NYCC: My highlights from The Amazing X-Men Panel

The main announcements of the Amazing X-Men panel for me was the answer to the teasers Trial and Judgement which contained the creative teams of both All-New X-Men and Guardians of the Galaxy. The great news is Sara Pichelli will be on another arc of the Guardians and also Immonen will continue on the X-Men, so if there is one thing for sure this is going to be one stunning looking comic. The other interesting twist to this is that these two teams will be teaming up to rescue Jean Grey who has been taken prisoner and transported off of Earth for trial. I originally thought that the trial would be made by the Guardians, but true to the rules of the Guardians they do not like it when cosmic forces meddle with Earth and take it upon themselves to team up with the X-Men on this rescue mission. This story begins in January and I for one can not wait to get my hands on it. 

                                          

Other announcements included the return of X-Factor in All-New Marvel NOW! with All-New X-Factor. Having never read X-Factor I'm not to invested in this title but I am aware that Peter David has a huge following, the team list and idea behind the comic sounds interesting, Polaris, Quicksilver and Gambit being the characters confirmed so far. So this announcement will surely keep the X-Factor fans pleased to see the team reforming in some way.

                                            

Amazing X-Men will see the team of Jason Aaron and Ed McGuiness on this for the long run according to editor Nick Lowe which is good to hear, I really regret not reading Wolverine and the X-Men having only collected the first few issues but I look forward to finally reading an Aaron X-Book with the brilliant art from Ed McGuinness who most recently drew the fabulous first arc of Nova with Jeph Loeb.

The other small items of note, X-23 will be joining All-New X-Men. The original X-Men will be staying in the current Marvel U, which leaves me wondering what the fallout of Battle of the Atom will actually end up being I always assumed it would involve the team returning to there time. Big things have been teased for the end of Paul Cornell's current Wolverine Killable arc. Uncanny X-Men's Inhumanity tie-in issue will introduce a new character which will apparently have fans throwing things at Brian Michael Bendis. The X-Force books will finally get there inevitable crossover in the new year, having dropped these two from my list this crossover does leave me interested in seeing what's involved especially as the two titles are written by very promising writers in Dennis Hopeless and Sam Humphries. Finally Charles Soule will be adding a character to the roster of the Thunderbolts in the form of Johnny Blaze Ghost Rider another title I don't currently read but with Soule on huge title and this announcement marking his first big change to the team since taking over it may be worth picking up.

NYCC 2013: Whats next for the Avengers in All-New Marvel NOW!

What's next for the Avengers and the many titles associated with the name? With many of the one word teasers to be announced at the panel only a couple of these announced new Avengers titles. The first is really a way of no longer having the solitary "Avengers" title being released twice a month. Avengers will become a once a month title once again with Jonathan Hickman, Nick Spencer and Stefano Caselli on Avengers World a new on going monthly title this January.

                                            

This pairs together the successful team of Hickman and Caselli again from there brilliant title Secret Warriors, with Nick Spencer co writing with Hickman as he has been doing with the most recent Infinity tie-ins. Being another Avengers title I will probably pick this up, but with there being so many Avengers titles currently on the shelves I hope it manages to stand up with some of he better titles out there.

The next new title to be announced, the unofficial sequel to Avengers Arena, Avengers Undercover to be created by the same team of AA, Dennis Hopeless and Kev Walker. Avengers Arena was one of those books that when announced during the previous slate of Marvel NOW! titles everyone guffawed. Despite those who did it has turned out to be a surprise hit! Avengers Undercover will see the young heroes who survived the Arena trying to gain some retribution by trying to take down the Masters of Evil. But will some of our would be heroes find out they are better suited to the life of a Villain? This will be going on my pick list and if you have not yet read Arena I strongly recommend you do. The first image of the characters involved can be found below.

