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.
– Jonathan Hickman and Greg Capullo are teaming up on “Wolverine: Revenge,” a five-issue series starting August 21. The comic will see Logan seek retribution on Sabretooth, Omega Red, Deadpool, and more, beginning with a reunion with the Children of the Sun (introduced in Hickman’s “Avengers” run) in the Savage Land. It will arrive shortly before Saladin Ahmed and Martín Cóccolo’s relaunch of the main “Wolverine” series, starting September 11, and each issue will receive a red band release alongside the censored main versions. The book marks Capullo’s first full series at Marvel since “X-Force” in 1993.
– The House of Ideas also announced the “Marvel 85th Anniversary Special,” a one-shot that will celebrate the publisher’s birthday by taking readers to a museum in the 85th century. The framing device will present readers stories like “the Contest of Champions, and how it wrought an end to the Age of Heroes,” plus “the greatest triumph of Ms. Marvel, and the final, secret exploit of Excalibur!” Contributors will include Ryan North, Alan Davis, Christopher Priest, Iman Vellani, Sabir Pirzada, Steve Skroce, Josh Cassara, Stephen Byrne, Kaku Yuji, and Carlo Pagulayan, and it will be released on August 28 (a few days before the publication date of “Marvel Comics” #1 itself.)
– Ablaze have partnered with Amazon to release more comiXology Original titles in print. The first books lined up by the publisher are “Harvey Kurtzman’s Marley’s Ghost,” the posthumous Dickens adaptation completed by Josh O’Neill, Shannon Wheeler, and Gideon Kendall; Abigail Jill Harding & Richard Starkings’s “Parliament of Rooks“; and Miles Gunter & Briane Andan’s “Grammaton Punch.” “Marley’s Ghost” will arrive first in November, with the street date for the others to be determined later. Ablaze is the second publisher to receive the print license from comiXology, following Dark Horse, which will also continue to release their books.
– Speaking of Dark Horse, the publisher announced new “Groo the Wanderer” and “Assassin’s Creed” series. “Groo: Minstrel Melodies,” by Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evanier, will follow the Minstrel narrator and his daughter Kayli as they “celebrate Groo’s unique idiocy and warn others of his deadly deeds,” while “Assassin’s Creed Mirage: A Soar of Eagles,” by Michael Avon Oeming and Mirko Colak, is a prequel to the last game, depicting a young Fuladh and Roshan investigating unrest in Adulis (located in modern day Eritrea.) “Groo: Minstrel Melodies” #1 (of 4) will be released on September 4, and “Assassin’s Creed Mirage: A Soar of Eagles” #1 (of 3) will follow on November 6.
– 2000 AD announced the comics from their all-ages “Regened” specials will be featured in “Judge Dredd Megazine,” beginning with next month’s issue #469. The book’s monthly strips will now include ‘Cadet Dredd’ by Paul Starkey and Nick Brokenshire, ‘Pandora Perfect!’ by Roger Langridge and Gary Welsh, and ‘Department K: Interdimensional Investigators!’ by Ned Hartley and Mike Walters. They will replace the reprints of classic comics in the magazine, “mean[ing] readers get to enjoy more all-new Thrills each and every issue for the same galaxy-busting price.” No word was given on how they will co-exist with the book’s adult-aimed comics, although we imagine parental discretion is advised.
– In more kids’ comics news, Oni Press revealed four children’s graphic novels releasing in Spring 2025, namely “Mr. Muffins,” a middle-grade alien invasion/boy-and-his-dog story reteaming “Immortals Fenyx Rising: From Great Beginnings” creators Ben Kahn and Georgeo Brooks; “Buzz,” a reissue of the 2013 spelling bee-themed book by Ananth Hirsh and Tess Stone; “The Littlest Fighter,” a new kaiju-battling adventure by Joey Weiser; and “Hey, Mary!,” a YA coming-of-age story about a gay Catholic boy by Andrew Wheeler and Rye Hickman. Specific release dates for the books were not given in the announcement.
– BOOM! Studios revealed the third and final issue of “A Vicious Circle” will be released on August 7. The Eisner-nominated time travel series, by writer Mattson Tomlin and artist Lee Bermejo, has run annually since it debuted in 2022. The synopsis reads, “After stunning revelations come to light about Ferris’ origins and Earth’s dark future, Thacker and his former prisoner forge an alliance they never could have expected… When they return to the beginning, will these rivals finally close the circle, or is the bloodshed destined to continue forever?” The finale will receive variant covers by André Lima Araújo, InHyuk Lee, Dan Panosian, and more.
Continued below– The MCU’s inevitable X-Men movie has taken its first major step to becoming a reality, with Michael Lesslie now attached to write the film’s script. Lesslie, a British playwright and writer/producer, previously penned The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, as well as The Little Drummer Girl, and the Michael Fassbender Macbeth and Assassin’s Creed films. Little else is known about the X-Men’s cinematic future, despite the introduction of character variants played by the Fox era cast in films like the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine, with the only other person officially attached to the reboot being producer Kevin Feige himself.
– In Star Trek news, Holly Hunter has been cast in the upcoming Starfleet Academy series as the school’s chancellor. The show, due out on Paramount+ next year, will follow a group of 32nd century cadets after the events of Star Trek Discovery. Meanwhile, Simon Kinberg is in talks to produce Toby Haynes and Seth Grahame-Smith’s upcoming prequel film, with an eye to appointing him creative overseer of the movies, similar to Alex Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman’s role on the TV shows. J.J. Abrams remains involved in the film, but with the next Chris Pine movie set to be the last, this suggests he is planning to pass the torch.
– Finally, Drops of God is returning for a second season on Apple TV+. The first season of the live-action French/Japanese drama series, based on the manga by Tadashi Agi and Shu Okimoto, was released on Apple this time last year, and proved to be a critical and commercial hit. The second season will see Camille (Fleur Geffrier) and Issei (Tomohisa Yamashita) embark on a globetrotting quest to uncover the origin of the world’s greatest wine, a mystery even Camille’s brilliant late father failed to solve. No ETA was shared by the show’s producers at the time of writing.
