Earlier today Marvel revealed their plans to cancel DESTROYERS, a five-issue miniseries the publisher recently announced in FanExpo Canada that they would be releasing in February, 2012. During the initial announcement, writer Fred Van Lente's initial excitement about Marvel's return to "monster books," was pretty evident, so it's no wonder that the creator would be disappointed over the book's cancellation; particularly considering that Van Lente was ready and willing to make more books featuring many of Marvel's monsters.

I think the entire theme of monsters punching each other in the face should be an entire sub-genre of comics," the writer said. "Marvel fans, we need to take Marvel back from the super heroes and give it back to the monsters.

Unfortunately he won't be given the chance to see if this is a genre that readers are interested in; at least not right now. Van Lente seemed a bit numb in a comment he made over twitter this morning when he revealed that the book had "gotten the axe weeks ago," particularly since he seemed so excited about the book in a previous interview. However, this isn't the only recent "axed" book from Marvel.

Last week writer Nick Spencer revealed his disappointment in Marvel's decision to cancel his upcoming book, VICTOR VON DOOM: DOOMED TO HELL which would have told the story of a young Doctor Doom's adventures into Hell to save the spirit of his mother.

The reveal that Marvel had canceled the miniseries came to a real shock considering the publisher had already revealed the covers to the book's first three issues in addition to the book's official solicitation. The book which would have been written by Nick Spencer with art from Becky Cloonan is one that Nick was evidently very proud of and sad he won't be seeing in print.

“Really proud of the scripts and hope to get to work with @beckycloonan sooner rather than later,”

The latter of the two books would have been edited by former Marvel editor Alejandro Arbona who was recently let go from Marvel following a stream of layoffs of the Marvel editorial staff. This leads us to beg the question, is everything alright at Marvel Comics? What do you think of the news? Are either of these two books series you had been looking forward to reading?Check out the covers and previously released pages from both the Destroyers book as well as Victor Von Doom, below.

Source: Robot6 and Marvel

Doctor Doom was always a good character, too bad he's not popular

@perry_411 said:

Doctor Doom was always a good character, too bad he's not popular

...Wait, what? I don't really read Marvel, but every Marvel reader I know likes him, and I see him discussed a lot on CV...

I'm sorry to hear about the cancelations before they even started...

Remember when Rob Liefeld got into it with a Marvel exec on twitter about them soliciting a bunch of stuff that never makes it to publication? ::cough::

This is the first I'm hearing of Destroyers. It would have been interesting to see Beast and Thing side by side.

The funny thing is, I would have probably picked up both of these titles.

This has me worried. What if they start canceling a lot more stuff?

Why cancel such interesting new series?? Hope it's not just to make more room for a million more Wolverine titles.

@Cafeterialoca said:

This has me worried. What if they start canceling a lot more stuff?

I just hope not.

If you want to post an interesting indepth article, try digging in to the reason behind these layoffs. Ring some people up (hell you must have made some contacts at all the cons you attend......I would hope), email them but try to get some info on what is happening. In doing so you might better distinguish yourself from other comic internet sites.........

I'm not real happy with some of the stuff Marvel has been doing. Even tho DC has beat them out the last 2 months they are still making a ton of money, they still haven't given a good reason for the layoffs, especially since they stated they were in no way performance based. If they're going to cut back on anything it should be putting out 3 events at once. That's just stupid on their part, not only does it make continuity a mess, but it makes fans pick and choose which tie-ins they are going to get for the 3 events. If they only did 1 or 2 at a time, fans would be more likely to pick up more of the tie-ins, and in the end they'd sell more books if the events were more spread out.

I thought the Doom title looked kinda crappy, but was very interested in the Destroyers book, as was I interested in an Alpha Flight Ongoing. Both of those were projects by Van Lente and both got scrapped, which sucks because he is awesome. I feel bad for the artists and writers on those books, they probably had at least 1 or 2 issues complete, what a waste of their time that they won't end up getting paid for.

Sucks for the people working on the books but it's two pretty insignificant minis, does anyone really care?

