San Diego Comic-Con just dropped some huge news: Jonathan Hickman’s IMPERIAL is indeed kicking off a brand-new age of Marvel’s galactic stories, and we’re getting five ongoing series spinning out of it.
Marvel has been teasing that IMPERIAL, the four-part epic by writer Jonathan Hickman and artists Iban Coello and Federico Vicentini, would reshape the cosmic landscape. At the “Marvel Comics: Next Big Thing Panel,” we learned exactly what that means. Along with a peek at upcoming IMPERIAL WAR one-shots, Editor-in-Chief C.B. Cebulski, VP & Executive Editor Tom Brevoort, and writer Stephanie Phillips announced the first wave of ongoing series set in this new intergalactic order:
- PLANET SHE-HULK
- NOVA: CENTURION
- BLACK PANTHER: INTERGALACTIC
- EXILES
- IMPERIAL GUARDIANS
All five titles will be set up in the IMPERIAL WAR one-shots, releasing over the next few months, with the new series launching in November.
PLANET SHE-HULK #1 On Sale: November 5 Written by Stephanie Phillips, Art and Cover by Aaron Kuder
She-Hulk is getting a solo series unlike anything she’s ever experienced! After promising her cousin, Hulk, to look after Sakaar for a few days, Jennifer Walters finds herself stuck on the savage planet for much longer. Now, She-Hulk is in charge of maintaining peace on a world constantly at war. But can Jennifer, a very different kind of Hulk than the one who once smashed Sakaar into submission, handle a planet of witches, rebels, and cannibals?
“I’m so excited,” Phillips shared. “Working with Aaron is fantastic. For Planet She-Hulk, think big Game of Thrones. She’s ripped into a world that she’s not used to, and she has to bring her own sensibilities to it… It’s going to be great. We wanted to go big. She’s got a giant sword, PLEASE let us use it.”
NOVA: CENTURION #1 On Sale: November 19 Written by Jed MacKay, Art by Álvaro López, Cover by Alessandro Cappuccio
This marks a new era for one of Marvel’s most iconic space heroes. Richard Rider, burdened by the truth of the lie the new Galactic Union was built upon, is now a deep-space drifter. With the Xandarian Worldmind (the sentient repository of an extinct people’s culture) relying on expensive energy infusions, Nova is for hire. He’s a corps of one, but how long can he keep his hands clean while dealing in dirty money?
Marvel also confirmed that more details and creative teams for BLACK PANTHER: INTERGALACTIC, EXILES, and IMPERIAL GUARDIANS will be announced in the coming months.
Tom Brevoort highlighted the scope of this new direction: “This is a story that unites all the disparate and separate powers of the galactic portion of the Marvel Universe… the Kree, the Shi’ar, the Skrulls, and more… all in one big science-fiction epic… It’s an all-out cosmic war.”
Are you ready to dive into Marvel’s new cosmic order?
