Marvel is launching several new comic book series as a part of an upgrade to Marvel Unlimited, its Netflix-style flat-rate digital comics service. The comic series announced so far are:
X-Men Unlimited
Outgoing 'Head of X' writer Jonathan Hickman is launching a new volume of the X-Men Unlimited anthology series, beginning with a Wolverine vs. AIM story drawn by Declan Shalvey.
"Declan and I were pretty obsessive about stressing what we can do within the [Infinity] format and we think X-fans will be happy with the result," Hickman says in the announcement. "I'm always up for trying out new ways to make stories, and this turned out to be a very interesting format."
Marvel's announcement describes X-Men Unlimited as "a series of rotating adventures" focused on the current 'Reign of X' era of mutantkind, to be published weekly.
It's Jeff
Bite-size maneater Jeff the Land Shark is getting his own series. Spinning out of his scene-stealing appearances in West Coast Avengers, Deadpool, and Gwenpool Strikes Back, co-creator Kelly Thompson graduates Gwenpool's adorable pet shark to his own series drawn by Gurihiru.
It's Jeff is planned as a weekly series on Marvel Unlimited.
Giant-Size Little Marvels
Skottie Young revives his diminuitive versions of Marvel characters once again for a new series called Giant-Size Little Marvels. Young teams with artist Dax Gordine to pit Earth's littlest heroes against pint-size versions of Marvel's classic villains.
Shang-Chi
Legend of Shang-Chi writer Alyssa Wong is back for a return bought with Marvel's Master of Kung-Fu, this time teaming up with artist Nathan Stockman.
The four issue Shang-Chi Marvel Unlimited title will also team the titular Master of Kung Fu with rookie hero White Fox as part of the adventure.
Captain America
X-Plain the X-Men podcaster Jay Edidin returns to Marvel Comics to take on Captain America in an especially patriotic series with artist Nico Leon.
In the series' first arc, Captain America must deal with terrorists who have stolen the iconic Liberty Bell - and are using it as leverage to get a meeting with the patriotic hero.
Black Widow
In this one-shot subtitled 'Easter Egg Hunt!,' Black Widow teams up with Hawkeye on a mission that will, according to Marvel, reveal "an untold piece of the Romanoff legend."
Black Widow is written by Mark Russell, with art by Anny Maulina and colorist Irma Kniivila.
Amazing Fantasy Prelude
The current alt-reality fantasy series Amazing Fantasy has spawned a special prequel that'll be exclusive to the Marvel Unlimited app. The Amazing Fantasy Prelude by Andrews will focus on Wolverine as he "stares down demons, old loves, and monsters old and new" before the events of Amazing Fantasy itself, which launched in July.
Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane
The popular '00s alt-reality title Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane is being adapted into the Infinite Comics format - a first for Marvel'snew format. Writer Sean McKeever and artist Takeshi Miyazawa's run was an alt-reality take on the Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson's dynamic, presenting it from the point of view of MJ.
Marvel originally described this as a new series, but it is in fact new to the Infinite Comics format only.
Marvel has also assembled Infinity Comics-formated primers for the following series: Amazing Spider-Man, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Moon Knight, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Ms. Marvel, Venom, and Spider-Gwen.
These comics will be in Marvel's proprietary Infinity Comics format, which adds motion and sound to traditional comic book pages to create a semi-animated appearance, and is optimized for phone reading.
Marvel states that these comics will be exclusive to Marvel Unlimited and the Infinity Comics format. Past Infinity Comics were later re-formatted and published in the traditional comic book format, but from the messaging here Marvel has decided not to go that route for the new titles.
Other new Infinity Comics projects are also in the works featuring characters such as Deadpool, Venom, and Carnage, with creators including Gerry Duggan, Lucas Werneck, and Geoffo on board. Marvel says it plans to release "over 100 issues" between now and the end of 2021.
The renewed Infinity Comics line arrives as part a new version of the Marvel Unlimited app. In addition to these new comics, Marvel Unlimited has added recommended reading guides, unlimited downloading to allow more offline reading, and a more intuitive search feature.
"These updates and a focus on personalization will allow us to reach a new generation of Marvel fans and enhance the experience of current fans,” says Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution's VP of product Doug Vance in the announcement. "When we redesign apps like this from the ground up, our priority is to create great experiences for consumers. In this case, it was important to deliver both a visually immersive experience with the one-of-a-kind Marvel content and an intuitive, high-performance platform that we could then also align with the business goals of expanding the Marvel Unlimited audience and driving direct digital subscriptions."
Marvel Unlimited is one of several of the best digital comics readers we recommend for comics fans.
