Posted in: Avengers, Comics, Marvel Comics, Spider-Man, X-Men | Tagged: Armageddon, captain america, chip zdarsky, FOC, matt fraction, wolverine

Chip Zdarsky Makes Some Guarantees About Avengers: Armageddon For FOC

Chip Zdarsky guarantees no backfiring unilateral decisions from Tony Stark in the Avengers: Armageddon event, going to FOC today

Bleeding Cool has been tracking the buildup to Avengers: Armageddon since the first teases dropped, and with the five-issue event, written by Chip Zdarsky with art by Frank Alpizar and Delio Diaz launcing in June, with the first issue going to Final Order Cut-Off today. On Substack he says, "AVENGERS: ARMAGEDDON #1 is coming up for FOC! For all long-time ChipStackers, you know that means "Finally, Ordering Comics!" and it's the cutoff date for your shop to place orders on an issue. So, run in there, tears filling your eyes, and beg them to order you a copy. Hell, get them to order two copies just in case you want to cut out any cool images by Delio & Frank!! Here's a few right now, with a PSA from me, Chip!"

So there you have it. No backfiring unilateral decisions from Tony Stark and no broken Spider-Man lenses. And that's a promise. So the Red Hulk, Thunderbolt Ross, seizes Latveria in the wake of One World Under Doom, kicks off a global rampage, and forces a massive assembly of the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, SHIELD, the US Army, Latverian rebels and more. Chip Zdarsky has been doing the podcast round, including David Harper's Sktchd, the Dom of X, the 100th episode of Direct Edition with Matt Fraction, as well as his own Substack. And then Bleeding Cool brings them all together.

Chip Zdarsky has repeatedly emphasised that Avengers: Armageddon didn't start life as an event book, it grew organically out of his Captain America plotting. Talking to Sktchd; "It was definitely in the back of my head when I started plotting Captain America. I think after those first five issues, you know, set in the past and I was digging into the modern stuff and writing the One World Under Doom special, I was like, 'Okay, I know where this is going.' And so my big question at that point was, is it going to happen as a Captain America thing or is it going to happen on a bigger scale because it felt too big?" He compares the process to his earlier Daredevil event Devil's Reign, but notes this one had far more runway. Saying to Dom of X,  "This has been easier and I think only because Devil's Reign… it wasn't last second, but it definitely felt more accelerated… Whereas with this one… I wrote all of Armageddon last year. And so I really got to plan it out properly and address the feedback and like the notes that helped kind of make it better… Do all the planning as quickly as you can, make it as tight as you can and then the writing will just come easy…. it's really nice being able to write it all out and then kind of go back to it. To have like five issues scripted and then when you have something in issue five, you're like, "Oh, maybe maybe I can change something." and then you can go back to issue one and add a beat  that gets reflected in issue five…"

And Direct Edition captured the moment it officially "spiralled" into a line-wide event. Zdarsky laughs: "It's just kind of a story that I cooked up coming out of Captain America and it felt big enough that we kind of had to involve more characters and Marvel's like, 'All right, yeah, we'll give you the space to do this.' This Armageddon thing which has spiraled into a full-on event and I don't know how that happened, but it happened and we're just riding that wave till 2027." The inciting incident itself remains under wraps, Zdarsky said he'd only tease "Nothing! God, you're so greedy", but the Captain America and Wolverine: Weapons of Armageddon finales are clearly the detonators, it's Free Comic Book Day this Saturday and Bleeding Cool has had some ideas. But back in the pods, Thunderbolt Ross isn't just angry. He's broken, empowered, and done playing by anyone's rules. In the Dom of X interview, Zdarsky breaks down why the character clicked so perfectly with the larger story he was already building: "Oh, I mean he's just great. Like it's an American general with the powers of a Hulk… I knew what Ben Percy was going to be doing with him in the Red Hulk series… and it dovetailed really nicely with what I had planned for Captain America. Especially the fact that he was writing him as like a prisoner of Doom for a chunk of that… And I wanted to do stuff with Doom and Latveria… The idea of kind of breaking General Ross a little bit and having him just be like, 'F-ck yeah, America,' but like across the world, right? And specifically, Latveria to start with… This guy can do some damage."

