Not sure how it's going to pan out but it looks like she's a goner.
But like Dread mentioned, Wanda is so damn powerful, she may come right back. I just hope when it's all said and done there's millions of mutants back on the earth.
That would be excellent, especially now that the school is back. Plus, it'd open up some interesting avenues for Cyclops. He'd be a man who committed himself to extinction-level war suddenly having his war yanked out from under him; basically a soldier who's gotta readjust to (relatively) normal society.
In fairness, it isn't assured that she's dead. I mean, Bucky Barnes had almost the exact same "death scene" in FEAR ITSELF #3, only to be back in FEAR ITSELF #7.1. Considering that Scarlet Witch's powers can pretty much do anything at this point, and there's likely a medic between the assembled X-Men and Avengers, I am waiting until the series is finished to pass judgment. Until someone unquestioningly says that someone is dead and their every atom is vaporized by the sun, a death in comics isn't assured. And sometimes even then. Bendis has become a master at resurrecting clearly dead villains without needing to explain why; NEW AVENGERS #2 had a slew of them, as does MOON KNIGHT.
That said, I would hate for Stature to go. It would be a textbook designated corpse moment. Female character, young character, unpopular character (in that she can't sell a series by herself), out of left field, who Heinberg didn't create or co-create unlike the others. I don't think there's room for Scott Lang anymore, given that we already have Eric O'Grady as Ant-Man, Pym back as Giant-Man and even Rita ****ing DeMara back as Yellowjacket after CHAOS WAR: DEAD AVENGERS technically. Every Pym hanger on is alive again, unless he decided to take Janet's name as Wasp, since Pym ditched it. Or retire in grief, if Stature is dead. Stature is a new legacy character, like Kevin Masterson's Thunderstrike, that is a long time coming. Marvel desperately needs new blood to catch on, and icing any "young" character to me is counter productive.
Marvel's got a lot of younger heroes, though. Killing off a few--especially ones who aren't very good, which is a category Stature falls into for me--doesn't seem like it'll impede their plans to promote younger heroes much.
Stature isn't Academy material. She could serve on the New Avengers. With Bendis leaving, the book will have zero direction - make it a book for sophomore Avengers and former New Warriors.
Or just cancel it. Throw Bendis' pet characters back onto Avengers, since he'll still be writing that and it's never really been the classic, big-action Avengers series Marvel indicated it would be anyway.
I'm all for keeping NA around if they emphasize the "New" in the title. Put heroes on the team that have never served or have on a limited basis in the past.
I guess I wouldn't mind New Avengers as a more rookie-ish team. Maybe have Justice and Speedball head it, since they departed Avengers Academy to focus more on just being heroes. Throw in some of the Excelsior gang, a few Runaways, and some of the younger versions of classic heroes like Thunderstrike and Spider-Girl. I'd read that.
No word on that yet. The only thing that's been announced is that he's leaving sometime in 2012. If I had to guess - sometime in the fall after the movie has been long out of theaters. I'm hoping for Waid on the main Avengers book. I guess you missed that whole convo in the Avengers thread.
I remember a conversation about who should take over after Bendis, but I think I assumed it was just a "what if" fantasy. Bendis seemed to have married himself to the Avengers franchise pretty hard. I'd given up hope of ever seeing him leave.
Anyway, so long as it's not Fraction or some random, terrible writer like Bruce Jones or Daniel Way, I'll have to check out the whole Avengers line when he's replaced to reassess what's worth reading and what's not. Exciting!
If it's anybody but Waid, Remender or Aaron I'm not getting it. A few folks mentioned Hickman but he totally lost my interest on FF. It was way too drawn out.
