New Champions! New Comics!
TIMESLIDE BY 2025
Ah, how time flies—or should I say slides? I was tempted to drop a newsletter the moment the news broke that Ivan Fiorelli and I had been tapped for TIMESLIDE, the 40-page end-of-year extravaganza that teases many of the biggest Marvel events to come in 2025, but I had just been asked for announcement quotes for three(!) projects, so I held the line. Timeslide hits shelves on December 25th, the last Wednesday of the year, with this handsome Kael Ngu cover, keeping up his tradition over covers from Timeless the last few years, despite the name change.
I was admittedly pretty surprised myself when the Timeslide opportunity came in. I am ENORMOUSLY grateful for all of the mutant storytelling I’ve been able to do, and I more or less assumed it was finished for the foreseeable future, since it came at the tail end of an era; it’s both common and imminently understandable that the guard needs to be changed a bit when relaunching a line. What editorial legend Tom Brevoort couldn’t have known is that I had just, the week prior, told a friend that one of the only mutants I would still actively want to pitch on was none other than Cable. So the chance to do 40 pages of Cable and Bishop (who I already loved writing in his ‘97 iteration) hopping through time with the biggest guns Ivan can draw? Talk about comic-book kismet.
I won’t say too much more about the actual story now, since X-books are some of the few comics that still regularly support a press apparatus, except to say I tried to built on the excellent work Deniz Camp did in Children of the Vault while keeping it accessible to new readers, too. Ivan got the opportunity to draw a WILD tour of X-pasts, presents, and futures, along with teases for the wider Marvel universe beyond, and I’m stoked for readers to finish 2024 and kick off what’s sure to be a bombastic 2025 with us.
CHANGE THE WORLD
And speaking of Ivan…he and I are moving straight from big burly men with guns to the Marvel U.’s freshest teen heroes with the announcement of NEW CHAMPIONS, a brand-new series uniting the characters created for the Spider-Boy-inspired variant cover month last year! Joining us on main covers is Gleb Melnikov, and we launch January 8th with some eye-popping variants from Federico Vicentini, Luciano Vecchio (who designed Fantasma!), and Paco Medina (who designed and named Cadet Marvel!). And for our oversized first issue, my Spider-Woman collaborator Ig Guara will join Ivan and me for a five-page backup that helps bridge the gap between Spider-Woman and New Champions, making sure this new series is 100% new-reader-friendly.
Attentive True Believers might recognize some of our cast already—Liberty, Moon Squire, Cadet Marvel, and Hellrune made their debut in the second arc of my Spider-Woman run, while Amaranth is magicking into existence over in Scarlet Witch. We’ll also be looping in Fantasma, who speeds to life in the pages of Ghost Rider: Robbie Reyes Special #1, as well as a brand-new Wakandan character readers will meet here for the first time—and more as the series goes on.
It’s been a WILD creative process so far, taking existing pieces of art and reverse-engineering characters and back-stories and powers and relationships, but it’s tapped into a part of my brain that got me excited about storytelling in the first place—that drive that comes from seeing a character that just looks cool and wondering what their DEAL is. Especially in this case, where most of these characters have costumes related to existing heroes—figuring out why that might be the case has led to some very cool twists in their tales.
I’ve always loved Marvel’s teen teams—I grew up with Generation X and Avengers Academy and New X-Men: Academy X and Young Avengers and so on, and I adored the prior iteration of the Champions (who haven’t gone anywhere, I promise—keep an eye out for a story that addresses that name sharing VERY early on), and I’m excited for the opportunity to build all the interpersonal relationships and heightened personalities that really made those books sing to me, especially with the editorial team of Alanna Smith and MR Daniel supporting me (plus Kaitlyn Lindtvedt’s invaluable early guidance!).
A big inspiration for my approach here has been modern shonen manga—not in the art, of course, but in making the cast’s emotions bolder, their personalities bigger, their interactions more striking, even their powers more unique when possible. I think we’re all aware that there have been a lot of teen teams, and while every new era deserves their own go at it, it is always difficult for those kids to carve out their own lasting spots. This cast may have started as fake sidekick variant covers, but Ivan and I are putting in a lot of work to imbue them with real emotion and personality, and after working with Ivan on Timeslide, I’m champing at the bit to see him execute the entire story we’ve planned for these kids (and the ones we’ve yet to introduce!) to really establish their place in the wider Marvel Universe. We hope you’ll join us for the ride when New Champions #1 kicks off in January as they attempt to…CHANGE THE WORLD!
Maybe Subscribe While You’re Here?
And hey—if you stumbled here by accident, you may want to subscribe, as I am no longer on social media and this is really the only place you can find out more about the books I’m writing. I’ve got a lot of other big stuff brewing, both at Marvel and beyond, and lots to say about these books. So click the link. The upside is that I post pretty irregularly, so I won’t fill up your inbox!
I Am Literally and Figuratively Crawling With Spiders
And speaking of sidekicks…today is the day for SPIDER-BOY ANNUAL #1, which finds me returning to Bailey Briggs for a full-length tale after writing him in the pages of Spider-Woman #5 last year. This one-shot, which Carlos Neito and Fer Sifuentes-Sujo illustrated the HECK out of, is part of the Infinity Watch crossover, but can also be read as a standalone story for Spider-Boy fans. It finds Bailey headed to Coney Island for a day of fun in the sun when he’s waylaid by a certain criminal circus… On the Infinity Watch end of things, Multitude and the Prince of Power himself follow the potential signature of the next stone to the very same boardwalk, hoping to find an ally in their crusade. Carlos was a dream collaborator—this story has a LOT of moving parts and the setting itself plays a big role, but he made it all look so smooth and easy. Whether you’re following the crossover, are a diehard Spider-Boy reader, or just want to read some Coney Island chaos, make sure you pick up Spider-Boy Annual #1 wherever fine comics are sold.
And then next week is the release date of CHASM: CURSE OF KAINE #2, the next chapter in our sordid saga featuring manipulated memories, sopping sewers, melded monsters, clone clashes, and Hallows’ Eve looking cool as sh—. Andrea Broccardo became one of my absolute favorite collaborators over the course of this book and I cannot wait until we get to work together again.
Before I dip out, I would be remiss not to mention that I totally MISSED an issue that came out when I dropped my last newsletter—Venomverse Reborn #3, which features the debut of a VERY different Venom for the Web-Weaver universe, seen above on Derrick Chew’s variant cover, designed and brought to life in the interior by my frequent collaborators Kei Zama and Brian Reber. Kei freaked it on this tale, which draws on cosmic horror and some freakish body stuff to take a much darker turn for a key character in the Spider-Man orbit and deliver a new origin not only for this Venom, dubbed Project V-Star, but also for Silk, Web-Weaver frequent paramour, who finally gets his backstory revealed here. In true Web-Weaver fashion, the story is also full of cameos and allusions to other Marvel characters, and V-Star’s design itself is heavily inspired by a certain fashion designer. Web-Weaver fans who may have overlooked this because Venom was on the cover, make sure you track it down—the Silk questions you’ve been asking since the very first Web-Weaver story are answered here!
And now I think that’s it. I’ve got a few more odds and ends I want to talk about, but I said I am literally covered in spiders because I am helping my parents clean out their attic and barn to prepare to sell their house, and as I am a friend to all arachnids, a lot of that has involved spotting and relocating eight-legged friends before hurling their prior homes into the dumpster. I’ve filled two of the above dumpsters and we’re not done yet. Pray for me.
And as you may have noticed up top, I recently gave quote for three announcements, which means I’ve got another big news items dropping soon, and that one is out of this world—it’ll justify another newsletter all its own.
XOXO