Marvel

Tom Brevoort may have just confirmed that Journey Into Mystery won't be ending after Kieron Gillen leaves...

Here it is - an exhaustive look at all the Marvel books announced this week for Marvel NOWWWW, from Iron Man to Thor, with X-Men and Hulk inbetween. Also, the campaign for a Pixie Ongoing series picks up pace!

An article on USA Today celebrates Fraction/Bagley's Fantastic Four, and Fraction/Allred's FF. But it also reveals that Fraction/Dodson's Defenders series is cancelled with issue #12

On the scale of "Oh thank God," this ranks pretty high.Joss Whedon will be back to write and direct AVENGERS 2, as Disney CEO Bob Iger told an investors call. Immediately after the announcement, people started throwing money directly at Iger, just pelting him with dollars and quarters. "Take our money!" they cried. "Just take it! THE AVENGERS has already made $1.5 billion worldwide and the sequel will make even more."

Breaking news! Hepzibah returns for another appearance in Avengers Vs X-Men!

Some set pics of Hugh Jackman from WOLVERINE II, currently known as THE WOLVERINE, which is set in Japan. From these photos, we can assume that in the story, Jackman's Wolverine character will have a period of extreme self doubt, which evolves into self neglect, from which he will be rescued by a period of intense study of Zen Buddhist philosophy and Japanese fighting techniques.

As sometimes happens, I walk into a comics shop and discover something I didn't know I needed! Here's an example...

Marvel have made a change to their solicitations, revealing that issue #17 of Wolverine & The X-Men is going to be a showcase issue for Doop.

There's been some concern over Marvel's sales in the last six months or so. "But AVX is frickin' huge," you say. And it is. But that might be masking Marvel's inability to sell comics that aren't part of a crossover/Event. Marvel's Next event is the pseudo-relaunch of Marvel NOW! and nobody's quite sure what to make of that just yet. Last week, Brian Hibbs penned a column expressing concerns about Marvel NOW!'s viability and the poor general state of Marvel's and non-Event top list and mid-list. I think it's time to compare some of the numbers on this.

More teasers for Marvel NOW! Suggesting Rick Remender and John Romita Jr will be in charge of Captain America, and Si Spurrier and Tan Eng Huat on what may be a new X-Men title.

Stately Beat Manor approves of David Aja art. Click for larger images. HAWKEYE #2, written by Matt Fraction with art and cover by Aja, goes on sale September 5.

by Paul O'Brien

The AVENGERS VS X-MEN crossover continued to dominate Marvel's schedule in June, but the month also saw another high profile release - the SPIDER-MEN miniseries, in which the original Spider-Man meets the new Ultimate Universe version of the character. The Icon imprint also launches a HIT-GIRL miniseries. And other than that, it's a pretty quiet month for new releases, as often tends to be the case in the height of major crossovers. Despite the sales boost from the summer crossover, it was a very close month in terms of market share in the North American direct market, with DC leading Marvel in unit terms by 38.2% to 37.8%, but Marvel leading in retail share by 33.8% to 33.0%. Effectively a tie, then. DC's performance can be attributed in large part to all four BEFORE WATCHMEN titles landing in the top 10 with estimated sales of over 100K each.