Avengers

[Podmark]

Just thought I'd post some post Secret Invasion Avengers info for those interested.

New Avengers will by written by Brian Bendis with Billy Tan on art. Nothing official on lineup or direction, but a cover image was released:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/images/litg/2008/1002/newavengers48.jpg
Bendis has disputed that this is the lineup, but the cover shows:
Ronin (Clint Barton)
Luke Cage
Captain America (Bucky Barnes)
Spider-Man
Wolverine

Mighty Avengers will be written by Dan Slott with Khoi Pham on art starting on issue 21 I think. Again nothing official on lineup or direction other than that it will include Jocasta, another character from Avengers: The Initiative, and a founding Avenger. However, this image was released and it is likely the first three interlocking covers of Mighty Avengers:
http://creative.myspace.com/groups/_mcb/mycupojoe/week027/img/SecretProject.jpg
Going by this the team seems to be:
Scarlett Witch
unknown character suspected to be either Dr. Pym or Noh Varr
Jocasta
Iron Man
unknown character whose drawing is very rough. Possibly USAgent, Captain America or Major Victory
Hercules
Hulk or Rulk
Vision
Stature

Avengers: The Initiative will be written by Chritos Gage solo after Secret Invasion, no word on artist yet. He's said to be continuing with plots developed by him and Slott.
EDIT: Current solicits show the new artist to be Huberto Ramos.

Dark Avengers will be a new series by Brian Bendis and I believe Dave Finch. Again no information is available. It's possible the series will focus on Bendis' Evil Illuminati which seems to include Sub-Mariner, Dr. Doom, Emma Frost, Loki, the Hood and the Red Skull.
EDIT: The artist is Mike Deodato.

[Podmark]

Bendis's books generally don't interest me.

Avengers: The Initiative though has become one of my favorite comics and Slott one of my favorite writers between that and Amazing Spider-Man so I'm excited for his Mighty Avengers run. Especially if Vision and Stature are going to on the team.

A little worried that A:TI might take a step back without Slott but Gage has been good working with Slott so hopefully it stays strong. I'm really sad that Stefano Caselli is moving to Secret Warriors though. Loved his art. I hope his replacement is good.

[cmdrkoenig67]

Hmmmm...If Mr Slott is writing Wanda/Scarlet Witch...I hope he can repair the damage done to the character by Bendis.  I do not envy the person that has to clean up that mess.

Dana

[murs47]

Dark Avengers will be a new series by Brian Bendis and I believe Dave Finch. Again no information is available. It's possible the series will focus on Bendis' Evil Illuminati which seems to include Sub-Mariner, Dr. Doom, Emma Frost, Loki, the Hood and the Red Skull.

Despite the terrible title name, it sounds awesome. An "evil" Illuminati consisting of the characters you mentioned above is a darn fine premise for a book.


So both artist and writer are leaving The Initiative? That sucks. But, Slott on Mighty sounds pretty appealing. Caselli going to Secret Warriors isn't too shabby either. I have high hopes for that title. What are the sales numbers on Avengers:TI? It's hard to understand why Marvel would break up a good thing unless it wasn't selling.

As for New Avengers, idk. Bendis just shoulders too much weight at Marvel. If he just wrote 2-3 titles a month instead of 10 I think we'd see more quality from him.

Anyways, thanks for the info Pod. I haven't been paying much attention to the comic news sites lately so I'm a little in the dark. :unsure:

[Podmark]

So both artist and writer are leaving The Initiative? That sucks. But, Slott on Mighty sounds pretty appealing. Caselli going to Secret Warriors isn't too shabby either. I have high hopes for that title. What are the sales numbers on Avengers:TI? It's hard to understand why Marvel would break up a good thing unless it wasn't selling.

The thing is that Dan Slott has admitted he can only write about 2 books a month, and he was given the opportunity to write Mighty which is one of Marvel's top tier books so he couldn't turn it down. And obviously he wasn't going to leave Spider-Man, so A:TI had to go. It was probably made an easier decision with Gage who's been co-writing for a while now is taking over.

As for sales numbers I don't know for sure, but I don't think the book was in any danger of cancellation. It sells in the 50k area before Secret Invasion which is similar to Invincible Iron Man and Ultimate Spider-Man. However I expect a drop when Slott leaves. It's also above Thunderbolts, I think it's in pretty good shape.

[Silver Shocker]

I'm fairly excited about Slott's Mighty Avengers. It sounds like the kind of Avengers book that's been missing from comics since Busiek left the book. Slott's the kind of writer who I'd expect would "get" the Avengers. I was a big fan of Busiek's Avengers as well as some of the old 60's and 70's stories and based on interviews Slott's run sounds a lot like that. I wish it had a more "oldschool" artist though. Someone closer to the George Perez camp. I'm a bit biased because I don't really like Khoi Pham's art, but I think that kind of Avengers book should have a more traditional artist who's closer to the storytelling side of the storytelling-stylistic scale.

