Marvel Legacy - Event - General Discussion

Press Release

Marvel will introduce the first Avengers from 1,000,000 BC – when iconic torch-bearers such as Odin, Iron Fist, Star Brand, Ghost Rider, Phoenix, Agamotto, and Black Panther come together for the startling origin of the Marvel Universe, in Marvel Legacy #1.

The acclaimed team of writer Jason Aaron (Mighty Thor) and artist Esad Ribic (Secret Wars) reunite for an all-new 50-page blockbuster one-shot that will take you through time to the current Marvel Universe, showing you how it’s truly “all connected.” A true homage to Marvel’s groundbreaking stories, Marvel Legacy brings your favorite characters together for exciting and epic new stories that will culminate in returning to original series numbering for long-running titles.

“Marvel Legacy #1 isn’t simply a history lesson,” says SVP and Executive Editor Tom Brevoort. “Rather, it’s the starting gun to a bevy of mysteries and secrets and revelations that will reverberate across the Marvel Universe in the weeks and months to come! No character, no franchise will be untouched by the game-changing events that play out across its pages. Jason and Esad pulled out all the stops to fat-pack this colossal issue with as much intrigue, action, surprise, mystery, shock and adventure as possible!”

“Marvel Legacy #1 will present all fans – new readers and current readers – the very best jumping on point in the history of comics,” says Marvel Editor in Chief Axel Alonso. “What Jason and Esad have crafted is more grand and more gargantuan than anything we have ever seen before and introduces concepts and characters the Marvel Universe has never encountered. Fans are going to witness an all-new look at the Marvel Universe starting at one of the earliest moments in time carried all the way into present day. Not only will this be the catalyst for Marvel evolving and moving forward, but expect it to be the spark that will ignite the industry as a whole.”

Marvel Legacy #1 will be released this September.

www.bleedingcool.com/2017/06/19/marvel-cut-titles-back-legacy/

Marvel Comics To Cut Titles Back As Part Of Marvel Legacy

Coming out of Heroescon, we’re hearing that some retailers have been told to expect the number of Marvel titles on sale to fall. Books will be cancelled due to natural attrition, but the publisher will also have fewer launches to follow.

There has been criticism that Marvel expanded successful titles too quickly, diluting interest in the franchises as a whole and killing the geese that laid the golden eggs.

So, as Marvel Legacy is upon us, it looks like we should expect fewer launches to replace cancelled titles, one title for characters where there were two before, and for Marvel to consolidate its comic books a little.

This all means fewer Marvel Comics titles. Will that come with higher sales per remaining title? That’s yet to be determined, but the whole situation is something that some will certainly welcome.

Judging from the comments section in our Marvel Legacy roundup and the general reaction on Twitter, I'm far from the only one feeling disappointed and underwhelmed by this announcement. Marvel has been talking a big game about how Legacy will revamp the Marvel Universe in a major way, shine a spotlight on classic heroes and celebrate the company's past while looking ahead to the future. It's difficult to see from this announcement how Legacy is actually living up to that promise. Given the relative lack of new titles debuting as part of Legacy, this relaunch actually seems less ambitious than Marvel NOW or All-New, All-Different Marvel. Basically, it seems like Marvel is putting a new coat of paint on the car rather than actually opening up the hood and repairing the engine.

How is any of this supposed to appeal to disenfranchised Marvel readers or create the impression that Marvel is righting the ship? What about this lineup of 52 books even suggests that Marvel is renewing its focus on its classic heroes? There's no sign of Steve Rogers or Thor Odinson or Bruce Banner or the wayward members of the Fantastic Four or any of the numerous dead X-Men characters people are pining for. There's a bizarre disparity between Marvel's Legacy teaser images, which feature a healthy mix of classic and newer heroes, and the characters actually featured in these 52 books.

Not to mention the understandable confusion a lot of readers were feeling yesterday. With no creative teams or plot details being revealed for these 52 new books, it's tough to know what to take away from these animated covers in the first place. Are we seeing teases for what's to come for Marvel's heroes, or merely images paying tribute to classic Marvel covers of yesteryear? You could be forgiven for thinking that Marvel Legacy is nothing more than another variant cover promotion along the lines of the Marvel Hip-Hop covers or the upcoming Jim Lee X-Men variant covers.

Newsarama: Jason, a lot has been said about what “Legacy” is about, but as one of the people defining that, what does it mean to you? And by extension, how does that come through in Marvel Legacy #1?

Jason Aaron: You’ll probably get a different reply to that from each creator you ask. I don’t think it has to boil down to one simple answer. For me, in terms of all the stuff I’m doing, and most especially the Marvel Legacy #1 one-shot, it’s about honoring the rich history of Marvel Comics, honoring the amazing roster of characters and all the ridiculously imaginative creators who’ve worked on them over the years and whose broad shoulders I’m lucky enough to get to stand on every day. But at the same time it’s about taking these characters and doing something new and exciting with them, taking them somewhere they haven’t been before.

I think that’s always the challenge when you’re working with characters who have been in continuous publication for over 50 years. How do you do something new while also honoring the past? That to me is what “Legacy” is about. It’s not about just putting big numbers back on the covers. It’s not about picking the bones of those classic stories from the past. It’s about acknowledging those stories, and playing with all the insanely amazing toys those classic creators left behind in the toybox, while using all those tools to tell the biggest, craziest new stories we can.

