Marvel Is Officially Entering A New Era. Here Are 8 Things Fans Need To See
By Published May 5, 2026, 10:00 PM EDT Jared is a writer, editor, and Communications Studies graduate who loves popular nerd culture (almost anything to do with Marvel, DC, Star Wars, or The Lord of the Rings) and the interactive storytelling medium. Jared's first console was the PS1, wherein he fell for Spider-Man, Spyro the Dragon, and Crash Bandicoot. Summary Generate a summary of this story follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap
Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe endeavors toward a nostalgic crossover era via Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom and Fox’s X-Men continuity in Avengers: Doomsday, will first embark on its own new era via the this summer. Five issues do not give this event much legroom with which to tackle such a tall order, though it is strategically leveraging a few recent Marvel stories—Ryan North and R.B. Silva’s One World Under Doom event and Chip Zdarsky and Valerio Schiti’s Captain America run, and Zdarsky and Luca Maresca’s Wolverine: Weapons of Armageddon miniseries—as its foundations and springboards.
Avengers: Armageddon is teased as “the origin of the end” with a “transformative shakeup of the team,” but an excuse for a is not all this event is poised to be. Zdarsky has established himself as a “Marvel architect,” whether or not he actually prefers that term, as part of a group of creatives tasked to “help figure out the way forward for a lot of the line” in the “next year or two.” It is unknown what that will look like specifically, yet there are quite a few changes fans certainly want to see that could positively affect Marvel Comics wholesale.
Avengers: Armageddon’s prelude issue, Armageddon/X-Men #1, was released on May 2 for Free Comic Book Day/Comics Giveaway Day 2026, ensuring that there is plenty of exposition and anticipation for the event.
Coherent Series Continuity
is designated as Earth-616 with a wide net cast over every series belonging to its continuity. Zdarsky spoke of the connective tissue—or lack thereof—in the Marvel Comics line at the moment, and this admission seems like something he would like to see avoided, with perhaps one specific Marvel icon being looked at as Marvel’s storytelling North Star:
“I have a real fondness for, kind of, the Bendis years of Marvel, where events kind of reshaped things, kind of built a story towards the next thing, and built a story towards the next thing […] I feel like that’s the sign of a good event, not just kind of wrapping something up, or tying something off.”
[…]
“Everyone’s a bit siloed off. The X-Men stuff is very much X-Men, Spider-Man is Spider-Man. Jed [MacKay] is doing Avenger stuff that felt very siloed off as well. Bendis was good at that, being the guy where you read New Avengers to know what’s kind of happening at Marvel, you know.”
As for Avengers: Armageddon, in particular, it is great that Zdarsky never saw it as an event, so much as he saw it as a story he wrote that was “big and cool and interesting.” This is hopefully the mindset that every Marvel story will be imbued with, as there should not necessarily need to be some spectacular ‘event’ every summer to look forward to, despite Marvel’s tendency to turn a Zdarsky story into an event (, and now Avengers: Armageddon spiraling out of Captain America).
Art Consistency And Quality
Comic book art, between covers, variants, and interiors, is subjective in terms of its quality, with some readers bound to favor one artist over another. That said, it can often be alarming and unsatisfying when a run’s primary artist takes a break for a couple of issues, and the substitute artist who is brought on has an art style that clashes with theirs.
This is more or less inevitable with deadlines and such, and opposing art styles are sometimes surprisingly agreeable, depending on the particular comic or character and how they are interpreted by these artists. Either way, considerate consistency between primary and fill-in artists could make a massive splash when it comes to single issues that the run’s main creative team is not whole for.
Conversely, it was a stroke of genius to have divide its story between two artists and have the narrative bounce back and forth between them in every second issue: John Romita Jr. for Norman Osborn’s perspective as the Resolute Spider-Man on Earth, and Pepe Larraz for Peter Parker’s perspective while hesitating to return from exile in outer space.
No Rushed Cancellations
regarding comics sales has been widely criticized, particularly in terms of how Marvel seems to rush toward canceling a book in its infancy before it has had a proper chance to win readers over or encourage sales in a collected trade paperback.
Greater Creator Compensations
Marvel Comics is sadly no closer to giving comic creators appropriate compensation when it comes to adaptations or translations—a glaring problem that creators like Ed Brubaker and Ta-Nehisi Coates have lamented about for ages. This is obviously still an egregious oversight on Marvel’s part, with explaining that she receives no royalties at all based on her paramount contributions to the character, despite Miles Morales going on to be the lead in the billion-dollar Spider-Verse franchise.
MCU Synergy Abandonment
It is possible that may look eerily similar to one or more rosters that appear in an upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movie like Avengers: Doomsday or Avengers: Secret Wars, and Marvel hopefully resists the overwhelming urge it will surely have to lean on the MCU’s popularity now that fans’ excitement has been renewed. Part of what is great about comics is that they do stray from what stories are being told in the MCU, and too much synergy makes Marvel far too homogenous, even if some characters are naturally more popular or beloved than others.
Spectacular Spider-Man: Brand New Day, The Punisher vs. The Amazing Spider-Man, and Spider-Man: Long Road Home demonstrate that Marvel was quick to take advantage of the hype generated by Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Creative Choices For New Characters And Teams
It is nice that Marvel is doing its due diligence in attempting to introduce brand-new characters instead of simply relying on legacy characters. Nonetheless, Marvel could afford to cut down on mashing two established characters together in order to create someone new—Hellverine, Weapon VIII, Cosmic Ghost Rider, and Spider-Ock, for example—in favor of wholly original characters. This is evidently fruitful for , as Omen, a “villain” cursed with foresight, makes for a wonderful, mysterious hook.
Less Nostalgia For Past Eras
X-Men ’97 is proof that there will always be a gigantic audience who adores nostalgic representations of characters. However, there is arguably nothing left for Marvel to mine from the decades of iconic comics lore that already serve as foundations for its present-day stories and characters.
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It might be quite telling about the current state of Marvel Comics that it is choosing to indulge in some light time travel with miniseries endeavors, such as Civil War: Unmasked and Spectacular Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Because these stories are meant to add lore that was not there before and bleed into the present day, it is highly likely that there could be new retcons crawling out of the woodwork as Marvel insists on dead horses being beaten.
More 20th Century Crossovers
Marvel’s 20th Century Studios imprint—Alien, Predator, and Planet of the Apes—should be preserved and nurtured, alongside other zany crossover comics like Godzilla vs. The Fantastic Four, New Avengers/Transformers, Godzilla Destroys the Marvel Universe, Marvel Team-Up’s Invincible collaboration, and The Punisher Meets Archie. These crossovers have been superb, and it is fun when they add a bit of lore that fans could never have known to be true beforehand, including the fact that .
Avengers: Armageddon #1 is scheduled to be released on June 10, 2026.
Cast
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Thor -
Vanessa Kirby Sue Storm / Invisible Woman -
Johnny Storm / Human Torch -
Ebon Moss-Bachrach Ben Grimm / The Thing
Avengers: Doomsday is the fifth Avengers film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and will bring together heroes, new and old, to face off against Victor von Doom - played by the returning Robert Downey Jr. The upcoming film notably marks the beginning of Phase 6 of the MCU.
Producers , , Main Genre Superhero Executive Producer(s) Jonathan Schwartz, Louis D'Esposito, Callum McDougall, Chris Castaldi Expand Collapse
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