The global-politics angle is deliberate. Chip Zdarsky says  "What we're doing ends up being kind of on a global scale and dealing with a lot of kind of like global politics… It's a weird time to be writing about like global conflicts and incursions into countries and things like that, but it's also what's on my mind, what's on a lot of people's minds…. Red Hulk is the bad guy and assembled heroes that include the Avengers and Fantastic 4 and Wolverine are going to go and square off against them amongst others… Avengers makes sense. They're in the title. Fantastic 4, this involves Latveria, so of course they're going to be involved… Wolverine's there for a reason. Like, it's not just a random insert. It makes sense to the character, who he is, and what his goals are…. We looked at a map and we're just like, 'What country can Red Hulk destroy in which it might not be destroyed imminently?' And we chose Canada."

Talking of the Wolverine: Weapons Of Armageddon series, Chip Zdarsky told Dom Of X, "David Colton is in the Wolverine series, I just didn't have enough space in Captain America and I knew Wolverine had to be a pretty big part of it. So let's make this a proper Wolverine story because it dealt so much with the super soldier experiments and also just it teased up Armageddon. Like Cap and this Wolverine miniseries, the final issues are just like "boom!" Those two things are the are the combination that explodes everything in Armageddon. I pitched Marvel, like, I have this large story but I have this really crucial chunk, can I do it as a Wolverine mini? And they said "yeah". Thank god. And like I've never really written Wolverine before, but oh, he's so much fun to write."

Chip Zdarsky also sees that an emotional and ethical core is what separates Armageddon from "oh, there's 1 million aliens, and they have to fight 1 million aliens, back to normal as soon as it's over" kind of event story. "I wanted characters to kind of change and evolve through it and for things to feel different on the other end It's an event of moral and ethical decisions, which for me as a writer and a reader makes it more interesting than a lot of events, frankly… I'm writing what I want to read in an event, which is like the heart of the characters trying to figure out solutions to problems. And maybe they have different ideas as to what those solutions could be. And that has ramifications for everyone. And so it's big and it's emotional and Spider-Man tells a couple jokes and then Spider-Man cries." As long as he doesn't break his mask eye visors, okay?

Avengers: Armageddon #2 introduces a brand-new player who's been teased for over a year.  "We've been building to this moment for well over a year with a new character who will truly unsettle the world… Someone I'm genuinely excited about and how all the other characters kind of relate to them is good." While issue #4's ending is apparently so seismic that even Zdarsky is keeping it locked down: "It's just this big summer blockbustery story with incredibly cool twists that I'm very excited for people to see. Issue four is going to be one of those ones where people are like, "Oh, holy sh-t that's fun."  I wanted to hit the  feeling of the big event with actual emotional stakes, not just, there's 1 million aliens and they have to fight one million aliens,  back to normal as soon as it's over…. I think issue four… the ending of issue four is like one of these endings where I'm like, 'No one can find out about this.' Like, we cannot let anyone know about this… I hate spoiling things especially for the sake of like getting orders higher."

Hey, no fair! The biggest promise, repeated across all three interviews, is a genuine status quo shift. "You want to create a new landscape for the other creators to tell their stories in without kind of ruining their stories… If at the end of this event like Earth is hell… Spider-Man is not just swinging through New York. It's New York on fire all the time…. I've got plans that kind of extend well into 2028… This is basically the Captain America series is the beginning of that, and it kind of builds up through that Wolverine miniseries and this Avengers: Armageddon, and the thing that follows that and the thing that follows that… there's definitely a plan. Marvel gets it right a bunch of times. With those kind of events to create a new landscape itself… Like Dark Avengers through Dark Reign… Civil War… World War Hulk."

As he told Direct Edition, "I'm trying to bring that feeling back to Marvel… I need to focus… If I'm going to do this I'm going to do it right I need to like give it my attention I need to like make sure I'm there to answer the questions." Zdarsky is acutely aware of reader exhaustion with line-wide crossovers. His solution? Make it matter. "There are things in Avengers: Armageddon where when I pitched it, people's eyes lit up in the room… It kind of set up basically a couple of years' worth of stories out of this."

