Tag: steve rogers

Marvel Announces Sam Wilson as the Next Captain America

by S.J. Borger

Fast on the heels of the announcement that the new wielder of Mjolnir will be a woman, Marvel announced on the Colbert Report last night that the new comic book series “All New Captain America” will feature Sam Wilson–the character also known as Falcon–as Captain America, marking the first time a black character has taken on that persona.

This adds some much needed diversity to Marvel’s line-up, as Marvel’s Nick Fury from the Avengers is the only other notable character of color (though, outside the Marvel universe, the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot does have Johnny B. Storm being played by African-American actor Michael B Jordan).

Sam Wilson as Captain America in the upcoming comics.
Sam Wilson as Captain America in the upcoming comics.

Steve Rogers, the original Captain America, will remain in the comics as Sam Wilson’s mentor. Rogers was stripped of his power–and became an aged, frail man–when a long-time enemy drained the serum from him. Rogers passes the shield to Wilson.

“This is the fireworks factory we’re arriving at, and now everything’s going to blow up and be very pretty and exciting to look at,” said Rick Remender, writer of the new comic book series. “I’ve been having a lot of fun writing Sam. It’s a completely different attitude. The fact that he’s not a soldier shifts things up a bit. Sam’s not going to be Steve. Steve can be very rigid. That can be kind of joyless at times, whereas Sam is absolutely not that.”

Falcon, played by Anthony Mackie, was a pivotal character in this year’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The character was first introduced into the comics in 1969.

You can view the full announcement on The Colbert Report  here.

What do you guys think of Sam Wilson as Captain America? Let us know in the comments!

Chris Evans Reveals When ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ Begins Filming

by Shawn Madden

Producton is underway on both Marvel Studios Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World, we should expect an Iron Man 3 trailer very soon and we’ve begun to see the return of Chris Hemsworth as the Asgardian god via set photos.  So, what’s next on Marvels schedule? Well, none other than the return of Steve Rogers in the definitely highly anticipated Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Chris Evans recently revealed to Collider when the film would begin shooting:

 

That gives this film around a 13-month production timeline which is the same amount of time that Captain America: The First Avenger had and should definitely not give the directing team of the Russo Brothers any trouble hitting that April 4th released date. We should also definitely expect to see some footage at next year’s San Diego Comic Con so better get ready for Hall H early. If you’re like me…”phase two” definitely can’t come fast enough.

Hayley Atwell May Be Returning As Peggy Carter In ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’

by Shawn Madden

Early last week a deleted scene was released online from The Avengers that revealed that Peggy Carter, played by actress Hayley Atwell, was indeed still alive in the present. Bleeding Cool recently approached Atwell at the premiere of her new film, The Sweeney. The site asked if she would be involved in the upcoming Captain America: The Winter Soldier to which the actress replied:

“I can’t say yet because it hasn’t been officially released, and Marvel are very protective of their franchise.”

Which basically just translates into “Yes, I am coming back but I am not allowed to tell you guys yet.” While her involvement could just take place in flashbacks there is definitely a chance we could see a heavily emotional scene involving Steve Rogers visiting her in the present day. This would definitely add on to the “man out of time” theme that is meant to be portrayed in the upcoming sequel and maybe Steve will finally get that dance after all these years.

Geekscape Comics: First Look At Rick Remender & John Romita Jr’s ‘Captain America’!

by Shawn Madden

Thanks to the people over at iFanboy, we have a first look at the new Marvel NOW! relaunch of Captain America from the creative team of  Remender (Uncanny X-Force) and John Romita Jr. (Kick-Ass). Check out the cover below as well as excerpts from an interview with Remender discussing his plans for the series.

