Longtime Marvel editor Stephen Wacker has joined Jonathan Hickman’s substack project as its editor-in-chief. Hickman and collaborators Mike del Mundo and Mike Huddleston announced the news via newsletter this afternoon, just hours after Wacker publicly announced that he was leaving Marvel Entertainment, where he most recently worked as the Head of Content for their digital content division. “Given his career-long track record in editorial — and his knack for cultivating talent, publishing great comics, and brewing up new ideas at Marvel — we’re all very excited to add him to the team and help us organize this world and these stories into something unforgettable, unimaginable and unrelenting,” the team wrote in his announcement. The announcement also noted that Wacker would start on Monday and would address subscribers then.
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Hickman, who recently wrapped a run spearheading Marvel’s X-Men line, is one of several comics creators to receive a grant from Substack to publish a weekly comics newsletter through the platform. Hickman, along with creators Mike del Mundo and Mike Huddleston, launched 3 Worlds, 3 Moons to build a concept universe “where all of the individual characters/stories/things we create together add up to be part a much larger whole.” The group also invited writers Tini Howard, Ram V, and Al Ewing to develop systems like economics, magic, and religion to the collaborative world. To date, 3 Worlds, 3 Moons has released six comics, all of which are only available to subscribers.
Wacker’s time as an editor included work on projects such as DC’s 52 series, the Brand New Day era of Amazing Spider-Man, and lauded series like Matt Fraction and David Aja’s Hawkeye and Kelly Sue DeConnick and Dexter Soy’s Captain Marvel. While Wacker left the comics side of Marvel back in 2014, he still regularly attended Marvel creative retreats to provide input on upcoming story arcs.
Substack’s comics initiative is spearheaded by comics writer Nick Spencer, and he’s recruited numerous creators ranging from Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV to Grant Morrison and Chip Zdarsky.
