1776

by J. Michael Straczynski, Sean Damien Hill (Penciler), Ron Lim (Penciler)

Revolutionary warriors, assemble! From a prison outside of time itself, the sorceress Morgan Le Fay has new and dangerous designs for the Marvel Universe, hell-bent on a world without the United States - and a world without the Avengers! With the sacred threads of history under threat, Doctor Strange sends Captain America and a formidable squad of Marvel heroes back in time to stage the ultimate rescue! Their mission? To safeguard the founding of the United States! The fate of the nation hangs in the balance at the dawn of the Revolution as these valiant heroes must navigate the treacherous waters of the past to ensure the future remains untarnished. But with every step having untold consequences in the present, do they risk doing more harm than good? As eras collide on the battlefield, the heroes and founding fathers of the Marvel Universe may be more out of time than any of them realize!

1776 (2025) #1-5.

Genres: Graphic Novels

120 pages, Paperback

Published July 28, 2026

About the author

Joseph Michael Straczynski is an American filmmaker and comic book writer. He is the founder of Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Studio JMS and is best known as the creator of the science fiction television series Babylon 5 (1993–1998) and its spinoff Crusade (1999), as well as the series Jeremiah (2002–2004) and Sense8 (2015–2018). He is the executor of the estate of Harlan Ellison.
Straczynski wrote the psychological drama film Changeling (2008) and was co-writer on the martial arts thriller Ninja Assassin (2009), was one of the key writers for (and had a cameo in) Marvel's Thor (2011), as well as the horror film Underworld: Awakening (2012), and the apocalyptic horror film World War Z (2013). From 2001 to 2007, Straczynski wrote Marvel Comics' The Amazing Spider-Man, followed by runs on Thor and Fantastic Four. He is the author of the Superman: Earth One trilogy of graphic novels, and he has written Superman, Wonder Woman, and Before Watchmen for DC Comics. Straczynski is the creator and writer of several original comic book series such as Rising Stars, Midnight Nation, Dream Police, and Ten Grand through Joe's Comics.
A prolific writer across a variety of media and former journalist, Straczynski is the author of the autobiography Becoming Superman (2019) for HarperVoyager, the novel Together We Will Go (2021) for Simon & Schuster, and Becoming a Writer, Staying a Writer (2021) for Benbella Books. In 2020 he was named Head of the Creative Council for the comics publishing company Artists, Writers and Artisans.
Straczynski is a long-time participant in Usenet and other early computer networks, interacting with fans through various online forums (including GEnie, CompuServe, and America Online) since 1984. He is credited as being the first TV producer to directly engage with fans on the Internet and to allow viewer viewpoints to influence the look and feel of his show. Two prominent areas where he had a presence were GEnie and the newsgroup rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated.

Reviews

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of fun.

[Aloysius · Rating 2.25 out of 5]

Nice effort, but I think Michael picked the wrong Big Bad for trying to prevent the success of the American Revolution (I personally would have gone with Kang teaming up with the Elite, a deep-cut rogues group to Captain America). And certain... uncomfortable factors of American society then were kind of glossed over. And I would have made Trenton or Princeton or the Southern campaign, not Saratoga, the POD the villains wish to alter. And the covers kind of lied about who was going to be in the story(spoiler alert: no Fantastic Four or X-Men).

All that said, the art's good, the battle scenes feel realistic (accounting for the presence of magic), and the interactions between the Avengers and the Founding Fathers is a bit touching. Oh, and Horatio Gates is an proper ass, so points for realism on that score, Marvel.

[Josef Ploski · Rating 3 out of 5]

An amusing standalone tale in time for America's 250th anniversary of declaring their independence from Britain. It will not go down as one of the greatest works of Mr. Straczynski nor one of his failures. They slip in some revolutionary war history of the heroes of that war between the superhero moments. If you have a young teen who is bored with his history books but has to read up on the American Revolution you could do worse than this as a starting point for exploring some of the wars battles, combatants, and timeline.

[Craig · Rating 2.5 out of 5]

Pretty dumb cash-in on America's 250th birthday. A group of Marvel heroes, including Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man, and the Hulk (the cover also shows Cyclops and Sue Storm, for some reason--neither makes an appearance), go back in time to prevent Morgan Le Fay from turning the tide in the Revolutionary War. And that's about it, aside from some brief history lessons and our heroes interacting with people like Ben Franklin and Benedict Arnold. The art's not great.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Straczynski seems to have lost a step with his return to Marvel. Neither his Captain America nor this was all that great. This isn't helped by the fact that Sean Damien Hill's art isn't very good and that he couldn't finish 5 issues on his own either and needed Ron Lim and a slew of inkers to help get him across the finish line.

[Chandler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty corny, and a plot that makes you go, "Sure, whatever. Let's just go with that." But overall an entertaining story with some cool historical lessons/moments in here. This collection really does fall off with an ending that does not make much sense. Spider-Man does have a cool arc in this story, though.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.2 stars

[Jaq Greenspon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Writing with a message almost never works…

[Luke]

Who is this book even for? I checked it out because I had a sick curiosity, and I just... I'm baffled this was ever approved.

[Julia Pika · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was laughably bad. I guess this comic was directed toward 12 year old boys who hate learning history lol.

[Daniel Butcher · Rating 2.75 out of 5]

Just a few more monsters that I want in a time travel caper.

And I don’t fully feel like this is the Franklin that would become Deadpool’s ghost buddy…trust me I didn’t forget!