Highlights From The December 2010 Marvel Solicitations

These are some goodies that caught my eye in the latest Marvel Solicitations:

THOR BY WALTER SIMONSON OMNIBUS HC

Written by WALTER SIMONSON
Penciled by WALTER SIMONSON with SAL BUSCEMA
Covers by WALTER SIMONSON
Considered by many to be the greatest run on Thor ever, Walt Simonson’s classic tales of the God of Thunder are collected here—completely remastered from the original artwork and newly colored by Steve Oliff! And there are too many timeless tales to count: The Casket of Ancient Winters! The death of Odin! The origins of Asgard! The sacrifice of the Executioner! Thor as a frog! The Mutant Massacre! The curse of Hela! The debut of Thor’s body armor! Guest-starring Beta Ray Bill, Nick Fury and the Avengers! Featuring the threats of Fafnir the dragon, Loki, Lorelei, Malekith the Dark Elf, Surtur, Hela, the Titanium Man, Kurse, Zaniac, the Marauders, the Absorbing Man, Fin Fang Foom, the Destroyer and the Midgard Serpent! Collecting THOR #337-355, #357-369 & #371-382 and BALDER THE BRAVE #1-4.
1192 PGS./Rated A …$125.00
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4633-9
Trim size: oversized
THOR BY WALTER SIMONSON OMNIBUS HC CLASSIC COVER (DM ONLY)
1192 PGS./Rated A …$125.00
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4634-6

X-FORCE: UNDER THE GUN PREMIERE HC

Written by FABIAN NICIEZA & ROB LIEFELD
Penciled by ROB LIEFELD, MARK PACELLA, MIKE MIGNOLA, TERRY SHOEMAKER & GREG CAPULLO
Covers by ROB LIEFELD

X-Force has survived its first fights—but the stakes just keep getting higher, and the villains deadlier! A new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, including Toad and Sauron, has formed and joined forces with the Morlocks, and their frightening attack on our heroes leaves one team member mortally wounded! Plus: the mysteries between Cable and Stryfe deepen, Deadpool goes after Domino and Cable, a government task force comes after X-Force, and one mutant is revealed to be an imposter! And just who are the X-Ternals? Collecting X-FORCE #5-15 and material from X-FORCE ANNUAL #1.
272 PGS./Rated A …$34.99
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4985-9
Trim size: standard
X-FORCE: UNDER THE GUN PREMIERE HC — VARIANT EDITION VOL. 61
272 PGS./Rated A …$34.99
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5075-6

The two big hardcovers are the only things that really caught my eye. I'm happy that Marvel is finally collecting the Liefeld "X-Force" in hardcovers. Even happier that Simonson's "Thor" is finally available together in one place as a huge omnibus edition. I may not be able to afford any of the above but I'm happy as a lark that they're going to be available in the stores. :)

Finally, my favourite cover from the solicitations has to be the one below (from Strange Tales II #3):

Highlights From The Latest Marvel Solicitations (Oct 2010)

It's the convention season again so Marvel has decided to delay the release of their latest solicitation previews until the big announcements in the convention. Anyway, the latest solicitations are finally up and you can check them out at CBR.

Some of the items that caught my eye are:

• Uncanny X-Force #1 by Rick Remender (Punisher) and Jerome Opena (Moon Knight). Wolverine is leading the X-Force to kill Apocalypse. This is a no-brainer and I'm definitely jumping on board!



• Ultimate Thor #1 by Jonathan Hickman and Carlos Pacheco. Hickman is fast becoming my favourite Marvel writer with his excellent stuff on Fantastic Four and S.H.I.E.L.D. Carlos Pacheco is among my favourite artists ever - check out "Avengers Forever" if you still need to be convinced. But it's Ultimate Thor. I don't know. Thor was my favourite character when I was a kid. Now? Not so much. Maybe the upcoming movie will reignite my love for the Asgardian? Hmmm....



• Chaos War #1 & 2 by Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente featuring the return of Hercules. I'm so there already! Thor guest-stars.



• Captain America Lives Omnibus - I'm glad I stayed off the "The Man With No Face", "Road To Reborn" and "Reborn" trades. Marvel is reprinting the whole thing in an omnibus edition. This is a must-have for anyone who had already purchased the first two omnibuses.



• Atlantis Attacks Omnibus - I'm glad to see this huge storyarc finally in an omnibus. It was one of the biggest stories when I was a kid. I read an issue here and an issue there. That's the tragedy of growing up in a town without a comic-retailer. I had to pick up my stuff off the newstand. Anyway, I don't remember much about the story - only that it featured Namor and the Atlanteans flooding the whole Marvel Universe.



• Doomwar Hardcover - The Black Panther/Doom crossover (more accurately Wakanda/Latveria crossover) gets the oversized hardcover treatment. I haven't been following Black Panther for some time so I'm not so sure about this.



• Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty Hardcover - I'll get this one over the Reborn hardcover above. I have a softspot for Mark Waid's Cap and it's good to see his WWII/Invaders stuff from the 1990s finally given the oversized hardcover treatment.



• X-Force: A Force To Be Reckoned With - I've always wondered why the Liefeld X-Force issues have never been reprinted in a hardcover collection. Love him or hate him, no one can deny the impact that Liefeld made in the early 1990s with X-Force. Pick this one up with the Cable hardcover and relive the era of shoulder-pads, ginormous guns and constipated facial expressions.



