Avengers Academy #1
Written by Christos Gage
Art by Mike McKone
Going into this book I was expecting the thematic followup to The Initiative, with young heroes being trained by veterans as the next generation. I mean, that’s what the title says with “Avengers Academy”, so I was under the impression that our cast of characters would be part of a greater cast, like the first class of Initiative (Cloud 9, Hardball, Komodo, etc). But instead we get something quite a bit different, these six kids ARE the Academy. They’re the team, and to be honest, realizing this really spiked my interest during the read.
Gage gives us the origin of one of the characters to open up the issue, and we follow them as a point of view for the majority of the issue. We meet the rest of the cast, from the students to the teachers, and Gage manages to give us a general idea of the characterization of everyone. As far as first issues go, it was a nice introduction to the concept, the characters, and a good tease at the ongoing plot. Very solid. Some of the kids are likable, some of them are dicks, but they all find their own voice. The actual origin of the team is revealed in the issue as well, but I’m not going to spoil that here….you can find that in the Spoiler Warnings post elsewhere on the site.
The characters are actually quite engaging, even though five of our six main characters are debuting in this issue. But one of the standouts to me is an instructor, actually, as we see Robbie Baldwin return to the mantle of Speedball and….well, just because he’s not wearing the spikey bondage outfit of Penance doesn’t mean he’s all fun and games anymore. He knows first hand how easy it is to make a mistake that costs the lives of hundreds, and even though he’s no longer physically torturing himself over it, there are deep psychological effects that begin to show. It’s a very good way to characterize him, and shows promise to keep the character interesting for the long haul.
Quicksilver is an odd choice for an instructor, I mean, thematically he makes perfect sense given the nature of the book, but after his run in Mighty Avengers as someone who was only there to find his sister, it seems odd that he’d join up with Pym (who he was not a huge fan of when Mighty wrapped) to teach the new kids. Especially with Wanda still missing. That said, I do like Pietro and am happy to see him in a monthly book.
Mike McKone hits a homerun on art. The kids have a youthful look to them, from their faces to their looks, to the body language they give off. The instructors, while not standing heads taller then the kids, defintely look like veterans with stiffer expressions. Speedball’s new costume is great. Everything is clean, everyone looks distinct, and I can not express how happy I am to see McKone working on a monthly that I read again. I love his style, and if anything, feel that he doesn’t do long enough runs on books.
And then, on top of everything, the book has an ending that I’d put on par with the ending of Thunderbolts #1 as far as mind blowing cliffhangers go. And while the issue was doing great before it happened, the ending only cemented the awesome of this book. Marvel might have finally put together all the pieces to create a top notch teen superhero team book, and I can not wait for the next issue.
Overall?
9/10
