C2E2 – Some Highlights And More

The Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo has come and gone again. Like many of your out there, One-Quest did not get to attend. Fortunately though we still got to partake in all the awesome news that came spilling out of the yearly convention. So rather then bore you with a recap of what happened, what big annoucments there were, who hit on who. We decided to just highlight what we’re most looking forward to.

If you want to see something specific feel free to jump to page 2 for DC or page 3 for Independent Publishers!

Marvel Comics

First up we have Marvel, they’re really getting things moving. Or so it seems, launching several new titles in the coming months featuring some of their most popular characters, that don’t often get the spotlight. Add to that numerous crossovers between books and you’ve got one hell of a summer. Anyway lets get this started, in no particular order.

1) Fraction and Aja doing some target practice with Hawkeye
Hawkeye is a great character, in pretty much every Marvel Universe. He doesn’t really have any powers, he’s just a badass. And you know what, that works! We don’t know a ton about the book yet, a few fun facts we do have though are: Clint isn’t the only Hawkeye running around. Kate Bishop of the Young Avengers will be there to help out too. Also Fraction is going to be branching Hawkeye’s skills out a bit and borrowing some ideas from his Ultimate Universe counterpart. For anyone unfamiliar, Ultimate Hawkeye isn’t just an awesome shot with a Bow and Arrow he can pretty much make anything into a deadly projectile and kill you real good with it.

So basically what we have to look forward to his Hawkeye running around with a sidekick, pulling off Macgyver like stunts making projectile weapons out of some chicken wire and string.

2) The Ragin’ Cajin’s New Ongoing – Gambit
Gambit is a lot of things, a thief, a mutant, a hero, a badass. He’s been a member of various X-Men teams since he was introduced back in the 1990’s, which says something for his character since most people blame the 90’s for nearly killing comics. Which is really a load of crap, but that’s a story for another time. Anyway Gambit stuck around, right now he’s running around in X-Men Legacy and Astonishing X-Men (To the best of my Wikipedia based knowledge). Not a lot of time for solo stuff in those books, or spotlights even. So we’re getting a new Gambit series from James Asmus and Clay Mann. Where it’s said Gambit is going to be delving back into his roots, whether that means he’s going to be stealing stuff or working with the Thiefs Guild we’ll just have to wait and find out.

After typing this I saw a nice interview with Asmus over at CBR you should go check it out.

3) Ultimate Division in Ultimate Comics – Divided We Fall
The Ultimate Universe has a history of cross overs running alongside their core titles. We had great stories like Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk (that took a LONG time to come out), Ultimate Powers, the Ultimate Comics – Doomsday all of these fun stories taking place with characters pulled out of the various ongoing titles, being used together for a larger story. It’s something we’re all use to in the 616 universe, they do it every summer with 101 tie in issues and all that fun stuff. Ultimate did it different though and it just felt like part of the big picture. Well here is our first look at a cross over in the “new” Ultimate Comics and it’s not going to be an extra book either. Running through the 3 ongoing titles we’ve got a story that will finally bring them all together. We’ve seen a little bit of crossover with some of the X-Men in the Ultimates, or Fury and Spider-Woman in Ultimate Spider-Man, but this is going to be the first time the story flows through all the books and hits all the characters together. Oh it’s also going to be bringing Captain America back into the fold which is way overdue. The event or “e word” as they called it will be written by their series regular, with Brian Wood doing Ultimate Comics X-Men, Sam Humphries doing Ultimate Comics The Ultimates, and Brian Michael Bendis on Ultimate Comics Spider-Man. They’re keeping it pretty secret right now, but with the two new writers coming up to bat on their titles soon, this should be an interesting summer for Ultimate Comics.

4) Artist Shuffle – Stegman goes to Fantastic Four, Pham takes over Scarlet Spider
This is the only story that made me a little sad, I really like Scarlet Spider, you can probably tell by my reviews of issue one and three. It’s one of those books I’m excited to read each month and part of that reason is Ryan Stegmans artwork, he does action great and tells the visual side to Yost’s story perfectly. That said I’ve gotta say I’m not too familiar with Khoi Pham, so I googled him and his work is pretty solid but I’m still going to miss Stegman’s artwork on Scarlet Spider. The good news is he’s just jumping over to Fantastic Four, so anyone that reads Marvel’s First Family will not only be getting a great writer in the form of Jonathan Hickman, but also a great artist. Which means I might be picking up Fantastic Four, at least until fall when Hickman’s run is supposed to be ending. After that we’ll have to see.

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Chris talks a bunch on PodQuest each week. He's also been known to write about stuff from time to time. You can Email Chris or follow Chris on Twitter @Just_Cobb or Facebook

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