[Epimethee]

Scarlet Witch, Jocasta and Vision in, Bendis out? Mighty A. sounds interesting.

[BWPS]

What? Are the effects of Civil War are still canon?

It's already been a year!

[Previsionary]

What? Are the effects of Civil War are still canon?

It's already been a year!

yuh...it never wasn't canon. *blink*

[murs47]

What? Are the effects of Civil War are still canon?

It's already been a year!

yuh...it never wasn't canon. *blink*

Indeed, it's not Canon. They make cameras, not comics. :o

But anyways, another post SC title that looks promising is Thunderbolts. Marvel picked up Andy Diggle to write it. I haven't read his run on Hellblazer. But, Green Arrow:Year One and his maxi-series, The Losers, were top notch. Not sure if they announced an artist yet.

[Previsionary]

I'll be a lot more interested in the Avengers, Spider-man, X-men, and Ms. Marvel if they ride this event out and let everything cool for almost a year (ok...three/four months). It's hard for me to care about SI in general (ONE DAY INVASIONS ROXXXOOOORRRRZZZZ) because of how Bendis plotted it; the last thing I need is another event after an event during the aftermath. And for the love of gravy, please let it be better than the aftermath of Messiah Complex and OMD/BND (not saying BND doesn't hold its charms, but I am not a fan of uber slow moving plots with more plots being padded on. 3 issues a month for twelve months= 36. Because of the change of format/releases, they actually need to change their plot formula so that there's a bit more payoffs inside of long term stories/plots to remove the feeling of "dragged-on-ness".)

[Talavar]

Slott writing Mighty Avengers interests me, but I think Dark Avengers sounds dumb.

[bredon7777]

*yawn* More of Marvels butchering their IP.  At this rate, I may be buying no Marvel comics at all soon.

The universe needs a good reboot.

[AfghanAnt]

The universe needs a good reboot.

Reboots are the reasons I don't read DC comics. How can I possibly become attach to characters whose origins, names, powers, and even characterization (I'm talking about the Big Three here) have changed at least 3 times in my life-time. As someone who grew up in the 90s with a plethora of characters I loved (90's LOS, Superboy (Conner Kent), Kyle Rayner, Linda Danvers as Supergirl, etc, etc) I have no interest in an universe where these characters do not exist or are being assassinated to make way for the newest rebooted version of the character (Wondy seen as a "murder" for protecting the world from a mind-controlled Superman, really? The acid-trippy and insanely large Bat-Universe shrinking and expanding every other day, first Superman is the only Kryptonian now there are hundreds but they are all evil besides 5 and two of these 5 good Kryptonian is an alternate-reality version from Earth-2 that does not exist and the other is angst-ridden teenager whose origin story changed twice since she appear in 2005). Yeah, that is really the universe I want to read about. You can't even keep up with DC anymore because too much is going on and they are trying their best to make it all happen in the same world and don't get me started on what they did to Wildstorm*.

*I am bitter, I am aware of this.

Wow, am I only one who is excited but the Dark Illuminati (more female Loki), Mighty's new lineup and New's direction?

It is weird but a lot of people hate Bendis because of his choices in the Avengers titles but honestly I never read an Avengers title (let alone 6 titles) consistently from month to month. If not for Bendis I would have no interest in the Avengers especially with the Ultimates being sacrificed to the overly dramatic and confusingly drawn gods (why are the Ultimates in their old costumes in UltSpidey but this awful 616-like costumes in Ultv3?).

[murs47]

Wow, am I only one who is excited but the Dark Illuminati (more female Loki), Mighty's new lineup and New's direction?

Nope, there's a couple more of us here. :D

[Talavar]

It's interesting that you bring up female Loki.  That's a character I look at and think, gee, it's too bad they took Loki and changed him to be a female character-cliche.

I'm excited about Mighty Avengers, because I think Dan Slott writes a better superhero team book than Bendis - Avengers: The Initiative has been great.  I don't hate Bendis, but while his Avengers titles might be popular, I don't think they're particularly good.  I think his best work is still Alias and the character work in Ultimate Spidey.

[AfghanAnt]

It's interesting that you bring up female Loki.  That's a character I look at and think, gee, it's too bad they took Loki and changed him to be a female character-cliche.

How so?

[Previsionary]

I dislike Bendis on avengers because of his writing ticks. I want you to read the last few New avenger books with Tigra in them and then I want you to count how many times she screams, "AIEEEEE!" as she gets beaten up. :P

Also, all his characters start to read the same to me in his Avenger books and they don't always have the best stories. Ultimate Spidey is different because he doesn't have to deal with 7+ different personalities with a huge fan following. He works well on Spidey and that's probably because he's the only one to really touch ult. Spidey. Doesn't mean he doesn't test my patience at times (Ultimate Origins). ^^

As for Ultimates...depends on the timeline. Does the Ult. Spidey story happen before, after, or during Ult. 3?