AVENGERS: THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE #8: This five year delayed, and constantly behind schedule bi-monthly mini series by writer Allan Heinberg and artist Jim Cheung, releases the next issue. For the record, the previous issue came out on Sept. 21st, and even on bi-monthly standards, this is a month late. This lateness has worked in Marvel's favor, as it will supposedly end next year just in time for AVENGERS VS. X-MEN, their 2012 event. Editor in chief Axel Alonso has insisted this was a happy accident and not design, and given that this issue has two credited inkers (plus Cheung) and two colorists in tow, the lateness was likely organic. The primary strength of this series continues to be the artwork, even if Cheung struggles to make faces that don't all look a bit similar - a struggle many artists have, such as Mark Bagley. The continued detriment is Heinberg's simplistic writing. He clearly wants certain characters to be right, and others to be wrong, and writes them to this end regardless of anything else, such as sense or logic. In the previous issue, the Avengers and X-Men were literally battling on who got to arrest and/or kill Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch over her crimes against the world and the mutant community - despite the fact she offered no resistance or denial and only sought to help. Surrounded by insane adults, Dr. Doom was seen as a rational counterpoint in this story, only he went about with a magical rite to gain Wanda's reality warping powers himself, to become a god. This is naturally a standard procedure scheme for Dr. Doom, who has sought to steal godly powers from no end of figures in the past, from Silver Surfer (twice) to the Beyonder. Doom vows to be a wise and peaceful dictator of the world, but the fact that he'd still be a dictator disturbs everyone, so Doom zaps the kids (and Wanda) back to the heroes. Afterward, Wiccan gives both teams a tongue lashing about how stupid and hypocritical they are being, which is precisely why those heroes have been written in such a manner for seven issues. After initially seeing the combined Young Avengers, X-Men, and adult Avengers as enemies who will forever oppose him, the new omnipotent Doom returns just to provide a climatic fight scene as well to provide the cliffhanger panel.
Perhaps the best part of this series is the theme that the adult superheroes are all simplistic, morally ambiguous and violently hypocritical to the point that they shouldn't be idealized or followed by the next generation. It would be an interesting theme to play with in regards to other young heroes, such as the Avengers Academy or Spider-Girl or the new Thunderstrike and so on. Marvel doesn't have the stones to do so in any meaningful, relevant way, however. In the end, this is an over-long, over-due and tediously plotted series with solid artwork which has all but lost most of the characters to the heaviness of the plot and the need to accomplish editorially important things. It's Eisner worthy compared to Matt Fraction's FEAR ITSELF, but it still seems obligatory to read.
I suppose the power to alter all of reality should reasonably include the power to alter time to some extent too, so maybe Doom triggered Wanda's crazypants Disassembled actions somehow. Maybe we should read it again, knowing what we know about Doom knowing what Wanda didn't know about what Doom knew about her.
If it's anybody but Waid, Remender or Aaron I'm not getting it. A few folks mentioned Hickman but he totally lost my interest on FF. It was way too drawn out.
I've found his FF stuff to be a mixed bag. The Universal Inhumans and hidden cities stuff bored the everloving hell out of me. I dropped it for a while because of that. But I picked both series up with Fantastic Four #600 and found that Valeria's relationship with Doom, Johnny's sacrifice and return, the establishment of the Future Foundation, and the current plots interest me quite a bit. Plus, Juan Bobillo's art on FF is even better than it was on She-Hulk. So I'm sticking with them for the time being.
That said, I don't know if I'd want him on Avengers. Secret Avengers, maybe, since he's so obsessed with conspiracies and twist-laden plots. But Avengers needs something a bit more straightforward and fun.
I suppose the power to alter all of reality should reasonably include the power to alter time to some extent too, so maybe Doom triggered Wanda's crazypants Disassembled actions somehow. Maybe we should read it again, knowing what we know about Doom knowing what Wanda didn't know about what Doom knew about her.
everybody off her ass about Disassembled, so be it. I want her back to the days where she was regarded a great Avenger and one of their best members of their team. Pretty much back to where she was with Busiek and Johns before Bendis got his grubby little hands on her.
