The Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con made it clear that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is about to get big in more ways than one. With the newly branded Multiverse Saga laying down nearly all its cards, it’s easy to sometimes forget that in the comics, things are just as tumultuous on page as they are on screen. Here’s a taste of what’s to come for the comics characters, and one has to imagine their cinematic counterparts some years down the line.
Captain America & Captain America are colliding
Earlier in the year, Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson decided to share the Captain America mantle. Now in their own respective books—Sam headlines the globetrotting Symbol of Truth by Tochi Onyebuchi and RB Silva, while Steve stars in the domestic Sentinel of Liberty by Jackson Lanzing, Colin Kelley and Carmen Carnero—the two men will be in their first team up event.
As revealed during Diamond “Captain America: Cold War” will reunite Steve and Sam as they learn about the truth behind Steve’s Vibranium shield, and their adventure will also lead them to a new Nomad. The new person taking Steve’s one-time mantle was teased to be “a shocker,” but someone who already exists in the Marvel Universe. Look for that event, with art by Paco Medina, to hit in spring 2023.
The Fantastic Four are going coastal
With Dan Slott leaving the Fantastic Four to work on Spider-Man again in the fall, a new creative team was teased to be stepping in to direct Marvel’s First Family during the company’s Next Big Thing panel. And whoever it is, it seems their first course of action is to give us...a Fantastic Four West?
The F4 are no stranger to team shakeups, but typically, it’s been the Avengers who set up teams in different pockets of the United States. Whether the extensive Richards-Storm family is splitting up, or other heroes will be grouping together and borrowing the Fantastic Four name remains to be seen. But at least we only have to wait until November to figure out what it is.
Spider-Man spins a dark web as Norman Osborn goes good
Spider-Man’s already got a busy year ahead of him, what with the Spider-Verse ending, but Peter Parker’s life rarely lets him catch a break. A new crossover story titled Dark Web from Zeb Wells and Adam Kubert will see Spidey team up with the X-Men as they face off against the clone cabal of Madeline Pryor and Ben Reilly. Reilly, you’ll recall, tried his hand at being Spider-Man while Peter was out of commission, but things didn’t exactly go his way, and he adopted the new villainous mantle of Chasm.
As one of the tie-ins to Dark Web, Spidey’s old foe Norman Osborn is going to the side of the angels. Under his new Gold Goblin persona, Norman will star in a spinoff comic written by Christopher Cantwell with art from Lan Medina. Unclear how long this heel turn will last, but given the track record of Spidey villains trying to go straight, it likely won’t be for too long.
Hickman’s Back
Jonathan Hickman’s tackled the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and most recently X-Men, turning each of them into big pieces for his long game stories that almost always shake up the Marvel Universe in some big ways. Now he’s set to do it all again with Judgment Day artist Valerio Schiti next year. At the Next Big Thing panel, all Hickman would say is that he’s been working on it for the past three years. “That message will not sound like gibberish when the first issue comes out,” he teased. “This is probably my favorite thing I’ve written for Marvel...it’s Sandman for the Marvel universe.”
The space background makes it clear that we’ll be traveling the stars during the comic. Given the recent Eternal push, Hickman could be turning his eye towards them, but it’s also a good chance he’s working on the Inhumans. After all, if he revitalized the X-Men before their inevitable silver screen return, and his Avengers run helped set up what’s now the Multiverse saga, it’s not hard to imagine him retooling one of the publisher’s biggest failures in recent memory.
[via GamesRadar, Superpouvoir and AIPT]
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