Here are those podcasts, embedded, followed by everything else we know about Armageddon so far…

Okay, so we have a lot of preview pages for the upcoming Avengers: Armageddon event from Chip Zdarsky coming up. And a lot of preview pages to Frankenstein together from the upcoming Free Comic Book Day Comics Giveaway Day Special and Avengers: Armageddon #1. But maybe, just maybe, Bleeding Cool now has a better idea of what is going on in them. Spoilers, of course. Following on from One World Under Doom, and the death and deposition of Doctor Doom, it will begin with the Battle of Symkaria. A neighbouring state of Latveria, it has often been a staging post for proxy wars between the US and Latveria. We have seen Latveria under civil war in The Will Of Doom, Dungeons Of Doom and Captain America, but it will soon spill over. And the outcome of that battle will change everything, with the US Army, Symkarian forces, General Ross' Hulk Soldiers and the Avengers in the fight. But who is on whose side? And so, Avengers: Armageddon.

Chip Zdarsky says, "I mean, it's a Hulk with the tactical ability of a U.S. General and some deep-seated trauma from imprisonment in a foreign country. There's a lot to play with there, and right now, General Ross has some very specific ideas of what the world should be. How do you stop a guy with that level of power and forethought?" And that's what this scene is, General Ross, the Red Hulk, commanding a troop of Hulk soldiers against The Avengers… and he loses. Not at the hand of Tony Stark, but in a move resonant of Avengers: Endgame, at the hand of another Avenger summoned to the moment. Because if you look closely, those are the fists of Captain Marvel. And then we get…

… a reset. And it switches to General Ross, The Red Hulk, still in his human army form, having defeated the Avengers again. And then being defeated again.

This time, by an injured, grieving Mister Fantastic with a special gun. And then another Reset. This time to One World Under Red Hulk. A world in which he has imposed democracy across it, under the watch of his Red Tower. And then, rather than a reset, we go Forward to this scene, with a new world order, with the Red Hulk's America as a world police, and even talk of a new Krakoa…

This is General Ross seeing the possible presents and futures, then choosing the one that works and pursuing it. How? Unclear. Doctor Doom's time platform? Another device from the dungeons of Latveria? Or a local A.I. doing a reprise of Civil War II? Either way, this is Planet America, democracy, or their version of it – installed everywhere. And whoever the people choose, they are damned by it. Avengers: Armageddon will be the road to that state. And the Battle Of Symkaria is where it begins. And in the preview, we see the US Army attacking Ross and his Hulk Soldiers as he has declared an act of secession as "New America".

As veterans of World War II, the Winter Soldier and Namor, the Sub-Mariner, debate a response.

We see The Red Hulk, General Ross and his Hulk Soldiers making their attack on a US base, to establish their Nw America.

As well as "Hulking Down" to his human form, surrounded by his Hulk soldiers. As for Captain America?

That's not Steve Rogers wielding the shield. That's David Colton, the Afghanistan/Iraq War's version of Captain America, created by the US government while Rogers was in the ice. But we also have another Captain America, Sam Wilson, who might want that shield back. And so the Avengers Assemble.

Namor, Captain America, The Thing, Winter Soldier, The Vision, Mister Fantastic, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel and the Invisible Woman. A number of whom General Ross has seen die at his hands. Oh yes, one more.

Tony Stark, Iron Man. It's all coming together… the Battle For Symkaria awaits. Who else might want in?

Black Panther, King Of Wakanda. Of course, another head of state to join Namor, in dealing with the result of Doom losing his…