Or just cancel it. Throw Bendis' pet characters back onto Avengers, since he'll still be writing that and it's never really been the classic, big-action Avengers series Marvel indicated it would be anyway.
Bendis will be leaving all the Avengers books he's writing (Avengers, New Avengers, and Avengers Assemble) after this year. Marvel has already said that they have a new writer lined up for Avengers already.
Bendis will be leaving all the Avengers books he's writing (Avengers, New Avengers, and Avengers Assemble) after this year. Marvel has already said that they have a new writer lined up for Avengers already.
I'm really hoping that Marvel will just end Avengers Assemble once Bendis leaves the book and give Mark Waid the main Avengers book.
He really comes off as a writer that has a good idea of how to combine an A-list roster with B-list characters and knows what makes the Avengers feel all Avengery in terms of story, threats, and whatnot.
That thought came across my mind as well. Marvel rarely goes out of it's way to revive D-List characters like Lang in anything approaching a major event.
Not sure how it's going to pan out but it looks like she's a goner.
But like Dread mentioned, Wanda is so damn powerful, she may come right back. I just hope when it's all said and done there's millions of mutants back on the earth.
Agreed. The HOUSE OF M thing has more than run it's course - it has shattered the X-Men line as a concept for years now. It is about time Marvel officially closed the book on it and moved on. Hope is an attempt at that, but is too piecemeal.
Marvel's got a lot of younger heroes, though. Killing off a few--especially ones who aren't very good, which is a category Stature falls into for me--doesn't seem like it'll impede their plans to promote younger heroes much.
I disagree whole-heartedly. Young characters are seen as canon fodder. They are often killed off or mutilated in major events because the bigger characters are untouchable. Nobody will buy if one of them dies, and it won't stick long. But for designated corpse moments, younger characters often are easy choices because they are well known enough to matter and will motivate some elder heroes. From the New Warriors being sacrificial lambs to kick off CIVIL WAR to Hornet from THE SLINGERS dying off panel for a Mark Millar WOLVERINE story to the killing fields of GENERATION X and ACADEMY X, Marvel always bathes their events in the blood of their youngest, newest characters at some point. It's to this point that Christos Gage brilliantly has his leads in AVENGERS ACADEMY act genre savvy; every time a big battle happens, the kids freak a little because they KNOW that the big guns will NEVER die, but they can. The universe would twist itself inside and out to ensure Spider-Man or Iron Man cheated death, but would anyone lift a finger for Hazmat or Mettle? Dr. Strange will bend every magic rule in the book to save his ally Wong from cancer or vamparism or death, but does he do the same for others often?
Marvel doesn't promote younger heroes very well. Having the Academy kids take over ASM for 2 months was literally it. That and the previews of the debut issue in some comics. Beyond that, they're left to sink or swim by themselves with little more promotion than an article on CBR, which every comic gets from Wolverine to Groo. They never do anything of value in a crossover event and they rarely are on the big stage.
Stature matters because there are very, very, VERY few young heroes who can be said are the offspring of a longtime Avenger as well as have ties to the Fantastic Four like she does. There's a lot to build on. She's really the most experienced member of the Young Avengers in that regard. Sure, Wiccan and Speed are related to Wanda, by magical retcon. Eli Bradly is related to an original super-soldier, but not Cap or any serving Avenger. Jonas is basically a copy of Vision with Young Kang's brain patterns, made more complicated now that Iron Lad/Young Kang is back. Hulkling technically has the legacy of being the son of Captain Mar-Vell, but absolutely no writer does anything with that - all Heinberg uses him as is Wiccan's boyfriend.
