Spoilers beneath the cut.
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Spoilers, obv.
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I wrote the introduction for this anthology of videogame inspired poetry. It’s strong stuff all around. It’s all designed and ready to go, and the kickstarter is just for the print-fees. Go have a nose.

Interesting week.

The big “this is what’s going on” issue in my SECRET ORIGIN OF IRON MAN. Oddly enough, I finished my first draft of issue 17 just now, which is the end of the epic and sets us up for Year 2. I’m able to look at the whole thing and smile. It’s an enormous story for Tony. And despite the fact I can already see some people getting angry about it, I think they’ll be talked around by its end.

Oh – first review I’ve seen, which is highly positive and spoiler free.

Available to buy digitally here.

Preview here.

And issue 2 of Uber, where Stephanie continues her attempt to escape Germany with the secrets of the Ubers and lots of men stand around maps, prodding them meaningfully. This is what we do.

Preview here.

Comics available for pre-ordering, if that’s your thing, daddio.

I’m actually going to do it in a different order for once, and hit up the trades first.

YOUNG AVENGERS VOL. 1: STYLE > SUBSTANCE TPB
Written by KIERON GILLEN
Penciled by JAMIE MCKELVIE
Cover by JAMIE MCKELVIE
Legacy isn’t a dirty word, but it’s an irrelevant one. It’s not important what our parents did. It matters what WE do. Someone has to save the world. You’re someone. Do the math. The critically acclaimed team of Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie reinvent the teen super-hero comic for the 21st century, uniting Wiccan, Hulkling and Kate “Hawkeye” Bishop with Kid Loki, Marvel Boy and Ms. America. No pressure, right? As a figure from Loki’s past emerges, Wiccan makes a horrible mistake that comes back to bite everyone on their communal posteriors. Fight scenes! Fake IDs! Plentiful feels! (a.k.a. “meaningful emotional character beats” for people who aren’t on tumblr.) Young Avengers is as NOW! as the air in your lungs and twice as vital. Hyperbole is the BEST! THING! EVER! Collecting YOUNG AVENGERS (2013) #1-5 and material from MARVEL NOW! POINT ONE #1.

I know a bunch of non-regular folk expressed an interest in pre-ordering this as they’re Read It In The Trade types. If you’ve got a local comic shop, you can do it there. Alternatively, there’s always amazon which accepts pre-orders.

Amazon UK
Amazon US

Meanwhile, for single issue folks…

YOUNG AVENGERS #9
KIERON GILLEN (W)
JAMIE MCKELVIE (A/C)
• We wanted to just write “Screaming! Screaming! Screaming!” for this solicit, but we’re told we need boring old facts.
• Anyway! The Young Avengers road trip across the multiverse goes proper crazy as it reaches it’s destination. It’s destination is mainly EXCITEMENT and HEARTBREAK.
• Several Young Avengers decide what to do next. The question is, whether what they do next is to be Young Avengers…
• Honestly, screaming.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$2.99

By this point my solicits are actually trolling other departments at Marvel. Man!

IRON MAN #14
KIERON GILLEN (W) • GREG LAND (A/C)
MORE MIND-BLOWING REVELATIONS AS “THE SECRET ORIGIN OF TONY STARK” CONTINUES!
• Free at last, all IRON MAN has to do is fight a robot who can take over his armor at any time and avoid one of the universe’s greatest bounty-hunters…DEATH’S HEAD.
• An impossible choice at the edge of space will decide the fate of two worlds. Who lives? Who dies?
• And can TONY STARK somehow find a way to avoid his destiny…
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

The Iron Man solicits are a little less lunatic.

UBER 4

KIERON GILLEN’s Uber unleashes the Nazi super soldiers into a SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!! determined to show the Allies in the West how vulnerable they truly are. The race for Allied Uber soldiers is at a breakneck pace, but Churchill’s HMH troops are not yet in the same class as Hitler’s heavyweight Battleships. With no choice left to them, the earliest Allied super soldiers must rise to the occasion and face an enemy with greater power and experience than they have ever seen. Available with Regular or Wraparound cover by Caanan White, Propaganda Poster cover by Michael Dipascale, and a special Blitzkrieg Incentive cover by Caanan White

You can go over to Bleeding Cool to read the spoiler, if you wish. It also includes all the alternate covers. There’s also a reprint of issue 0 and issue 1, for those who missed it.

I’ve talked in interviews that the arc is the slow build towards the first superhero engagement. This issue is basically the heart of the R&D push. It also features the debut of Alan Turing, the breakout character of 2013.

Actually, now I think about it, that may have been in issue 3.

I’m going to get around to doing a page linking to all my trades and digital comics, I think. That’d probably be useful, eh?

Just hammered this out before heading out to the con. Excuse any typos, as I’ve not exactly proofed it.

Spoilers, obv.
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The end of the first arc, where we put the last pieces together. There’s previews out there, but I’m not linking to them, as they’re all pretty heavily spoilery and/or intense with an extended gap before the page-turn. It’s an interesting one, I think.