Remender talks about moving away from the tone that Brubaker set:

Tonally, it’s very different. It’s a hostile takeover. It’s a complete shift from what Ed was doing and I loved what Ed was doing, but if I were to try and emulate that or to continue that tone, it would be Ed light. It wouldn’t be the same thing. So I’m leaning in to what I like to do, which is high adventure, sci-fi, with spy fantasy, with a heavy focus on the man under the suit. It’s very character-focused conflict stuff. One of the mandates I have to myself is, I don’t want to touch the World War II stuff. I think that that has been done, now, and it’s been done perfectly. To go back and to keep focusing on Cap in World War II at this point, again, would be following too closely to what Ed has already done. What I’m doing is spending a lot of time in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 20s and 30s, showing Steve grow up. The first arc is 10 issues, and it’s called “Dimension Z.” I don’t want to give away too much, but a big portion of it is Cap dealing with Arnim Zola in Dimension Z. I’m trying to take Zola and do with him, what we did with Apocalypse over in Uncanny X-Force. Where we take what’s there, re-imagine it, build a new mythology and really expand Zola, and try and build Zola into a very, very big and important character. The other half of it is going to be a lot of flashbacks to a young Steve Rogers growing up in Depression-era Lower East Side, and getting to know his family and his friends, and how this 98-pound weakling became such a tenacious, strong person; focus on the fiber and the integrity of who he is, and really develop that for the first time.

On the introduction of “The Green Skull”:

The Green Skull is somebody that I want to seed here, and he’ll be popping up a little bit later. We get a taste of the tail end and sort of like a classic Indiana Jones style cold open, we get a taste of who the Green Skull is, and Cap dealing with the end of his first encounter with him, which I thought was a fun way of handling that. He’s seeded here. He is someone who believes that humanity is the cause of all problems on earth and he wants to turn humanity into soil for plants. He’s got a chemical agent that can do that. We open with Cap dealing with sort of the classic 007/Indiana Jones cold open where he’s dealing with trying to stop that. It really is a big seed for what’s coming up into year two more than anything. It’s exactly the 007 cold open where we get a nice bit of action and then he’s on to the next complication. We’ll see that kind of bubble up in the C story and then come to light probably next year. When you see who he is and we get into him and define him, it’ll obviously open up a can of worms with Red Skull as well. This is somebody who is P.R. minded as well and he wanted something that he thought could. The green representing obviously plant life, and ecology and stuff, and then the skull representing death. This guy is a contrivance and he’s aware of it. I’m trying to dance around it because pays off a couple few times. Without giving away too much, no — he’s not connected to the Red Skull. Yet.

On Remenders plans for Arnim Zola:

The thing I really love about Zola is he’s the bio fanatic. He’s just the guy who is, he’s twisted and crazy. He’s constantly mashing up creating new takes, creating new forms of life and searching for that perfect life to create this perfect being. Personality wise, this guy is equal parts, he’s like the twisted evil Joffrey in Game of Thrones, and sort of like a cold amoral, like the amoral minions of Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds. He’s a very interesting character the more I read about him and try and build him up. He’s one of those characters that visually always are very distinctive but he’s been relegated to Red Skull’s henchman, sort of a guy who pops up once in a while. He poses a threat but it’s never the kind of threat where you’re like, “Wow, this is going to be huge.” He’s got an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and he needs to be free to experiment on whomever and however he desires. It’s not like power or revenge he’s out for, his drug is knowledge and he’ll go to any lengths to accomplish this. He’s the archetype of the Nazi concentration camp experimenter taken to the extreme, and that is such evil. That all life to him is this clay that he can do with what he will. When we see what he’s up to and what his plot is, and how it ties into Cap, I’m really hoping in the dimension Z story that we can take Zola and really elevate him to an A level villain, and I’m pretty confident that we will. There’s a lot of fun stuff planned.

On the series structure:

Because it’s two stories, the A and the B story. Because the A story is capped in Dimension Z dealing with Zola and the other half is Cap growing up. To tell “Year One”, but to really tell it, it demanded five issues. It deserves five issues. It’s very exciting and I think we’ve got a really great story to tell here. I think that juxtaposing it against what he’s dealing with in the other half of the story really helps both halves. Instead of telling them in separate chunks, they’re inter-spliced for the first 10 issues so it really is kind of two stories being told concurrently. It won’t necessarily be the same amount of issues, it won’t necessarily fall into 18 issue increments, but the way it’s broken down right now, the mega-arc for here pays off in issue 22 or 23 I think. I do like to know where I’m going and like with the Green Skull, I like to be able to seed stuff. If I know where I’m going I can start hanging rifles and seeding things that then you start seeing kind of growing in the background. So when they finally come to fruition and they explode, it was Chris Claremont used to do that so well when he was on point with X-Men. It really kept you engrossed. Not only in the story you were reading but all the questions you had of the other mysteries. He was getting boiling in the D&C stories.

