Marvel is gearing up for its big summer event Judgment Day, which the publisher has now also subtitled AXE: Judgment Day, with AXE referring to the Avengers, X-Men, and Eternals, the three major players in the conflict.
With the major summer story on the horizon, Marvel is showing off advance solicitations for a one-shot that opens the event, and July's impending AXE: Judgment Day #1, as well as some of the key June releasing titles from the X-Men and Avengers franchises that will factor into AXE: Judgment Day.
The aforementioned one-shot is June 29's AXE: Eve of Judgment #1 from AXE event writer Kieron Gillen and artist Pasqual Ferry with a cover from Carlos Pacheco, which presages the full kick-off of the six-issue main story by showing "the first shot of the apocalyptic conflict to come."
That's followed by AXE: Judgment Day #1 from Gillen and artist Valerio Schiti, with a cover from Mark Brooks, which releases in July.
Interestingly, Marvel's announcement for AXE: Eve of Judgment and AXE: Judgment Day #1 as well as the accompanying trailer, seen above, fully confirm the event's premise in which the Eternals have discovered that mutants may be an offshoot of their ancient enemies the Deviants, with the Avengers caught in the middle of the ensuing conflict between the X-Men and Eternals.
Before AXE officially starts, however, some upcoming June X-Men and Avengers titles will set the stage for the event.
June 1's X-Men #12 is billed as the end of the first year of Gerry Duggan and Pepe Larraz's run on the title and marks the lead-up to the second annual Hellfire Gala event, which will include a new fan vote to add members to the core X-Men roster. Marvel promises the issue will tie together numerous plots from Duggan and Larraz's run so far, including the team's struggles with the villainous Doctor Stasis and the alien weirdness of Gameworld.
Meanwhile, in June 29's Immortal X-Men #4 from writer Kieron Gillen and artist Michele Bandini, the upcoming title delves into Emma Frost's efforts to plan a new Hellfire Gala without a hitch - something that seems unlikely to go off as planned given the rising tensions in the Krakoan leadership of the Quiet Council which form the core conflict of Immortal X-Men.
Finally, in another corner of the Marvel Universe, the Avengers are lost in time and will face off with Mephisto, who has been bedeviling them (pun fully intended) throughout writer Jason Aaron's run.
June 22's Avengers #57 from Aaron and artist Javier Garron will team the Avengers up with other incarnations of Marvel legacy heroes, or as Marvel puts it, History’s Mightiest Heroes, such as Sgt. Szardos, the Soldier Supreme of WWII and the Secret Invaders, his squadron of supernatural grunts.
Check out a gallery of the June Immortal X-Men #4, X-Men #12, and Avengers #57 covers, and stay tuned for Marvel's full June 2022 solicitations coming later this month.
Will Judgment Day make Newsarama's list of the best Marvel Comics stories of all time someday?