Sure, Stature whines sometimes. So do many characters. I'm not a fan of icing characters just to provide a designated corpse. And if any story was boring, bloated, overlong, overhyped, and inefficient enough to need as desperate a stunt as a designated corpse moment, it's AVENGERS: THE CHILDREN'S LEGACY. Funny how Heinberg doesn't have the stones to ice one of the characters he co-created. He's got to pick on one created by David Michelinie and John Bryne in 1979. Reminds me of how Bendis is quick to alter, slaughter, maim, or misrepresent every single character he comes across - aside for Jessica Jones, the safest heroine in Marvel. Not even Luke Cage can be a better hero than she is. She's literally a Mary Sue. Some people were miffed when Robert Kirkman created, then killed off, Freedom Ring in MARVEL TEAM-UP, but at least he had the guts to treat his own characters no different than some other writers treat other people's characters.
Killing off a younger character is akin to destroying seeds before they're even planted. Marvel is desperate for new ideas and new blood, and that is why I don't like the practice of younger characters being seen as easy corpses. I don't like ANY character being a "designated corpse", but the young ones most especially.
Stature isn't Academy material. She could serve on the New Avengers. With Bendis leaving, the book will have zero direction - make it a book for sophomore Avengers and former New Warriors.
That's actually a great idea. So great it'd never happen. Marvel are gutless, spineless cowards. Their reaction to the New 52, an era which allowed GRIFTER to outsell ASTONISHING X-MEN, is to cower behind the bedsheets of their licensed franchises until the storm blows over. It might be bold to relaunch NA with those sorts of characters with a hot creative team and vow that this time they'll matter, that Marvel knows they can't rely on the old guard forever.
Instead, I just imagine the next writer will just use Bendis' roster and swap out one member.
Bendis will be leaving all the Avengers books he's writing (Avengers, New Avengers, and Avengers Assemble) after this year. Marvel has already said that they have a new writer lined up for Avengers already.
It is a major question who Marvel will get to fill in on these titles. The first time Bendis left an Avengers book, it was MIGHTY AVENGERS and they got Dan Slott to write it. Now he's busy on ASM. I imagine the easy answer would be to go to their "architects" to write it - which suggests Fraction, Hickman or Aaron. Marvel cares more about sales than imagination now. Mark Waid's likely seen as too old guard. His DD is critically acclaimed, but is not exactly lighting the sales charts aflame.
At this point, after having Bendis steer the Avengers line since 2004, I'd be open to almost anyone.
I would think that the Architects would take over Avengers but they seem too busy. Ed Brubaker has Captain America, Winter Soldier, and various indie projects, Jonathan Hickman has Fantastic Four, FF, Ultimate Comics: Ultimates, and indie projects, Matt Fraction has Mighty Thor, Invincible Iron Man, and Defenders, and Bendis is leaving the books.
The only Architect that might be able to take over is Jason Aaron who is just working on Wolverine & the X-Men and the Incredible Hulk.
Agreed. The HOUSE OF M thing has more than run it's course - it has shattered the X-Men line as a concept for years now. It is about time Marvel officially closed the book on it and moved on. Hope is an attempt at that, but is too piecemeal.
Yeah, it did more damage to the line than it did good. I think they saw what Morrison did to Genosha and how well it worked, and decided to re-create it on a larger scale. Time to put the pieces back together and move on. You know it's bad when you have to pull muties from the AoA timeline for stories.
That's actually a great idea. So great it'd never happen. Marvel are gutless, spineless cowards. Their reaction to the New 52, an era which allowed GRIFTER to outsell ASTONISHING X-MEN, is to cower behind the bedsheets of their licensed franchises until the storm blows over. It might be bold to relaunch NA with those sorts of characters with a hot creative team and vow that this time they'll matter, that Marvel knows they can't rely on the old guard forever.
Not to take credit for something but a few of my ideas here have been made reality by Marvel, most recently things like Steve running SHIELD instead of going directly back to Cap and re-opening the X-Men's Westchester school by Beast (not Wolverine) as sort of a East Coast/West Coast Avengers vibe to it. I know that Marvel isn't reading my posts and using my ideas, I just think it's funny that I'm on the same wavelength as them on some stuff. I should apply for a job there.t: If they are stealing my ideas that means Waid will surely be the next writer on Avengers.t:t:
No, Heinberg was trying to rehabilitate Wanda by blaming most of her more extreme bits on Dr. Doom. It's probably the best bit of A:TCC.
