Progress Report: Avengers

[paper]

I thought it might be interesting to start a thread series devoted to some of the flagship titles, and how we think they're doing. The idea here is to discuss whether these books are currently following what we each believe to be the mission statement of that series. Are they headed in the right direction? Should that course be changed?

For this thread, I'd like to take a look at the Avengers titles: New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, and Avengers: The Initiative.

1. What do you think the overall mission statement of the Avengers is?
2. What role do each of these books fill?
3. Are they succeeding? What's good? What's not so good?
4. Give them a letter grade.

[kahunablair]

New Avengers
1. To show a team that is tight, strong, highly moral, and how they react to being on the wrong side of the law
2. I think on top of all the Skrull stuff, this book is showing that no matter what legal repercussions, they just want to be heroes and do good.
3. I think they are. Great art, great dialogue, books firing on all cylinders as far as I'm concerned. My only negative is with all the different storylines (The Hood, the Skrulls, the Symbiotes) I'm worried it may get a wee bit stretch thin, but we'll see.
4. A

The Initiative
1. This book is just the natural outcome of Civil War's ending. What do you do with people with powers? Train them to use them.
2. It shows us the new breed of heroes, while exploring the implications of having young kids being put through boot camp. This book needed to happen after the way Civil War wrapped.
3. I think they're succeeding. It's not a great book, but the storylines are solid and things are actually paying off. The pacing is a little off, and some of the stories are just a little "Meh".
4. B

I don't read Mighty Avengers so I can't add anything to that part of the discussion.

[mikegraham6]

I thought it might be interesting to start a thread series devoted to some of the flagship titles, and how we think they're doing. The idea here is to discuss whether these books are currently following what we each believe to be the mission statement of that series. Are they headed in the right direction? Should that course be changed?

For this thread, I'd like to take a look at the Avengers titles: New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, and Avengers: The Initiative.

1. What do you think the overall mission statement of the Avengers is?
2. What role do each of these books fill?
3. Are they succeeding? What's good? What's not so good?
4. Give them a letter grade.
well first off I can tell you that I recently dropped Avengers: The Initiative so overall it gets a failing grade from me. New Avengers is the strongest of the three in my opinion, and not because it's the more frequent of the two, but I prefer the character-centered stories that it focuses on over the action packed Mighty. Mighty's good, but it's really suffering from it's schedule right now.

As for the misssion statement, I think Bendis has made the Avengers the flagship title that it should be as it's become the lynchpin for the entire Marvel U (two of the past three crossovers came out of Avengers).

[davegraham]

I think the overall mission statement for the Avengers (in the Marvel offices) was to make the book relevant. The characters are some of Marvel’s most powerful heroes, but, aside from the Kurt Busiek/George Perez run, the book had been pretty lack luster for the past fifteen years. Bendis brought the book out of its niche in the Marvel universe by adding Luke Cage, Spider-man, Wolverine, and Ronin to the team. The “Old” Avengers were in their own corner of Marvel, just like the X-Men are, Spider-man was, and B-C characters would dwell. The New Avengers, by pulling characters from all aspects of Marvel, were made into the Rome of Marvel. All roads lead to the New Avengers.

New Avengers and Mighty Avengers frame the post-Civil War Marvel Universe. On the one side you see how unregistered heroes behave and on the other side you see the registered heroes. The New Avengers are Robin Hood/Cowboy archetypes and the Mighty Avengers are supercops (although now that I think about it the first issue was very similar to the Magnificent Seven coming together).

I say New Avengers has been a great success. The book sells much more than the old title did. I actually get very excited about it whenever it comes out and I am never disappointed. I don’t feel comfortable judging Mighty, because it has yet to finish an entire arc. The fact that it has taken this long to finish an arc could be judged as a failure, but I’d rather evaluate the book on its story.

For the life of me, I can’t find anything wrong with New Avengers. It is what I judge to be the perfect superhero story. The characters are fun. The story is full of action and interesting plot twists. Maybe the art can be off from time to time, but, honestly, it is only a couple of panels an issue, at most. The lateness has been Mighty Avengers biggest flaw. It has kept the characters from developing and makes the story disjointed.

I have to keep being reminded Avengers Initiative is an Avengers book. Mostly, because I am not used to thinking of the Avengers as an X-Men-like franchise. I like it. I never know what to expect. Sometimes it is funny and other times it is intensely dramatic. A book that can keep me unbalanced like that is a pleasure to read. I like it as a forum for old characters to get new relevance and new characters to be introduced. It doesn’t seem to carry as much weight as the other two Avengers books, which can be either bad or good. The idea of three Avengers stories coordinating some grand superhero story is very appealing. However Civil War shows us that is easier said than executed.

