Finally some good news for Richard Rider fans, but don’t hold your breath – more on that below.
With Marvel’s new Secret Wars event comes word the publisher is ending 33 titles.
Among those titles is NINO, Captain Ms. Marvel, Legendary Star-Lord and Rocket Raccoon.
Sales for NINO and Captain Ms. Marvel have well been under cancellation levels for some time, and Star-Lord and Rocket Raccoon have been dropping steadily.
The new Marvel “Cosmic” has been unable to sustain the readership that Abnett and Lanning enjoyed with their stellar run, of which Marvel Comics editor Bill Rosemann stated consisted of “rock solid sales.”
The bad news is that Marvel Comics continues to be going in the wrong direction with Nova, as NINO writer Gerry Duggan is on the new Secret Wars Infinity Gauntlet book, which like NINO, appears to be a mockery of the original. This time Marvel seems to be going with a parody version of Jim Starlin’s Infinity Gauntlet series that is inspiring the current Marvel Studios wave of movies (and for the record, Starlin had no idea and was never told about the Secret Wars IG series).
The new IG now features a multi-colored version of the Nova Corps (interestingly enough, DnA pitched a multi-colored Nova Corps prior to their 2007 Nova series) that focuses on a young black female NINO.
I’ll also comment on Abnett’s Guardians 3000 being on the list: The first issue saw high sales (much to the surprise of Marvel); however, sales quickly dropped on subsequent issues. It’s my opinion that going with Alex Ross covers paired with an anime/manga-inspired artist on the inside wasn’t the best way to go. I’ll also say that Marvel hasn‘t given Abnett an A-list artist since Brad Walker or Andrea Di Vito.
Check out the list of series ending prior to Secret Wars (via Newsarama) with, of course, some being relaunched:
All-New Captain America
All-New Ghost Rider
All-New X-Men
Amazing Spider-Man
Amazing X-Men
Angela: Asgard’s Assassin
Avengers, Avengers World
Captain Marvel
Cyclops
Deadpool
Elektra
Fantastic Four
Guardians 3000
Guardians of the Galaxy
Hulk
Inhuman
Iron Fist: The Living Weapon
Legendary Star-Lord
Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man
New Avengers
Nightcrawler
Nova
Rocket Raccoon
Secret Avengers
Spider-Man & the X-Men
Spider-Man 2099
Storm
Superior Iron Man
Thor
Uncanny X-Men
Wolverines
X-Men