                                            

The next big announcement was not regarding a new title as such but a new creative team of Ales Kot and Michael Walsh on Secret Avengers, who recently released the great Zero from Image Comics, with it also receiving a new #1 issue to go with a little bit of a team change with Spider-Woman joining the team of Hawkeye, Black Widow, Agent Coulson and Nick Fury Jnr, I can not wait to see what these two creators get up to with the team and also the image released with the announcement was drawn by a favourite artist of mine Declan Shalvey so fingers crossed he may be on covers duty for this after finishing a great run on Winter Soldier and Venom. Considering I have recently had to take Secret Avengers off of my monthly pick list during my most recent "Budget Cull" it looks like I will be having to find a space for it once more.

                                           

My current favourite Avengers title, and as far as I'm concerned the best thing to come out of Age of Ultron, is Avengers A.I. from Sam Humphries and Andre Lima Araujo. Issue #8.NOW will see the team heading to the 130th century where Dimitrios is at his peak. We will see the introduction of another A.I to the team in issue #7 and also come issue #8 a new division of S.H.I.E.L.D. will be involved specifically there Robot Hunter Squad and also to my surprise we will be seeing the Uncanny Avengers, I can't wait to see how Araujo draws these characters and the scenery for the 130th century, this story involves the extinction of the human race,  with the original teaser now making more sense and as Humphries said in his most recent interview with CBR about his All-New Marvel NOW! story "Artificial Intelligence never die -- they just grow smarter." and I am super excited to see how this takes the title further!

                                          

Other highlights from the panel included the apparent return of Original Nick Fury who will be making appearances in the the Avengers books, which is nice to hear seeing as one of my favourite books in recent years heavily involved him so I look forward to seeing why he appears.

Not much was mentioned regarding Uncanny Avengers other than the already known news that Steve McNiven is joining the title for "Ragnarok Now", being one of my favourite artists I can not wait to see how he brings Remender's story to life, we were also teased that some time soon there will be more on the future of the title and it's third arc beginning with Uncanny Avengers #18 that will be called "Avenge Earth" so it may not have had a major presence at the con but sounds like there are big things coming from Marvel's Avengers Unity Team.

Finally New Avengers will be the Avengers title heavily involved in Inhumanity and will involve the Avengers and Black Bolt side of the storyline. New Avengers is easily one of the best Avengers titles currently out and you can see that Hickman is enjoying writing about the Illuminati and the secrets that they deal with behind the scenes of the everyday Marvel Universe.

So there is a lot to look forward to from the Avengers titles going forward into 2014.

       

NYCC 2013: Scott Snyder announces the return of Stephanie Brown and her first appearance since the New 52!

You may have noticed that this blog is predominantly filled with posts about Marvel Comics, there's no hiding that I am a Marvel Fanboy, from the television programmes of the 90's where it all began, to the comics, the movies and the games.

But when the New 52 came about in September 2011 I took this opportunity to begin reading many of the DC titles friends of mine had always recommended, but seeing as I didn't start collecting comics till I was 16 I had missed a decade of story plots and found the universe well basically to confusing.

However obviously I knew of Batman and of Superman and the rest of the Justice League and of these characters the only two I am currently still picking up monthly since 2011 are Batman from Snyder and Capullo and also Wonder Woman from Azarello and Chiang. 

Despite all this by following comics news it was easy to become aware of who Stephanie Brown was and how important a character she was to many a DC fan. Every Convention since at every DC live event the question was always asked of Dan DiDio "When will we see Stephanie Brown be turning up in the New 52?" Well these fans finally have there answer during the Batman panel Scott Snyder along with James Tynion IV made the announcement that they will not have to wait much longer come Spring 2014 and with the release of the new Batman weekly series Stephanie Brown will return to our pages in Batman Eternal as her original character Spoiler.

So for those Batgirl and Stephanie Brown fans out there keep your eyes peeled to the early year solicitations each month to work out when you will finally see this character return to your pages.

                                       

NYCC 2013: Silver Surfer

Well one of the big announcements, and one that has been rumoured for quite some time, is that Silver Surfer will be getting a monthly series again from the creative team of Dan Slott and Mike Allred. The Marvel Cosmic Universe has received an impressive rejuvenation within the Marvel NOW! initiative with the likes of Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova becoming surprise hits since there release, and all these titles have some of the best talent in the industry attached to them, Brian Michael Bendis, Steve McNiven, Sarah Pichelli, Jeph Loeb, Ed McGuinness, Zeb Wells and Paco Medina and now joining this list are the brilliant Dan Slott and Mike Allred. 

