Comic Book News & Resources

Media Release -- This April, the biggest names in the industry pit the largest super hero franchises against one another for the biggest war in comics history in Avengers Vs. X-Men! To celebrate this blockbuster event, Marvel has your first look at the Avengers Vs. X-Men #2 Bradshaw Variant by red-hot artist Nick Bradshaw! With the opening salvo fired, the time for talking is over. What side does Wolverine choose and what decision will Hope make that may turn the tide of the war… just as it begins?

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Episode #12 of the This Week in Marvel (TWiM) podcast is here and it's jam-packed with Mighty Marvel goodness! Ben flies solo with the latest print and digital releases including AVENGERS #21, AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #3, DAREDEVIL #8, INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #512 and UNCANNY X-FORCE #20, plus more on "Blade Anime," the latest Marvel TV and gaming news, plus much more including answers to your questions!

Download episode #12 of This Week in Marvel from Marvel.com, check out Marvel Podcast Central, grab the TWiM RSS feed and subscribe to This Week in Marvel on iTunes or Zune, so you never miss an episode!

This Week in Marvel will focus on delivering all the Marvel info on news and new releases--from comics to video games to toys to TV to film and beyond! New episodes will be released every Thursday (or so) and TWiM is co-hosted by Marvel Digital Media Group Executive Editorial Director Ryan "Agent M" Penagos and Marvel.com Associate Editor Ben Morse.

We also want your feedback, as well as questions for us to answer on future episodes! Tweet your questions, comments and thoughts about TWiM to @Agent_M, @BenJMorse or @Marvel with the hashtag #ThisWeekinMarvel! And if your message is longer than 140 characters, send it through fans.marvel.com!

Download episode #12 of This Week in Marvel

Want more info on what's in this episode? Here you go:

Marvel print comics and collections on sale January 18, 2012
New Marvel digital comics and collections available on the Marvel app for the week of January 18, 2012
Digital comics added to Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited during the week of January 18, 2012
First look at the cover to Avengers Vs. X-Men #1
Preview episode 2 of "Blade Anime"
Learn about the Descendants, coming to Secret Avengers, in the Father Files
Gazillion to fool the Marvel Heroes MMO with Unreal Engine 3
Check out AvX: Round One teasers
Marvel stickers on GetGlue
Marvel Comics news
Marvel Movie & TV news
Marvel Games news
Marvel Toys news

Tomorrow, Friday, January 20, we're bringing you a special new look at Hasbro's official "Marvel's The Avengers" action figures, and to mark the occasion we'll host a liveblog with some of the people responsible for bringing Earth's Mightiest Heroes from the big screen to your shelf!

Join in on the chat with our liveblog beginning tomorrow, January 20, at 2:00 p.m. ET to learn what went into the figures' creation, and have your questions answered by the people in charge.

Sign up for the liveblog below, and also keep an eye out tomorrow for our exclusive new look at the figures, right here on Marvel.com!

<a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=b264ff046f" mce_href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=b264ff046f" >Marvel's The Avengers Action Figures Liveblog</a>

Marvel Studios presents in association with Paramount Pictures “Marvel’s The Avengers”--the super hero team up of a lifetime, featuring iconic Marvel super heroes Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow. When an unexpected enemy emerges that threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, Director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment effort begins.

Starring Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner and Samuel L. Jackson, and directed by Joss Whedon from a screenplay by Joss Whedon, “Marvel’s The Avengers” is based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series “The Avengers,” first published in 1963 and a comics institution ever since. Prepare yourself for an exciting event movie, packed with action and spectacular special effects, when “Marvel’s The Avengers” assemble in summer 2012. The film is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

In addition to "Marvel's The Avengers," Marvel Studios will release a slate of films based on the Marvel characters including "Iron Man 3" on May 3, 2013; and “Thor 2” on November 15, 2013.

By Jim Beard

In February’s SECRET AVENGERS #22, new series writer Rick Remender begins to reveal the sinister secret that lies at the center of the world: the Descendants. Hyper-evolved from the Marvel Universe’s most famous robots and androids by the enigmatic Father, these new “races” will challenge the Avengers like no foe before them. This series of week-long “sneak-peeks” will reveal for the first time each species of Descendants through extensive notes and Remender’s commentary. 

There must be something more to the story of the Sentinels than subjugation, yet their very existence represents the eternal desire of mankind for pawns in their games of destruction. Tragically, the Sentinels’ original spark of individuality and freedom wallows in a history of, essentially, robotic slavery.

