Comic Info
Comic Name: A-Force (Limited Series)
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Marguerite Bennett/G. Willow Wilson
Artist: Jorge Molina
# of Issues: 5
Release Date: 2015
A-Force (Limited Series) #1 Variant
Reprints A-Force (Limited Series) #1-5 (July 2015-December 2015). An attack has forced a breach of the Deadlands and put the paradise island of Arcadia at risk. As Baroness She-Hulk tries to keep control of her kingdom and A-Force, the arrival of a mysterious girl could be the key to discovering the origins of the breach. Unfortunately, the actions of A-Force could put them right in the target of Doom, and the real enemy could be revealed!
Written by Marguerite Bennett and G. Willow Wilson, A-Force Volume 0: Warzones! is a five issue limited series that spun out of the Marvel Comics event series Secret Wars. Featuring art by Jorge Molina, A-Force #1 was also collected in A-Force Volume 1: Hypertime when the series continued after the end of Secret Wars.
A-Force got some press upon its release. The “all-women” Avengers team was seen both as something new but also progressive. Unfortunately for A-Force, Marvel decided to roll it out during an event month…leaving readers who went to the comic book store to seek out A-Force #1, a confusing title that doesn’t seem to fit in to the MCU or the Marvel Comics universe unless you’ve been following Secret Wars.
A-Force (Limited Series) #2 Variant
I will say with Secret Wars spin-off being spotty (some are good, some are bad, and many are just ok) that A-Force is one of the better Warzone! titles. Like most of the limited series however, the story is too quick. The world of Arcadia is revealed, developed, and left in five issues.
Unlike a title that is focused around one or two characters, A-Force is a team book and that means a lot of character vying for a limited amount of space. Sister Grimm, She-Hulk, Loki, and the new character of Singularity seem to take the largest chunk of the story, but Dazzler, America, and Medusa come to play. If A-Force was going to be introduced in Secret Wars, the characters need more time to develop and gel as a team. It feels like A-Force’s continuing series would just be a restart since the world of Battleworld is essentially a What If? world.
With this in mind, it feels like Marvel was setting up the comic of A-Force to fail. It isn’t a bad comic, but it also isn’t a reader friendly comic that helps introduce the concept. If you picked up A-Force #1, you might not have gone back for A-Force #2…and a new A-Force #1 a few months later also probably feels like a bait-and-switch to many first-time comic book readers. Still, give A-Force a chance…it feels like it deserves it. A-Force 0: Warzones! is followed by A-Force 1: Hypertime.
