Marvel Cancels 'Destroyers' Mini

Destroyers, a five-issue miniseries written by Fred Van Lente with art from Kyle Hotz (The Hood), has been canceled, the latest victim in Marvel's apparent war on minis.

Marvel recently Nick Spencer and Becky Cloonan's Victor Von Doom a week before it was set to debut, and Alpha Flight got the axe just days after Marvel announced that it was upgraded from a miniseries to an ongoing title. All Winner's Squad was a loser; the metatextual World War II tale had the unique distinction of being cancelled halfway through it's run.

What's the deal with Marvel and minis?

It's not hard to guess. Marvel, the sales leader in the direct market since forever, has fallen way behind DC for two months in a row, and it has been flooding the market with superfluous titles since - well, since forever. I would have looked to a few of the really awful ongoing series that have no reason to exist like Wolverine: The Best There Is to trim the fat, but sadly Marvel has instead canceled what looked like a promising premise: a five-issue series pairing modern monstrous heroes like The Thing, She-Hulk and The Beast with the Golden Age hero The Destroyer.

That makes three Van Lente projects in recent weeks that are ceasing publication, with this month's Van Lente/Pak written Herc ending this month with issue #10.

Alpha Flight: Betrayal, Vengeance in Ongoing Series [Also Wolverine]

Oh, the Canadian hair will be pulled! Blood will stain the Tundra and/or Sasquatch's mane! Alpha Flight's Northstar and Aurora are gonna have a brother-sister brawl in the pages of Alpha Flight, which was recently upgraded from a mini to an ongoing series at Marvel.

Here's their official word on the feud:

"Alpha Flight is now an ongoing series, but can the team hold it together as a betrayal comes to blows?"

I'm guessing that they probably do - I don't think Marvel sat down and said "let's upgrade you to ongoing, and start with a storyline that destroys the whole team" unless you're The Order. Still, Alpha Flight has a long and storied history of sweeping team changes and deaths - most of which have been undone - but they could happen again.

Whatever happens I'll be there. I don't think you could publish a book written by Fred Van Lente and Greg Pak with art by Dale Eaglesham and have it be anything less than amazing. That's just a powerhouse team, and the current incarnation of AF is a really great title.

And as if that weren't enough, guess who's coming to dinner...

There was an issue recently in which Guardian suggested calling Wolverine for assistance, and I thought "Doesn't Wolverine want to put a claw in Mac's face, or is that not happening now?" It's difficult to keep up with Wolvie's comings and goings but the MacDonald family have given him plenty of cause to go into full-on berserker mode. That's the thing about Alpha Flight, it's a great team but they're sort of the Curb Your Enthusiasm of the superhero set, in that you don't always know if or why you're rooting for the protagonist, who is kind of a dysfunctional creep. 

Alpha Flight are specialists at pissing people off, and Wolverine is known to be mildly irritable when he doesn't get his beauty sleep, so this should be fun. Greg Pak said to Newsarama of the confrontation:

"It's a slow burn that will have a great payoff, and a perfectly appropriate story/character-related payoff"

Like I said before, I'm in.

Coming Soon In ALPHA FLIGHT!

Alpha Flight is now an ongoing series, but is the team safe as an Avenger heads north?

Join the conversation on Twitter with #AlphaFlight
 
ALPHA FLIGHT #5 (AUG110634)
Written by FRED VAN LENTE & GREG PAK
Art by DALE EAGLESHAM
Cover by CARLO PAGULAYAN
FOC – 9/19/11, ON-SALE – 10/12/11
 
ALPHA FLIGHT #6 (SEP110563)
Written by FRED VAN LENTE & GREG PAK
Art by DALE EAGLESHAM
Cover by TOM GRUMMETT
FOC – 10/31/11, ON-SALE – 11/23/11

'Cowboys & Aliens' Enhanced Digital Comic Available

With Cowboys & Aliens set to premiere tomorrow, digital comics publisher Graphicly has released an enhanced digital version of the Platinum Studios graphic novel on which the film is based.

Cowboys & Aliens features writing from Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley with art by Dennis Calero and Luciano Lima. Graphicly's enhanced diigital version of the complete graphic novel is available for $9.99. It can be viewed online, or using any of Graphicly's free apps, which run on iPhone/iPad, Android, Mac, PC and Linux.

Well, It's no "Sweet Christmas!"...

But on the other hand, it is topical and applies to both current events and the character's mercenary nature.

(By the way, we're gonna bust this kid's balls for using Craigslist but we're totally cool with Silver Sable and Paladin?  Or the Black Cat for that matter WTF?)

Also no tiara, so - you know, there's that.

Anyway, blame my love for everything Fred Van Lente writes if you must, but the new Power Man gets the Comics Cavern seal of approval.

Captain Marvel becomes a 'Dead Avenger'

Marvel is to launch a new miniseries alongside their upcoming event Chaos War, featuring the resurrection of a number of deceased superheroes.

Chaos War: Dead Avengers will begin in November, spinning out of the main series when the Chaos King causes the afterlife dimension to collapse, allowing a number of former Avengers to escape. 

He revealed that among the characters returning will be Captain Marvel, The Vision, Yellowjacket II, Doctor Druid, the Swordsman and Deathcry. 

"Part of the fun of this series is seeing some characters we haven't seen in a long time," miniseries writer Fred Van Lente told Comic Book Resources about his choice of cast for the book. 

via digitalspy.co.uk

Alright, events and dead guys and retconnning and then pretending it never happened six months later!

Yay?

Well, the words "Captain Marvel" and "Fred Van Lente" do kinda gimme a fanboy woody, I can't lie. Let the Chaos War begin!!