Created by Doctor Bolivar Trask to hunt down mutants across the globe, the Sentinel robots immediately rebelled and chose their own destiny. Unfortunately for them, the earliest versions of the machines easily crumbled under super human attacks; they and their so-called “Master Mold” fell prey to the mutant X-Men. Then, saving them from becoming simply a footnote in the history of robotics and artificial intelligence, a son of Trask revived his father’s designs and began a long dynasty of Sentinels. 

The X-Men and their allies soon learned that their robotic nemeses could be easily fooled and, in doing so, found the way to their defeat. After the Trasks, other would-be conquerors and criminals created new versions of the Sentinels, each with their own distinctive programming, the United States government’s “Project Wideawake” Mark V being the most successful of them to date. Still, these too fell to superior tactics and greater intelligences.

SECRET AVENGERS #22 preview art by Gabriel Hardman

Some Sentinel technology exists in forms other than those that would be recognized by their original maker. Rumors persist of a magic-derived version, Soviet interpretations and even one form reputedly from a future time. 

Sentinel size ranges from a nanotechnology miniature to a skyscraper-level “wild” version, the latter of which became embroiled in the genocide on Genosha, thanks to one Cassandra Nova. Reports of cyborg Sentinels—part-human, part-robot—exist, perhaps explaining some cases of Sentinels possessing what seem to be actual emotions. In all, the scions of Bolivar Trask stand as an incredibly adaptive form of robotics, albeit one with a singularly narrow involvement in the ongoing eradication of mutantkind.

“The Sentinaught Society is sentient Sentinels who have a natural hate for mutants and still have some of their original tendencies from their mindless ancestors,” says SECRET AVENGERS writer Rick Remender of the latest Descendants. “Such as their inherent need to crush, kill, and destroy the mutant race. [But] they’re individuals. So any Sentinaught that you’d meet would have its own personality and background. The Core has been hidden for so many years, and these things have been living there for many, many years. So these things all have their own back-stories and likes and dislikes. 

“They’re about 10 feet tall. They’re a little more manageable in terms of size. There could also be a Master Mold or two involved. Okay, there is a Master Mold. It’s a big old man with a rusty beard who is one of the earlier attempts. The size made it difficult to mass-produce, but we will see the different kinds of Sentinels that have been made.”

Stay tuned to Marvel.com all week for more of the Father Files to learn the secrets of the Descendants!

Updated shipping information for Dynamite Entertainment comics and products being released beyond the week of 01/25/2012, provided by Diamond Distribution and our friends at Things From Another World. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License, and is © 2011 by Charles LePage.

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Updated shipping information for Image comics and products being released beyond the week of 01/25/2012, provided by Diamond Distribution and our friends at Things From Another World. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License, and is © 2011 by Charles LePage.

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Updated shipping information for IDW Publishing comics and products being released beyond the week of 01/25/2012, provided by Diamond Distribution and our friends at Things From Another World. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License, and is © 2011 by Charles LePage.

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Hey, Marvel fans!

Below, we've listed all Marvel print comics that have included a code you can redeem for a free digital version.  

If you've redeemed codes, look for the digital comics you own in the list below. You can read any digital comic you've previously redeemed by signing in to Marvel.com and clicking the READ NOW links next to the comic. Or, you can download the comics in the Marvel Comics app for iOS or Android devices. 

Have a code to redeem? Do it here. 


AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #1 (2011)
WRITER: Zeb Wells
ARTIST: Joe Madureira
ON SALE: 11/9/11
DIGITAL REDEMPTION CODE EXPIRES: 11/9/12

READ NOW >

AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #2 (2011)
WRITER: Zeb Wells
ARTIST: Joe Madureira
ON SALE: 12/7/11
DIGITAL REDEMPTION CODE EXPIRES: 12/7/12

READ NOW >

AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #3 (2011)
WRITER: Zeb Wells
ARTIST: Joe Madureira
ON SALE: 1/18/12
DIGITAL REDEMPTION CODE EXPIRES: 1/18/13

READ NOW >

ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN 6 (2011)
WRITER: Brian Michael Bendis
ARTIST: Chris Samnee
ON SALE: 1/18/12
DIGITAL REDEMPTION CODE EXPIRES: 1/18/13

READ NOW >

By Ben Morse

He may not be a teacher by trade, but writer Christos Gage has put a lot of stock in making sure the young would-be-heroes of the Marvel Universe get the education they need before venturing out into the dangerous field of saving the world. 