Geekscape Comics: Rick Remender And John Romita Jr. Taking Over On Captain America

by Shawn Madden

As we all know Ed Brubaker will be ending his eight year run on Captain America very soon. Well, among the many Marvel NOW! teasers that were released today we got the revelation of who would be taking over on Captain America and it’s definitely one to make some fans happy. Rick Remender (Uncanny X-Force) and John Romita Jr (Kick-Ass). While Remender has me interested here…I just don’t know about Romita. Going to have to see how this one goes.

Geekscape Comics: Take A Look At The Initial Designs For Captain America’s New Costume

by Shawn Madden

So, let’s be real here for a minute. As much as we love Captain America…his suit just really is kind of goofy when you look at it these days. Much in part due to the more military like suits we saw Chris Evans sporting in Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers. Those suits looked really great on the screen. With the upcoming Marvel NOW! event we will see Cap getting a costume update courtesy of artists Jerome Opena (Uncanny X-Force) And John Cassaday (Astonishing X-Men) and I can honestly say…I am into them.

Editor Tom Breevoort on the design:

“The approach and the thought was very simple: we wanted to modernize Cap’s outfit so as to reflect the gear worn by actual soldiers, to convey that sense of the character visually. Every costume design change is really change for change’s sake, and certainly Cap’s costume is a classic. But that said, it’s been updated before, and so long as what we ended up with still looked like and gave you the silhouette of Captain America, that was what was important to me. We just did years of stories in which Bucky wore a variant of Cap’s costume, and people were able to accept it just fine, and still recognize and react to him as Captain America. Same thing here. We weren’t really thinking about the movie incarnation per se, though it’s difficult to avoid it I suppose. But even there, Cap’s already had two completely different suits in the movies, in CAP: FIRST AVENGER and then in MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS. What we were really going for, more than anything, was the feeling of Cap being an actual soldier. At the outset, I did some research and collected a bunch of different photographs of modern military gear, helmets and what-have-you, and they all informed the design we eventually settled on.”

Source: MTV

Director Anthony Russo Talks ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’

by Shawn Madden

One of the most anticipated movies in Marvel’s “Phase Two” is Captain America: The Winter Soldier. When announced at San Diego Comic-Con fans nearly lost it. Hell..even Ed Brubaker lost it and even tweeted “HOLY SHIT” when he found out about it. The Huffington Post recently sat down with Anthony Russo, one half of the directing team behind the sequel, and had a little chat about the movie. Below are some of the highlights of the interview.

When asked what they thought landed them such a big project:

Well, first of all, Marvel’s this incredible company that has shown in the past that they think outside the box with directors. I mean, it’s shocking the people they’ve hired, over and over again, and they’ve had great success as a result. They like character, and they like storytelling and they like fun. We were surprised, but they were big fans of “Community” and you can sort of draw a line between some things we did on “Community” and a Marvel movie.

How they sold themselves to get the job directing the sequel:

We were comic book geeks from a young age and big fantasy geeks. We got to talk to them in detail about that history. They knew that we understood the brand really well and the characters really well. It was a long process, actually, of talking to them over and over again, through a series of meetings over a long period of time. And I think they just — we were really passionate about the movie, incredibly passionate about the movie. They felt that, and they felt like it was the right match.

In regards to what appealed to them about Ed Brubaker’s “Winter Soldier” story:

Well, we like the [story.] I can’t talk too much about specifics, that’s the way Marvel handles things. I can say in general that there’s sort of a darker, edgier sensibility at work there that we found appealing, and that is going find its way into Captain [America] in the modern day.

When asked if we would possibly be seeing World War II flashbacks:

Certainly Cap has this complicated history. We’re making the movie for first-time viewers, not just for fans, so, because Cap does have this complicated history — he was this skinny guy who became a super-soldier, he was born back then and he’s living [now] — in the storytelling, you need to convey that to an audience who doesn’t know Cap’s story.

When asked if the expected heavy visual effects were intimidating to them:

They said to us early on in the interview process, “We don’t expect you to know anything [about special effects and so forth] — you don’t have to know everything about this stuff, because we’re here for that.” They’re very respectful of directors. They’re an amazing company to work with.

