tHrOUgH tHe ages
Marvel’s fresh faces meet the old guard in new event Generations
In recent years, Marvel has been gradually introducing more youthful, diverse versions of iconic characters like Thor and Captain America. Next month, the young upstarts will meet their older counterparts in Generations, a new 10-parter that springs out of the ongoing Secret Empire crossover. “While it catapults out of something that occurs during Secret Empire, Generations is very much it’s own thing,” Marvel executive editor Tom Brevoort tells Red Alert. “It’s a lot more intimate and characterisation-based than what you’d typically think of as an event book.” It’s written and drawn by various creative teams – Brian Michael Bendis will script both Miles Morales’ liaison with Peter Parker in Generations: The Spiders and Riri Williams’s encounter with Tony Stark in Generations: The Iron. “Most of Generations will have the modern character meeting their predecessor in the past at a critical juncture,” says Bendis. “Miles will be visiting Peter at a very specific time that Miles will be surprised by, whereas Riri will be visiting Tony Stark: Sorcerer Supreme in a far-flung future, and by doing so she will learn about the Iron Man legacy.” “The meet-ups were pretty obvious from when we first began to talk about this idea, as they are most if not all of our mainstay characters, who have taken up the mantle or the inspiration of some previous classic hero,” explains Brevoort, insisting that the likes of Riri Williams are not being phased out in favour of their more seasoned forebears. “Each of these books is its own story, so some will be happy, some sad, some tragic,” he says. “In the most general sense, we’re not looking to wipe out all of these new characters that we’ve invested all this time and energy into. At the same time, we’re not discarding the classic iterations of these different heroes. Generations represents the best of both worlds, and will help to define what each generation can learn and take from the other.”
Marvel’s Generations kicks off in August.