Marvel will relaunch ‘Fantastic Four’ in July

Ryan North and Humberto Ramos send Marvel’s first family on an adventure through time.

Marvel’s first family is getting a reboot this summer, just as their big-budget Hollywood film hits the screen.

Current Fantastic Four and One World Under Doom scribe Ryan North will continue to tell stories featuring Reed, Sue, Ben, Johnny and the gang, and he’ll be joined by artist Humberto Ramos.

June’s Fantastic Four #33, appropriately retitled as Fantastic Zero, will be the final issue of the current series. The new series will find the team split up in time, as their battle with Doctor Doom finds each of them stranded in a different era.

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Ryan North + Mike Norton team for ‘Krypto: The Last Dog of Krypton’

The bestest boy fetches a five-issue miniseries this summer.

DC’s “Summer of Superman” initiative is going to the dogs in June, as the publisher announced this week that the team of writer Ryan North and artists Mike Norton and Ian Herring will return to Krypton to tell the story of Superman’s bestest friend Krypto.

Krypto: The Last Dog of Krypton will take our heroic canine — the breakout star of the Superman trailer — from Krypton to Earth.

“Krypto’s origin has always been done at kind of a high level,” North said. “The little guy starts out on Krypton, ends up on Earth, and helps Superman fight crime. The chance to really define Krypto—to show what a little lost dog would go through if he landed all alone on a strange alien world named Earth—was really enticing. And I also fell in love with the idea of treating Krypto as the actual dog he is: he doesn’t talk, and we don’t cheat by reading his thoughts in balloons either. Mike Norton’s art captures exactly what needs to be ‘said’ in every scene. Krypto tells us who he is and how he’s feeling like all dogs do: through his expressions and behaviour, through body language and barks and snuggles and licks and sighs. Dogs are some of the most expressive animals, and we absolutely love them, and I wanted to tell a story that really captured and honoured these animals—Krypto in particular.”

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Godzilla returns to the Marvel universe next year in a series of one-shots

‘Marvel vs. Godzilla’ sees the kaiju facing off with the Fantastic Four, Avengers and more for the first time in decades.

Following a series of reprints of the 1970s series and a line of variant covers, Marvel and Toho International have announced Godzilla vs. Marvel, a series of one-shots arriving next year.

Each issue will feature the king of monsters and other kaiju facing off with the Avengers, X-Men and, right out of the gate, the Fantastic Four. Godzilla vs. Fantastic Four #1 by current FF writer Ryan North and artist John Romita Jr. will pit the Fantastic Four against Galactus and his newest herald, King Ghidorah. Godzilla and the Silver Surfer will team up to try and save the world.

“We approached them initially for our reprints, but a while after those conversations, it was clear that both of our teams were excited to do more together,” Marvel Editor in Chief C.B. Cebulski told The Hollywood Reporter. “These crossovers started coming together over that time, in direct collaboration with Toho, and we felt the perfect time for them was for Godzilla’s 70th anniversary next year. We’ve been thrilled to work with them on these, and we hope this will be a sign for more exciting projects to come.”

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Slugfest | Deadpool + Wolverine are together again in Marvel’s January solicitations

Marvel kicks off the new year with a new Cable series, Galactus, an amped up Power Man and more.

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you. This edition focuses on Marvel’s January solicitations, plus at least one project coming in February. Hit the links for more information.

Deadpool and Wolverine, you might remember, had a pretty big summer together, but the lovefest is far from over. In January Marvel will launch Deadpool/Wolverine by former Wolverine writer Benjamin Percy and his X-Force colleague Joshua Cassara.

“Josh and I really hit it off when we were working together on X-Force and became great friends,” Percy told IGN. “When he made the jump to X-Men, it was honestly a little traumatic for us both—but if you get the opportunity to draw a flagship title, you have to go for it. And he drew the living shit out of that series. We never stopped texting or hanging out at cons. We’re always trading stupid jokes (and many hundreds of Arnold Schwarzenegger GIFs). I even helped his wife locate one of the elusive 12-foot Home Depot skeletons recently, so we’ll both be celebrating Halloween like bosses. This is all to say: we were both so damn excited to get the band back together. Deadpool/Wolverine is us cartwheeling onto the stage and shredding our guitars once more while smoke machines churn and pyrotechnics explode all around us.”

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NYCC | Doctor Doom takes over the world in ‘The Rise of Emperor Doom’ by Ryan North and R.B. Silva

It’s Doom’s world now; we’re all just living in it.

Marvel’s big summer event series Blood Hunt ended with Doctor Doom convincing Doctor Strange to pass on the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme to him in order to save the world from eternal darkness and the vampire threat — which Strange did reluctantly and Doom, in turn, fulfilled his part with relative ease.