• ARMAGEDDON/X-MEN #1 CGD 2026
  Written by CHIP ZDARSKY, JED MACKAY & RYAN NORTH
  Art by FEDERICO VICENTINI, FRANK ALPIZAR & DELIO DIAZ
  Cover by RYAN STEGMAN
  The heroes of the Marvel Universe assemble to take on the Red Hulk in a critical story by Chip Zdarsky that sets the stage for this summer's Marvel event…ARMAGEDDON! Armageddon is here, and no one is safe from the coming end. PLUS: Your first look at this summer's big X-MEN event DNX…and DOOM!
• CAPTAIN AMERICA #11
  Written by CHIP ZDARSKY Art by VALERIO SCHITI
  DOOM'S ULTIMATE WEAPON REVEALED ON THE ROAD TO ARMAGEDDON!
  Steve puts aside his mission to protect Victor Von Doom's ultimate weapon from both the U.S. and Latveria, which puts him on a dangerous collision course with Red Hulk's ALL-NEW, ALL-HULK strike team! But there are some wars not even Captain America can win… Witness the spark that starts the fire of ARMAGEDDON in this can't-miss issue! On Sale 5/13
• WOLVERINE: WEAPONS OF ARMAGEDDON #4 (OF 4)
  Written by CHIP ZDARSKY Art by LUCA MARESCA
  THE EXPLOSIVE FINALE LAUNCHES THE MARVEL UNIVERSE INTO ARMAGEDDON!
  All of the pieces are falling together – PRIMEWARRIOR's attempt to create the next great super-soldier has brought together some of the past's greatest successes, from Wolverine to Nuke to David Colton, A.K.A. CAPTAIN AMERICA! As the final puzzle piece clicks into place, the stage is set for the next AVENGERS epic and Wolverine must make a choice that will have ramifications for the entire Marvel Universe… On Sale 5/20
• REBORN: ULTIMATE IMPACT #1 (OF 5)
  Chris Condon (W) • STEFANO CASELLI (A)
  THE ULTIMATE UNIVERSE'S LEGACY LIVES ON! MILES MORALES returned from the Ultimate Universe with a plan: safeguard the ORIGIN BOXES – catalysts for the creation of new super heroes – before they fall into the wrong hands! But the secret is out as Miles' battle over the boxes engulfs the entire Marvel U! This May, Chris Condon (ULTIMATE WOLVERINE) and Stefano Caselli (ULTIMATE BLACK PANTHER) team up to create stunning and unforgettable new characters on both sides of a conflict that will shape the future of the 616!
  32 PGS./Rated T …$4.99 On Sale 5/20
• AVENGERS: ARMAGEDDON #1 (of 5)
  by Chip Zdarsky, Delio Diaz, Frank Alpizar
  ARMAGEDDON HAS ARRIVED! Red Hulk's devastating tear across the globe must be stopped…but it will take a colossal gathering of Earth's Mightiest Heroes to do it! Calling in the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Wolverine and more…but who will survive this super-powered cataclysm?! There will be a pre-Armageddon Marvel Universe and a post-Armageddon Marvel Universe. Be here to bear witness to the transformation.
• CAPTAIN AMERICA #12
  CHIP ZDARSKY (W) • VALERIO SCHITI (A/C)
  FROZEN…IN HELL! After S.H.I.E.L.D.'s campaign in Latveria meets a brutal and violent end, Captain America finds himself in the last place he expected to be, alongside the last person he expected to see again. Where has Victor Von Doom been since the FALL OF DOOM, and what does he want with Steve Rogers? Find out here as everything hurtles toward ARMAGEDDON! 32 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99
• AVENGERS: ARMAGEDDON #2 (OF 5)
  Written by CHIP ZDARSKY Art by DELIO DIAZ & FRANK ALPIZAR
  Cover by DIKE RUAN Variant Cover by ADI GRANOV Virgin Variant Cover by ADI GRANOV
  YOU'RE GOING DOWN, THUNDERBOLT ROSS! A NEW HERO WITH UNRIVALED POWER TURNS THE TIDE OF BATTLE  Red Hulk's tirade across the globe must be stopped! Until a mysterious new hero with unrivaled power appears to level Red Hulk and the Avengers… On Sale 7/8
• CAPTAIN AMERICA #13
  Written by CHIP ZDARSKY Art by TON LIMA
  Cover by VALERIO SCHITI
  CAPTAIN AMERICA: HELL'S ANGEL! Victor von Doom has captured the soul of Captain America, dragging him to an unfamiliar battlefield to use him as an unwilling weapon. As Steve Rogers struggles to survive in a world he doesn't understand, the world he left behind needs him more than ever. And Armageddon draws ever closer… On Sale 7/15

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