COMIC-CON INTERNATIONAL: MONDO MARVEL PANEL

By Ernie Estrella

SAN DIEGO -- Marvel had a lot of big announcements at their Mondo Marvel panel Thursday at Comic-Con. On hand were Jim McCann of Marketing, Publisher Dan Buckley, Senior VP of Sales and Circulation David Gabriel, artist Adi Granov, and writers, Matt Fraction, Fred Van Lente, Brian Reed, Jon Favreau, David Sexton, Dan Slott, Joseph Michael Straczynski, and C.B. Cebulski.

Straczynski made the biggest unveiling with The Twelve. This 12-issue maxi series will unearth 12 heroes from Marvel's Golden Age in the spring of 2008. Chris Weston (Fantastic Four: First Family) will handle the art. The Twelve is a mixture of heroes and people pretending to be heroes adjusting to the leap of the 1940's to present day, a much larger gap bridged than Captain America.

Rock-Man, Phantom Reporter, Blue Blade, The Witness and many others were rolled out for the first time in nearly sixty years in Marvel's slideshow presentation.

"It's a murder mystery" Straczynski teased. "One of the twelve will die in the first issue and by the end of the series, Marvel will have ten, maybe less new heroes."

* Jon Favreau is not letting go of Iron Man just yet after the movie. He is teaming up with Adi Granov in a four-issue mini-series called, Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas in 2008. The story is going to be an all-out brawl in sin city with Fin Fang Foom.

Favreau plans for a fun story with a limitless budget of storytelling in comics as opposed to film and that he got the itch to write a comic story after working with Granov in designing the suit for the movie. Granov added about Viva Las Vegas, "There's going to be a lot of destruction and a lot of humor."

* Brian Reed will be writing Captain Marvel with Lee Weeks handling the art. This team will begin in November 2007 Reed reiterated that his take will be a time travel story, not a resurrection story.

* Reed said that Machine Man will make an appearance in Ms. Marvel.

* Incredible Hulk #110 and World War Hulk #4 could see the Hulk killing.

* Mike Benson is joining Charlie Hutson on Moon Knight in December starting with issue #14. Hutson is best known for writing the Aquaman material for the hit show, Entourage.

* Esad Ribic, the artist for Silver Surfer: Requiem is now Marvel exclusive.

* JMS said that Thor will reawaken the other Asgardians who have taken other forms and rebuild Asgard in the middle of Oklahoma. He also added, "This will be a more powerful Thor than what we've seen in the past."

* In the Annihilation Conquest story featuring Marvel's cosmic tales, and in particular, the return of the Phalanx and who is really behind the big curtain as the bad guy.

* In Avengers: The Initiative, Dan Slott revealed that a mutant is the 199th registered mutant known only as Mutant Zero, begging the question, who is mutant Zero?

* Avengers: Initiative will have big implications on Spider-Man as it will be the last appearance of Peter Parker before his One More Day story. Avengers: The Initiave Annual will follow issue #7.

* Mystic Arcana: Sister Grimm will feature Runaways Nico's sister taking place between the two volumes of Runaways.

* Ultimate Hulk/Wolverine will be completed in the next eight months.

* C.B. Cebulski is holding "Chester Quest" the largest independent talent search. "There's too many pencilers and not enough opportunities." Said Cebulski. The search is spanning 15 countries and 20 cities in six months and by the end, 12 pencilers will be chosen as new Marvel artists.