An Important Page: Dog Surfer

The Thanos Imperative series has finished, leaving fans of Marvel's cosmic titles just one more issue to enjoy before Abnett and Lanning leave space and move their focus to Marvel's street characters in Heroes for Hire. But The Thanos Imperative: Devastation looks set to leave the characters in a great new setting - and look at this! Isn't this adorable. Celebrate the end!

Marvel to Adapt Jane Austen's 'Emma'

Marvel have recently been stretching their creative talents with adoptions of classic novels and novellas, from The Wizard of Oz to The Dark Tower. In March of 2011 they'll move to a more genteel story, with an adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel Emma. Once a famous film with Gwyneth Paltrow in it, Jane Austen adapted the film and turned it into a hit novel, and now writer Nancy Butler and artist Janet K. Lee will adapt the novel of the film and make it into a graphic novel How fun!

The five-issue series marks the further rise to fame of Janet K. Lee, the artist behind 'Return of the Dapper Men', which by all accounts is totally totally amazing and everyone should buy it. And Nancy Butler has not only has experience in adapting classic English novels - she was in charge of Marvel's recent adaptation of Sense and Sensibility - but is also a top author in her own right, having cracked the bestseller's chart on more than one occasion. So with the talent behind the book, it looks to be another cracking little thing to pick up next year.

COMICS VANGUARD EXCLUSIVE: The Second Arc of Generation Hope REVEALED!

Generation Hope showcases several new characters and attempts to slot them into the World of the X-Men. The first five new mutants to appear after the Decimation are respectively a speedster, a Japanese kid with some body issues, a man who thinks he is an alsatian, a girl with simultaneous fire/ice powers, and a fish girl. Now, we spoke to the writer of the series and co-creator of the characters last Saturday at Thought Bubble and asked about what would happen as the series continued. The first arc sees Hope Summers and Rogue join four of the lights in a battle to calm down the fifth one, but where do we go from there?

EXCLUSIVE

In the second arc of Generation Hope we are going to see fish girl - Laurie - turn into a mermaid. For real! This is her second mutation, and will mean that she not only can fly, but can swim and flip around in the water. She is a flying mermaid girl, complete with a tail. At the same time that she turns into a mermaid, she is apparently going to fall in love with a 'dashing' stranger with an encyclopedic knowledge of Bristol-based rock/pop from the early nineties and no ability to swim. Laurie will have to struggle with her aquatic life while the love of her life stays firmly on land. What will happen next? Who knows! But it's all very exciting.

COMICS VANGUARD EXCLUSIVE FROM THE LEEDS THOUGHT BUBBLE: Paul Cornell "Still" DC Exclusive

We went to the Leeds Thought Bubble on Saturday, a UK comics-convention which surpasses many of your American ones. Y'know why? Because our convention is held next to a War Museum, and there are jousts going on next door. We picked up five exclusive stories from the thought bubble, and over the course of the next week we'll reveal them all to you. These are EXCLUSIVE scoops which you won't find anywhere else on the internet. Our interview with Kieron Gillen was particularly enlightening, and you'll be shocked by his plans for a certain character.

The writer who brought back Marvel's UK characters and made some of them interesting - which shocked and surprised us, as we are comic book purists and usually prefer to resist changes to our terrible characters. WAS AT THOUGHT BUBBLE! What superb uses of a full stop. Learn from us, dear readers, we just revolutionised the way people view the end of a sentence. We spoke to him for a little while, before he gave us a free copy of Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba's 'Daytrippers' series. That's a DC series, which is why we've never mentioned it before (we loved it though, fyi). While talking to him, we asked a few questions, msot notable of which was "you are currently a few months into your exclusive contract with DC. Is that still going on?"

Apparently it is. So the writer of Captain Britain and MI13, Dark X-Men, and that Black Widow mini where people got stabbed with a fork will remain at DC, writing stories for them featuring the sexy embodiment of death and gorillas. This is a COMICS VANGUARD EXCLUSIVE!

An Important Page: The Five Lights get ill or something

It's not the most radical thing you'll hear from a comic-book blog, but we're not the biggest fan of Greg Land's artwork. Especially when it moves to close-up, it seems really odd and unlike how humans should look. But here's a page from the upcoming storyline of Uncanny X-Men, stolen from CBR's interview with Kieron Gillen. Even the five lights seem to be unable to avoid the illness spreading round the X-Men Institute at the moment...

