Comic Book Comment: Avengers Academy #1

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Written by: Christos Gage

Art by: Mike McKone

Colors by: Jeromy Cx

Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles

Editor: Bill Rosemann

The set up: Following the events of Dark Reign, the Avengers are sponsoring a training ground project for young super-powered victims of Norman Osborn’s evil experiments.

This issue: We are introduced to the young students that make up the academy, as well as their instructors. The students are Veil, Mettle, Reptil, Hazmat and Finesse. The instructors are Hank Pym, Tigra, Quicksilver, Justice and Speedball.

The comments: As the story begins, we are introduced to Veil and her problems at school. She’s been getting text messages from the coolest guy in school. These are flirty messages, and Veil, a social wallflower, can’t believe the most awesome guy in school wants to go out with her. When she approaches him, she’s devastated. It seems that the guy’s steady girlfriend was pulling a prank on Veil just to be mean. The problem with the situation is the art. As drawn by McKone, Veil is a knockout, not a wallflower. And she’s prettier than the girl playing the prank. Anyway, the episode leads Veil to publicly reveal her power, which is evaporating into a gas. This clears the hall fast.

The problems between what I was being told and what I was being shown in this first scene put me on the defensive for the rest of the story. As we’re given the further setup to Veil’s problem at the Avengers Academy, I had to double-check to make sure I wasn’t reading about Firestar. Veil even looks like Firestar. So then we’re introduced to the rest of the group.

I liked the powers and surface personalities of most of the group of kids. I think Finesse, with her power to acquire any knowledge and skill at a rapid pace, has the most potential. Is Reptil supposed to be the kid on the Superhero Squad Cartoon? Same powers and sort of the same look there, though I think the name’s slightly different. His personality annoyed me a little here. And Mettle — I don’t know a lot about him, but I’m curious as to why he looks the way he does. Is this look - which resembles a hulked-out Red Skull - something Norman Osborn had done to him? I’ll have to research this.

The characterizations of the instructors seemed to be spot on. I hate that Hank Pym seems to be getting kicked to the curb once more in the Marvel Universe. It seems that the height of his characterization over the years seems to have been when Marvel made him a villain. Now that he’s reformed, he just cannot find a permanent place on any Avengers team. Quicksilver has always suffered from a similar problem.

There’s really no outward conflict in this story. No villain attacks the team or strategizes in the shadows. This issue’s all about meeting the character’s and setting up their premise. This is fine — I don’t feel every issue of a superhero comic needs a villain. Actually, I feel they need to spend even more time with these central characters and flesh them out more. Veil is the only one with any kind of backstory here.

So — this first issue is serviceable, but we need some more character information going forward, and I would rather see this in story and not one page “profile pinups” in the back of the book. Gage sets up an interesting touchstone for the kids at the end of the issue, so I’m curious to see what comes next.