To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Marvel is relaunching the Marvel Knights imprint with writer Donny Cates (“Venom,” “Babyteeth,” “God Country”) helming the entire relaunch. Cates signed an extension on his exclusive contract with the company in order to be able to helm the relaunch. Cates revealed that he handpicked writers Tini Howard (“Assassinistas,” “Euthanauts”), Matthew Rosenberg (“Phoenix Resurrection,” “4 Kids Walk Into a Bank”), and Vita Ayala (“The Wilds,” “Supergirl”) to relaunch the line with him. The relaunch will begin with a one-shot in November called “MK20” #1 written by Cates with art by Mike Deodato Jr.
The original Marvel Knights line begin in 1998 right after Marvel Comics filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti partnered with Marvel for them to outsource some of their least popular characters to their indie publisher Event Comics, after striking a similar deal with Image in 1996 for ‘Heroes Reborn.’ Their goal was to create a line of books with looser continuity, that were more mature and experimental. The original line launched with four titles: “Black Panther” by Christopher Priest and Mark Texeira, “Daredevil” by Quesada and Kevin Smith, “Inhumans” by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee and “The Punisher” by Tom Sniegoski, Christopher Golden, and Bernie Wrightston. “The Punisher” creative team was soon replaced by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon.
Later books included “Marvel Boy” by Grant Morrison and JG Jones, and “Daredevil” from Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev. The imprint was so successful that within two years Joe Quesada was named Editor-in-Chief at Marvel. He would bring that same sense of decompression and experimentation to the entirety of the Marvel line, which led to the imprint fading into the background and Marvel create the MAX imprint for mature content.
No details were given at this time on which titles Cates and co. would be creating.
