Hello from the Crossroads
Let me tell you about the greatest movie you've never seen
Hi. It’s late and I should probably be asleep, but I just wanted to take a moment to send a note of thanks. I’m typing this in a hotel room in Annapolis, Maryland, the night before I’m set to sign at Third Eye Comics. And the thanks I’m sending is for the response that ONCE UPON A TIME AT THE END OF THE WORLD #1 has received since it was released last week. All the kind words and pics you all posted online sure made for a lovely Thanksgiving.
As did the fact that the book sold out at the distributor level on the day of its release. Necessitating this thoroughly fucking awesome 2nd print variant by Abigail Jill Harding.
That’ll be coming your way on December 21.
But please know that your local comic shop may very well still have copies of the 1st printing of issue #1 available. And if you haven’t picked it up, here’s the slick trailer that BOOM! put together to help entice you. Other than a look at issue #1, it also offers your first glimpse of artist Leila del Duca’s work on the series, which’ll be featured in our second arc.
Also, it looks like the Final Order Cutoff for issue #2 is coming up this Monday, so make sure your retailer knows you want a copy of that one too, which comes with the following lovely covers, by Mike Del Mundo, Frany and Peach Momoko.
Still not convinced to give the series a shot? Alright, you drive a hard bargain, but how about this?
From now until 2023, any order from my online store will come with a free copy of ONCE UPON A TIME AT THE END OF THE WORLD #1.
That’s right, so head over to my online shop to pick up a THOR comic for your uncle or a SOUTHERN BASTARDS trade for your granny and enjoy your free trip to the End of the World. Hope to see you there.
In other new comic news, this big beast of a book was also recently unleashed upon the populace.
AVENGERS ASSEMBLE ALPHA is the beginning of the end of my AVENGERS run. It’s the kickoff of the final arc, a story that will bounce back and forth between the two main series, AVENGERS and AVENGERS FOREVER, before wrapping up in a Celestial-sized Omega issue. That’ll make for 10 total chapters overall. At this point, I’ve written 9 of those. Everything but that big mother of an Omega.
And here’s your first peek at the drop dead gorgeous covers for chapters 8 and 9, the final issues of both AVENGERS and AVENGERS FOREVER.
Can’t tell you how much I LOOOOVE both of these covers by series artists Javier Garrón and Aaron Kuder. AVENGERS #66 features the faces of pretty much every character to appear in the book during my run, which was all Javier’s idea. Clearly I owe this man drinks for the rest of his days. And Aaron killed it on the cover of AVENGERS FOREVER #15, where it all comes down to a Ghost Rider and a Starbrand, exactly the way it began back in MARVEL LEGACY #1.
Work-wise, these last couple weeks have felt like a strange and exciting sort of crossroads. What with ONCE UPON A TIME launching, my first new creator-owned series in years, the first of a number of new original comics I’m currently working on. And with the first chapter in my final AVENGERS storyline launching a week later, a story that also ties together threads from a lot of the Marvel books I’ve worked on over the last 17 years or so. And a story that will probably put a bow on my stint doing ongoing work-for-hire series, for the foreseeable future (at least until someone procures the rights to Atari Force). And then there’s the book I’ve been writing this week, that I actually just turned in tonight. The first issue of a big new thing I can’t talk about just yet. So yeah, it’s been a strange confluence of a work week, where I find myself more excited than ever about everything I’m getting the chance to work on at the moment, both old and new.
Here we are, standing at the crossroads, with all sorts of exciting roads laid out before us.
Wait, did somebody say Crossroads? Have we seriously not talked about Crossroads yet? How is that possible? In real life I talk to someone about Crossroads at least once a month. Usually their confused response is, "You mean the Britney Spears movie?” No! Wrong fucking Crossroads!
I mean the cinematic masterpiece by director Walter Hill where the Karate Kid goes on a journey of blues discovery from Long Island to Mississippi alongside Robert Johnson’s aging, harmonica-playing best friend, looking for redemption and a lost song, before ultimately making it to a mystical crossroads where the greatest version of the devil ever put on celluloid invites them to a climactic guitar battle against heavy metal superstar Steve Vai, with nothing less than their immortal souls at stake.