When it unlocks at about 2pm GMT, you’ll be able to buy it over at Comixology. You can pre-order it at the mo. And it’s in good comic shops everywhere.

Decompressed returns, with a difference. This time we’re talking to Bettie Breitweiser and Matt Wilson, two of my favourite colourists about their work, primarily related to FATALE 14 and WONDER WOMAN 20. If there’s any one part of collaborative comics’ creative engine that is underdiscussed and misunderstood, it’s colouring. It’s always been important, and in the last decade, it’s only become more so.

You can buy Fatale 14 and Wonder Woman 20 from your local comic shop, or digitally. Fatale is here and Wonder Woman is here.

You can download the podcast from here. Its webpage RSS page is here. And you can find it on Itunes here.

Or you could use this handy little embed.

AND STUDY AIDS!

FATALE 14

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WONDER WOMAN 20

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Our theme tune? Los Campesinos’ We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed.

Don’t link many interviews here, but this was a fun one. Written in an enormous rush, so a little more pugnacious, I suspect.

(The idea of a photo of me PEERING at everyone on Comixology’s mailing list is kinda scary)

Anyway! A sale of my stuff.

Well, of Journey Into Mystery and my Uncanny X-men V2 run, anyway, and one issue of Rob Rodi that has got mixed in.

Comxiology purchases can either be read on Android, Apple, Kindle Fire or Windows 8 devices. They can also be read online in a browser, for those who stay away from tablets and similar.

For those who don’t follow comics or my Marvel stuff, and just want to try a few issues, I’d recommend these ones specifically out of context.

UNCANNY X-MEN 4: A standalone issue from the perspective of an alien creature the X-men end up fighting, with me playing with alien perception and the horrors you can do with juxtaposition. Brandon Peterson really leaned into the bio-organic horror of it all, and does incredible Phalanx. It’s basically the themes of my X-men run in a single issue.
UNCANNY X-MEN 14: While this is embedded deep into Avengers Versus X-men, it’s also its own creature. Basically, it’s an extended pastiche of Notes From Underground in a Steampunk-critique city buried beneath the Earth, and about determinism and society. Even if you don’t read it, it’s worth coming to see what Dustin Weaver does with the cityscapes. It’s virtuoso stuff. I think this may be the best issue I did during Uncanny, and certainly in the top five of what I’ve done for Marvel. Here’s Colin TooBusyThinkingAboutComics writing about it.
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY 632: While the final issue is JIM’s high point, this is my favourite single issue. It’s a Christmas story based around Loki having to find homes for seven hellhounds. It’s cute and funny, but has a mass of doom and darkness bubbling beneath the surface – which is basically the core of what JIM does. The Breitweisers make it all look like a seasonal card too. I think the panel with Leah holding up her skirt when she chases around the hellhounds may be my favourite image of the Hel-maid in the entire run.
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY: THE MANCHESTER GODS 639, 640, 641: I’d recommend reading it out of contest primarily for people who aren’t actually going to read the rest of JIM. It’s got a fairly serious position in the larger story, in terms of various reveals. However, as its own thing, it’s me writing about the concept of Britain and firing it through a half-dozen fantasy filters. It’s as mad as the maddest parts of Phonogram. For example, it features a Tony Wilson analogue as a urban druid. I still can’t believe I got away with most of this stuff.

And a few things I’d say before buying either run.

UNCANNY X-MEN
This stands alone. However, it is embedded in Avengers VersusX-men, the major crossover event of the year it was published. The information you need to know is worked in, and AvX was always where the run was ending at – and my themes aimed to dovetail with i ts – but it’s worth noting. The first 10 issues are by themselves, but do feature a lot of foreshadowing of where it’s going.

There’s a sort-of postscript to my run in the form of AVX Consequences, which you can also buy, though it’s full price.

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY
Journey Into Mystery is basically a closed novel. However due to existing in the modern superhero comics mainstream, it subverted a bunch of crossovers it was involved with to tell it – namely the EXILED crossover with NEW MUTANTS and the EVERYTHING BURNS crossover with Thor. It was also launched out of the FEAR ITSELF crossover, though include any important beats you need to know in JIM. I usually say FEAR ITSELF is WW2, and we’re a story about the Enigma code.

Anyway – if you buy the first 14 issues, and 539-541, they stand alone. The issue of Thor and New Mutants you would need to buy to get the complete thing are…

EXILED NEW MUTANTS 42 NEW MUTANTS 43 THE MIGHTY THOR 18 THE MIGHTY THOR 19 THE MIGHTY THOR 20 THE MIGHTY THOR 21

The Exiled/New Mutants issues are now a couple of dollars, but The Might Thor ones are full price.

I suspect it’s still worth throwing down for all the JIM issues. You won’t get them cheaper, and you can always come back and get the others. And to state the obvious, for anyone who pirates comics as they think they’re too expensive, now would be a good time to show that they would purchase at a lower price.

You can buy here. And it’s a sale just for today, so – er – buy today? That sounds about right.