Marvel Previews Picks: October 2018
Steve Ditko passed away early in July. His legacy in the comics medium would’ve been secure if he had only co-created “Spider-Man,” but he also worked to give us “Doctor Strange,” “Captain Atom,” and “Hawk and Dove” as well. While his modern legacy has seen him characterized as the J.D. Salinger of comics, thanks to his persistent refusal to take part in any interviews or be associated with the characters he created for Marvel and DC as they were made into movies, he was by most accounts a friendly guy to meet and talk to in person. So long as you didn’t bring up his history with Marvel, that is. Ditko had vacated the comics industry long before I got into reading comics on a regular basis, but I was surprised to encounter his work on the final issues of “Rom: Spaceknight” when a friend of mine lent me the run of that series. I doubt that Ditko had any fond memories of working on that title, but it was a pleasant surprise to see the distinctive work of “The Co-Creator of Spider-Man” grace that title towards its end.
In the meantime, if you’re wondering what has become of Ditko’s most famous contribution to comics…
Spider-Geddon #’s 1&2 (of 5): “Spider-Verse” saw every incarnation of Spider-Man across the multiverse team up to take on the deeply uninteresting threat of the Inheritors. The reason the event turned out OK at all was due to how weird Dan Slott and the other creators got when it came to bringing in versions of Spider-Man you wouldn’t think they’d include (I mean, we got “Hostess Fruit Pies Ad Spider-Man,” “Daily Comic-Strip Spider-Man,” and “Marvel Super Heroes (by Capcom) Spider-Man”) and the interesting twists the story took along the way. I wasn’t expecting the Superior Spider-Man to be the one to offer up the motivational speech to an alternate universe version of Uncle Ben, after all. With “Spider-Geddon,” Christos Gage is in the driver’s seat with Slott on board as co-writer (he just can’t seem to quit Spidey…) and the pretty great Jorge Molina on art. For this event, the Inheritors have broken out of the radioactive universe they were trapped in and have made a beeline for the Marvel Universe. Now it’s up to the Spider-Men-and-Women we know and love to entertain us as they try and fight the same group of baddies that dragged down the original event. I’m not expecting much from this, but maybe Gage and Slott have found a way to make the Inheritors interesting for this go-round. Expect a metric ton of spin-offs and tie-ins to this event, including…
Superior Octopus #1: Gage writes with Mike Hawthorne on art. It’s just a one-shot, but if it sells well enough then you can bet we’ll be seeing more of Otto Octavius’ latest incarnation sooner rather than later. The morally relative Doctor has set up shop in San Francisco as its self-appointed guardian and he’s up to his old ends/means tricks to show that he’s the Superior Octopus. It sounds like a good setup for a one-shot, and the pun about “Doctor Ock-tober Starts Here” in the solicitation text is the right kind of painful in my opinion.
X-Men: Black — Magneto #1: One of the announcements coming out of Comic-Con was “X-Men: Black” another color-coded entry in the franchise’s current lineup and a villain-centric one at that. Other one-shots solicited this month include ones about Mojo, Mystique, Emma Frost, and Juggernaut. I’m singling out the one on Magneto because it’s written by legendary X-scribe Chris Claremont, who has currently been under an exclusive Marvel contract for years even though he hasn’t written a whole lot for them recently. It’s been suggested that this is the case because Marvel doesn’t want him writing for anyone else, and some people have been getting a little upset about that. Specifically, they’ve been saying that this legendary X-scribe should be writing “X-Men” comics. While you can’t argue with Claremont’s track record on “Uncanny” from the late 70’s through the early 90’s, everything relating to the “X-Men” he’s done since then has ranged in quality from “Kind of Good” to “OH DEAR GOD WHY!” Maybe this one-shot will show us that he’s still got it, or maybe convince the complainers to just let Claremont enjoy his quasi-retirement in peace.
