Sam Humphries

Marvel's Black Vortex event launches this week with The Black Vortex #1 by Sam Humphries and Ed McGuiness, and to promote the event -- and maybe explain it a little -- Marvel has released a video trailer in which a very serious fella outlines the basic plot details. X-Men. Guardians. Ancient artifact of immense and immeasurable power. Villains. Aliens. Star-Lord's dad. Thanos's kid. That sort of thing. Ooh, and Kitty and Pete pull guns on each other, so you know it's serious, even if the very serious voice over hadn't already convinced you. This. Is. Spartax.

Have I ever told you about the time I was hanging out in a bar at a convention years and years ago and I was talking to a Marvel editor about how they should do something with Rocket Raccoon, and the editor told me that would never, ever happen? Well, it turns out there are no bad characters, only characters that haven't been turned into Funko Pop vinyl figures yet. Flash forward to late 2014, and Marvel just announced a sixth Guardians Of The Galaxy ongoing title. Turns out raccoons make big bank. The new book is called Guardians Team-Up, and it features Guardians, teaming up. Brian Michael Bendis will write and Art Adams will draw the first story, co-starring the Avengers. They will probably fight first. (The Guardians and the Avengers. Not Bendis and Adams.)

Marvel is getting back into the cosmic book business with its next epic crossover event (between the current one and the one after, I mean); The Black Vortex. Announced at New York Comic-Con this past weekend, the event bring together the Guardians Of The Galaxy with all of Marvel's current outer space books -- plus increasingly frequent visitors the All-New X-Men. The event was devised by Legendary Star-Lord writer Sam Humphries, who also kicks things off with Black Vortex: Alpha in February, with art by Ed McGuinness. ComicsAlliance spoke to Humphries to find out more about the ancient artifact at the heart of the story that will pit heroes against heroes and spark up a different kind of space race.

Marvel is planning its first big cosmic event since the end of the Dan Abnett/Andy Lanning-penned Annihilation/War of Kings cycle that ran from 2006 to 2010. (Or last year's Infinity, if you count that, but that was all about Earth, so we don't.) Black Vortex will cross over between Guardians of the Galaxy, the space-bound All-New X-Men, Cyclops, Legendary Star-Lord, Nova, Captain Marvel, and more. Marvel also announced Operation S.I.N., by Kathryn Immonen and Rich Ellis, which serves as both a prequel of sorts to the recent Original Sin event and a tie-in to Marvel's Agent Carter TV show; and Kanan: The Last Padawan, a five issue mini series also written by Greg Weisman and illustrated by Pepe Larraz, tying in to the Star Wars: Rebels animated series.

Right from the start, Sam Humphries and Dalton Rose's Sacrifice is identifiable as a work of passion. It was self-published – a risky proposition in the direct market – and it was a story of personal importance to the author. Humphries has epilepsy, and Sacrifice is the story of a boy whose epilepsy isn't only a source of frustration and anguish, but also a superpower that propels him into an adventure at the zenith of the Aztec civilization – and perhaps also provides the ultimate key to his agency. That's not the only source of passion evident in Sacrifice, though. The premise of the series – a suicidal Joy Division fanatic has a seizure that sends him back in time to before Cortés' invasion of the Aztecs – provides a venue for Humphries to spit fire over how profoundly outrageous and angering the perception and purported 'history' of the Aztecs is. As someone fascinated by and familiar with the truth about the Aztecs, Humphries uses the series' bedrock of time travel, violence, and destiny, to help readers take a step towards that truth.

This week, Chris and Matt dig deep into Superman Unchained #7 by Scott Snyder and Jim Lee, and how it compares to last week's Superman #32. After that, they discuss the first issue of the new Legendary Star-Lord series by Sam Humphries and Paco Medina, and then they talk about the very weird new Robocop series by Joshua Williamson and Carlos Magno.

Despite the fact that he's been floating around the Marvel Universe for the past 38 years, Peter Quill aka Star-Lord has always been a bit of a blank slate. His costume, origin, powers, and personality have seen numerous iterations, depending on where he appeared and which creators were steering the ship at any given moment. He's been portrayed as an emotionally unstable hothead, a space-faring zen master, and a fun-loving scoundrel. He's been guided by such talents as Steve Englehart and Steve Gan, Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Keith Giffen, Carmine Infantino, Doug Monech, Gene Colan, Bill Sienkiewicz, Dan Abnett, and Andy Lanning. And despite being a cornerstone of Marvel's cosmic sagas for the past decade, and serving as the leader of the modern iteration of the Guardians Of The Galaxy, he's remained a steadfastly second-string character in the publishing line and broader media. But now that's about to change. The Guardians Of The Galaxy are moving to the silver screen in just a few short weeks, and this week the first issue of a new ongoing Star-Lord series hits comic shop shelves and digital storefronts courtesy of writer Sam Humphries and artist Paco Medina.

Of all the Marvel characters who have made it to the big screen over the past few years, none have seemed less likely than Peter Quill. An obscure sci-fi character who debuted in the '70s and made a handful of appearances in his first three decades of existence, he rose to fame during the Annihilation crossover as the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy, a ragtag band of spacefaring heroes who battled evil across the stars. Now, with a Guardians of the Galaxy movie set to debut this summer, Peter Quill is getting his first ever ongoing series as The Legendary Star-Lord, thanks to Sam Humphries (Avengers A.I., Sacrifice), artist Paco Medina (Nova, Ultimate Comics X-Men) and colorist David Curiel. To find out more, I spoke to Humphries about the history of Star-Lord, how his obscurity helped to propel him to fame, and why his hair has to stay gloriously uncovered.

Marvel went to C2E2 armed with a plethora of publishing announcements for the Chicago crowd, focusing largely on special projects like miniseries and some pretty cool-sounding Original Sin tie-ins, but with a couple auspicious new series as well. In an inspired bit of comic book casting, Our Love Is Real and Avengers A.I. writer Sam Humphries will write the The Legendary Star-Lord, a new series dr

We've already heard about the new Skottie Young Rocket Raccoon series coming this July, but it's not the only Guardians of the Galaxy solo title that will be hitting shelves that month. Marvel has announced the first issue of a new Legendary Star-Lord series, which will also be coming in July, just in time for the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. The new series will be written by Sam Humphries (Aven