Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: Andrew Hennessey, Annalise Bissa, Ariana Maher, cb cebulski, Comics, fantatsic four, greg land, jay leisten, jed mackay, kev walker, mark bagley, marte gracia, Martin Biro, marvel, reckoning war, Timeless, tom brevoort

Reckoning War Opening Strike Teased In Marvel Comics' Timeless #1

"The moon, cracked in a great reckoning…" Today sees the publication of Marvel Comics Timeless #1, the big end-of-year volume that sets up much of what will be coming in upcoming Marvel Comics titles, in the manner that Marvel Now #1, Marvel Comics #100, and Incoming #1 in recent years did. And there are plenty of teases as to what is coming in Marvel Comics over the months to come. And Bleeding Cool will be breaking lots of them down with the Timeless tag today. Warning, there are spoilers.

Looks like the moon will be taking a bit of a tumble. Could this be the Eternals blowing up the Summers house to kick off the Judgement War?  More likely with the wording that this is the upcoming Reckoning War crossover event from Dan Slott, that he has been impatiently waiting to get Marvel Comics to publish for a couple of decades. Which is small change compared to Miracleman of course. The moon, of course, is the home of The Watcher, who has been rather prominent in the Reckoning War teases and also gets a Reckoning War oneshot all to themselves. Could someone be minded to blow up the Watcher's home planetoid as an opening shot in the Reckoning War?

The final issue of the Guardians Of The Galaxy lets Doctor Doom make a Reckoning War tease. So Doctor Doom has a brand new magical weapon to bring to the Reckoning War. Fantastic Four #35 dropped one in at the end with the Time Variance Authority.

Marvel stated in their announcement that "Dan Slott is joined by Carlos Pacheco and Rachael Stott for Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four: Reckoning War, an epic saga over 15 years in the making. The original secret war of the Marvel Universe has been reignited and every living being in reality is in danger, for we are finally at…Our Day Of Reckoning."

As Bleeding Cool may have mentioned before, twenty-or-so-years ago, Dan Slott used to drop something into a number of his comic books at Marvel about something he would call The Reckoning War. A storyline that would upend the future of the Marvel Universe, centred on She-Hulk but involving The Watcher, the Fantastic Four, Gauntlet, Iron Man, Southpaw and many more.

In She-Hulk #3 back in 2005, we discovered, from the Time Variance Authority, that actions already taken by She-Hulk would lead to The Reckoning War. That this was a bad thing. That this was all She-Hulk's fault, and emanated from something she had done in the first year that Dan Slott wrote her.

The Reckoning War would devastate not only the Earth but the whole cosmos. Marvel sources told me that Slott had tried to get this event to finally occur in one book or other for some time, but hadn't heard about it from him for a few years.

At some point, maybe when he was writing Amazing Spider-Man, he put The Reckoning War on the back-burner, with just a couple of references in the last ten years.

With a repeated phrase, "there shall be a reckoning" or "there will be a reckoning".

In this future, Gauntlet inspires Southpaw to reform, and become a superhero, while his daughter Kid Glove acts as her sidekick. Gauntlet and Southpaw also popped up in Iron Man 2020 with Arron Stark believing in an imminent cosmic threat. He also wrote Fantastic Four travelling the cosmos, inviting all sorts of attention. And he concluded Empyre, a crossover event involving the Skrull and Kree, Fantastic Four, Iron Man and She-Hulk, to whom something very bad had happened.

From the very eye of The Unseen, the cosmically transformed Nick Fury, emerged the returning Uatu, The Watcher who Nick Fury killed before himself being transformed…

And promising something very familiar.

Is Dan Slott finally going to make "fetch" happen? Fantastic Four #25 was set up with that very familiar phrase, from the solicitation on. "There Shall Come a Reckoning"

And as he recalled last year…

I've been reading comics since I was 8.
There's a Marvel story I've wanted to tell since I was 9.
Hickman reminded me "I was telling someone the other day about you pitching me this when we were on a plane to Dublin. 12 years ago!"
Tomorrow, I finally officially pitch that story.

— Dan Slott (@DanSlott) April 2, 2019

Fantastic Four #25 returned to the Blue Area of the Moon. The Watcher uses Marvel Unlimited to catch up with everything he's been missing out on (with only a three month delay now)  before transforming The Unseen, with that phrase one more time.

Nick Fury, Agent Of Uatu?

Okay, so he's bald, still has an eyepatch, and no cigar, and is going by Nicolas Fury, to distinguish himself from his son, Nick Fury Jr, currently running around SHIELD? And this is the first war. The oldest war. The Reckoning War? And have the Fantastic Four provided an opportunity for it to come to Earth's doorstep? We even saw a reference from Sin-Eater, lookimg over Dan Slott's Spider-Man run in Spider-Man: The Sins Of Norman Osborn.

And now? There shall come a reckoning. And Mister Fantastic is going to be a force to reckon with because of it. Watch where you are standing though, Uatu… there may be nothing left of it.

FANTASTIC FOUR RECKONING WAR ALPHA #1
MARVEL COMICS
AUG218316
(W) Dan Slott (A) Carlos Pacheco
FIFTEEN YEARS IN THE MAKING – AND IT ALL KICKS OFF HERE!
In a time before the Kree, Skrull or Shi'ar Empires. Before the emergence of Galactus. Before the birth of Asgard.
There was the First War. The greatest war to ever rage across the Multiverse.
Today, it is reignited. This is the Day of Reckoning.
And all that stands between all of reality and revenge from the dawn of time are the heroes of Earth, the Fantastic Four and the mind of Mister Fantastic.
Starring the FF, She-Hulk, Jack of Hearts, the Unseen, the Silver Surfer and everyone in the whole damn Marvel Universe.
Rated T+In Shops: Feb 02, 2022
Final Orders Due: Jan 02, 2022

RECKONING WAR: TRIAL OF THE WATCHER #1
DAN SLOTT (W) • JAVIER RODRÍGUEZ (A/C) • VARIANT COVER BY PHIL NOTO
• In all of the Multiverse, there is only one "What If" world that Uatu has avoided watching – one "What If" that he never wished to see.
•  And now it will be revealed – The story that could damn him for all time… and a revelation that could change everything in this universe.
•  Guest starring the Fantastic Four, Galactus and the Silver Surfer.
ONE-SHOT / RATED T+In Shops: Mar 16, 2022
SRP: $4.99

TIMELESS #1
MARVEL COMICS
OCT210773
(W) Jed MacKay (A) Kev Walker, More (CA) Kael Ngu
HOW DO YOU WIN A WAR AGAINST TIME?
A special year-ending adventure that gives portents as to what is to come in the Marvel Universe over the next twelve months! Kang the Conqueror is a warrior, a destroyer, a subjugator-but even he is subject to the whims and vicissitudes of time itself. So when a parallel timeline threatens to overwrite the future that Kang has fought so long and so hard to control, the master of the ages has no choice but to go to war with time itself, battling through days of tomorrow as he struggles to prevent the end of what is to come!
Featuring all the major players in the Marvel pantheon! RATED T In Shops: Dec 29, 2021 SRP: $5.99

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