Marvel’s The Avengers! The world’s biggest movie. The biggest comic franchise. No pressure Jonathan Hickman. The man who reenergized Marvel’s First Family is taking on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in the post AvX, Marvel NOW! universe. The Avengers with Jerome Opena will be a twice-monthy book launching in December followed by New Avengers the next month. Hickman tells Comic Book Resources why he’s expanding the roster.
“The idea is that the Avengers have to get bigger. That means bigger in every sense. That means the roster has to be bigger, and the missions have to be bigger, and the adversaries and scenarios they find themselves in have to be larger. I’ve played with this stuff a little bit over in the Ultimate Universe. Obviously, it’s a completely different weight class here, but in a lot of ways that’s the kind of velocity that the book should have. We (Tom Brevoort and I) also felt like that if the book was going to be about an Avengers world, it should look more like the world. Of course there are complications starting out when the necessary movie characters are five white dudes and a white lady, but, you know, bigger roster. Frankly, I’m really, really excited at how we address that. The lineup is killer.”
With a massive cast of up to 18 members in Avengers why have a New Avengers? Hickman can’t reveal that book’s lineup but says it will make sense.
“It’s not like that at all. There’s one big massive Avengers team that is the Avengers, and there’s this other thing that’s going on in ‘New Avengers.’ When we announce exactly what ‘New Avengers’ is, it will make perfect sense and everybody will like, ‘Oh yeah! Of course,'” Hickman explains. “‘Avengers‘ and ‘New Avengers’ are the same book — just from two different sides of the world.”
Hickman’s acclaimed Fantastic Four run is coming to an end. I also recommend his SHIELD series with Dustin Weaver and Manhattan Projects from Image – but warning, this book has graphic violence and language.