Marvel is not looking to go into 2019 quietly. They have plenty of big plans that they are executing, especially for the X-Men as the franchise continues to deal with the aftermath of Extermination. Along with that Marvel is looking like they will be going all in with the Spider-Man franchise in time for the Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse movie. That is all on top of other things going on with their various franchises including a big wedding and potential superhero hook-up. Let’s find out what else Marvel has planned in the near future by taking a look at their December 2018 solicitations.
CABLE’S DEATH BRINGS BACK HOPE (SUMMERS) TO THE X-MEN
With everything that has been happening with the X-Men franchise one character that has seemingly been lost in the shuffle has been Hope Summers. Even with Cable being a big part of the Extermination event we have yet to see Hope show up. That all changes in December as Hope will be the lead in the X-Men: Exterminated one-shot.
Not only will we see Hope deal with the death of her adopted father, Cable, but X-Men: Exterminated is going to feature the first meeting between Hope and Jean Grey. Since Cable was her adopted father, this will hopefully mean we see Jean develop a relationship with her adopted granddaughter. And given Hope’s established importance in the past this meeting could set up an even bigger story down the line.
FANTASTIC FOUR HOST A BIG WEDDING
The big development in Fantastic Four #1 was Ben Grimm, aka The Thing, proposing to his on-and-off girlfriend, Alicia Masters. This was a big moment that many Fantastic Four fans have been waiting for. Dan Slott and Marvel are going to quickly capitalize on that excitement by having quickly payoff on the proposal by having the wedding take place in Fantastic Four #5, with a Fantastic Four: Wedding Special to accompany it.
Along with the wedding announcement Marvel couldn’t help but throw shade at the failed Batman and Catwoman wedding. With the amount of shade thrown in the Fantastic Four #5 solicitation this wedding must happen or else there will be a lot of angry fanboys and fangirls raging on the Internet.
KILLMONGER TAKES THE SPOTLIGHT
Killmonger is one of the characters that has benefitted the most from this age of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Before the Black Panther movie Killmonger was not a very well known villain. That all changed with a show stealing performance by Michael B. Jordan as Killmonger in the recent Black Panther movie. With how much momentum there was for interest in the character it is surprising that Marvel waited this long to spotlight Killmonger. Since the character is still in an unknown status within the comics this new mini-series will be a good opportunity to reboot Killmonger and present him as a bigger threat in the Marvel Universe.
KYLE HIGGINS GIVES WINTER SOLDIER A SECOND CHANCE
With an incredible run on the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series Kyle Higgins has further elevated his name as one of the top tier comic book writers. So with the momentum there are more eyes on what Higgins will do after he concluded his MMPR run with Shattered Grid. We didn’t have to wait long for what is next for Higgins as Marvel has brought him in to write a new Winter Soldier mini-series.
Since returning as the Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes has been one of Marvel’s more interesting characters. He has evolved past living in Captain America’s shadows, thanks it part to his backstory as the Winter Soldier. And after everything Bucky has been through as the Winter Soldier it’ll be interesting to see Higgins explore the character’s redemptive nature in this new mini-series. Hopefully it’ll find a strong audience that it could possibly morph into an ongoing series.
DEFENDERS ARE THE MARVEL UNIVERSE’S BEST DEFENSE
While the Defenders’ Netflix series portrayed them as a street-level team Marvel is looking to return the team to its previous status. For hardcore fans that will be something that is an exciting. With a line-up of Hulk, Namor, Doctor Strange and Silver Surfer the team is set-up to live up to the name of the story “The Best Defense.” The team is made to combat just about any threat even with how small of a roster the Defenders have. Hopefully it will all lead to the Defenders getting a bigger spotlight in the future.
MARVEL GOES ALL IN ON SPIDER-MAN
December will be a crazy month for Spider-Man that will be headlined by the Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse animated movie. Marvel is fully capitalizing on that momentum by releasing 12 comic books under the Spider-Man umbrella. Now I’ve already said my thoughts on the return of Superior Spider-Man but it is great to see Miles Morales not to be forgotten after Brian Bendis departure. I’m not familiar with Saladin Ahmed’s writing having a high profile title like Miles Morales: Spider-Man will give him a chance to build his name with Marvel fans, myself included. Though I’m still disappointed that Marvel didn’t have Miles take over as the lead in the Spectacular Spider-Man series.
INFINITY WARS REACHES ITS CLIMAX
We are going to finally reach the climax of Infinity Wars in December. To build hype for the ending Marvel is teasing the death of one of the Guardians of the Galaxy. With her lead role there are a lot of signs to Gamora being the one that will die, though that may just be a misdirection. But given how rough Infinity Wars has been so far there is still a lot of work to be done with the story to create excitement for this ending. If not, then this big sacrifice that is teased will not mean much without the proper build up to what should be a big moment in Infinity Wars.
UNCANNY X-MEN BRINGING BACK AGE OF APOCALYPSE
Much like Days of Future Past, the Age of Apocalypse is one of those big stories that the X-Men always seem to circle back to. Though the good thing for Uncanny X-Men revisiting this universe is the fact that the Age of Apocalypse hasn’t been driven to ground as hard as Days of Future Past. If handled right, this new take on the Age of Apocalypse could actually build on one of the sub-plots in the X-Men franchise that has been around a child version of Apocalypse. If that is the direction the Uncanny X-Men team are going with there is potential for this story to deliver what fans want from the franchise.
AVENGERS ASSEMBLE WORLD’S SUPERHERO LEADERS
Jason Aaron is taking the concept of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to the next level as the Avengers are going to be assembling other big name heroes for a major meeting. With Avengers #11 teasing a wide variety of superheroes at this big meeting it’ll be interesting to see who Aaron chooses to represent various parts of world. This meeting will likely create more building blocks for what will happen next in Aaron’s run after what we learned about the Celestials history on Earth.
On top of that Avengers #11 will also feature the first date between Thor and She-Hulk. This is sure to be a major fanservice development. While this would usually be something I shrug at Aaron has not given me a reason to doubt his plans for the Avengers. That includes this developing relationship between Thor and She-Hulk. It should at least deliver some fun moments between the two outside their Avengers adventures.
JONAH JAMESON GETS INSPIRED BY SPIDER-MAN PS4 GAME
One of the things that the Spider-Man PS4 video game introduced was J. Jonah Jameson as an Alex Jones-styled podcast host. This direction made Jameson both an easy character to hate and one of the funnier parts of the Spider-Man video game. It now looks like Nick Spencer will be doing something similar within the pages of the Amazing Spider-Man. The change to this direction that Spencer is making is actually making JJJ a pro-Spider-Man podcast host since he knows Peter Parker is Spider-Man. What this will mean for Peter and JJJ relationship should be interesting to see play out in the Spider-Man comics.