In regards to if any of the comic creators were involved and have offered advice:

We’re actually going to have lunch with Brubaker soon. But no, they haven’t been involved. In the same way that they would develop a new comic-book series, they give its own space to develop. But certainly everybody is aware [of what’s in the comics], has read everything, is aware of all their other material. But they do like each thing to be its own, organic process, which is nice.

Geekscape Comics: After An Eight Year Run Brubaker To Leave ‘Captain America’

by Shawn Madden

Many people believe Brubakers run on ‘Captain America’ to be the titles best. But after nearly eight years he has decided to leave the title. In a recent interview with The Comics Reporter he discussed that as well as if he will remain on ‘Winter Soldier’.

TCR: Now, you told me that you’re wrapping up on Captain America.

Brubaker: Yeah. By the time this interview comes out, I will have written my last issue.

TCR: Congratulations. And that’s… eight years on Cap?

Brubaker: A little less than eight years. I think I started in August or September of 2004 writing my first issue, which came out in November of that year.

TCR: So why now?

Brubaker: Partly, it’s the beginning a shift from work-for-hire to books I own, instead. I hit a point with the work-for-hire stuff where I was starting to feel burned out on it. Like my tank is nearing empty on superhero comics, basically. It’s been a great job, and I think I found ways to bring my voice to it, but I have a lot of other things I want to do as a writer, too, so I’m going to try that for a while instead.

TCR: Now are you keeping Winter Soldier?

Brubaker: Yeah, I am. That’s going to be my only Marvel book soon. I’ll do The Winter Soldier as long as it lasts… or, I’ll do it for as long as I can. [Spurgeon laughs] Because I don’t know if it’ll last, but I’m really proud of that book and the second and third storylines on it are some of my favorite stuff I’ve done for Marvel, ever.

TCR: What do you like about it? What do you think is laudatory? Are you in that place where you can say, “I did that, and I did that very well.”

Brubaker: I think I got to tell a long story. In the early days, I got to create a big soap opera about Steve Rogers and Bucky and Sharon Carter and keep this thrilling adventure ride going. And each arc bled into the next. Then we did the “Death of Cap” thing and I go to really do an 18-part story that still didn’t end with Cap coming back to life yet. [laughs] I got to do some stuff that was really challenging. I got work with some great artists. Steve Epting, he probably drew 35 issues of my run in the early days. I think we developed a really great collaboration. And I always liked that kind of epic storytelling.

“The Death of Captain America” turned out to be the best thing that happened to the book in ways because everything we were able to do after that, because the main character wasn’t in the book, was so much more interesting than when he was in the book. It was a total curveball and you didn’t know what was going to come next. There was a lot of fun to be had in it, and at the same time it was driven by these characters that were characters I had an attachment to from childhood.

Brubaker also confirms that Cullen Bunn (who has been working on ‘Venom’ with Rick Remender) will be working with him on his final arc.

TCR: Don’t they team you up with a writer to transition out of these titles? Like baton pass it to them?

Brubaker: That’s not on purpose for this one. That was a situation with scheduling. Marvel is trying to do this thing now that with some of their better-selling books they want to get out more copies per year than 12. They want to get out 15 or 18 issues. Amazing Spider-Man’s been doing more than one a month for a while now; someone I know does Uncanny X-Men or one of those books, and that comes out 18 times a year.

I couldn’t keep up with that schedule, honestly. I knew I was getting to the end of my run. I wanted to wrap up my run earlier. And [Marvel Senior Vice President Of Publishing] Tom [Brevoort] was like, “Well, you’re going to leave a bunch of plot lines dangling… do you want to go out like that? It’ll seem like you threw up your hands and said ‘I can’t keep up with this schedule.'” I was like, “No, I don’t want to go out that way.” So we brought in Cullen Bunn to write an arc with me. I gave him a list of a bunch of stuff. “Here’s all the dangling plot threads and here’s where we need them all to be by the time I get to my last issue.” And then we figured out a storyline together.

It’s strange. I did all these issues as an uninterrupted run. Then there’s four issues co-written by someone. Then there’s a last issue. [laughs] It’s a little odd.

TCR: Tell me this. You’ve worked this specific period for Marvel. I don’t follow the mainstream books as closely as I would if this were the main focus of the site. It seems to me, though, that this period has been distinguished by a pretty deep writer’s bench for Marvel. There are a lot of you guys that are talented, that are working on those books for Marvel.