I somewhat love to hate Femloki, but I also see where Talavar is coming from. We have Ms. Sinister, Lady Bullseye, She-Kraven, and FemLoki. It's a trend I really don't want pushed much further.

[daglob]

Nurse Doom? Magneta, Mistress of Magnetism? The Pink Skull? The Queenpin?

[Alaric]

Nurse Doom? Magneta, Mistress of Magnetism? The Pink Skull? The Queenpin?

The Womandarin!

[The Enigma]

Nurse Doom? Magneta, Mistress of Magnetism? The Pink Skull? The Queenpin?

I would religiously buy any title that had Victor Von Doom as a male nurse, struggling to get by in a busy New York hospital.

[tommyboy]

Let us never forget Ultron As Tony Stark As A Bare Nekkid Lady.
That was genius.
I can't believe people get paid for this stuff.

Slott will get my readership on Mighty, but he's been quite the loyal company man of late, so I doubt we will actually get any of Bendis' "innovations" undone by him, unfortunately. I can hardly believe it's already been a hundred years since I used to look forward to any Avengers comics...

[AfghanAnt]

Let us never forget Ultron As Tony Stark As A Bare Nekkid Lady.
That was genius.
I can't believe people get paid for this stuff.

Slott will get my readership on Mighty, but he's been quite the loyal company man of late, so I doubt we will actually get any of Bendis' "innovations" undone by him, unfortunately. I can hardly believe it's already been a hundred years since I used to look forward to any Avengers comics...

Granted not everything Bendis writes is gold, in fact I'm incredibly bored of Mighty Avengers and found the cast (besides Ares and Widow) boring. I think his New Avengers is a really good title and I found the Illuminati mini actually a good idea but that's me.

[thanoson]

Magneta was in Exiles.  :P

[the_ultimate_evil]

damn i knew i was behind on x-men but when did emma go evil again

[tommyboy]

damn i knew i was behind on x-men but when did emma go evil again

In the Bendisverse all women are eeevil. Or driven insane by power they can't handle, or evil, insane and slutty. Or just slutty.
Not that he's a misogynist, oh, no. Far from it.

[Previsionary]

damn i knew i was behind on x-men but when did emma go evil again

Emma isn't evil right now. She hasn't been "evil" since her Astonishing storyline and she was barely evil in that. No one knows the deal behind the dark avengers/illuminati. I'd be more concerned with Namor's involvement than Emma...but I dislike current Emma as everyone should know by now.

[Podmark]

I'm very curious if Emma will be evil. The x-office protects their characters pretty closely, so I'd be kinda surprised if even the almighty Bendis would be allowed to mess with Emma.

I'm kinda expecting Emma's involvement with this Dark Illuminati will have been in the past rather than the present. Back when she actually was evil.

And mentioned above I'm very exciting about Slott on Mighty. To me Slott is kinda an anti-Bendis.

[bredon7777]

The universe needs a good reboot.

You can't even keep up with DC anymore because too much is going on and they are trying their best to make it all happen in the same world and don't get me started on what they did to Wildstorm*.

Oh, I keep up with DC just fine, and the Wildstorm reboot was much more due to low sales than any DC mandate. What, you'dve rather they just cancelled those titles outright? And while DC makes a lot of changes, at least (at the time) 99% of the changes make some sense.

But fine, if you don't want a reboot, then we need a scene where the Illuminati take off VR helmets and Reed says "See, this is the future that would happen if we go ahead with this registration nonsense."  Problem solved.

[AfghanAnt]

In the Bendisverse all women are eeevil. Or driven insane by power they can't handle, or evil, insane and slutty. Or just slutty.
Not that he's a misogynist, oh, no. Far from it.

Ms. Marvel is none of those things written by Bendis and neither is Jessica Jones, Spider-Woman (before the big Skrull reveal), Black Widow, Wasp (except for that flashback), She-hulk, Emma Frost (who he writes as rather sharp and more in line with Morrison's changes), etc, etc...

Oh, I keep up with DC just fine, and the Wildstorm reboot was much more due to low sales than any DC mandate. What, you'dve rather they just cancelled those titles outright? And while DC makes a lot of changes, at least (at the time) 99% of the changes make some sense.

Actually yeah I would rather they cancelled Wildstorm titles than makes them really bad. The Authority has had5volumes in less than 10 years and there was maxi or mini-series they were supposedly ongoing. With all the reboots and needless deaths and making Wildstorm characters violent just for violent sake rather than because you know they are heroes who make hard choices but to be fair they haven't touched Planetary and thank god.