By Todd Allen

With Marvel’s April solicitations up, we can now declare crossover season upon us.

AVX (Avengers vs. X-Men, if you prefer) has been announced.  Axel and Tom have talked about keeping it in the core books.  Let’s see how many titles that entails in April.

  1. Avengers Vs. X-Men #1 (Of 12)
  2. Avengers Vs. X-Men #2 (Of 12)
  3. Avx: Vs #1 (Of 6)
  4. New Avengers #24
  5. New Avengers #25
  6. Avengers #25
  7. Secret Avengers #26
  8. Uncanny X-Men #11
  9. Wolverine & The X-Men #9

Actually, 9 isn’t a small number of books, but it’s smaller than I was expecting.  Also only one extraneous mini-series, the previously announced, fight club-esque “AVX: Vs.”

How many non-AVX Avengers books?

  1. Avengers: Roll Call
  2. Avengers: The Coming Of The Avengers! #1
  3. Avengers Academy #28
  4. Marvel’s The Avengers Prelude #3
  5. Marvel’s The Avengers Prelude #4
  6. Avengers Assemble #2
  7. Secret Avengers #25

OK, it’s almost cheating to have Secret Avengers on this list, as the NEXT issue starts with the cross-over, but there’s more Avengers issues outside AVX than in… at least for April.  Mind you, three issues are movie tie-ins.

How many non-AVX X-Books?

  1. Uncanny X-Men #10
  2. Astonishing X-Men #49
  3. Wolverine & The X-Men: Alpha & Omega #4 (Of 5)
  4. X-Men Legacy #265
  5. Wolverine & The X-Men #8
  6. X-Men #27
  7. Uncanny X-Force #24
  8. Wolverine #304
  9. Wolverine #305
  10. AGE OF APOCALYPSE #2
  11. New Mutants #40
  12. New Mutants #41
  13. X-Factor #234
  14. X-Club #5 (Of 5)

My first thought is “good lord, they publish a lot of X-books in a month.”  My second thought is “how many of these are going to start crossing over in May.”  I’m legitimately surprised Wolverine isn’t.  Uncanny X-Men and Wolverine & The X-Men both start their cross-over with the next issue.

It’s just possible Marvel is showing some restraint in this Event.  It’s probably best to give it another month and see if more books tie-in, but this is a lot smaller than I would have expected.

Comings and Goings

  • Looks like Cullen Bunn replaces Jason Aaron on Wolverine, as of issue #305.
  • Moon Knight ends with issue #12.  That’s even more change for Bendis.  He’s busy with his last year on the various Avengers titles and with AVX, but we could be looking at a very different set of output for Bendis in 2013.
  • Is Pepe Larraz the new penciller for Mighty Thor, or am I not remembering the announcement?
  • The final issue of The Twelve is solicited.  Beware of angry Mayans blocking your way to buy it.
  • Defenders #5 drawn by Mitch Breitweiser.  Michael Lark was on #4.  Is Terry Dodson still on Defenders?

Speaking of Events

Carnage U.S.A. #5 (Of 5)
Zeb Wells (W) Clayton Crain (A/C)
• It’s “America The Brutal” As The Massive Hit Mini-Series Concludes… Paving The Way For This Summer’s Secret Symbiote Event!
• Spidey, Venom And The Avengers Take On Carnage With A City At Stake And The Souls Of Hundreds On Their Shoulders.

Well… I guess the Secret Symbiote Event isn’t so secret anymore.  I also guess AVX has some event competition. Let me go out on a limb and guess:

  1. A new Wells/Crain Carnage mini-series
  2. Amazing Spider-Man
  3. Amazing Spider-Man (bi-weekly and all)
  4. Venom

Maybe a fifth title, too?  Avenging Spider-Man, perhaps?  I pulled a Wells/Crain Carnage collection from the library last week and Iron Man and Spidey are both in it, so I gather this has been bouncing around Avengers territory for a while.

1 COMMENT

  1. How many issues of Romita drawn Avengers vs X-Men do we have to get through until we reach one of the good artists?

  2. Marvel continues to cull the herd. Both Moon Knight and Generation Hope are cancelled.

    Buy Thunderbolts! Buy Thunderbolts!

  3. With the cancellation of Moon Knight, I will have no Marvel books on my list.

    For folks that aren’t fans of The Avengers, X-Men or Spider-Man, there really isn’t much to choose from at Marvel anymore.

    P.S. It might just be me but, I have always counted Cap, Thor and Iron Man as Avengers books just like Wolverine is an X-Men book. THAT really ups the total in the “Avengers Universe” if you do that.
    Which I think you should. ;)

  4. I have a feeling that Scarlet Spider will be involved in the symbiote event. I wouldn’t be shocked if he plays a role similar to Spider Island.

  6. @rikk odinson: there was a time when, while cap, thor and iron man were indeed in the avengers, when in the avengers’ book they were “avengers”, but over in their solo books they had their own storylines going on completely seperate from the avengers’ storylines. these days not so much as constant guest spots of any number of avengers could show up in any number of solo-avenger books (some storylines more than others), so i completely agree that any and all solo-avenger titles could be considered in the “avengers” family of titles. even spidey has constant guest shots of avengers showing up in his books making him more and more ingrained in the avengers universe. who’s next? wolverine perhaps?

