Marvel Editor-in-chief Joe Quesada has announced that the all the Marvel titles slated for December, 2001 shipping will contain neither dialogue balloons nor any kind of narrative captions.  Although Marvel has not decided whether or not to adopt this purely visual policy for the Ultimate line, every other Marvel book for December will follow the wordless dictate making this the most extensive experiment of this kind every undertaken in the commercial comic market (DC did do a wordless Batman comic back in the 80s). 

This purely visual form of storytelling, which Marvel has experimented with previously in the 'Silent Interlude' issue of GI Joe, has a long history which goes back at least as far as the cave paintings of Lascaux.  In the early 20^th Century when silent films ruled the screen, Belgian artist Franz Masereel and American Lynd Ward achieved both popularity and considerable narrative sophistication with elaborate, wordless, novels in woodcuts. 

The wordless narrative will provide a real challenge to Marvel's artist and writers.  Let's hope that at least one Marvel character gets to beat the crap out of a street mime, just to visually voice the discontent of some fans, who are sure to miss their monthly dose of Marvelese.