Another week to cross off our calendars, and another week of comics news from print, television, movies, and more! This week sees big announcements from Disney+ about the Marvel Streaming projects, Ant-Man takes home People Magazine’s big prize, DC turns their focus towards Middle Grade readers, BOOM! Studios talks about kids too, but not for middle schoolers, and Image goes quiet. Conventions also make a big splash with a soft opening date for San Diego’s Comic-Con Museum!
Marvel:
First and foremost, a Marvel man is taking home People magazine’s “Sexiest Man of the Year” title, and we should celebrate. Paul Rudd, the MCU’s Ant-Man, has finally been awarded the title after not aging for the past like, two decades. Rudd nagging the title for the MCU is the beginning of a two year streak, as Black Panther’s Micheal B. Jordan took home last year’s title. As someone who didn’t love the comics iteration of Ant-Man, Rudd’s charisma and relatable humor has somehow managed to transform the character into one of my favorites in the MCU.
Earlier this year, Marvel ran a fan poll to nominate a new member of the X-Men. While none of these particular characters won, the fans showed Marvel how much they loved them, and got Strong Guy, Forge, Tempo, Boom-Boom, Marrow, Armor, Cannonball, Sunspot, and Banshee a one-shot team-up. They’re sent on a secret mission to protect the daughter of Professor X, who also happens to be the Empress of Shi’ar, an alien race. Secret X-Men #1, with writing by Tini Howard and art by Francesco Moblil, releases in February.
As we’re getting closer to the release of Jed MacKay’s Timeless, Marvel seems to be recognizing how excited we are and just hyping us up with the release of Marvel Stormbreakers variant covers for the Kang-centered one shot. Marvel Stormbreakers is a program that recognizes rising art talent in the comics industry. The 2020 alumni class each created a variant cover themed around the concept of time. My personal favorite is Peach Momoko’s cover because her watercolor style is just incredible. Timeless #1, written by Jed MacKay with art by Kev Walker, Greg Land, and Mark Bagley, and all the variant covers by the Stormbreakers releases in stores December 29th.
Today, November 12th, is Disney+ day. Besides releasing select MCU films in IMAX ration on the streaming service, Disney has also released the title images and general release dates for several of their upcoming Marvel streaming projects (at time of writing). First up is a summer 2022 release for Ms. Marvel, then coming soon announcements for Moon Knight, Secret Invasion, She-Hulk, What If… season 2, Ironheart, and Echo. While most of these were previously announced or heavily speculated, it’s great to see official announcements that will expand on characters that are being introduced to the MCU. Other announcements include a Marvel Zombies animated series, hopefully being spun off from the What If… episode, I Am Groot animated series, another animated series called Spider-Man: Freshman Year and a live-action Agatha Harkness series called Agatha: House of Harkness spinning off of the success of WandaVison. Lastly, Marvel announced the return of the 90’s animated X-Men series, now titled X-Men ’97, through the use of the iconic Wolverine picture frame meme and it was very satisfying. As a former Disney cast member, I’ve been looking forward to all the announcements I knew were coming today, and I was not disappointed. I spent a little time with Star-Lord and Groot at Disney’s Hollywood Studios when I worked there, so I’m super excited to see I Am Groot continue that story. Plus, Shang-Chi is now streaming on Disney+ and we already know how I feel about that movie.
DC:
DC is expanding their reach to younger audiences with the first announcement of a Super-Pets Middle Grade book. While it’s not my style, I think that the cross promotion between film and publication is a great way to expand a love of comics (and books in general) to new and younger audiences. DC League of Super-Pets: The Great Mxy-Up releases May 17th, 2022 and features the Super-Pets dealing with a little trouble from Mr. Mxyzptlk, a fifth dimensional mischief-maker.
