What You Might Have Missed In Marvel’s February 2017 Solicitations

A lot of people seem to be looking right past the upcoming Inhumans vs X-Men event to titles like Iceman, Cable and Black Bolt, but the event series is throwing out some titanic clashes that could make for spectacular popcorn comics. I’m particular excited to see the man who can see the flaw in everything, Karnak, go up against the man with no flaws, Fantomex, and see how that shakes out. It might not be the best or most innovative comic of the year, but if the creative team focuses on making it as fun as possible, it could be something.

Champions seems to be the place to go for the best new characters created in the last five years or so, so of course it was going to get to Gwenpool sooner or later. This should be interesting, because the character of Gwenpool hasn’t really been written by anyone other than Christopher Hastings, and while Mark Waid is an excellent writer, she seems like someone you either get exactly right or very wrong. She’s already met Miles Morales in the pages of her own title, but it’ll fun to see what characters like Ms. Marvel make of the amoral mercenary from our own dimension.

In the wake of Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic’s Secret Wars, I was worried that a lot of the concepts from his run on Avengers heading into it would be abandoned once the Marvel Universe re-settled and got back on track. However, last week’s Thanos featured Corvus Glaive, and this upcoming issue of Unworthy Thor sees the return of Proxima Midnight and The Black Swan, who should be in an especially interesting place given her entire existence was devoted to the incursions that caused Secret Wars in the first place.

In the early nineties, the Fantastic Four were assumed dead and replaced by the odd team of Ghost Rider, Wolverine, Spider-Man and The Hulk. They were a short lived group that are fondly remembered, and now it seems that the new Ghost Rider series is bringing in All-New Wolverine, Silk and The Totally Awesome Hulk to recreate that '90s magic. It actually isn’t the first new New Fantastic Four (or the first one to feature Laura Kinney), but it’s a fun assemblage of characters that should play off each other in interesting ways.

In between the end of Mark Waid and Chris Samnee’s run on Daredevil and Charles Soule and Ron Garney’s, Matt Murdock did something to put the genie back in the bottle and make everyone forget his secret identity. Now, it seems we’re finally getting answers and possibly the return of love interest Kirsten McDuffie. However, we may have a clue in the title of the arc, which is “Purple” which immediately brings to mind the persuasive villain Purple Man — but to make everyone in the world forget one specific piece of information would be a bold task, even for Zebediah Kilgrave.