I would think that the Architects would take over Avengers but they seem too busy. Ed Brubaker has Captain America, Winter Soldier, and various indie projects, Jonathan Hickman has Fantastic Four, FF, Ultimate Comics: Ultimates, and indie projects, Matt Fraction has Mighty Thor, Invincible Iron Man, and Defenders, and Bendis is leaving the books.
The only Architect that might be able to take over is Jason Aaron who is just working on Wolverine & the X-Men and the Incredible Hulk.
I could totally live with Aaron. The thing is, traditionally writers don't dabble in both the X-Men and Avengers franchises at the same time. I can't recall a time when a former writer of one of the franchises went over to the other later on in their careers. John Byrne would be the closest, even though he technically didn't get a writers credit on Uncanny X-Men.
The issue with Aaron is that Wolverine and the X-Men is rapidly becoming the top X-Men title along with Uncanny. It's something 'X-Men' was supposed to be, but failed to do.
I don't mind the roster (except the Hulk, who is totally not an Avenger despite happening to be there for the founding of the team). I actually kind of like that they're keeping it in-continuity and just using those characters. I wouldn't shed any tears to see it go, but I don't think they necessarily need to cancel it after the movie hype has died down.
I would think that the Architects would take over Avengers but they seem too busy. Ed Brubaker has Captain America, Winter Soldier, and various indie projects, Jonathan Hickman has Fantastic Four, FF, Ultimate Comics: Ultimates, and indie projects, Matt Fraction has Mighty Thor, Invincible Iron Man, and Defenders, and Bendis is leaving the books.
The only Architect that might be able to take over is Jason Aaron who is just working on Wolverine & the X-Men and the Incredible Hulk.
Aaron's basically the only Architect I'd be open to seeing on an Avengers title, to be honest. Brubaker proved he doesn't handle team dynamics or Avengers-level threats very well on Secret Avengers, Hickman's a little too cerebral and into secret conspiracies for my tastes, and Fraction's just been getting worse and worse since he hit the big time.
I don't think Cassie's staying dead. They pushed two things too greatly in this book and I'm predicting it was for a reason. The first was that you shouldn't screw with time. The second is that there's always a price to pay with magic.
I think the time issue is refering to Scott Lang coming back and the price of using magic to save Stature is that Scott dies somehow to make it happen. I'm thinking Wiccan will have a part in it.
So in the end, I'm predicting that Scott is dead again, Cassie is alive again, but she has closure in having a proper goodbye with her father.
Just my prediction.
And it's good to see X-Factor back in the book, for a panel or two. Good issue though
Eh, they should both be alive. I could care less if there's too many Pym-esque characters running around. It's called the House of Ideas for a reason, give him a new name and identity - it's called a f**king IDEA. Killing a character is always the cheap way out. It's been way overdone since the 80's.
What Marvel needs to realize is that it's 2012 now. The stuff that went down in 2004 shouldn't still be letter of the law just because Bendis convinced them it was cool back then. They have hung onto a lot of these concepts for way too damn long now.
I'm just really frustrated because I read the Avengers Annual today which should have been called The Annual Ass Raping of a Classic Avenger by Brian Michael Bendis. The newest victim......? Simon Williams aka Wonder-Man.
I'd like for Gage to take the helm of avengers, AA is already great and he does team books rather well and there's no reason not to have him take two Avengers books. I'd rather it not be waid because he's writing daredevil and I always find that when someone runs one character and has him or her in a team book it basically becomes a spotlight for them. I don't want to read Daredevil and his amazing friends.
Waid's a pro. He knows that DD doesn't belong on the main Avengers team getting the spotlight. DD on the New Avengers is fine so long as they stick to the concept of being a street level team.
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