Marvel Announces Star-Studded Marvel Comics #1000

Not to be outdone by Batman's 80th anniversary celebration and the 1000th issue of Detective Comics shipping earlier this year, Marvel Comics will celebrate its 80th anniversary in August with Marvel Comics #1000, an 80-page one-shot jam issue populated by some of the biggest names in Marvel Comics history. The idea is to use each page to correlate to one year in Marvel's publishing history, according to The New York Times, who broke the news. The story suggests that Marvel Comics #1000 will put household names like Captain America and Iron Man side by side with characters that basically only the hardcore fans will recognize.

Since comics shipped on Wednesday, fans in print and online have seen numerous ads from Marvel featuring the names of one or more comic creators along against a backdrop of historic Marvel Comics covers. And, yes, each of the 80 pages will be created by a different creative team. "This is by far the most complex and complicated and difficult book I've ever had to assemble," Tom Brevoort, Marvel's executive editor and senior vice president of publishing, told the Times.

Luminaries from comics and other media will come togther for the book, ranging from Erik Larsen and Brad Meltzer to Into the Spider-Verse filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, and the rapper Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas. "Our characters are mentioned in so many different ways and in so many different mediums and we always keep track," Marvel Editor-in-Chief CB Cebulski said. "Now these distinguished individuals are able to contribute back to the comics they grew up on."

Marvel Comics #1 hit the stands on August 31, 1939, and featured the first appearances of Namor the Sub-Mariner and the original Human Torch. While the Marvel Universe as fans know it really got into gear with 1961's relesae of The Fantastic Four, those characters as well as others came from the pre-Comics Code era -- most notably Jack Kirby and Joe Simon's Captain America. As with most comics of its era, Marvel Comics #1 was longer than today's comics, and featured a number of short stories rather than a single, 20-page feature. Apparently, Alex Ross will paint the first panel of Marvel Comics #1000, and it will come from a panel in Marvel Comics #1. The tale will apparently center around something called the Eternity Mask, which the NYT story says plays a role in "the mystery that propelled the Marvel universe from its inception."

Al Ewing, whose critically-acclaimed The Immortal Hulk has become a surprise smash for Marvel (no pun intended, honest), was the man behind putting Marvel #1000 together, and the Times story suggests that fans who want to see how this kind of intrticate master planning is done should check out Ewing's You Are Deadpool comic, which blended Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style storytelling with dice rolls to emulate a role playing game and keep the randomness alive.

Unlike other big anniversary issues that Marvel has undertaken after years of rebooting and renumbering, Brevoort told the Times that the #1000 is purely symbolic, and not the result of any complicated process of counting, fudging the numbers, recounting, and the like.

Marvel Comics #1000 will be in stores this August. Keep your eyes on ComicBook.com for more details.