But Doom elected to turn his temporary assignment into a full-time job before heading back to Latveria to … well, do whatever Doom does. Until next February, when Doom will star in The Rise of Emperor Doom, an “anchor series” for a bigger event Marvel is calling One World Under Doom. The five-issue miniseries is by Ryan North, current writer of the Fantastic Four, and artist R.B. Silva.

One World Under Doom sees Doctor Doom coming out of [Latveria], and overnight, taking over the world,” North said. “Every country is a province of a united Latveria, and everyone answers to Doom, and he is going to make some changes… He gets to show the world that he’s the greatest at what he does, and that might not be great for people not named Victor Von Doom.”

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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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SDCC | IDW + Paramount renew their Star Trek partnership, announce ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ ongoing series

Ryan North and Derek Charm will continue to tell stories about the Lower Decks crew.

Paramount and IDW Publishing have announced an extension of their publishing partnership, which conveniently comes as IDW also announces a new Star Trek: Lower Decks ongoing series.

Star Trek is not just an iconic franchise, but a universe that celebrates diversity and creativity,” said Davidi Jonas, CEO of IDW Media Holdings. “The Star Trek community is one that we’re proud to serve and be part of. The team at Paramount share our love of storytelling, universe expansion and delighting fans. We are humbled and excited to renew our commitment, and plan on years of going boldly forward with our partners and fans.”

Terms and length of the deal were not disclosed, but the news comes as IDW prepares for the release of Star Trek #500 in September, the October release of the choose-your-own-adventure like Star Trek: Lower Decks – Warp Your Own Way graphic novel and the launch of Star Trek: Lower Decks in November, by writer Ryan North and, on the first story, artist Derek Charm. The duo worked on the Lower Decks miniseries Shaxs’ Best Day, which was nominated for an Eisner Award.

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Sunday Comics | ‘Heartstopper’ will return in April

Plus: Get Dinosaur Comics texted to you! And check out some recent award nominees.

Here’s a round-up of some of the best webcomics we’ve seen online recently — and news about them as well. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

Heartstopper, the mega-popular webcomic by Alice Oseman that’s been adapted into a series on Netflix, will return from hiatus in April. The announcement came on Twitter from Oseman’s official account.

“The Heartstopper webcomic returns to Tapas, Webtoon, and Tumblr on the 1st April 2023! (I promise this isn’t an April Fool’s joke lol),” the tweet read.

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Venom gets extreme — and an anthology series — in May

‘Extreme Venomverse’ arrives just in time for ‘Death of the Venomverse’ and ‘Summer of Symbiotes,’ as Venom celebrates his 35-year anniversary.

How easy would it be to apply the template of the Spider-Verse to Venom? We’ll find out later this year, as Marvel has announced Extreme Venomverse, an anthology series that will feature various versions of Venom from around the multiverse.

This year is the 35th anniversary of the character, who was created by Todd McFarlane and David Michelinie and had his first, full appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #300. But you have to tip your hat to the creators of Amazing Spider-Man #252 — Roger Stern, Todd DeFalco, Mike Zeck and Ron Frenz — for creating Spider-Man’s black alien costume. And are you familiar with Randy Schueller? He was a comics fan who came up with the idea for putting Spider-Man in a black costume.

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Slugfest | ‘Radio Apocalypse’ goes on indefinite hiatus

Plus: A new Secret Stash title, Poison Ivy grows and Marvel Masterworks gets reprinted.

Vault Comics and writer Ram V have announced via press release that the comic series Radio Apocalypse will go on “an indefinite hiatus.” The series, which suffered delays before launch, only saw two issues published.

“We launched this book with much excitement and to celebration and acclaim,” Ram V said in the statement. “And for that I have readers, retailers and everyone who worked on this book to thank. Unfortunately, in the time since, Anand, Aditya and I have been through some rough times. I will allow everyone including myself some privacy but suffice to say health issues, bouts of COVID and some difficult family emergencies on my end have meant that we have been unable to work on this book with the care and attention it deserves.”

The series, which reunited Ram V with Anand RK, who he worked with on Grafity’s Wall, was about the last radio station on Earth.

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North + Henderson are back together for ‘Danger and Other Unknown Risks’

The young-adult graphic novel about the end of the world arrives next April.

Ryan North and Erica Henderson, who cracked people up with their work on Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, will reunite for a new graphic novel titled Danger and Other Unknown Risks. The young-adult title is due out in April of next year from Penguin Teen.

The publisher describes it as “a twisty, spellbinding adventure about a girl and her dog who want to save the world.”

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Learn ‘How to Take Over the World’ from Ryan North

The comic book writer announces his new book, which features tips on supervillainy using known science.

When he’s not writing comics like The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and Slaughterhouse-Five, Ryan North works in the realm of non-non-fiction, putting out handy guides like How to Invent Everything, a must-have manual for time travelers, and the just-announced How to Take Over the World.

This new book introduces readers to “the science of supervillainy” and could be your ticket to a new line career path.

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