Vote Loki #1 Columns 

Soliciting Multiversity: Marvel’s Top 10 in June 2016

By | March 31st, 2016
Posted in Columns | 6 Comments

The watchful, completely objective and correct gaze of Soliciting Multiversity now falls upon Marvel’s crop of titles for June! Check out our picks below and let us know what stuck out to you in the comments.

Before we get started, I want to add a quick disclaimer. This is a more negative than usual version of Soliciting Multiversity. There’s maybe two books I’m excited for and one of them is for genuine good book reasons and the other is because Scott Aukerman is writing. And while I could fall back on favorites like “The Vision” or “Black Widow”, I’m supposed to use Soliciting Multiversity to talk about Marvel’s new stuff. Unfortunately, all of this month’s new stuff is “Civil War II” which sounds exactly like every Marvel crossover from the past half decade. A new character shows up and has powers that the Marvel Universe isn’t ready for. Half of the world’s heroes think that person should be kept alive while the other half want them goneso. They fight and get distracted while a third party steals the new person, hides them, and then brings them back when the two teams have their rematch in the climax. Someone has a big climax we can all tweet about it and then a bunch of new books come out. See that? You couldn’t tell if I was writing about “AXIS” or “Avengers vs. X-Men.” Hell, I still can’t tell.

10. The Crossover to End All Crossovers

DEADPOOL #13
GERRY DUGGAN, CHARLES SOULE, & DAVID WALKER (W)
MIKE HAWTHORNE (A)
Cover by FRANCISCO HERRERA
VARIANT COVER BY ROB LIEFELD
VARIANT COVER BY RON LIM
DAREDEVIL VARIANT COVER BY KHOI PHAM
POWER MAN & IRON FIST VARIANT COVER BY CHRIS STEVENS
ACTION FIGURE VARIANT COVER BY JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER
HIT-MONKEY VARIANT COVER BY Brent Schoonover

An all-new epic four-issue crossover in one package! This issue of Deadpool (lucky number 13) LITERALLY contains two issues of DEADPOOL, one issue of DAREDEVIL, and one issue of POWER MAN & IRON FIST! When Deadpool take a gig protecting a banker who betrayed his cartel partners, they seek the help of Assistant District Attorney Matt Murdock, who calls in the assistance (and fists) of Power Man Luke Cage and Danny Rand, master of the Iron Fist! A mega-violent, street-level, face-punching, gut-busting, kung-fuing, ninjitsuing crime story guaranteed to knock your teeth out! Bringing together the writers of the DEADPOOL, DAREDEVIL, and POWER MAN & IRON FIST series: Gerry Duggan, Charles Soule, and David Walker!
96 PGS./Parental Advisory …$9.99

I feel like Marvel taking three of their three most consistent books and putting them into a done-in-one crossover is a deliberate shot at me. I don’t know how you get your comic news, but I assume you go to other sources that aren’t a sour column about Marvel’s solicitations that come out a week after they do. What I’m getting at is you probably know that this month is all Civil War comics and tie-ins and I’m still not entirely recovered from “Secret Wars.” So bear with me as I try to find some pockets of joy before talking about “Civil War II: We’re Using The Roman Numeral Because Using 2 Makes This Comic Look More Like A Self-Parody Than It Already Is.”

9. Deadpool, Bang Bang

SPIDER-MAN/DEADPOOL #6
SCOTT AUKERMAN (W) • REILLY BROWN (A)
Cover by MIKE DEL MUNDO
CAPTAIN AMERICA 75TH ANNIVERSARY VARIANT COVER BY Adam Kubert

• Deadpool goes Hollywood! See the M w/the M on the set of his own MOVIE!
• And he brings his pal Spidey along, as he has lots of experience selling out!
• All-Star Special Issue written by Scott Aukerman of TV’s Comedy Bang Bang!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

I’m all for Scott Aukerman getting more opportunities at Marvel for a couple reasons. Chief among them is that he’s a funny dude who, based on his podcast, really likes comics. His Doc Samson story for “Secret Wars” was also a low-key highlight of that entire crossover for me. So handing him a story about Deadpool in Hollywood where Scott can make stupidly specific jokes about the Biz? I’d be shocked if this didn’t include a scene where Deadpool asks Spidey where he falls on the call sheet.

Continued below

8. All-New(?)

ALL-NEW WOLVERINE #9
TOM TAYLOR (W) • MARCIO TAKARA (A)
Cover by BENGAL
CIVIL WAR REENACTMENT VARIANT COVER BY Joyce Chin

On the road to CIVIL WAR II!
• LAURA and LOGAN. We’ve seen it before.
• But this isn’t the man Laura once knew. OLD MAN LOGAN has stepped out of a dystopian future and into our world. His past full of horrors, he’s about to bring a lot of baggage, and carnage, Laura’s way.
• With a CIVIL WAR set to divide the heroes’ world, will Old Man Logan and WOLVERINE stand together against the coming nightmare? Or will they shred each other apart?
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

Just including this in the Top 10 to say that “We’ve seen it before” is my favorite Marvel solicit of all time.