Nrama: How does Marvel Legacy #1 fit into the Marvel Universe as a whole?

Aaron: Marvel Legacy #1 is a huge primer for everything coming up in the Marvel Universe. We’ll touch base with more characters than I can count – more characters than I’ve ever written in one book at one time, that’s for sure. And it’s very much about the past, present, and future of the Marvel Universe. All three.

We dig deep into the past, to the Stone Age, to a previously unseen prologue to the Marvel Universe as we know it, that will ultimately prove pivotal to understanding why the Marvel U is the way it is. We visit the present day, touching base with basically every major character around the Marvel Universe. We’ll see a lot of the different versions of those characters – both Captains America, the different Thors and such. We give you a roadmap for the current landscape of the Marvel U.

Then there’s stuff that points toward the future. In the Legacy one-shot, the groundwork is laid for a few different stories that will spread out through the other books of the Marvel U in the months to come in a very big way - including the next new thing that I’ll be doing.

Nrama: You mentioned going back to the past, and I assume you’re talking about the 1,000,000 B.C. Avengers – Iron Fist, the Phoenix, Agamotto, Odin, Ghost Rider, Starbrand, and Black Panther. How did you decide on the line-up for that team?

Aaron: It’s a pretty easy list to come up with when you start thinking about the biggest, longest running legacy characters in the Marvel Universe. How do you put together the Caveman Avengers? Which, let me tell you, is a question I was really excited to ask. And the answer came together pretty quickly.

I’ve obviously done a lot of stuff with Odin in the pages of Thor, but he’s mostly been an antagonist for his son and for Jane Foster – which is a role he’s played a lot over the years. But one of the cool things about writing gods is that they’ve been around for so long, through a lot of different eras and incarnations. And as I’ve done with Thor, where I did stories of very different versions of Thor Odinson at various points in his life, I like the idea of exploring a different sort of Odin, at a very different period in his very long life. We get to see Odin do things we haven’t seen him do before. He was the first member I knew I wanted on this prehistoric superteam.

The other pieces of the team then fell into place quickly. I liked the Phoenix being a part of it, as well as Iron Fist – those seemed like no-brainers. I liked getting back into writing Ghost Rider. Ghost Rider was one of the first characters I had a big run on at Marvel. And Starbrand is a character we don’t see too much of these days, but who was a big part of Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers. He plays a big part in this one-shot in a couple of different eras.

There’s a reason each one of these characters is there, and there are storylines set in motion here in prehistoric times that will have ramifications for the present day counterparts of those characters.

Nrama: The solicitation for Marvel Legacy #1 mentions a return that readers have been “longing for.” What can you tell us about what that means? What have readers been longing for that’s returning in Legacy?

Aaron: There’s a specific character that’s returning, but I can’t spoil anything about that.

As for what readers have been longing for, I don’t presume to be able to answer that. My job is pretty simple - I write stories ultimately for myself. That’s all I can control. I don’t write stories to please one group of people or another - I write stories I want to read, and I’m lucky enough that some of the most amazing artists in the world are tasked with drawing them.

Nrama: Fair enough. I’ll reframe that slightly – as a fan of Marvel, what have you been longing for that Marvel Legacy #1 will bring back?

Aaron: I’m not sure there’s a specific thing I’m trying to bring back to Marvel. Because I think Marvel is so much bigger than any one kind of story or character, and I’m really proud and happy about the rich diversity of titles that you see on the shelves these days. I guess I’m trying to tell the same kind of story I always wanna tell - stories that are big, insane, emotionally relevant and above all else, fun. There’s not a lot of “fun” when you turn on the news these days, regardless of your politics. There’s a lot of ugliness in the world today. I think it’s important that comics not turn a blind eye to that, that we continue to reflect the world outside our window as much as we can. But at the same time, I think it’s important now more than ever that we give readers stories that are hopeful, that make us look up to the skies in wonder again and dream of better worlds.

Nrama: Aside from that one major return, you said you’ve written more characters in Marvel Legacy #1 than you ever have before. Are there any of your favorite characters you snuck in? Who do you think people will want more of based on this one-shot?

Aaron: Hopefully it’ll be like that with the 1,000,000 B.C. Avengers, who are all new versions of the characters we know and love. Hopefully people will want to see more of them, because I’ve already started writing more of them.

Beyond that, there’s a lot going on here. There are a lot of characters getting involved in the action. I liked making Jane Foster, Sam Wilson, and Riri Williams a big part of this, as a team. And I liked writing Robbie Reyes, a version of Ghost Rider I haven’t written before. And of course the Deadpool bit was pretty wickedly fun.

There’s a lot of stuff like that in there - characters I haven’t written in a long time, or ones I’ve never written before, interacting in new ways.

Nrama: With so many artists working on Marvel Legacy #1, did you try to tailor each individual scene to the person drawing it? Are there any of those artists that we can expect to see you working with in the future? Aside from Russell Dauterman who will continue drawing Mighty Thor, of course.

Aaron: Yes. As a matter of fact, yeah. I can’t tell you who it is, of course, or where that will be, but I am going to be working with one of those artists on my next big thing. But I suppose that’s all I can say about that. Other than that, I continue to be as excited as a kid in a candy store when it comes to my job.