Free Comic Book Day: The All-New,
All-Different Avengers
“The All- New, All-Different
Avengers”
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Mahmud Asrar
Color Artist: Frank Martin
Letterer: VC's Joe Sabino
Cover: Jerome Opena and Martin
Assistant Editor: Jon Moisan
Editors: Tom Brevoort with Wil Moss
“The Uncanny Inhumans”
Writer: Charles Soule
Artist: Brandon Peterson
Color Artist: Justin Ponsor
Letterer: VC's Clayton Cowles
Assistant Editor: Charles Beacham
Editor: Nick Lowe
Production: Jessica Pizarro
Editor-in-Chief: Axel Alonso
Released: May 2, 2015
One of the most noteworthy advance clips from “Captain America: Brave New World,” now in theaters, is when President Han Solo tells new Cap Sam Wilson that he wants him to reform the Avengers. This is a big deal in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since we haven't gotten an Avengers movie since 2019's “Endgame” or even a proper Avengers sighting unless you count the mid-credits scene in “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.”
As the Falcon, Wilson was a member of the Avengers in both comics and movies before he ever took up the mantle and shield of Captain America. But it's different when you're spangled with stars.
It's interesting to think what a cinematic Avengers led by this incarnation of Cap would look like, even before everything hits a fan and the president turns red. Ten years ago on Free Comic Book Day, we got a glimpse into a new iteration of the Marvel comics universe and a new Avengers team with Captain Samerica helping lead the way.
Released at the same time as the zero issue of “Secret Wars,” which some people* worried would be a Crisis-on-Inifinite-Earths-type reset for Marvel, this issue offered what captions described as two “special peek(s) into the future of the new Marvel Universe!” Of course, there are few surprises in comics these days, so the new Avengers lineup had already been revealed, including the most shocking member.
As we learned in Secret Wars, he moved over to the 616 by virtue of giving Molecule Man a hamburger. But when this issue hit, we weren't sure what was going on. And Mark Waid wasn't going to tell us. This story was to get us curious for what came next – as if we needed help – and in that regard, it succeeded.
On the opening page, Ms. Marvel excitedly issues the battle cry “Avengers Assemble,” but before we can see the threat for which they're assembling, the next page cuts to 10 minutes later. The newbies are looking dejected, and the veterans aren't happy.
Jumping back 10 minutes, we see a green energy dragon flying around outside Manhattan's Federal Reserve Bank. Cap is protecting bystanders and Iron Man is directing his teammates, sending the youngsters inside to see who is trying to keep them out. Cap tells the kids to make sure they don't let the perpetrator get away. They don't find their quarry initially, but they do find a number of dead bodies.
The youths are shaken, but they spring into action when Radioactive Man reveals himself. The radiation he's emitting makes it impossible for Ms. Marvel to grab him, then he goes invisible. In an odd angle where we can only see her, Ms. Marvel apparently spots the villain and yells for her teammates to get him.
Outside, the other Avengers' battle against the dragon abruptly ends when it disappears. They go inside to find their young teammates but no Radioactive Man. The kids explain that they saved the life of a guard – that's who Ms. Marvel told them to get – but their foe got away. Cap seems angry that they let him go to save one life... but only until we turn the page.
Cap tells them they did the right thing. When Nova says they wanted to “avenge” the people who were killed, Iron Man quickly tells them Avengers was a name coined in the heat of battle. “Philosophically,” he says, “we probably should have gone with the Defenders or somesuch.” Nova notes that Avengers sounds cooler, and he's right, but it's good to acknowledge the name isn't a literal mission statement for the team, Robert Downey Jr.'s false bravado against Loki notwithstanding.
The last panel promises to continue the story in the pages of “All-New, All-Different Avengers,” and I'm sure it did, but I don't really remember how it played out. That series only lasted 15 issues, and the younger contingent of the group would go on to form the Champions. Other than being the first post-Secret Wars Avengers title, it's most notable to me for the long, awkward name at a time when Marvel was at least trying to make adjectives in titles important again.
The biggest surprise of the issue came in the second half, featuring the Inhumans. This was around the time Marvel was downplaying the X-Men, to whom they did not have the movie rights, and trying to build up the Inhumans. Black Bolt had blown up their floating city of Attilan while fighting Thanos, causing a cloud of Terrigen mist to float around the world and make anybody with whom it came in contact that had Inhuman DNA form a cocoon and emerge with powers, which is what happened to the aforementioned Ms. Marvel.
It's also what happens to Bollywood star Ajay Roy as the second story opens. His internal monologue lets us know he did some less-than-scrupulous things to get where he is, which is additional cause for concern when he comes out of the cocoon looking like a grass-type Pokemon on steroids.
He chucks a car into the crowd, and it's deflected by some rings of energy emitted by Dinesh, who's dressed for casual Friday instead of crimefighting. Before they can face off, a contingent of Hydra agents arrives intent on recruiting both of them, whether they want to sign up or not. Roy flees and the more heroic one is in the sights of the lead agent, when the Human Torch, Medusa, Triton and a lady who looks like she should be hanging with the Serpent Society intervene.
Medusa lets the Hydra boss know she doesn't appreciate her trying to take advantage of her people, which includes all Inhumans, old and new. The snake-looking lady, introduces herself to Dinesh as Naja. He tells her his powers let him see lines that he believes are part of the electromagnetic spectrum. And those energy rings? They aren't around his hands like I thought; they apparently replaced them.
It wasn't too shocking to see the Torch there. I think it had been announced at this point that Marvel wouldn't be publishing Fantastic Four after Secret Wars ended, and the FF has always been associated with the Inhumans, going back to when Johnny and Medusa's little sister Crystal were star-crossed lovers. Which makes the fact that Johnny locks lips with Medusa – a powerful figure in her own right but with “wife of Inhuman king Black Bolt” always prominent in her bio – the real shocker of the issue.
I can't blame Marvel for trying to elevate the Inhumans. They tried for years with Carol Danvers and finally succeeded when they promoted her to Captain Marvel. But to do it while so plainly downplaying the X-Men, a property that carried the company for years, just made it feel weird and not story-driven. It didn't work, as the Inhumans gradually receded into the background again in comics and TV. Heck, Ms. Marvel, the most prominent new Inhuman has been revealed in both universes as a mutant, something that happened not long after Marvel got the ability to use the X-Men in its own movies again.
So, totally story-driven, I'm sure.
The issue itself also includes a three-page preview of the “Max Ride” series from the work of author James Patterson. It's not in the digital version on Marvel Unlimited. I've only read a little of Patterson's work and none of this, but the writing by Marguerite Bennett and art by Alex Sanchez deliver a pretty compelling case to give it a try, as we see a girl named Max fleeing from shadowy creatures, jumping off a clip and... sprouting wings to fly.
Three quick stories, all of which got me interested, to varying degrees, in the series they were promoting. Not too bad for the price of free.
* - Me, for example.
Comments
Post a Comment
No profanity, no bullying, no harassment. Feel free to disagree, but do it respectfully and politely.