Editor's Picks

Everyone loves comic book trivia, but with 75 years of superhero comics behind us right now, there’s always some new obscure fact to learn. That’s why ComicsAlliance is going deep into the minutiae of your favorite characters in our new video series. You think you know comics? Well here’s a few things you might not know! With Ultron set to appear as the big bad in this year's Avengers sequel, this week we're taking a closer look at the unkillable mechanoid consciousness who just wants to destroy all flesh. Find out what obscure television series inspired the creation of Ultron, how his upgrades affected another more popular comics character, and why on earth a genocidal robot overlord would be caught dead wearing a trench coat and fedora, as well as several other equally interesting facts.

Whatever the Marvel Universe looks like after Secret Wars, we now have confirmation that Miles Morales is a part of it. The final members of Marvel's post-Secret Wars Avengers roster were revealed this morning, and as just about everyone had guessed, the figure front and center is Miles Morales, the Ultimate Spider-Man. He joins a team that also includes Iron Man, Vision, Captain America (Sam Wilson), Thor (current version), Nova (Sam Alexander), and Ms Marvel. All of which most people had also already guessed. The creative team for the Free Comic Book Day comic that introduces this team has been revealed as Mark Waid, Mahmud Asrar and Laura Martin; presumably they'll also be the creative team on the title proper.

Here's the good news, Pacific Rim fans: A new Legendary Comics series titled Tales from the Drift, with a story by screenwriter Travis Beacham, script by Joshua Hale Fialkov and art by Marcos Marz, is coming. The bad news? It won't be out until November. The announcement of the new series came Wednesday, along with news of two other titles debuting this fall, including a new spy book by writer Chris Roberson and artist JB Bastos, and a crime comic by writer Steven Grant and artist Pete Woods.

Wayward, the Image ongoing series about a young girl discovering the supernatural underworld of modern-day Japan, kicks off its second arc today with issue #6. The cover for the issue is the first of five that link together to create a single extraordinary panoramic view of some of the series' characters and settings, transitioning from sunset in a junkyard to late night on the streets of Tokyo. The interlinking covers are an impressive achievement, so to mark the start of the new arc --- and the release today of the first arc in trade paperback --- the creative team of writer Jim Zub, artist Steve Cummings, and colorist Tamra Bonvillain, take us behind the scenes of the creation of their panorama, from conception to completion!

All-New All-Different Avengers is one of two Marvel Free Comic Book Day titles, alongside Secret Wars #0, and while the latter sets the stage for Marvel's multiversal summer event, the former is our first look at what the new Marvel Universe will look like after Secret Wars --- so of course, Marvel is only telling us so much. The publisher has now revealed a cover for the Free Comic Book Day All-New All-Different Avengers comic, but most of the cover remains in silhouette. Still, that won't stop us from wildly speculating (and maybe even making some informed guesses).

Things got interesting over the past few days for comics folks who keep their ear to online skirmishes over how welcoming comics is or isn't --- and how welcoming comics should be in the first place. Between the new Killing Joke-inspired and tonally jarring cover to Batgirl #41 (which was just pulled at artist Rafael Albuquerque's request, and in line with the creative team's wishes) and Erik Larsen going on a Twitter rant about comics pandering to a "vocal minority" that in his mind wanted superheroines covered up, it would be easy for readers interested in the new world order of "comics for everyone" to feel discouraged. After all, if some of the decision-makers at DC and one of the owners of Image Comics don't get it, how can we expect everyone else to get it? The answer is easy: we move on without them.

Miracleman, aka Marvelman, has one of the most convoluted publishing histories in comics. Created by Mick Anglo, but very closely modeled on Fawcett's Captain Marvel, the character has passed between several owners and publishers over the years, and run afoul of all sorts of legal entanglements. Those complications seemed to be resolved by a recent court case --- so this is clearly the perfect time to add yet another publisher to the character's long history! IDW is getting into the Miracleman game with a deluxe hardcover 'Artifact Edition' reproducing pages from the 1980s Miracleman revival in Warrior magazine, by artists Garry Leach, Alan Davis and John Totleben and "the Original Writer." (Pssst; it's Alan Moore.)

As you may have heard, Archie is relaunching their flagship title in July, bringing an end to what has been the longest continuously published American comic that has never been rebooted, after 666 issues. In addition to a new direction from Mark Waid and Fiona Staples, the relaunch is getting a whole slew of variant covers focusing on the revamped design for everyone's favorite two-timing redheaded high schooler, from artists like J. Scott Campbell, Dean Haspiel, and more. Now we've got seven of those variant covers to reveal, bringing the total number of Archie #1 variants to approximately one hundred million (and all of them awesome). Check them out below, from Tania Del Rio, Genevieve F.T., legendary Superman and Shazam artist Jerry Ordway, and more!

If you have fond childhood memories of those times you were so immersed in the fantastical world of a favorite book that a whole day seemed to pass you by, Curt Pires and David Rubín's The Fiction, from Boom Studios, may be the perfect series for you. Then again, it may make you rethink where that time went. The intriguing premise of The Fiction takes that idea of getting lost in a fictional world to an extreme and sinister conclusion. It's the story of a group of friends who once found a set of books that actually allowed them to explore other worlds. But one of them never came back. And now that they're adults, another member of the group has gone missing...

Armor Wars was one of the first batch of titles teased by Marvel in the early days of its promotion for the upcoming Secret Wars summer event; with only a few spots left to reveal on the Battleworld map, Armor Wars is now one of the last titles to be formally announced, and ComicsAlliance can exclusively reveal that the creative team of writer James Robinson and artist Marcio Takara will be the readers' guides for this corner of Marvel's strange new universe. The original Armor Wars story in Iron Man #225-#231, by David Michelinie, Bob Layton, Mark D. Bright and Barry Windsor-Smith saw Tony Stark tracking down villains and rivals who had built armor based on stolen Stark designs. In this new Armor Wars there are two Starks --- Tony and Arno --- going head-to-head in a world where everyone has to wear armor, and one of the armored heroes has been murdered. It's a high-tech murder mystery, but Robinson promises "a big armor war in each issue." We spoke to Robinson and Takara to learn more about the Armor Wars world of Technopolis, and we cracked open Takara's sketchbook to see some of his awesome armor designs.