When What If? #34 took a satirical look at many hypothetical scenarios that would otherwise never see print, there was one among them that probably came close to giving the Avengers' butler, Jarvis, heart failure:
Yet there was one Avengers issue where, after a crisis that led to a call to all Avengers to join ranks and meet the threat of Morgan Le Fay (yes, you read correctly--Morgan Le Fay is a threat that requires no less than the power of every single Avenger to thwart), many of them hung around to be considered for active membership:
(Isn't George Perez the greatest at pencilling these en masse gatherings?)
A membership meeting was quite necessary at this point, since many of them had previously tried to go out and corral the villain Whirlwind and failed spectacularly, inevitably tripping over each other in their zeal to attack:
Since this was a new volume of The Avengers, which reboots the title after the events of the Onslaught crisis had caused the disbanding of the team, a new membership lineup coming into play was nothing less than a media circus, as well as exciting for those comrades-in-arms gathered within Avengers Mansion. Though some of them would bow out of their own accord:
(They probably just stuck around long enough to snack on Jarvis' crumpets. Wouldn't you?)
While other answers would range from a definite "yea" to possibly-maybe to polite declines:
Finally, qualifications were sifted, accommodations were made (in this case, two reservists on the active roster), and a seven-member lineup was settled on to launch this new Avengers title:
Gosh--they kind of look like the old Avengers, don't they? Maybe that was the point?
How would you have re-formed the new team?
I don't even recognize some of these "avengers", but anything Perez drew was worth the money. I remember a pretty cool sequence where Quicksilver clobbers Mordred.
ReplyDeletei certainly wouldn't keep 3rd stringers like Ms. Marvel, Marvel Boy, and Firestar...not when I can have (assuming we get 7):
ReplyDeleteCaptain America
Thor
Iron Man
Vision
Scarlet Witch
Quicksilver
&
Hawkeye!
It was probably a good idea for the first issue's launch--and Cap even had a ready-made reason for three of the founding members (Cap being a "founder" due to an administrative decision) being present in the lineup, at least for the time being. But I think Hawkeye is a good choice, in any case. :)
DeleteWasn't Busiek's/Pérez's run volume 3? "Heroes Reborn" was considered volume 2, I thought.
ReplyDeleteTechnically I think you're certainly correct in that the 13-issue run of the series which Rob Liefeld kicked off could be considered its second volume. I suppose it's because the series is such a limited one that I think of it more as a separate group of issues with a "parallel" aspect to them, designed to coincide with other titles following suit. The Busiek kickoff seems more of a clear reboot of the title with all of the elements that we're familiar with present and accounted for (to say nothing of a good deal of fanfare), so I tend to regard the "heroes reborn" issues as more of an extension of Volume 1--though that's more of a personal preference than anything set in stone. :)
Delete