The year 2024 is shaping up to be quite eventful for Marvel Comics, so IGN got on the horn with writers Jed MacKay and Cody Ziglar to talk about their upcoming projects. They range from MacKay's long-brewing horror event, Blood Hunt, to Ziglar's stories about Spider-Man Miles Morales, Spider-Punk, and Deadpool.
Making Vampires a Threat to Earth's Mightiest Heroes
Between writing the Avengers, Doctor Strange, and Moon Knight, MacKay has been surrounded by characters immersed in the supernatural, so it's not a surprise that he's the one crafting Marvel's next big event focused on blood-sucking vampires. Blood Hunt has been promoted to be on the same scale as Civil War and Secret Invasion, in that seeds have been planted for this story for years across Marvel's comics.
"This is a situation where night has fallen when it was not expected, and with the night comes the vampires and our heroes are outnumbered, they're outgunned, and we are seeing them really being put on the back foot, which is not a position they're comfortable in. As far as the biting happening, I think we're starting off with a lot of heroes getting bitten," MacKay teased.
If heroes are going to get bitten, then that means there's going to be quite a bit of blood. To indulge in all the vampire violence, Marvel is releasing a special edition of Blood Hunt that's Rated-R and features uncensored carnage.
"It gets pretty gnarly," MacKay wanrned. "It was an idea that came about from one of the Marvel retreats and they ran with it. And so you'll have your usual standard comic on the stands, but also being released will be a bagged, red-band version where we have some extra pages or switching out to panels where we have [Blood Hunt artist Pepe Larraz] just kind of going crazy. He is reveling in the ability to just go off the leash and make a real horror event."
Of course, if a Marvel event is going to feature vampires, that means it's going to star the daywalker himself, Blade.
"This is one of those things where Blade is always going after vampires his whole existence, but that private war has largely remained private," MacKay said. "Now for the first time, we're seeing the entire world being afflicted with this vampire menace. So you could say on one hand this is Blade being proved right and on the other we're going to see what happens when the Blade: The Vampire-Hunter's Crusade suddenly affects everybody. We've got the Avengers in there, we've got Dr. Strange in there. We've got the Moon Knight characters in there from all the books that I write, as well as Miles Morales Spider-Man in the main book. We're going to see Dracula, of course because you don't get Blade without Dracula, and as well as [Blade's daughter] Brielle Brooks, Bloodline."
While vampires would be a threat to a normal person, it's hard to imagine they'd be dangerous to the Avengers, especially with heavy hitters such as Thor and Captain Marvel on the team. But it seems MacKay thought of that and found a way to make even the strongest Marvel heroes vulnerable.
"We see pretty early on that whoever is orchestrating this whole vampiric attack, they've taken the Avengers into account because if you're going to try to take over the world, you got to deal with the Avengers. So we're going to see essentially the Vampire Avengers. That group, is called the Blood Coven. They're a group of super vampires who are to normal vampires as the Avengers are to normal people. And we're going to see them come into conflict pretty early, which is going to be really exciting. Pepe came up with all these great designs for these new characters. They're very cool. So that's going to be what puts the Avengers on the backfoot and we'll see how they deal with that."
That's not to say the Avengers won't be fighting back. As it turns out, there are a few characters that are high priority targets to the attacking vampires because they have the power to end the fight before it begins.
"You look at the Avengers, a lot of them have abilities that are extremely difficult for vampires to deal with, specifically Scarlet Witch who currently possesses the Darkhold, which itself has the Montesi Formula, which is the spell that can kill all vampires from the planet. Similarly, Dr. Strange had cast it previously, so with the vampires trying to take over the world, these are obviously people that are going to be high up on their hit list."
What's Coming for Deadpool, Miles Morales, and Spider-Punk
What do Deadpool, Miles Morales, and Spider-Punk all have in common? One answer might be that they are all characters that are in the spotlight right now because of big blockbuster movies. But the answer we're looking for is that all three characters are written by comics scribe Cody Ziglar, who feels the pressure to get their stories right.
