Comics Books Reviews: Avengers

Showing posts with label Avengers. Show all posts

Friday, May 6, 2011

Warren Ellis on Secret Avengers Villain

Oh, that wacky Warren Ellis, saying that he wants to call the above character Arnim Zola Jesus from now on. What will he think of next? However, in his defense Zola does look particularly Jesus-like in that image, what with the big robe and the open hands.
More importantly though, this hints at what could be one of the villains in his upcoming Secret Avengers run. We know from interviews that each issue is going to be stand-alone and feature one of the members of the team. Arnim Zola is a long-time Captain America foe, so it's probable that he would show up on the issue centering on Steve Rogers. Switching it up with another member of Secret Avengers (Beast, perhaps?) would be quite fun though. As far as I can tell, the last time Zola showed up was during Captain America: Reborn.
In Pullquotes, we present a quote and related imagery, to provide a source of discussion and/or thought among our readers. Feel free to comment on the above image.

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Posted byMatt Duarteat7:08 PM

Thought Bubbles:Pullquotes,Secret Avengers,Warren Ellis

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1 comments:

Space Jawasaid...

I don't think I'm going to be able to avoid purchasing Ellis' run on Secret Avengers at this point. <__<

May 3, 2011 7:24 PM

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Secret Origin of the Avengers

As I have said repeatedly before, Formspring is a constant source of information and interaction with comic book professionals, and no one shares more than Tom Brevoort. Marvel's SVP recently shared the as a book. I wasn't familiar with this story at all, and I don't think many people are, so I felt it was worth sharing it far and wide. Hit the jump to see how the Avengers got their start, and how Daredevil ties into everything.

On Brevoort's Formspring page, there had been a long discussion over what the Avengers roster should look like, and people complaining about the current team, etc. However, from there the discussion turned towards the origin behind the Avengers as a book, and Brevoort shared this little historical gem...
I don't have the room to do this justice, but here's a Reader's Digest version. Martin Goodman, Marvel's publisher at the time, was famous for flooding the market with anything that worked. So in early 1963, after the first bunch of Marvel super hero releases started to hit, he told Stan, "Give me another Spider-Man and another Fantastic Four." In other words, new characters who were very much like those characters, and would appeal to the same audience.

So two books were started: X-Men, which was the Fantastic Four style book (and even says so on the first two covers) with a team of heroes in identical blue costumes fighting a guy who resembles Doctor Doom on the cover; and Daredevil, which was the Spider-Man book (and says so on the first cover as well), the quippy urban adventurer. Now, Stan was smart enough to do more with these characters and concepts that simply knocking off his earlier characters, but that's where they started. But Bill Everett, with whom Stan co-created Daredevil, had both a day job and a drinking problem. And so production on DAREDEVIL #1 fell way behind. In those days, you booked print time way ahead of time--and if your book wasn't ready, you paid for the printing time anyway. So it was vital to get something to press on time. But Bill Everett was a favorite of Martin Goodman, stemming back to the 40s when he created the Sub-Mariner.

Regardless, there was suddenly a hole in the schedule, with no book where a book should be. In trying to solve this problem, Stan hit on the notion of doing a strip that brought all of the heroes together JLA-style--that would be a book that wouldn't require any ramp-up time, because the characters (and even the villain) all existed already. So he and Jack Kirby brainstormed the first issue, Kirby drew it up hastily, Dick Ayers inked it in what looks like no time flat, and it came out the same month as X-MEN #1. (DAREDEVIL #1 followed around six months later--with Steve Ditko pitching in to help finish it up, and with a different artist on it beginning with #2.)
Interesting, isn't it? Had Bill Everett not been running late with his work on Daredevil, things would have turned out completely different. I don't think that Marvel would have gone on long without a JLA-like team, considering how popular that franchise was, but it could have been at a later time, and with a completely different roster (even Daredevil) or maybe new characters. Hey, that sounds like an interesting “What If?”...
In any case, if you haven't checked Formspring yet, it really is a wonderful website to get involved with creators. Breevort answers a lot of questions, and while a lot of them are about calming down angry Jean Grey / Hulk / Thor fans, every now and then, we get really interesting behind the scenes look at the comic industry like the one above.

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Posted byMatt Duarteat3:36 PM

Thought Bubbles:Avengers,Formspring,Opinion/Editorial

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3comments:

Naymlapsaid...

To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.

April 18, 2011 4:18 PM

twobitspecialistsaid...

This is actually rather interesting.

April 18, 2011 4:35 PM

Eric in Ottawasaid...

Tom Brevoort always has really interesting insights! For a while, he had a great, short blog series called something to the effect of "Books I screwed up."

Anytime he shares a story like this, I'm all ears (...or eyes).

April 18, 2011 8:00 PM

Friday, December 3, 2010

Exclusive preview: Avengers Academy #7

| Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources – Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment --> Comic Book Resources Comic Book Resources

News All News News Archives Comic Books TV/Film Video Games Web Comics Previews Press Releases Columns All Columns Cup O' Joe Flogging A Dead Horse One Fan's Opinion Permanent Damage Pipeline Pipeline Podcast ReTales The Buy Pile Tilting at Windmills When Words Collide Reviews All Reviews DC Comics Marvel Comics Image Comics Dark Horse Comics Blogs All CBR Blogs Comics Should Be Good Robot 6 Spinoff Online CBR Live! Video All Video CBR TV Trailers/Promo Community CBR Forums Homepage DC Comics Forums Marvel Comics Forums Independent Comics Forum CBR Specific Forums Miscellaneous Forums Hosted Forums Resources Comic Hubs Comic Shop Locator Comics Twitter Directory Events Calendar Links Database RSS Feeds/Social Network Polls About Report A Bug Contact Us Media Kit/Advertising Privacy Policy Site Credits Robot 6Exclusive preview: Avengers Academy #7 Posted on December 1, 2010 - 12:30 PM by JK Parkin

Bring on your wrecking ball!

Avengers Academy #7 brings the return of Hank Pym’s Giant-Man alter ego, as he and the rest of the AA crew take on the Absorbing Man. The issue is written by Christos Gage and drawn by Tom Raney. Marvel released some preview pages for it already, but they were kind enough to send over three more for us to share with you.

Our own Tim O’Shea has an interview with Gage coming up in a couple of weeks, so keep an eye out for it!

*****

AVENGERS ACADEMY #7 (OCT100574)
AVENGERS ACADEMY #7 MCGUINNESS VARIANT (OCT100575)
AVENGERS ACADEMY #7 TRON VARIANT (OCT100576)
Written by CHRISTOS GAGE
Pencils by TOM RANEY
Variant Cover by ED McGUINNESS
Tron Variant by BRANDON PETERSON
Rated A …$2.99
FOC – 11/19/10, On-Sale – 12/15/10