Tag: Avengers

Does the World Still Need the Avengers?

New Avengers #1 courtesy Marvel

  Does the world still need the Avengers?

 A billion dollar blockbuster movie. A huge comic book franchise. Yes, the world still needs Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

 After 8 years Brian Michael Bendis will leave the Avengers franchise with End Times and answers the question above on Marvel.com. I wanted to share this answer.

 “My favorite thing about all these events and AVENGERS being the centerpiece of all these events is that there’s fallout. And because they’re always on to the next thing, they don’t even have time to deal with the fallout. Fear Itself happened and all these Nazi robots attacked the world, and nobody in the Avengers feels like doing a press conference and saying, “All right everyone, we’ve saved you all from the Nazis.” Nobody wants to do that. Captain America doesn’t want to do press. He just wants to do what he’s good at. And with that comes conspiracy, hysteria and blame. Nobody knows where [Sin] is, [so] we can’t blame her, but we know where Cap is so let’s go yell at him.

  Now, there are some interesting things going on with the Avengers and Captain America in particular in my last issues. When Captain America took this job to lead the Avengers, he took the job of the guy he was always yelling at. It’s like he was the President. Like the minute President Obama got elected, everything was immediately his fault. That’s not a political statement; it’s with any president. “We love you, we love you—now what?”

  That’s what’s happening with Captain America. Now that he’s taken the role of leader and with that comes the heavy burden of responsibility for things that he couldn’t possibly be responsible for, but someone’s gotta be responsible for them. That’s gonna be resolved and take its toll with the question of “Does the world need the Avengers?” But I think they do because I believe the book will be continuing without me [Laughs].

 Ironic that I read this interview just after watching President Obama’s speech at the DNC.

 I can’t believe it’s been 8 years since Disassembled. Wow! That’s when I fell in love with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes…this time I think it’s forever.

For his entire interview with Jim Beard here’s the Marvel.com link.

By Editor

 

Favorite Avengers Moments By Bendis

Brian Michael Bendis is reflecting on his 8 years of writing The Avengers with Marvel.com before taking on the X-Men franchise. Bendis made me start buying and loving Earth’s Mightiest Heroes again. Fans say they have event fatigue (I’m guilty of saying that) but we sure kept devouring them over the past 8 years. Bendis was the mastermind (or key collaborator) of epic after epic from House of M to Secret Invasion to Siege. Bendis gives some insight into how these Marvel milestones went from brain to page.

House of M #1 courtesy Marvel

  Avengers became the center of the Marvel Universe and House of M was a huge game-changer in the Marvel Universe that turned an Avenger into a pariah and depowered millions of mutants.

  “When the book becomes the center of everything, there’s a lot of ways for that to go wrong. That wasn’t my goal to turn the AVENGERS into the center; my goal was to just make this the most awesome thing ever, filled with stuff I hadn’t seen in an Avengers book before. I knew that would be slightly controversial, but maybe not as controversial as I intended. The way the market responded to things, the book became a centerpiece for the Marvel Universe and the series of event [stories] that came about. If you remember, events were nothing. Disassembled was one of the first events. And then House of M came right after that. They literally came to me and said, “Listen, Joss [Whedon] isn’t writing ASTONISHING X-MEN this summer, he’s got to go do something else. If you want to do an Avengers/X-Men fun thing, that’d be great.

People can look at the first cover and see New Avengers/Astonishing X-Men and that’s what the book initially was. I had a thing left over that I was talking with [Jeph] Loeb about from Disassembled: if Wanda goes nuts, what does Magneto do about that? That seemed like a great Avengers/X-Men summer thing, because what’s the biggest problem for the Avengers and the X-Men? It’s Wanda. House of M burst out of that, and all of a sudden the Avengers are the centerpiece of all these big events, because by nature, the roster is pulling characters from different parts of the Marvel Universe. Back when the Avengers were just Avengers, and you could only see these characters in the Avengers, they were the Avengers. But the way I set it up, with Spider-Man, and Wolverine from the X-Men, and [Thor’s] an Asgardian—now you’ve got an arm out from every corner of the Marvel Universe pulled into this one book. And that makes it, by its own nature, the centerpiece and with that comes a lot of scary stuff,” says Bendis.

