15 new Marvel comics hit shelves this week, including Amazing Spider-Man: Halloween Special #1, Avengers: Armageddon #5, and Uncanny X-Men #37. Plus lore, our Character of the Week, and the Top Battle of the Month.
On sale Wednesday, October 21, 2026 · 15 issues · See all 15 issues from Oct 21 →
#1 LaunchA Spider-Man Halloween special: Hallows' Eve plans a huge heist, and Spidey tries on a new costume.
Get Amazing Spider-Man: Halloween Special #1 on AmazonDetails for Amazing Spider-Man: Halloween Special #1 on Marvel.com →
Chip Zdarsky's Avengers: Armageddon picks up after #4, with the public turning on heroes and David Colton weighing what his power costs.
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After "Wild Ride," most of the Uncanny X-Men need rest, leaving Wolverine on guard when Sarah Gaunt, the Hag, comes looking for payback.
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#1 LaunchIron Man teams with real Williams F1 drivers Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon against a Latverian threat, with Doctor Doom waiting at the finish.
Get Iron Man: Racing Towards Doom #1 on AmazonDetails for Iron Man: Racing Towards Doom #1 on Marvel.com →
#1 LaunchThe first Punisher Showdowns book sends Frank Castle to Las Vegas, where he crosses paths with Black Widow over a Wolf Spider operative.
Get Punisher Showdowns: Black Widow #1 on AmazonDetails for Punisher Showdowns: Black Widow #1 on Marvel.com →
Part three of "Sins of the Father" digs into Jeff Morales' past and the Kingpin's role in it, while Miles faces a villain who can scramble his spider-powers.
Get Miles Morales: Spider-Man #3 on AmazonDetails for Miles Morales: Spider-Man #3 on Marvel.com →
Blade's daughter Bloodline is still missing, and the X-Men's search turns up a string of deaths in Atlanta and hints of a hidden mutant plot.
Get X-Men United #8 on AmazonDetails for X-Men United #8 on Marvel.com →
With the world thinking the team is gone for good, Mojo launches a deadly new TV channel, and its star, Cliffhanger, turns out to be Longshot's ex.
Get X-Men: Outback #5 on AmazonDetails for X-Men: Outback #5 on Marvel.com →On sale Wednesday, October 28, 2026 · 20 issues (schedule can change) · See all 20 issues from Oct 28 →
Ryan North's DNX tie-in ends with an amnesiac Fantastic Four trying to work out who they are while Magneto's life is on the line.
Get Fantastic Four #18 on AmazonDetails for Fantastic Four #18 on Marvel.com →
Spider-Man and Ravage go at it for a third time, and Peter starts learning where this villain really came from.
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Psylocke goes solo in this DNX tie-in, hunting a mystery monster aboard what might be a flying tomb.
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#1 LaunchMarvel marks ten years of Rogue One with a Vader story: the Emperor sends him to the planet Harreld to get the kyber Krennic couldn't secure.
Get Star Wars: Rogue One - Darth Vader #1 on AmazonDetails for Star Wars: Rogue One - Darth Vader #1 on Marvel.com →54 issues across 4 release weeks (Sep 23 – Oct 14)
#1 LaunchNot a new story but a gallery: all 25 Lee Bermejo variant covers from the countdown to Amazing Spider-Man #1000, gathered in one 42-page book.
Get Amazing Spider-Man: Amazing Visions #1 on AmazonDetails for Amazing Spider-Man: Amazing Visions #1 on Marvel.com →
Spider-Man drops in on Felicia Hardy's latest job, and for once it may be about breaking up a heist instead of pulling one.
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#1 LaunchA birthday bash for Brian and Betsy Braddock, with three short stories marking 50 years of Captain Britain.
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Chapter three of Jed MacKay's DNX event, drawn by Federico Vicentini.
Get DNX #3 on AmazonDetails for DNX #3 on Marvel.com →Quick explainers on the lore behind this week's books.
Marvel's undead heroes started as a twist in the Ultimate line. In Ultimate Fantastic Four #21–23 (2005), the "Crossover" arc by Mark Millar and Greg Land, the young Reed Richards answers a message from what he thinks is an older version of himself. The other world turns out to be Earth-2149, where nearly every hero has been turned into a flesh-eating zombie, and its Reed wants a doorway into fresh territory. With help from that world's Magneto, the Ultimate team escapes and the gateway is shut. This week's facsimile edition reprints #21, the issue where it all begins.
