Valention replaced on ‘Guardians’

Jim Valentino, the only Image Comics creator who intended to stay on with Marvel, has been replaced as writer-artist of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

At the time he was replaced Guardians of the Galaxy #25 had just come out and quickly sold out at many retail stores. Convention prices on the issue began to rise as early as the first weekend.

The following Monday, May 4, 1 talked with Guardians editor Craig Anderson, who informed me that Valentino was no longer involved with Guardians of the Galaxy. Valentino’s last issue will be #29.

The new creative team, beginning with issue #30, will consist of Michael Gallagher, who has written ALF and Impossible Man, and Kevin West, whose art has appeared in Avengers Annual and Silver Surfer. Gallagher and West will also be doing an issue of What If? featuring Spider-Man.

As for Valentino, he will be doing ShadowHawk for Image. Now that Youngblood has been expanded from three issues to four, Valentino will be doing a ShadowHawk preview in one of the issues. This preview will not be reprinted in the ShadowHawk mini-series.

Valentino confirmed that his relation ship with Marvel is over but had no comment as to reasons for the termination.

About Author

Rik Offenberger

Rik Offenberger has worked in the comic field as a retailer, distributor, reporter, public relations coordinator, writer and publisher since 1990. He owns and operates the e-mail bases Super Hero News service, and his published works in print can be seen in The Comics Buyers Guide, Comic Retailer, Borderline Magazine, and Comics International. On the internet he has worked as a writer and/or editor for Silver Bullet Comicbooks, Comic Book Resources, Newsarama and First Comics News. He was the Public Relations Coordinator at Archie Comics for a decade. He is currently the Editor-In-Chief at G-Man Comics. For TwoMorrows Publications, Rik co-wrote The MLJ Companion with Paul Castiglia and Jon B. Cooke, charting the history of Archie’s superheroes, and for Gemstone Publishing wrote chapters of The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide to Lost Universes.

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