Like recent events, the release of the series will be quick as all issues will ship between August to November of this year with the core series shipping two issues a month during September and October. “This will have the kind of sweep you’d expect from a ‘Fear Itself’ or ‘Siege’ or ‘Secret Invasion’ [in terms of monthly tie-ins],” Brevoort said, noting that the majority of tie-ins will take place in the Avengers titles both because “we have a lot of Avengers books” and the team takes such a central role in the event, but there will also be tie-ins in other books including certain monthlies in the X-Men line.
With Thanos as the big villain being set up in “Thanos Rising,” this event won’t be digging too much into his past. “‘Infinity’ is not going to be backwards looking with Thanos so much as forwards looking,” Brevoort said with Hickman adding, “We don’t do any kind of introspective look back at all in regards to Thanos.”
Brevoort noted that Thanos has not always been after only the Infinity Gems of the Infinity Gauntlet even as the original ’90s event that held the latter’s name. Here, he will be removed from solely a quest for those very significant items in the Marvel U. “This is not the fourth or fifth part of that cycle,” he said. “While there’s obviously a thematic resonance in that it’s called ‘Infinity,’ that doesn’t have so much to do with the Infinity Gauntlet per se…certainly, the fact that the Infinity Gems when last anyone knew about them were in the hands of the New Avengers who kind of broke them is not something that’s going to be untouched upon in the course of ‘Infinity.” Hickman added that he’s actually writing pages about these ideas today, so they’ll be involved if not central to the story.
Hickman said that he’s introducing “generals” for Thanos designed by Opeña because a story of this scope with so many characters needed more players on the field as well as just adding some new ideas to the mix creatively.
The participants admitted that the appearance of Thanos in the “Avengers” movie sparked interest amongst editorial and the Marvel creatives in the character, but their plans for him in “Infinity” – while capable of bringing in some newer fans curious about the villain – will be independent of the Marvel Studios game plan moving forward. “We keep in touch with each other, and we’re aware of it all, but we’re really guided by the stories we want to tell,” Brevoort said.
The writer repeated his oft-noted idea that this story is really only the end of the first act in his overall “Avengers” plan. He called his final scheme for the franchise “The biggest thing I can do” to which Brevoort stressed had no hyperbole as the full extent of the plan was just revealed to Editorial at this week’s Marvel creative summit.
Finally, the call was asked about the involvement of X-Men characters in the event. With “Battle of the Atom” coming up as well, there will be less of a role for the mutants in the action of “Infinity,” but they will be appearing. “We have no problem letting guys like Wolverine and Captain America being in eight or nine books and leaving it up to our readers or the Handbook guys figure out how it all works out after the fact,” Brevoort said.
The call wrapped with Brevoort revealing that the initial “Infinity” prelude from Free Comic Book Day will soon be loaded onto the Marvel Comics App for readers to catch up if they missed the story in May.