Marvel's November previews reviewed

 While DC is doing "'90s variants" in November, Marvel is taking an aspect of the '90s for their themed variants, and publishing what they're calling "Extreme" variants—I'm sorry, that's actually "X-TREME" variants, as they're even spelling "extreme" as extremely as possible. Want some examples? Here you go: 

Those area from Spider-Man #2, Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty #6, Captain America: Symbol of Truth #7 and Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings #5. Marvel has only shared a handful of them altogether, and some of them are hard to distinguish from what the normal covers might have been...for example, Ghost Rider and Carnage are both pretty "x-treme" as it is, so it's difficult to tell when the artists lean hard in that direction for covers of their books. 

What else does Marvel have going on in November? Well, let's see...

It's damn weird seeing Bryan Hitch drawing the regular Avengers, as opposed to the Ultimates, as he will be doing in the massive Avengers Assemble Alpha #1, which the publisher is promising to be "the biggest Avengers saga in Marvel history." Perhaps it's simply because that's where I was first exposed to his work, but I can't help but seeing the Ultimates when I look at his Avengers, despite a few cosmetic changes in their costumes and so forth. Like, when I see Hitch's Captain America, it's hard not to think, "Oh, that asshole", when I'm really looking at a whole different version of the do-you-think-this-A-stands-for-France guy. I guess that's a comment on how powerful Mark Millar and Hitch's Ultimates comics really were; decades later and they're still present in my mind (and it's hard to, um, un-hitch Hitch's version of the characters here from his earlier work on them). 

"Biggest Aventers saga in Marvel history" is a big claim, but I'm looking forward to reading it. I've managed to follow writer Jason Aaron's volume of the Avengers comic from the beginning, despite Marvel attempting to shake me off with an event ("Heroes Reborn") and the introduction of a second title (Avengers Forever). 

Doctor Strange: Fall Sunrise #1 sets the incomparable writer/artist Tradd Moore loose in one of the publisher's most visually interesting milieus. This should be, like everything Moore draws, something worth checking out. 

The biggest news—and the biggest surprise—of the month is no doubtedly that Marvel is relaunching what was once their flagship title, and that the writer doing the honors is none other than Ryan North, the man responsible for my all-time favorite Marvel series (The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl), the creator of a handful of amazingly creative and fun prose books, and all-around—and I don't use this word lightly!—genius. 

I think the title/franchise is a particularly tough one to handle, given how heavily the shadows of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee still fall over it, and how potent their storylines and characters were that it can be a challenge to take on the Fantastic Four in a way that feels fresh and new, rather than an extended homage. 

That said, in both his comics work and his prose work, North has demonstrated a wild imagination, a sense of humor, a genuine interest in sciences real, mad and theoretical, and respect for the Marvel Universe as a milieu and history. Those are all qualities that bode well for his take on the Fantastic Four.

He's being paired with artist Iban Coello, whose work I am not at all familiar with. Part of me can't help but wish Squirrel Girl's Erica Henderson or Derek Charm wasn't along for the ride, just so I would know for sure what I'm getting, but I'm eager to see what this book looks like and how it reads. If it's anything like Squirrel Girl, than I'm sure we're in for a treat. 

Alex Ross will be handling the covers...although there will be variants. One of particular note? Oh, this little number be Frank Miller:

That...sure is...something.

I think that the DC stable of characters probably better suits Miller's current, reductionist style, given that they all tend to be reduceable to a single symbol in a way that Marvel's only rarely are, but I do enjoy seeing Miller's idiosyncratic takes on the classic characters. Could I take a whole book of that particular version of the Thing...? I think I maybe could, but it's hard to imagine that being the Thing for very long, wouldn't it...?

What I'm saying is that if Marvel wants to commission Frank Millers The Dark World's Greatest Comics Magazine Returns, I think I'd probably read it. 

The team of Mariko Tamaki and Gurihiru return for a third Double Trouble series, this time with co-writer Vita Ayala joining them for Peter Parker& Miles Morales: Spider-Mean: Double Trouble #1. Any opportunity to see more Gurihiru art is to be welcomed—even if I don't like what they do with the characters' legs in these more cartoony-than-usual stories—and I greatly enjoyed the first two series, starring Spidey and Venom and Thor and Loki, respectively. Not only did I enjoy them, but my now-ten-year-old nephew and his mom, who sometimes reads comics with him, enjoy them 

The short and simple solicitation for Gene Luen Yang and Marcus To's Shang-Chi and The Ten Rings #5 reads "THE ORIGIN OF THE TEN RINGS REVEALED!" which is interesting given the fact that these ten rings now resemble the ten rings from the movie and, if their origin is being revealed here, then they're getting out pretty far ahead of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where the origin of the rings was presented as something of a mystery that baffled Wong (magic stuff), Bruce Banner  (science stuff) and Captain Marvel (space stuff) at the end of the Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings movie. 

Yang's under some tension to present a version of the long-lived character that resonates with the new  film version, and this then seems a somewhat audacious move, assuming the mystery is already "solved" but unrevealed in the MCU...