7. Make Midgard Great Again

This could truly go two, and only two ways.

Comics have been pretty spotty when it comes to covering politics. Recent attempts like the latest “Prez” from DC and Image’s “Citizen Jack” have actually been pretty good about tapping into the mania surrounding America’s election cycle so there is absolutely room for a Loki comic to do just as well. Especially since Loki is a character tailor fit to politics. The question, then, is whether this comic can balance political satire with the over-the-top story a Christopher Hastings comic is going to turn into or if its just an excuse to have Donald Trump ask Loki about his birth certificate.

VOTE LOKI #1
CHRISTOPHER HASTINGS (W) • LANGDON FOSS (A)
Cover by TRADD MOORE
Variant Cover by VALERIO SCHITI

Loki is many things — god, trickster, brother, liar, son, villain, even hero. Now he wants to add one more thing to the list: President of the United States. That’s right, the God of Lies has set his sights on becoming the ruler of the free world, but is this just another scheme? One thing’s for certain — with Loki’s winning smile and silver tongue on the campaign trail, this election just got a lot more interesting…
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

6. A Crossover You Can Believe In

Crossover tie-ins are weird because it’s not often that a book actually fits thematically into whatever your big ongoing story is. Thankfully, Ms. Marvel is straight up about Captain Marvel’s (kind-of) prodigy and the promise of those two going into conflict sounds a lot more promising than Carol’s spar with Tony. Heroes have been fighting so much for the past few years (“AXIS”, “Avengers vs. X-Men”, That Batman Movie) that it’s not really compelling unless you’ve got a history like Kamala and Carol. I’m not going to be an outright cynic and hate on “Civil War II” before it comes out, but this tie-in is actually what I’m most looking forward to about it.

MS. MARVEL #8
G. WILLOW WILSON (W) • TAKESHI MIYAZAWA (A)
Cover by Cameron Stewart
CIVIL WAR REENACTMENT VARIANT COVER BY Siya Oum
CIVIL WAR II TIE-IN!

• Kamala gets called to the frontlines of battle–but this isn’t a fight she can embiggen her way out of.
• Idols are tainted and Kamala must face the world with new eyes.
• It’s time to grow up, Kamala. Who will you become?
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

5. With Great Crossovers Come Inexplicable Crossovers

And then there’s the other side of crossover tie-ins where you just want to put your most profitable character’s name on something to sell. This solicit offers super little information on anything happening to Spider-Man in “Civil War II” except that he has to pick a side. I hope he just picks up a copy of “Civil War I”, remembers how poorly that turned out for him, and swings off to let this whole thing blow over.

CIVIL WAR II: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1 (OF 4)
Christos GAGE (W) • TRAVEL FOREMAN (A)
COVER BY KHARY RANDOLPH
VARIANT COVER BY TRAVEL FOREMAN
CHARACTER VARIANT BY PHIL NOTO
ACTION FIGURE VARIANT COVER BY JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN GETS CAUGHT UP IN CIVIL WAR II! There’s a new Inhuman with the ability to seemingly predict the future, and as the heroes of the Marvel Universe continue to grapple with their feelings about his very existence one thing almost everyone can agree on is that he bears a tremendous responsibility to use his powers safely. Peter Parker, aka THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, knows a thing or two about that — too bad he’s also got the ol’ Parker luck working against him.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

Continued below

4. A Step Above The X

At least, when compared to the Spider-Man comic, “Civil War II: X-Men” is telling us that Magneto’s going to stab the fuck out of some Inhumans because they’ve been causing mutants to die off. That’s something, even if it’s also an apt description of what the X-Men have been doing for months now.

CIVIL WAR II: X-MEN #1 (OF 4)
CULLEN BUNN (W) • ANDREA BROCCARDO (A)
Cover by DAVID YARDIN
YOUNG VARIANT COVER BY SKOTTIE YOUNG
ACTION FIGURE VARIANT COVER BY JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER
CHARACTER VARIANT COVER BY PHIL NOTO
VARIANT COVER BY TBA

Terrigen Mists circle the globe, igniting the Inhuman race while crippling mutantkind, pitting the two nations against one another. But when a new Inhuman with the ability to profile the future emerges, the X-Men fear that he may tip the scales in the Inhumans’ favor, spelling doom for their kind. And one mutant is willing to wage war with the Inhumans AND his own people to prevent that from coming to pass… The X-Men enter the fray of CIVIL WAR II when the world’s most terrifying mutant, MAGNETO, takes mutantkind’s fate into his own hands!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

3. Brief Reprieve

Again, I’ve got nothing much to say to this except thank God Marvel put all their one-off tie-ins into a single book instead of stretching them out over twenty something titles over a half year. James didn’t even come back from that last event.