I'm fairly certain everybody should know these two creators but just in case Dan Slott is the writer who caused absolute uproar when killing off Peter Parker, which if you haven't read Superior Spider-Man you won't know was a brilliant move with Superior Spider-Man proving you can have a brilliant Spider story without Peter Parker in the suit, although enough about Superior this isn't the right post to rave about it. But it's safe to say that Slott is currently writing one of the best comics on the shelves. 

Mike Allred is best known to me from his work on FF with Matt Fraction which sadly has been announced to be coming to an end come January 2014 this was a surprise favourite for me and I can not wait to see his Silver Surfer, which if the image released with the announcement is anything to go by looks as if he was born to draw the character.

This is slated for a March 2014 release and this will certainly be being added to my pick list!

                                        

NYCC 2013: All-New Ghost Rider & All-New Punisher

Well I spent ages typing this up yesterday to then go off and do something else and came back to find out the app had decided to delete my post. So here I go again...

Ghost Rider and Punisher are announcements I expected, having recently travelled to the the brilliant D.I.C.E. in Dublin, Dundrum, Ireland all put together by the friendly crew at Big Bang Comics, this reminds me I still need to write about my experience there, anyway back to the point at hand while at the con there was a Marvel Panel which I attended with my dad and at this once the floor opened to fan questions one of the first to come up was about Punisher and Ghost Rider and whether they will be returning to there own monthly series'. The moderator of the panel, Marvel talent scout C.B.Cebulski told the crowd to expect new titles from these characters in early 2014 hence why I expected an announcement. But what excites me most is the talent and creators on these titles.

First off, but in no particular order, Marvel announced a new Ghost Rider Series from Felipe Smith, who is a new creator to my ears, and Tradd Moore, who illustrated the popular Legend of Luthor Strode with Justin Jordan at Image and whose work I am familiar with from a select few Deadpool covers;

                                       

Above is an image, most probably a cover, by Tradd Moore for this new series, this image was released by Marvel with an interview with Paul Montgomery, which I strongly recommend giving a read. Ghost Rider is another character who I never have managed to jump into since I started collecting comics, I use to stick solely to my Avengers books. It has been made clear this wouldn't be Johnny Blaze Ghost Rider but a new host for a Spirit of Bengeance, his vehicle of choice being a car will make him easy to pick from the crowd of past Ghost Riders and also with the character being an 18 year old called Robbie Reyes it seems he may be more relatable than others. I can see this comic being one to watch but we'll know more come the March solicits and obviously when it's released in March itself.

Right, next we have the new Punisher series to come from All-New Marvel NOW! This will be released in February coming from the creative team of Nathan Edmondson and Mitch Gerads. These two are relatively unknown to me, from the little I have seen of Gerad's work I really like his style and the art work released alongside the announcement doesn't disappoint.

                                            

The little I know about Nathan Edmondson is that he has several successful books at Image Comics and I look forward to having the chance to finally pick up some of his work and may even go grab a trade of Who is Jake Ellis? It's the same with Mitch Gerad I'm not particularly familiar with his work but an unknown creative team is sometimes exciting when picking up a new book especially as you don't know what to expect until you upon up the first issue.

These two creative teams contain relatively unknown talent for me and I can not wait to see what they produce with two characters I am looking forward to finally have the chance to read. Punisher has long been on my to read list and I certainly need to pick up the Greg Rucka run, and with Ghost Rider this is finally my chance to see what a Spirit of Vengenance is made of. Punisher out Feb 2014 and All-New Ghost Rider out March 2014.

New York Comic Con 2013 The Announcements that grabbed my attention...

Something important took place over this weekend, New York Comic Con 2013. I hoped to post about this regularly over the course of the weekend but have been to busy to get on my laptop. So I've found as bit if time time to write about my favourite announcements, although this is all being done on my iPad so may not post as well as others do. I will attach links to this post as I write up about my highlights.

