Somewhat fresh, slightly stale
The new Avengers ongoing series kicks off with a fresh start for some old characters.
ANOTHER year, another Marvel reboot/relaunch/regurgitation. Avengers #1 is the first title to be launched in Marvel’s “Fresh Start” company-wide relaunch.
How fresh this start will be depends on how you’ve viewed the other four times in the last six years Marvel has done this. There was 2012’s Marvel NOW!, 2015’s All-New, All-Different Marvel, 2016’s Marvel NOW! 2.0, and just last year, Marvel Legacy – all of which promised a “fresh start” for Marvel’s characters.
So far, 17 first issues have been announced for Fresh Start, to be released in May and June, and with a new Fantastic Four written by Dan Slott and Sara Pichelli, also coming in August.
Avengers #1, however, doesn’t feel like a fresh start at all, more like a restart for some of its more iconic characters.
After spending a couple of years as an old man, then a villain in last year’s Secret Empire, Steve Rogers has taken back the mantle of Captain America from Sam Wilson. Having been put in a coma after Civil War II and letting Riri Williams a.k.a. Ironheart run around as his successor for a while. Tony Stark is back as Iron Man. And last but not least, the female Thor (Jane Foster) is now dead, paving the way for the Odinson to return as the God of Thunder.
So far, so old school. Maybe Marvel is just trying to cash in on the raised profile of these characters following Avengers: Infinity War. Or maybe they are just running out of ideas. Who knows?
What we do know is that this new Avengers series doesn’t start out too bad at all. It opens with the Avengers of 1,000,000 BC (introduced in last year’s Marvel Legacy #1) facing an attack by the mighty cosmic beings called the Celestials, before cutting to the present, where Tony, Steve and Thor are enjoying a quiet chat over drinks and reminisicing about what has transpired in the past few years.
Steve is eager to get the team assembled once more, Tony isn’t so keen, while Thor is just happy to be Thor again.
At the same time, we are introduced to the other potential members of this new Avengers team – Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Dr Strange, Ghost Rider (the Robbie Reyes version) and She-Hulk, which is quite an intriguing mix, to be honest.
I look forward to seeing how well this version of the Ghost Rider plays with others, and how Captain Marvel and Iron Man reconcile their differences after falling out so dramatically during Civil War II.
Co-writer Jason Aaron is no stranger to Marvel’s reboots and relaunches, having overseen the Thor titles over the past few years as well as Doctor Strange and the new Star Wars series in 2015. With Avengers, however, he and fellow co-writer Ed McGuinness face the challenge of not only making the new team gel, but also giving them a threat big enough to be worthy of the Avengers assembling.
While reading this, however, I got a bit of a “been-there, done that” vibe from this new enemy they are facing. True, it may be new, and yes, it’s a formidable foe, but it just doesn’t seem very original, to tell the truth. Here’s hoping that Aaron has something more surprising up his sleeve for the future issues, otherwise this fresh start might end up a little stale.