I think the thing that pisses me off most is the fact that they would cancel a series BEFORE it even comes out... I get it that solicits is what establishes that, but you don't really know how well it will do if you don't actually release the damn thing. Whatever, it's a stupid idea to cancel books before they even come out.

So they're cancelling interesting titles in favor of Fear-Itself followups and an X-Men reboot? Sad to hear. I was really looking forwards to that Doom title, and probably would of added it to my monthly list. Oh well, guess that means I've got more room for DC titles. Nice move, Marvel!

@HotSauceCommittee said:

Sucks for the people working on the books but it's two pretty insignificant minis, does anyone really care?

Yeah but this comes a week or two after they cancelled Alpha Flight (which is a damn good book!) after telling us a month before that it would become an ongoing series. It seems that they don't have much rhyme or reason to the books they're cutting. Right now the monster genre is selling very well for DC. It seems dumb to cut the only title that Marvel would have that could throw their hat into that ring. Well Marvel I hope you enjoy watching Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Frankenstein, I Vampire, and Resurrection Man continue to kick your ass in sales.

so is beast gonna be on three teams now, does he think he's wolverine or something?

Wonder what the reason was, that destroyers looked intersting. They should cancel some fear itself stuff instead.

Not for nothing.. but Marvel seems like they been smoking "that -ish", they got too many titles, too many alternate dimensions and too many events. I dunno know if its becuz that deal they did with disney or what?... or sales are low? or too many artist and not enough writiers? I will start paying more attention to whats happen in DC from now on. And Yo what ever happen to continuity!?!I (END OF RANT LOL)

im particularly surprised the doom title was cancelled. with the two of them on the book, seemed like it could of been a high seller for sure. this is surprising news, especially since it seems so sudden

Marvel don't know what to do with there comics no more.

"This leads us to beg the question, is everything alright at Marvel Comics?"

Not that this is the best indication, but obviously everything is NOT alright. I think a lot of people knew that already..

Wait, Magneto gets to keep his miniseries, but Dr. Doom doesn't? O_o I honestly can understand reasons for canceling a book full of monsters fighting one another, but why is Doom getting the axe, he's one of, if not the, greatest villains in the Marvel Universe and deserves some more spotlight, his origins and his desperate attempts to rescue his mother are both dark but sad at the same time and also show that there's also a part of Doom that proves that even Doom can be a hero...which from everything I have read about the new mini-series was going to focus on exactly that side of Doom and explore the choices and paths he took and how there was a chance hat Doom could have once upon a time been a hero instead of a villain.
 
Overall, I'm not sure what to think of this, it's a shame that these books are getting the boot but I'm more curious as to why Marvel picked these two books out of all the other useless titles they have right now. I mean seriously, Spidey gets two on-goings and Dr. Doom can't even have a mini-series? I love Spider-Man, but seriously that's just unfair to Doom's fanbase... -__-

I might well have gotten both of them. I tend to like short, self-encapsulated minis, and these looked fun.

I don't understand how Marvel's having troubles if their movies are doing well and they're charging more than DC for each comic.

I wasn't planning to get either of these books, but I adore those covers to the Victor Von Doom series.

@The Impersonator: In the span of two weeks, we found out that Iron Man 2.0, Alpha Flight, All Winners Squad, Doom and Destoryers have all been canceled.

I think it's time to start panicking.

I was going to pick up the doom series, guess I can't now

It's a shame that both of these titles got cancelled, was kinda interested in checking out Destroyers...

I don't understand why they don't release these as Digital Exclusives because some of the artwork is done. Why not test it out?

I'm really quite disapointed about Victor Von Doom's cancellation...

They are just cancelling everything they announced at FanExpo.

Not cool, I was looking forward to 'Victor Von Doom'. I think it's high time Marvel sorted themselves out and canceled there seemingly never ending stream of lackluster events in favor of more well crafted series.

Wow. I openly HATE Marvel but Doom was a title I was actually going to get based solely on the creative team behind it. This is horrible

@Atomic_Punk: Amen. I love Wolverine, but anything overdone/overused leaves a bitter taste in your mouth after a while.