        

Fantastic Fan Made Trailer for Jock's Savage Wolverine run by none other than his son!

I'm a little late on getting this up on the site, I'm fairly certain if you wanted to see it you would have by now, but Jock announced on Twitter that his son had created a trailer for his current 3 issue run on Savage Wolverine and well if you weren't thinking of getting this already, which I strongly recommend you should, I will let this trailer make the argument for why you should definitely be picking up this title, for me!

All-New Marvel NOW! The teasers continued

This week saw the teasers continued for Marvel NOW! With more teasers comes more thoughts as to what they are for... so here are my thoughts on the few that caught my eye and find the teasers for the others at the bottom;

Overdrive, I have a strong feeling this is going to be one of the All-New Marvel NOW! issue ones rather than a point NOW! issue. I do not know much of Felipe Smith but have enjoyed the artwork of Tradd Moore with the few items drawn by him that I've picked up. Many of the comic sites are guessing this may be a Ghost Rider comic or this could be to do with a new character to come out of Inhumanity. I would have thought a new Ghost Rider comic would be announced at the Superior Spider-Man panel along with the other street level heroes but it won't be long now till we finally find out what this is teasing along with the rest and also while at the Marvel Panel at DICE 2013 recently C B Cebulski did mention that there will be news on Ghost Rider along with The Punisher.

Ales Kot has recently jumped on Secret Avengers with Nick Spencer and this could be what this is to do with, or this could also be teasing the Black Widow comic everyone seems to believe will be coming. Another hope of mine is that this may be a new Secret Warriors themed team although Jonathan Hickman did such a great job on that title that I'm not sure whether I would want to see a new or re-incarnation of the book I just miss it. But on that note the word 'Frenemies' certainly sets the tone for a Spy/ Assassin thriller and with Kot and Walsh's recent successful launch of their creator owned Zero with Image we already know that this team can create a great spy thriller! This will be one of my highlights of the show to find out what they will be on and there is a space on my Monthly pull list ready for this title!

Have you been enjoying Avengers Arena? Well I most certainly have, and along with many others. Avengers Arena from Hopeless and Walker turned out to be one of the most interesting Avengers titles out there and also a surprise favourite among fans. Originally when teased to have a Hunger Games-esque, Battle Royal type theme to it everyone baulked at the idea. Now after an incredibly successful run and its current form coming to its natural end I am happy to see that this creative team has something to announce at the Avengers panel at New York Comic Con. Clearly the next "season", as the word keeps being used, for the teenagers of the Marvel Universe I can not wait to see what is to come next from some of Marvel's great teen heroes with one of their breakout creative teams of the year!

Along with Avengers Arena, Avengers A.I by Humphries and Araujo, spiralling out from Age of Ultron, is currently one of my standout favourites and possibly the Avengers title I most look forward to each month. Yes, yes, Hickman is doing a great job on Avengers but as the Flagship title this requires accessibility and does not get much chance to experiment. With Avengers A.I. Marvel have one of there up and coming writing talents working on a great concept with another promising talent in Araujo. With issue 4 out tomorrow, I very much look forward to hearing what it is to come next from this title, and hoping the word "Extinction" has nothing to do with the length of its shelf life shall we say?

Star Wars Rebels: Teaser Trailer

Check out the Star Wars Rebels Teaser Trailer below, doesn't give much away, a brief glimpse at the art style but it is just a planet and a ship and we also now know that there will be Jedi involved along with the Empire and the beginning of the Rebel Alliance, well its a Star Wars programme so that was inevitable right? It is yet to be seen whether anything pre Disney, Force Unleashed, will be taken into account. I do hope so as the first Force Unleashed game was one of the best Star Wars games in recent times and created a great origin for the Rebel Alliance, and lets just forget the sequel ever happened... please.

I'm certain there will be more news for this by the end of this weekend with the Star Wars Rebels panel at New York Comic Con on Saturday. But for now check out the teaser trailer below.