The watchful, completely objective and correct gaze of Soliciting Multiversity now falls upon Marvel’s crop of titles for April! Check out our picks below and let us know what stuck out to you in the comics.
10. AMERICAN KAIJU! AMERICAN KAIJU! AMERICAN KAIJU!
NEW AVENGERS #9
AL EWING (W) • Marcus To (A)
Cover By Leinil Yu
A STANDOFF tie-in!
• Up from the depths! Thirty stories high! He salutes the flag and eats apple pie!
• Corporal Todd Ziller is the AMERICAN KAIJU – America’s ultimate weapon against renegade super-science!
• And he’s going to get the Whisperer back in custody – if he has to break Avengers Island in two!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99
9. Date Night
I dare you to tell me this issue isn’t going to turn out to be Deadpool’s way of tricking Spider-Man onto a date. There is no other reason for this book to exist, save for the general platonic Spidey/Deadpool antics.
SPIDER-MAN/DEADPOOL #4
JOE KELLY (W) ED MCGUINNESS (A/C)
• Double date, Deadpool style!
• Spider-Man finally agrees to hang out with Deadpool outside of adventures, but he might regret it when he discovers that his date is a friend of Deadpool’s wife, Shiklah, demon queen of Monster Metropolis.
• Who’s Deadpool’s date? Guest-star THOR!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99
8. Devourer
I missed out on the hype train when this book was first getting released and I am all the worse for it. “The Ultimates” has been a really cool book that took the Future Foundation’s promise of building a better world for the Marvel Universe by actually running with it in a huge way. Like, in a “Get Galactus To Stop Eating Planets” way. Now the cosmic implications of that are going to come into focus with an issue illustrated by Christian Ward. Anyone who’s read “ODY-C” knows that Ward is going to crush what looks to be Galactus’s origin issue. Considering Galactus’s trippy backgrounds, this is an issue to keep an eye on, especially if you haven’t been privy to reading “The Ultimates” yet.
THE ULTIMATES #6
AL EWING (W) • CHRISTIAN WARD (A)
COVER BY KENNETH ROCAFORT
VARIANT COVER BY CHRISTIAN WARD
• Once he was the Devourer of Worlds — but now, at long last, his endless hunger has been cured.
• But is there a hidden price? What does it mean to wring new life from death? What does it mean to be…Galactus?
• Special guest artist Christian Ward (ODY-C) takes us into the life of the Lifebringer — for the most cosmic issue yet!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99
7. Marvel Takes A Holiday
Here’s a strong idea from Marvel. Have a bunch of creators do one or two stories a month that relate to holidays or whatever else is going on to put out goofy Valentine’s Day, Independence Day, and other holiday stories they don’t have to dedicate an entire issue towards. I’m calling it: April is going to have an Arbor Day story with Squirrel Girl and March will have a Banshee one where her family sits around, drinking and refusing to speak to one another.
Continued belowA YEAR OF MARVELS: THE AMAZING #1
RYAN NORTH, AMY CHU (W) • DANILO BEYRUTH, RYAN BROWNE (A)
COVER BY JAMAL CAMPBELL
• Join us in a brand new Marvel comics adventure as your favorite heroes journey through the calendar year one month at a time!
• It’s February and Peter Parker’s got a hot date, but the old Parker luck hits hard…and so does the bank-robbing villain The Vulture! It’s a tale of romance, adventure, and punching! From Ryan North (SQUIRREL GIRL) and Danilo Beyruth!
• When business is down in March, Scott Lang’s Ant-Man Security Solutions will take just about any job offered to them – including stealing back stolen goods! But all is not as it seems! Join writer Amy Chu (Poison Ivy) and artist Ryan Browne (SECRET WARS TOO) as they team together for this Spring Break themed heist!
40 PGS./One-Shot/Rated T+ …$4.99
6. Doing Whatever A Gwenpool Does
We have to address the concept of meme comics. With all due respect to Christopher Hastings and Gurihiru, I’ve got no idea why this book is being made that isn’t really cynical. The solicitation talks about Gwenpool being an overnight sensation in 2015 but I haven’t heard anyone taking about her back-up stories in “Howard the Duck.” And this isn’t a case like “Batgirl” where the book’s redesigns attracted hella new readers or “Spider-Gwen” where a one-off story led to people clamoring for an ongoing story. Thus, meme comics or comics that get published due to an established fan interest through cosplay, fan art, or general word of mouth. Gwenpool has positioned itself as a meme comic, but just hasn’t reached the appropriate hype. It kind of just feels like Marvel really thought this would caught on but it hasn’t, at least not in the way they were expecting. Since Gwenpool is more or less Harley Quinn (whose current iteration is more or less Deadpool, in a weird incestous way), I think Marvel should just go ahead and release their own Harley Quinn book.
