I don’t know if it’s a champagne hangover I’m currently sporting or if it’s one brought on by comic books.
Between Christmas gifts and Boxing Day sales, I’ve been reading a lot of sequential art in my free time over the last seven days. Perhaps you have too! But Wednesday, January 2, 2013 is the first “new comics” release date of the brand new year and, like every other Wednesday, there’s something that has me raising a quizzical eye and more than a little excited at storytelling possibilities.
And yeah, you need to get it NOW!
New Avengers #1
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
Illustrated by: Steve Epting
Published by: Marvel Comics
A few months back, Marvel Comics began their Marvel NOW! initiative. If you’re cynical, you could say it was a response to DC Comics’ New 52 inventiveness from the fall of 2011. I suppose the “House of Ideas” is attempting to replicate that sales success. Hey, whatever drives better comics, right?
Anyway, Marvel NOW! sees reboots and re-numberings of various titles, a new status quo for select characters and, perhaps most importantly, new artistic teams on books fans wouldn’t necessarily associate those writers and artists with. Case in point, Jonathan Hickman writing and Steve Epting drawing New Avengers #1.
Hickman, over the last few years, had become synonymous with the Fantastic Four family of titles. In an acclaimed run, not only did the writer (kind of and temporarily) kill off The Human Torch, but he, along with Epting, also established the Future Foundation as a viable comic book in its own right. Now he’s taken the reigns of some of Marvel’s other foundational characters – ones normally associated with writer Brian Michael Bendis – who’s off to write X-Men co-incidentally. Yeah, it’s a like musical chairs, but when the music stops, readers should see a brand new freshness to these time-honoured characters.
New Avengers #1 features: Black Panther, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Black Bolt, Mister Fantastic, Namor the Sub-Mariner and Beast, fighting against “an infinite legion of parallel realities” that must, of course, be devious in nature. It looks like Hickman has brought some of his FF sci-fi along with him for the ride he’s taking us on!
So, as Marvel dictates, make the run NOW! This New Avengers ride looks to be a wild ride indeed – and you’re going to want to be on it!
Every Wednesday, JP makes the after-work run to his local downtown comic book shop. Comics arrive on Wednesdays you see and JP, fearful that the latest issue will sell out, rushes out to purchase his copy. This regular, weekly column will highlight a particularly interesting release, written in short order, of course, because JP has to get his – before someone else does!
