Jonathan Hickman launches Earth’s Mightiest Heroes into a new era this week with a brand new Avengers #1 with Jerome Opena. The team will be bigger than ever packed with old favorites, new recruits and brand new characters. Hickman tells Marvel.com how he assembled his powerhouse new team.
“Well, it all starts with Iron Man and Captain America, with Tony and Steve. They can smell it in the air. They sense in the same way that we in our everyday lives know that something is not right with society. We know that things aren’t functioning properly. We have an impending sense that it’s possible that calamity is right around the corner. It’s a very real thing in society right now. Whether that’s a result of too much dystopian fiction, whether that’s a result of too many horror movies, or whether that’s financial calamity, whatever it is, it’s a very real thing in society, and this book very much starts with that: the idea that very bad things are on the horizon. As a result, they begin constructing a failsafe against that, and what happens is it is triggered, and that means they have to assemble the Avengers World.
They enact the Avengers World scenario where they have to gather all the guys together. That’s kind of the first three issues, the inciting incident and the team-has-assembled kind of deal, and then we back off for three issues and we reintroduce some of the newer characters, and then we have another three-issue arc after that where the whole team is together again, and then we have three issues after that where it’s more an introduction to the other characters again, the ones that we haven’t visited yet. Anyway, it’s kind of a way to keep the velocity of the book up and at the same time introduce everyone that people may not be familiar with or brand-new characters that the readers don’t know anything about. Again, all of that is leading to something further down the road.”
Hickman is pushing for more female heroes and explains his goal to build a team reflecting greater diversity.
“I would say sometimes it’s hard and sometimes it’s very very easy. I think that there are certain characters that are obvious and easy choices. I think Captain Marvel right now is an easy and obvious choice, because she’s not only popular but well-loved and everybody understands how important of a character that is. When I do something like add Smasher, which is now a human female, to the cast, obviously what I did is I took what was a traditionally male character and I made it a female character. The reason why I did that is because I needed a character that fit that type, that fit that scale, and by that what I mean is a quote unquote “cosmic” character, and on top of that I needed a way to tie that character into the Earth as opposed to being an alien or whatever, and so I made the changes there. But yes, it’s much more difficult than it should be because the vast majority of Marvel characters are white male super heroes. Part of our job is to protect that IP and move it forward. We always try new things, and we fail a lot, and sometimes we succeed. The hope is that our successes outweigh our failures. ”
Hickman revealed which characters are surprising him now that he’s writing them:
“I wish I didn’t have a propensity for falling in love with bad guys so much. [Laughs] I do that. I don’t know why I’m surprised by it, but of course that’s happening. I really like writing Iron Man a lot. I like writing Bruce Banner a lot. It’s not going to mean anything to anybody yet, but I like writing Smasher a lot. I love writing Sam and Roberto, Sunspot and Cannonball. Shang-Chi is a lot of fun. It’s just a cool cast.
Part of the thing, we even say it in the second issue, is these guys have been together six hours. What kind of teamwork could we possibly expect, right? It’s something that they kind of grow into. Right now everybody’s nice and happy and getting along, but everybody’s still trying to figure out where they stand and all that kind of stuff. Beyond the first big thing that happens, where I’m at in writing the book I’m doing the second big thing right now. Dealing with that has been much more difficult because they’re having to work together. So they haven’t found it yet. I haven’t found it yet, but we’ll get there.”
What’s your favorite Avengers roster? Here are mine.
Avengers World begins in Avengers #1 this week.
By Editor
