Recently, there have been a lot of talks of reboots and relaunches. When DC Comics completely rebooted their history and started over, the comic book industry was shaken to it’s very core. Not to be outdone, Marvel fired back with the Marvel NOW initiative, which didn’t reboot continuity, but instead relaunched a number of their titles with brand new creative teams. So far, that relaunch is working out for them, but rumors have been surfacing about a new Marvel Universe being created. First, news broke about a potential new universe spinning out of the events of ‘Age of Ultron’. Then, there was talk of ending the Ultimate Universe by pitting the Avengers against the Ultimates. Now, the House of Ideas has released some mysterious posters that may indicate a company wide reboot.
Earlier this week, the first poster was released at Marvel.com featuring the names of some of the major players in the Marvel Universe right now like Captain America, Nova, Captain Marvel, Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, Alpha, Morbius, Hazmat, and more forming a #1. Below that was the word “First.” and it came with this description: “Begin with the best super heroes in comics–Marvel does it FIRST!! HUGE story coming soon to fans, worldwide.”
The following day, they released another teaser featuring 52 slash marks with the accompanying text: “COUNT ON MARVEL TO ALWAYS DELIVER! Cuts above the rest…”.
These are very obvious jabs at their competitors over at DC Comics, but what could possibly be on the horizon for Marvel? There was a rumor about Wolverine being killed off next year, and with the slash marks potentially belonging to the prominent X-Man and Avenger, maybe whatever the company has in mind revolves around him.
With the popularity of Marvel’s movies, it’s no secret that they’re trying to get fans to revisit the comics that spawned them, but with Marvel NOW, which is a great jumping on point for new fans, practically just starting, it’s hard to believe that they’ll reboot their main continuity like their rival publisher did at all, albeit doing it so soon after a major company shakeup.
I know that these posters seem to blatantly indicate some sort of reboot, but I think if that is what’s coming, then it won’t affect the main cannon. At least, that’s what I’d like to believe despite the Marvel NOW logo appearing on both of these posters. What I’d prefer to happen is that they just create a new imprint featuring their characters similar to the Ultimates Universe. I’m not sure how they’d spin it so that it’s different from that universe though. All I know is that I’ve defended Marvel time and time again by saying that they don’t need a reboot to be successful in this day and age, so I really hope that’s not what they’re thinking and this is all just some elaborate swerve.
What do you think about these teaser posters from Marvel about big changes coming to the company? Do you think that it could be about anything other than a reboot? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
