Agents of Atlas Appreciation 2020

[Digifiend]

Fixed. As pointed out earlier I also accidentally omitted Venus from the classic team.

[Frontier]

Wanted to share with posters some images of the upcoming Atlantis Attacks mini:





Liking what I'm seeing here. The first image especially is pretty cool. Amadeus taking a shot from Namor sets up that underdog quality. Namor just beat up the physically strongest member of the Agents like that. So how do the rest of the Agents deal with that? Also, that image with Wave is great as well. Is she holding up the water? Maybe using a force field? Hmmm, have to wait and see.

Issue comes out 1/22 folks. Looking forward to it!

Bet Amadeus is wishing he was still The Hulk now...

[Beetle]

It looks like Wave was using Pan's portal tech to get those civilians to higher ground so they could avoid the tidal wave. Or she used the portal on the wave itself

Also it looks like Namor is going straight for Mike Nguyen and that's kinda hilarious

[KurtW95]

Fixed that. Also the only lineup I care about.

Been rereading Jeff Parker's original run recently. Would recommend it even all these years later

It is weird that they took a good team and weirdly turned into Asian people only and have consistently been throwing an Asian writer on books that star characters of his race despite the fact that he made a name for himself on his own and has essentially been put in a corner. It isn’t that the new characters aren’t good either; rather that is just weird if you look back at the original team.

[Tien Long]

It is weird that they took a good team and weirdly turned into Asian people only and have consistently been throwing an Asian writer on books that star characters of his race despite the fact that he made a name for himself on his own and has essentially been put in a corner. It isn’t that the new characters aren’t good either; rather that is just weird if you look back at the original team.

The original team has had an appearance within the context of this new collection of the Agents of Atlas. And that's the idea that's being put forth in this series, that the Agents of Atlas aren't just one set of individuals, but can include others. It's dependent on the one who runs the Atlas Foundation, Jimmy Woo, as to who will be a member. It's been heavily hinted that the new Agents and the old ones will be crossing over during the Atlantis Attacks mini. Perhaps in the future those who aren't racially Asian will be added to the Agents of Atlas (Asia is a big place filled with different ethnicities and races. As someone who taught in Hong Kong whose students were not always racially Asian but born and raised in Asia, that's something I'd like to see.)

So is it turning? No. It's adding. Expanding.

Still, as for the Agents as they are now, I definitely don't think it's odd to see those of Asian descent write about these characters. I think these writers would have a strong, relevant background which matches those of these characters. That background has been shown numerous times in the mini's. Now, Greg Pak (and the other writers and illustrators) are used to depicting non-Asian characters. They do a damn good job of it too. Check out Pak's Incredible Hulk, Storm, and Star Wars runs. But Pak and the others probably have wanted to depict Asian and Asian-American characters in comics for a very long time.

[Tien Long]

I like the panels Marvel chose to preview. Whether Wave did that unassisted or not, it's still impressive. And yes, it reminds me of how Sue Richards, possessing temporarily the Uni-Power as Captain Universe, blocked a mega-tsunami that blocked threatened San Francisco. And it looks like Namor wastes no more time in going after Nguyen.

It looks like Wave was using Pan's portal tech to get those civilians to higher ground so they could avoid the tidal wave. Or she used the portal on the wave itself

Also it looks like Namor is going straight for Mike Nguyen and that's kinda hilarious

Ha, yes, cool observations. Thinking Wave is holding that water by herself, at least I hope so. She's supposed to play a prominent role in this series.

As for Ngyuen, loved that. Here's the guy who's been a slick entreperneur for 5 issues. Well, you can't lawyer yourself from an Imperious Rex, can you now Mike?

Bet Amadeus is wishing he was still The Hulk now...

Ha, yes, perhaps. Actually, that reminds me, do we know where Amadeus' sister Maddy is in all of this? Really miss her. It seems like Silk has taken over Maddy's sisterly role. Would love to see her make an appearance!

[Sandy Hausler]

Fixed that. Also the only lineup I care about.

Been rereading Jeff Parker's original run recently. Would recommend it even all these years later

I agree. I can't believe that they tried to "fix" the series with a new team. It was as close to perfect as possible (in my opinion).

[Digifiend]

Ha, yes, perhaps. Actually, that reminds me, do we know where Amadeus' sister Maddy is in all of this? Really miss her. It seems like Silk has taken over Maddy's sisterly role. Would love to see her make an appearance!

Supporting casts from solos rarely appear in team books. It's rare to see Bruno or Ganke in Champions, so it's no surprise that Maddy hasn't shown up there or in Agents of Atlas either. She's busy running the Olympus Group, which was Amadeus's job before he got his powers.

