by Charlie Brooks, CMRO Contributing Writer
Avengers: The Initiative
Issue #4
Written by Dan Slott, Art by Stefano Caselli
Published: September 2007
It’s tough to introduce new characters in comics. There’s a reason why the Golden Age and Silver Age are referred to in terms of precious metals, while everything that follows falls into the “other” category. Those classic heroes have the benefit of brand recognition – people who don’t even know what a comic is still know who Spider-Man is and what his powers are. In modern days, it’s been very hard for younger superheroes to get that sort of traction. Avengers: The Initiative #4 highlights both the possibilities and the problems of trying to introduce readers to lesser-known characters, all while simultaneously tying into the World War Hulk event.
Avengers: The Initiative follows the adventures of a superhero academy. In the aftermath of Marvel’s Civil War event, Iron Man took a government job and instituted a plan to have a superhero group in every state in the US. Our heroes are those raw recruits, here dragged in way over their heads when they charge into battle against the Hulk. There’s a lot of potential here – the characters are interesting in both their powers and personalities. We have some strife early on when one of our main characters, Hardball, winds up stealing technology from Hank Pym in order to sell it and end his family’s troubles. The art is solid, and Dan Slott is one of the better writers at Marvel, capable of writing a diverse cast of characters with ease. Given time, these new characters could become just as interesting as Spider-Man, the Hulk, or Captain America.
The problem is, as with many team books, that we never actually get to delve deeply into the characters. There are just too darned many of them.
When introducing new characters, the tendency is to use a shotgun approach – introduce an entire team of B-list or brand new superheroes and hope that the audience likes some of them. After all, that’s how Marvel’s big gun Wolverine came about – he was one of a number of new X-Men and became a breakout character. But more often than not, crowding the book with little-known characters leaves it difficult for new readers to latch onto them. In the case of this book, somebody coming into the story knows that Hardball is willing to steal for his family, Cloud Nine is going through something, and something is going on with a guy known as MVP, but we don’t really find out what.
As to plot, The Initiative #4 is yet another World War Hulk tie-in that summarizes what we already known about the event. We even get yet another series of quotes from World War Hulk #1, in case we missed it the first ten times. This issue does give us a behind the scenes look at why Iron Man’s nanotech failed to stop the Hulk, though: the tech Hardball stole was actually the stuff that was supposed to depower the Hulk. I personally liked it better when it seemed that the Hulk’s rage managed to overcome it, but I guess it doesn’t really make a difference if Dan Slott wanted to give a different explanation. The story ends with a big splash page that shows the Hulk and his Warbound having bested the Marvel heroes a la World War Hulk #2, implying that next issue will be a big fight.
I may sound less than charitable toward Avengers: The Initiative #4, but it’s not really a bad story – it’s a bad story to include in a crossover, because it doesn’t provide any grounding for new readers. But by the time this issue was released, The Initiative itself was only a few issues old, so it was already in a tough spot coming in. For those willing to hunt down back issues and stick through the rough spots here, there’s a lot of potential. That potential would eventually kick into high gear years down the road when The Initiative got replaced by Avengers Academy, but this is a good start. While it should definitely not be considered a jumping on point for readers, it represents a valiant effort at introducing new superheroes to the Marvel Universe, and that is something we’ll need more of if we want comics to continue to survive.
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