New Avengers: A+
Might Avengers: Incomplete
Avengers Initiative: A

EXTRA CREDIT – Avengers Illuminati

This grouping of characters was introduced in New Avengers so I am considering them an offshoot of the team. The idea of the Illuminati group is equally appealing and depressing. It actually adds a sense of realism (if you’re a paranoid bastard like I am) to the Marvel Universe. To think that events like the Secret Wars and The Infinity Gauntlet could happen every other month and to believe no one amongst Marvel’s characters would try to do something about those events seems absurd. To think nothing proactive would be done to prevent such things seems very unheroic. I totally buy into these characters taking things into their own hands and deciding they know what is good. I love it. Then again, these are some of Marvel’s most classic heroes being rectconned into authoritarian jerks, which is a little disheartening if you are a fan of them. I have enjoyed the rectconning of Marvel’s history. I don’t think anything of the old stories has been compromised. Again, it is difficult to find any flaws. I guess I didn’t much care for the fourth issue. Marvel Boy doesn’t seem to have as much weight as The Infinity Gauntlet, but it was still a well done comic book.

Avengers Illuminati: A

Too long?

[kwok_talk]

Shoot. Didn’t want to let this one leave the first page b/c I really like the topic and questions posed. Just a lot to digest, so here’s my quickies.

New Avengers: The best of the bunch, making Yu a superstar, Grade: A
Mighty Avengers: Really hurt by the delays, making me invested in characters I normally don’t care for, Grade: C+
Avengers Initiative: Up and down, but overall positive, need to focus more on building the characters. Grade: B
Illuminati: I gave up before the Marvel Boy issue. I want to know what happens next issue though. Grade: C-

[diabhol]

For this thread, I'd like to take a look at the Avengers titles: New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, and Avengers: The Initiative.

3. Are they succeeding? What's good? What's not so good?
4. Give them a letter grade.


The only thing not good about New Avengers: the art.
The only thing not good about Mighty Avengers: the delays.
The only thing not good about Avengers Initiative is that it has "Avengers" in the title. I think it's unnecessary.

Part of me really wishes there hadn't been a Civil War, though, 'cause I was really enjoying the old New Avengers team. Still, I like both the New and Mighty teams, so I can't complain too much. I also wish they'd stuck someone other than Wolverine on the team, just 'cause I think it's silly.


As far as content goes, they all get A's, 'cause I freakin' love 'em.



[M]

[patio]

Nice subject.

Well, the old Avengers tagline is Earth's Mightiest Superheroes, and I think in many ways this still applies to each title, but obviously in different ways.

New Avengers obviously is now the underground, outlaw title. But they are also pretty much street-level characters. The heaviest hitter in terms of raw power is probably Dr. Strange, but he is so subdued in his approach it doesn't even really seem that way. How are they the mightiest then? In their approach, attitude, and their mighty, mighty hearts. I think this title is dealing really well with the characters individually and in a group dynamic. The only weakness is the relatively low threat level of the villains so far, the slightly slow pace, and an overall smaller amount of action. I still give this an A though.

Mighty Avengers are pretty well defined by their title. They are mostly big guns, heavy hitters, and/or well-experienced heroes. They are probably the closest analog to the old title in that they will tackle the biggest threats. I like the interaction between the more veteran players and the relative newcomers. I also like the thought balloons. The only flaw is that I have no idea who Ares, Sentry or Wonder Man are. I mean, I know Simon, but he's a blank slate here. I give this a B.

A:I is the training ground for the new batch of heroes. The farm team, the C-list, the student class. I really liked how this title started out. It's a little like the New Mutants was back in the day. But I'm not sure how I feel about the past couple issues. I think it may be too early to pass judgement on this one, but if pressed I'd give it a C+/B-.

What's interesting is that Quesada and Bendis set out to make Avengers as popular and relevant as the X-Men and what's resulted is 3 titles that are near analogs to different X-family titles.

[humphrey-lee]

I'm not in the mood to type up a huge dissertation, but I'd give New and Mighty each B-'s and The Initiative a B+. The thing about the two Bendis books is while they are overall entertaining, they have tendencies that bug me. One, they tend to be repetitious in the dialog with "Bendisisms" which have honestly driven me away from some of his books in the past couple years. And two, the events in the books themselves are kind of blah and uninspired. Skrulls and Female Ultron don't really get my juices flowing. But the action in each is solid when it actually happens, and he's got some good snappy banter amongst teammates going so it keeps everything flowing well as you read. Add in two top notch artists and I put them at slightly better than average. It's the epitome of something I like to read each month, but not enough to buy.