Wednesday means it’s New Comic Book Day, and it’s also time for your mid-week edition of Comics Relief. To start things off, we’ve got possible news on one of Marvel’s leading ladies finally getting a solo series all her own.

Is Fantastic Four’s Invisible Woman about to get a solo series?

Marvel’s less than cozy relationship with Fox, who own the film rights to the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises, reportedly led the publisher to cancel the Fantastic Four comic, the series that the entire Marvel Universe is practically built on, leaving the publisher without an FF comic for the first time in over fifty years. Last year’s Secret Wars event was essentially a swan song to the iconic team. But could one member of the group be making a comeback soon…and maybe even getting a solo series?

Marvel Comics recently registered trademarks for series like Inhumans vs X-Men, World Of Wakanda, Solo, Bullseye, Great Lakes Avengers and more – all comics that Marvel have officially announced as coming soon in the very near future. But among those titles they have also registered Invisible Woman as a title for comics as well. This can’t be a coincidence. The end of Secret Wars saw Reed and Susan Richards take off into the multiverse with their kids, but we all knew they’d be back someday. If an Invisible Woman solo series does happen, it would be the first time Sue Richards has ever led a title on her own. [Bleeding Cool]

Valiant celebrates 1 million copies sold of X-O Manowar

Valiant Comics are currently celebrating over 1 million copies sold of their signature title, X-O Manowar. But in today’s market, how on Earth did they sell a million copies of the series? Here’s how the math gets creative: To reach this figure, the publisher is counting single-issue sales for the 49 issues of the 2012 launched series released so far, both in print and digitally, and counting all the foreign editions as well. That would work out to an average sales of 20,408 per issue. Creative math or not, congrats to Valiant for reaching that number.

Valiant CEO & Chief Creative Officer Dinesh Shamdasani is scheduled to be at the Richmond, VA printing plant that will print this millionth copy of X-O Manowar this week, issue #49. The Certified Guaranty Company (CGC) will be on-hand to to grade and certify the book, which will then be on-display at Valiant’s booth at Baltimore Comic Con later this month. Fans who bring a copy of X-O Manowar #49 can get theirs embossed with a “Valiant 1,000,000th copy seal.” [Newsarama]

Jeff Lemire’s DC work gets Comixology sale

Writer Jeff Lemire, currently at Marvel writing titles like Extraordinary X-Men and Moon Knight, had made quite a name for himself at DC Comics until recently. Now Comixology is celebrating all things Lemire with a sale of his DC works, including Animal Man, Justice League United, Justice League Dark,  Superboy, and more. You can check out the Jeff Lemire Comixology sale by clicking right here. The sale ends on August 22. [Comics Alliance]

Civil War II gets an extra issue, plus gets delayed

Civil War II is going to take a little longer to finish up than originally planned, as series writer Brian Michael Bendis has announced that Civil War II will now be extended to eight issues, but there’s no set release date for issue 8 quite yet.  The fifth issue will now be released on September 24; while Civil War II #6 is set for October 5.

As for the reason for the delay, apparently Civil War II artist David Marquez recently had a child and he wasn’t able to devote his full attention to the comic. “David [Marquez] has been handing in about a page a day for the last couple of weeks so we’re getting back on track,” wrote Bendis, “So much so that Marvel greenlit an 8th issue for us. I came up with a better ending but needed the pages. Very grateful that they let us do our thing.” For more info on the extended Civil War II, be sure to read our full story by clicking on the following link: [Nerdist]

Deathstroke Rebirth to give us new version of classic Teen Titans story ‘The Judas Contract’

Deathstroke is getting the Rebirth treatment soon, and along with that certain details of his revised past are going to be cleared up, including one of his most famous early stories, the Teen Titans saga “The Judas Contract.” That story is to the Titans what “The Dark Phoenix Saga” is to the X-Men. In that storyline, the metahuman teenager Terra was a mole within the Titans team, sent by Deathstroke to infiltrate and destroy them from within. “The Judas Contract” also introduced the world to Deathstroke’s son, the superhero Jericho. It’s a pretty defining story for the character and the Titans as well….but did it even happen in the current Rebirth continuity?

According to Deathstroke writer Christopher Priest, we are about to find out. In a recent interview, Priest said “Once we move past issue 12 or so, then we’re doing a big crossover with the ‘Titans’ book. And we’re doing a JJ Abrams-ing of ‘The Judas Contract.’ The original storyline that launched Deathstroke and is like the definitive Teen Titans storyline from Marv (Wolfman) and George Perez.” Priest added “We’re kind of building a firewall around that story to say, ‘Yes, this absolutely happened.’ We are not dismissing that or ret-conning that, but as  JJ Abrams did with Star Trek, we are now telling our own alternate version of it.” [CBR]

Diamond planning to hand out 2 million comics for Halloween ComicsFest

This year’s Halloween ComicsFest — which is kind of like Free Comic Book Day, only in October — is entering its fifth year, and event promoters Diamond Comics Distributors are planning to hand out over 2 million Halloween-themed comic books this October 29. 32 titles will be handed out including Marvel Comics’ Darth Vader: Doctor Aphra #1, and Spidey #1; DC Comics’ DC Super Hero Girls #1, Dark Horse Comics’ Harrow County #1; and IDW Publishing’s My Little Pony: The Haunted Dungeon and a lots  more. For more info, be sure to click on the following link: [Newsarama]

Women now make up 40% of Marvel’s readership

Once upon a time, you’d be hard pressed to witness a living, breathing female in a comic book shop. It’s not that female readers didn’t exist, they just knew how to keep their comics love on the DL. Times have sure changed though; in an interview with ICv2, Marvel’s David Gabriel said, “From talking to retailers and looking at our titles, we’re probably up to at least 40% female, which eight years ago might have been 10%. And 15 years ago might have been nothing, while they were all buying manga. So there’s really been a shift, which is great, and it even could be even higher than 40%.”  I’d say this is a pretty cool development. [ICv2 via Comics Beat]

Images: Marvel Comics / DC Comics / Valiant Entertainment / ComiXology / Diamond Comics