Marvel Entertainment has revealed more details at New York Comic Con about how it plans to celebrate the company’s 80th anniversary in 2019, with the announcement of two special titles releasing in January to mark the first decade of the company’s existence.
Although both Invaders and Marvel Comics Presents are revivals of pre-existing titles and will feature stories set during the 1940s, neither of the one-shot specials are authentically part of Marvel’s Golden Age material; Invaders was originally a series created in the 1970s featuring characters from the company’s 1930s and ’40s incarnations, while Marvel Comics Presents comes from the 1980s and ’90s, when it was a biweekly anthology title traditionally featuring Wolverine and a number of lesser-known characters.
Part of the Marvel Comics Presents tradition will live on for its 2019 revival; the issue will feature three stories from creators including Charles Soule, Greg Pak, Ann Nocenti, Tomm Coker and Paulo Siqueira focusing on Marvel heroes during the 1940s, with one of those heroes being Wolverine, a character who didn’t actually debut until 1974. In Marvel’s defense, he has long been established as having been active for the entirety of the 20th century. Thankfully, the other two lead characters are genuine WWII-era creations: Captain America and Namor the Sub-Mariner.
Meanwhile, Invaders will come from creators Chip Zdarsky, Carlos Mango and Butch Guice.
Both titles were announced at a breakfast meeting with comic book retailers, organized by Diamond Comic Distributors, as were a number of future revivals of legacy titles, including Crypt of Shadows, Journey Into Unknown Worlds and War Is Hell, intended as a part of 80th-anniversary publishing plans.
Marvel Comics Presents and Invaders will be released in January.