Marvel liked the idea enough to spin it off. Robert Kirkman and Sean Phillips's five-issue Marvel Zombies (2005–06), with Arthur Suydam's covers riffing on classic Marvel covers, picks up right after: the zombies take down Magneto, devour the Silver Surfer, absorb some of the Power Cosmic, eat Galactus, and head into space looking for new worlds.
Where did the plague come from? Ultimate Fantastic Four #22 says a zombified Sentry crash-landed on Earth-2149 and infected the Avengers, and the rest of the planet followed within a day. Later stories made it a time loop: the infected Sentry is eventually sent back in time to that same Earth, so the outbreak has no clear starting point.
Twenty years later the franchise is still going, through sequels, a Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness crossover, and a 2025 Disney+ animated series. Marvel Zombies: War Zone (2026) is the newest entry. It's a five-issue series by Tom Waltz in which the Punisher and New York's street-level heroes fight to survive inside a quarantined Manhattan.
The villain behind this week's Spider-Ween heist has a surprisingly long history. Janine Godbe was created by J.M. DeMatteis and John Romita Jr. in Spider-Man: The Lost Years #1 (1995) as the girlfriend of Ben Reilly, Peter Parker's clone. Born Elizabeth Tyne, she had fled her past after killing her abusive father in self-defense, and she later turned herself in to the police.
Decades later she came back as a villain. In The Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #14, the lead-in to the Dark Web event, Madelyne Pryor, the Goblin Queen, gave Janine a bag of Limbo-enchanted Halloween masks, and she became Hallows' Eve.
Each mask gives her the look and powers of whatever it shows: a werewolf, a vampire, a ghost that turns her intangible, even Captain America, the Hulk, Spider-Man or a giant kaiju. That gives her a different power set almost every time she appears.
After Dark Web she got her own Hallows' Eve miniseries (2023) and later joined the Blood Hunters, a team of supernatural fighters. In this week's Halloween Special, Marvel says she's going for her biggest heist yet, and Spidey has to stop her before it threatens the whole Marvel Universe.
The Venom symbiote first showed up as Spider-Man's mysterious black costume in The Amazing Spider-Man #252 (1984); Secret Wars #8 (1984) revealed Peter picked it up on the alien Battleworld. Peter learned it was a living creature and drove it off with the sound of church bells in Web of Spider-Man #1 (1985).
The symbiote then bonded with disgraced reporter Eddie Brock, and the two debuted as Venom in The Amazing Spider-Man #300 (1988) by David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane. Later stories named the species the Klyntar.
Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman's Venom (2018) introduced Knull, the ancient god who created the symbiotes. That led to the King in Black event (2020–21), where Eddie defeated Knull and took his place as the new King in Black.
Today: according to Marvel's 2026 solicitations, Eddie gave up that throne, which let Knull come back and Hela rise as the Queen in Black. Their war over the 'Throne of All' runs through Queen in Black, and Mary Jane Watson is Venom in the Venom (2025) series (see #262).
Victor von Doom's mother, Cynthia, was a Latverian sorceress who made a deal with the demon Mephisto, and her soul ended up trapped in his realm. For decades of comics, Doom has gone back to Hell to try to free her.
The best-known chapter is the graphic novel Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment (1989) by Roger Stern and Mike Mignola. Doom wins a contest of sorcery, and Doctor Strange joins him in a desperate attack on Mephisto's realm.
Today: Marvel bills Al Ewing and Alessandro Cappuccio's Doom All-On-One #1 as Doom's 'greatest such challenge,' with Doom fighting the entire Marvel Universe in perdition across 50 landscape splash pages.
Krakoa, the living island, was first introduced as a villain in Giant-Size X-Men #1 (1975) by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum. Jonathan Hickman's House of X and Powers of X (2019) turned it into a mutant nation with its own language, laws, and a way to resurrect the dead.
That era ended in 2024 with Fall of the House of X and Rise of the Powers of X. In the 'From the Ashes' relaunch that followed, Jed MacKay's X-Men (2024) moved Cyclops's team into an old Sentinel factory in Alaska, known simply as the Factory.
Today: DNX pits the X-Men against 3K, a rival mutant group led by the Chairman. Both sides glimpsed the 'Age of Revelation' future, and X-Men #39 brings the fight to the Factory itself.