X-MEN LEGACY #261 preview art by David Baldeon

Gage has spent the past two years helping Earth’s Mightiest guide a damaged group of super-powered teens in AVENGERS ACADEMY—recently joined by artist Tom Grummett—but added further to his portfolio earlier this month when he and artist David Baldeon enrolled in the Jean Grey School as the new creative team for X-MEN LEGACY. Though both titles take place in a school setting and feature veteran heroes training their hopeful successors, the tone between the two varies at a core level.

“Being an Avenger is a choice, being an X-Man is almost part and parcel of being a mutant,” contends Gage. “That wasn’t always the case, but now that there are so few mutants left, that’s how it is. So for the X-Men, it’s more about ‘This is the hand we’ve been dealt—what’s the best way to approach life?’ [where] with the Avengers it’s much more the traditional super hero philosophy of ‘Let’s use our talents to serve mankind.’ Not that the X-Men don’t care about that, but it’s just one part of a whole. 

“Being an Avenger is a part time thing, and when you’re not doing that, you’re being a billionaire industrialist or whatever. Being an X-Man is a full-time job.”

Accordingly, these two differing philosophies inform the way the different teams steer their protégés, and in turn the way Gage views his charges and the institutions at which they matriculate.

“The Jean Grey School is very specifically teaching mutants, so they specialize in things like mutant history and mutant literature,” he explains. “They’re also trying to make sure their students learn how to do a variety of things in life besides combat; that’s their whole point, in contrast to Cyclops’ approach. 

AVENGERS ACADEMY #26 black and white preview art by Tom Grummett

“At Avengers Academy, there is more emphasis on being a hero and how to use your powers for good. They still teach things like math and literature, but the goal is to be a hero like the Avengers, whereas at the Grey School, the point is you could be a chef or a wedding planner and it’s as legitimate as being an X-Man.”

While the focus in X-MEN LEGACY lies more with the faculty than the students, Gage has formed some opinions on the Grey School trainees and how they contrast to his Avengers Academy stalwarts. 

“I do think the Grey School kids feel more like they’re part of a community [while] the AA kids can feel isolated,” the writer notes. “The original Academy students have that question hanging over them [of] will they go down the villainous path Norman Osborn started them on or become heroes. Although some of the Grey School kids have that too, like Broo and Genesis.”

In addition to that ever-looming potential fork in the road, the cast of AVENGERS ACADEMY currently have their hands full with the energy-leeching Hybrid, unleashed on the school by a time-travelling version of class leader Reptil whose motivations have still yet to be fully revealed. 

“I do think there is some parallel between Hybrid, who always totally embraced evil, and future Reptil, who compromised his ideals over times, but ended up on the same time,” Gage points out.

X-MEN LEGACY #261 preview art by David Baldeon

Over in LEGACY, the core team will come up against classic X-Men foes like Exodus and Mimic as well as the extremely powerful Weapon Omega, but Gage has great excitement about spending time with and expanding his cast even when they’re not fighting bad guys. 

“Rogue is one of the Marvel characters who has grown and evolved the most over the years, and the nature of her powers makes her a great window into other characters,” he says. “I’m also reading up on Chamber right now [and] he’s a cool character, [plus] Gambit, Frenzy and the Guthrie siblings. We won’t be focusing as much on the students in LEGACY as [Jason Aaron will in WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN], but when the time comes I always seem to gravitate toward Rockslide and Glob Herman. They’re just such cool visuals!”

Looking to the future, while the Jean Grey School may be in Westchester and the Avengers Academy recently relocated to California, Gage promises an upcoming event will bring the two together as they each come up against a surprising threat: 

“Each other! Or in a greater sense, Avengers Vs. X-Men. Both books will be a big part of that.”

X-MEN LEGACY #261 hits stores next week on Wednesday, January 25, while AVENGERS ACADEMY #25 follows on February 1.

This April, as the flames of war are stoked by the impending arrival of the Phoenix Force, the New Avengers have received the call to arms by Captain America to go to war against the X-Men. Except where does the loyalty of Wolverine lie? Find out in NEW AVENGERS #24 from the creative team of Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato!

NEW AVENGERS #24
Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS
Pencils & Cover by MIKE DEODATO
ON SALE THIS APRIL!