In an attempt to fan the flames of fandom prior to next week’s San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel has announced a massive creative shakeup scheduled to come hot on the heels of this summer’s action-packed snoozefest, Avengers Vs. X-Men. No sooner will the dust settle from the AvX slugfest than numerous new titles will be launched as many of Marvel’s premiere writers and artists play musical chairs and land on egregious, not to mention unnecessary, new titles.

Beginning in October, Marvel has pledged to launch one new book each week through February. While not quite a reboot, the rollout schedule can’t help but hearken back to The New 52 launch last September, when DC inundated comic book shops, and readers, with multiple new books each week, draining many wallets before the month was over. Thankfully, Marvel has learned from DC’s over saturation. Unfortunately, these new comics promise nothing but more of the same old, tired superheroics that have plagued comic book stores for the better part of the last two decades.

Read on to find out just what some of these titles are that Marvel wants you to buy NOW!

Now, Marvel has only announced three of the apparently 20 new titles that will be part of this new initiative, so it’s entirely possible that there will be more interesting comics down the road, but at the moment, there is nothing particularly exciting about any of these books:

• Uncanny Avengers #1 (October), by Rick Remender and John Cassaday – What do you get when you take two of Marvel’s biggest franchises and smash them together? A superteam-up book that’s sure to rival super rock group Audioslave in importance and entertainment. What dastardly foe could possibly bring various members of the Avengers and the X-Men together so soon after spending the summer beating the crap out of each other? Why, none other than … the Red Skull? He’s back again? So soon? Oy. I guess you can’t keep a good Nazi supervillain down.
• All New X-Men #1 (November), by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen – You wanted the return of Jean Grey? You got it! Sort of. In this time travel travesty, the original X-Men–Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Iceman, Beast and Angel–are somehow transported from their time period to the present day Marvel Universe. Wha-? Huh? Buh? Meh. Expect soap opera shenanigans as present day Scott Summers sets his eye on the young, innocent, pre-Phoenix Force and very much alive Jean Grey. Oh, but what’s Emma Frost going to think?
• Avengers #1 (December), by Jonathan Hickman and Jerome Opena – Yes, another new Avengers number one. What’s that make, eight “all-new” Avengers titles since Bendis’ “Disassembled” storyline kicked off Marvel’s “Age of Bendis” in 2004? Ten? Just how many Avengers titles do we need? And what does this mean for the current Avengers books? Whither New Avengers, Secret Avengers, Dark Avengers, etc.? Few details are known about this particular relaunch, but knowing Hickman’s work, this book promises to be HUGE in scope. His run on Fantastic Four has been nothing short of, well, fantastic. Out of the three NOW! titles revealed so far, this is the only one that piques my curiosity. But if it turns out that Thanos is the Big Bad, solely because he’s going to be featured heavily in Marvel’s upcoming movies Guardians of the Galaxy and, presumably, Avengers 2, then I will quickly lose interest.

And there you have it. The first of many new titles Marvel will be launching in an attempt to bolster its flagging sales in the wake of DC’s New 52. Expect more books and creative teams to be announced next week in San Diego. If you can’t wait until then, check out Entertainment Weekly’s big article about Marvel’s biggest event … since its last biggest event.

Sigh.

In other news, The Walking Dead hits its biggest milestone yet next week with the release of issue #100. To celebrate this historic-for-an-indie-book achievement, comic book shops around the country are hosting midnight release parties Tuesday night, so if you just can’t wait until Wednesday for your epic undead comic book fix, fear not.

I’ll be attending the midnight release at Omaha’s Krypton Comics, where, in addition to having each and every variant cover of The Walking Dead #100, everything in the store will be 20 percent off from midnight until 1 a.m. Come for the zombies, but stay for the savings.

I also have it on good authority that Krypton Comics might very well be overrun by a horde of Walkers Tuesday night, so be warned and come prepared with your cameras to have your picture taken with the walking undead.

Click here for a list of stores that are hosting midnight sales.

Picks of the Week

• Animal Man #11 (DC Comics), by Jeff Lemire and Steve Pugh
• Dial H #3 (DC Comics), by China Mieville and Mateus Santolouco
• Mind MGMT #2 (Dark Horse), by Matt Kindt
• The Punisher #13 (Marvel), by Greg Rucka and Marco Checcetto
  
• Thief of Thieves #6 (Image), by Robert Kirkman, Nick Spencer and Shawn Martinbrough

Related articles

• Will Jean Grey Return to the Marvel Universe After “AvX?” (comicbookresources.com)
• Marvel NOW! Relaunches The Marvel U (comicbookresources.com)
• Marvel NOW! Marvel to relaunch major titles this fall (comicsbeat.com)
• ‘Marvel NOW!’ Is The Next Step In Comics ‘ReEvolution’ (geek-news.mtv.com)
• Marvel NOW! Confirms UNCANNY AVENGERS, More New Series (newsarama.com)
• Marvel Universe to Undergo Drastic Changes (ign.com)