Avengers

Steve Englehart was born on this day in 1947. By his mid-twenties, he was reshaping the Marvel Universe. At thirty, he was reinventing Batman. Englehart is easily one of the greatest comic book writers of all time, and probably the definitive writer of the 1970s. One of the interesting things about Englehart is that he doesn’t get credit for creating that many interesting characters. In fact, he’s probably most strongly associated with Mantis, a character he introduced in Avengers and held onto (in an incognito form) even when he moved to Justice League of America and beyond. But while Englehart certainly created some peculiar characters, what he was really great at was perfecting characters that already existed.

The new Wasp is at the center of All-New All-Different Avengers #9, which launches a new storyline called "Family Business." Until her debut on Free Comic Book Day, we don't know who this knew Wasp really is. Her face is revealed on one of the unlettered preview pages below, but all that really tells us is that she wears her hair in roughly the same style as Hope Van Dyne, the soon-to-be-Wasp played by Evangeline Lily in the Ant-Man movie.

We find ourselves on the cusp of a prime example of that as Marvel prepares to release Captain America: Civil War, which heavily tests the star-spangled hero’s duty, friendships, and beliefs. Civil War is one of those arcs that sees Captain America in one of his most human moments, when the Steve Rogers character is challenged to wage a war between what he believes in and what he represents. It’s not hard to see why Marvel chose to dip into that arc for the next Captain America movie, nor is hard to see why folks love to cosplay this versatile character. We’ve gathered their efforts here in one place for you to enjoy. The wealth of Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, rule 63s and more demonstrate admirably that though Captain America is often seen as a white bread hero, no one can be excluded from portraying one of the oldest guardians of freedom in comics. Whether you’re Team Cap or Team Iron Man, we can all agree these fine folks lay it on the line to do Caps justice. This is the best Captain America cosplay.

Lots of Marvel characters are fighting lots of other Marvel characters (almost like there's a Civil War coming) in Avengers Standoff: Assault on Pleasant Hill Omega #1, the finale to the Pleasant Hill story. Steve Rogers is young again, and leading a makeshift group of Avengers (I say "makeshift" mostly because it includes Cable) against a veritable army of supervillains led by Baron Zemo. There's reality-warping technology at stake, and we all know the Marvel Universe's reality can't warp much further without breaking.

Superhero movies are a dominant force in modern blockbuster cinema, but with so many heroes appearing on our screens it can be tough to keep up with the release calendar. To help make it a little easier for superhero fans to know which weekends to keep free over the next few years, designer Dylan Todd has created this infographic featuring all the upcoming releases from Marvel Studios, Fox, Sony, Warner Bros and more, starring characters from the DC Universe, the Marvel Universe, the X-Men books, Power Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Valiant Universe, and more.

This week saw the release of the prologue issue to Marvel’s spring event Avengers Standoff, in the form Avengers Standoff: Welcome To Pleasant Hill #1 by Nick Spencer, Mark Bagley, Scott Hanna and Paul Mounts. The event has been touted for a long time now, but heading into this first issue it was still rather unclear exactly what Standoff was going to be about. Things are a lot clearer following the release of Welcome To Pleasant Hill, which is a moody mystery hidden behind a sunny suburban smile. Be warned this review contains meaty spoilers for the first salvo in this event as we unpack the events of the issue and its killer cliffhanger. In other words, if you want to know what Standoff is actually about before you investigate further, we're going to do our best to tell you.

While Marvel's had a tremendous amount of success at the box office over the last decade, the comic publisher has been relatively quiet on the video game front comparatively. There have been a few exceptions to the rule, but Marvel has been almost singularly focused on the mobile game arena. Over the last three years however, TT Games has managed to release two Marvel games under the Lego banner to sate fans hungry for Marvel action on a console. Though TT Games has been delivering licensed Lego video game adventures for over a decade, Lego Marvel's Avengers feels as fun and fresh as it has in years. It also gives Marvel fans a new spin on stories and characters they've spent a great deal of time with since The Avengers hit theaters in 2012.

On February 17th, the Avengers find themselves in small town with a big secret in Avengers Standoff: Welcome to Pleasant Hill #1, written by Captain America: Sam Wilson's Nick Spencer with art by All-New X-Men's Mark Bagley. Beyond "little town with something big and weird going on" the press release reveals nothing about the plot except that it's meant to lead to other things. Likewise, there are only two preview pages, and they're just the Winter Soldier sneaking through a SHIELD facility and watching a recording of an explosion. But it seems safe to assume that this will be part of the road to Civil War II, because every story at Marvel is the road to the next story.

Marvel released a bafflingly oblique teaser image on Tuesday, the words 'DEAD NO MORE' against a black background, prompting fans to speculate which of Marvel's heroes is next in line for a resurrection, even as they're debating which hero will die (for a while) in the pages of Civil War II. Before any kind of consensus could be achieved, Marvel released a second teaser today, 'BEST BEWARE MY STING', against a black and yellow background. A quote from Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, the line and colors both suggest the character Wasp, aka Janet Van Dyne. But Janet already came back from the dead; surely the first teaser can't be about her? So what other theories do we have? Well... is it possible that Marvel is hinting at a relaunch of Slingers?

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from our years on the Internet, it’s that there’s no aspect of comics that can’t be broken down and quantified in a single definitive list, preferably in amounts of five or ten. And since there’s no more definitive authority than ComicsAlliance, we’re taking it upon ourselves to compile Top Five lists of everything you could ever want to know about comics. They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, and as some of our earlier episodes have shown, Marvel isn’t afraid to compliment their Distinguished Competition by homaging, or straight up copying, some of DC’s most popular characters. Since her introduction in 1942, Princess Diana, better known as Wonder Woman, has become without question the most well-known and influential superheroine in the world. We already showed you some of the best analogues Marvel made for the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight, and now it’s time to round out DC’s Trinity with the Amazing Amazon!