Marvel Zombie #1: You can’t keep a good zombie franchise down, it seems. The original “Marvel Zombies” miniseries was spun off from an arc of Mark Millar’s “Ultimate Fantastic Four” and turned into a massive surprise hit for the company thanks to writer Robert Kirkman, artist Sean Phillips, and cover artist Arthur Suydam. It spawned a sequel from the same creative team, and a few more miniseries and crossovers before the concept ran its course. Now the concept has been rebooted into a new (ongoing?) series from writer W. Maxwell Prince and artist Stefano Raffaele as the last few Marvel heroes guard a small colony of survivors in a world that has been ravaged by a zombie virus. The original miniseries succeeded because of how gruesomely inventive it was in showing how far its zombie heroes had fallen, not because it promised a shot at redemption for the world if the heroes would give up their humanity, which is being advertised here. If Prince does have a really good idea about how to reinvent this concept, then he’s going to have to work really hard to overcome the generic setup implied by the solicitation text.
Jessica Jones: Blind Spot: Nope, not an original graphic novel. It’s a collection of the digital first series published by Marvel. Jessica’s life takes (another) turn for the worse when the corpse of a woman whose case she failed to solve years ago turns up in her office. The cops think she did it, and to make matters worse the actual killer might be a serial murderer who is targeting women with superpowers. This is written by Kelly Thompson, who has done some great work for Marvel as of late, and even wrote a good Jessica in the pages of the recent “Hawkeye” series. I’m very much looking forward to seeing what she does with the character here, along with artist Mattia de Iulis.
Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #25: It’s an extra-sized anniversary issue! How are creators Si Spurrier and Kev Walker planning on celebrating it? By having Aphra confront the very last person in the universe she wants to see again. I’m sure the encounter will go better this time. I mean, he can’t just jettison her into space like he did last time. That’d be boring, and he’s never been one for that no matter who’s writing him.
Infinity Gauntlet: Deluxe Edition HC: The classic storyline gets a fancy oversized hardcover edition with a lot of behind-the-scenes extras. What it doesn’t include is the prequel story “Thanos Quest” which shows you how the character acquired all the gems to grant him godlike power in the first place. The inclusion of this story is what would make this edition truly deluxe in my opinion.
Star Wars: Poe Dameron vol. 5 — The Spark and the Flame: In which the series wraps up by telling us what the title character and Black Squadron were up to when they weren’t on screen during “The Force Awakens.” I thought these issues would also cover “The Last Jedi,” but there’s no mention of that in the solicitation. If you’ve picked up the previous four volumes like I have, you’re probably going to want to see how it’s all going to wrap up, along with what kind of latitude writer Charles Soule was given to write around the events of the movie. Though the solicitation text doesn’t mention him, I’m still hoping that we’ll see Agent Terex show up somewhere in this final volume. He was the best part of this series and it’d be shame if he missed out on its finale.
Venom by Donny Cates vol. 1: Rex: I’ve never bought a collection of Venom’s solo adventures before, but that’s about to change. Donny Cates is the new hotness at Marvel thanks to his work on “Thanos Wins” and the word about his work on this title, retconning the origins of Venom and the symbiotes in exciting ways, has been very positive. So yeah, I want to see what all the fuss is about for myself.
Immortal Hulk vol. 1: Or is He Both?: Al Ewing teams up with artist Joe Bennett for this new take on the Hulk that steers the character in a more horror-focused direction. After the events of “Avengers: No Surrender” it’s been established that the Hulk is effectively immortal. It doesn’t matter if Banner dies, the Hulk will just get right back up again. Ewing has delivered some great runs on titles like “Loki: Agent of Asgard” and “New Avengers: A.I.M.” that found new ways of looking at familiar Marvel characters while still being respectful of their past continuity. I’m expecting him to deliver nothing less on this title.
Domino vol. 1: It’s been great fun seeing the character in action in the pages of “Weapon X” and the thought of seeing her written by superhero writer with a funny, anarchic streak Gail Simone sounds like a perfect match. Even if the plot of this volume involves the consequences that emerge when Domino’s trademark luck powers start to fail her. That setup might sound like kind of a downer, but I have a feeling it probably won’t get in the way of the fun.
X-Men: Blue vol. 5: This looks to be the final volume of the series with “Extermination” wrapping up the fate of the time-displaced young X-Men for good. It was a fun run while it lasted, “Poison-X” notwithstanding. In this volume, we can expect to see a knock-down, drag-out fight between Jimmy Hudson and Daken, Magneto traveling to the future to escape his past, and some stuff about whether or not the fate of the young X-Men is set in stone. It sounds like kind of a grab bag, but writer Cullen Bunn has surprised me on this series before and the Magneto stuff should be great even if nothing else is.