Today, as part of Marvel’s Next Big Thing liveblog series, it was announced that come issue #25, legendary artist Walter Simonson will be joining writer Brian Michael Bendis on Marvel’s flagship title, The Avengers.
As Marvel’s next big event gets up and running next summer, Avengers vs X-Men was promised to spill only into related Avengers and X-Men titles, and given that Bendis is one of the Architects working on the event, it makes perfect sense that his Avengers titles would see some fallout. However, with Simonson joining him for the arc (and possibly more), excitement is certainly high to see what Simonson has in store for the visual component of the book.
Apparently this partnership had been brewing for a while, with Bendis noting that he met Simonson at a convention long ago when he was trying to make it as an artist, which Simonson had encouraged. However, when Bendis decided to pursue writing as a career instead of art, he had offered to write a story for Simonson, which eventually led to the creative team-up here for Avengers.
This will be Simonson’s first time back with the Avengers since the late 90’s, with his involvement in the Avengers portion of Heroes Reborn. Simonson had quite a short but notable run in the 80’s as co-writer of the Avengers book with John Buscema and Tom Palmer, and he served as the artist of the 300th issue of the series. Simonson notes that this, however, feels like the first time he has really gotten to draw the book, and notes that it is jam packed with characters, with Captain America being a particular favorite of Simonson’s.
One thing is ultimately for sure, though: with Bendis’ eight-year run on the assorted adventures of the Avengers, there is no better way to go out from writing the adjectiveless flagship title than to have Walt Simonson join you for art duties. That, my friends, is quite literally the stuff dreams are made of.
