Marvel Penguin Picks: November 2026

Above-the-Board Recommendation:

Predator vs. Punisher #1 (of 4)

You know, I think this is the “Predator vs.” series I’ve been waiting for ever since the license landed at Marvel.  Wolverine, Black Panther, and Spider-Man may have all been worthy targets for the Yautja with their superhuman abilities.  Frank Castle, however, is just a man.  Just like Batman who took on the alien predator in one of the best crossovers of all time.  Whether or not writer Frank Tieri and artist Jesus Saiz can rise to the level of Dave Gibbons and Andy Kubert from… over three decades ago (God I feel old), is another matter, yet I still want to see what they can manage here.  If nothing else, the fact that we’re told that Kingpin, Jigsaw, Silvermane, and The Owl are going to factor in here at least implies that there’s going to be some quality carnage and/or kills before we get to the main event.

Avengers #1:  Have I already talked about this before?  This issue has at least been solicited twice (maybe thrice) and it heralds the former “Daredevil” team of writer Chip Zdarsky – hot off the “Armageddon” event – and artist Marco Checchetto – in his first ongoing series after “Ultimate Spider-Man.”  This time the team is made up of Spider-Man, Wolverine, Luke Cage, Captain Marvel, Daredevil, and the enduringly popular [REDACTED].  Early speculation is that this is David Colton, the Captain America of the post-9/11 era following his receipt of superpowers in the “Wolverine:  Weapons of Armageddon” miniseries that led into the event proper.

The first volume of Zdarsky’s “Captain America” finally made it into my hands recently, and while a review is forthcoming, it’s more interesting for how it establishes David’s character there.  While Steve Rogers is still the unassailable standard of virtue he’s always been, his successor is shown to have come up in a much more morally complex world where his desire to fight back against its bullies is stymied at every turn.  By the end of the volume, it feels like we’re getting the start of a supervillain origin story more than anything else.  Which might be interesting to see play out in this title.  Given that it will be nigh-on impossible to impose any kind of change in its established cast, what better way to give this run a dramatic through-line than with the fall of a once-promising hero.  I’m definitely intrigued, but ask me again after I’ve read “Armageddon” to see how excited I should be.

X-Men:  Incursions #1:  Part of a series of “Incursions” one-shots showing the destruction of universes that took place in the run-up to Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic’s “Secret Wars.”  That we’re getting this now is likely less about any nostalgia for that event, and more about building hype for the upcoming “Avengers:  Doomsday.”  While seeing the (mutant) worlds of “House of M” and “Days of Future Past” doesn’t sound uninteresting, having writer Alex Paknadel and artist Jim Towe try to cram that kind of thing into one issue sounds like an impossible task.

Jean Grey #1 (of 5):  There have been a lot of “X-Men” solo miniseries popping up over the last several months, of which this is just the latest.  Normally I’d just take a wait-and-see approach with this one to determine if it’d be worth reading, but this is coming from current “X-Men” writer Jed MacKay.  Jean has been name-checked a couple times in that title, but hasn’t actually shown up in it yet.  The fact that we’re getting this miniseries from MacKay means that he either has a story about Jean and the Phoenix that he couldn’t tell within the pages of “X-Men” without derailing its current storylines.  I’m also willing to bet that this is going to have some kind of relevance to said storylines as well.  Even if it doesn’t, MacKay has been doing good work in that title that I’ll likely be checking this out to see what he has to say about the character.

X-Orcists #1 (of 5):  First we got a ten-issue “Magik” series.  Then we got a five-issue “Magik & Colossus” follow-up.  Now writer Ashley Allen is giving us an Illyana Rasputin team book as she works with Madelyne Pryor and best bud Juggernaut to track down a demon that escaped from Limbo that’s going to make life hell for human and mutants alike.  I’ve heard nothing but good things about Allen’s work on the aforementioned titles, which means I’ll have to check them out at some point.  That she keeps getting work involving the character, along with returning artist German Peralta, is also an encouraging sign for this latest miniseries as well.

Captain America by Chip Zdarsky vol. 2:  Doom’s Shadow:  Just because David Colton is (reportedly) going to be in the new “Avengers” series doesn’t mean that Steve Rogers is going to lack for things to keep himself occupied here.  In fact, these issues see him picking up the pieces left at the end of “One World Under Doom” as Latveria is invaded by Thunderbolt Ross with Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. also wanting a piece of that action as the road to “Armageddon” becomes clear.  We’ll see how the writer threads the needle from one event to the next with FIVE artists – Frank Alzipar, Delio Diaz, Jan Bazaluda, Ton Lima, and Valerio Schiti – illustrating the six issues collected here.

Uncanny X-Men by Gail Simone vol. 5:  Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed:  While I’m not uninterested in seeing what happens to the cast in this series, it’s hard to get excited about it.  Mainly because the answer is just going to be More Stuff given the absence of a solid overarching plot to drive the story here.  Still, I guess it’ll be interesting to see who Inmate X is supposed to be given that their identity has already been retconned once (reportedly) to not be Professor X.

Punisher:  Enter the War Zone Omnibus HC by Greg Rucka:  I remember reading Rucka lament that someone at Marvel never liked his work on the Punisher, which is why it didn’t stay in print after the initial collections sold out.  So it’s good to see this omnibus collecting the writer’s entire run on the character being reprinted like this.  It’s just that… this isn’t the writer’s best superhero work.  While I like seeing Frank Castle work alongside a woman who lost everything in a way that was not unlike his own origin, Rucka set things up at the end of his run to imply that she was going to be taking over as the Punisher.  Which, we all knew wasn’t going to happen, so it’d be interesting to find out if there was any editorial meddling going on there.  That might also explain the finale “Enter the War Zone” miniseries which inexplicably saw multiple A-list superheroes try and fail to stop Castle, and not in a fun “Confederacy of Dunces” way.  So yeah, while I’m glad to see that this exists, you’d be better off reading Rucka’s work on “Wolverine” for a better example of his talents at work on a Marvel character.