Thoughts on Mark Waid's Avengers..

[XPac]

Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, and Beast are all joining the Uncanny Avengers.

I would expect a shakeup of the Avengers and Champions teams after Worlds Collide. Specifically:

• Because of Parker Industries' demise in Amazing Spider-Man, Spidey will leave the Avengers.
• Due to events in her solo, Jane will also leave, probably replaced by Odinson.
• And Nadia will probably exit as well, moving over to Champions (source, her own final solo issue, which says she'll be in Avengers AND/OR Champions for the foreseeable future - basically confirming that if she leaves the Avengers she WILL join the Champions).
• I can see Joaquin Torres, the teen Falcon, also joining the Champions, as he's lost his place in Sam Wilson's solo book, where Patriot is to replace him.
• And Hulk could be leaving the Champions, as he'll be off-world in his solo book.

If Wanda, Hank and Simon end up on Uncanny then that sounds more like the core Avengers team than Waids, at least on paper.

[Digifiend]

Yeah, especially since that team has Janet van Dyne and Quicksilver too. Rogue, Synapse, Doctor Voodoo and Human Torch are the other team members.

Wanda rejoins the UA in issue 26. Simon rejoined in 23 (when Deadpool accidentally freed him from Rogue by kissing her), but along with Quicksilver isn't involved in the Secret Empire tie-in issues. Hank comes in for Legacy in issue 28.

[Magmaster12]

If Wanda, Hank and Simon end up on Uncanny then that sounds more like the core Avengers team than Waids, at least on paper.

Wouldn't be the first time, same thing happened when West Coast Avengers happened the only good characters on the main team were She Hulk and Captain America.

[pageturner]

Simon and Hank together again. Only one thing to say.

JOY

[LOSTie-chan]

Which one is worse Waid's Avengers or Hitch's Justice League?

Cuz that book seems to get a lot of the same criticisms. Generic stories, bland art and the fact that it's just sorta there and doesn't effect anything else.

[XPac]

Yeah, especially since that team has Janet van Dyne and Quicksilver too. Rogue, Synapse, Doctor Voodoo and Human Torch are the other team members.

Wanda rejoins the UA in issue 26. Simon rejoined in 23 (when Deadpool accidentally freed him from Rogue by kissing her), but along with Quicksilver isn't involved in the Secret Empire tie-in issues. Hank comes in for Legacy in issue 28.

Interesting covers, and very contrasting. I like the big happy smiles Hank and Simon have while punching out those bad guys. Hopefully we can get a fun version of Beast back, as his time with the X-Men seemingly sucked the life out of him. Simon and Hank were my all time favorite bromance in comics.

Different story with the ladies on the left though. I hope this doesn't imply Rogue and Wanda have more drama, as they seemed to bury their issues before she left the team.

[Prof. Warren]

Which one is worse Waid's Avengers or Hitch's Justice League?

Cuz that book seems to get a lot of the same criticisms. Generic stories, bland art and the fact that it's just sorta there and doesn't effect anything else.

I haven't read Hitch's JL so I can't comment on that but I think it's a bit unfair to characterize/criticize Waid's Avengers for having "generic stories, bland art and the fact that it's just sorta there and doesn't effect anything else".

The stories are no more "generic" than that of any other superhero comic in which heroes and villains fight. I think every superhero comic has a certain "generic" quality in that sense. But Waid shows a flair for concocting ingenious, surprising resolutions and one facet of his run that I've most enjoyed is that he seems to take a fanboy delight in finding new ways to showcase the heroes' familiar powers. In the ANAD issues, especially, every issue seemed to have some cool moment where a hero would utilize their power in some previously undisplayed way, often times in tandem with another teammate.

In regards to the art, tastes may vary but I wouldn't call it "bland". Certainly not Del Mundo's art, which is arguably a poor fit for a straight-up superhero book like Avengers but yet is anything but bland. If anything, it's too individualistic.

As for whether it's "just sorta there and doesn't affect anything else", that's true to a point but yet I wouldn't describe it as a detriment necessarily. So often fans complain that a book isn't allowed to just be its own thing in a shared universe but yet Waid's Avengers has largely been just that. On the other hand, I do think people actually want Avengers to be one of those books that helps drive the line so in that sense, Waid's Avengers has felt a little out of synch from what we expect from the Avengers. Especially after Hickman's run, in which it was absolutely the central book of the MU - maybe moreso than at any point in its history.

So in that sense, Waid's Avengers has felt a little like a "breather" for the book. A necessary one, though, I'd argue - and still a consistently well-crafted one.

As I believe someone else noted on this thread, this run will probably ultimately have something of an inconsequential feel in Avengers history - especially if the next run returns to a bigger, more bombastic approach - but I think there's still a lot to appreciate in it.