That 'Death of Spider-Man' Explanation in Partial Fullness

"Marvel is proud to announce Death of Spider-Man, the groundbreaking new story that forever changes the Ultimate Comics universe from superstar writers Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar. Kicking off with a prelude in Ultimate Spider-Man #153 and going into high-gear with Ultimate Avengers vs New Ultimates #1, this is the story that no comic fan can afford to miss when it all begins in February 2011 because, in the Ultimate Universe, There Are No Rules. This storyline continues in further issues of both Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate Avengers vs New Ultimates.

Millar added, “This is the biggest, boldest thing we've attempted in the ten years since we kicked this line off. This is the one thing that could be bigger than the CREATION of the Ultimate line and it's great to be a part of it. Being part of something like this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and soon you’ll all get to read the story we’ve written for you, This should be up there with the very small number of events that really mattered. This is going to be big.”


ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #153 & #154
Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS
Pencils by SARA PICHELLI & DAVID LAFUENTE
Cover by SARA PICHELLI
Rated T+ …$3.99 each
ON-SALE IN FEBRUARY

ULTIMATE AVENGERS VS. NEW ULTIMATES #1 (of 6)
Written by MARK MILLAR
Pencils & Cover by LEINIL YU
Variant Covers by BRYAN HITCH & FRANK CHO
Rated T+ …$3.99
ON-SALE IN FEBRUARY"


So isn't that exciting! A big event which kills off Peter Parker in the Ultimate Universe, and presumably leaves a big hole for a new Spider-Man to take over. Or should that be... Spider-Woman? Or girl. What does she call herself in the Ultimate Universe? Whoever she is, we're guessing the clone is taking over. And isn't it interesting to see how long the story is - while Ultimate Comics Spider-Man only has two-issues devoted to it, the actual main event happens over the course of sixth months. So what will Bendis write in the meantime? This is all very interesting, and it's fun to see the two most important writers of the Ultimate Universe bounce off each other. One last thing -- Spider-Man is in neither the Ultimate Avengers nor the Ultimates. So why is he getting involved?

A Silver Surfer Miniseries Too!

As if it weren't enough for a Hawkeye miniseries, now Marvel are announcing a new miniseries for everyone's favourite dead-eyed metal... thing, the Silver Surfer! The cosmic bitch of Galactus is hurtling into a five-issue mini written by Greg Pak and drawn by Stephen Segovia, beginning in February. This is the first sign of cosmic life following Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning's 'The Thanos Imperative', so fingers crossed that more stuff will follow on. Pak has already written Surfer, of course, several other times - so the character should be in good hands here. Here's what the cover for issue #1, solicited for release in February, will look like!

Marvel Announce Hawkeye Miniseries

It looks like Jim McCann is going to blind Hawkeye! As Hawkeye & Mockingbird has ceased to be, it had looked as though the forthcoming Widowmaker crossover with Black Widow was going to be the last we'd see of the characters. Not the case! Jim McCann and an unnamed artist are going to be in charge of a four-issue miniseries called "Hawkeye: Blindspot". Interestingly, the cover makes it look as though Black Widow and Mockingbird will still be a part of Clint Barton's life, but obviously not much else is known about the story at this point. Given the cover and the title, however... we're guessing that Hawkeye is heading towards a blindin'.

The Cast Of 'Age Of X'

So, from left-to-right we have: Hellion, Cannonball, 'Beserker' (the shirtless one), 'Revenant' (the one which looks like Hope), Gambit, Frenzy, Basilisk, 'Nightmare' (possibly Pixie), 'Reaper' (Rogue) and Magneto. This is really starting to look like an alternate Universe, isn't it?

An Important Page: Red Hulk Shows Up for Duty

DOOPSDAY WILL REIGN

IS IT REALLY HAPPENING? Are Marvel about to give us a new run of X-STATIX, possibly one of the most fun X-Men teams ever assembled? We loved them as X-Force, liked them as X-Statix, and now it seems as though Peter Milligan and Mike Allred's crew of short-lived mutants may well be returning next year. Is this truly the most exciting news ever to hit the internet? Yes it is. It's bloody exciting. It's so exciting that we've broken our 'don't post at the weekend' rule so we can tell you all about it. THE RETURN OF DOOP!!

