Enter Marvel's "Heroic Age"

This spring Marvel Comics plans to roll out a new direction within it's universe, the company believes that it's time to get back to the basics and let their heroes be heroes once again and to put an end to the "dark" times that have plagued their comics for the past 5+ years. It's about damn time in my opinion. I can't tell you how long it's been since I have picked up a comic book and felt like I was being treated to something special, I feel as if the heroes that inhabit both the Marvel Universe and the DC Universe have been really beaten down by the creative teams over the past decade and it's affected the storytelling and the way that we view the characters as fans. Remember when it used to be something special to see Spider-Man show up to save the day from a dastardly villain trying to pull off a major crime? Or how about the feeling you would get when someone would point to the sky and Superman would be flying by and you knew that whatever the horrible situation was that ol' Superman was not going to let it happen? Do you get those classic feelings of iconic heroes doing what they do best anymore? Yeah....neither do I.

Marvel claims that their heroes will be "super" once again, apparently we are going to see a rebirth of the Marvel Universe that is going to be written in a way that both long-term fans of the books will not feel alienated and new readers will be able to dive right in and not feel out of place. This is all fine and dandy, but you know it's not going to be a perfect slice, something will either spill over and new fans will wonder what is going on or they will leave something out of the overall picture that the long time fan will become enraged about, it's inevitable and it's something that always happens whenever you hit the all important "reset button" as a creative talent. Another thing that some fans may not realize is that Marvel is not just doing this with it's Avengers like originally thought, but over the course of the spring/summer it's going to affect pretty much all of the core characters, I found this out through reading solicitations for June and July where they mention that (insert title here) has arrived in the "Heroic Age". Not only is this new age of comics going to affect the core universe, but eventually it's going to make it's way to the X-Men titles and Marvel even plans to release a slew of new series that fit the "Heroic Age" such as a new monthly series called "Spider-Man & Wolverine", a teenage team book called "Young Allies" and a solo ongoing title based on Hawkeye.

That's all I have to say about Marvel's new direction for now, but I do want to say that I'm very excited about it and I will be posting an entry both on here and on my personal blog once the titles hit the shelves next month, hell, I may even add a video of me flipping through the pages to show off the art and some of the cool covers that we may see with the new initiative. When it's all said and done though this is definitly an interesting and exciting time to be a fan of Marvel Comics and comic books in general, a lot seems to be coming down the pike and you can see more over at www.Marvel.com or Http://TheHeroicAge.com.

As always, you can follow me on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/Manga4life or you can check out my personal blog located at http://manga4life-blog.blogspot.com, so in the (somewhat) immortal words of Stan Lee, "Until next time you can make mine.....MANGA!"

**Manga4life**