Announced at Marvel’s Next Big Thing panel just moments ago, Jamie McKelvie is joining Matt Fraction on “the Defenders” — or, as McKelvie describes it, “I get to draw all the craziest stuff in the Marvel Universe in one book.”
The two have not collaborated in any major works outside of a short story in “Iron Man”, so this will be their first big work together. McKelvie will also be joined by Mike Norton, his collaborator in “X-Men: Season One”, who will be helping to finish backgrounds according to McKelvie. The book will continue to be drawn via Marvel style, which means that Fraction writes the script without dialogue and the emphasis is put on McKelvie to bring that script to life for Fraction to go over afterwards and add dialogue. Given the strength of McKelvie’s artwork (and the one page that Marvel has shared), it’s going to be a strong working relationship.
McKelvie hops on at July’s #8, and is being billed as the new regular artist, replacing the Dodson’s (who are doing some work over at “Avenging Spider-Man”).