Brubaker: I definitely think… they’ve got Jason Aaron, and Jonathan Hickman and Matt Fraction and Rick Remender. Obviously Brian Bendis, who writes so many comics I can’t understand how he possibly keeps up. Kieron Gillen… all of these guys are talented guys. I’m leaving some out — Jeff Parker. There’s a lot of really good writers doing multiple books a month up there.

And it’s such an interesting time in mainstream comics to me because of how in flux it feels. DC had a massive shake-up. Marvel’s ramped up production on everything. It seems a little crazy sometimes. [laughs] I wonder from the outside if it looks as much like as it feels like it on the inside.

TCR: Is there something you see we don’t? We certainly saw the result of those changes at DC.

Brubaker: When I was at DC… sales weren’t necessarily great, but they were fairly stable. There was a certain amount of stability. Both DC and Marvel had stability, it felt like. But two years ago there started to be what seemed like freefall for a lot of books. My personal theory — This happened to coincide [laughs] with the books suddenly costing $3.99 as opposed to $2.99. I think that was when you started to see some books really fall. On the other side, there’s the argument that the best-selling books for the past ten years have been the $3.99 books.

It’s hard to say who’s right or who’s wrong on some of this stuff. But sales on these books were going down below what DC and Marvel would have found acceptable even a few years ago. So that stability just feels like it’s missing all of a sudden.

I mean, imagine how lucky I was to write the same book for eight years. That doesn’t happen a lot anymore. Brian Bendis has been writing Avengers for like nine years now. He’s written more issues of Avengers than any other person. It’s rarer and rarer to have these long runs on books.

See the whole interview here.

Uncanny Assembly: Geekscape Reviews Avengers vs. X Men #2

by Joe Starr

We’re back with Avengers vs. X Men: Round 2! If you missed my review of #1, it’s right here. Before you get caught up, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter so you can tell me I’m a dick for my opinions at @joestarr187. All caught up? Let’s do this.

Things pick up right where they left off: with a helicarrier full of Avengers decloaking over Utopia with jets scrambling and Colossus being hurled at it. He crashes through, and like Spider Man says, Avengers vs. X Men is actually happening.

Red Hulk pairs off with Cojuggerlossusnaught and Namor punches the holy hell out of Thing with Luke Cage on the ring apron ready to tag in and bring the Sweet Christmas to the Prince of Atlantis. I love the Hulk. Hulk dialogue will never surprise you, especially if it starts with ‘So you’re the strongest on <insert place here>?’ You know he’s going to say that he’s the strongest there is. But no matter what color he is, when he says it, it’s always awesome.

Captain America brings a wave of Avengers to the shore and gives the command for his hastily drawn comrades to take the beach. Cyclops, complete with a Cap shield dent in his visor, gives the order for the X Men to charge and the fight is on!

Not that it’s much of a fight. Seriously, Cyclops has Psylocke and some New Mutants and Dr. Nemesis charging into Wolverine, Iron Fist, Spider Man, Captain America, and a Giant Man. Not sure if it’s Pym or Stature’s dad. Remember the cartoon Samurai Pizza Cats? There was a comic relief B team called The Rescue Squad and that’s what Scott Summers has on the beach plus Psylocke. We can pretty much call the fight here, but this is a $3.99 comic, so we’ve got some pages to fill.

It’s time for the New Mutants to hang it up.

But things get better for the X Men because SURGE GETS A LINE! She says “why was I left off of a main roster but Vampire Jubilee is still around?” Actually, she only says “what the hell are they even doing here?” but she says it awesomely. She’s hanging out in a room with a giant window right next to the action with Pixie (Utopia’s Wesley Crusher) and some Lights watching the fight. Through a big window next to the battle. It’s the perfect place for Emma to stow Hope: an easily found room full of people Hope could easily incapacitate if she wanted to. I’m starting to think Cyclops got the short end of the schism stick as far as rosters go because the talent on this island is thin. Steve Rogers is just going to hang out in the ring and start jack knifing people while referees make three counts on guys he’s not even pinning.

“Did someone just reference me? I’m available for bookings! I played Super Shredder!”

This logic jump is forgiven, as we move into a cool Emma Frost vs. Iron Man and then Iron Man vs. Magneto sequence. And then we cut to Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch hanging out in their bonus room watching the fight on television. Did you call it a bonus room or a den? I think it’s only a den if your dad is the primary occupant. Dad=den, kids=playroom and mom=kitchen. AMIRIGHT?

