As with the summer months, Marvel’s October 2022 is being dominated by the end of A.X.E.: Judgment Day. The event appears to be what will define how Marvel will close out 2022 and the early part of 2023. While a large portion of Marvel’s publishing line-up is tied to A.X.E.: Judgment Day there are a lot of other things going on. That includes building a new Spider-Man event around the Spider-Verse. What else is going on in October in the Marvel Universe? Let’s take a look.
JUDGMENT DAY DECIDES THE FATE OF THE MUTANTS
You can definitely tell that A.X.E.: Judgment Day is tying up any creative plans for the majority of Marvel titles throughout the second half of the event. That is definitely the case in October as a large number of titles are either tying into A.X.E.: Judgment Day or just on a holding pattern until the latest Marvel event ends. That is certainly the case for the Avengers and Eternals along with the Fantastic Four. The only ones that seem to be able to move on from A.X.E.: Judgment Day in a big way are the X-Men, with multiple titles in the franchise already moving on to new stories.
This all does put into question how exactly the ending of A.X.E.: Judgment Day will impact the Marvel Universe’s immediate future in the aftermath. Because as we saw with A.X.E.: Judgment Day #1, the universe is in danger because of how Druig and the Eternals have decided to eliminate all mutants. Even though the mutant race will survive A.X.E.: Judgment Day we don’t know what the status quo of everyone involved will be. That includes what state the Earth will be as the Eternals are going all out with their villainous plot using the Celestials. It will certainly define where the Avengers, X-Men, and Eternals will go for the rest of 2022 and the beginning of 2023.
MIRACLE MAN FINALLY RETURNS
Back in 2013, Marvel promised to do a lot of big things with Miracleman when gained the publishing rights to the IP. Since then, what we’ve gotten from the Miracleman franchise is a lot of reprints for single issues and trade paperbacks. At the end of last year, Marvel teased that Miracleman would finally debut in the Marvel Universe with an “MM” tease in the Timeless one-shot. But since that tease things have been silent with Miracleman.
Now finally almost a year since the Timeless teaser it looks like Marvel is ready to publish new stories. Or at the very least publishing the unfinished storyline by Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham. Because in October we will have two Miracleman comics coming out. The first is Miracleman #0 which will be a celebration issue featuring multiple creators’ Miracleman stories. Then after that, we will finally get Miracleman: The Silver Age by Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham.
I’ve never actually read Miracleman but given the legendary franchise I know it to be I would jump on board to find out what makes Miracleman special. Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham are a great creative team so I know Miracleman: The Silver Age can be special. I just hope for Miracleman fans that they will finally get the comic book they hope for.
THE END OF THE SPIDER-VERSE BEGINS
I love the Spider-Verse concept. With how long Spider-Man has been around exploring the Multiverse has brought new life to the franchise. And as a big fan of expanding a franchise through a connected family seeing Marvel dive into creating extensions of Spider-Man and Spider-Woman has been fun to see.
All of that said while it is exciting to hear a new event being built up that threatens the Spider-Verse all of that excitement is toned done by the current creative direction of Amazing Spider-Man. Even with Dan Slott, Mark Bagley, Zeb Wells, and John Romita Jr. working on this story all my interest is killed by the Peter Parker and Norman Osborn team-up continuing. Seeing Spider-Man continuing to use Green Goblin technology, including what appears to be his version of pumpkin bombs, is just further pushing me away from the franchise. Add in a lot of other creative decisions it is tough to say that I will be jumping back on board with either the new Spider-Man or the Amazing Spider-Man series.
Not helping the matter is the fact that October lacks another Spider-Man Family title with either Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy, Jessica Drew, and others in them. If Marvel is really going to be getting back into making the Spider-Verse a big event not having any of the other Spider-Man Family members with their own comics makes this entire direction appear hollow. Hopefully, Marvel actually has plans for all the Spider-Men and Spider-Women of the Multiverse.
FUTURE OF THE X-MEN
For as heavily involved as the X-Men franchise is involved in A.X.E.: Judgment Day we see starting October several of their titles already moving on to their next stories. That includes the current X-Men series that will finally be able to tell its first story with the new roster that was announced during the Hellfire Gala. Starting out by exploring what Forge is up to as he is working on something in secret with Charles Xavier is an interesting choice. Given that this is the first story being tackled for the new roster it could all tie into the direct aftermath of A.X.E.: Judgment Day and recent developments with Orchis.
Along with that, we have the Marauders dealing with things from the Marvel 2099 future, Emma Frost working with the New Mutants, and Wolverine continues to deal with Beast’s questionable actions. These things show and other things going on in titles like X-Terminators show that the mutant race does at least survive A.X.E.: Judgment Day. Though all these solicitations are careful not to give away any big spoilers for how A.X.E.: Judgment Day. I wonder if that will change when October hits and A.X.E.: Judgment Day is over when these titles are released.
ELEKTRA NATCHIOS TEST MATT MURDOCK CONVICTION
With the start of the new Daredevil series we saw that Matt Murdock and Elektra Natchios are settling things before fully teaming up as co-leaders of The Fist. Because of that, we don’t really know how Matt and Elektra will actually work together as The Fist co-leads. While they certainly love each other both Matt and Elektra normally operate solo. Even when they’ve been on teams like the Avengers and Defenders both of them have solo mentalities.
That all puts into question how they will work together, which is what Daredevil #4 appears to be tackling. Based on the solicitation Daredevil #4 will address how Matt and Elektra need to work as equals rather than just allies or lovers as they have been for a large part of their history. Exploring their relationship in this way should add new layers to both characters individually and as a pair.