Marvel Penguin Picks: October 2025
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell HC
New York in the future isn’t a very happy place, but Matt Murdock is still doing the best he can to make it livable for its many citizens. Even without his powers. However, when catastrophe strikes the city, leaving many dead or injured, and Murdock with his powers restored, he’s ready to rejoin the fight. It’s a riff on the old Hero Comes Back for One Last Adventure story courtesy of former “Daredevil” writer (and lawyer) Charles Soule and artist Steve McNiven, the team who brought you “The Death of Wolverine” and 2/5ths of “The Return of Wolverine.” I’ve said before that Soule is a solid writer who can usually be counted on to deliver something competent if not genuinely good most of the time. McNiven has always been great and he’s likely to deliver that kind of work again on this story. Still, the real appeal here is seeing a proper “The Last Daredevil Story” after Bendis and Mack biffed it with “Daredevil: End of Days.”
X-Men: Age of Revelation – Overture #1: It’s time once again to revisit that seminal 90’s event known as the “Age of Apocalypse” where all of the monthly “X-Men” titles are put on hiatus to explore a future dystopia for four(?) months. The connections here are more pronounced than the last time Marvel did this with “Age of X-Man” as this involves Apocalypse’s heir, Revelation, and the mutant utopia he’s created along with the rebellion brewing against it. So prepare yourself for… SIXTEEN MINISERIES CHRONICLING THIS EVENT?!?!?! What the hell, Marvel? Do you really think there’s a market for an event story made up of THAT many alternate-universe miniseries? The answer is “No” and I pity Paul O’Brien as he reads through all of this (even if I am looking forward to his thoughts on all of them).
Obviously I’m not going to read though all of these. Some of these will likely be more important than others given which of the regular writers for current X-titles are chronicling them. On that note, I’ll likely be checking out:
Amazing X-Men #1 & Book of Revelation #1: Both written by series architect and “X-Men” writer Jed MacKay.
Unbreakable X-Men #1: Written by current “Uncanny” writer Gail Simone.
Expatriate X-Men #1: Written by “Exceptional” writer Eve Ewing.
Sinister’s Six #1: Written by semi-regular “Uncanny” artist David Marquez. While I’m not sure of his writing skills, I’ll admit to being a sucker for the idea of the gleefully amoral mutant scientist running a team dedicated to toppling Revelation and getting him on the throne and the crew dumb enough to be working for him. You’d think Havok would’ve known better after his time with the “Hellions” and best of luck to this series as it tries to capture the entertainingly nihilistic vibes of that one.
Longshots #1: Co-written by former “X-Men” writer Gerry Duggan and… Jonathan Hickman? I’m not sure why the writer of “House of X/Powers of X” is now co-writing a miniseries here, unless he’s burning off some of his ideas from that setup that he never got a chance to play with then. This is a Mojo story where he’s running a televised death game where the likes of Wonder Man, Hellcat, Bishop, Rhino, and Kraven fight to the death with only the winner surviving. What I’d really like to know is if Hickman is actually co-writing this or if he just gave Duggan enough notes to earn a co-writer credit here.
Fantastic Four/Gargoyles #1: How did this happen? Probably because “Gargoyles” creator Greg Weisman wanted to do it and Marvel wasn’t going to say “No” to any “Fantastic Four” project with the movie due out this year. Anyhow, longtime FF villain Diablo finds out that the Gargoyles may have the secret to eternal life and shenanigans ensue. Backup stories included here involve a meeting between Marvel’s own Gargoyle, Isaac Christians, and an encounter involving Tony Stark and David Xanatos where I hope they do more than just compare facial hair as the solicitation text describes.
Return to Planet Hulk #1: Most of these projects involving legacy creators have the writer of the storyline referenced in the title teaming up with a current artist to tell a story within its pages. Not so with this one-shot as “Planet Hulk” writer Greg Pak teams up with one of the storyline’s artists, Carlo Pagulayan, for a story set after Hulk escaped from the Red King’s arena. One has to wonder if this is going to be inserted into future “Planet Hulk” collections, as it’ll be difficult to collect this on its own. While we’re on the subject of legacy projects…
Spider-Man: Torn #1 (of 5): “Amazing Spider-Man” writer J. Michael Straczynski tackles the Ol’ Wall-Crawler again, and he’s taking him back. Waaaaaaay back to his college days at NYU with Harry, MJ, Flash, and Gwen. Happier, less complicated days from the sound of it, until we get a new villain menacing Spidey here that’s promised to have an impact on his current status. Because of course it will. I mean, why bother otherwise?
Venom #250: Venom and Mary Jane may be stuck with each other, but they appear to be working well together, at least. Which is good because word is coming from the depths of space that the Cult of the Void is growing in power and is ready to make its move. How did this happen? Well, it turns out that a certain King in Black wasn’t as dead as it was initially thought and is ready to extract some payback on the symbiote, and world that defeated him the first time. Regular writer Al Ewing is joined by “Eddie Brock: Carnage” writer Charles Soule, and regular artist Carlos Gomez has Terry Dodson, Todd Nauck, and more join him for this lead-up to the next big “Venom” event.
Marvel Knights: Punisher #1 (of 4): Spinning out of the events of “The World to Come” is this miniseries that shows how the indomitable vigilante became the character he is in that series. While Garth Ennis is the writer most associated with “The Punisher” from his Marvel Knights run, you know that there was no way he’d write a version of the character that was wholly beholden to someone else’s take on him. Which is why this miniseries is written by Jimmy Palmiotti, a capable writer in his own right, but also the best bud of “World to Come” artist Joe Quesada, with art from the talented Dan Panosian. I’ll see if this is worth checking out after I read the miniseries it’s being spun off from.
X-Manhunt: Collecting the sprawling crossover that ran through seven monthly titles and a concluding one-shot. Three of the titles wound up having this tie-in either be their penultimate or antepenultimate issue before they were canceled! If that sounds like poor planning, that’s something which is also reflected in the crossover itself. Additionally, only “Exceptional X-Men” is collecting its crossover issue in its next volume, with the other series omitting their “X-Manhunt” issues in their volumes. Which likely speaks to how inessential “Exceptional’s” issue was to crossover itself.
In case I haven’t already made this sound like a mess, that’s what the reviews I’ve read of it implied and I’ll be skipping it as a result. For anyone looking to do the same, all you need to know is this: Professor X finds out that his genetic daughter Xandra is in trouble, breaks out of Graymalkin, resurrects Lilandra and the two fly off to Shi’ar space where their story is picked up in the “Imperial: Exiles” one-shot. You’re welcome.
Ultimate X-Men by Peach Momoko vol. 3: It sounds like a lot happens in this volume: The Children of the Atom rise up, the Shadow King makes his move, Hisako journeys through her inner darkness, and throws down with Maystorm in the process. Too bad the storytelling in this series has been alternately choppy and perfunctory to the point where I can’t actually care about the characters involved in it. If there was a reason to be glad this iteration of the Ultimate Universe is set to wrap up after its second year and “Ultimate Endgame,” this would be it.