Thank you, thank you, thank you so very much for the lovely response to the whole HEROES REBORN/HEROES RETURN saga we've been unleashing upon you these last eight weeks. It's been incredibly gratifying to see people so enjoying a weird little story that gave me so very much joy in the making. Especially since the whole project was something a bit different in terms of structure and focus, in ways that made it difficult to even accurately talk about in terms of promotion. But people got it and dug it and I was able to go crazy on a bunch of wild new takes for different characters while working with an absolute, sure-fucking-fire murderer's row of stellar artists, so now I'm over here grinning like the grinniest of motherfuckers.
The whole thing wraps up in grand and glorious style this week with HEROES RETURN #1, which features a joyfully oversized throwdown between the Squadron Supreme of America and some scruffy young upstarts called the Avengeroos or somesuch.
HEROES RETURN #1 regular cover by Leinil Yu and Sunny Gho. Variant by Ed McGuinness. Trading card variant by Mark Bagley. Action Figure Variant by John Tyler Christopher. Variant by Jeffrey Veregge. Stormbreakers variant by Patrick Gleason.
HEROES RETURN #1 interior pages by Ed McGuinness, Mark Morales and Matthew Wilson.
In terms of "what's next," the ending of this issue points the way forward. Now AVENGERS comes back onto the schedule and we dive right into the "World War She-Hulk" arc, which is a bit darker and more action-driven and has already shaped up to be my favorite arc I've done with artist Javier Garrón, who keeps leveling up with each new issue. Then will come the AVENGERS FREE COMIC BOOK DAY issue and after that, the super-sized, bigger-than-any-comic-I've-ever-written-in-my-life AVENGERS #50, and then... well, things get very exciting. Gonna be a buuuuuusy winter for Earth's Mightiest Heroes. And for me. And if you dug HEROES REBORN, I think you're gonna wanna be along for the rest of the ride.
Also out this week is SEA OF STARS #10, the penultimate chapter in the story of Kadyn and his father Gil, both lost in the wild heavens and caught up in the battle for power between two ancient star-spawned forces. This week sees a reunion long in the making and a dark revelation about one of our main characters. Just one more issue left, to explode the stars in style. If you've missed any of the story along the way, the first trade and all single issues are currently available in my online store.
And as always, SEA OF STARS cover and interior art is all gorgeously done by artist Stephen Green, colorist Rico Renzi and letterer and designer Jared Fletcher. With words by me and Dennis "Hopeless" Hallum.
And more! I promised you "and more" in the title, right? This week also sees the release of the trade paperback collection of KING IN BLACK: RETURN OF THE VALKYRIES, the story that introduced a particularly badass new Valkyrie who's currently kicking ass alongside Jane Foster in the pages of THE MIGHTY VALKYRIES. It's by me and writer Torunn Grønbekk, artist Nina Vakueya and cover artist Mattia De Iulis. Look, I'm not promising you that reading this book will make you a better person, make your parents more proud of you than they've been in years and ultimately earn you a better seat at the banquet table in the halls of Valhalla, but nine out of ten studies have recently shown that regular readers of VALKYRIE comic books live happier, healthier, more intellectually and physically stimulating lives and are way more fun to talk to at parties, so who are we to argue with science, my friend?
