rod reis

With Civil War II done and dusted, Marvel has its eyes on the next big event to change everything forever. The publisher has shared teasers for an upcoming storyline titled "Secret Empire," but no further information has been revealed. Given the current storyline in Captain America: Steve Rogers, in which Rogers has been rewritten as a secret fascist, and the events of the original "Secret Empire" story, in which the US government was infiltrated by extremists at the highest levels, it seems likely that the new "Secret Empire" story will see Rogers' HYDRA insinuate its way further into the Marvel Universe --- and the groundwork has been laid with the appointment of a new director of SHIELD in this week's Marvel comics.

We always hoped that Darth Maul was more than just a pretty face. He was introduced way back in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, where he looked cool and was great at fighting but barely had lines, displayed little personality, and (seemingly) died at the end. He's appeared since in various tie-in stories and animated episodes, but now he's getting a spotlight like never before in a new Marvel comic --- and Marvel has provided a first look at issue #1.

The end of the year is a time of reflection in many ways, and that often means thinking about and assessing what the very best releases in any particular medium were. As we prepare to cross the threshold into 2017, we've been collecting some of the best covers of the year by publisher for your perusal, and today we're looking at fifty of the best comic book covers released from Image Comics in 2016.

There's a lot of reasons right now not to feel super great about being an American, but one reason to celebrate is the impending release of Marvel's USAvengers by Al Ewing and Paco Medina. The new series sees Sunspot's Avengers Idea Mechanics go national and government sponsored, and to commemorate the first issue Marvel has over fifty variant covers by Rod Reis, one for every state in the union and some more besides.

Darth Maul makes his return in February in a five-issue Marvel series that hopes to bring new dimensions to a character who was, in the eyes of many fans, under-served by the Star Wars movies. Maul appeared only in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, in which he had few lines, and was cut in half by Obi-Wan Kenobi before falling to his apparent death at the end of the film.

When Marvel's new U.S.Avengers, by Al Ewing, and Paco Medina, launches in January, the first issue is going to have 52 variant covers by Rod Reis, depicting an Avenger for each American State --- as well as Puerto Rico and Canada. It's unclear (if unlikely) whether the characters will have any connection to those states in the narrative, but since there will be 52 of them, most probably won't even be in the book.

Kyle Higgins, Alec Siegel and Rod Reis' COWL was a constantly rewarding and engaging take on superheroes, and next month the creative team is reuniting for a brand new miniseries titled Hadrian's Wall. Described as a locked room murder mystery in space, we've got a preview of the first issue to whet your appetite

Image Comics held its now traditional pre-San Diego one-day show on Thursday at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and unveiled an impressive roster of new titles for the coming year that includes new work by familiar names such as Warren Ellis, Jason Aaron and Gail Simone; plus an encouraging number of relative newcomers and unknowns. Check out our rundown of all the news and announcements.

We make a regular practice at ComicsAlliance of spotlighting particular artists or specific bodies of work, as well as the special qualities of comic book storytelling, but because cartoonists, illustrators and their fans share countless numbers of great pinups, fan art and other illustrations on sites like Flickr, Tumblr, DeviantArt and seemingly infinite art blogs that we’ve created Best Art Ever (This Week), a weekly depository for just some of the pieces of especially compelling artwork that we come across in our regular travels across the Web. Some of it’s new, some of it’s old, some of it’s created by working professionals, some of it’s created by future stars, some of it’s created by talented fans, awnd some of it’s endearingly silly. All of it is awesome.

If there's one problem that we as comics readers all share, it's that we just have too much money. Sure, we keep trying to give it to publishers and creators, but sometimes there just aren't enough comics to buy, and that's why we always need more great books out there to pick up. Fortunately, the good folks over at Comixology are doing their best to make that as easy as possible, and this week, those efforts are taking the form of the Image Comics "New Hits" Sale. A ton of great new Image books like Southern Bastards, The Wicked + The Divine, Velvet, Burn the Orphanage and more have seen their first few issues dropped down to 99 cents each, and on top of that, there's a bundle of 20 first issues for just fifteen bucks.