[ian0delond]

My opinion on Waid's Avengers.

Following Secret Wars Marvel wanted a more grounded Avengers book, that could be a new entry point because you can hardly escalate further than the death of the Multiverse.
But to do so they made what can be considered bad decisions.

They did a 8 months time jump, so they don't have to explain things. But everything felt forced, like why no Avengers ? why Stark selling the Avengers tower when he doesn't need money in his own series ?

And by trying to make it easy and as far as possible of the grand nihilistic epicness of Hickman's run, it also been made to minor. Nothing in the entire line of Marvel seemed to acknowledge that book.
It had Thor, Sam Wilson, Ms Marvel, Vision, Iron-Man and Nova each having a solo at the time. But none of their solo really even played with them being Avengers. Except may be Visions but it really was shown as some sort of super hero office job.

And because it was low key, using those characters made them low key. You want to show your new generation of characters is as good as the old one that fought for the Multiverse 4 month ago ? Don't throw the Tower in issue 1 and make them live in a garage.
You make all of those characters look cheap.

Plus Kang.
I think it was in this forum where someone ask when there never was a Kang event, but his run kinda gives the answer away. He gets annoying fast.
He is purposefully confusing, so anything you do using time travel and paradox feels more random than smart in that context.
And the Kang-Avengers feud in his run lasted what, 18 issues ?

Too minor, disconnect with the universe, cheap looking, and annoying antagonist blocked this run from being the Flagship title Mavel needed and still need.

And it wasn't even the best just-a-classic-Avengers-book on the shelves. Uncanny Avengers had a better mix of art, action and soap opera.

Marel tried to correct those when they passed from ANAD Avengers to Avengers, with removing characters that didn't feel like the Mightiest Heroes and giving them a new Tower. But it is sort of too late.

I hope Legacy will make the Avengers book a flagship anew with Aaron writing, if is indeed going to take the title over next Spring, a very badass team and connecting it to whatever the Universe story is going to be in a few months.

[JKtheMac]

Sorry, but it needs a better artist. Del Mundo made me drop the book. His art doesn't suit this type of book at all. I don't know what editorial was thinking.

They were thinking, 'this guy is a genius, give him something quick before somebody else notices and poaches him!'

[JKtheMac]

And because it was low key, using those characters made them low key. You want to show your new generation of characters is as good as the old one that fought for the Multiverse 4 month ago ? Don't throw the Tower in issue 1 and make them live in a garage.
You make all of those characters look cheap.

Surely this very fact reduces to absurdity. Clearly nobody is trying to do this thing you assert. Which highlights the problem of trying to see every story as some editorial strategy to replace characters. Marvel are trying to widen the IP they can potentially leverage and sure this book contained some of those characters and eventually spun off into a seperate book. But nobody anywhere is making an assertion that one team is better than another.

This is how it really goes down. Waid would have been at the writer's retreat, and the editors would have prepared a number of priorities for the kind of projects they would be focusing on. That would be backed up by publishing giving a wider perspective of how Marvel fit within the wider market of book publishing. The biggest growing sector in book publishing happened to be young adult serialised fiction, in the form of short novels and graphic novel adaptations.

The writers would be encouraged to put forward ideas and pitches for the characters that Marvel wanted to focus upon and Waid probably pitched his ideas and had some say over which characters he wanted to use. Probably more say than a few other writers, because he is higher up the food chain. He would have shaped the direction of the story, the tone, just about everything we would recognise as the comic we now have in the back catalogue.

There is a huge difference between Marvel providing a strategic steer and actually providing a creative one. The whole point of the gap between Secret Wars and ANAD was to avoid the creative behemoth that could have effectively meant the writers just putting together stories within an editorial strategy instead of a creative one. Secret Wars was so huge it would have dominated every story at the beginning and effectively a good part of the following year would have meant writers working with a creative space carved out by somebody else. That is not how you get good stories, and Marvel have learnt that lesson. They learnt it around the time Alonso came onboard, and it is part of the strategy that has made Marvel very successful since.

We could have ended up with a N52 after Secret Wars. We didn't. We had a creative explosion that also widened the characters published. Now it is time to prune carefully, so as not to block out the green shoots, while leaving the supporting branches intact. That is strategy, not what we see, the deep picture of how to approach the future.

[Username taken]

I read the first arc and jumped off.

It just wasn't for me.

[ian0delond]

I am not trying to say every story as a some editorial strategy to replace every characters. I even like a good bunch of the new characters. But when starts a relaunch named All New All Different Marvel, the book called All New All Different Avengers is going to get a lot of editorial attention.
Marvel wanted a book promoting their new promising characters, Waid wanted to do a Kang story so we got ANADA. That's not a bad thing. Poor decisions during the execution is bad.