• Thor: Worldengine - This is the 4-issue arc from the mid-1990s by Warren Ellis and Mike Deodato. I read a review recently saying that Deodato sucked in the 1990s and that he's really good now. I don't know what the reviewer was smoking when he wrote that. Deodato was fantastic in the 1990s. Check out his work with William Messner-Loebs on "Wonder Woman" and "Thor". Time was, Deodato's art was clear and powerful. Time now, he hides behind large shades of inking. Pick this one up for the classic Deodato artwork.

The Death of Cable

The above cover shows Cable carrying a mountain on his back in order to protect his surrogate daughter, Hope. It is reminscent of the Hulk carrying a mountain in Secret Wars to protect the MU heroes. This variant cover to X-Force #28 is everything you need to know about the man Cable - Nathan Christopher Summers. Oh yes, and did I forget to mention that he dies in this issue?

Yes, Cable is finally dead. And what a way to go. Protecting mutantkind, fighting for his beliefs, and giving his life for the daughter that he loves more than life. I'll miss the character. He was the reason I continued reading the X-titles throughout the 1990s and into the present. I guess this is as good a time as any to finally jump off the bandwagon. My favourite X-Man is finally dead.

From the above preview images, Cable died holding up Bastion's time portal, overstraining himself and losing control of the techno-organic virus that ultimately consumed him entirely. What a way to go. As a soldier, mutant messiah-prophet and father.

Cable is the poster boy for mutant-cool. Wolverine and Cyclops can step aside...

How would I like to remember Nathan Christopher Summers? To me, he'll always be the Rob Liefeld Cable from the New Mutants/X-Force books in the early 1990s:

Peter David at the X-Men Panel (2010 Chicago Expo)

This is Peter David. He writes the monthly X-Factor title (among other stuff). He's also possibly the best comic-writer alive. Read about his panel appearance and other X-Men news at CBR. Some highlights from the panel include the following:

• Wolverine: Origins is finally coming to an end and Jason Aaron gets to relaunch a new Wolverine #1. (Read Jason Aaron's interview at Newsarama).

• Marjorie Liu is launching an X-23 ongoing series.

• X-Force is also ending with Second Coming and the superteam of Yost/Kyle will be off the book. The New X-Force will be by Rick Remender and the team will be taking on the biggest baddie of them all, Apocalypse! (Read interviews with Remender here and here.)

Finally, here's the link to the DC Solicitations for July 2010. There's nothing particularly interesting to me there... :(

Solicitations For July 2010 (Marvel)

I'm taking a day off from work and studies today. Down with the cold. Saw "Kick Ass" in the theatres in between classes yesterday. It was supposedly very funny but I couldn't laugh because of my cold and the skull-splittin' headache. Mark Millar fans would like this one a lot. Especially Hit Girl. In fact, Hit Girl is the only reason to watch this film.

Anyway, the Marvel Solicitations are up already. There are so many goodies this month that I do not even know where to start - cover images below at the end of this post. First up is Mick Anglo's "Marvelman" is finally getting reprinted after more than half a decade. Most folks (like me) have only heard about how groundbreaking this title was and how it launched the careers of Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. Some have been fortunate enough to have read the Moore/Gaiman issues. Nearly everyone else do not even know that there was a pre-Moore/Gaiman "Marvelman" by Mick Anglo. Thanks to Marvel, the old B&W stuff from the 1950s are finally made available. Speaking of classic reprints, Marvel is finally, finally, finally releasing the full "Dark Phoenix Saga" in a huge hardcover collection. This is not just the best X-Men storyarc ever, it's possibly among the best comic story ever published in the entire history of the human race. If you have not read this one, this is your chance to own it in an oversized deluxe hardcover collection. Also, the entire Mark Gruenwald "Squadron Supreme" is finally available in an omnibus edition. If you've wowed to groundbreaking "realistic" portrayals of superheroes in Watchmen, Kingdom Come, etc. this is where is all began. I'm definitely placing my order for this one.

Reprints of more recent works include the JMS Thor Hardcover - I missed the entire run so this is a godsend. Other than that, the story that destroyed the Ultimate Universe, ULTIMATUM by Jeph Loeb is also given the oversized hardcover treatment and they are also kind enough to throw in Ultimates 3 for good measure just to show you how bad Jeph Loeb's writing can get. Other than that, Dan Abnett's and Andy Lanning's cosmic epics continue with the Realm of Kings hardcover. If you're not into spacey stuff, go pick up Ed Brubaker's and Steve Epting's The Marvels Project hardcover for the origin of the Golden Age Marvel characters.

On the monthlies, Joe Quesada is back on another project to piss off many more Spidey fans. It's the sequel to ONE MORE DAY revealing just what happened between Peter, MJ, Aunt May and Mephisto. And no, it's not one big orgy although it's probably just as ugly and obscene. What looks like an orgy, on the other hand, are the two new X-minis. The first is evidence that Chris Claremont is a porn-addict as he teams up with famed erotica-artist Milo Manara on the long-awaited X-Women. The second is the X-Force: Sex And Violence mini featuring Wolverine and Domino.Another long-awaited return is Allan Heinberg's return to the Young Avengers. He's again paired with Jim Cheung and they are releasing the bi-monthly Avengers: The Children's Crusade. It'll be a 9-issue mini and if it's anything like their first 12-issue run, I'm definitely on for the entire run.

That's it for this post. I don't have the time or energy to talk about DC stuff today. Getting back to bed now... *yawn*