New York Comic Con News:  At the New York Comic Con tonight Marvel Comics revealed its major "event" for 2015, a new year-long, Secret Wars written by Jonathan Hickman and drawn by Esad Ribic.  The new Secret Wars was announced on the 30th anniversary of the original 1984, year-long Secret Wars event that did for comic book crossovers what Jaws did for summer movie blockbusters.  The new Secret Wars will begin at the end of the current Avengers story arc, "Time Runs Out."
 
Marvel Executive Editor Tom Brevoort told USA Today: "The scope of it is about the biggest thing we've ever done or attempted to do. It's may be not the best thing to say but I don't know how we'll top it a year later."  USA Today reports that the new Secret Wars will be a company-wide event affecting the entire publishing side when it debuts next spring--and like the original Secret Wars, which had a tie-in with Mattel--the new Secret Wars already has merchandising deals in place with Hasbro, Gentle Giant, and Hot Topic.
 
Marvel also released a very interesting teaser painting by Alex Ross, which reflects some of the events and participants in the new Secret Wars.  Marvel fans will be scrutinizing this image closely since it includes new versions of Iron Man, Wasp, and Hawkeye, as well as Sam Wilson the new Captain America along with Steve Rogers, the old one.  There seems to be several incarnations of various Marvel characters including three Thors, including the new female Thor, who looks like she’s about to get in a donnybrook with the original God of Thunder.  Plus, is that Obnoxio the Clown in the upper right corner?  And the burning question, will the Beyonder be back?
 
Marvel clearly thinks that it is upping the ante on comic book crossovers with this one.  As Brevoort put it, "Our hope is that as seismic as the original Secret Wars was to the Marvel Universe and the readers, this new Secret Wars will be to the readers of today.  People are certainly going to be talking about it 30 years from now."