Marvel Comics couldn’t give every character their due this year, but 2021 has a lot of promise in store for fan-favorite heroes. The Spider-Man publisher gave the spotlight to supers that have never been at the forefront of the Marvel Universe, like Young Avengers mainstays Hulkling and Wiccan, but widespread cutbacks left some up-and-coming characters on the backburner. Here’s a list of Marvel figures that are due for a big return in the year ahead.
2020 was a year of hard choices across the world and Marvel Comics wasn’t exempt. As the COVID-19 pandemic shut down comic book retailers, Marvel temporarily stopped publication, then ramped back up with a greatly reduced line. Some comic book series ended as planned, but many more were canceled completely or postponed with no certain release date. Several titles, including Doctor Strange: Surgeon Supreme, ended without warning, axed in their own letter pages. While Marvel has resumed its regular slate of titles like Avengers and Fantastic Four, some books have been repeatedly delayed, such as X-Men spinoff title Children of the Atom.
The biggest category of cancellations came from the summer blockbuster event Empyre, which was pared back to the most essential or bankable titles. At the same time, some characters were never planned for major appearances, meaning fans would still have called for more under a normal release schedule. Either way, these heroes are due for a comeback.
Black Panther and Shuri
Marvel Comics felt the king of Wakanda’s absence in 2020. Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze’s landmark run on the main Black Panther title was slated to end as Coates moved on to Captain America, but the final issues were delayed into 2021. T’Challa also featured in Black Panther: Agents of Wakanda, a series about Wakanda stepping up to replace SHIELD with a new special ops team. That series was canceled over the summer, along with its Empyre tie-in, Empyre: Invasion of Wakanda. Black Panther became one of the few main Avengers heroes without their own comic book. Next year, the Black Panther series’ return will give the regal hero the climactic resolution he needs.
While Black Panther has been a major Marvel hero for decades, T’challa’s cousin Shuri is a more recent hit. She first appeared in 2005, but only garnered significant attention after she was reinvented for the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2018’s Black Panther. That interpretation of the character made the jump to the comics, where she teamed up with heroes like Storm and Ironheart. With Shuri starring in a young adult novel announced for the coming months, the young genius is poised to become one of Marvel’s biggest teen heroes.
Gwenpool
A dark horse among Marvel crimefighters if there ever was one, Gwenpool started as a joke on a variant cover and came to life as a Marvel Comics fangirl teleported into her favorite fictional universe. Gwenpool survives by showing up in comics, meaning that her biggest motivation is to avoid cancellation and stay popular enough so she doesn’t get killed off permanently.
Gwenpool had two books in 2019, the off-kilter team series West Coast Avengers and the frantic Gwenpool Strikes Back. Gwen’s desperate efforts to find a comic book niche paid off when writer Leah Williams and artist David Baldeon retconned her as a mutant, ensuring she’d always have a franchise to belong to. Gwenpool spent 2020 relaxing in background scenes of X-Men comics, where she watched the Marvel/Fortnite crossover from a barstool. Gwenpool’s year ended with the hero actually joining the new X-Men, meaning her mutant status might become more than just a free ride of regular on-panel appearances. (Very honorable mention goes to Jeff the Land Shark, Gwenpool’s pet who became Deadpool’s trusty sidekick.)
Ms. Marvel and the Champions
2020 was a leap forward for Kamala Khan and 2021 will take her even further. The size-changing superhero is Marvel’s most successful new character of the last decade, sharing that honor only with fellow teen hero Miles Morales, and her own comic book series has been running more or less continuously since then. When co-creator G. Willow Wilson moved on from Ms. Marvel, her comic was relaunched in 2019 as Magnificent Ms. Marvel. But Magnificent Ms. Marvel will end in January 2021.
With the only word from Marvel being “more news to come”, that leaves Kamala’s comics future an unknown quantity. Since Ms. Marvel’s TV series is set to debut in 2021, Kamala’s ready to explode in popularity a second time, but only time will tell what that means for comics readers.
Honorable mention goes to the other two main Champions, Miles Morales (aka Spider-Man) and Sam Alexander (aka Nova). The Champions team returned in 2020 for the Outlawed event to help Kamala fight an unjust law named after her. The Miles Morales: Spider-Man series is going strong as the hero enjoys a new audience, while Nova hasn’t achieved a dedicated fanbase of that size yet.
Silk
Bitten by the same spider that empowered Spider-Man, Silk popped into Amazing Spider-Man in 2014 and didn’t waste time striking out on her own as a hero. Since then, Cindy Moon has leaped from Spider-Man family team-ups to starring in her own comic book series. Her latest solo title, written by Maurene Goo and drawn by Takeshi Miyazawa, was set for release in July 2020 but postponed by the comics shutdown. Without a book of her own, Silk spent 2020 relegated to appearances in other Spider-Man comics and Agents of Atlas: Atlantis Attacks, where she tended to slip into the background of the ensemble cast. 2021 can give Silk the strong solo book she deserves in the ramp-up to her planned role in 2022’s Into the Spider-Verse 2.
Wolverine and Honey Badger
Laura Kinney, formerly known as X-23, took up her dad’s superhero name as the all-new Wolverine. She last appeared in January 2020’s X-Men #5, where she walked into a mysterious vault and vanished for the rest of 2020. Without the new Wolverine around, her little sister Gabby Kinney, aka Honey Badger, didn’t show up except for a cameo in X-Force. For Wolverine readers calling for more Laura and Gabby, the bright news is that previews show Laura emerging from the Vault in 2021’s X-Men #18. Likewise, Honey Badger is joining the main team for young X-Men in New Mutants #14, the first time she’s been on a team without Laura by her side. Along with Daken’s role in X-Factor, the Wolverine kids are poised to have their best year yet.
