We heard hints of this project at the New York Comic-Con and we know that Cable is squaring off against the Avengers in January. But starting in March 2012, Avengers Vs. X-Men — a 12-issue, biweekly series written by Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron, Ed Brubaker, Jonathan Hickman, and Matt Fraction — will see Marvel's two bigger superteams butt heads. John Romita Jr., Olivier Coipel, and Adam Kubert will be on art chores.
Of course, many X-Men are Avengers (and vice versa), so some people are going to lose their membership privileges to Tony Stark's walk-in humidor. From the synopsis in today's, uh, USA Today:
Kicking off in a special "zero issue" prologue in March written by Bendis and Aaron, Avengers vs. X-Men begins the next month with an extinction-level event barreling its way toward Earth, namely the cosmic entity of death and rebirth known as the Phoenix Force. It's looking for a new host who will possess all of its power, which may or may not be the mutant teenager Hope Summers.
Cyclops, Wolverine, Magneto and the other X-Men want to protect her and prepare her if she's to be the new Phoenix. Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man and their fellow Avengers want her handed over to them so they can figure out what to do with her and keep the world safe from a potentially fiery fate.
Marvel will be livestreaming the official announcement tomorrow, so expect more details then. Clearly, the most lucrative thing to do in this situation is to bring back Spider-Phoenix. What, you don't remember Spider-Phoenix?