The Marvel NOW! Comic Parade

By Steve Morris

It’s been a hectic week for Marvel, not least because they’ve spent the past seven days batting aside my probing questions about the possibility of an ongoing Pixie solo series come November. But Pink-Haired Welsh Fairies aside, Marvel have now confirmed eleven of their apparent twenty relaunched/new ongoing titles for their rebranding, and this week saw confirmation interviews with eight of the creative teams. Here’s what was announced from the company:

IGN were on hand to talk to Brian Posehn, Gerry Duggan and Tony Moore about their Deadpool relaunch, which will be – surprise – focusing on the comedic side of the character. The first arc will pitch the Merc with a Mouth against a series of zombiefied ex-Presidents, after a bump to the head gives him yet ANOTHER inner monologue compete for attention in his head. There’s also a reference to the importance of SHIELD in motivating Deadpool — keep an eye out, because you’re going to see several more mentions of SHIELD over the next few paragraphs. The agency seem to be the central focus of Marvel NOW, from what I can tell.

Rick Remender and John Romita Jr talked about Captain America with iFanboy, with a new approach which flashes back and forth between the present and the past – but a past which doesn’t feature World War II. The book will instead flash to Steve Rogers before he took the serum which gives him super strength and endless patriotism, while in the present the character will engage in a 10-issue battle with Arnim Zola while trapped in a place called ‘Dimension Z’. Which I believe was one of the levels in Lylat Wars 64.

The first of Matt Fraction’s two new titles is Fantastic Four, which brings the family back together – including Valeria and Franklin, all drawn by Mark Bagley. Speaking with USA Today about the book, he says that each issue will tell a standalone story for the first year. The premise here is that Reed Richards builds a time machine for the family to go on a history trip, with each month seeing a new adventure for them to get tangled up in.

Iron Man is now in the hands of Kieron Gillen and Greg Land, who talked to Marvel.com about the book. After a few years of seeing Tony Stark as a corporate guy, Gillen’s new pitch seems to have Tony more as a crazy gadget person, who gets himself into trouble. He’ll also sleep around a lot more, because that’s what rich people like to do. The first five issues will all be standalone stories, continuing Marvel’s pleasingly rekindled interest in story compression.

Newsarama spoke with Jason Aaron about his plans to increase the volume of epic in his new run on Thor, alongside Esad Ribic. Here we have three different timelines – current Thor anchors the story, but then we’ll also flash back in time to see how he got started, and forwards in time to see, I guess, how he got ended. He’ll be fighting against someone called The God Butcher, a serial killer of Gods who presumably then bakes them into delicious pies.

Matt Fraction is also writing FF, with Mike Allred on art. Allred may also have tipped his hand into the writing side of things too, because he seems to have pushed Fraction into a bit of an interesting Peter Milligan impression here. The team lineup for the book are Ant-Man (unsure which one, but presumably Scott Lang), Medusa, She-Hulk and a new character obsessed with Thing. A female character, she is called… Miss Thing. Which, that sounds so much like a Mike Allred joke that I can’t believe he didn’t create it. She’ll be wearing a Thing cosplay outfit for the entirety of her time on the team.

CBR’s interview was with Mark Waid, who’ll be taking over Hulk with Leinil Francis Yu. Infuriatingly, they don’t ask about the floating helmet thing. But this is another book with close ties to SHIELD, as Maria Hill joins the cast of the book for presumable sexual tension with Bruce Banner, who is now rejoined with Hulk and isn’t crazy anymore. Taking a cue from the Avengers movie, Waid is going to present a version of The Hulk we never get to see enough of – one who actually enjoys himself and works proactively. Less moaning, more smashing.

And finally, Simon Spurrier spoke with MTV Geek about X-Men Legacy, his book with Tan Eng Huat. The book throws Rogue out and replaces her with Legion as the central character. Now, Legion is Xavier’s son, so yes, this definitely does suggest Xavier is going to die again in AvX. Spurrier is interested in taking Legion and making him an interesting character – tough job, but none better to take it on – and seems to be writing a redemption story filled with explosions and giant crows. In other words, this is a Simon Spurrier comic. What more could you need to know?

Now, here’s one last thing, I’m just going to throw this out there. Every other website posted a teaser slogan, and then the next week were lucky enough to announce a new book based on it. With that in mind, I’ve done a mock-up of a comic I want to see happen, and hopefully this time next week Marvel will ask me to interview Kathryn and Sara about it. Fingers crossed, you guys..

Your move, Marvel.