You are right you can't end Hickman's story then do a new one the next week ignoring it. You can't but you have to. So they did an eight month gap.
Problem, it didn't work.
You can say story wise there is a gap, but if there is no gap IRL you are not really going to feel like there is one. The lack of gap was the big that the Secret Wars Behemoth wasn't even over.

Again I am not saying Marvel is bad because they wanted to replace characters. I am saying Waid's Avengers was compared by the previous story, like any book with rotating creative teams, and the comparaison made its characters look cheap. Even someone working on the book, Brevoort Waid or anyone, realized the Avengers on budget was finally a not so good idea and they quickly turned back to be a team with unlimited fund.

The book had a lot of problems, I assume the book orientation was due to an editorial wish, may be I am wrong, but in one case or another those problems still happened.

[Nick Miller]

Forgettable is a good way to put it.

Like Bendis run or not, it will be remembered. Like Hickmans run or not, it will be remembered. Waids run almost seems like filler until we get a "real" Avengers book. I'm not saying it's bad but it almost leaves the sense that it's just killing time. Nothing in it really seems to matter.

This is the feeling I got when I read it when it was ANAD.

Like Waid was on cruise control

[tliscord]

There was something about Uncanny I liked ... Hank/Ultron's rebirth, Jan's role with Steve ... it felt like the right kind of Avenger story I enjoy. The art was great, loved Larraz's pencils. I think the tension Duggan created between Jan and Hank was about right, felt old school and I thought he integrated the others in well.

Adam Kubert's art felt less bold for me and Del Mundo seems more appropriate for a Dr Strange series. Waid did a nice job giving voice to the younger heroes and the tie in intro with Nadia was organic, as Hank's daughter having Jan take her under her wing so to speak.

I don't know who will continue the writing for Uncanny but I agree seeing Hank and Simon together is excellent, and getting Wanda back on a team also. What is the news about an Avengers book? Do we get the Mansion back? I like the idea of a Hank/Ultron combo actually joining. Would keep it edgy if written right. I wonder if they'd use the Panther to solidify the group?

As I've said earlier, I'd love to have the writers address that 8 month jump, and discover the multiverse/Secret War event. The event feels so large not to have the heroes come to terms with it. Could be spun as a long term plot ending with Reed, Sue, and the kids returning.

[JKtheMac]

I am not trying to say every story as a some editorial strategy to replace every characters. I even like a good bunch of the new characters. But when starts a relaunch named All New All Different Marvel, the book called All New All Different Avengers is going to get a lot of editorial attention.
Marvel wanted a book promoting their new promising characters, Waid wanted to do a Kang story so we got ANADA. That's not a bad thing. Poor decisions during the execution is bad.

You are right you can't end Hickman's story then do a new one the next week ignoring it. You can't but you have to. So they did an eight month gap.
Problem, it didn't work.
You can say story wise there is a gap, but if there is no gap IRL you are not really going to feel like there is one. The lack of gap was the big that the Secret Wars Behemoth wasn't even over.

Again I am not saying Marvel is bad because they wanted to replace characters. I am saying Waid's Avengers was compared by the previous story, like any book with rotating creative teams, and the comparaison made its characters look cheap. Even someone working on the book, Brevoort Waid or anyone, realized the Avengers on budget was finally a not so good idea and they quickly turned back to be a team with unlimited fund.

The book had a lot of problems, I assume the book orientation was due to an editorial wish, may be I am wrong, but in one case or another those problems still happened.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the gap wasn't so much that it avoided Secret Wars, but that they tried to do too much with the gap. It was perhaps too much of a blank slate, and it left many disoriented, with many stories apparently occurring in a brand new status quo and a pregnant gap in the middle suggesting and promising lots of story but not actually paying off very well. I won't bother to list the ones that this caused issues with, but there were a few.

On the other hand I think this book, although not my favourite, was a qualified success in its exploration of the legacy characters, away from their individual status quo, and the decision to use the reacquired Champions brand on the younger spin-off team was in my opinion a bigger success.

There is an issue with over-promotion of The Avengers as a team in the comics. The canon is not particularly relevant to the movies, and so they have to make potential new readers care about Avengers themes and concepts the wider audience may not be aware of. This has always been a problem for me as someone that gravitates to X-Men and not Avengers. I don't always care about people like Kang or Ultron. I have never been a particularly invested Avengers reader, and I was mostly in this to see how Miles interacted with Kamala and Sam, and how they in turn would interact with the wider team. I wasn't even in it for Thor, because I know most of this won't impact the solo book.

So on one level I thought this book was interesting and spawned an even more interesting book in Champions.

The Kang story was interesting but it felt much like other recent Kang stories. It had an interesting ending in the last few months, and I am not sure if it is over or not. The art is fabulous though. It has kept me reading a book I might otherwise drop.