New Avengers #31 courtesy Marvel

The revelation that Skrulls had infiltrated every team and organization (for years) was huge and made me go back looking for the clues that had been there. Bendis recalls that “OH —-” moment in New Avengers when the knife went in Elektra and she turned green!

“The reveal of the Skrull stuff was a big one because I’d been planning that since the first issue. And when Elektra became a Skrull, if everyone went, “Who cares?” I’d be screwed. It was all I had. I was relieved that Leinil Yu had killed it, he did an amazing job, and we were able to go about with our Skrull storyline with such excitement from our readers for so long to the point that it became its own event, which wasn’t even the plan.”

The Bendis era is filled with action and dramatic moments. The author reveals the other pivotal scenes that mean a lot to him.

“My favorite moments are usually the quieter ones, like CIVIL WAR: THE CONFESSION and some of the tie-ins during Civil War. Discovering the funny repartee between Spider-Man and Luke Cage, that wasn’t in my initial plan. That just kind of happened, the characters kinda took over.Things like that, which may not be exciting to some people, but as a writer, it always makes me happy to do something I haven’t seen before. When I can put something in the Avengers pot that wasn’t there before. And at the end of the day, the whole time I was on AVENGERS, people were yelling at me because Spider-Man wasn’t an Avenger. Well he’s been an Avenger for eight years, so guess what? Wolverine too. Also, discovering new things about the characters because of their placement in AVENGERS,” Bendis said.

“Overall, my top favorite thing is that I can’t think of a day where I haven’t been thrilled with my collaborations. Every single issue on all of the Avengers books has been quite outstanding, as far as high-water marks in super hero comic book art in the last eight years. Even the first two years of NEW AVENGERS with David Finch and Steve McNiven; I still think that was Steve’s best stuff. Me and Jimmy Cheung did an amazing amount of issues together and people don’t even realize. I would steal him in between issues of YOUNG AVENGERS and I ended up getting a lot of comic books out of him. Mike Deodato has done more issues of Avengers with me than anybody over the course of all the books. I got to work with almost all of my heroes. I got to work with Alan Davis, Howard Chaykin, Neal Adams, Walt Simonson, and John Romita, Jr., all on the same book. There is no way I’m not going to look back on this and go “What?!”

 

New Avengers Annual #1 courtesy Marvel

For this geek – I love the return of Luke Cage, his relationship with Jessica Jones and his rise to leadership. The New Avengers Annual – the wedding of Luke and Jessica was beautiful. I love the moment when Luke brought to Avengers to his New York City neighborhood. Luke was lifted up to major hero status but stayed grounded and he kept Earth’s Mightiest Heroes grounded and relatable.

By Editor

 

My Favorite Avengers Rosters!

Avengers #1 courtesy Marvel

As we learn more and more about Jonathan Hickman’s upcoming Avengers roster I was inspired to share my favorite teams:

Young Avengers In the aftermath of Avengers Disassembled these teens tried to fill the void of the missing heroes. We learned how these kids were connected to Marvel icons, secrets were revealed and they challenged their adult heroes. Patriot, Iron Lad, Hulking, Wiccan, Stature, Hawkeye, Vision, and Speed became a dymanic team devoted to friendship and carrying on the Avengers legacy. Action, emotion, relationships – Allen Heinberg and Jim Cheung delivered in every issue from the first series to Avengers: Children’s Crusade – one of the most beautifully written and drawn series ever!

New Avengers #1 courtesy Marvel

New Avengers Captain America, Iron Man, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Spider-Woman answered the call in breakout when Marvel’s biggest prison was busted. Brian Michael Bendis made the team Mightier by adding popular favorites Spidey and Logan. Spider-Woman, The Sentry, Echo, Iron Fist and Daredevil were more surprise choices. One epic led to another! Loved all the action, conspiracies and fights but I think I loved the Luke and Jessica romance, the tragedy of Robert and Lindy and the redemption of Jessica Drew most of all.

 

Avengers #1 courtesy Marvel

Heroes Return In the wake of Heroes Reborn Marvel assembled legends Kurt Busiek and George Perez to return Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to greatness. The lineup was Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Hawkeye, Giant-Man, Wonder Man, Wasp, Vision and Warbird (Carol Danvers but in Ms. Marvel uniform.) Firestar, Silverclaw, Triathalon and Justice (Vance Astro) were the new members. A pitch perfect creative team at the top of their game threw the team up against Morgan Le Fay, Squadron Supreme and the ultimate enemy: Ultron!

