This Wednesday sees the release of Infinity #1, the first of six in Marvels latest Event, and the author, Jonathan Hickman, has been talking about the series and other upcoming projects in an interview with
USA Today. Jonathan Hickman, one of an elite group of writers called the Marvel Architects, has had a stellar last few years. Though only publishing his first comic, The Nightly News, in 2006 with Image, Hickman has quickly been snapped up by Marvel and has worked on several big properties since then from Secret Warriors to Fantastic Four and FF to his latest gig writing The Avengers. In Infinity, Hickman's first Marvel Event, The Avengers head out into space to fight a malicious alien race called The Builders who plan on destroying humanity. Back on Earth, the Mad Titan Thanos arrives and is met by Black Bolt and the Inhumans in a conflict which will connect up to Matt Fractions forthcoming series, Inhumanity, later this year. Talking about Thanos, Hickman said:
Thanos is a universal nihilist and genocidal space terrorist the baddest of bad dudes. This is a story about him coming to Earth to do a thing, and at the same time he is planning on doing that thing, there also happens to be a story that has taken some of the Marvel Universe's best heroes off the planet. Calamity ensues.
On what we can expect from Infinity, Hickman said:
Infinity is a big Thor comic book in a lot of ways. There's a lot of Thor in there having big Thor moments and dispensing wisdom to the younger Avengers. "It's a big Captain America story, surprising no one, showing that while he is not the most powerful guy, he remains arguably the most important figure in the Marvel Universe. "On the Earth side, this is a big Black Bolt story. This is a big thing for the Inhumans, which is another thing we're really pushing at Marvel and we're super excited about. There's a lot of Black Bolt and Inhumans in Infinity for a very good reason.
Besides his prolific Marvel output, Hickman has also been working steadily on his creator-owned titles with Image like The Manhattan Projects and East of West, and next month sees his first Avatar-published title God Is Dead, co-written by Mike Costa and drawn by Di Amorim. The six-issue, non-superhero series premise is that the gods of ancient mythologies return to Earth and begin killing all of the atheists. Originally planned as tongue-in-cheek, Hickman said that when Costa came on board the book became more of a straight narrative.
Infinity #1 by Jonathan Hickman and Jim Cheung is out this Wednesday and God Is Dead #1 is out in September.