I’m not posting the guitar battle here, because none of the shitty versions on YouTube do such a cinematic symphony true justice. Just go watch it. Give yourself that early Christmas present. But I will post this bit from right before the duel, which features Robert Judd as Legba/Scratch/motherfucking Satan. As I said, my favorite version of the devil ever put to film, no shit, featuring a grin that goes on for days. Seriously, whenever I’m writing any version of the devil grinning a shit-eating grin before he tricks you into damning your own ass to hell, Judd’s smile from this scene is what’s stretched all over the inside of my head.
Crossroads came out in 1986, same year as Karate Kid II. You better believe I was right there to see both in the theater, probably wearing parachute pants and a shirt with a dragon on it, sporting a pretty sweet mullet.
This movie just makes me irrationally happy. It’ll probably be in my will that the final scene gets played at my funeral. For years now, I pop it in every few months and just watch that ending, almost like a form of meditation. My son grew up seeing the ending of Crossroads over and over, year after year, before he was eventually old enough to ask if we could just watch the whole fucking movie. The number of comic creators who’ve found themselves wine-drunk in my living room late at night and been forced to watch the finale of Crossroads is a long and prestigious list. (And after Crossroads, I’m usually showing them the scene from the first Ip Man movie where Donny Yen fights ten men at once. And by “fight” I mean “fucking obliterates with his fists.”)
Anyway, yeah. Crossroads. There you go. Now you know the real me.
“Muddy Waters invented electricity.”
The End of the World Signing Tour
As I said, I’ll be at Third Eye Comics from 11am-1pm on Saturday, December 3.
After that, looks like my next appearance was just announced. I’ll see you March 2023 at WonderCon in Anaheim. Just in time for the release of ONCE UPON A TIME AT THE END OF THE WORLD #5, the final chapter of Book One. More info on WonderCon here.
Um. That’s right across the street from Disneyland, isn’t it? So yeah, I’ll see you at Trader Sam’s.
Notes & Links & Things & Stuff
—If you’d like to see the solicitations for the books I’ve got coming out in February, they’re over on my News Feed.
—New CBR interview with Dave Richards about the AVENGERS ASSEMBLE saga.
—New interview for Screened on the Spot, where they get to know people through the movies they like. So, yeah, of course I talked about Crossroads, along with a few other of my favorite films.
—Fuck it, here you go, here’s that scene from Ip Man. You’re welcome.
This has been Beard Missives, direct from the crossroads, where you will find the face of Jason Aaron
This week’s newsletter has been brought to you by night walks and cheese for breakfast.
Cheers. Be well and be loved. Be seeing you.
Jason Aaron
Annapolis, December 2, 2022
”You’re a real smart boy, ain’t ya? Well smart boy, I got a big white fella from Memphis made a deal with me a few years back, real good guitar player name o’ Jack Butler. Cuts heads every Saturday night. Yessir. He discourages a lot of up and coming boys.”
—Scratch, Crossroads
Things To Come
BATMAN: JOKER’S ASYLUM trade — December 6, 2022
PUNISHER: THE KING OF KILLERS BOOK ONE trade — December 6, 2022
AVENGERS #63 — December 7, 2022
PUNISHER #8 — December 7, 2022
AVENGERS FOREVER #12 — December 21, 2022
ONCE UPON A TIME AT THE END OF THE WORLD #2 — December 28, 2022
AVENGERS #64 — January 4, 2023
AVENGERS FOREVER #13 — January 18, 2023
PUNISHER #9 — January 18, 2023
ONCE UPON A TIME AT THE END OF THE WORLD #3 — January 25, 2023
AVENGERS #65 — February 1, 2023
AVENGERS: HISTORY’S MIGHTIEST HEROES trade — February 7, 2023
AVENGER FOREVER #14 — February 15, 2023
AVENGERS FOREVER Vol. 2 trade — February 21, 2023
ONCE UPON A TIME AT THE END OF THE WORLD #4 — February 22, 2023
Awesome newsletter, Jason! I can't wait to read your upcoming comics. And I love the movie Crossroads. I saw it in the theatre when it came out and I have it on DVD. Also, thru that killer movie Ralph Macchio taught me the proper way to put on a fedora. Crossroads rocks!
1986 was a good year for movies. Blue Velvet, Top Gun, Aliens, Stand By Me, The Color of Money... probably a bunch of others I'm missing.
Never heard of Crossroads though. My favorite Walter Hill movies are The Getaway (he wrote, not directed) and The Driver. I'll have to check out Crossroads.