@Cafeterialoca: I can't believe my favourite Canadian team, Alpha Flight and villain, Doom got cancelled. WTF, Marvel? Why? Why are you doing this to me?

Anyways, you're right. It's time to start panicking. WE ARE ALL DOOMED TO HEAR THAT OUR AWESOME COMICS GOT CANCELLED! GREAT!

They should have called it "Fear Itself: Destroyers." There's no way Marvel would have cancelled it.

@Scribbles:

Ha true good point.

Fear Itself was a turd, right up there with Civil War as far as bad events from Marvel go, but they keep put out more aftermath books with the Fear Itself labelled slapped on it.

I wonder what series will get the axe next. It's too bad Alpha Flight got cut, I was really enjoying that book! I hope some of the other single titles like Daredevil are safe. I love what Waid has been doing with it.

And just to play devil's advocate, anyone think this could be a publicity stunt to try to get hardcore marvel fans to pick up more books to save marvel from the rising 'DC menace'? I am a DC fan first, I know if DC was struggling and having to cut books left and right, I would feel compelled to pick up more to ensure the ones I really loved had the funding to stick around.

@The Impersonator: What sucks are my favorite books are Generation Hope, Avengers Academy and Thunderbolts. And they are close to the firing line.

@MetropolisKid41 said:

@Scribbles:

And just to play devil's advocate, anyone think this could be a publicity stunt to try to get hardcore marvel fans to pick up more books to save marvel from the rising 'DC menace'? I am a DC fan first, I know if DC was struggling and having to cut books left and right, I would feel compelled to pick up more to ensure the ones I really loved had the funding to stick around.

Marvel doesn't really need stunts I didn't think...All they had to do was put the letter X in the title somewhere and every Marvel fan would have been obligated to but it=P All joking aside though this is probably more Disney freaking out and trimming assumed fat with no regard for the content or the fans of said content. It's all about the dollars at the end of the day

@Cafeterialoca: Oh my days. I just hope that doesn't happen. Yet they bring more big events to the fold and not improving their stand-alone comics.

I wanted to read that NIck Spencer Dr. Doom series too

@The Impersonator: Well, some books are improving. I mean, Academy did a MASSIVE overhaul. But I blame the readers who don't buy anything that doesn't have Spider-Man, Wolverine, Iron Man, Cap, Thor, etc.

Really, some fans just don't buy things that are different, and it INFURIATES me!

Damn a new horror title and it gets cancelled lame, they need to get more horror comics out boo hoo :(

C'mon, everyone...don't you see what's happening here? This is just Marvel's newest event:

"CANCELLATION!"

I expect a kabillion mini-series to sprout from this!

What a shame, Destroyers looked really interesting and I love every comic Cloonan works out cause she is awesome :(

Wow, this is actually kinda disappointing to hear this. While I probably wouldn't have gotten either of these in single issue format, I would've been more than happy to get these later on in trades. ::Le sigh::

@Cafeterialoca said:

But I blame the readers who don't buy anything that doesn't have Spider-Man, Wolverine, Iron Man, Cap, Thor, etc.

Really, some fans just don't buy things that are different, and it INFURIATES me!

This.

Some people on this site really just buy those books just to buy them and I always found that to be beyond retarded.

Anyway maybe one day we'll get a good horror writer working on a MAX book. I actually have some hope for that since Axel Alonso worked at Vertigo for years and has been trying to get MAX to be to Marvel what Vertigo is to DC and now that he is the head honcho maybe he will be able to make that a reality.

Marvel canceled the Doom book and the Destroyers book (Liked the idea of Beast, She-Hulk, and A-Bomb on a team), and Alpha Flight. Wonder why they canceled the books that hadn't come out yet. Have they given a reason? Do they normally?

Too bad. It was a great looking poster.

Aww....I was looking foward to Victor Von Doom, being a bit of a Doom fan myself....

Boo. I would've gotten the Doom Mini.

Damn. Was looking forward to both of these.