[Drops Of Venus]

It is weird that they took a good team and weirdly turned into Asian people only and have consistently been throwing an Asian writer on books that star characters of his race despite the fact that he made a name for himself on his own and has essentially been put in a corner. It isn’t that the new characters aren’t good either; rather that is just weird if you look back at the original team.

Greg Pak is a grown man and he can make his own choices. I doubt anyone is pushing him to write something he doesn't want to. No one writes 3 books about a story they don't care about. If he's ever unsatisfied, he can simply refuse to work on it like Christopher Priest did when he felt like he was being tokenized. I doubt Greg feels this way, though, considering he's also writing the current Darth Vader series, which clearly shows Marvel is giving him something other than ''asian books''. If giving someone Darth fucking Vader is putting them in a corner, imagine if they actually had given him space!

The fact that you generalize AOA as ''characters of his race'' clearly shows you missed the point of the book. The group has only two characters that share his korean-american identity. Everyone else comes from a different background with different experiences and identities than his own. He certainly doesn't speak for all south korean people, or chinese-american people, or chinese people, or indian-american people, or japanese people, or filipino people, all of whom are included in the book. Not all asian people are the same. If anything, Pak is destroying the tokenized idea western media has that putting ONE asian person in a story is somehow representative of all asian people. How many non-asian writers are bothering to do this?

And let me just say this: with Shang-Chi about to become a cinematic franchise, Pak's work is not only relevant for diversity reasons, but also for commercial reasons. If Shang-Chi proves to be successful (and it likely will), a team like AOA is a potential gold mine for Marvel in the future. An Avengers-like franchise that can appeal to several different asian audiences? Trust me: it's not weird that Marvel is pushing this. It's actually smart as hell.

[Frontier]

And let me just say this: with Shang-Chi about to become a cinematic franchise, Pak's work is not only relevant for diversity reasons, but also for commercial reasons. If Shang-Chi proves to be successful (and it likely will), a team like AOA is a potential golden mine for Marvel in the future. An Avengers-like franchise for the asian market? Trust me: it's not weird that Marvel is pushing this. It's actually smart as hell.

Classic AoA or otherwise, I just wish Marvel hadn't turned Jimmy Woo into such a joke in the movies.

[Husk]

Classic AoA or otherwise, I just wish Marvel hadn't turned Jimmy Woo into such a joke in the movies.

Agreed. Woo in the movies just wouldn’t work for me as the head of the Atlas Foundation like he does in the comics. That said, if the property where to become a movie and they course-corrected him, I would like to see both iterations of the team. The originals could appear in flashbacks to an earlier mission that wasn’t entirely successful and the new team could face that threat in the modern age, learning from the actions and knowledge gained by the originals. Two worlds intertwined. It’s a big win for being truth to the foundation of the team but also for diversity. I still think with KPop being so relevant nowadays, this is Marvel’s chance to use their Dazzler launch plans in the form of Luna.

[Frontier]

Agreed. Woo in the movies just wouldn’t work for me as the head of the Atlas Foundation like he does in the comics. That said, if the property where to become a movie and they course-corrected him, I would like to see both iterations of the team. The originals could appear in flashbacks to an earlier mission that wasn’t entirely successful and the new team could face that threat in the modern age, learning from the actions and knowledge gained by the originals. Two worlds intertwined. It’s a big win for being truth to the foundation of the team but also for diversity. I still think with KPop being so relevant nowadays, this is Marvel’s chance to use their Dazzler launch plans in the form of Luna.

I think both teams work well for the kind of genre they inhabit.

The originals are more pulp-based adventurer types while the new version are more standard Superheroes.

[Digifiend]

Agreed. Woo in the movies just wouldn’t work for me as the head of the Atlas Foundation like he does in the comics. That said, if the property where to become a movie and they course-corrected him, I would like to see both iterations of the team. The originals could appear in flashbacks to an earlier mission that wasn’t entirely successful and the new team could face that threat in the modern age, learning from the actions and knowledge gained by the originals. Two worlds intertwined. It’s a big win for being truth to the foundation of the team but also for diversity. I still think with KPop being so relevant nowadays, this is Marvel’s chance to use their Dazzler launch plans in the form of Luna.

That could set up both Namor and Hercules too, due to the presence of Namora (another Atlantean) and Venus (another member of the Greek pantheon) on the classic team.

[Ravin' Ray]

Atlastis Attacks #1 preview. Text balloons on a cover are rare nowadays.

http://www.multiversitycomics.com/pr...tis-attacks-1/

[Digifiend]

Amadeus's narration sounds ominous...