Comic Info
Comic Name: Enter the Heroic Age/Avengers Academy
Publisher: Marvel
Writer: Christos Gage
Artist: Mike McKone/Jorge Molina
# of Issues: 7
Release Date: 2011
Avengers Academy #3 Variant
Reprints Enter the Heroic Age #1 and Avengers Academy #1-6 (July 2010-January 2011). Norman Osborn’s empire has fallen, and the Avengers are picking up the pieces…this includes Norman’s superhero training plan tied to the Avengers Initiative which left a number of students left still wary of their powers. A group of students with the codenames of Finesse, Mettle, Hazmat, Reptil, Veil, and Striker find themselves under the wings of veteran Avengers Hank Pym, Tigra, Justice, Quicksilver, and a repentant Speedball receiving special training as they go through the angst of high school. When the students of the Avengers Academy discovers the real reason behind their special training, a trip to Raft to confront Norman Osborn might not go as planned.
Written by Christos Gage, Avengers Academy Volume 1: Permanent Record is a Marvel teen superhero comic book series. The collection features art by Mike McKone and Jorge Molina. Also included in this collection are parts from Enter the Heroic Age #1 that set-up the new series.
Avengers Academy kind of replaces the void left with the fall of Marvel Comics’ Avengers: The Initiative after the Dark Reign/Siege storyline that created the Heroic Age. Instead of using members of Avengers: The Initiative, Avengers Academy created a new team of kids.
The series revolves around the characters learning that the world worries that they are going to be super-villains. This concept is kind of like the Thunderbolts in reverse and almost a sick neutering of the character before they become a problem. This is an interesting concept, and having read the series for a number of issues now, it really has a lot of room to be explored further. This storyline has the teens confront the man who made them monsters (aka Norman Osborn), but also does try to create a lot of Amazing Spider-Man teenage angst which often drives the “kids” books especially (though I feel none of them have reached the level of my favorite teen team books New Mutants).
Avengers Academy #4
All the characters except Reptil (who first appeared in The Super Hero Squad Show “To Err is Human” and then Avengers: The Initiative—Featuring Reptil #1 (May 2009)) are new so they instantly either have an advantage or disadvantage of being unknown. I really wished they had put one Initiative character or maybe a lesser known teen team member on the team just to give it a familiarity. Also the characters all genuinely seem to want to be good…it really needs a character who has already made the choice to be evil and secretly manipulating from within…that would spice things up but might make it too similar to the early issues of Runaways.
I am personally more interested in the teachers in this storyline and love that Speedball is getting back to his roots after the horrible Penance period. I love that it is a bit of New Warriors reunion for Speedball and Justice and it is also fun to see how Tigra and Pym’s relationship is developing (Jocasta also just introduces the problem of essentially being Pym’s ex-wife Jan mixed into the equation). I also had a hard time understanding Son of M with Quicksilver, and I like that Quicksilver used the Skrull invasion to cover-up his true failings instead of completely ignoring that limited series.
Avengers Academy is a bit of an underrated book. This is partially because it is more fun on paper than the actual execution, but the potential is there. Check out a decent team of kids in a series that can range from entertaining to guilty pleasure. Avengers Academy Volume 1: Permanent Record is followed by Avengers Academy Volume 2: Will We Use This in the Real World?