Avengers #181 courtesy Marvel

Avengers (Korvac+ era) This is a sentimental vote because this was the first comic book subscription I had as a kid. Can you imagine a young geek buying the issue where Michael Korvac blasted the entire team? The massive team was shortened (in part by government liaison Henry Gyrich) to Captain America, Iron Man, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Wasp, Yellowjacket, Quicksilver, Beast, Ms. Marvel, Wonder Man and Jocasta. Jim Shooter, David Micheline, Roger Stern, George Perez and John Byrne were among the creators during this mighty era.

What was your favorite roster?

By Editor

Brian Michael Bendis On Avengers End Times

 

Avengers #500 cover courtesy Marvel.com

  Brian Michael Bendis made me love the Avengers again. I never really stopped loving Cap, Tony, Wanda, Clint but I had stopped buying the book because the title had become tired to me.

  The idea of losing something makes you realize how much you it. Avengers Disassembled rocked my world and shook the foundations of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. New Avengers made the franchise exciting again with new faces and new threats.

 Eight years later and End Times are in sight as Bendis leaves the Avengers family for the Children of the Atom. I wanted to share some highlights of this Marvel.com interview about the final months of the Bendisvengers! (And new preview art!)

  The fan favorite writer will leave Avengers and New Avengers with an all-star list of artists on board.

  “I’m going out on a very pleasant note personally. I just finished an AVENGERS run with Walt Simonson. I’m working on NEW AVENGERS with Michael Gaydos, Michael Avon Oeming, Carlos Pacheco and Mike Deodato. The very last issue we’re doing this big jam sequence. I like to do these jam sequences every once in a while which are very difficult on editorial. I find them to be a lot of fun if you can find the right reason to do them. We found one, and me and Tom [Brevoort] are gathering together a group of very unique, very out-there artists, people who I feel have been exciting to me that are outside of the Marvel mainstream. We’re pulling them in to let them show off a little bit to the larger audiences, people whose books I’ve been buying that are very exciting. We’ll be debuting those names very soon. I feel like we’re leaving on a high note. On [the last issues of] AVENGERS, we’ve got Brandon Peterson, Terry Dodson [and] Mike Mayhew, and it’s gorgeous. It’s absolutely stunning.”

Avengers #31 courtesy Marvel

  Bendis is famous or infamous for starting his Avengers run by blowing up the Avengers mansion and the team. (Jack of Hearts ran out of luck the hard way!)

 “Disassembled” was this disaster movie starring the Avengers, which I thought was awesome. Other people thought it was awesome too, and other people were very, very angry at me. They’re still angry at me as if it happened yesterday.”

 I think Bendis fearlessly challenged the fans and the industry to rethink status quo.  Cap and Tony were joined my Spider-Man and Wolverine. My favorite part of the Bendis era was adding Luke Cage and Spider-Woman to the team. He then proceeded to put them both through hell and back. Luke became a father, husband and team leader. Luke and Jessica Jones became one of my favorite Marvel couples. Jessica Drew’s comeback (including the fake Skrull Jessica) is the stuff of comics legend all on its own. The path of Robert Reynolds/The Sentry is pure Shakespearean tragedy with a cosmic twist. Bendis is ready to shake the status quo again.

Avengers #31 courtesy Marvel

  “Well, many years have gone by. This status quo has been around for eight years. It’s quite a lengthy amount of time for any status quo in any comic of any company. So it’s certainly a good time for me to wrap up certain story-lines, to make my final statement on some of these characters. Some characters will be moving on to a new chapter in their life, and other characters will be deciding what it means to be an Avenger. Not all the characters will survive this last story.

  I’m losing some babies. I’m losing some characters that mean the world to me. So when you add up all the elements that I just described, that is the status quo change. A lot is going to happen in the next four issues. Some great celebratory things, some tragic things, all setting the stage for my friend Jonathan Hickman, who has his own status quo to try to achieve. I’m going to do the best I can to make that happen.”

Avengers #31 courtesy Marvel

  For his entire interview here’s the Marvel.com link.

What is your favorite character, storyline or moment of the Bendisvengers era?

By Editor

 

 

Updated: New Mutant, Mystery Men Joining Avengers?