"It's definitely not good for my nerves, but I think I've conquered that fear at this point," Ziglar told IGN. "It's truly a blessing. I love all these characters. I grew up reading Deadpool. I read every single thing that he was in when I was in college. Miles when he first came out, I guess at this point 12 years ago, I still remember taking my roommate being like, 'There's a Black Spider-Man, we have to go to the comic book shop,' and driving and buying the first three issues condensed into one special. And then I was also a young punk kid growing up, so playing in punk bands and finding out there is a Black punk Spider-Man and being able to write that was like, I could not have asked for a better trio of characters to put my little fingers on."
Miles Morales first debuted in 2011, and since then he's been in hundreds of comics. Ziglar has written some of those comics, and now he's the one who will pen the wall-crawler's landmark 300th issue. If the cover is any indication, a lot of Miles' villains will be showing up for the big occasion.
"I think there's definitely a lot of chickens coming home to roost for this point. One of the benefits of Miles being around for so long and having so many talented writers that he has a really, really cool rogues gallery and this is definitely his foray into having to fully face multiple of those. So I think if you're a fan of the Sinister Six, you'll enjoy this iteration of these characters and how they play into Miles's life. And also you've got some fun cameos I don't want to spoil that sort of pop up and help Miles," Ziglar teased.
Though Miles and Peter both share the Spider-Man moniker, Ziglar emphasizes the key differences in their characters under the mask.
"The big thing is [Miles'] family dynamic is so different. Most of Miles' supporting cast, including his family, know that he is Spider-Man, so he has that support system that I think Peter doesn't have sort of innately. If you're having a bad day at school and you got your butt kicked by Scorpion, you can call your mom and dad and have them sort of talk you through it, which adds a unique perspective to it.
"And also I think it sort of adds to that Miles is a teen and I think a really important thing for me growing up was my parents were there for me in such unique ways and were really a strong family unit. And I think that's something that helps separate Miles from Peter and a lot of the other Spider people is that yeah, his family not only supports him doing superhero stuff, but they sort of guide him and he doesn't really keep it a secret from them. He's very, very open with them and there's a level of trust I think that's sort of innate to their relationship that I think helps separate him from Peter and a lot of this Spider people in some pretty big defining ways," Ziglar said.
Deadpool was the name on everyone's lips recently when the teaser trailer for Deadpool & Wolverine rocked the internet, and now Ziglar is poised to launch a brand new Deadpool solo series.
"It's a little nerve wracking to be like, 'Oh man, there are so many good runs before me.' Even [Alyssa] Wong's run before me was so fantastic. The idea of doing a rom-com Deadpool is such a unique take, but he was the first character that I read that was like, I didn't know that you could be funny in comics. I thought you had to be very serious. So reading however many issues I've read of this guy who was sort of a goofball, but also balancing that out, they have the serious ones that he goes into. It was just really sort of formulative to my creative sense and my comedic timing growing up.
"And when I got asked to write a short for him last year and then eventually from that short being asked to write a full run for him. It was a dream come true. And I'm excited to sort of explore that character without getting too sidetracked by it, but I really find myself drawn to that 70% comedy, 30% drama, and I think Deadpool's a pretty perfect character for that, honestly," Ziglar said.
Even more exciting for Deadpool is he'll be facing off with a new villain called Deathgrip. Get your exclusive first look at the baddie below.
Finally, Ziglar will be publishing his second Spider-Punk mini-series. It's a four-issue limited series that follows up on his previous Spider-Punk story from 2022. One key difference between the comic book Spider-Punk and the one moviegoers met in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the comics version is American, while the film one is British.
"This is when having Multiverses help. If we're Earth-138, the movie one is 138B for British. So I think that's the main delineation. But me and the creative crew, particularly like the artist Justin Mason, we were huge fans of the whole world when we first made it and we were even bigger fans of the world once the Hobie appeared in the Spider-Verse movie," Ziglar explained. "So we decided to come into this one with, 'What can we do that sort of retained the thing that we really enjoyed with our first run?' It's unique to our voice, but also implement some of the things that we thought were really, really cool about Hobie's design in the Spider-Verse movie. So this second run that we're doing is sort of an amalgamation of both styles with Justin's still doing his thing, but also taking some of the cool flavoring that they came up with Hobie in Spider-Verse."
