The Marvel True Believers panel is invite only. It is limited only to members of the Marvel Unlimited Plus subscribers and Marvel Mastercard cardholders. Luckily for you, I am a Plus member and brought my notebook with me to take notes on the exclusive announcements given at the panel.
This year’s panel consisted of permanent Marvel True Believers panel host Ryan Penagos aka Agent M, as well as comics creators Dennis Hopeless, Al Ewing, Daniel Kibblesmith, Kyle Higgins and Marvel Digital Unlimited managers Elliot Ronen and Kate Wilder.
Al Ewing talked about his new Avengers series with Paco Media, Avengers: No Road Home. Issue 1 drops in February. Commenting on the ominous cover of the Avengers falling into the endless abyss, Ewing said, “It’s as if night has fallen everywhere in the universe at once.” The team for the book was confirmed as Hercules, Hulk, Voyager, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Spectrum and Rocket Raccoon. That’s right, Rocket Raccoon is now an Avenger. And Voyager is making her return!
Nix, the Greek personification of night is the big villain of issue #2 and Nightmare is the villain of issue #3.
Al Ewing also talked about Immortal Hulk #7, which will feature according to Al, “The Hulk/Avengers fight from the point of view of the Hulk.” In the art they showed, Hulk was beating the living daylights out of Thor. Joe Bennett is handling the art for Immortal Hulk with painted covers by Alex Ross.
Immortal Hulk #8 features a very jarring cover. Literally. Hulk is cut up and inside an series of jars. Al Ewing got even more British when he explained, “I’ve also enjoyed making james. Delicious. A culinary feat in issue #8.”
The new year will bring a new storyline to Immortal Hulk. January kicks off Hulk in Hell, a multi-part story that sends Hulk to hell. The painted cover by Alex Ross is very striking. An emaciated Hulk is pulling himself out of the ground on a nightmarish hellscape.
Winter Soldier is getting a new series written by Kyle Higgins with art by Rod Reis. It has a very cool concept. “I basically turned Bucky Barnes into an Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor for the people who want to get out of doing evil,” said Higgins. The pages shown from Rod Reis looked amazing! They had a very Phil Noto on Black Widow feel to them.
Pages were show from Infinity Warps: Iron Hammer #2. Al Ewing was concise in describing the main character as “Party animal Tony Stark plus party animal Thor equals grim mashup.”
The original Defenders are being given a series of connected one-shots with a connected storyline a la the Marvel annuals of the late 80s and early 90s. The story, called The Best Defense, begins with The Immortal Hulk. Al Ewing described it as, “Bruce Banner solving the murder of Dr. Strange in a deserted town.”
The other one shots will feature Dr. Strange, Silver Surfer and Namor. Speaking of Namor, Agent M said, “Namor is truly the best aqua based man in all of comics.”
Dennis Hopeless is writing the new Cloak and Dagger series. “Our story focuses on how wildly codependent their relationship is,” Hopeless told the audience.
Agent M brought surprise guest Devin Lewis, the editor of Daredevil, up to the panel. Death of Daredevil, Charles Soule’s final Daredevil storyline, kicks off in Daredevil #609. Lewis described it as “One of the best Daredevil stories I’ve ever worked on or read.” Daredevil #612 will be Charles Soule’s final issue.
The Man Without Fear, a new weekly series, will launch in January, 2019. The creative team will be Jed Mackay and Danilo S. Beyruth, with covers by Kyle Holtz.
Three different clips from Daredevil season three were shown to finish out the panel.
