Marvel Previews Picks: March 2025
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Earth X
This is a reprint of the series that sprung from the idea of, “What would ‘Kingdom Come’ look like in the Marvel Universe?” Originating in the pages of Wizard Magazine with sketches and concepts from the artist of that series, Alex Ross, it eventually morphed into a proper maxi-series co-written by Jim Krueger with art from the late, great John Paul Leon. The story wound up involving a plague spreading across the Earth that wound up giving everyone superpowers in the future of the Marvel Universe. Naturally, this leads to chaos and not a small amount of fascism springing up over what’s left of the world while Captain America struggles to rally the few remaining heroes against an incoming crisis.
While it’s similar to “Kingdom Come” in that it depicts a grim future for a superhero universe, “Earth X” wound up having the space to go much bigger and weirder than that title. Nearly every major Marvel character gets their moment in the sun here as part of a story that feels genuinely epic, but not bereft of the human emotions and concerns felt by its cast. This was also popular enough to spawn two (even longer) sequels that kind of felt like they got lost in the woods as they dove deeper into Marvel history and continuity. You don’t need to read them, though, as “Earth X” remains properly self-contained and can be enjoyed simply on its own merits.
Godzilla vs. Fantastic Four #1: This is the first in a series of six one-shots that sees the King of Kaijus throwing down with the biggest names in the Marvel Universe. Better still is that this is coming from the current writer of “Fantastic Four,” Ryan North, which means that it’s likely to dig into the kind of weird science that is going to pop up whenever the Big G shows up. John Romita Jr. provides the art for this issue, which guarantees it’s going to be some expressive, high-energy stuff. I know that “Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong” was duller than it had any right to be, but the fact that Marvel is throwing two of its biggest names at the start of this event gives me hope that it’ll be one that’s worthy of Godzilla himself.
Uncanny X-Men #11: Kicking off Part One of “X-Manhunt” which runs through all of this month’s X-titles along with its own “Omega” finale. Professor X was last seen inside Graymalkin Prison at the end of the Krakoan Era and it was heavily implied that while it was his choice to be there, he could break out at any time. That time is now and now his former pupils are split between protecting him, recapturing him, or just killing him. I despair at the thought of Wolverine being in that last group, but that seemed to be how the editors wanted him positioned at the end of the previous era. With the previous “Uncanny” and “X-Men” crossover “Raid on Graymalkin” and now this, it looks like the X-titles are inclined to doing more inter-title crossovers than we’ve seen in previous years. There’s a nostalgic appeal to that for me, but with this one it also has a setup that lets us know it’s going to be important to the overall direction of these titles going forward, which is the important thing.
Nick Fury vs. Fing Fang Foom #1: I’m sure writer J. Michael Straczynski didn’t anticipate this being released the same month as the first “vs. Godzilla” one-shot, so that’s just some bad luck. Still, this implies we’re seeing one of the most human Marvel Heroes take on something waaaaay out of his weight class in an era far removed from the current one. That last bit is speculation on my part as the solicitation text doesn’t give us any information on the actual plot, but both covers presented show Fury in military fatigues, implying that this may be taking place during WWII. Whatever the case is, it’s a good setup and certain to feature some great art from Elena Casagrande.
Star Wars: Jedi Knights #1: This is being promoted as Marvel’s first series focusing exclusively on the Knights themselves as they struggle to uphold peace and justice in the galaxy. On one hand it’s going to feature art from Madibek Musabekov, whose work on “Star Wars” has been a real artistic highlight for that title. On the other, it’s being written by Marc Guggenheim and it’s been a long, long time since he’s written something I’ve genuinely enjoyed. So my secret hope here is that this is actually a “Legends of the Dark Knight” style anthology series that will be featuring different creative teams with each storyline. Yeah, that’ll mean Musabekov won’t be drawing everything here, but I’ll take that chance in the hopes we’ll get a better writer on subsequent arcs.
Fall of the House of X/Rise of the Powers of X Omnibus: Collecting the title miniseries as well as all of the issues of other series that tied into it. Some of which are critical to the storyline (“X-Men: Forever”) while others are decidedly less so (“Ms. Marvel: Mutant Menace”). Regardless of the importance of each tie-in, the only thing that kept me from giving this the top spot in this month’s solicitations is that there’s no indication that the issues collected here are being put in recommended reading or even publication order. Which would make all the difference to me in terms of keeping the momentum of this sprawlingly epic storyline going as I read it in this form.
Fantastic Four by Ryan North vol. 5: Aliens, Ghosts, and Alternate Earths: Or just a regular Tuesday for Marvel’s First Family.
Ultimate Black Panther vol. 2: Gods & Kings: The first volume of this series (review forthcoming) landed squarely between “Ultimate Spider-Man” and “Ultimate X-Men” in terms of quality. It had some great art, but the writing was just decent and didn’t have me feeling like I was reading a radically new take on the “Black Panther” concept. In fact, it felt like I was reading something that hewed much closer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe take on the character than anything else. Not that that’s an inherently bad thing, it just didn’t deliver the shock of the new that I was hoping for. That said, I was left with the feeling that it could get better and a full-on conflict with Ultimate Moon Knight was teased at the end. So we’ll see how it goes in this next volume.
Predator vs. Black Panther: In case you’re wondering, yes, all of Marvel’s greatest heroes will be facing off with members of the galaxy’s premiere hunters, the Yautja, now that the company has the license to them. Next up is Spider-Man later this year. In the meantime, the collected edition of this miniseries from “Predator vs. Wolverine” writer Benjamin Percy, with art from Chris Allen and Sean Hill will be arriving soon. While I think I have a good idea about how this miniseries is going to end, I imagine the real conflict here is going to come from the conflict between T’Challa’s desire to take on this hunter himself and his responsibilities to his kingdom. Which… also sounds pretty predictable. Maybe Percy will be able to surprise me when I read through these issues on Marvel Unlimited.