Marvel is dedicating its entire August comic lineup to Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, the tag-team fighting game from developer Arc System Works, timed to coincide with the title's release on 6 August. Marvel announced two comic-based celebrations of the game, headlined by a dedicated tie-in one-shot that aims to flesh out the game's story world, which matters as a cross-promotional push linking the publisher's comics and its high-profile game launch.

The tie-in, Marvel Tōkon: First Strike #1, promises to expand the game's mythology and reveal backstories for its playable heroes and its antagonists, the Promoter and Champion, with preview pages showing the Champion in a ruined city, the Avengers battling in New York, and Storm downing a Sentinel. Writing is handled by Steve Orlando, Josh Trujillo and Tom Waltz, with art by Bruno Büll, Áthila Fabbio and Ryusei Yamada, each pairing covering one of the three stories. Alongside the one-shot, 11 of Marvel's ongoing series will receive game-themed variant covers from August, including a standout Ryan Stegman cover of Wolverine, with the game itself launching for PlayStation 5 and Windows PC.