled for this book,” said series editor Mark Basso. “It’s become a hype cliché, but you’ve really never seen anything quite like this from Marvel Comics. And you’ve only seen a fraction of the first issue…”
‘Marvel’s Voices: Indigenous Voices’ will feature Indigenous talent making their Marvel Comics’ debut.
November is National Native American History Month here in the United States, and Marvel has announced two projects that “celebrate Indigenous history.”
“C.B. [Cebulski] and I started talking about various Native projects a year ago when discussing my ‘Of God’s & Heroes’ Marvel art exhibit at the Smithsonian. I am truly grateful for the platform that Marvel has not only provided for me and my work, but with this edition of Marvel Voices, all of Native America,” Veregge said. “This is an opportunity to share the cultural influences that we as Native artists and writers grew up with that will add more depth and dimension to the Native Heroes in the Marvel Universe.”
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!”
A round-up of news from DC, Marvel, Image Comics, Valiant and more.
Mail Call is a roundup of the announcements we’ve received from comics publishers in our mailboxes recently. Hit the links for more information.
The Dark Nights: Death Metal event grew again this week, as DC announced two new anthology one-shots for November prior to releasing their full November solicitations.
The first one is focused on Lobo and is titled Dark Nights: Death Metal Infinite Hours Exxxtreme! #1. It will feature “Uncle Lobo” telling “familiar yet freaky stories of the DC Universe, exactly as he remembers them: with blood and guts and exxxtreme gratuitous violence.” The creators involved include Frank Tieri, Becky Cloonan, Dale Eaglesham and more, with a cover by Kyle Hotz.
If that one isn’t ridiculous-sounding enough, the second one, Dark Nights: Death Metal The Multiverse Who Laughs “offers the curious—and the brave—a glimpse into the nightmare realities that the Batman Who Laughs has created in tales by creators who know what it means to have a truly twisted sense of misfit humor.” As you can tell by the cover, one of those worlds features evil super pets. It includes stories by Amanda Conner, Patton Oswalt, Jimmy Palmiotti, Scott Snyder, Brandon Thomas, James Tynion IV, Joshua Williamson, Chad Hardin and more.
The former Captain America returns in an ongoing series this November.
Marvel has announced plans to launch a U.S.Agent series this fall, from the creative team of Christopher Priest and Stefano Landini.
The first arc, titled “American Zealot,” starts with the former Captain America, John Walker, operating as an independent contractor for the U.S. government. His latest job pulls him into a conflict between a small town and a big corporation, as he suits up in a new costume, recruits a new sidekick and takes on a new enemy.
Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas will help tell the story of a new Native American werewolf.
As announced earlier this year, Taboo of the music group The Black Eyed Peas and his writing partner Benjamin Jackendoff will write a new Werewolf by Night miniseries for Marvel. Scott Eaton will join the duo for the tale of a new Werewolf by Night — a young Native American named Jake, who lives in Arizona.
“We’re going through a Native lens because of my Native American heritage,” Taboo told Comicbook.com. “I always liked storytelling from a native perspective. Although I was born in the city of Los Angeles, recently I’ve been really connected to the Indian country or to native communities to be able to be a service and help native youth, inspire them, especially when it comes to health and wellness, and arts and music. So we built our partnership knowing that when we create, we create through a native lens…”
