What was Cool about Marvel Now: The Avengers pt 1

What exactly is "Marvel Now"? Like the "Heroic Age" "Dark Age" before it, "Marvel Now" and the subsequent "All-New Marvel Now" are stamps branding certain Marvel comics to mark out distinct time periods, like any show's seasons or Marvel Studios phases of movie releases. For the purpose of this series of articles we'll call "Marvel Now" is the period from the end of 2012's Avengers Versus X-Men until the 2015 event Secret Wars. Overall the spirit of "Marvel Now" has been all about taking titles into bold new directions while simultaneously celebrating Marvel's long history.

The Avengers have always been about bringing together Marvel's popular characters to face large-scale threats, and for decades their numbers have increased adding more classic characters like Captain America, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Ms. Marvel and, at times, Beast and members of the Fantastic Four as well as original characters like Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Vision. 2005's New Avengers famously added Wolverine, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Power-Man and newcomers Ronin, and Sentry (whose secret origin is interesting enough to be its own article). In "Marvel Now" the Avengers titles continued this tradition by increasing their ranks both in number and in diversity. In 2012's Avengers series writer, Jonathan Hickman, shows us Tony Stark and Steve Rogers actively trying to increase the team's scope by creating distinct units each led by a veteran Avenger. Captain America's unit brings in classic New Mutants/X-Force characters, Cannonball, and Sunspot, new versions of Captain Universe and Smasher, and one of my favorite additions, Hyperion. He's a lone survivor of a lost world where he and other heroes fought a seemingly endless battle for truth and justice. If that sounds familiar, its for a good reason Hyperion was originally created as a proxy for Superman in Squadron Supreme, a Marvel parody of DC's Justice League (btw the spoofing was mutual; look up Lord Havok and the Extremists). In essence Hyperion is the closest Marvel could get to actually using Superman without infringing on the expensive copyright. Along with new characters, Nightmask and Starbrand, these Avengers face cosmic scale threats. Expanding the Avengers not only in numbers, but also its structure is the "bold new direction" for this family of titles. Although there have been different co-existent teams in the past (like West Coast Avengers) there's never been a greater variety of teams, each distinctive yet 100% Avengers.

Another Avengers unit is led by Luke Cage (formerly Power-Man, one of Marvel's early black heroes). In the pages of 2013's Mighty Avengers by writer Al Ewing, Cage is joined by Falcon, a new Power-Man, White Tiger (a heroine whose powers are related to Black Panther), Spectrum (who served as an Avenger as the second Ms. Marvel),She-Hulk, Superior Spider-Man (who will be discussed in depth in the upcoming "What was Cool About Marvel NOW: Spider-Man), and a few other interesting additions. A new version of Ronin comes in. Ronin is a guise used by several heroes to further conceal their identities, most notably Clint Barton secretly joined the New Avengers as Ronin while a shape-shifting Skrull was masquerading as Hawkeye. In Mighty Avengers after a mysterious hero enters a battle wearing a knock-off Spider-Man Halloween costume, he later dons the Ronin costume to join the team properly. The reveal of this Ronin is a cool moment, but if you don't mind the spoiler, highlight the grey text here. It's Blade. Another noteworthy member is Blue Marvel. Technically a new character, he was introduced in 2009's Adam: The Legend of Blue Marvel, as Adam Brashear, a longtime hero who was asked to retire by President Kennedy when it was revealed that he was a black man as the public in the 1960's could not accept a black hero.  As a concept, Blue Marvel is commentary on comics' history, pointing out the lack of diversity in the so-called "Golden" and "Silver" ages of the comic industry. I would argue that since the 60's there have been many strides in regards to diversity in comics in general. Mighty Avengers is certainly a step in that direction being the first Avengers team in which the majority of members are black characters.

Another "Marvel Now" Avengers book that addresses diversity is Uncanny Avengers. While it's not really about racial diversity in the traditional sense, the unit featured here is made up of mutant and on-mutant heroes. Formed after the event's of Avengers vs X-Men, in which those two both teams were at odds over what to do about the approaching cosmic entity known as the Phoenix. The conflict brought out some deep down resentment, magnified by the fact that mutants had been on the brink of extinction since the House of M storyline. During a scuffle Cyclops accuses Captain America of never supporting the mutant cause, that though he was never against mutants, he never stood up against their oppression and in his silence condoned it. After the dust settled, and Cyclops was in jail, Cap decided it was time to make a difference in this fight. He started by reaching out to a respected mutant leader, and former government agent: Alex Summers and asking him to lead his own unit of Avengers. In the wake of his brother Cyclops' actions in AvX Alex, or Havok was the best choice for Captain America to show people that not all mutants are bad. Whatever you may think about Cyclops (whom you can read more about here) if you saw Havok very publicly stepping up as an Avenger you'd think "Oh there's that guy's brother. I guess maybe mutants aren't all bad." The rest of the team are a delicious blend of classic X-Ment and Avengers: Wolverine, Sunfire, Rogue, Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, Thor, and Wasp. Dubbed the "Unity Squad", the idea is to try to set an example just by being who they are and working together. Some adversaries they face are Red Skull with the transplanted powers of Charles Xavier, and the Apocalypse Twins: Eimin and Uriel. Who are metaphorically perfect for the intentions of this book. Red Skull, a Nazi is a remnant of bigotry and the idea of racial purity. Eimin and Uriel were raised by isolated cultists who worship Apocalypse, to eliminate the human race so mutants can take their place as the dominant species. So of course, the team that exists to promote cooperation across lines that fascists would use divide humanity, work against actual fascists.

