The Long and Short Of It – Avengers – The Initiative #1

Avengers – The Initiative #1

Writer: Dan Slott
Artist: Stefano Caselli
Colours: Daniele Rudoni
Letters: VC’s Joe Caramagna

The Long of It

This week, the Civil War fallout continues, as “The Initiative” opens its doors to a bunch of new recruits, at the newly-built Camp Hammond in a town called Stamford, Connecticut. You may have heard of it….? This camp is the first step in establishing one more of the Stark-Pym-Richards List of 100 Great Ideas, that of having a super-team working for S.H.I.E.L.D. in every one of the fifty states. I suppose they must have done their sums wrong or something, because by including Captain Britain on the cover they’re clearly going for all fifty-one states of the U.S.

Anyhoo, as the issue opens we’re introduced to The Gauntlet, who is Camp Hammond’s equivalent of the Steers-and-Queers Guy from Officer and a Gentleman. He’s the drill sergeant from hell, who has the amazing super-power of wearing a gauntlet that can project an energy-hand. Whoop-de-doo. Must’ve been at the front of the list there, sarge. Oh, and he possibly also has the power of changing size. Because he’s about a foot shorter than She-Hulk on the cover, and six-inches taller than her inside the issue. I love consistency like that.

We’re also introduced to some of the new recruits, like Cloud 9, MVP, and Armory (dammit, I really wanna put a “u” in her name, but since it is a name, I can’t), and very briefly to even more (Trauma, Rage, Hardball, Thor Girl, Komodo, Slapstick, Bengal & Ultra-Girl). And it would have been so satisfying to have seen Rage an Ultra-Girl kick the crap out of Gauntlet when he started pissing on the graves of the New Warriors, but sadly it was not to be.

We see how great an asset MVP will be from his physical prowess. We see what a gentleman he is. We see Armory despatch training robots very effectively on her own. We see MVP make a daring rescue. Then we see both of them lost to us, as a panicking Armory blows MVPs head off. So next issue, I suppose we’re going to see others come under focus. Of course, we didn’t really see all that, because officially “nothing happened”. Nobody died. MVP must’ve just suffered a severe “hole-in-the-head”-related injury.

Overall, I’d say this was a good first issue. Nothing amazing, spectacular, sensational, incredible, astonishing, uncanny or fantastic. But solid, and thoroughly readable. I’m a huge Dan Slott fan, so anything that shows he’s being taken a bit more seriously and given major projects is a big plus in my book. And the same with Caselli. A very good artist, being given a major project to run with. All very laudable from Marvel’s point of view, and a very good sign for the company’s future. And make no mistake, this is a major project. We’re likely to be seeing several of the 50-state teams appearing in their own series (other than the Mighty Avengers and Thunderbolts, who already have their own books). Mind you, ya do kinda have to ask yourself why states like California and Texas get the same size of superhero presence as Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont etc. Surely a New England team (the Patriots?) could cover that whole area? But if they did that, the “40-something State Initiative” probably wouldn’t sound as cool. So just give the bigger states (or more accurately the higher-population states) more than one team. But that’s not really applicable to a review of this book. It does what it does, and it does it quite well. No complaints.

But another problem I have with this whole concept, is that it’ll take away something from Marvel Comics if it continues long-term. Marvel has long been considered the place where you come to read about people who also happen to be superheroes; as opposed to at DC, where you read about superheroes who also happen to be people. Marvel characters are flawed. They make mistakes, and have to learn the ropes. If everybody’s fully trained before they get to play (to quote Hank Pym “Once you pass, your registration card will be upgraded to a full hero’s license. And if you’re among the best and brightest you’ll be offered a spot on one of our fifty nationwide teams.”), then you’ll never get to see the classic Marvel rookie characters that have stretched from Spider-Man right up to Arana. It does seem that now, with the possible exception of New X-Men, the only place you’ll see that classic Marvel rookie is at DC (in books like Blue Beetle). That to me is a shame, because if you homogenise Marvel, you’ll lose its essence.