With several decades of character and world building, the Marvel Universe has become almost incomprehensibly large, which can be very intimidating to new readers who’re interested in getting into Marvel comics. This is especially bad for Marvel considering how many potential new readers that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has created. But what’s the solution? You can’t exactly hit the reset button on decades of writing… or can you?
Marvel Comics is planning a massive, publishing line-wide reboot this fall that will see all of its comic books revert back to No. 1s, introduce all-new superheroes and significantly alter others, including a new Spider-Man, a new Hulk and new team-ups never before imagined at the House of Ideas. Dubbed “All-New, All-Different Marvel,” the reset takes place after “Secret Wars,” the ongoing summer event that will conclude an ambitious arc loosely going back to 2012 with the introduction of the highly popular “Avengers vs. X-Men” series. “We’ve been planning it for years,” Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso told Mashable. “We realized that [‘Secret Wars’] would be a game-changing moment that would allow us to create a big white canvas. It’s an unprecedented chance for us to tell new stories across all titles with new No. 1s.” Though the initiative is sweeping and comprehensive — with all-new creative teams behind both new and existing titles — it won’t do anything to erase or rewrite history that previous comics have established. However, “All-New, All-Different” will pick up some eight months after the conclusion of “Secret Wars,” and much will have happened in that time to alter the landscape.