By Steve Morris

Announced yesterday via roundhouse phone call, the replacement team for Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers Assemble title has been revealed as Kelly Sue DeConnick and Stefano Caselli. Their first issue together will be issue #9.

Originally a title designed to capitalise on the popularity of the Avengers movie, the book had the same cast as the movie – namely, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow and Hulk. Despite the tie to the movie, however, sales figures didn’t exactly set the chart alight, and Bendis was rumoured to be leaving the book since the moment he started on it.

DeConnick’s arrival brings with it a number of immediate changes to the title, all of them suggesting this will become simply a different Avengers book, with many ties to the movie cut. Hawkeye is out of the title, for a start, with Black Widow also leaving for a few issues (although she’ll be back). Replacing them are Captain Marvel, which is a canny move from DeConnick; as well as Spider-woman. That’s an interesting change for a start, because Spiderwoman wouldn’t be able to appear in an Avengers 2 without some severe negotiating going on between Marvel Studios and Sony.

Stefano Caselli leaves his duties as one of the rotating artists for Amazing Spider-Man in order to join the series, which doesn’t have an ongoing premise yet. Much like Astonishing X-Men, this is perhaps a title which exists because it simply does, and the purpose will get locked in at a later date. DeConnick’s interests lay in clashing the personalities of the Avengers against each other – something we haven’t seen in several years, with a ‘lived-in’ feel having slowly descended on the characters over the years. This was one of the key points in Whedon’s movie, and it’s promising to see DeConnick promising to give us some more clashes in this title. Especially fun is the idea that Bruce Banner and Tony Stark will mimic their dynamic from the movie, which was my favourite part.

Wolverine and Spider-Man will also show up at some point. But at least there’s no sign of Havok.

You can read the full transcript over on Marvel.com, if you’re so inclined.

1 COMMENT

  1. Does the artist have something against eyebrows? The Hulk has none and the A on Cap’s head is taking over his face.

  2. I LOVE Stefano Caselli, but he’s not a monthly title artist. He’s BARELY a rotating artist on Amazing Spiderman (an issue here, an issue there) so I have a feeling it won’t be long ’til this book has lots of fill-ins.

  3. Deconnick is one of the best writers Marvel has right now. Her Osborn series was fantastic and Captain Marvel is off to a solid start. Looking forward to this.

  4. Is Spider-Woman beholden to Sony? She has no connection to Peter Parker and was essentially created to preemptively protect the trademark. Given that (apparently) Marvel and Fox co-own the film rights to Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, I wouldn’t be surprised if Spider-Woman was under a similar deal with Sony, if not owned outright by Marvel.

    Either way, Spider-Woman and Captain Marvel could both fit in the movieverse’s cosmic direction, and it would be a shame for Marvel to miss the chance.

  5. Stefano Caselli leaves his duties as one of the rotating artists for Amazing Spider-Man in order to join the series, which doesn’t have an ongoing premise yet. Much like Astonishing X-Men, this is perhaps a title which exists because it simply does, and the purpose will get locked in at a later date.

    That’s been the cause of countless problems over the years. A writer with a pitch talks to an editor about a hero, and they agree that the character can sell the series. All the writer and his artist have to do is think of something for his hero to do every issue. So they try, and succeed, and fail, and have so-so issues and good issues. Eventually, if the series isn’t canceled due to low sales, the writer runs out of ideas for stories and leaves. What will he leave behind if his only intentions have been to get stuff on the pages one issue after another? Next to nothing. He hasn’t been a storyteller.

    Alexa wrote, “Brevoort compared her take to an Aaron Sorkin TV show— also appropriate given her admission to loving bantery dialogue.”

    Having fun writing characters’ dialogue is probably one of the worst reasons a writer can have for wanting to do a series, because it’s based on the superficial similarities comics have to TV and movies. Yes, jokes can be fun, banter can be fun, but they’re no substitutes for plots, conflicts, and premises. There might be people who are willing to pay $3.99 a copy to read Spider-Man’s jokes and banter, but the numbers are dwarfed by the people who watch TV for the same thing.

    SRS

  6. “Much like Astonishing X-Men, this is perhaps a title which exists because it simply does, and the purpose will get locked in at a later date.”

    …Or, not. ASTONISHING X-MEN has been chugging along for years and doesn’t seem the slightest bit interested in finding a purpose.

    If Marvel insists on bloating their X-Men and Avengers franchises beyond capacity, they really need to ask the question of “why is this book here?”. At present, I think SECRET AVENGERS is a good example of a book that has a unique angle to it (black ops rather than conventional superheroing), and most of the characters aren’t, simultaneously, members of six other teams (Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Beast are cross-pollinating, but it doesn’t feel intrusive). Many of these other books are doing nothing more than just using a different combination of the characters that are in all the other books and having them do, pretty much, the same thing just for the sake of filling pages.

  7. i’m actually looking forward to someone writing the avengers other than bendis, breath of fresh air and all. i am a wee bit confused about the current story being done in this book tho’. while i have read from marvel that this book takes place in current continuity of the MU, after reading the first few issues i get the vibe that this is a whole other continuity seperate from the main MU. does anyone know what’s going on?

  8. I’d be okay with Avengers Assemble, Astonishing X-Men, Adjectiveless X-Men and similar titles not having any real purpose if they were priced at $2.99. $3.99 is too expensive a price to throw a title at the wall to just see if it sticks.