With Free Comic Book Day a little over a month away – Saturday, May 2 for those wondering – it looks like it’s time for Marvel to start teasing their offering for the big day. While we already saw a little of what DC are offering when they announced their post-“Convergence” line-up, Marvel has been rather quiet on that front.
Until today, that is.
Today, we get the first look at the cover for “The All-New, All-Different Avengers”, Marvel’s big Free Comic Book Day issue. In the vein of the classic “Giant Size X-Men” #1, it looks like Marvel isn’t afraid to shake things up in a huge way in terms of their characters as we see that Thor will not only still be a woman, but part of this Avengers team and so too will Ms. Marvel.
Thor isn’t that big a surprise to me now that she’s outselling the previous Thor books, but Ms. Marvel does surprise me. She’s been a major hit, sure, thanks to the creative energies of G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona and everyone else on that, but I don’t think I expected to see her on the cover of an Avengers book this soon. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, if Marvel stopped publishing every other book apart from “Ms. Marvel”, I’d probably still be happy.
It’s clear that Marvel is using this push from a wider, more diverse audience that wants a wider, more diverse cast of character in their comics to their advantage and to have these characters be the first teased for their Free Comic Book day issue is a big moment.
But, you know, that’s all well and good, but… who are the rest of these bozos? For my money, I’d put Captain America (who’s clearly still Sam Wilson in this image) in the centre under Thor, Iron Man to the left and… Doctor Strange to the right, maybe? I’d say either Doctor Strange or the Vision, they could both do with a big push prior to their respective first film appearances. On the bottom row, though, that’s very clearly Nova on the right and Spider-Man in the middle, but judging from the stature, I’d also say that’s Miles Morales and not Peter Parker.
I mean, can you imagine an Avengers team lead by a black guy, with two women on the team, one of whom is Pakistani-American and two Latina kids, one who is also half-black and is Spider-Man? If this pans out, this could be a major step for Marvel in including diversity in their comics.
Now, if only the film Avengers looked like that.
Update:
Not content with just teasing a new Avengers team, Marvel is now teasing a new Inhumans team! Above is the cover for the Free Comic Book Day issue of Marvel’s “Uncanny Inhumans” with all but Medusa and… I’m assuming that’s Dante from the “Inhuman” series? I haven’t been keeping up with that series, so I’m unfortunately a little clueless as to who the blacked out figures are, but I think the push the characters are getting is pretty neat. So, if you’ve got any guesses as to who the new “Uncanny Inhumans” team will feature, sound off down below.
Update #2:
I would like to state for the record that I called both Nova and the Vision being on this team. That is all.