CIVIL WAR II: CHOOSING SIDES #1 (OF 6)
DECLAN SHALVEY, BRANDON EASTON, CHAD BOWERS & CHRIS SIMS (W)
DECLAN SHALVEY, GORAN SUDZUKA & LEONARDO ROMERO (A)
Cover by JIM CHEUNG
VARIANT COVER BY DECLAN SHALVEY
CHARACTER VARIANT BY PHIL NOTO
YOUNG VARIANT COVER BY SKOTTIE YOUNG
ACTION FIGURE VARIANT COVER BY JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER

If you knew something bad was about to happen, would you stop it? How far would you go? The line is drawn. Everyone in the Marvel Universe has to ask themselves: are you with Captain Marvel or Iron Man? Kicking off an all-new series, this first issue features Nick Fury, Damage Control and Night Thrasher!
40 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99

2. Cry Havoc

As sour as I am on “Civil War II”, I’m all in for this “Gods of War” tie-in. Tie-ins usually have too much to do with the actual story so they get stalled. But sometimes they’re only tangentially related in a way that actually helps out. Remember “Secret Invasion” when the main story was everyone freaking out over whether or not Hank Pym was a Skrull? And meanwhile, there were tie-ins where entire pantheons teamed up to take on the Skrull Gods and Deadpool accidentally destroyed the invasion? “Gods of War” sounds like the latter, but I can only hope.

CIVIL WAR II: GODS OF WAR #1 (OF 4)
DAN ABNETT (W) • EMILIO LAISO (A)
Cover by JAY ANACLETO
CHARACTER VARIANT BY PHIL NOTO
ACTION FIGURE VARIANT COVER BY JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER
VARIANT COVER BY JAY ANACLETO

The world is on the brink of chaos, with heroes on all sides of the war… but when only the best are called into action, where will the world’s first super hero land? Join us for an all-new epic Civil War II series that takes Hercules right to the front lines! As a God, is he responsible for a larger roll in the potential destruction of the Marvel Universe? Or does he have the power to alter fate?!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

1. This Thing

“Civil War II” is going to happen and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. A new Inhuman with the powers of Minority Report is going to show up and cause everyone to turn into arbitrary jerks for a while and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

I hate that I’m feeling nothing but an overwhelming apathy about “Civil War II” but the whole thing seems blatant and part of a superhero culture I am just not into. I don’t need to see heroes fight when every other crossover you’ve done has focused on that exact same premise. I don’t need to read a comic that is straight up saying it’s a sequel to “Civil War”, whose boring “applying politics to superheroes” attitude caused that Mark Millar ass scene in Batman v. Superman. You know the one. When Jesse Eisenberg peed in a jar and left it on Holly Hunter’s desk in the middle of Superman’s big congressional hearing? If you didn’t see Batman v. Superman I sound like a crazy person.

Continued below

So, yeah. I really don’t want to have to read this one. I don’t want to have to sit through a couple months of books telling me that there’s something world shaking about the Avengers turning against each other when it’s how they greet each other at this point. I just don’t want Jesse Eisenberg’s piss on my desk for six months.

CIVIL WAR II #1 (OF 7)
BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (W) • DAVID MARQUEZ (A)
Cover by MARKO DJURDJEVIC
CIVIL WAR II 1 BLANK COVER VARIANT COVER ALSO AVAILABLE (MAR160714)
CONNECTING VARIANT COVER B BY Kim JUng Gi (MAR160712)
TEAM CAP HIP-HOP VARIANT COVER BY TERRY DODSON (MAR160713)
VARIANT COVER BY DAVID MARQUEZ (MAR160711)
VARIANT COVER BY STEVE MCNIVEN (MAR160709)
SKETCH VARIANT COVER BY STEVE MCNIVEN (MAR160710)
VARIANT COVER BY MICHAEL CHO (MAR160708)
TEAM IRON MAN HIP-HOP VARIANT COVER BY RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE (MAR160706)
CHARACTER VARIANT BY PHIL NOTO (MAR160707)
Hot Wheels VARIANT COVER BY MANUEL GARCIA (MAR160705)
BATTLE VARIANT COVER BY CHRIS SPROUSE (MAR160704)
PARTY VARIANT BY YASMINE PUTRI (MAR160719)

IT’S HERE!
The explosive first chapter in the comic event EVERYONE will be talking about. And we come out swinging with a blistering double-sized first issue from the creative team behind last year’s best-selling debut of INVINCIBLE IRON MAN and Miles Morales. A new Inhuman, with the ability to profile the future, emerges and the ramifications ripple into every corner of the Marvel Universe. Lines are drawn, bodies fall, and the Marvel Universe will be rocked to it’s very core. The action starts here!
56 PGS./Rated T+ …$5.99 (MAR160703)


//TAGS | Soliciting Multiversity

James Johnston

James Johnston is a grizzled post-millenial. Follow him on Twitter to challenge him to a fight.

EMAIL | ARTICLES



  • -->