Marvel’s next big event will be a three-way crossover that brings together the Avengers, the Eternals, and the X-Men. Judgment Day, by writer Kieron Gillen and artist Valerio Schiti, will launch in July. Gillen is already writing The Eternals (see “Marvel Taps Kieron Gillen and Esad Ribic to Reboot ‘Eternals’”) and will start a run on Immortal X-Menin March. He will draw on those storylines as well as Jason Aaron and Javier Garron’s run on Avengers to create the starting point for Judgment Day. The story will begin with the Eternals mounting an assault on Krakoa, the island that is the home and safe haven for the mutants, and when the X-Men rise up, the Avengers intervene to keep the situation from escalating to all-out war. The buildup will begin in Free Comic Book Day: Avengers/X-Men #1, by Gillen and artist Gerry Duggan (see “Marvel Announces Three Free Comic Book Day Titles”).

“There's a classic metaphor to describe the Marvel Universe - a toybox, which creators take toys out of, play with and put back,” Gillen said in a statement in Marvel’s announcement. “I get it, but it's never quite how I've seen it - I think ‘play’ in another way. I think of a music shop, with all these instruments with their different qualities suggesting different songs, different stories. For all the Marvel instruments I've played, I've never written an event. Writing an event is something different. It's not like playing an instrument. It's having all the instruments in the Marvel music shop. That's not like writing a song. That's like writing a symphony.