  7. Ok, so who exactly is writing and drawing AVX? (the 6 parter) I looked at the solicits and it doesn’t say.

  8. I’m surprised they are letting some good writers actually… well, write! Like Remender in X-Force and Hickman in FF.

    I recently read all of the X-Force and Hickman’s FF issues and I must say I’m impressed at how self contained they feel, even though there are world shattering events taking place there.

    However, I just can’t make myself buy them… their indy works I already have, but Marvel stuff… ugh!

  9. One thing I’m stunned by is Avengers: The Coming Of The Avengers! #1. If the listing are to be believed this is a repeat of Avengers issue 1 with a re colour, for which they are charging $3.99!

    $3.99 for a reprint and the cost of a new paint job.

    WOW! They are drawing a very different line to DC!

    (I could of course have missed something and there might be more to this than meets the eye?)

  10. Rikk Odinson

    “With the cancellation of Moon Knight, I will have no Marvel books on my list.”

    Buy Daredevil and X-Factor! They’re awesome — consistently so! — and even when they’re dragged into crossovers, they don’t derail the ongoing narrative.

  11. @Jason-
    I’ve been reading Daredevil and I agree that it’s awesome but with 2 x-overs with books I don’t want to buy coming up, I’m probably done with it.X-Factor has two strikes against it.
    I can’t stand the X-universe and I don’t like Peter David’s writing. (Two of my all-time favorite single issues are by him but in general, I don’t enjoy his work)

    @abc- I’ve been reading comics since I was akid in the 70’s and Thor, Cap and Iron Man have always been part of The Avengers Franchise all the way back to when the book was a spin-off featuring Thor and Iron Man and Cap then spun off from the team book. I just think it’s weird when folks try to make them separate franchises.

  12. I feel sorry for all the poor bastards out there that feel like they have to buy every single issue involved in “Events”.

    I used to love them, but IMO they (from the Big Two) got worse & worse and bigger & bigger. CONVOLUTED CRAP.

    Seige and Blackest Night were my final straws.

    Now I get a buddy to tell me when the events are over, in about 15 minutes, to tell me everything that went on. Saving $$$ and time reading this garbage, gotta love it!!!

  13. Oh, good. The only two Marvel books I’m planning to shelf-buy buy aren’t involved in this nonsense. Depending on how big the disruption to some storylines is, I may skip a couple of trades, though.

  14. Marvel is sacrificing creative teams in order to double-ship their books, and in the process slashing the lower-tier books like Generation Hope and Moon Knight. X-Factor and Thunderbolts have to be under consideration for cancelation. And New Mutants can’t be that far behind.

    I’m bypassing this cross-over, but I may be suckered into the Remender books. Definitely not excited whatsoever.

  15. Micah: “Marvel is sacrificing creative teams in order to double-ship their books, and in the process slashing the lower-tier books like Generation Hope and Moon Knight. X-Factor and Thunderbolts have to be under consideration for cancelation. And New Mutants can’t be that far behind.”

    I don’t know, X-Factor at least has stability on its side. Looking at Paul O’Brien’s last chart (for November), Moon Knight had dropped 45% since it started and (not counting crossovers) Generation Hope had dropped over 50%. X-Factor, meanwhile, was only off 10% for the entire year, and had made slight gains for the last 3 issues in a row. That’s pretty heartening for a book that’s been chugging along for 6 years now under the same writer. Thunderbolts is a little iffier, as it has both dropped by a bigger percentage and is sitting at a lower level.

  16. As much as I love Thunderbolts, the book has been awful the last few months, since crossing over w/that awful Fear Itself event.

    The current storyline of the escapee’s jumping to the past has been unreadable IMO. It finally drove me off the book that I’ve been reading since Ellis’ run…

  17. I am loving Thunderbolts. Since Parker took over it has been a great read. There has not been a disappointing issue. And the best part? When its tied into an event (like Fear Itself) its still self contained. Much like the X-Factor tie in issues. And none of this decompressed 6-8 issue bullshit. We’ve had some great done in ones, and many arcs are 3 issues. Love it! :)

    The current Thunderbolts through time arc is an awesome read – and I’m really looking forward to them meeting up with the original line up!

    Highly Recommend it!

  18. @rikk odinson: yeah, lots of great stories back in the 70’s (i’ve been reading this stuff since a kid myself back in the 60’s) and i guess even in those books back then they would never let you forget that the big three were avengers, with villians vowing to defeat them and calling them “avenger” while doing so and always calling iron man the “golden avenger”,etc., which goes to your point of all these titles being under the avengers franchise.these days with so many characters being in the avengers at any given time, i guess it’s kinda hard not to think of their books (when any given character is given a shot at a solo book) not to think of their book as an “avengers” book. compared to the 60’s and early 70’s when the big three would show up in the avengers’ main title, cross-overs with avengers showing up in each others solo titles were kept to a minimum (hell, cross-overs in any title back in the 60’s and early 70’s were far and few inbetween), which is what made them so special. when i was a kid, the whole avengers/defenders war was the greatest storyline ever. marvel’s premiere super team (sorry f.f.) and marvel’s outlaw super team (sorry x-men) going head to head? holy crap! i think that maybe because cross-overs over the decades have been done to the point of over saturation, that they don’t seem as special anymore,especially these days where we find cross-overs more the norm rather than the exception, thus the kinda big yawn reaction over the next (latest) x/avengers dust up, which is to say that instead of a reaction of “holy crap! wow!”, it’s more of a “oh, that’s nice”. i’m not saying that it’s not gonna be any good, i’m saying it’s kinda hard to get revved up over a plot device that’s been done to death.