Marvel Comics is beginning to gear up for its pre-July 2021 solicitation cycle and the latest edition is the first look at a series of variant covers by Marvel Stormbreaker artist Peach Momoko that the publisher calls “anime-inspired.”
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“The top-selling cover artist recently depicted many of Marvel’s biggest stars for an entire line of Upper Deck trading cards,” reads Marvel’s announcement. “Now these popular anime-inspired art pieces will serve as variant covers on some of your favorite ongoing series this July! From Captain Marvel to Groot, Peach Momoko once again brings Marvel’s heroes to life in her iconic style…”
“It was a lot of fun doing the entire Upper Deck Marvel Anime (opens in new tab) base set,” Momoko says. “It allowed me to learn and explore and draw many Marvel characters that I never knew about.”
There will be 12 covers in the series, all but one seen below, including:
On sale July 7
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- Amazing Spider-Man #70
- Avengers #45
- Immortal Hulk #48
- X-Men #1
On sale July 14
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- Champions #8
On sale July 21
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- Amazing Spider-Man #71
- Captain Marvel #30
- Daredevil #32
- Guardians of the Galaxy #16
On sale July 28
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- Shang-Chi #3
- Wolverine #14
On sale in August
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- Thor #16
Aside from being one of Marvel’s biggest rising cover artists, Momoko is currently lending her talents as both artist and writer to Demon Days, a series of one-shots that reimagine popular Marvel characters through a lens of Japanese folklore.
The first Demon Days one-shot, Demon Days: X-Men, brought several characters back to the days of feudal Japan in a fantasy-inspired tale. The next Demon Days one-shot, June’s Demon Days: Mariko, takes things in a slightly different direction with a more modern fantasy setting for its folkloric twist on Marvel’s characters.
Many of the characters featured in the variant covers factor into the 10 greatest Marvel stories of all time.