Read the lore: From Krakoa to the Factory: Where the X-Men Live Now →
Brian Braddock debuted in Captain Britain Weekly #1 (October 1976) by Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe. Merlyn and his daughter Roma offered him the Amulet of Right or the Sword of Might, and when he chose the amulet he became Captain Britain.
Alan Moore and Alan Davis's early-'80s run grew that into the Captain Britain Corps, a guard of Captain Britains from across the Multiverse, all answering to Otherworld, the mystical realm Roma rules.
Brian's twin sister Betsy, better known as Psylocke, later took the title herself, and Marvel now calls both twins 'champions of the multiversal Captain Britain Corps.' The anniversary special includes stories by Claremont, Alan Davis, and Dan Abnett.
Tied to Punisher Showdowns: Black Widow (2026) #1 and Marvel Zombies: War Zone (2026) #2, both on sale October 21, 2026
Frank Castle shows up in two very different books this week: a one-shot that puts him on a Las Vegas job next to Black Widow, and a zombie mini where he's punching (and shooting) his way through an undead Manhattan. That makes him an easy pick for this week's spotlight.
The Punisher was created by Gerry Conway, John Romita Sr. and Ross Andru, and he debuted as a hired gun aimed at Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man #129 (1974). His backstory came soon after: Frank is a Marine veteran whose wife and children were killed after they stumbled onto a mob hit in Central Park, and he answered by declaring a one-man war on crime.
Frank Miller's Daredevil #182–184 (1982) put him head to head with Matt Murdock over whether killing criminals is ever justice, a debate that still defines the character. The 1986 limited series by Steven Grant and Mike Zeck gave him his first solo title, and he became one of Marvel's biggest stars of the late '80s and early '90s.
Garth Ennis reshaped him twice: first with Steve Dillon in the darkly funny "Welcome Back, Frank" (2000), then in the grim, grounded Punisher MAX (2004), whose stories like "Born" are still treated as the definitive take.
In Jason Aaron's Punisher (2022), Frank led the Hand, fell out with the Avengers, and seemed to vanish from the Marvel Universe. It turned out he had ended up in the magical realm of Weirdworld, while a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, Joe Garrison, briefly carried the Punisher name on Earth.
Benjamin Percy's Punisher: Red Band (2025) brought Frank back to New York with no memory of how he got there. The story revealed that the Kingpin had him pulled out of Weirdworld and fitted with a control device so Fisk could use him as a weapon against other criminals, until Frank fought his way free. Percy's ongoing Punisher series, which started in February 2026, picks up from there: Frank's memory is still damaged and Jigsaw is back hunting him. This week's books are side missions. In Punisher Showdowns: Black Widow #1, a terror threat sends Frank to Las Vegas, where Natasha's intel on a Wolf Spider operative pushes the two of them into an uneasy, bloody partnership. Marvel Zombies: War Zone #2 is set in a quarantined, zombie-overrun Manhattan, where a battered Frank heads toward the source of the outbreak and runs into Luke Cage, Iron Fist and the Daughters of the Dragon.
The pitch is pure comic-book insanity: one man against everyone. In Doom All-On-One #1, Doctor Doom takes on the entire Marvel Universe in the flames of Hell itself, all part of his decades-long fight with Mephisto over his mother's soul.
What makes it our pick is the format. Marvel says the issue is told across fifty widescreen, landscape-oriented splash pages, which basically makes the whole book one giant fight. Al Ewing has written Doom brilliantly for years, and Alessandro Cappuccio drew every page.
It's Doom against everybody, and Doom likes his odds. Grab it and decide for yourself whether the Marvel Universe stands a chance.
Write-up based on Marvel's official solicitation and announcement. Plot details beyond that are not described here to avoid spoilers or errors.
Quick comic breakdowns from Black Dog Media on YouTube.
Benjamin Percy and Geoff Shaw's Wade Wilson: Deadpool continues with an issue about the pain Wade hides behind the jokes, as he walks into a Central Park murder that Marvel says will change his life. It came out April 22, 2026, and it's the issue our Short breaks down.
Get Wade Wilson: Deadpool #3 on AmazonNot a new story but a gallery: all 25 Lee Bermejo variant covers from the countdown to Amazing Spider-Man #1000, gathered in one 42-page book. Jess Harrold adds the history behind each moment, and Bermejo chips in his own notes and process art. Handy if you never managed to collect every variant.
Get Amazing Spider-Man: Amazing Visions #1 on Amazon
