Brace yourselves longtime Marvel fans! Sweeping changes: New books. New creative teams. Final arcs for favorite creators and…cancelled books. Marvel NOW! means new beginnings and endings this October. The Marvel solicitations reveal the huge changes coming.
Avengers #31 marks the final arc by Brian Michael Bendis with Iron Man finding a signal leading to “one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in Avengers history” while New Avengers #31 by Bendis sees the return of one of their deadliest foes.
Rick Remender picks up previous storylines (before the AvX crossover) in Secret Avengers #32 and #33 as a new Masters of Evil attack and The Rise of the Descendants featuring the debut of a hero corrupted: the Black Ant.
This month marks the end of fan favorite writers on marquee franchises. Captain America #19 sees the return of artist Steve Epting for Ed Brubaker’s grand finale issue. This is definitely the end of a major creative era for Steve Rogers. The Mighty Thor #22 is the final issue as Matt Fraction wraps up the Everything Burns epic and Kieron Gillen bids Kid Loki goodbye as Journey Into Mystery ends too. Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca ends their epic run on Invincible Iron Man with the final issue. The Jason Aaron penned The Incredible Hulk ends with #15. Jonathan Hickman’s epic run on Marvel’s First Family is over. Fantastic Four #611 and FF #23 are the final issues.
Marvel’s mutant titles are evolving too. Uncanny X-Men #20 is final issue and fallout of AvX but does this mean the end of Kieron Gillen’s time with the mutants? Marvel has said All-New X-Men by Bendis will be the new flagship X-book.
Havok will lead the new Uncanny Avengers and the X-Factor #245 solicitation may be a clue as that he’s leaving Peter David’s book. It’s described as the last of five issues that will change the book and lineup. New Mutants will end with issue 50 this month. X-Men Legacy #275 will be the final issue. Rogue is joining Uncanny Avengers. X-Men, Wolverine and the X-Men, Uncanny X-Force appear to be continuing or starting new story arcs with no hint that the books are ending but stay tuned.
Marvel has said the Marvel NOW! relaunch will continue through February 2013 so we can expect more cancelled books and hopefully announcements of favorite creators on relaunched books.
By Editor
Thanks to Comic Book Resources where you can find the full solicitations.