Lastly 2013's New Avengers also by Jonathan Hickman follows the secret goings-on of Marvel's Illuminati following the death of Charles Xavier. Xavier along with Reed Richards, Dr. Strange, Iron Man, Black Bolt, and Sub-Mariner formed the Illuminati as a secret "think-tank," after Iron Man realized that the Skrull/Kree War could have been avoided if these six had shared they'd shared information better. Since then, the Illuminati gathered to deal with the Infinity Gems (which they divided between the six original members), guys like the Beyonder, the Sentry and other large-scale threats, best dealt with in secret. Over the years the group has been disbanded but reconvene when circumstances are dire enough to force them together. At the start of this book Richards, and Black Panther discover what they call "incursions" which seem to be a result of the collapse of Marvel's multiverse. In one of these events another Earth will seem to appear in the sky, but only visible to people directly in the "incursion zone". The way Richards spells it out, there are only two ways for an incursion to end, the planets collide destroying both universes or if one planet is destroyed, one is spared and both universes survive. Black Panther was the first to witness one. Shortly after he saw a planet appear out of nowhere, he spotted some figures leaving the planet just before it exploded. This is our introduction to the mysterious Black Swan. The Illuminati capture her and we learn that she worships a cosmic being called Rabum Allal, and travels the multiverse using the incursions, always destroying the planet before abandoning it for the next one. According to the rules of the incursion, she actually saved Earth 616. She also mentions that a Black Swan is by no means the worst being to encounter through an Incursion, and that the heroes' destruction would've been assured against their competitors the Black Priests, or the Mapmakers. Initially to try to stop an incursion the Illuminati decide its time to break out the Infinity Gems. Before he died, Xavier left a secret telepathic will in the subconscious of longtime X-Man, Hank McCoy telling him how to retrieve the Mind Gem, forcing Beast into the Illuminati. This series is also important for Iron Man's character arc. As Marvel's premier weapons maker, can/would/should he make a weapon capable of destroying a planet? Also, at first Captain America helped with the group's decision-making, but when destroying planets to save their own started to look like a viable option, Cap refused to consider it. The Illuminati's shocking solution to kicking Captain America out and keeping him quiet is a pivotal moment in which the illuminati turns on him and Dr. Strange wipes his memory. This story unfolds for two years, as Hickman continually pushes the Illuminati past moral lines to preserve the planet as the incursions become more frequent, and the pressure increases as the Illuminati are opposed by multiversal threats as well as the Avengers themselves. New Avengers ends in a crossover with Hickman's aforementioned Avengers called "Time Runs Out." When Cap finds out what they did and that Tony's drive to expand the Avengers was a way to keep him distracted, he enlists Hawkeye, Black Widow, Spider-Woman, Captain Marvel and S.H.I.E.L.D to hunt down anyone associated with the Illuminati. Also Sub-Mariner breaks off from the Illuminati and starts a group called the Cabal. Namor brings together Thanos, two of his lieutenants Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive, Black Swan, and Terrax from another universe stranded on Earth 616 since a previous incursion (which happened to solve itself as that universe's Galactus devoured the earth before it could collide). Namor assembled this group to do destroy planets in any subsequent incursion. But they begin to relish in what the Illuminati only would do out of desperation, and the Avengers are caught in the middle as the three groups prepare for the final incursion in which Earth 1610, the world from Marvel's Ultimate line is set to collide with 616 leading directly to the 2015 event Secret Wars in which the surviving heroes try to make sense of what is left.

Somehow without anyone knowing Doctor Doom has prepared an insane plan in preparation for this scenario. With the help of Molecule Man and Dr. Strange to defeat the Beyonders and steal their power, Doom was able to create a world using fragments of many worlds throughout the history of the multiverse. Each fragment became a different region of what's known as Battleworld. There's one from an Earth where 2005's Civil War never ended, one from a future earth decades after the events of Days of Future Past, and many many others that allow writers and artists to explore what classic Marvel stories would look like if they had never been resolved. Along with a multitude of titles exploring these regions the Secret Wars title shows us Doom at his seat of power in control of the whole planet whose history was re-written so that the populace believes that Doom is God save for the handful of "rebels" who seek to end his reign. After which will come the next "era" called "All-New Marvel."

"But what about the solo-Avengers books?" I hear you asking. Check out the upcoming "What was Cool about Marvel Now: The Avengers pt 2."