Welcome back to The Rundown, our daily breakdown on comic news stories we missed from the previous day. Have a link to share? Email our team at rundown@multiversitycomics.com.
In case you missed it, Star Wars Celebration was held over the weekend: Lucasfilm unveiled Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and Marvel made several announcements about the comics, including that Greg Pak and Phil Noto are taking over the main series.
– Marvel announced “Wolverine vs. Blade,” a new one-shot written by Marc Guggenheim with art by Dave Wilkins, which pits the hairy X-Man against the Daywalker. In other Wolverine news, May’s “X-23” #12 has been reportedly confirmed as Laura and Gabby Kinney’s final solo adventure for now.
– DC released their July 2019 solicitations, and with them came the announcement that the new Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen titles are starting that month, and that Cecil Castellucci is taking over “Batgirl” from current writer Mairghread Scott. We’ll have more on DC’s July releases in our Soliciting Multiversity column next week.
– Entertainment Weekly unveiled the cover for “Saga: Compendium One,” collecting the first 54 issues of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’s sci-fi comic. Vaughan also revealed to the magazine that the collection, due out October 16, marks the first half of the series, explaining the comic will end with its 108th issue. “Saga” will resume sometime this year.
– AfterShock Comics announced the AfterShock Army, which will consist of 30 “evangelists” who will increase the publisher’s outreach with comic book store retailers across North America. For more details, head to The Hollywood Reporter.
– Mangaka Gou Tanabe will adapt H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu,” which will be serialized in Kadokawa’s Monthly Comic Beam magazine from May. Previous manga adaptations of Lovecraft’s stories by Tanabe include “The Hound,” “The Temple,” “The Nameless City,” and At The Mountains Of Madness, which were translated and published by Dark Horse.
– Warner Bros. Japan announced two new live-action films based on Nobuhiro Watsuki’s samurai manga “Rurouni Kenshin,” which will both be released in 2020. These two films will mark the end of the film series, two years after Watsuki was arrested and fined for possession of child pornography.
– Marvel released a series of character posters for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6, which reveal that Clark Gregg’s mysterious new character is called “Sarge.” The show returns on ABC May 10, and you can check out the posters here.
– Finally, Avengers: Endgame director Joe Russo has confirmed the film will have the final Stan Lee cameo. “It’s his last one committed to film,” he said. Stan Lee died on November 12, 2018, aged 95. Avengers: Endgame is in theaters April 26.