GWENPOOL #1
CHRISTOPHER HASTINGS (W) • GURIHIRU (A/C)
VARIANT COVER BY FRANCISCO HERRERA
VARIANT COVER BY STACEY LEE
hip-hop variant COVER by WOO DAE SHIM
YOUNG VARIANT COVER BY SKOTTIE YOUNG
ACTION FIGURE VARIANT COVER BY JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER
VARIANT COVER BY TBA
BLANK COVER ALSO AVAILABLE
2015’s overnight internet sensation takes center stage in her own ongoing series! Gwen Poole used to be a comic book reader just like you…until she woke up in a world where the characters she read about seemed to be real! But they can’t be, right? This must all be fake, or a dream or something, right? And you know what that means…NO CONSEQUENCES! Could Gwenpool truly be Marvel’s least responsible and least role-modely character to date? She can if she tries!
40 PGS./Rated T …$4.99
5. #PAE
Poe Dameron is the perfect candidate for a comic spin-off because he did next to no screen time in The Force Awakens. Plus, he’s just great all around, like Finn or Rey, except you don’t lose any of his mystique by going into his backstory like you might for those two. Combine all that with Phil Noto drawing a Star Wars comic and we have the tie-in I kind of knew I wanted.
STAR WARS: POE DAMERON #1
CHARLES SOULE (W) • PHIL NOTO (A/C)
VARIANT SKETCH COVER BY PHIL NOTO
DESIGN VARIANT COVER BY PHIL NOTO
VARIANT COVER BY JOHN CASSADAY
VARIANT SKETCH COVER BY JOHN CASSADAY
ACTION FIGURE VARIANT COVER BY JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER
BB-8 VARIANT COVER BY Joe Quinones
PARTY VARIANT COVER BY TBA
PARTY SKETCH VARIANT COVER BY TBA
BLANK COVER ALSO AVAILABLE
MOVIE PHOTO VARIANT COVER ALSO AVAILABLE
AN ALL-NEW ONGOING SERIES SPINNING OUT OFSTAR WARS : THE FORCE AWAKENS!
Poe Dameron, former Republic flyer turned Resistance fighter, is the best pilot in the galaxy. Hand-picked for the resistance by General Leia Organa to lead a squadron on a top secret and vital mission…Poe sets off investigating sites of historical importance to the Force. Revealing backstory leading directly into the holidays’ greatest adventure, follow Poe and his X-Wing squadron on covert missions against the First Order brought to you by writer Charles Soule (Star Wars: Lando, Daredevil) and artist Phil Noto (Star Wars: Chewbacca, Black Widow)!
40 PGS./Rated T …$4.99
4. An Actual Miracle
So, this is history right? Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham actually wrapping up their Miracleman story from the early 90’s? Maybe Marvel buried the lede a bit by preceding this new story with two years of Moore’s run getting drawn out with “vintage Miracleman” back-up stories but this should be huge, right? As someone who’s only read the Moore run of “Miracleman”, I’m not sure how what came from Gaiman and Buckingham’s went, but this is still comics history, whether it turns out to be good or not. Eh. It’s the guy who did “Sandman” and the guy who did “Fables”. It’ll be pretty good.
Continued belowMIRACLEMAN BY GAIMAN & BUCKINGHAM: THE SILVER AGE #3
NEIL GAIMAN (W) • MARK BUCKINGHAM (A/C)
Variant Cover by CARLOS PACHECO
Variant Cover by DAVID AJA
YOUNG VARIANT COVER BY SKOTTIE YOUNG
Hip-Hop Variant Cover by JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER
• The wait is over!
• Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham present the story you’ve waited decades for — the first ALL-NEW chapter in
“The Silver Age!”
• High atop the Himalayas, Dicky Dauntless searches to find his place in the Age of Miracles. He’ll make new friends and encounter a frightening, familiar face — Johnny Bates!
• It’s Young Miracleman and Kid Miracleman face-to-face!
