It seems that Marvel Now is a thing of the past come May 2015. With the conclusion of the already announced Times Runs Out storyline, Marvel will usher in Secret Wars as their big summer crossover event. Along with a major storyline that is “biggest thing” Marvel has ever done, it’s also bringing a DC style reboot that returns the books to a clean number one:
An image accompanying the article, painted by Alex Ross, depicts multiple versions of Marvel’s top heroes — Captain Americas, Thors and Iron Men — as well as other notable heroes as well as some relative unknowns — but Brevoort says none are new or random…
“However massive you think this is,” Brevoort says,” let me assure you it is bigger than that. It’s by far the craziest thing I’ve dealt with.” (via)
This is nowhere near the first time this happened and it’s something that seems to be happening with more frequency here in the past 20 years. Who can forget Heroes Reborn? Then Heroes Return? Then The Heroic Age? And the most recent one, Marvel Now. And that’s just Marvel Comics.
So why the reboot? Well Newsarama noticed a peculiar thing about the promotional image released for Secret Wars:
Of all the various prominent and obscure characters in this image by Ross, it’s certain absences that are curious. There is no X-Men characters, no mutants even, as well as no members of the Fantastic Four or Namor as well — all characters whose movie rights are not currently owned by Marvel. The one characters whose movie rights are held outside of Marvel who appears here is Spider-Man — albiet not the most well known Spider-Man, Peter Parker, but Ultimate Spider-Man, Miles Morales.
Well that would certainly make all of that Fantastic Four is cancelled to sabotage Fox garbage smell a little less sour. The sticking point, as always, is the notion that Marvel would ruin the X-Men and Spider-Man. I guess it just shows how the times have changed and how much Marvel cares about their properties left close to home.
What confuses me about the whole mess is the existence of multiple characters with the same identity. It’s like a reverse DC Comics with Crisis On Infinite Earths. Instead of streamlining what messy community we’ve already got, Marvel is adding more to the party and overwhelming readers.
All of this is leading to the 75th anniversary of the publisher, heralded with another special coming soon to ABC:
“It’s been an evolution here. We segued into the big things. Stan, Jack Kirby, these guys brought us the modern Marvel Universe and that still pretty much what we have today, ” Buckley spoke. “The ride has been interesting. We saw the demise of the newsstand and the rise of the hobby shop. We saw a boom and a bust and a renaissance. The stories today are seen all around the world. One announcement will be how we extend the celebration beyond these halls, and one about how we will launch the next 75 years.”
With that, a trailer for a television special titled Marvel: From Pulp to Pop aired. The one-hour special will be hosted by Emily VanCamp, star of the television series Revenge, who also played Sharon Carter (aka “Agent 13”) in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The documentary will air November 4 at 9:00 p.m. ET on ABC.
What better way to celebrate 75 years than to turn the clock back and reset the entire universe. Too bad if you were getting comfortable with the characters out there right now. Enjoy Lady Thor and Black Captain America while they last!
(Via Mashable / Newsarama / Comic Book Resources)