Apparently there’s crazy fighting going on, but it’s not so crazy that CNN helicopters are about 100 feet from a Magneto fight filming it. I always love seeing super heroes lounging in their house. It’s important to note that Quicksilver is business casual when he watches television, but Scarlet Witch has yet to buy new clothes since she resurfaced, so she’s been catching up on Breaking Bad in full costume. Pietro decides it’s time to punch his dad in the face, and does so. Scarlet Witch stays home and writes in her dream journal. We know it’s a dream journal because it’s opened to the middle of the book and it says ‘Wanda’s Dream Journal’ at the top. The first half of the book is all Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch fanfiction written by Quicksilver. And it gets pretty gross.

Meanwhile, the mutants are pissed at Wolverine because his X Men book is the best one, and Storm and Black Panther are super pissed at each other because remember that they’re married? This had better end with her and Panther making a decision together and not them splitting apart, since they got married and then he started being Daredevil right away and so far their marriage has been stupid.

Hope watches the fight from closer than the CNN helicopters and of course she’s gonna get out because she’s being guarded by Pixie and a blue chick I don’t know the name of.

Cyclops gets his ass handed to him by Captain America, but manages to get a shot off at Wolverine. Props to Aaron- he manages to show more Schism between Scott and “the crazy fringe” Logan in one panel than all of Schism did in like 6 books.

And seriously, Cyclops just did a total job to Steve Rogers. It was rough.

Magik traps Dr. Strange in hell and takes magic out of the fight. She’s back to having goat legs, which is pretty cool if you like goat legs. She’s got a demon army with her, which is a good indicator of where Scott Summers’ head it right now. Spoiler alert: It’s in a place where goat legs and demon armies are an ok thing.

Danger warns Cyclops that Stark is shutting down their island defenses. I haven’t seen any island defenses yet so I’m not sure that this is something anyone should be worried about. When I think ‘island defenses’ I think of that sequence in Transformers: The Movie when Autobot City turns into nothing but guns. So far, Utopia’s defenses have been Hepzibah in a sports bra, and Dr. Nemesis, who always makes me think of Dr. McNinja.

Please join the X Club.

Wolverine and Spider Man sneak into a drainpipe like Slaughter and the Renegades breaking into the Terrordrome. They find Hope and she Phoenixes them. And then I think she burns Wolverine alive? So he’s dead. LOLj/k.

And then, in a gag out of Three’s Company, the Avengers burst through one door and the X Men burst through another and they all go ‘where’s Hope?!’ And of course Hope has bailed. And then the X Men and Avengers are trapped together in a small space and forced to work out their differences.

Meanwhile, in deep space, the rest of the Avengers are about to get fucked up by a giant cosmic firebird. I bet Ms. Marvel gets aced. They don’t have anything planned for her, right?

In my last review I ripped Romita’s art pretty severely and it continues to be a problem. I’m not going to beat a dead horse but there are panels where Iron Fist looks like a circle with a smiley face and that just sucks.

But Aaron is shining: I’m excited to see The Best Writer of All Time writing Avengers. The fight scenes are well staged- when Namor comes at Thing there’s a sense of history between the two and not just ‘this will sell comics!’ Likewise when Summers keeps focusing on Wolverine and airs his ‘we’re fucking step children to the Avengers’ grievances. This moment of aggression was earned by Marvel. It didn’t need Nitro blowing up kids. It may not have even needed Phoenix: Everyone is sick of everything. X Men are sick of being second thought garbage. Avengers are sick of world killing events. The X Men might cause one. So now the Avengers are sick of them. It’s been organic and well done, and you can read the reasons behind every punch.

ELSEWHERE… I also picked up Jason Aaron’s Wolverine and the X Men AvX tie in, and I suggest you pick it up. It’s fantastic and it also made me realize that the Jean Grey School is basically a school for mutants run by Avengers, which is kind of awesome. It’s also full of Gladiator and Kid Gladiator, and Chris Bachalo took more than 20 minutes to draw it.

NEXT ISSUE… Phoenix burns the world to ashes and civilization has to be restarted by Surge and Kid Gladiator! Excelsior!