First up, we have Miles Morales: Spider-Man #1. Miles is back in his own series this week, which is great timing with the recent success of Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Initial reviews look good for this series, so I’m excited to check it out.
Cover for Miles Morales: Spider-Man #1
Also new this week is X-Men #35. I really enjoyed the recent “Age of Revelation” storyline and event, so I’m excited for the next steps here. This is a prologue issue for the upcoming DNX mini event.
Love the duality of the two Beasts and their teams in this cover!
Marvel corporate crossover events are a well-worn space. There’s this one. This one. And then, this one. Those are just the few that popped to mind immediately. I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to click the links and enjoy.
With yesterday’s announcement about the Star Wars/Marvel Universe crossover, it’s too easy to read it as cynical corporate cross promotion. I mean, sure, Disney owns both Marvel and Star Wars, but there’s a non-zero overlap of Marvel and Star Wars fans. I’m sure there are many fans excited about this. Don’t harsh someone else’s buzz, man.
I might not personally be that excited for the characters to crossover, but I am excited for the creative team working on this.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Star Wars, Marvel Comics and Lucasfilm Publishing unveiled Star Wars/Marvel: Hope Assembles, the first-ever crossover between the two beloved franchises launching in January 2027. Penned by pop culture icon Kevin Smith and drawn by Uncanny X-Men (2024) superstar David Marquez, the historic five-issue limited series assembles heroes and villains from both universes in a single story for the first time. As the Avengers, Spider-Man, and more team up with the iconic Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, and Chewbacca, Doctor Doom will ally himself with the likes of Darth Vader and the Galactic Empire.
Kevin Smith and David Marquez. That’s a creator crossover to get excited about.
I am trying again with the socials, particularly with Threads and Bluesky, as I try to connect this site with other fans who might appreciate what I’m writing and building here. I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I imagine we all do if we’re being honest.
The love comes from the promise. Social media really does help connect people to others with similar interests. That’s a great thing for geeks and fans! But then there’s the downside—the increased anxiety and depression, the promotion of terrible ideas, the development of a terminally-online perspective. Don’t get me started on the way it reinforces short attention spans!
Do I think this really matters? Nope, not a bit. It’s the kind of thing the terminally-online obsess over. If you ignore it, those short attention spans will shift and there will be something else to debate. I generally just don’t engage. Most of these debates are about gate keeping for a community. I’m definitely an all-are-welcome-here person.
But did it get me thinking about myself and how I see myself? Definitely! Am I a comics fan or an MCU fan?
Clearly, I love both. I hope this site is a testament to that. I did realize, though, that if you ask me—what kind of Marvel fan are you, Deryck?—I would likely answer that I’m a comics fan. Not because I think comics are better than film. Comics were my entry into the fandom. I mentioned how I found X-Men at a young age in my intro post for this site. But that’s the thing, it was just my starting point. It’s how I found my way in, but I love most anything with Marvel now. Movies. TV. Games. You name it.
I hope this site can be a little corner of the Internet where that ethos abides. All are welcome! But then, it’s also fun to know what someone’s starting point with Marvel was. How did you make your way into this fandom?
Jonathan Hickman is stepping back into the mutant sandbox, and he’s bringing pure gothic terror with him. Marvel Comics’ latest solicitations have formally unveiled Midnight X-Men #1, launching a dark, creator-driven Midnight imprint alongside artist Matteo Della Fonte.
Sign me up! I loved the world building that Hickman did with House of X, so I'm excited to see what he does here.
There are a lot of books referenced throughout Tom Holland and Destin Daniel Cretton’s “Brand New Day,” including classic Spidey tales, newer stories from the web-slinger and comics from the wider Marvel universe.
When they write “wider Marvel universe” here, they aren’t kidding. Some great comics are represented here, across a wide range of characters and titles.
Earlier today, I linked to a Polygon story comparing Emma Frost across comics and film. I realized the story only highlighted the version of Emma from the First Class series of X-Men films. A younger version of her, played by Tahyna Tozzi, also appears in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
That leads naturally to the question of whether Weaving's Frost is planned as an antagonist, an ally, or somewhere in between. Since she's apparently playing a significant role in the next era of the MCU, now's as good a time as any to take a look back at Emma's history in the comics, how she evolved from a villain of the week to a front-line member of the X-Men, and how that differs from her history in Fox's X-Men films.
I never considered myself an Emma Frost fan, but as I was reading the list of comics here, I found myself nodding along. There are several stories I really loved when I read them. There are some significant stories in my relationship with the X-Men here. Guess I’m more of an Emma Frost fan that I realized.
That spectacular subhead on this piece, too: “Breeding, darling; top-class breeding.”
I mentioned earlier this week how excited I was for Fantastic Four #15. The issue celebrates the 65th anniversary of The Fantastic Four. As the solicits for the issue describe it, the comic features:
an extra-large, extra-fantastic adventure […] starring everyone's favorite adventurers, spanning centuries of history and a universe of scientific progress! The Fantastic Four have been defeated: with their personal arrows of time reversed, they're careening into the past with no hope of salvation - unless a complete stranger can find out what they need.
It’s a tricky thing to setup—a story that is original and also reflecting on the past. Many retrospective tales like this fail. This comic manages to pull it off, using time travel as a clever hook for the Fantastic Four to bear witness to their own adventures.
The Fantastic Four watch their past selves
The opening chapter sets it all up, as the team jumps through time continuing to bump into the same stranger. That stranger becomes a stand in for us, the readers who have met the Fantastic Four ourselves, at all the different points in our lives, often when we need them the most. It’s a beautiful opening and reminds us all of the power of these stories.
I am grateful to have met the Fantastic Four, too, and I agree: what a fantastic life, indeed.
