The "Marvel: Amazing Spider-Man" panel has just wrapped up at this year's San Diego Comic-Con, and two very big pieces of news have come out of it. The first is the official announcement of
Minimum Carnage, a new event book which will kick off with
Minimum Carnage: Alpha this October and then run through
Venom and
Scarlet Spider. The story will see Carnage escape into the Micro-verse, as the two heroes pursue him. Cullen Bunn and Chris Yost will handle writing duties (with art by Lan Medina) in the prologue before the story moves into the regular titles with art from Declan Shalvey and Khoi Pham.
"Carnage is the worst case scenario for both Venom and Scarlet Spider," Bunn said.
"For Kane, it's all about how terrible a killer can be. And for Venom, it's how terrible a symbiote can be. This is a situation for various reasons that only Venom and Scarlet Spider can deal with Carnage...it isn't a thing where Peter Parker can swing in and save them." The second big announcement was
Punisher War Zone. Following the mysterious teasers released last month, it was revealed today that it will be a five-issue series which wraps up the critically acclaimed Greg Rucka/Marco Checchetto run. The series will see The Punisher taking on The Avengers after they finally decide that he must be stopped. In an interview with
Marvel.com, Rucka told the site that,
"The question is, of course, what do you do with a 'Problem Named Castle?' Without giving too much away, let's just say that events in Punisher #15 and Punisher #16 go big enough that Earth's Mightiest Heroes can no longer hope the 'Castle problem' will take care of itself. At a certain point, they have to take responsibility for allowing Frank to have run as he has for so long. That point is now, and the time has come to do something about it." He adds,
" The meeting between Wolverine and Frank is one I've had in my mind ever since I began work on PUNISHER, honestly, and it's not going to be the face-off people expect. I'm leery of saying more because I really don't want to give anything away, but I will add that there is one Avenger that can neutralize Frank with three words alone." "Honestly, everyone and their cousin has seen the traditional 'two heroes beat each other to pulp,' and that just won't work with Frank," Rucka says.
Against almost any Avenger, head-to-head, he's going to be going down. One of the things I'm most excited about for this is showing the different takes on Frank and what he does, and the different approaches and arguments about how to effectively solve the ‘Castle problem.’ I don't want to presume it as arrogance, but the Avengers, when they decide to act, they think they're getting into one thing, and they discover it's something very different. Because Frank, while he almost certainly knows he will ultimately lose, he's not going to make it easy, and he's not going to go quietly..." An ominous teaser indeed! Be sure to sound off with your thoughts on these announcements and teasers in the usual place.
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