48 PGS./Mature …$4.99
3. Can Do Whatever A Spider-Woman Ca- Wait I Used This Reference Already
As someone who gets war flashbacks whenever anyone says the phrase “crossover”, I’m all for condensed ones like this and “Avengers: Standoff” where its just a bunch of titles quickly coming together for a big ol’ story. It worked for “Robin War”, right? Plus, the alleged Spider-Women “titles” all have really fun, albeit noticeably different, vibes that lends itself well to the three of them rolling around with one another.
SPIDER-WOMEN ALPHA #1
Story by JASON LATOUR, DENNIS HOPELESS & ROBBIE THOMPSON
ROBBIE THOMPSON (W) • VANESA DEL REY (A)
Cover by YASMINE PUTRI
CONNECTING VARIANT COVER A BY J. SCOTT CAMPBELL
VARIANT COVER BY STACEY LEE
ACTION FIGURE VARIANT COVER BY JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER
SPIDER-WOMEN PART 1!
The Spider-Event of 2016 is here, bringing SPIDER-GWEN, SILK and SPIDER-WOMAN together for a story too big for any one of their books! Spider-Woman is taking a mentor-role with Silk and Spider-Gwen, and the three spider-heroes take a brunch break on Gwen’s Earth-65. But when the nefarious spy organization S.I.L.K. and their leader (Earth-65’s Cindy Moon) notice the interdimensional interlopers, all of Jessica Drew’s plans go wrong.
40 PGS./One-Shot/Rated T+ …$4.99
2. Moon Knight? Alright!
Jeff Lemire’s writing a “Moon Knight” series with Greg Smallwood, who drew the last underrated post-Ellis/Shalvey run? I’m ashamed that I didn’t know this was happening. I’m all for Moon Knight as a character since his stories end up being off the wall in a very real way and the idea of him bursting his way out of an asylum sounds pretty exciting.
MOON KNIGHT #1
JEFF LEMIRE (W) • GREG SMALLWOOD (A/C)
Variant Cover by ERIC POWELL
Hip-hop variant cover by RICARDO LOPEZ ORTIZ
ACTION FIGURE VARIANT COVER BY JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER
THE BOOK YOU’D BE INSANE TO MISS!
Marc Spector (a.k.a. Moon Knight/Jake Lockley/Steven Grant) has been fighting criminals and keeping New York City safe for years… or has he? When he wakes up in an insane asylum with no powers and a lifetime’s worth of medical records, his whole identity (indentities) are called into question. Something is wrong, but is that something Marc Spector himself? Jeff Lemire (EXTRAORDINARY X-MEN) and rising star Greg Smallwood are calling everything you know about Moon Knight into question.
40 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99
My absolute favorite part of “Secret Wars” ending was how it meant that Black Panther could go back to being his own dude and stop cleaning up after the rest of the Illuminati when they broke everything. As far as I’m aware, Ta-Nehisi Coates hasn’t written many comics before, but considering the guy a won a MacArthur Grant, it’s going to be hard for him to mess up one of Marvel’s more underutilized heroes. Combine that with Brian Stelfreeze on art and you have my most anticipated book for April.
BLACK PANTHER #1
TA-NEHISI COATES (W) • BRIAN STELFREEZE (A/C)
VARIANT COVER BY ALEX ROSS
VARIANT COVER BY OLIVIER COIPEL
HIP-HOP VARIANT COVER BY BRIAN STELFREEZE
CONNECTING VARIANT COVER A BY SANFORD GREENE
DESIGN VARIANT COVER BY BRIAN STELFREEZE
BLACK PANTHER 50TH ANNIVERSARY VARIANT COVER BY FELIPE SMITH
VARIANT COVER BY RYAN SOOK
YOUNG VARIANT COVER BY SKOTTIE YOUNG
GAME VARIANT COVER BY KABAM
BLANK COVER ALSO AVAILABLE
A new era for the Black Panther starts here!
Written by MacArthur Genius and National Book Awardwinner TA-NEHISI COATES (Between the World and Me) and illustrated by living legend BRIAN STELFREEZE, “A Nation Under Our Feet” is a story about dramatic upheaval in Wakanda and the Black Panther’s struggle to do right by his people as their ruler. The indomitable will of Wakanda — the famed African nation known for its vast wealth, advanced technology and warrior traditions — has long been reflected in the will of its monarchs, the Black Panthers. But now the current Black Panther, T’Challa, finds that will tested by a superhuman terrorist group called The People that has sparked a violent uprising among the citizens of Wakanda. T’Challa knows the country must change to survive — the question is, will the Black Panther survive the change?
40 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99
Check out the full solicitations from Comic Book Resources here.