Avengers #1 courtesy Marvel

Jonathan Hickman and Jerome Opena relaunch a brand new Avengers series in the Marvel NOW! Marvel revealed this first look at the three covers in one by Dustin Weaver.

Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Spider-Woman, Spider-Man, Wolverine and the new Captain Marvel are on the team. Cap sidekick Falcon is joining up. Cannonball of New Mutants is seen blasting into action. One cover #2 there’s a man on fire – is this Jim Hammond – the original Human Torch? On cover #3 is a man with a shadow power and infinity sign on this chest? Could this be Cannonball’s New Mutants teammate Roberto da Costa aka Sunspot or maybe an Eternal?

Hickman confirmed in an earlier story that Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu, would be in the series and that the team will start with up to 18 members.

I’m loving Cannonball on the team. I think Sam Guthrie is the Dick Grayson of the Marvel Universe. Cannonball could easily take over for Cyclops but will never be allowed to like Dick could take over for Bruce as Batman. I’m thrilled to see Sam soar in the greater Marvel Now.

Who do you think are the two mystery men?

UPDATE:

Jonathan Hickman revealed on Twitter

“Image released today is not the complete roster, we intentionally left off new characters for spoiler reasons.”   

“There are 8 new members not shown. You’ll be happy.”              

Who do you think are the other members joining the team?

By Editor

 

Uncanny Avengers Scarlet Witch by Granov

 

Uncanny Avengers #1 courtesy Marvel

  It’s the week of the Witch..the Scarlet Witch! Wanda graces the cover of two variants for upcoming issues of Uncanny Avengers this October. Wanda will join Captain America, Thor, Wolverine, Rogue and Havok on a new team of Avengers and X-Men united against the threat of the Red Skull reborn.

  Marvel revealed this variant by Adi Granov (Iron Man Extremis.) I have this on the beautiful illustration on the cover of Granov’s sketchbook that I got at Emerald City Comicon earlier this year. Earlier this week Marvel shared this cover by Milo Manara.

 I’m loving the Scarlet Witch comeback but I suspect we’ll see some Rogue variants soon.

By Editor

Avengers Vs. X-Men The End Teaser (Dark Phoenix Returns?)

courtesy Marvel

  I admit I exclaimed “OH —-!” when I saw this teaser image for Avengers vs. X-Men #12 from Marvel. It’s a haunting blast from the past as what appears to be Jean Grey as Dark Phoenix strikes a pose amid cosmic flames with the ominous title “The End.” 

If you’re old school like me you can’t help but picture Jean Grey pleading with Scott to kill her on the moon before the Dark Phoenix takes over again in the classic conclusion to The Dark Phoenix Saga by Chris Claremont and John Byrne.

  But I’m feeling hope too. Not that Hope. I think of Grant Morrison and Marc Silvestri’s Here Comes Tomorrow modern masterpiece when Jean set Cyclops on the right path to prevent a nightmare future and she went to off to a higher plane. Is Jean back to make things right?

  AvX has been so much more than team vs. team. Heroes on both sides have been in conflict over which side to choose. While I love the action and fights I’ve really been engrossed with the inner conflicts.

  Is this a resurrected Jean Grey or Hope as the Dark Phoenix? How does the final chapter of AvX lead to the original X-Men being brought into the present day?

Avengers vs X-Men #12 by Jason Aaron and Adam Kubert arrives in October

By Editor

ABC Greenlights SHIELD TV Pilot by Joss Whedon

Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill in Marvel’s The Avengers courtesy Marvel.com

  ABC has ordered a pilot for a live-action television series from Marvel’s The Avengers writer-producer Joss Whedon according to Deadline. Whedon will co-write and possibly direct!

  S.H.I.E.L.D. is the peacekeeping organization run by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) as seen in Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers. The pilot will be written by Whedon, his brother Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen. Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) were agents of SHIELD.

  Can we get Cobie Smulders (How I Met Your Mother) out of her contract and in this show?! I love Maria Hill!

  Here are links to some of my favorite SHIELD stories you might enjoy: Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD by Jim Steranko, Nick Fury vs. SHIELD by Bob Harras, Secret War by Brian Michael Bendis and The Ultimates: Ultimate Collection by Mark Millar.  Here’s a link to Marvel’s The Avengers on Blu Ray.

By Editor