Another book for the Middle Grade audience is the new graphic novel Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld. The fantasy story follows Amaya, the nine-year-old princess of the Amethyst kingdom of Gemworld, known for getting herself into trouble. When she gets sent to a magic-free “time-out” on earth, things don’t go quite as planned. Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld, by Shannon and Dean Hale with art by Asiah Fulmore is now available in print and digital download.
While not for Middle Schoolers, the first look at a post-fear state Gotham arrived with a peek at issue four of Jace Fox’s turn as Batman in I Am Batman. As the Fear State arc has progressed, The Magistrate has begin to try and take control of Gotham. Jace Fox has been fighting against them, but even after Fear State, he won’t be safe. I Am Batman #4, written by John Ridley with art from Stephen Segovia and Christian Duce hits stands December 14th.
On the small screen, CW and DC said goodbye to Supergirl, which held a two hour season finale this week. However, with the success of Superman and Lois, I don’t think it’s the last we’ll be seeing of the Supergirl characters. Most notably, Nicole Maines, who played Dreamer on the series and wrote a story in the DC Pride issue teased writing a Dreamer comic to continue the story. I loved the story she wrote and would one-hundred percent add a Dreamer-centric comic written by Maines to my pull list.
Young Justice: Phantoms continues dealing with the aftermath of Conner’s supposed death by focusing on the relationship between family, grief, and trust. I’ve loved Young Justice since the first season- honestly, the renewal was one of the reason I subscribed to the DC app originally- and it continues to be one of my favorites. I love how much the show has matured with its audience, and I look forward to new episodes on Thursdays. My favorite moments of the show, however, continue to be the end credits of each episode. These past two weeks have centered on Artemis, how she handles grief and her relationship with her sister, and the end credits have featured voice-overs of her reading from A Tale of Two Cities and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Both are haunting and sweet and hopeful and full of grief- the perfect contradiction of youth, adolescence, and adulthood that the show has been attempting to invoke. Young Justice: Phantoms streams new episodes on HBOMax every Thursday.
Boom:
This week, BOOM! Studios gave us a first look at House of Slaughter issue 2. Written by James Tynion IV and Tate Brombal with art from Werther Dell’Eder, Chris Shehan, and coloring from Miquel Muerto, House of Slaughter expands the world of Something’s Killing the Children, which was one of my Halloween spotlight books with a backstory of where Erica Slaughter became the monster hunter and bad-ass I wish I could be. Focusing the story on others who have been trained to hunt monsters, this comic focuses on Jace Boucher, a “transfer student” to the team that creates these monster hunters. House of Slaughter #2 will hit shelves November 24th, 2021.
Image:
From Image Comics, a new four part mini-series with Belgian publishing company Éditions Dupuis titled Step by Bloody Step has been announced for February 2022. The story centers on a child and her “Giant Guardian” traveling through a fantasy world. But most interestingly, the book is text-free. Image describes Step by Bloody Step as “an exquisitely designed story that puts the awe-inspiring artwork front-and-center, showing off what comics are truly capable of and eliminating language barriers in a unique and compelling way.” The visually focused story will feature Si Spurrier, Matías Bergara, and Matheus Lopes and be released in the US February 23rd, 2022.
Elsewhere:
In San Diego, the Comic-Con Museum has finally set a soft opening date! My Master’s degree is focused on Arts and Cultural Management and I did a lot of research on the development stages of the museum while in school. It sounds like it’s going to be an awesome ode to the connections that fans have made during Comic-Con and other Conventions. Soft opening tickets and more information are available here.
As you can see, this week’s news demonstrates one of my favorite things about the power of comics and their media- there’s an ability to bring people together to tell these stories in so many ways. Whether it’s a middle school student reading their first graphic novel, or somebody getting to experience the magic of storytelling through visuals and not worrying about language barriers, or connections with global fans at a convention, a family watching Marvel movies on Disney+, I’m always amazed by how easily these stories bring people together. Now if you’ll excuse me, my popcorn is ready and I missed Simu Liu, so I’m going to watch Shang-Chi again.
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