By Courtney Key
Secret Wars is coming back to the Marvel universe in 2015, the company announced last night at an off-site event at New York Comic Con.
The crossover, which was first published as a limited series from 1984-1985, will be returning under writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Esad Ribic as a year-long event beginning in May 2015. The story will pick up from the end of the “Time Runs Out” storyline in the current Avengers and New Avengers titles.
Marvel’s President and Publisher, Dan Buckley, said at the event that Secret Wars is something Hickman has been working on since beginning his run on Avengers and New Avengers two years ago. The book will revisit the classic series, considered to be the first comic book event, but in a “different way.”
“We’ve been sitting on this for a very long time,” Buckley said at the event. “When Jonathan brought this to us, we had an opportunity to just not celebrate this in publishing, so we’re going to be extending this in a year-long program into 2016 with our merchandising partners, digital partners and other partners.”
Buckley promised that there would be more announcements relating to the series until May.
Marvel also released a large-scale rendering of the crossover battle in Secret Wars depicted by Alex Ross today.
Marvel Executive Editor Tom Breevort told USA Today that “Our hope is that as seismic as the original Secret Wars was to the Marvel Universe and the readers, this new Secret Wars will be to the readers of today.”
The Ross image seems to show heroes from different time periods in Marvel history, which Breevort confirmed. “None of it is random and none of it is brand new,” he said of the image.
Breevort promised Marvel readers that “However massive you think this is, let me assure you it is bigger than that. It’s by far the craziest thing that I’ve dealt with.”
“People are certainly going to be talking about it 30 years from now,” he added.
Are you excited for Secret Wars? Are you particularly looking forward to any of the match-ups in the Alex Ross image? Let us know in the comments or on the forums!
Source: Comic Book Resources and USA Today
