Wow! So, is Marvel willing to let anything be a surprise any more? First, they let most of Avengers 500 be posted on the web almost a month before publication. Now, they’ve released the cover of New Avengers 1, giving away most of the line-up.
Spoilers ho!
Bendis certainly wasn’t kidding when he said that he isn’t JLA-ing the Avengers. In fact, it seems to have gone from “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” to “Bendis’s Favorite Heroes… Plus Some Guys We Had To Put In To Keep Their Solo Titles Afloat… Plus Sentry.”
Cap and Iron Man aside, the choices are either promising or bizarre, depending on what Bendis intends to do in terms of the guiding principles he establishes for the series. (Obviously, the old tone and modus operandi are out the window, or Vision wouldn’t be puking up villains.) And since I can’t resist the cry of the inner fanboy, let’s take a look at what we’ve got here.
Spider-Woman: The Jessica Drew Spider-Woman, no less, who happens to be my favorite of the arachnettes. (I never read Byrne’s short-lived book about the third in the line, but I’m fairly sure I would have hated her.) Jessica’s got a rather strange history with the team. She kind of hates them (on behalf of close friend Carol Danvers, though Carol got over it) and dismissed them “frat boys” in an issue of Alias, but they’ve saved her life and offered her membership in the past. Just judging by the cover, shiny optimism isn’t the defining tone of the book, so she’ll probably fit in fairly well. Hope she doesn’t end up being “the girl,” though.
Luke Cage: Hm. The guy who found the Defenders too confining is joining the Avengers? And he’s always seemed fairly resistant to conventional super-heroics. (Again, it’s possible that the set-up will be much different and looser under Bendis.) Still, I like Luke a lot, and I generally like the way Bendis writes him. His presence should make for some fairly interesting character dynamics.
Spider-Man: Sorry about the echo, but set-up will determine whether he works or not. He’s left the group in the past, finding them too high-profile and demanding, but it’s entirely possible those conditions will change. Still, there’s some disconnect between my perception of hard-luck Spidey and what I think of as the shiny, sanctioned Avengers. We’ll see. As with Cage, I like Bendis’s take on Spidey well enough.
Sentry: I skipped the mini-series that introduced the character in 2000, so I’m not quite sure how to react. I was always under the impression, though, that the character was intended to function as an allegory more than any kind of ongoing addition to the Marvel Universe. Any opinions on the mini? Is it worth a look? (Just on its own merits; I’m not seriously thinking about doing homework reading for New Avengers, so put down your butterfly nets.)
Wolverine: “I always knew this day would come, and now that it’s here, I feel strangely… serene.” Quinn Morgendorffer.