Dale Eaglesham Joins Incredible Hulk

Fresh from drawing perhaps the first-ever manly looking version of Reed Richards, Dale Eaglesham has been announced as the new penciller for Greg Pak's Incredible Hulk series. At the moment, Hulk is busy punching his sons and some aliens, and when Eaglesham enters with issue #623, he'll turn his attention to Ka-Zar for some more punching. Oh, Incredible Hulk. Never stop surprising us with all these twists and turns! For those of you looking forward to some hot centaur action - keep it locked to this series. Soon, my pretties...

The Death of Spider-Man?

We all know that Spider-Man has been replaced in the film world. Tobey Maguire, an actor who was great in the films and dreadful in the video-game voiceover, is out. And Andrew Garfield is in! Well, now it looks as though Marvel might be planning a similar coup in the comic-book universe, as seen in this cover for their February previews comic.

Note that February will see the start of an arc which returns Venom to the Marvel Universe - and not Mac Gargan, who will soon be putting on his Scorpion costume once more. We're talking... about Eddie Brock.

Excited?

More Details On Age of X:

Age of X, the new storyline written by Mike Carey, may take place within a mini or may take place within X-Men Legacy. At any rate, we're starting to get more of an idea about what's going to happen, thanks to a partially-filled in teaser image Marvel released today. The image, drawn by Clay Mann, features alternate versions of Gambit and Hellion stood amongst some wreckage. Obviously this is going to be an homage to Age of Apocalypse, so it seems as though this alt-reality tale will probably take place in a World where Utopia gets destroyed. We'd imagine that Magneto, Hope and Rogue will also turn up on the image soon, along with perhaps Blindfold and Surge. Time will tell!

An Important Page: The Cavalry

James Bucky Barnes may be on trial, but that doesn't mean his friends are going to abandon him to jail. Black Widow and Falcon are among the many characters racing to his defence in Ed Brubaker's 'The Trial of Captain America' arc, starting later this month.

An Important Page: Iron Man Fights Robots!

It feels like years since Iron Man last got involved in a fight scene within the pages of his own solo series, written by Matt Fraction and drawn by Salvador Larocca. But now, after decades of waiting, we've finally reached the stage in any comic-book arc where punching is required. And explosions! Here's a preview of all the crashing and banging you can expect when the next issue comes out - and look! Chainsaws! Those are always fun.

BREAKING NEWS: Greg Pak promises 'Centaurs'

Greg Pak has just confirmed on Twitter that the next issue of The Incredible Hulk - issue 617, fact-fans - will indeed feature centaurs, as rumoured extensively beforehand. While the alignment of the centaurs has yet to be confirmed, we believe that they will either be villainous or heroic. Heroic centaurs are hard to find in classic literature, with most creatures adhering to the practise of evil, but that's not to say that Pak won't buck the trend this month.

It has been months, seemingly, since the last time centaurs appeared in comics. So with this new announcement, we hope to see a whole new generation of centaurs spring up as a result. Perhaps books will spin out of this appearance - perhaps a crossover with Deadpool could be arranged. We're hoping to see this open the door for a reawakening of Marvel's once-legendary "mythic ponies" gallery, with unicorns and centaurs standing side-by-side with Pegasus and that magic horse Dani Moonstar used to own. At any rate, keep your eyes locked to this site for updates RE: Centaurs.

ONSLAUGHT RETURNS

The first real news on Sean McKeever's 'Onslaught Unleashed' miniseries was released late last week, complete with the above teaser image by Humberto Ramos. As suspected, the story will reunite the newly-cancelled characters from Young Allies and give them one last threat to face before they head out on their own into limbo. People had already guessed this might be the case, due to the leader of the team - Nomad - belonging to the same dimension as ol' Slaughtie himself. (Note to everyone: let's try to make this nickname official). Filipe Andrade has been revealed to be the artist for the miniseries, which starts in February.

Alongside the Young Allies during the first assault pictured above are Steve Rogers' Secret Avengers, who may not be secret for too long at the rate they're going. Beast, Black Widow and Moon Knight are all joining in the attack alongside the newer generation of superhero. And Ant Man is there too, but we'd hardly rate him as a veteran at this point. If you remember, James Asmus will be unveiling the villain's return in January's annual crossover between Steve Rogers: Super Soldier, Namor, and Uncanny X-Men - this appears to be a direct consequence of the events of that storyline.